Some Brushtrokes

Deadmau5 - Some Chords

The boy and his dragon

Quick doodle inspired by a dream I had. Loosely inspired - I only dreamt about dragons, and they were huge, the size of a good stadium huge, I mean.

Photoshop

Sad Bunny

Burning viking

Just a doodle. Trying to figure out why painting in Photoshop is an impossible task.
Also, not sure why he's dual wielding shields...

Barrier

Bible and Irene... the latter freaking out over something huge explosion, the former putting up a magical barrier so they won't get crushed by the debris. That's right, the s is NOT silent.

Magical cave

Wow I probably spent too long on this damn exercise.

Painter 12, again.

P12

Just playing with Painter 12, still... I like doing random busts

More Painter 12

Trying to explore different brushes... this is a combination of Real 2B pencil and some custom (read "I blindly messed with some slider bars") oil brush.

More Painter 12

Loving painter.

Trying out new brushes... finding that combination that just -works- is a daunting task... simply because a brush can suck as a default but turn into something magical with enough fiddling of various settings. I don't know how long it'll take me to simply try out everything.

Anyway, this was a combination of custom digital watercolours and real 2B pencil.


"Nature"

Painter 12!

I drew a thing

Pic of thing:

Desert sky

Inspired by a Gnomon colour theory video.

Phee and Miri

Redesigned an old character from college years - Phee, a succubus. Now, I don't really do overly sexy characters, so Phee's kind of a challenge to portray. I wanted her to have that Little Mermaid innocence to her looks - she was never meant to be a sex-crazed creature or, like Jessica Rabbit, be a classy dame trapped in ridiculously sensual body language. Whenever Phee seduces, it's more like acting on instinct than clearly plotting moral destruction of some poor sap.

Miri's acting as her bodyguard in a journey. Being of a rather stoic and inexpressive character she offers a nice contrast to Phee's effervescence. Phee's really impressed with her bodyguard and I just love drawing her annoying the crap out of Miri.


Oh yeah, almost forgot, Phee can disguise herself as a human and hide her horns and goat legs (not pictured)

aaaaaa

tl;dr - look at purdy pictures of gurlz

Gussie's Escape

Some preliminary sketches from a short story...

The source of Gussie's unhappiness...

...as revealed in conversation with her mom. :)

Gussie and Prissie

Okay, so. More of Prissie, Gussie's friend from finishing school, and Gussie herself. I love the interactions between the two. Gussie's such a freaking spaz, I love it. Priscilla's protective and mothering nature shines whenever the two are together.


ONTO THE ARTS!


Just a couple of unrelated sketchers, with a lovestruck Gussie at the bottom. I'm sure in the sketch where she's peeking around the brick corner, she's spying on her crush. Augustine wouldn't be terribly confident in the manners of romance, I imagine, what with her wounded confidence and stuffs.

Moving right along, then. A strangely out of character chipper Gussie. She's clearly scheming, though, which is probably why Priscilla looks depressed. I think they're supposed to be in Paris.

And finally, more random sketches of the two doing school stuff - studying for an exam at the top (Prissie's done studying - she's not the dimmest girl you'd meet, but... far from brightest, too). The girls are both part of the choir, hence the singing sketch... oh, and more spazzing out from Gussie at the bottom.

Miri garbage

Some old sketches I'd promised myself I'd get around to scanning/etc.

CS5!

CS5 is fun, I played around with their mixer brush tool. The blending on the fly is fun, but it gets difficult if I want to introduce a new colour, kept switching to the regular brush.

Now, I generally don't go for the Rorschach method of drawing random shapes until something comes to the surface, but this time random scribbling worked resulting in this insect... thing.

Michiru

Drew Sailor Neptune just in trying out a new technique in colouring, where you also colour in the lines. Not sure what to say about it - I had a difficult time coming up with the colour scheme, because I didn't want to go for the usual 'hey, since her hair is green, lets have her wear the same hues!' I still tried to keep it all girly, despite... really disliking girly stuff. Oh well.

... Anyway, I re-did it about 3 times, I just think it's time to put this one to bed.

Gussie and Prissy

Gussie has a friend! Huzzah!

Priscilla O'Something (because she's OYRISH) is the financially poorer, but much more in love with life ginger friend of dear Augustine.

We're getting our computers REPLACED WITH FREAKING MACS PRO (Mac Pros?...Although, iPods Touch, etc.), but the IT is messing with my scanner and long story short, I'm resorting to Photo Booth to get these digital.

The text may be hard to read, but it says:
Prissie: "Oh, no! You failed the history exam?! Your parents are gonna kill you, isn't this the fifth time this semester?"

Gussie: "Yeah, I know."

Tax Code genie

So.

A friend suggested I draw a tax code genie, an entity that only grants tax-related wishes. Pardon the image quality, I gots no scanners at home.

At first I was somewhat self-conscious about not being able to come up with a solution for his lower body, but then I figured... he never uses his legs anyway, always sitting behind a desk, so it's okay that they're an ethereal tail.

Anyway, I'm proud of his triangular ears (developed over time, should be seen in the biggest sketch) and his cuffs.

Green jacket

"Real 2B Pencil" tool in Painter.

The first time colours cooperated with me, and I didn't have to fight tooth and nail to get greens and purples to look normal on her face. Somewhat of a success, overall.

Gussie study

Dear old Gussie, I've abandoned you for quite some time.

Part of the problem is that she always has a pained expression on her face, as she's a suffering teenager, misunderstood by the world, abandoned by luck, etc, etc (all this is, of course, how she sees it - there's nothing particularly abandoned or suffering about a girl growing up in a wealthy family). And drawing a character that's constantly miserable tends to make me miserable also, and I don't want to deal with their emo anymore.

But anyway, I dusted her off again, as I started playing with oil pastels in Painter. Just laid down the values in a desaturated red. Then added colour in PS, plus some gradient layers... my only qualm about this is that I started with a white background... big mistake, I'll have to keep in mind to change it in later attempts...

Here's an older version, before I changed her face a bunch:

Painter...

 Oh, Painter. I really have a love-hate relationship with you.

Finally did something worth showing. D:

Rapunzel

Tangled came out on DVD, reigniting my love for the facial animation subtleties in that movie. Oh, holy crap, it's wonderfully executed.

. . .anyway, I drew some Rapunzel:

Miri again

Just some 'Miri sketches. The two people she's hugging are her adopted fathers. . . looks a little weird, because none of them appear to be wearing clothes, but it was mainly done as an exercise in getting volumes of people's bodies to interact. And the chick attempting to hug her at the bottom is her adopted sis. . . Miri is confused by hugs from that lady.

Oh, and some facial expressions. I like the rage one.

Pauline et al

Oh, boy, I fell behind on posting this one.

Basically, my churchy lady developed somewhat beyond just being a doodle. She's got a name, Pauline, and two nieces, pictured here. Augustine is the grumpy teen, with Sophie, her younger sister.

Pauline lives in America, and her sister Margaret, the mother to the two girls, is married to some rich banker and lives in London. The girls are usually shipped off to Pauline's for a couple of months each summer for that wholesome New England air that Margaret misses occasionally. I'll paste a chat I had with a friend towards the end of the post, if anyone cares to delve deeper into their backstories. Anyway, here's the trio posing for a ye olde tyme photoe.

And these are (from left to right) - couple Margaret sketches. Most of the 1930's dress design seemed to be about streamlining the silhouette. Since Margaret's hips are anything but slim and boyish after having two kids, I was trying to find an appropriate solution - she's quite the fashionista (and married to a rich banker means you can afford to indulge in every clothing whim), so she still has to look lovely, despite whatever shortcomings in her proportions.

In the middle, Margaret is brushing Augustine's (or Gussie's) hair, whilst her daughter is moping about not being pretty enough, or something. Her mother embarrasses her by sharing her insecurities when she was Gussie's age. . . Naturally, Gussie thinks her mother is making light of her personal tragedies, because the things she's listing off seem foolish.

On the far right is a random sketch of Pauline from her missionary days in Africa. Yep.

And here's the log of my chat for anyone interested:

Stubby folks

While listening to The Hobbit audiobook (I adore Rob Inglis's voices for all the different characters), I just started absolutely itching to draw some dwarf folk.

Oh, and look, there's a random hobbit in there, too. Not Bilbo, nor Frodo, nor Samwise/Merry/Pippin. . . just a random citizen of the Shire.

Rivalry!

As of yet unnamed rival for Vivi plotting against her in some dessert competition. Ms. Noname is a celebrity pastry chef, who's not above dirty tricks to keep herself in the spotlight.

Sketches!

Practicing on making facial expressions more fluid. . . Towards the bottom I felt brave enough to attempt to put feelings into the whole body. D:

WOMBATS!!

Bizarre and long story short, odd anime fanart led me to question why human characters are represented as horses and wonder if I can't mock it with wombats. The answer is no, no I could not, because these guys are too freaking adorable and it would be an utter crime to put a Naruto headband on one of these deliciously plump bristly clumps of love.

Looked at a few photos to get the general idea. Their pointy butts are utterly hilarious and we could all benefit from having a wombat in our lives:

Churchy Lady

A coworker had an early breakfast with his church-going friend. I don't know what the lady in question looks like, but the words "churchy lady" conjured up that in my head.

I usually dislike inking intensely, so I used a 'carving' method, I suppose is the best way of calling it: I picked a brush much thicker than required, and carved out necessary thinness with my eraser. Still not sure how I feel about the long straight lines of the legs. I never know how to make them look appealing enough to suit my tastes.

Old Wounds

Miri's suit revision after seeing Tron: Legacy. Also, that was probably the most complicated turnaround I've attempted. D:

Third pose was a mother-loving nightmare. So was the fourth, but I paved at least part of the way with the third drawing... still, I never thought it's possible to have your hand cramp up from the effort.

Bible and Irene

A revival of a couple of old characters, Bible and Irene. They were created roughly six years ago, part of some epic story that I never lifted off the ground. Bible is a demon and Irene is a mage, specialising in illusions and summoning creatures.

Predictably, his race ages a lot slower than us mere mortals, so these doodles are a couple of 'what ifs'. What if the two lovers became separated for a long time and Bible eventually came back for Irene? She's wearing a somewhat less slutty garb from her original design she sported in her late teens, and I imagine she's a part of some temple or other magical institution instead of the wild adventurer type she was when she met Bible. Here's Bible's original design, by the way. Holy tight pants, Batman.

The progression of the argument was insanely fun to draw. But I don't like leaving them completely unhappy, so there's a doodle of the two during their happier times at the bottom. :]

La cuisine!

Some sketches of Vivienne's kitchen. . . I was playing around with the outside, starting out with the way out there Candyland, hey-look-at-me-I'm-so-obviously-a-pastry kind of look.

However, since Vivi inherited the property, it can't very well start out looking like a canelé. It morphed into a corner three-story property with the general store-turned-pastry shop on the bottom level, kitchen on the 2nd floor, and a cleaned out attic apartment that was used mostly for storage on the third floor. The plan of the kitchen changed dozens of times, finally solidifying into the Maya screenshot with all parts labeled.

The "thinking" page. I was playing around with various designs for the doors for the pastry oven - an otherwise boring stainless steel box on four legs. I was inspired by pastries with slices of baked apples on them:

Another 'thinking' page:

Three shots of the kitchen from various angles. I was unable to wedge a camera into the room modeled in Maya without getting crazy 3-point perspective, so I had to approximate the angles on my own. I tried not to use a ruler too often so it wouldn't have the look of a dead Drawing-101-look-at-me-practicing-perspective-shots feel to it. . . free-handing the staircase was a bit of a challenge, though. Thank goodness for good erasers. :]

Vivienne and Claude

Early stages of Vivi's design, trying to capture the confidence, the shrillness, etc.

Some possible interactions between the two:

Claude is a classy gent. . . or a clueless giant, as I honestly suspect he doesn't know what to do after giving a girl flowers. I'm sure he'll attempt some sort of romantic dinner, but either mess up a reservation if it's at a restaurant, or burn the home-cooked meal. . . all the while blushing furiously.

Claude Durand, Evolution of

Various progress sketches of Claude. It was difficult to pin down the exact combination of "strong, yet dumb and very kind" without making him look too stupid or too smart, or too middle-aged, etc.

More Claude, this time, closer to the target: