Thought I'd post an update for the Alita picture, just in case anyone thought it was in 'development hell'; truth is I've cut back on the time allotment for these things by a fair margin (and given I need some new pencils to commit to new drawings, that's been just a tad slow going as well), mainly due to having less memory on my machine and not wanting to overkill it (tbf, the program isn't that big a resource hog, at least w/ images the way I've sized them). Even so w/ all things considered it'll be finished by early next week, but until then, here's said update:
Might actually look like little's been done or shit's been taken OUT, but this is only due to having the top layer set to Normal at a tinting opacity. Really, this is kinda how my stuff tends to look during development; lots of layer setting changes for the sake of clarity and detailing. A lot of artists tend to use 'temp layers' but given my small RAM amount I don't enjoy that luxury. So a lot of details get done in bulk, replicated, altered, painstakingly altered on a pixel basis, and flushed through more layer settings for the sake of guiding other details and strokes than a Kardashian sister goes through husbands in a month. I might actually do an illustration afterwards just to show how I tend to do some things, if there's any demand and time for it of course.
Alright then; I'll be back over the weekend w/ more stuff. So just do you 'till then. L8r!
Good Saturday evening people; I'm going to be playing a lot of Zelda:LTTP over this weekend, and just generally relax down. It's been a busy week. Thankfully this past Thursday I got an urge to once again pick up my acrylics, b/c quite honestly I've been getting a bit tired of being on the computer all the time for my artwork purposes. In fact, this could be a turning point in how I carry my art out forward for the foreseeable future.
Truly, I'd rather not talk much about it, but let's just say I'm nowhere near done w/ my traditional painting yet. Never said I was, and I really love the sense of 'freeness' it provides. So, here's a few paintings (alla-primas) I did over the past few days, w/ a very small title and description for them. The constants in these paintings are, quite simply:
-Galeria paint: Crimson, Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Burnt Umber, Mixing White, Titanium White, Ivory Black. That's it.
-Paper: Forget the specific name, but it's Canson brand, likely 200/250gsm, linen sort mainly for watercolor, but obviously I wasn't doing watercolor techs here.
-Brushes: Mainly my flat 5, sometimes my short and the fan brush for parts of one picture.
My goal in doing these was to rediscover my interest w/ traditional painting and my acrylics, which sorta died down a good deal over the summer. In retrospect it's probably b/c they were a bit beyond me and I was too methodological w/ them. Maybe I'm too methodological w/ painting in general, so it was a very pleasant break to just grab the brush and lay the strokes where they may. Each picture follows a basic idea of small palettes, and I did most of the mixing directly on the support. If I could learn a bit more about how these colors interacted w/ each other and which ones could form good palettes together, I was set. And that's what's happening.
The Boy: The first one done. Used a three-color palette of Earth hues. Wasn't focusing on peak retention or strokes as indication of movement and energy. Reminds me of Ed off Cowboy Bebop x3.
StaringMan: 3rd one done; flesh tones are always a bitch, but in this case (and for the others) I had a general idea of what colors to pick up on the brush and in how much a load. Also, since there was no attempt at precision it went pretty well x3.
Icy World: 2nd done; worked a lot w/ Ivory Black. Black's usually shunned w/ traditional painting but I'm not stupid and latch onto common myths for the hell of it. If used sensibly it can work very well for mood. I'd love to have some Mars Black around to see how these two differ. Also worked w/ what I would Consider Payne's Grey, and a sort of purple; can't remember exactly which purple I mixed up tho.
FruitSet: One of the last done yesterday, really just wanted an excuse to use up the rest of the paint on the palette. This and the rest below more or less shared the same palette set-up, but that will probably be obvious even w/o me mentioning it.
ThatGirl: I guess these are the same women, different hairstyle notwithstanding. I like the bottom one much more, just wished I gave her more of a damn face!
TheBird: Out of the alla primas here this one's my favorite. Got to do a lot of neat peak retention tests and use brushstrokes to indicate energy and composition in most details. That was always an issue w/ me before; using brushes ill-suited for their job, and not playing enough w/ depth. I'm over that problem now ;).
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So as you can guess, I have plenty more of these to get around to doing. If things pan out soon I'll be buying back up more paint supplies, b/c now it's really dawned on me, I can't go w/o traditional. Blessed as I am for what I have been learning digitally and continue to learn there, I'd feel a bit cheap w/o my brushes and tubes of paint. Of course, each of the two have their own merits and use, so I'll continue doing fanart digitally (in terms of painting it) but will be taking a much greater initiative now to do original pieces traditionally.
Speaking of fanart, I have a new post for my Alita pic, and some sketches of Cerula (aka Daymn She's Fine!):
After a little more clean-up and inking I'll finally get to painting her on Monday. Eager to try a few new things w/ her, mainly dealing w/ transparency. I'd also like to attempt not using the lines so heavily (I started the process of that w/ Bilstein), since a lot of lines is starting to be counter-productive to my process. As for when it'll be finished,...welp, before the holidays sounds about nice (there a couple other pictures to work on too, but I might skip coloring them in favor of just inking).
Cerula is one of my favorite BAA characters; she's powerful, has heart, cunning skill and intelligence, and most importantly, a nice pair of bosoms ;). Oh, and she's a vampire, but not of the lame Twilight variety. Playing up on sex appeal aside, I dunno if I'll proceed w/ finishing these ones out, or just proceed to other renditions of the girl. The "sketch" mentality is taking over my whole process, and I'm not making it a mandatory note to finish up every picture I draw out anymore, just do what I feel like (but of course having some sense of direction along the way). Seeing as how I do like how the one on the left looks tho, I will most likely finish her up, before maybe drawing her in proper canon outfit or w/e.
Okay, that's it for my update. I'm off to cook lunch and watch Eatman and ATVOTOMS. Stay warm, awesome, and edged. Until next time, l8r out.
What's up people? I'm gonna try things a bit differently than usual now. Before I was uploading work both here and to my dA on the same day, but now I think it might be a better fit to save blog updates until the weekend. Particular pieces-mainly fanart-I'll probably be uploading to dA first when they're complete (I'll be aiming to do at least one a week now, whether digitally or by hand, MOTL), and tbh I do get *slightly* more traffic there vs here. Maybe when I become more prolific, people would take care to search out me blog more often x3.
But yes, while I will be updating finished fanart pieces to dA first now, I'll be cutting out all the WIP posts there, and I've already stopped uploading non-fanart pieces to the site as I said I would. And given I won't be doing anything w/ CA.org until next year, that gives me plenty of time to work on getting as much content as I can to this blog and working on my Pro-Spec site (which I'll actually be doing l8r today).
Okay, so this is a bit of a big update; let's just get to it then shall we?
First, a new venture. I've always been particularly interested in wanting to make my own video game, and a while ago I got a lot of inspiration for an idea I'm now working on moderately btwn pictures. That's all I'm saying of it now, but suffice to say it'd be neat to get it into playable form. Only problem is, I don't really have any programming experience and my artwork is only now beginning to get to a point I think could work well in main projects such as a video game. I could just as well get a group of experienced programmers to do the hard work for me, but not only is lack of money an issue there, that's also a bit of a cop-out. This is my project, my first project, and I'd like to devote as much of myself to it as possible. It'll take a little while to learn how to do the technical stuff, but I know I have the capability to do it.
Rather than using a programming language or a proprietary software like Flash, I'm going to attempt coding the game in HTML, particularly using the multimedia tags and <canvas> element. It seems like the W3C group has paid solid enough attention to the innovations of the net since Adobe bought Flash on-board, and I've seen some very neat examples of what the technology can do in capable hands. There's also the fact that the opportunities the new HTML5 standard can bring may-if the pieces fall into place as they should-remove the need for heavy-proprietary plug-in software like Flash which, good as it is, is also a bit expensive. There's also plenty of other potential benefits to HTML5, but long story short, I'm gonna give it a try and using such a standard will allow me to keep most of the money spending to game assets and marketing, while still getting to the largest possible web audience (most browsers support many HTML5 standards, the exception being the newer Internet Explorers :P).
At the moment I'm *just* learning HTML (well, again...I spent some time a few years ago at a technical college where it was one of the course material) and it's going pretty well. Just basic stuff, and I'm hoping by the time I get to the game-relevant stuff I have a solid base of how the technology works and can be implemented. In fact I'm going to attempt putting together pseudo-sites as I learn and maybe even create a website out of all of this l8r down the road next year, but for now I'll just keep things modest.
This is the first picture update I have, it being the base to the background for my Pro-Spec site. Haven't had much time over the week to work on this actually, but that should be less an issue now. I'm not sure just how much detail I'll explicitally draw and ink, as I won't be using the lineart in the finished piece anyway (it's a background!), but at least I know what to do w/ the scenery's mood. It's set in late evening, about shortly after sunset. I want it to be very neon-intense w/ a slight cyberpunk complex in there for good measure, while still keeping it grounded to what you'd expect of a modern-day metropolis. I'll have updates as it gets attended to.
Some more work on my Alita fanart piece; got around to doing the inking and starting some clean-up now. Although I was considering NOT doing any inking this time, I also think my initial reasons for wanting to stop that were ill-informed. The Bilstein picture had some really chunking work on it which I wasn't happy w, but I only have myself to blame for that. And it's not like I don't know how to moderate my pressure (although it's a bit difficult to do so when you're outdoors and it's feeling like 40 degrees).
So this time, I've taken more precautions, mainly to only ink in room-temperature conditions and to not be so lazy w/ 'reading' the pencil work. This'll be one of the next pictures to get painted, altho I'll have to do this in addition to two other fan-art pieces I'll post some roughs of next week.
Finally, the Bilstein picture. It turned out pretty well; I learned a lot more about lighting and NOT working too much w/ the underpainting base layer this time, and definitely got a stronger handling on contrasting values. Even managed to tone down most of the lines where appropriate. I still wish I could've drawn him a bit more 'badass' like, but there's always next time (which will itself benefit w/ me now being familiar w/ his design much more). This picture also solidified my color palette approach and has taught me in balancing the palette. In truth I think differently than most others in deciding what colors to put on the palette, but at least I know now that way of thinking-which I might elaborate on some day when I'm on my deathbed xD-has been paying off.
I'll also take this time to make a vow to begin doing more traditional painting again. Even tho oils would be preferable, I still like the acrylics and doing some traditional work should help balance out the monotony that eventually sets in when doing so many pieces digitally in a row. That's really all I care to say of that right now; as usual, letting the actual work do most of the talking when it's ready to present itself.
'Kay; that's all for now. Be back soon, so try and have fun even when the frost is locking up your joints (particularly for those of us on the East Coast, it's always like that this time of year) and turning you into an ice statue Sub-Zero would be proud to demolish. L8r!
What's up everyone? Finally I can post up the finished image for my Mai picture, which will just serve as a short reprieve as of this time. I really tried to take my skills up a few notches w/ her, and imo the results were worth the headaches. I'll also mention some other stuff too towards the end, concerning my inactivity on a few other accounts and a few decisions that are for the best.
Yes, this is the same image that I had posted some time ago, but even I didn't foresee it being taken in this direction. I was really just going to do w/ this one what I did w/ the Chun-Li picture, before realizing that'd be a cop-out. I tried something bold (for me) w/ my avatar image and learned alot doing it, so it would be a crime to just rest on laurels and not do something challenging w/ this one. Next thing I know, traces of sunlight were penetrating through the blinds in my room and hitting the computer monitor. Normally that's annoying, but oddly enough it gave me a great idea, to try and play with lighting in a new way, hinting some form of interference. I would have pushed for something much more, but such can be implemented in anohther picture instead, whenever I get back to inking it out :S.
As for the water, I'm not quite so sure where the idea came from. Maybe a thought in my head went along the lines of "she's nekkid, maybe she should be sweating some". I looked around on Google for reference images and had to take some time to figure out how to implement what I saw, but it's actually work I did on my older Poison WIP that gave a giant boost in making it work as well as it has. I guess for this image, I'd say she's moreso wet than sweaty; indicating the differences btwn the two (they're extremely subtle of course) will take some time, as will contouring lines of water to the body's form (in this instance a tablet would be a significant help), but for a first effort it came out bangin'.
And of course, since it's fall I went w/ autumn-esque colors for the background ;3.
Like I said, this was a challenging picture to attend to once I decided to implement the lighting and the water; those two aspects easily doubled the time to complete it. Yet I have zero regrets on the matter. I think many, MANY artists are afraid to tackle subject matter like water, because of its innate complexity. I'm definitely no master on that, but I feel more confident in drawing and painting wet, sweaty peoople now, and wet-like items of clothing and the such. Certainly, I'll be building on this (and what was accomplished w/ the avatar picture too) in the next few pieces, which are about on the horizon. So I hope you all like what I was able to accomplish here..depending on how things go I might use this as a portfolio piece.
Not to take the festive mood down a notch, but I'm also using this time to announce that I'm renigging on my CA.org and dA accounts. It's too much to go into right now, but given the past few weeks I realize now how I work best as an artist. I think back to when I was at my peak in terms of creating complex pieces quickly (a peak I still feel I haven't reached or surpassed just yet, but am definitely running full gear into obliterating given this pace ;), and during that time I didn't really take much to frequently seeking criticism or posting stuff up. I just isolated myself w/ my work, and did what I felt made me happy, completing it in due time and maybe doing something w/ it from there. Granted, I'm really hoping to become a professional freelance illustrator but I know what that has in store, and it doesn't neccessarily involve what and how I've been conducting myself online so far.
Honestly, at this point I think it is best for me to scale back on my online networking, at least until I get myself to the level I want in terms of bulk of art and skillset. I should also be more honest in working at a pace that's natural to me, knowing when to push, and when to kick back. Altho I won't be having my Pro-Spec blog up until early next year, at least then, I know I'll have a hefty deal of art to publish there and a solid lock on my process. Sorry all; I just learn best when I attend to myself in my own space, my own world, the outside inconsequential to my drive and focus.
To that end, I'll keep my CA.org account open but won't start publishing there until January. As for dA, my current account is maybe loaded w/ too much excess baggage, in terms of the things that have occured w/ me and others over the time since it was created, and it just isn't very professional. I'll be deleting it completely and opening up a new account under my new screename 'fngz', also in January. And this time it'll be strictly professional (tho just to the fanart side of things). For the time being I'll keep up the current account and post this and a final few selection of fan pieces under that name, but from then on everything will be under the new account.
....Ready to pick the mood back up? Heh, cool; here's an update to my Gally/Yoko/Alita picture:
The perspective for the background is being shifted from what I first imagined, and the image as a whole is now a lot different from the one I was using as a mental ref from the graphic novel. At this point her form is basically complete; I'm giving her the cape she wears in the first few volumes of Last Order, and as for that right hand? Possibly a plasma sword. Her left forearm meanwhile is completely gone, so I gotta make that look banged up. I'll have to work a little less on this one as I finish up the Bilstien image over the next few days for that contest entry, but it shouldn't be too long before this one is complete.
That's all I gotz for today. If you're wondering about why no new sketches...yeah I'm not doing that anymore. Sure there's still sketches being drawn, but I don't finish a lot of them, and the ones I tend to really like (like the Alita one) end up becoming full paintings anyway. Maybe one day I'll dump the sketches to whoever, wherever but we're a shitload of time away from that happening. Until next week, do your thing and enjoy life. Catch 'ya l8r.
Good afternoon you all; the middle of the week is upon us and you know what that means...yep, nothing much lol. Who ever REALLY goes into Wednesdays expecting them to rock their world? Oh but don't feel too bad; I'm here to try and inject a small dose of X...and not the kind to lead to wild kinky night you-know-what [if you're looking for that try the blog three jumps forward ;].
There are a few pictures I'll be posting. Well, more like a few sketches and some progress for my Bilstein image. I could mention about the shitload of other pictures being worked on, but for me art is more the process of showing, and everything else is either too little or too far completed to show off today. Anyway, now that such has been established, let's cut to the 'ish.
I've been doing some massive reading on the Battle Angel Alita graphic novels since a while ago, as I attested to in the previous blog. It's good-fashioned cyberpunk sci-fi seinen [I think it classifies as seinen, since it-in my opinion-is a little too complex and violent at times to be shonen, even if most of those injured or kill are cyborgs...cyborgs got feelings too ya'll] and was something I had been wanting to get the full story on since seeing the OVA some years ago, and again just recently. If you haven't already, check them out, especially if you're hoping James Cameron's adaptation will live up to the source [I'm hoping so, squarely off his work on the Terminator films...oddly I still have zero interest in watching Avatar, maybe the material doesn't strike a strong enough cord w/ me just now].
Before too long I knew I'd wind up doing some Alita sketches, which is what I have here posted above and below. They aren't anything special these sketches; still trying to work out varying issues of perspective and anatomy, only using a recognizable character this time. Since these ones are sketches, there's no telling if I'll complete them or not, but if I do I'd rather save the final versions for some sort of sketchbook. In fact, that likely will be the new plan w/ this; post w/e sketches are around for the week and finish them for inclusion in some form of something later on down the road. That way I can do new sketches for each week rather than reposting updates.
I will, tho, be posting some more progress for this sketch as it's turned into a full inked and colored image. Alita is quite gorgeous, but it took me a volume or two to really notice. And those pouty 'octopus' lips just make her even sweeter to me. There was one graphic in the extra stories graphic novel where Alita [in some revealing short-shorts] is posed ready to battle a quite formidable nemesis. The pose and overall composition and foreshortening work on it inspired me to try a recreation of that image, my own way, and altered enough to not look like a copy. It'll also give more good practice on many things, too numerous to mention.
I just started drawing this one yesterday admist completing the Avatar image and working on other pictures [not to mention attending to ho-hum chores and duties], but so far we atleast got a head and upper torso defined xD. Still figuring what I want the full shot to be in terms of a background, lighting, color etc, but for now I'm just gonna concentrate on getting the pencils laid fully by Friday. If it's alright, I might start uploading progress at each big step w/ this picture, just to give an indication of how my process is like, altho I know there will be quite some hurdles along the way that could make that impossible, but oh well, it's worth a try.
As for this big lug? Well he's still waiting to get finished, but one thing Mr. Bilstein needs to understand is that he's possibly the most complex-designed character I've ever tackled, and stupid me had to throw this overly extravagant chair into the mix as well. I have had some lousy luck in finding really good reference shots for him, so some details are being made up, others taken liberty of, etc, but there isn't any major compromise in that regard. I wanted the chair to look more Egyptian, but...well, meh, I could use some studying of Egyptian architecture sometime if in case something like this pops up again. Full-blown work on this one probably won't start until I finish the Mai image this week, but once it does, it should go by fairly quick, hopefully just a week or so, which would complete the dude right on time.
So that will finish the updates for this week. Well, I will upload the Mai image btwn Saturday and Sunday, so this technically isn't it. But until that time comes, I wish the best of prosperity for everyone out there, just so long as you do what you love. Truly, life isn't worth a damn if you hate what it contains for you day in and day out. Oh, and put down the Iphones for a while eh; Jobs wants you all to stop texting him so much in Heaven already.
Happy Sunday everyone; this weekend has been filled w/ not one, but TWO birthdays, back-to-back. Saturday's was my nephew's 9th bday, where I did what I could and entertained him and the neighborhood friends outside w/ my collection of PS2 games and the assistance of a fellow neighbor. Altho the sun threatened to melt the system and television away, we found a method to deal, and despite the rambunctiousness of the children @ times it was pretty fun overall, cake & ice cream and all. Today's one of my older sister's birthday, a lot more low-key and she probably will be treating herself out to some fun w/ friends, but all in all happy b-day and good wishes there too.
As can be imagined, I'm either too into other things or too tired to post up anything anywhere this weekend, and I wanted time to relax from that, just for a couple of days if could manage. Progress is coming along very swiftly w/ all the new art projects, altho I have yet to start my Bilstien contribution (and that's gotta be done by the end of the month). There's been a major influx in new sketches, mainly to put on CA.org, but I will probably eventually ink and color some of them, depending on the mood. Either case it's neat to be able to find some time each day to work on these sketches (I only call them sketches b/c they aren't inked and colored), it has REALLY been helping me get quite better and more open in concepts chosen. Quite liberating actually, since there's no need to stick to the concepts of a well-established character, and it also gives time to sketch out some cool concepts that may or may not ever be taken in other directions. That being said, I'll dump the sketches near the end of Friday, but they'll likely be up on CA.org earlier.
Wednesday I'll post what's been done of my Avatar and Mai images, and a rough for Bilstien. Depending on what happens Monday (I need to head out and get some supplies and handle another delicate manner, altho I don't HAVE to do them on that day,...it could be put off until some other time in the week tbh), I might be able to finish one of those aforementioned two by then, or at least that's the hope. Since I've gotten a pretty damn good hang on the tools and the process that fits me, tho, they're getting done much faster than expected.
That's all I gots in me for today; if you haven't yet, I'd recommend checking out the Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita graphic novels. Very good stuff, and I hope Cameron's adaptation lives up to the energy of the source material, and is atleast as faithful as the 90s OVA was (given that, the OVA took some giant liberties). For w/e reason I find Alita to be pretty cute, battle tendencies and all. I just love her spunk and she's got a pretty sexy fit body to boot x3.
