Now its a full body picture!

Basically that guy is talking to his sword's spiritual representation while being under deep water. So all the cloth will be floating and it gives me an excuse to fill up negative space. Since its anime that lady has huge boobs, I wanted to show them because I am a bad person, but the way she is floating behind him it would be impossible. Unless I broke a bunch of anatomy laws or made them (her boobs) enormous. I just stuck with trying to draw it right, so this is what I have so far, yay!

So winter break is quickly approaching and I'll have time to work (or most likely not work) on non school pictures again. Why do I do so much fan art? Why does it take me so long? I guess it IS good practice, like by taking my time and working out the kinks I am slowly improving. I think I am?

Well I have a lot of pictures to choose from to finish...

Thor, this Bleach picture, that other Bleach picture, Namor, the Live.Die.Repeat lady, Chrono Trigger pic, that not so great Law picture, so I mean I have a lot to choose from.

It may be smart to not start a new fan art picture and try to finish at LEAST one in the like four weeks I won't have school.

Maybe I should work on my own characters instead of drawing my version of other peoples creations? Man, that requires effort though, booooo.

Thanks to whomever (whoever?) is reading this. No one comments, and I really don't think anyone uses blogger anymore, but I still appreciate any visits. I'll try to finish one picture completely during break, key word "try".

Chipping away mistakes at a snails pace

So here is a picture of a character from a comic for teenage boys involving ghosts. It is taking forever because...

1. It involves layers of clothing and folds, I am bad at drawing clothing!
2. I kinda want the picture to look nice, so I am trying to get all the details right. Man when you type that out it reads pretty whats the word, pretentious? Am I even using that word right? Basically I am not good enough at drawing.

I'll have to make the picture bigger because I want to put his swords in, maybe it will be a whole body picture because why not? He is also underwater, that's why things are randomly floating.

Design School of Rock(s)

Two months, no posts. Why?!

I am a busy bee. Design School is neither good nor bad, it just kind of is. We're being taught how to think about what we are making, kinda like a starter class on creativity and how to control our ideas. A big emphasis is being put on telling a story with your words instead of just having your work do the talking. Unless we are making something specific, art feels like it will always be subjective so I'd rather just people enjoy whatever weird thing I am making instead of trying to put an idea in their head and failing. If they think our cardboard wall thing looks like a bad dream they had, but still enjoy it, I'll always take that instead of making up some silly story about the emotions I didn't put into the inanimate object I made.

The illustration work will hopefully come, but I had expectations that we'd be learning how to do better work, faster. What does process matter if you can't accurately render what you are trying to get the viewer to feel? I guess that'll just have to be on me to teach myself. I am no artistic savant, I still have tons of things to learn, but it has just been a little disappointing so far. I keep thinking about how if we're all being taught the same way to be creative, doesn't that kind of render our creativity obsolete?

I am just talking to myself anyway, so I'll just explain what I've posted and be on my merry way.

1. We had to make a wearable object out of paper. I made a cape!

2. We had to work in groups and use cardboard to decorate our space. Our group had a whole wall so we decided to cover it. It was surprising to learn that no one ever did that before, c'mon design students!

3. I don't get to practice my animez cartoon art as much anymore, but here is a rough sketch I did of Law from One Piece. My perspective is all over the place!

Thank you for coming to visit and looking at my slow moving art blog. Even though no one comments, I get a bit warm when the viewership jumps from 1 to like 6.

Few Changes, Few Posts

Hey idiot, her cape wouldn't be going straight back on both sides if her body is turned. LERN 2 DRAW.

Still haven't given up, but have been a bit busy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm truly passionate about art because I'm not making time for it like people always say you will for things you love. I can either feel bad about this or just realize I'm not dead and until that happens there will be time for me to give it my all. Let's go positive thinking!

In the last two weeks I've moved, got transferred to a new job location (which is also in the freezer which is making me sick because I'm not dressing properly), and tomorrow I begin my education adventure at NC State's College of Design.

My goal for the year is to not get mad at the silly world of objectivity/whiny pee pee baby culture that art is slathered in. I would like to say I want to take art seriously, but not the whole "This is art, art is important, WE ARE IMPORTANT" thing that artists can tend to drape themselves with. Learning how to actually do it properly (in my case, MUCH FASTER, and all the other non speed crap I do completely wrong) is something I would hope to achieve with great skill.

Hopefully I can settle down into a regular schedule within the next week and get back to posting constant updates of unfinished/incredibly slow progressions of pictures being finished like the good ol' days.

Every once in awhile I see the little page hits spike to like 41 for a day and I think it might be one person looking at everything. If this is true, hey one person, I appreciate that. I hope you aren't spending too much time looking at my unfinished work. Go watch a movie, maybe Ex Machina. That movie didn't get nearly enough pub for how good it was. Oscar season is a big joke.

Slow and Wobbly probably isn't going to win the race

Top = Previous Version

Bottom = Updated Version

I haven't been not drawing, I just have hit a weird block again where I am not finishing anything. I've been trying to fix this Thor picture and just wanted to get her cape and armor right. It's been taking a long time and I have no real reason why. I just want to draw her Armor right, but its awkward and has been taking forever, I also want to get her cape right both physically and compositionally. I don't want to be negative artist wiener guy, but I mean I haven't been able to figure this out. Maybe this is part of my learning process? At least I'm not just drawing it wrong and being like "It looks fine!" like I used to. The paper is full of white out and tape and is kind of a disaster. Just looking at the picture while I'm posting it I can already tell I need to make the hammer thicker and add some more foreground elements.

Maybe starting Art School in August will help? Maybe it won't? I appreciate people looking at the blog though, whatever it is they are looking at I hope you are enjoying it.

Ayla from Chrono Trigger

So here we go, a finished picture of Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Since it's just Grayscale right now I decided to not go nuts with the foreground so it wouldn't just be a big gray blob. Now I have a picture that I can use to learn how to color in the future.

I have no idea what to do with my life now. I actually finished a mediocre picture. This must be like what Mallory's ghost felt like when his skeleton was found on Mt. Everest.

So I actually finished the line art

GASP!

Now I have to figure out how to add value to the picture using simple grays so it isn't flat.

That will probably take another 5 months, but hey, PROGRESS.

Ayla progress (We're getting somewhere!)

Okay, so I applied what I learned from that first attempt at a final picture to this NEW final picture...

1. I used Bristol Board instead of cheap scrap paper

2. Since my basic artistic skills haven't been honed enough to just ink right over a rough sketch I decided I would just make sure my pencils are extra tight until I get good enough to feel comfortable inking like all the cool professionals do. Maybe I'll never feel good doing it the rough way, but that doesn't seem too bad, everyone doesn't have to draw the same way obviously.

3. I used photoshop to darken the very light pencils to show my progress before I ruin it with my not so great inking skills.

I realize that this is taking an extraordinary long time for just a simple pin up of a cavewoman, but I am at least learning as I fail/succeed and that is the most important thing.

Now comes inking and the horrors of realizing I really need to practice a lot more to get better at this.

I have to add lines to her hair and clean my scanner (we have no window cleaner, AHHHH) and do a cleaner rescan of the picture.

Then I guess I will go back to working on the Chrono Trigger picture that got me down this rabbit hole in the first place.

Blue Morning, Blue Day

I have started the final picture and here are some things I've learned.

1. Since I don't fully know what I am doing, I am constantly erasing and wearing the paper down. So using scrap paper from an elementary school to draw on isn't exactly the best idea.

2. I am not confident in my ability to draw faces, especially noses. I need to practice some faces.

3. It's a lot more fun to tie a picture together with a background or something than to just draw a character flat on a white infinite universe.

4. Non photo blue pencils actually work. Look all that non photo action going on!

Time to do laundry. HURRAY.

This is what this is now

A place where unfinished fan art of a character from a 20 year old role playing game is posted weekly in some form. At the very least I will have cornered an incredibly specific niche.

So purple picture is a new version of the ever changing classic Ayla. She wasn't running quickly, she was crawling, so why was her hair being so swooshed by the wind? So that got changed along with her awkward crawling pose. I also added a volcano!

New red Ayla was the one I started when I got frustrated that I couldn't fix the mistakes of the previous Ayla, that I eventually fixed after doing the new one. Now I have TWO Aylas! I'm outta control!

Well I inked it for practice, but realized her one arm looks stupid

So one step forward, one half back I guess? I also messed up her eyeballs.

420 bros, blow all the pots

So we're almost there! Take that quitting on dreams! I just have to fix my made up arm anatomy (and probably learn to shade). Time to look at some jacked up female reference.

Almost done, time to quit

Slightly Differenter

Slightly Different!

Ayla Progress

More works in progress

Switched Crono because he don't fight with Iaido. Then I drew a quick Ayla for practice that is drawn wrong. Her hair and her legs are weird.

I don't think I know how to use my scanner right

Here is some small progress I've made on my Chrono Trigger picture. There is still a lot to fix and tweak, but its coming along alright.

I just printed out a smaller version of my sketch and did some inking practice with the pens I bought and have no idea how to use. I'll get them figured out along with my scanner eventually I hope.

I don't want to go to work today

In other news, here is some progress on my Chrono Trigger picture. I actually am going to try to draw a background. Obviously I will not finish it and start a new picture next week. At least I am drawing!

Updated Unreadable Wavy Lines and a new unfinished picture!

I think I missed last weeks post, whoops! I have not stopped drawing.

I need to conquer my fear of inking and learn how to do it.

Here is some progress on my Shinji picture and a new sketch for an action shot of my favorite team in Chrono Trigger.

Time to figure out how to draw Robo better.

Wavy unreadable letters

So here is some early progress, I wanna make the line weights of the letters very thin compared to the character and the actual sword in the upper left.

That's about it for now, maybe I'll update again at the end of the weekend, shrug?!

Mission Failed

But I am not giving up! This seems to be a slow go for me. :(

His little spinning sword is supposed to give off a pink mist, I want the mist to say "Welcome to the inverted world." As you can tell it is still a work in progress. As long as I don't quit I don't fail, so keep at it Mike. Believe in yourself.

The Late Bird gets more Unfinished Work or An Expected Dumb Blog Post Title

Okie dokie, 3 days late this week. This isn't a good trend. I also am not looking good on my finishing just one picture this month. What a smart idea to start another new fan art picture! I made a small amount of progress on my Cub logo in the upper right had corner of the first picture.

For the fan art I just started doodling Shinji Hirako from Bleach and then got grumpy that the picture wasn't looking right until I got a good sketch down. (if you are interesting in an evolution of a pictures composition, you can see how I kind of combined the first two sketches, at least I think I did?) I want to add some swirling text to the final picture to make it a fully realized illustration. Of course next week the post will be a week late and have nothing to do with any of these pictures. I must be listening to the House of Pain because I am jumping around. WHOMP WHOMP.

Purple Picture Progress

Hey! On time update! I am glad my former classmates from Millersville seemed to have visited the other day and no one commented. I am confounded by this generation of youths raised on social media who can only comment with likes. How can it be called social media if its really just a picture gallery you are giving electronic thumbs up to? It seems like if you actually do get someone to comment its either going to be "THIS IS AMAZING", "YOU ARE *insert mean comment here*, FEEL BAD", or someone telling you can "Make tons of money a day from working at home." I guess that sounded kind of angry, but its more like its just weird. I remember being one of the only people in the art class that really looked at the other students blogs (which is the big reason we had the blogs, so we could keep up with what each other is doing) and having it be considered "Creepy" that I wanted to know more about everyone's work.

Oh well! It's not like having an environment where you could productively voice your ideas in a creative manner to help each other get better could be valuable in anyway. I still miss my classmates and wish them all the best.

But yeah, here is some progress on some logos (Fake Beer and Elementary School) that are coming along slowly. I want to do the logos up in Illustrator all nice and crisp, so these color key sketches help me figure out what I am doing (if I even know what that is).

I need to learn how to add solid black values to my cartoony style for depth. One of the things I am awful at is adding value to my drawings and I've never really established a way to do that I am comfortable with. I am enjoying working on this particular piece of fan art and want figure out how to finish it at a high level. I think I could learn a lot from the artwork from the Persona series as that artist uses solid blacks for shading with a cartoony style quite well.

Happy 50 Shades of Grey and Friday the 13th day. Remember when Jason threw that naked girl in the sleeping bag against the tree? Good times. That music used to creep me out when they had marathons back on USA.

Rock Flag and Eagle

So keeping a regular schedule is already behind by two days, yeah goals! Here is the slow turtle progress I've made on my fake beer brand. I changed it from Lager to Ale because the A fit better under the N.

I am obviously going for a patriotic route, but I am also trying to work in some WPA like themes, much to Sal's displeasure (MAD MEN REFERENCES, YEAH).

See you next Friday people from Germany who apparently come and visit the blog to look at the picture of the snake lady I drew from One Piece. Der Kaiser is the best at football, amirite?