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.

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.

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.

All systems operational

Get on with it!

A fragment of a sheet with bunch 'a doodles. The rest is just too sucky for me to post. I know I'm too critical most of the time, but... I can't help it, I guess.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Something experimental... again

One wonders how dark this will turn out... as it seems these things look darker on the net for some reason. Well, shouldn't be too bad.

Terra's hair is like that because she's on the move.

I invoke ISLAGIATT!

Something experimental

Minimal drawing, much more painting than usual. Hmmm... Very quickly done since I Should Be Sleeping!