Monday, October 8, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
First time messing with sculpt mode
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Trying to figure out Blender
Urg. Blender has some really nice features, but it's still about as easy to use as 3ds Max.
So, the group I got myself into in our Games and Virtual Environments decided to make an adventure game. Apparently in 3d.
2d would've been fine, and even kinda easy, but for the sake of learning and challenge, we seem to be going the hard way...
I can't extract the model from the module, so's I'll need to make a retextured version based on the .3ds model Ben had.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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
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:
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
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Something Confused
Warming up... Sometimes I don't know myself what is coming out of my pencils. All I can offer for this, is that I was listening to "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)"...
Ben claims I may actually do better work digitally than with pen and paper. I find that this is actually possible, and the thought terrifies me. Oh well. The above is very sloppy, but I kinda like the face. The rainbow effect worked okay.
The title comes from my recent lack of concentration. My head's been terribly fuzzy, I haven't been able to focus on the things I should.
I've been pondering the digital/pencil side of things, and I've concluded, that while I draw better with pencils, technically, the fact that the actual tip of a pencil has a varied shape, as well as the fact that I can keep on re-drawing digitally combined with the zoom function, is what gives the edge to digital work. This is an issue of, well, of eyesight as well as the fact I'm a relatively sloppy drawer. Not like my brother, who's first line is always the final one, too. Although, he still doesn't get line weights, really.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Random productivity
So... Ben did, in fact, have my Arbyfish model stored. Textures need more work, badly... but, now I haves it! Mwahaha!
As a downside, it's not animated --- at all, really.
I also did a Prismatic Dragon skin recolor... but, it's still quite horrible. The textures - including the original used with Prismatic Dragon - is stretched weirdly. Mmdunno. Maybe I should try it with copper dragon, instead... I also didn't change the reflections or anything.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
So, I'm taking a course on Games and Virtual Environments
Took me longer than I thought... but today, I've been Inspired.
This is, like, half-way between sketchydoodle, and something pretty nifty. I probably won't finish it, though. Kinda a shame.
I think it's a guy, BTW.
Oulu as a city --- or rather, the IT people here, are actually sorta trying to push this as the Game Development hub of Finland or something like that. That's what they told me at the PuzzleScape promo party, at least. And that's way more free advertisement for Farmind than I should do.
Any way, there's this Game Research Unit at Oulu, Y'know, people responsible for this, for an example.
Interesting stuff. AirBuccaneers seems like a pretty cool idea, and it's giving me some ideas, too.
I did do a re-skin of Prismatic Dragon for Galactic Destroyeriffic purposes, a while back. I did also make an Arbyfish model, but I don't have that anymore. :(
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
More CG junk
This is really kinda bad news.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sleepy and sick, or something
Not feeling too sharp. Um, nothing above is too bad, really. Nothing especially good, either. It's something I definitely wouldn't post in any gallery, though.
I've linked this tutorial before, but it bears repeating.
I've linked this tutorial before, but it bears repeating.
Monday, August 27, 2007
No, that would take too long. let me sum up.
I was on an isometric kick, and my brother appeared. I started explaining stuff to him, how the whole projection thing works.
If you work in PS or something, make the initial image something like 800x400, and once you have the grid, start putting big color circles on a separate layer. Works amazingly well.
Next, the topic of art styles came up.
- square half as high as wide, from mid point of each edge, a line.
- You must draw the top square or you lose track of stuff, and end up like bottom-left.
- when in doubt, draw a line in same angle as the diagonal lines. things must line up.
- if you can draw a square, you can draw anything. Maybe not well, but...
If you work in PS or something, make the initial image something like 800x400, and once you have the grid, start putting big color circles on a separate layer. Works amazingly well.
Next, the topic of art styles came up.
- You can draw a head-shape from almost anything, but I don't enjoy it.
- Neck style in One Piece, simple but looks good, nya!
- After you know the rules, you can break 'em.
- If you draw lots, your arm will learn certain shapes and you can "cheat" when drawing them.
- Draw robot/mannekin shapes, to learn the shapes and pieces of everything.
- Using balls-and-lines skeletons to figure out the limits of movement. The line can become shorter ( you can calculate or graphically derivate it by flattening a circle ), but they generally cannot become longer.
- On paper, you can just draw each position on top of each other, then trace 'em ( with paper/on computer ) later.
- Once you have a skeletal model, you can flesh it out. in the graphic sense. Heh.
- GDM in my mind
- School starts soon
- Dentist's appointment tomorrow
- Coding, drawing --- such joy.
- I wonder how long it'll last...
- Paperdoll sucks, but Photoshop's file format is good.
- Need a tool for tweaking .ben
- ...ben-edit? bend-it?
- Isometric... Disgaea... Game programming... Tactical Combat... Maneuvers... XPH...
Why haven't I graduated yet?
That's a good question, isn't it?
I've somehow managed to catch a cold. Or a flu. Whichever.
Stuff, GDM
Been doing some Java stuff - and enough MinGW & SDL stuff that I can do something with it, if I want to.
Writing, planning... how did it go again?
Plotting, Meditation, Torture and Knitting. Oh, yes. The White Arbyfish way.
More new stuff soon somewhere.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
More junk - delayed.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Still not back!
Refreshing my Java skills --- they've actually gotten a bit better these last few years -- or rather, my generic coding skills have. I'm still a bit bad with objects, though.
Writing a tic-tac-toe game. It was an unfinished thing I originally meant to use to study simple AI-type stuff, but never finished, apparently due to simple lack of understanding on Java's syntax, it seems now.
In any case, more drawn junk.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I'm not back!
Well, you see, big test coming up. I'll try and post something as long as it doesn't take too long, though.
Holiday, Crawfish/Crayfish/whatchawannacallem fishing - I didn't participate. I did swim and sauna quite a bit. Dropping some weight, too. Currently 'bout 5-7 kg gone, still fifteen more to go, or so.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Away for a while
I'll be gone... I don't know how long. Maybe less than the usual delay between posts these days. Maybe more. Or not.
In any case, notifying since I know.
And I was gonna post something today - just, no time to draw and scan, everything is packed and so....
I will be drawing stuff while I'm away, I promise!
In any case, notifying since I know.
And I was gonna post something today - just, no time to draw and scan, everything is packed and so....
I will be drawing stuff while I'm away, I promise!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sketchydoodles... er, 8, I think
I have something of a dislike towards caricatures. However, the use of strong geometric shapes and quick creation of distorted characters is useful.
Just heads, this time, though. I draw lots of heads. How lazy of me.
Using distinct geometric shapes does make things easier to rotate and manipulate, and thus animate, definitely.
It goes from weird blocks to geometric shapes, to something I blame Eiichiro Oda for.
Well, I ranted enough yesterday, so this should do for today? Roight.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Status report / Something
This would have been a no-art post, but I figured, "Might as well draw something", so I spent five minutes on this. After I drew the face and the collar, I thought "Hmm, I'm getting a sorta Knives-like vibe from this... bah!" and so on. Might have guided the rest of the drawing just a bit.
Roughly five minutes means... well, the anatomy's about as correct as anything in Hellsing manga, anyway. Hirano's "Whatever" take on the romanization of names is interesting - basically, all of them are literally rather inaccurate, phonetic representations of the actual spelling - which he doesn't even know in some cases.
Apparently, one of the things learned after almost two decades of drawing stuff, is the ability to draw straight lines. Who knew? Couldn't do it 'round ten years ago, yet.
I was reading Wikipedia, specifically the sections on Finnish language, politics and military. From the languages I ended up reading on Quenya again, and other fictional languages, such as Newspeak.
Admission: I've never read 1984.
Wikipedia can become an amazing waste of time, no doubt... but time wasted there is actually mildly useful. I did spot some of the Finnish-language tie-ins of Quenya. I did also find out 'bout several languages which branched off from Finnish a while back, and... well, lots of stuff, really.
I'd thought I had more to say, but something - perhaps lack of sleep - is driving it from my mind. Oh well.
I've been looking at things like exercise, work and studying these last two days - Initially after school year ended in April, I splendidly managed to avoid getting any sort of a job - I don't really regret that too much, as I felt immensely disinterested at working at the time. However, for the most part, I haven't used my time as efficiently as I'd have liked. There has been little drawing, coding or writing done, for no good reason. I have managed to exercise just a bit, sufficiently to stall above a state of "Completely Doomed," roughly around something like "Not Entirely Horrible."
Financially... well, no way 'round it, I'm flat broke. I don't have any unpaid bills right now, though. I'll probably have to get a part-time job during the next semester. Still, practically free University education - such bliss!
I spent four days in Oulu with my brothers - basically we just ate, watched movies & Anime and slept. I found myself liking "Transformers," although the rather impressive theater we were in might have had something to do with it.
Note to self: add some links later...
Roughly five minutes means... well, the anatomy's about as correct as anything in Hellsing manga, anyway. Hirano's "Whatever" take on the romanization of names is interesting - basically, all of them are literally rather inaccurate, phonetic representations of the actual spelling - which he doesn't even know in some cases.
Apparently, one of the things learned after almost two decades of drawing stuff, is the ability to draw straight lines. Who knew? Couldn't do it 'round ten years ago, yet.
I was reading Wikipedia, specifically the sections on Finnish language, politics and military. From the languages I ended up reading on Quenya again, and other fictional languages, such as Newspeak.
Admission: I've never read 1984.
Wikipedia can become an amazing waste of time, no doubt... but time wasted there is actually mildly useful. I did spot some of the Finnish-language tie-ins of Quenya. I did also find out 'bout several languages which branched off from Finnish a while back, and... well, lots of stuff, really.
I'd thought I had more to say, but something - perhaps lack of sleep - is driving it from my mind. Oh well.
I've been looking at things like exercise, work and studying these last two days - Initially after school year ended in April, I splendidly managed to avoid getting any sort of a job - I don't really regret that too much, as I felt immensely disinterested at working at the time. However, for the most part, I haven't used my time as efficiently as I'd have liked. There has been little drawing, coding or writing done, for no good reason. I have managed to exercise just a bit, sufficiently to stall above a state of "Completely Doomed," roughly around something like "Not Entirely Horrible."
Financially... well, no way 'round it, I'm flat broke. I don't have any unpaid bills right now, though. I'll probably have to get a part-time job during the next semester. Still, practically free University education - such bliss!
I spent four days in Oulu with my brothers - basically we just ate, watched movies & Anime and slept. I found myself liking "Transformers," although the rather impressive theater we were in might have had something to do with it.
Note to self: add some links later...
Monday, July 2, 2007
Sketchydoodles? Yaw! #7 I think!
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Still alive and drawing
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Something surprisingly nice
Okay, today/yesterday, I didn't get any drawing done, really. Always bad. Wanted to post something, though.
My initial plan was to make more studies, but I ended up not doing any, as you can see. Basically, this came as a part of my master plan of not worrying 'bout art quality too much.
Horrible Terra, sucky 'Tim, too mature Trista, and it doesn't get much better from there, really. I had a bit of fun with the arrows, though. It's clear, I can't make up my mind considering some design choices, though.
The 'fish turned out disturbingly cute.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
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.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Something for midsummer time.
Midsummer festivities. I'll be away for a few days. While there have been periods of unexpected inactivity before, I'll try and notify you of such periods when I know of them beforehand.
...That doesn't make sense on a very basic level.
In any case, I'll be away 'till Monday, so here's something to tide you over. More character-design type stuff, really. Conceptartsy or something.
Oh, and there's a comic to read, too! It turned out rather light in shade, this time.
The general preference in comic-art is, that the pencils should be as much all there is as possible. We've ended up using quite a bit of CGI on parts, and sometimes details get punched up with ink, but usually that's not the case. Such things as the scanner used, and the monitor used, affect the finished product quite a bit. Looking at it now, I feel I could have been a bit bolder with the light/dark variance. The top frame could use a bit more clarity. But, all in all, it fills it's purpose and we chose to publish now instead of holding it back even longer.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Teaseriffic
This is for all of you five people who read this blog. Large parts of this will be covered by the mighty Bubbles of Speech. No blatant errors for the most part, maybe the bracers could be a bit lighter tone to match the breastplate.
Would'a finished tonight, but Paint Shop Pro 9 crashed as I was editing the file, and I don't feel like redoing the rest tonight. (2:20 AM local time.)
This page is very late, again, and the second page for this year. Hopefully, next one will come out faster. I'm taking steps so that the next page will only be delayed by stuff like studying, socializing and work, and, y'know, productive stuff like that.
Socializing is productive - and difficult - if one's as much of an introverted recluse as I am. Really.
Would'a finished tonight, but Paint Shop Pro 9 crashed as I was editing the file, and I don't feel like redoing the rest tonight. (2:20 AM local time.)
This page is very late, again, and the second page for this year. Hopefully, next one will come out faster. I'm taking steps so that the next page will only be delayed by stuff like studying, socializing and work, and, y'know, productive stuff like that.
Socializing is productive - and difficult - if one's as much of an introverted recluse as I am. Really.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Random Character Something!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Bunch of faces
There's a difference between drawing and being creative. It's quite difficult to will oneself to be inspired. I won't claim that it can't be done - that would be silly. But, still....
If I've become less vocal as of late, I can only blame it on myself. I am really quite boring all in all.
Shikkari... shikkari... shikkari...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Something Trista
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Sketchy NETTG:TEY scene
This is mostly based on the sprite comic.
I rather dislike showing stuff of this level to people, but that feeling is also something I need to get rid of. K1 lacks his customary circlet, but is wearing the standard armor. I did consider guns, but that's not the way the pose worked.
Oh, and K1 would probably be delighted 'bout the combat, and not really worried 'bout the fact he's, at that point, facing overwhelming odds.
K1 was a "bad idea" of sorts, since he's where Terra dumped all those feelings that weren't conductive to survival, like I wanna blow something up! and I don't wanna do what others tell me to do! And thus...
Problematically, Terra didn't exactly cut those parts away from herself either, but instead dumped her at-that-time emotional baggage there. Really, what allows K1 to function as intended - sorta - are the experiences that are downloaded back to Terra....
Or, that's roughly my interpretation of the situation.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
This makes how many somethings now?
I bet it didn't even put up a fight... Probably didn't taste that good.
I intended to draw a knife and a fork there too, but forgot....
Honestly, I don't think Terra has that bad table manners at this point in story, anymore... maybe she's being petulant since the food wasn't that interesting? Who knows.
Saturn is actually poking fun at me, for not drawing anything recognizable as a food. Or maybe
at the 2-d existence of the plate there. One of the good reasons for a review process on the comic is that, frankly, I often times completely forget to draw something in.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Something-or-other
The pose is very boring, since I was mainly developing certain design ideas here, so I wanted a bit more clarity in what stuff goes where.
If you didn't guess, this was influenced by Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha series, which - including it's sequels - is an exceptionally well-built and logical series. All in all, I think it transformed the genre quite a bit.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Proper Something!
For a change, something that is actually a proper something.
That's confusing, but it's okay. This is actually very distantly NETTG-related, but we're talking of, like, the second cousin's niece or something.
I knew there was a way to draw the boots in a way that didn't imply broken angles, but I didn't quite get there. It doesn't look too horribly wrong, but it's definitely not right, either. I was a bit lazy on the fingers, but they're not obviously horrible. The gun is pure fantasy, without any contact points with reality. I quite like the hair style here, but I stole the split ponytail from something recent.
The background is uber-lazy, but does add to the image. A note to all hobbyist artists: Always draw some sort of a background, you'll need to learn to do it anyway, and it's an effective way of adding compositionary elements to the image.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Something in thumbnails
So I was thumbnailing, trying to figure out something to draw... but I didn't really come up with anything I liked, so here are the thumbnails. You will see them again, once this sheet gets filled.
I don't write enough in these posts, perhaps because I generally make them so late, it's hard to concentrate. Nevertheless, there should be some interesting stuff shortly, now that I'm used to being back here.
I did see Pirates 3. It was quite good, really. Epic, perhaps even a bit too epic.... But still, fun.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Most Curious Something.
The old OC1.1something, acts very oddily with two monitors and my tablet, depending on the mode, I presume. In any case, I ended up doodling this in PSP9. I have some pencil-stuff, too, but I'm still being way too critical, or something.
Today's theme: It's better to post something than nothing.
Right now, I'm not doing so good. I don't like deadlines, even with the whoosh noises. I mean, they're good for me, but I still don't like 'em.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
All systems operational
Friday, May 25, 2007
We're currently experiencing technical difficulties
That's a royal 'We', as in I'm only talking of myself.
...
So, my scanner sorta decided not to work. No problem. I'm sure it's some sort of driver issue, it'll be fixed in a jiffy. Hopefully.
If not, I'll be drawing with my tablet.
...
So, my scanner sorta decided not to work. No problem. I'm sure it's some sort of driver issue, it'll be fixed in a jiffy. Hopefully.
If not, I'll be drawing with my tablet.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Something, free of time #2.
I... actually like this?
Uguu~
I don't know who she is. Some sort of new wave heroine? Someone running on an obstacle course?
"Something" started as a way of keeping track of daily drawing, I don't really need to track that separately any more, so I'll switch to ordinary numbering from now on, probably.
I went over early NETTG line strips. They're quite good, really. A lot of it is badly drawn by today's standards, and quite a bit is blurry and dark - the scanner and monitor I had back then are to blame for that. Composition and pacing are really pleasant, I actually enjoy reading it. Too bad there's so little of it.
The pacing early on is quite nice, but it gets a tad compressed in chapter one, due to the glacial progress.
I need to draw more comics.
*edit* Of course, now I'm starting to spot errors. It's all edumacational or some such.
Uguu~
I don't know who she is. Some sort of new wave heroine? Someone running on an obstacle course?
"Something" started as a way of keeping track of daily drawing, I don't really need to track that separately any more, so I'll switch to ordinary numbering from now on, probably.
I went over early NETTG line strips. They're quite good, really. A lot of it is badly drawn by today's standards, and quite a bit is blurry and dark - the scanner and monitor I had back then are to blame for that. Composition and pacing are really pleasant, I actually enjoy reading it. Too bad there's so little of it.
The pacing early on is quite nice, but it gets a tad compressed in chapter one, due to the glacial progress.
I need to draw more comics.
*edit* Of course, now I'm starting to spot errors. It's all edumacational or some such.
Something without a date
Hngaa!
Hmm. I may have found -- or perhaps rediscovered -- something. Maybe. I have a slight problem with my "Something" files --- a lot of them have actual content of some sort, so just dropping them into my "something" folder seems somehow wrong. Also, I generally used a date-numbering system, which, while a good way of keeping track of when I draw, doesn't work so nicely with specific topics, which don't fit into the concept of "Something" that well in any case... but... where was I?
Numbers, right! Dates also have the problem - what if I draw more than one "something"-type picture in a day?
What is the difference between this and Sketchydoodles? Not much, except there's more thought in this. I guess this is, in reality, more of a sketchydoodle, but I never promised consistency in my file naming habits.
In any case, I would've drawn more little boxes, but the big sketch covered so much space, it already skipped so much I didn't want to.
If this post makes little sense, it's all your imagination. Yes. Or maybe I should sleep, take your pick.
I've been reading Planet Karen today. Nice and depressing.
Oh, and: the Fan Fiction Mailing List currently exists as a Google Group, mainly.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Mmmohdear... GD Junk
Amazingly blocked tonight.
The fun thing 'bout GD is that it allows me to play around with shapes and lines, without worrying too much 'bout looking neat, good or correct. This can be useful from time to time.
But, seriously. Amazingly blocked. I will post something less sucky tomorrow-ish. Was on a cabin for a couple of days. Still too cold to swim, in my opinion, but it was still nice. I slept and ate, and did very little else. I did have some books and my drawing gear with me, but it just didn't feel appropriate to either sleep or draw very much.
I wanted to draw something more sensible today, but my lines just wouldn't do it. Weird, sorta. I'll work through it, and you'll get something interesting someday, I hope.
There's plenty of stuff for me to draw, once I get past this. It's been a while since I've been blocked actually. This time, the reason is probably because of the silence a while back. Perhaps I'll do more copies or maybe drawing from photos - or nature - might help. I am lacking something - some sort of knowledge, or wisdom from my drawings.
The fun thing 'bout GD is that it allows me to play around with shapes and lines, without worrying too much 'bout looking neat, good or correct. This can be useful from time to time.
But, seriously. Amazingly blocked. I will post something less sucky tomorrow-ish. Was on a cabin for a couple of days. Still too cold to swim, in my opinion, but it was still nice. I slept and ate, and did very little else. I did have some books and my drawing gear with me, but it just didn't feel appropriate to either sleep or draw very much.
I wanted to draw something more sensible today, but my lines just wouldn't do it. Weird, sorta. I'll work through it, and you'll get something interesting someday, I hope.
There's plenty of stuff for me to draw, once I get past this. It's been a while since I've been blocked actually. This time, the reason is probably because of the silence a while back. Perhaps I'll do more copies or maybe drawing from photos - or nature - might help. I am lacking something - some sort of knowledge, or wisdom from my drawings.
Friday, May 18, 2007
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?
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?
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Sketchu Reborn Reborushon!
Everything I draw looks horrible to me right now. Nevertheless, I need to blog more - it does me good, gives shape, form and purpose to my days. As I can just as easily sleep all days long and do absolutely nothing, this is kinda important.
I did the "what's going on with my life" ranting in my Finnish language blog, so no more of that.
I am in some sort of a transitional phase right now, it would seem.
In any case, art! Above, we have horrendous junk. Not particularly badly drawn, just pointless, slightly disproportionate and annoying. Partially because I haven't been drawing every day lately. my current posting ratio on this blog is roughly one post on 3 days out of five, which isn't bad all in all, but in practice, all the downtime is focused on few spots. Like everything else I do, my urge to draw varies seasonally.
...My English goes weird when I'm sleepy. This doesn't make sense on basic English language level, but I think you can decipher what I'm trying to say here, in my clumsy fashion, anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.
Lucky Star seems like a fun anime. How fun, exactly, I know not. But, fun. Plenty of other good anime this season, too.
The next comic page doesn't really have any hard spots in it, just work. I've been trying to focus on school stuff, so when I do badly with that, I do even worse with everything else. Timeboxing might be useful there, but suckiness in one area of my life does bleed into every other area, definitely.
I'm currently relying solely on a .7mm mechanical pencil for my drawings due to the fact I forgot my pens and pencils. I can buy new ones if I really need to, I guess, but even when I have my pencils, I still draw with just the .7 mechanical one relatively often, so it's not a big problem. Plus, there's a new scanner in the HP F380 multi-thingy. Relatively cheap ink cartridges for a HP device, too.
I just need to draw more, and write more. Consider this the end of a monosyllablous phase. Doing stuff begets doing more stuff, doing less-->doing less. So, when I reduced the amount of writing I did, it may have bled into the amount of drawing I did. I don't know, really.
Norihiro Yagi is so good that he's become one of the manga-kas whose name I'm committing to memory. Others being Kosuke Fujishima, Ken Akamatsu, Rumiko Takahashi and Yukito Kishiro, currently. Masamune Shirow I remember, but don't really pay that much attention to. Takeshi Obata's name I haven't memorized, but I do like his works, too. I'm not much of a Naoko Takeuchi fan, although her artwork is quite lovely in a shoujo way. I quite like Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, too.
Repeat of "quite." Fortunately I'm not writing prose right now.
I did the "what's going on with my life" ranting in my Finnish language blog, so no more of that.
I am in some sort of a transitional phase right now, it would seem.
In any case, art! Above, we have horrendous junk. Not particularly badly drawn, just pointless, slightly disproportionate and annoying. Partially because I haven't been drawing every day lately. my current posting ratio on this blog is roughly one post on 3 days out of five, which isn't bad all in all, but in practice, all the downtime is focused on few spots. Like everything else I do, my urge to draw varies seasonally.
...My English goes weird when I'm sleepy. This doesn't make sense on basic English language level, but I think you can decipher what I'm trying to say here, in my clumsy fashion, anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.
Lucky Star seems like a fun anime. How fun, exactly, I know not. But, fun. Plenty of other good anime this season, too.
The next comic page doesn't really have any hard spots in it, just work. I've been trying to focus on school stuff, so when I do badly with that, I do even worse with everything else. Timeboxing might be useful there, but suckiness in one area of my life does bleed into every other area, definitely.
I'm currently relying solely on a .7mm mechanical pencil for my drawings due to the fact I forgot my pens and pencils. I can buy new ones if I really need to, I guess, but even when I have my pencils, I still draw with just the .7 mechanical one relatively often, so it's not a big problem. Plus, there's a new scanner in the HP F380 multi-thingy. Relatively cheap ink cartridges for a HP device, too.
I just need to draw more, and write more. Consider this the end of a monosyllablous phase. Doing stuff begets doing more stuff, doing less-->doing less. So, when I reduced the amount of writing I did, it may have bled into the amount of drawing I did. I don't know, really.
Norihiro Yagi is so good that he's become one of the manga-kas whose name I'm committing to memory. Others being Kosuke Fujishima, Ken Akamatsu, Rumiko Takahashi and Yukito Kishiro, currently. Masamune Shirow I remember, but don't really pay that much attention to. Takeshi Obata's name I haven't memorized, but I do like his works, too. I'm not much of a Naoko Takeuchi fan, although her artwork is quite lovely in a shoujo way. I quite like Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, too.
Repeat of "quite." Fortunately I'm not writing prose right now.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Something experimental... again
Friday, May 4, 2007
Something experimental
Monday, April 30, 2007
Doodling something!
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