To Watch or Not To Watch

Man of Steel is in theaters here too, right now.
From the comments I've heard, it's... not horrible, but not that good either. Decent amount of action, which was something of a flaw in the Brandon Routh movie.

Anyway, I intended to see this in theaters, but now I'm iffy. I kind of want to, but....

On the drawing: It's something of an adaptation of the formal wear costume. Also, legs are kind of large; I could fix that digitally, since I think the pose and shape are otherwise okay, but eh.
Not terribly accurate, I wasn't really going for that; For a proper drawing I'd really want to double-check the anatomy and work on  the shield design a bit more.

I had a pretty good Superman build for DnD, using Ardent from CPsi.

Elan
Monk 1/Ardent 19

Guardian Mantle as primary. pick Physical Power, Freedom, Law, Fate, Time later on. 

Feats:
1st: Overchannel
3rd: Practiced Manifester
6th: Psionic Meditation
9th: Extend Power: Saves on flight a lot - you'll only spend 33 PP on flying all day long.
12th: Quicken Power
15th: Mind over Body
18th: Expanded Knowledge: Psionic True Seeing. (sorta open)

Why this is Superman?

• You fly along all day long
• You have super-speed, thanks to Hustle, Freedom mantle, Temporal Acceleration and Teleport, Greater.
• You can see and hear through walls and long distances thanks to Clairvoyant Sense
• You can survive both in deep space and the bottom of the ocean, thanks to Iron Body. With Mind Over Energy,
  you can even withstand swimming in lava, or the heart of a star, technically.
• You can put yourself in the line of fire, thanks to Anticipatory Strike & Greater Teleport.
• You can survive any hit, thanks to Anticipatory Strike + Timeless Body. Even the 1d2 crusader punch, or Pun-pun smite.
• You can, albeit for a short while only, grapple Colossal critters reliably. 
• You can stop an oncoming train, thanks to Immovability
• You can SAVE PEOPLE thanks to Guardian mantle's power.

Worm Fanart: Skitter

Cue Mook Horror Show.

Meet Skitter. 

She can control every single arthropod within half a mile radius, perfectly. 

She can make wasps sting your eyes, spiders crawl into your lungs, and spin webs. 

She can see and hear through the insect eyes, and sense what they touch. 

She breeds black widows, 

She made her costume out of Darwin's bark spider's silk, which is the toughest biological material ever studied, making her somewhat bulletproof. Even when she's not hit in the armor. 

She's the protagonist. 

I wasn't quite satisfied with the fan art I've seen of Skitter - none of it displays how terrifying she can be from an objective point of view. 

The skirt and mantle were originally an improvised costume made out of scraps of spider silk, but since it offers an extra layer of protection, it seem she's taken to wearing them into potentially dangerous situations.

Overqall, Im satisfied. Still messy, but I have some interesting things going material-wise. Shoes are just thrown in there, though.

Also: Hey, I'm on time! It's still two and a half hours to midnight!

Unreal Estate, Lorelei

Okay, so I recently finished reading Anachronauts. Also, I made a decision not to open my computer while at home, during workdays this week.

Withdrawals hit me in about thirty seconds. So, I did chores, went to the gym and finished a sketch I started... um, when did Twoflower start posting Unreal Estate episodes, again? It's definitely been a while.

In any case, I spent about two hours just shading the original sketch. It's not realistic by any count, but looks nice-ish enough.

Oh, yeah. Since I'm not using a computer, I took this pic with my dev phone, A Lumia 800. It has a rather nasty bug - whenever anyone calls, it automatically answers. It's one of the first phones on the market, so I hope that's been fixed in the later phones. Developing phone apps with C# is pure bliss, when compared to, oh, practically any other phone - or at least their default environment.

This fails on so many levels...

But, there's something about the technique used that's interesting. I think the proportions are off and that's why it looks bad. Face has uncanny valley effect, but that's not the problem here, exactly. In any case, there is something intriguing here, so it might be worth showing off.

Pun-Pun / Oh, yeah. How about no?

So, I tried doing this in CGI after initial sketching. 'twas horrible. 

Dunno, maybe I'm just rusty concerning CGI.  Anyway, PP on a day he decides Winged + Multiheaded + Floating Head is a nice combo.

Something is Gainax Fanart

It's Nono from Gunbuster 2!
Or rather, it's a drawing eyeballed from a photo of a cosplayer in a booklet which came in a recent Cosmode magazine. In any case, it was done with a ballpoint pen, so... not bad. My eye's pretty decent with 2d shapes, at least, these days. Still, a somewhat pointless exercise.

I just wanted to post something. Plus, more views equals pizza. Or something.

In any case, I'll probably do more ballpoint pen stuff, as well as some Wacom stuff soon. I'll need to make another Japan post one of these days, but in the mean time, check out Heikki's Scrapbook, for his reports on the trip. ( link in the sidebar on the right side. )

I've been learning new things, but I don't have much to say about that, yet.

GDM should probably switch to GTGE, JMonkey, or maybe LWJGL ( my current favourite. )

There are so many game engines these days, that if one intends to do something, optimally one would test each and everyone of them before committing to one. It might be interesting, fastprototyping some game for each engine, at a pace of, say, one game per week. At least you'd end up with lots of games.

When my pencils don't suck

See?

I was trying to highlight the difference between "warm-up" and "actual", but it may actually be the difference between having an image in my brain, or not.

So, it's Azalea, my pet Exalted character. You've seen her before. Ideas do develop, and mature, and so forth. I haven't actually really played much second edition, but I still like it. The ruleset is intriguing and stylish - I actually think that by taking certain elements away, it would be about right for a Dragonball-ish game.

Ahh, DBZ -- there's a series with such wasted potential. Kind of like Naruto Shippuuden. I'd bet it could be one of the best series, if you'd just cut about 12 minutes from every episode. Oh, and tell the actors to speak just a bit faster. T_T

Sack o' Confusion

This time, I did the warm-up in OC.

So, got my GUI thing doing something, at least. I do have this feeling it's horribly slow right now, though...

Concentration problems do not seem to apply to code-work... but I did find one piece of software I wrote a while back is horribly broken. ;_;

Drawing shall commence after sleep. Coding takes a lot of time and attention...

*edit*

I'm amused. Jet Li writes:

In Chinese, kungfu is a mark for time. You can use kungfu to describe anything as long as you've spent a lot of time working on it. For example, you can say that a chef's cooking kungfu is great. Because that chef has taken 10 to 20 years to gain those abilities. Since wushu takes a lot of time to learn, so you can say your kungfu is great. But wushu actually means the art of averting conflict. Wushu includes culture, discipline, philosophy, technique as well

When in doubt, do studies or Something!

I drew earlier today, but it's not blog-worthy. However, I was starting to feel like I'm neglecting this blog, so I went and tried to draw something just for this blog.

Blocked!

So, I resorted to doing studies -IE, copying via the power of my eye - from pro comics. Always educational. Fairy Tail and Mx0, in this case. Both rather fun shounen series.
I need to do more copies. T_T

Manga drawing -- I actually own a book from How to draw Manga series, titled Ultimate Manga Lessons 1: Drawing Made Easy. It actually has pretty much everything you need for drawing your own manga - as a downside, it's mostly a rather basic book. However, as I browse it I occasionally run into rather interesting tidbits of information, such as that on average, you need to draw 5000 pages before you can consider going pro. Also, it's generally a good idea to draw hands the size of head+hair - it looks more interesting than drawing smaller, more realistic hands.

...Which reminds me, Piro used to draw these really tiny hands... He still does, actually -- or rather, he draws large heads. Hands are still kinda small, but they're drawn better so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me anymore.

....Mmm, I think they're a bit bigger, these days. sorta depends on the frame.

Copying, not like Xerox

it's well known that copying is a highly effective form of learning, well, learning anything. It's also quite fun and easy, when you're feeling lazy. There is, however, one thing to keep in mind when doing it, and that is the why.

Basically, the reason you're copying something, is to get better, and to learn something from the one who made the original. In the copies above, I approached it as I do my own original drawings - by building proper understructure and working upwards from there. It was a much more educational experience than if I had just tried to match the original drawing line-by-line.

That being said, doing exact line-by-line, stroke-by-stroke copies is one way of learning to estimate distances and lengths, but that wasn't my goal here --- I draw mainly from imagination, not from reference --- sometimes even when using reference would be the wiser choice.

I didn't draw much today, I have a deadline coming up, (20th) which I cannot afford to miss. Deadlines do me good, but unless there's a downside to missing them, they do not matter much to me. Meaning, I run into some serious trouble every time I try to manage anything by myself.

Doing Ranma copies reminds me of how much of a genius Rumiko Takahashi really is. There is this rather interesting, organic quality to her drawings, and she gets away with a bare minimum of effort suggesting 3d shape. She also uses these relatively simple poses, and often uses this almost isometric PoV to set scenes. Her pacing is also quite nice for the most part.

That being said, I haven't been very happy with later volumes of Inuyasha. It starts out strong, though.

Is it wrong if I watch the Lucky Star opening on loop?

Happy Easter part two! I seem to have misplaced my bunny...

But here's a Wyrm Black Dragon instead!

The whole bunny thing isn't really Finnish, anyway. Yellow chicks are more associated with easter here, anyway.

Something in black and white, random fanart.

Trying to think in shades, spotting blacks and such. Drew very distinct muscles again, then thought, I might as well make it a certain easily recognizable character. And such.

JPEG-artifacts ate the third arbyfish, so here's where it should've been:



It's like, subtle or something. JPEG-artifacts kinda killed it, though... Oh well, cannot be helped.
For a change, today's painting was done in Paint Shop Pro 9. I probably should try doing some chiaroscuro ( which sorta sounds like shirokuro, ) with pen and inks - I'd be able to pay more attention to the details.

Well, it's something. I can always draw Something. and Terra, it seems.

Something moody in black and white

My brain is melting. Composition is neat, due to "darn, can't fit the face there... oh well."

Fan-art, for those who know --- and most should. Quite crappy, and there's my usual anatomy problems popping up with the fingers, but let's see how well YOU draw when it's your brain that's melting! Hmph!

looks sorta Clone.Manga-ish. ( excellent artwork there, might be NSFW, depending what you're reading. )

By the way, I just discovered Invader Zim. Oh dear.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

POWER OVERWHELMING!!

Yay for Blizzard!

It's really hard to find good Protoss Archon reference. Apparently, they do have feet, and while
the Protoss generally have wide chests, their arms are kinda skinny. Also, two thumbs.

My art does have a general tendency to be sloppy. Thus, I'm using methodology which guarantees relatively crisp results. However, the cost is time. I believe the shortest time a single comic page has taken, ever, is something like seven hours. Rather suboptimal in many ways, but the reason I draw for Ben is out of love for his stories, not necessarily to show these stories to others... Although that's fun too. But, I'm greedy like that, and if drawing can cause Ben to write more, then...

Lost my trail of thought, there. This implies I was most likely ranting. Never mind, never mind.