Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Something randomly pointy-eared


You could put someone's eye out with those.

So, my connection was down...

I used the age-old concept-artsy technique of lying down some random lines 'til something eye-pleasing happened. The Ed Elric Artbook copy made me want to do watercolor gradients, we'll see where that goes.

A NES emu makes me ask, "Didn't these look and sound much better when I was a kid?"
Even SNES games are starting to look quite primitive for some reason... I played those just a few years ago.

When you have nothing to say -- Mindstream Ramble Time!

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Fanart-Fu! / Son Goku and Arale



Guess who made an appereance in the new Dr. Slump series?

I left it very sketchy this time, since it didn't look horrible. I remeber the Penguin Village stuff from manga, but I believe it was left out of both Anime, initially.

A lot can be said of Dragonball, especially the Z anime, but the fact is, it's a series where people grow, get married, have children... this, in itself is quite rare. The storyline covers a period of, approximately fourty years or so. Kinda amazing in a way.

Mm... Fan-art....

I've been thinking, there's been a lot of series I've enjoyed, it might be nice to draw some of the characters from them. Thus, fan-art comes to be. Hmm. I guess I'm too sleepy to articulate what I mean properly. Basically, I feel that... since I can draw, I should. No, wait, that doesn't explain it either.

Oh, well. Cannot be helped.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Copy no jutsu

Directly from the Artbook, on Ponju pigletkaki. Edward Elric.

I think I'm over the worst of this time's depression, for now. Still not feeling very verbose, though. Been thinking of composition, layout, shadows....

That, and schoolwork ( need to do more of it ) and DnD. I'm DMing a high-level game occasionally and... Well, I have few high-level NPCs which need statting. However, anything that has been statted, can be killed by the players, and such. But, no more of that. I might do some OpenCanvasing on the subject of those D and D non-player characters. I might not.

Something different / practicing


Here's arts. Now go do something productive.

Practicing my lights and darks still. They're bad. Originally I intended to stick to black-and-white line, but it looked bad - I was extra-sloppy with my lines - so I slapped on some sloppycolor, and got this.

Uggg... Headache.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Something junk, uninspired.


Mylar is visiting. I need to do more work with shadow volumes. Yesterday, I thought, "I should get started on the next comic page.

Mmmohdear...

Friday, February 23, 2007

Another Oekaki


I hereby reserve the rights to add more to this post later. And I did.

I discovered a new way to set up chibis. It's very simple, but it has some issues with connecting the heads and bodies correctly.

I like the muted colors. All in all, it's... cute?

I'm drawing something on paper, too, but there's always this "Do I really want to scan this?" thing there.... It's not even a time issue anymore, I finally gave up and got meself a new multimedia printer / scanner last fall, autumn, whatever. It's good and fast.

Just two downsides:
It's an inkjet, and it has this weird ink-level tracking thingy which is really really annoying. Basically every time I start it, it arbitrarily decides to reduce the amount of ink remaining on cartridges, which means... which means my first set of cartridges was half-full when it had already decided they were empty. It also won't let me print with just black ink remaining. Very very annoying.

Er, /rant

And here ya go. Basically, the one on top left was the first practice-chibi. We've got A.S.K. tilted oddly there. I wonder, why I didnt' fix that? Oh, yeah - lazy. On the medium-size preview there, they're pretty much in actual size as I drew them - maybe just a tad smaller. Depends on screen and resolution and such. The scan I saved is actually like 50% bigger, or something.

The whole size thing is something of a pain when doing stuff for the web. When is something big, and something small? If you do stuff in low resolution, it'll get smaller and smaller as resolutions keep increasing. On the other hand, too large is practically always unreadable... But, that is a subject I'll save for another "Making of" type post.

Oh... Oh my. / Old Stuff #8


Um. I just went through my smaller box of NETTG stuff... there's, like, a ZILLION drawings I haven't scanned. Technically, if I want to post something on this blog every day this year - maybe two, three images every post --- I don't have to actually draw anything new this year. O_o;

I will, though. That's why I'm going through the old stuff. Inspiration, see?

One of the things that has changed, it seems like my ego's been decoupled from my drawings - I'm not in the least bit ashamed of showing my old, crappy drawings anymore. Maturity, or apathy? You decide.

The picture you see above is not by any means "my" Ameixia. It's just one of my many attempts at designing her, and one of the ones I like better than most. Maybe due to the whole FFTactics thing with the lack of nose and all. How does she breathe?

This here, on the other hand, is, for one, from the end of 2004. I think it's more 'bout the hair and pose and such, seeing as how we have a past-type Terra in, what looks like a contemporary setting. Or maybe this is Terra Incognito, a few years down the line after she gets reintegrated, or something? I know not. Then, who is that unknown person on the left? Hummm...

Anyway, I'll go dig through my old stuff now, then I'll try and draw something that's actually new.

edit:
Heh, Chapter 1, Page 12, Frame 6. My source of inspiration there was obvious.

Old Stuff #7


Too sleepy... Buying Time no Jutsu!

Relatively recent, from art-dry last year.
...Although, now that I think about it, most of Something from last year hasn't been shown anywhere.

Must draw in the morning... Must stop wasting time in the evenings 'til I'm all falling asleep....

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Old Stuff #6 / Oekaki, cute / Ramblings

Not terribly old, from 2004 it seems. For some reason, this was in my "Really old stuff" folder, so I had completely forgotten this.

Cute. Very cute for something I drew. I'd guess I wanted to do something different for a change. The artwork is sloppy, and there are some angle problems, but.... Aww....

The oldest remaining stuff seems to be from beginning of 2001, mostly Sailor Nothing... I did draw some stuff that got scanned even before that, I think, but while I may have some hardcopies in an old shoe box here somewhere, I doubt any of the digital stuff remains.

My skills... work kinda funny. There's some general improvement going on, but I seem to... peak, for the lack of a better word, from time to time. Usually this signifies the end of a relatively productive period drawing-wise. On the other hand, this, for an example, is probably me being inspired by Cloud's Sketchygirl series. He went by drCloud in the forums... which ones, I'm not sure. It's a shame, but it looks like the first two series aren't up anymore... I've got an archived copy of the first one on my hard drive, fortunately.

Digressing...

Right, seasonal arts, peaking... For an example, the halfling is from 2001. It was scanned in September, but it was probably drawn around june. While the feet are kinda blah, all in all it still looks okay. Ah, 3.0 and a loose reading of rules. Of course halflings can wield longswords one-handed...
....
I'm starting to think my time-stamps lie. It's possible, I've gone through several hard-drives since some of these were drawn, that may have messed things up. Well, worst case - the arts are actually older than the timestamps claim.

Speaking of old stuff...

This was drawn the very beginning of 1999 - that's eight years ago, now. Probably just before I went for my six months - bare minimum of military service.

Interesting thing about this one, is that this blonde, cheery girl keeps appearing in my drawings from time to time, and I have no idea who she is.

It does seem like I do actually come up with "characters" from time to time, even if I'm not actually aware who they are. Then, Ben comes and just absorbs everything.

Digressing again. Oh well, nevermind. In any case, while there is some weirdness going on here, this is another picture that shows how little I've really improved during these last eight years.


Heh.

Here's an old tutorial on drawing hands I did at one point - ah, youth. One thinks one's so right then...

It is a pretty good tutorial, though. I'm not sure I always draw hands that good anymore. Again with the blurryness, though. It's probably due to something I did back then with scans, which I thought looked good.

In my defense, it probably did, on my supercrappy old monitor. I mean, it was reeeeeally blurry.

More new arts tomorrow. Hopefully.

...I need to think for some sort of label for this sort of rambling, "back in the old days" post. Later, later....

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

It is not morning / Aya Brea is something

Hmm. I'm a big huge Parasite Eve fan, too. I'm only missing the manga release.

I can't say I'm very proud of this, but I think it's significantly nicer than my previous attempts - for whatever that's worth. A lot of my old stuff is strangely horrible - I guess I'm seeing now why Ben's been trying to steer me towards clarity. Sloppy messes, the lot of them. Not all, but a significant amount.

Also, a significant part is oddly blurry. I think my old monitor is - at least partially - to blame for that. I had a "Is that what it looks like" experience the first time I checked the website with the university's TFTs.

My current monitor isn't bad - it's quite good for it's age, actually. However, I spend a whole lot of time in front of it, and there's the whole eyestrain problem thingy.

Oh, yeah... the whole "not morning" thing... Er, um... the thing is, when a source of pressure goes away, I have this tendency to crash when I decompress. I'm not sure what to do about that, exactly.

ZZZzzzZZZ...

Too Sleepy... Power... MAke up in the morning... ZZZzzzZZZ.

Or, today I failed to manage myself. I'll draw in the morning instead of the evening, then.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Something Fanart-like, just add water.


It was so bad, I had to crop it to salvage something good out of it... and it's still this bad. The face isn't completely horrible.

So... Yeah. It's Ranma. I'm a huge Ranma ½ fan - as long as we're talking of the Manga, anyway. Strangely, I want to do a bit more fan-arts these days. It won't last. Nothing ever does. Mmmohdear....

I'll hope to get up to drawing something sensible... well, maybe tomorrow or something. I do have a couple of "Making of" stories to tell, too... but my motivation is depressingly low right now, for no good reason. Mental exhaustion from studying intensely? Perhaps. I'm off to bed. More stuff to come, tomorrow.

Oekaki / Nothing #2

I do some 'kaki on occasion. Sometimes I go a bit nuts and do a whole lot of them. Haven't done any for a couple of years. The software has... improved.

As nice as this look, it's really just throwing a few things together. Done at Ponju's 'kaki.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Nothing #1

Nothing to see here, move along, move along...

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Old Stuff #5 / Attention-starved. / Making of

Wow. My behavior surprises me. Attention makes me want to draw more - I've even been keeping to a daily schedule, despite the fact I explicitly deny having adopted one. Today, I've been nervously checking if someone's posted comments - as people have been pleasantly active in the forums - considering latest updates. I guess the newness of practically regular updates -even if it's in a blog, is wearing off. Oh, well.

Notice! I have some family over during the weekend, so I can't really guarantee updates after today - not 'til monday, anyway. Let's hope I can get back to it after such a long break, eh?

In any case, today's Old Stuff is... spotlighting, I guess, the second-to-last page of Prologue --- the new page is the nineteenth page - twentieth, counting cover - of chapter ONE, after all.

In any case, crafting chapter zero was quite an interesting experience, and there are some nice arts there - I haven't improved that much since then. Maybe I draw faces a bit less wonky, though. Also, the hair here is still an intermediary one. Still, Terra's hair hasn't gone through as much changes as the galactic destroyer.

...Er, GD's a shapeshifter, after all. Yeah, that's the ticket.

This one eventually became page nine of the prologue. A lot changed, only the bottom one stayed basically the same. I'm not sure how the dialogue was supposed to go, I guess I could ask Ben if he's kept some of the early drafts of the script - I've changed my Email address a couple of times since then, so I've lost most of them.

I often get into the mood of showing all this preliminary stuff, and some of it might make a nice Extra, but I've never really gotten into it. Blogger does make it easy, even if I'm using Good Evil Google servers to store the stuff. Hmm. Somewhat troublesome. Scary, even.

Ahem, got distracted.
Hmm.

You know, I think I like this explaining-thing, so I shall proceed further with it. The critter on your right is the very first "solid" sketch of GD I made. Very skinny, stealing a lot from H.R. Giger's Alien work, and has weird bat-like wings.

Back when I drew this during a warm summer evening, June of 2002, almost ten months before the launch of the website in it's initial nettg.simud.org location, I already knew I was going to do some CGI-fu on the wings. The head had a lot less going towards the five petals style, but it's beginning. Also, four fingers and a generally slim build.

Some time between this image and the start of actual comic-arts, the GD lost a finger and... ate an Oozaru, or something. I do so like the fingers in this image, though. Nice posing.

The wings developed, from initial cloak of darkness in the cover - and, I believe in Ben's original description of the Beast.

Actually, let me quote Ben here, for a bit:

From the shattered front of the vessel flew a dark shape. It swooped toward the Senshi with a loud, enraged screech.

They ducked a snatch of its talons. It flew down and landed in front of them, lashing out with its huge jaws, roaring menacingly.

...Not really that much to go on with. I wonder, where the whole cloak of darkness thing came from, then? Ah, well.



In any case, as can be seen here, the wings start to charge up with dark energy and go from small, bat-like stubs to petals of darkness with... I believe, I was thinking of supernovas captured within. Also, that's where the petal-face comes from. So, the bat-like state is more like... an antenna of some sort? Perhaps.

I was channeling Dark Star from Slayers Try a bit - after all, there we have an actual galactic destroyer. I think this can be best seen in the very first GD-picture - the "Beware, Beware!" one. I like the green glowy-thing and the red eyes there, definitely.

In any case, the wings develop into... essentially a variation of the petal shape - I like sticking to certain visual themes and such. Although, I take no responsibility of how Terra's hair become GD-spike-like. It's due to Ben's influence, completely.

Of course, I really like the energy-blade wings, with Todd McFarlane type scraps of darkness around them, too. I did warn in an early post - possibly before Ammon gave us the current news-post system - that I wouldn't guarantee any sort of consistency between my drawings.

In any case, the fact we completed the prologue before starting the web site - and that was a good decision - we had some content even with a sucky update schedule - also allowed us to do... some revisions. Biggest of them being page six.
Here, let me introduce you to the original:

Horrible, yes?

There isn't a single frame here with decent art in it - even the best ones, numbers three and four, are kind of... sucky. in three, everything is the wrong length, and four... well, the idea isn't so bad, but the angle --- thumb covering QS:s face? C'mon!

I'm telling you, during some of these shots, it's way too obvious when we're using our trusty crossdressing stuntman, Murray.
( By the way, I love the last picture of Terra going nuts on that extra. )

In any case, the actual page that went live, is quite good. Even if some parts of the original artwork suffered weird aliasing effects and whatnot in the transition, the top frame, as well as frames 5-9 are all quite nice. What I don't like anymore is how the puny lightnings interact with the dialogue and the neck-bending GD in frame 3.

I think I was planning to have the GD do a second, more powerful attack there, but, er, that scene got cut in the scripting phase, or something.

Also, the lower torso of GD in the last frame was very sucky, thus the SFX cover-up.
Oh, just because!!:

I have a habit of lining up stuff naturally, or somesuch, which gives an illusion of... something or other. I'm not really sure, but someone mentioned it. Flow, dynamics. Something like that. In any case, this has all sorts of niceness going, so... y'know, just because.

I will probably talk more of the comic later... But I shan't forget drawing, either! In worst case, I hope this will tide you over the weekend.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Something Lunar High Guard / Blocked / Comic


Great timing on the comic! I'm blocked, now!

Oh well, wasn't sure if I remembered how to draw this. The lighter I went with the hair, the more I liked it, but then I had to adjust the skin tone, and... all sorts of things.



In any case, here's additionally the initial version - "Iteration one" of the comic that went up. It has some stuff I like. Speaking of the depressing pace of comic updates, this one is originally dated August, 2004.

I like the way characters look in the middle frame, and the background action in the last one is pretty good. Terra is horrible there, though. It's a bit more 3d, though...

I changed the Chibi-GD design a bit from the one shown here. The wing joint is lower, and shoulders are different... also, the general design is a bit sleeker, and the wings went from batlike to a more alien configuration.

In any case, the page that went up --- actually has fifteen drawings, around 35 drawing working hours, at least four script revisions and ...two and a half years in the making!

This is no way to make a comic, I can tell you that.
...
Well, it's technically a way, definitely not an efficient one, though.

Comic-du! Yaaw! Like a bunny!

This one turned out surprisingly nice. Thus...
Since it is so tiny here, and such... ( oh, if the link doesn't work while you read it... it will, shortly. )
About the update: Thirteen drawings, or so. Total work time: 35 hours or so. Waaay too much. Clearly, my workflow sucks.

Goof: I erased Chibi-GD's wing to fit in S. K, but forgot to redraw it afterwards.
S. N. is borrowing a bit from an old Army of Darkness poster, I thinks. Oh well.

Hopping mad... Hmhmhm. "Decisive Battle" is really cool, from FF6. Not sure what it has to do with anything. Basically, I guess I'm trying to delay actually posting this 'til Ben gets home and I can go simultaneous with... and such. Oh well, I'll talk of the comic more tomorrow. Webcomicry is... something, definitely.

Okay, seriously, my brain is out of resourcers. Off to sleep, enjoy the comic, once it's up.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

It's posing or Something

Thalia. Very sloppy. Used the sketch-small, scale-up, scale-down trick. Should've scaled it a bit more around, as I drew the lines at 800x600... But, meh.

I'm generally not sure of how colors work. Colours, whatever.
Wanted to try a bit more interesting pose than usually. It's... not as good as I hoped for, but it's not entirely horrible, either.

Thalia's hair color... maybe it should be a bit more orange, too? What of eye color? Blue certainly works... but could go more towards, oh, brownish-purple, or... dunno. Something.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Old Stuff #4


I had this lying around. It's really really bad, mostly because the composition is too stupid to live.

I think I was working on a Valentine's day idea for some year... 2005? Thus, the heart-shape.
Didn't spot it, did you? In any case, junk. A failed experiment, but I think it has some unfulfilled potential.

Sorry. I could have drawn Something, but it's too late and I have a test tomorrow. I don't think anyone's seen this before.

Well, maybe Ben, but I sacrifice stillborn art-babies on an unholy altar to placate...

Er, ignore that last line

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Something pink

Y'know, I never really grasped what Atomic Starlight Knight looks like. Also, I seem to be having a face crisis - I can't draw non-wonky face to save my life, so to speak.

In any case... Oh, if you have seen the other picture which shows the back of the outfit--- I think it actually _says_ 'Pansy' in there...

No, wait, it doesn't. I couldn't find the right character for it, so I think I used "orchid" instead. Oh well.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Realistic Lina Inverse, my old enemy -- we meet again!

Hmmhmm.

Okay... Slayers - Dungeons 'n Dragons parody... Neverwinter Nights... Custom portraits....
That's where it started. I've been questing for a realistic-ish Lina Inverse portrait for use with NWN for... for a while now. This is my best result thus far. It's quite nice, except for the face. Oh, and some details are wrong, but that was never a big deal.

We get more purple. Or is that violet? In any case, something like that.

The face is wonky. I have trouble keeping everything in right place and correct angles. It's non-euclidean.

Friday, February 9, 2007

The most powerful one of them all. Or Something.


Well, not really. But an acolyte of TMPOoTA, perhaps.
Umm... Used the image from d20srd.org as an aid. Just something. Dunno. Came to me, and there it is. Not much to say and all that. I guess I'll get back to studying for now.

Oh! Quick, sloppy, OpenCanvas. cheesy 'add' effects, very small size... and such.

Sad girl in an undisclosed location.


So... um.
I was going to first sketch a bit, then blow up what I have and clean up in higher res, then paint, then scale back down.

Instead, this happened. Ben! This is all your fault!

I don't know how, but somehow, surely!

In any case, head may be wonky. I redrew it about five times, but it's still iffy. Ah well, we don't care 'bout no details, I mean, we don't even have any lines!

...Every time I try to do stuff without lines, I'm always iffy if it would actually look better with 'em. This one's... okay, even without, but, I guess I like the sketchy look, too.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Eyeballing practice


Locked my car keys in/
It is freezing cold outside/
cannot pay my bills.

The nature reference should be the last line, but I digress.

Anyway, today's image is from Tempo, a city cultural magazine thingy. Doesn't look that much like the person it is, but at least it looks human. I can live with that. Done mostly as a single layer in OpenCanvas. Which doesn't really support cropping, thus the awful layout.

OpenCanvas is probably THE tablet-painting software... Well, I just like how it behaves.
I do the comic editing on Paint Shop Pro, which is... well, it's crashy. Maybe it's time to give Gimp another chance?

Umu. To get actually measurably better, I really should do lots of all sorts of exercises. I've sort of plateau'd for now. There's stuff that's 3-5 years old that still can make me go "I drew that?!?" on occasion.

...Of course, there's lots and lots of cringe-worthy stuff. If anyone's interested I can share the .wpe files for these. They're quite short and not very fancy. I don't do fancy... or something. In any case, quick, sloppy and primitive.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Thinking of certain design options.


Sometimes, you have this cool idea, but you're not sure how it looks, and then you have another idea, and another...

I figured leaving the character blank would look okay, since it's not the focus here, in any case.

In any case, I don't like the middle option very much. Currently I'm leaning towards red, black and gold, as far as colors are considered. They... please my eye. I'll need to test the other ones with the same color scheme, too. White and blue, cyan and gray... Hmmm hmmm hmmm. Still pondering. Need to do studies.

It's very cold in here, and I've locked myself out of my car. Mmmohdear...

Something sez: Yay for quickycolor!

Yay for complex poses, too!
There are issues, but we dont' care 'bout those, now do we?

Ben, I know you're good at jumping to conclusions, but don't... I'm still pondering.

In any case... I didn't put much effort into detailing or clean-up, but it's... well, it's something, all right!

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Something is junk, junk, junk! It's awful!

Esa walks to the stage
"woe is me, for my life..."
Fade to black
Mylar gets on stage
"Mmmohdear...."
"Doesn't it depress you? It depresses me"

----
There is a reason, why I don't write. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but I'm quite certain there is one. In any case, "had" to draw something. Don't worry, it does me good, even if I don't agree with the end results.

Drawing hands is interesting, when using the definition in a very specific manner. Intriguing might be another way to put it. Certainly, there are things to notice.

This space intentionally left blank.

It seems I'm getting... more sarcastic... acerbic, or something. I must be getting older. Frankly, this developement disgusts me. I'd much rather be all sunshine, rainbows and happy smiles.

...Wow. That sounded like... like livejournal or something. Ewww! Ewww!

Oh, looky! Rai updated! Wai! Wai!
...Regressing....

Monday, February 5, 2007

Something continues...

Hmm. Okay, I was actually going to dig some old stuff today, but couldn't find anything fast enough, so I figured, 'I'll draw something instead. It's more appropriate, anyway'

So... Random sword-guy with spiky hair. Grandma Jenova wouldn't approve. Probably. It's not a very big sword, though.

All in all, quite awful and amateurish. I didn't spend more than ten, twenty minutes on it. At least it's fresh.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Something new

...It's kinda leaning to the left a bit. Oh well.

Fake shine on plate armor, sort of... Megaman meets Final Fantasy Tactics.
...I'm getting the urge to play FFT for some reason. Don't think I've played it much past the first mission/level/thingy.

For Something, I don't think this is bad at all. Kinda neat, actually, In my opinion. Yays ^^
The blade-lance could use some runes, but I was lazy.

I really like the character's right hand. Sorta big and clunky. Also, the face is nice, and the lance-thing looks interesting. Shoulders are okay, too.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Old Stuff #3

Sometimes the body just says, "That's it! I've taken enough abuse from you, User! It's time to defrag!

Wow. Crash, reboot. Feeling better. Onwards!

In any case, this is an old something from last... April, I think. Meaning, I was working at the time. I drew this while watching Rushuna do her thing on Grenadier, so that's my excuse. Mind you, this would be a goo target for a bit - or eight, or twenty-four - of color.

Colour, whatever. You're mostly USAians, anyway, right. I think 'Colour' looks nicer, though, don'tchathink?

Anyway, i'll post something more soon, too. I mean, there's no rule that I cannot post within 24 hours of posting something else, right? Right. I mean, it was longer than 24 hours between those two posts and such.

Still, I am kinda annoyed with myself... And kinda impressed with my body's proactivity. I'm getting some weird dream-channels, though....

Friday, February 2, 2007

Still something / Not quite as blocked

It's meaningless junk... But, it's a bit less badly drawn meaningless junk.

Today was a bad day, it just... went. Not much to say, really, then. So, I hope this picture is worth, if not a thousand words, at least fifty, or something.

I'm really enjoying thinking these days, though.