Soda Fountain

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

2010-04-05T14:24:00.001-07:00

Yeah, definitely failed at posting a drawing every day. I’ve just been swamped with things. >__< But here are some finished pieces and works in progress to cheer you up (if you were at all disappointed in my failure).

First is a finished piece of art I started Saturday night and finished Sunday afternoon. I was playing around with Photoshop (which I’m still learning on my own time for illustrating purposes) to try and create a painted look like I usually do in Corel Painter. I gotta say I’m very satisfied with how it came out. Sometimes you just get lucky and create something that you’re (for the most part) happy with, even while working on it. Sure, there are still some things I need to work on, but for now it’s a good first time painting in Photoshop. :) This was inspired by all this reading I had to do for my History of Modern Asia class. I’m imagining this to be some sort of international district in 19th century China… maybe somewhere in Hong Kong or Shanghai. I dunno. I’m leaving it open for imagination.

Here is a rough drawing I sketched out and then briefly cleaned up last night (instead of the homework I should have been working on …). I’m not sure how I’m going to color it. Lately I’ve been wanting to experiment more with my coloring style since I’ve shifted from the overly dynamic painting with intense lights and such to very flat and simple colorings (if I color it at all). The painting above definitely has motivated me to head in that painting direction again, but I don’t know if I can get it to work in this. I feel like a flatter coloring might work better since I eventually want to have something like this in the comic this scene is concept art for. We’ll see… I need to thumbnail out pages first and I haven’t done that in months. I plan to do more clean up and editing once I start the coloring process, especially with the explosion cloud. It’s also supposed to take place at night so that’s why the far background seems rather empty.

Last and certainly not least is this drawing inspired by a dream I had in 8th grade that I revisited while over spring break. I wrote a bunch of stories based on that dream when I originally had it but they got all jumbled up and weren’t very strong. Now that I’ve remembered the dream hopefully I can come up with a better story… we’ll see. I have to finish my screenplay for my class first!

I’ve included line-art and the base colors for this drawing to show you the work in progress so far. After I drew the explosion concept art above I took some time to look through my gallery on deviantART and was struck with the dire need to go back to that hyper-real, dynamic lighting/coloring painting style I used to have. Since I don’t really think I can do it in the explosion drawing, I made this piece of art to attempt the coloring again. It’s rather refreshing to go back to old artistic styles to improve on. I feel almost rejuvenated and extremely inspired! Lately I’ve been in something of a rut with everything I’ve been drawing. I miss painting like you wouldn’t believe! I’m hoping that I can make a really strong piece out of this one but it will definitely take time. As you can see there are a lot of details I’m planning to put in here. I think I’ll combine my skills in Corel Painter and Photoshop with this. We’ll see how it turns out. :P

5 weeks left of school!!

I fail at posting every day…

2010-02-14T12:22:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I guess I kinda lied when I said I’d post every day. I drew something almost every day though. Does that count? 8D

You have no idea how much I would love a Ratbird plushie.

Doodles Galore!

2010-01-31T13:08:00.001-08:00

The Animation Club at LMU put on a panel Friday and we had seven really awesome panelists who (scared us and) shared tips on how to survive the industry. One of them suggested to try to post a drawing a day on a blog so I’m going to attempt this! I’m pretty busy but I can at least post a doodle. This way I’ll constantly be drawing and attempting to improve my skills.

So, here’s the first of my doodles. It’s actually a bunch of drawings from over winter break, but it still counts as something to post a day. :P

Windows Live Writer test a success!

2009-12-30T20:45:00.001-08:00

Sweet, so this means I’ll be updating more (maybe). WLW is pretty sweet, gotta say. It is much easier to use than blogger and doesn’t seem as testy. I only had issues publishing but thanks to tech support’s tips, I got it working obviously. ;P

Anyhoo… I’ll try posting more artwork and news and stuff next semester. I won’t be working on a film but hopefully I’ll find some cool stuff anyways. We’ll see. :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Test blog entry with Windows Live Writer

2009-12-30T20:42:00.001-08:00

Just testing out a new program I got when I updated my Windows Live stuff. Hopefully this means I’ll be updating my blog more…… maybe.

This is a picture I took of my mom’s car last summer when I was on my way down to LA for my freshman year at LMU. I always thought it looked like an Audi ad. Somehow I managed to fit all my stuff, my mom’s travel stuff, and both of us in it. I’m still amazed.

Enjoy if you can!

update: 12 scenes, 46 seconds

2009-10-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

Scene 49

2009-10-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

Here's shot 49. I'm a little worried about colors, but oh well. That's something to fix later.

First interior background!!

2009-10-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

I love how I still have to draw trees even though it's an interior shot. I just can't get away from them. lol. I did this on a mac so I really don't know if the contrast is what I want. I'll have to see how it looks on my PC. I'm scared. >__<

BG for Shots 18 through 20

2009-09-29T21:42:00.001-07:00

So, I realized after I saved the file that I named it "19-20" when it's actually 18-20. Fail on my part. I also feel like its' a bit dark but we'll see how it looks on the macs.

Test Scene

2009-09-29T04:26:00.001-07:00

So here's scene 9 where the samurai puts his sword on his shoulder and then it pans to the wife. It's not the best quality since I'm still trying to figure out After Effects, but here's the basic idea I had for the look with help from Lenny. I also have the straight -from- Toonboom animation before I did anything in After Effects. Yes, I stayed up past 4:30 AM to get it done. SHUSH! I don't have class til 4, I can sleep in. >__<

They Ain't Marnie Backgrounds But....

2009-09-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the backgrounds we'll be using in our 220. It's shots 1-2 (pan down), shots 3-4 (tree being cut), shots 5 and 7 (which show the samurai slashing at a tree but has a cut to his eyes narrowing), and shot 9 (pan to the left) which has been adjusted to the right dimensions. I apologize for the giant-ness of them. They're for 1920 x 1080 screens. Tom wants it to be at 16:9 ratio. Enjoy.

Sample Background:

2009-09-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is from shot #9. It's a pan to the left. I used Corel Painter X with the brushes Opaque Acrylic 30 and Fine Tip Soft Air 20 at varying opacities. I also used the Just Add Water blender for solid colors that needed some faint gradient.

Boards As of 9/23

2009-09-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I know it's hard to see, but be sure to follow the #s. I kinda drew things out of order. Also, it's easier if you just click on them to read, but that's kinda a given.

Updated Samurai design

2009-09-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the pencil and lineart. I'll add colors soon enough.

Beginning (so far) thumbnails

2009-09-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

I'm just posting this before I run to class in 10 minutes for those who need 'em. Sorry I didn't get them done last night! I'll finish the boards tomorrow and hopefully get some character design lineart to you guys tonight. We'll see how productive I am. >__<

These are panels 1 through 17. You'll see that I kept a few shots the same, but for the most part I felt like I needed to change it a bit. Sorry that the right-hand side got cut off a bit. Scanner wasn't big enough I guess. Follow the #. It gets a little confusing w/ the pans.

Reference ideas

2009-09-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here were some things I was thinking about for the look of it.
This is a Samurai Jack episode that I've always loved and definitely has the same feel as what we should try to get. It's when he goes into a haunted house.

Season 3 Episode 9

Also, here's the cover of the Japanese dictionary that has a cool texture to it. I think we can use this for the compositing.

Final Story (?)

2009-09-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

Here are the notes from the story meeting tonight:

He's cutting trees for practice outside his house, his wife is watching.
He shows off in front of his wife by cutting down the sacred tree.
Wife's not impressed and leaves.
Continues to cut trees, then feels like something's not right. Goes into house.
Wife is possessed & briefly fights him.
When he's being dragged the forest spirit comes off wife and starts to possess him.
He kills himself to prevent the forest spirit from hurting his wife.
- Quick cut ot black when he stabs himself. Then wife wakes up.
She sees him dead and takes his sword out to the tree to place in the ground.

It's Official!

2009-09-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, so here's some artwork for the 220 I'll be working on. It's a story about a samurai who ticks off a forest spirit by cutting down it's tree and has to face his possessed wife. I'll be working on the storyboard this weekend (and hopefully get it done by Tuesday) and eventually I'll have some colored concept art. Eventually.....

I'll be working on this with Chris Haynes and Brian Lin for sure and then Lenny Menchiari and Nana Kufuor said they would help out. I am so excited!

Dudes in 220 Idea

2009-08-12T12:16:00.001-07:00

So, here are the guys for my 220 idea. I'll simplify them later I guess.... but this is what i'm aiming for at least. I decided to place the story in a coffee shop instead of a diner. I thought I could focus on these really cute cups of espresso where in the foam there's a heart and it's supposed to represent love. I know, I know... totally a sappy romance, but I thought it would be cute. I am a girl after all.

Angel finally colored too!

2009-08-12T12:11:00.001-07:00

So, I guess I lied when I said I'd do this right after the Drake drawing. lol. Whoops. But here it is, hope you like.

Perspective guy... COLORED! :D

2009-08-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

So here's the final versions of the perspective drawing. I finally figured out what the heck he was doing... kicking a guy in the face!

My friend Keyo gave me the idea of doing something like UFC... though I really doubt they'd let anyone wear jewelry in the ring...

Just for fun

2009-08-02T19:56:00.001-07:00

So, I made a new desktop 'cause I got bored of my old one. I cropped the sketch that I had been working on of Drake 'cause I saw that when I zoomed in with the Image Viewer thingy in Vista, it looked way cooler. So this is what I ended up doing. I was lazy with some of it..... like the background.... And yeah, the AK-47 is still upside-down and lame. :P

I suggest if you want to look at it, click the image so you can see it full-sized. Looks a lot better.

Also, here's what the next drawing I'm planning to work on (most likely). It was just a quick sketch in Corel Painter. I'll go back and fix the proportions and things when I color it. And move it around so that her knees aren't being cut off. :P

Drawing for Joy and her friend Dee

2009-08-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post it. They were talking about drawing characters for their story on their blog and Joy was talking about how her friend Dee was so set on drawing a certain character. It inspired a little something.

I dislike foreshortening...

2009-08-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

So, I started this sketch around 11 pm and then at 3 am I realized that I should get some sleep 'cause I had stuff to do in the morning. So after trying to sleep, I got up and went back to working on this sketch. These darn legs and feet! I'm still pretty sure I didn't draw them right, but I gave it a shot. I don't do very many drawings like this.

... also, I ran out of room on the page so he doesn't have any elbows.

I'll post an inked version and maybe a colored version later.

220 Idea concept art

2009-07-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

So, I was playing around with some ideas for a 220 and one of them was sorta based off of the song "Tom's Diner (DNA Remix)" by Suzanne Vega. It's someone waiting at a diner and the song just goes on with all these strange descriptions without much of a story behind them. I kinda took it as someone's waiting there for a lover and they see themselves in everyone that walks by. (sorta) The idea is still in the works... such as moving away from the song to avoid copyright issues. I don't know what will be different yet. However, this concept art was me thinking about colors. And yes, I know the girl isn't in proportions. I had problems drawing her legs and feet.

So, when I wasn't playing outside in Colorado....

2009-07-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

So, the Warthog is actually a rough draft logo for the Warthog Society's new cattle company. The Warthog Society is for orthopedists that practiced sports medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and were docs for the Cleveland Browns. I don't know why they call themselves the Warthogs... The colored pics were just me playing around with some old markers I found in my room. They're still good and I still suck at using them. The random expressions under them were inspired when I watched Tarzan on the Disney Channel on the 4th.

Crack Rabbit and Friend

2009-06-30T19:09:00.001-07:00

Yeah... so... it's actually not as bad as the title kinda hints at, but it was the random creation during some free time during Storyboarding. I didn't name Crack Rabbit.... you can thank my fellow classmates in the Fall for that. I just wanted to draw a spazzing rabbit. The cat was added later...

Found this, felt the Loyolan didn't do it justice

2009-06-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Emily Rome is an Editor of the A & E section of The Loyolan and a while back she asked if I could do a "cartoon" for an article about different short stories students can read during the hectic Finals Week. Pretty much what this picture shows is a guy putting aside some time in his crazy schedule to do some leisure reading that isn't required for any class. I drew it in about 2 hours on Corel Painter.

This was BOUND to happen

2009-06-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

For the last month I have been working on this "poster" idea I had. I started with doing a poster-sized fan art of The Apprentice as seen in Soul Caliber IV and I'm thinking of doing a couple others of some of my friends' favorite characters. (Not sure which ones yet) Here's the process I went through. I'm still not done, but I'm almost there.

So I was reoganizing my computer when...

2009-06-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was looking on my computer and realized that I have a lot of things I can upload on here.
Speed painting I touched up a little bit.
Drawing I did over winter break while watching all the Batman: The Animated Series episodes
Drawing I started for a friend... took me a month 'cause of all the homework I had....... and my 120 film.
First "Drawing For Myself" I did during the Fall term
I posted this in an earlier post but I felt it would be hard to find. This was for my Senior English Project.
Doodle during Storytelling, figure drawing from senior year, and couples holding hands on the plane.

And here are the two best figure drawings I have on my computer at the moment. Professor Han Dai-Yu kept my better ones til the Fall. I wish I took a picture of them before I turned in my final. The first is a charcoal drawing, the second is a pencil drawing.

Any how, I'll probably post more later when I find some.

Finally... some new sketches!

2009-06-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah... so... I kinda got stuck trying to sketch something and after looking at the clips that Matt shared with a few of us younger LMU Animation kids of crazy French animation students... well you can see for yourselves.

I decided to play around with some styles I normally don't do. All of which were inspired by the cartoons I was watching at the time. :P You've got some Total Drama Action in there, some Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Johnny Test, and a little Clone Wars (I like the parts where you don't see Anakin's padwan). I also was watching House. I don't know how much of that you can see in the sketches.... but it's there.

Also... proportions suck. Don't eat me! D:

The Name's Violet

2009-06-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

So, I was watching Ultraviolet on the Sci Fi channel (it looked interesting) and decided to draw the main character. To be honest, the reason I started the drawing in the first place was because I really liked her wig. It was so silky and had an awesome motion! I wish my drawing came out as cool.

Atomic Acorns

2009-06-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

Squirrel was having a bad day.

Samurai, Cowboys, and Other Stuff

2009-06-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

So... here's just a few things I've done when I haven't been crushed by everything I've had to do recently. It's not much and they're all works in progress.

It's not in any order here. The Cowboy vs. Samurai page I drew the last week of school. The page of blue color pencil stuff I drew while I watched Cowboy Bebop, then the cowboy and Ed page, and last the samurai line-work and sketch. I dunno if that shows any progression or not, but just to let you know I guess....

Jeez, I suck at updating...

2009-05-12T01:07:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I've had an extremely busy year and completely forgot about my blog. I'm sorry blog! Dx

So here's some stuff to entertain all of you...(if there's any of you at all...) it's not the best, so please comment and critique. :3

OMG COLLEGE!

2008-09-03T14:16:00.001-07:00

Ok, so.... sadly I have to say I can't post any of my storyboard assignments yet because my scanner has yet to work, but I have officially started my animation learning experience! So far I am taking two classes that are for the animation students and then a drawing class in the evening. They're all on the same day actually.

First off is History of Animation with Rob Burchfield (he perfers "Rob") the chairman of the animation department in the film school. Awesome guy. Very opinionated against Disney business practices. We have the class in the Mayer Theater which is actually inside the film school's building. It's really cool and has really comfy seats. On the first day of class we watched the animated short "For the Birds" (the one with the birds on the telephone line) and on the second day we watched "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" which is an amazing 1926 German animated feature made by only 3 people in 2 years. It's a shadow-puppet movie with these amazing details and layered effects. So cool! Then yesterday we had a very brief summary of world history related to art and storytelling (and religion actually). We shall continue that tomorrow.

My second class is Intro to Storyboarding with Tom Klein which is probably my favorite class of all time. On the first day we were assigned to draw a storyboard (10-15 panels) of a chicken crossing the road. I wanted to post that here... but my scanner doesn't work yet. It will eventually though! Our second assignment was to draw what he called "our margin character" (an original character we "doodle" on the margins of our notes) then describe the personality to the class. I've posted a few photobucket links here:
Lineart and Colored

Now our assignment is to write 3 log-lines for this character for Thursday. We also have to make an animatic of our chicken storyboard by Thursday. The class is so much fun. I get to draw/write about what I really find interesting. Tom has been hinting that we will be using our characters later in the term so it will be interesting to see what we are assigned to do. What I really like about this class, besides the amazing homework assignments, is that there are a lot of upper-classmen in the class too. I get to hear from a lot of them what it's like at LMU and the film programs. It's awesome!

As for the Drawing I class.... we are "learning" how to draw... Really slow and really boring. I'm mostly learning about patience in this class.

So, that's all for my first post about my animation classes. I'll be sure to get that storyboard up when I can. It's adorable! But I can't spoil it yet!

私はとても忙しいですよ！

2008-05-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

I felt like writing in Japanese... I have a kanji test on Wednesday over 20 (or is it 40?) characters. Jeez... I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just tired I suppose.

I didn't know what to write here, kinda felt like drawing, but I didn't want to draw in my sketchbook. That feels like too much work... so I've been doodling on the computer a lot lately.
Here's one of my English projects.

It's a visual interpretation of the Scottish poem "The Twa Corbies" (The Two Crows) by anonymous. Anonymous rights a lot of poems....
As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,
‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?’

‘In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

‘His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

‘Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll, theek our nest when it grows bare.

‘Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken where he is gane;
Oer his white banes, when they we bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.’

Sad poem but it's really pretty in the dialect. If you read it outloud you can't help but talk in a Scottish accent.

so yeah... that's all I feel up to sharing.

STUFF! :D

2008-02-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

So yeah... couple things:

I've never really considered myself much of a photographer but here are some pictures I submitted to Salmagundi:

Sorry they're giant if you click on them. I'm still a big, fat amateur when it comes to camera usage and I don't know how to size them down more. The first one and last one are from Scotland and the one in the middle is from Russia.... in case you were wondering....

Second thing: I got this idea over the weekend for a memory-book thing. I have this book that I made by hand already (from scratch! wee!) but I didn't have anything to do with it. So, I'm going to take pictures of some close friends and all the teachers I had at Lakeridge over the past 4 years (which apparently is a lot!) and then I'll sketch the portrait in the book, color it, etc. as well as get them to write something in there for me. I'll probably add other things because I some how managed to get 160. >_> It doesn't look that big. It's probably the worst-looking book ever... but that doesn't matter compared to what it's for. : )

Here's where I'm at so far:

Just so you know, I'm a total lame-brain and ran out of the right sized paper as you can see in that second picture. >_> ;; but again, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't match perfectly. It's what's inside that counts. :) The griffin on the cover was cool so I put it there. It's felty. :D I had some plain paper and then some funky paper that I just added some white paint to make hand-writing and sketches come out better. I also added funky watercolor and metallic calligraphy ink on other pages to make them more exciting. So... I have a total of 61 people to fit 160 pages. I need more things to put in here....

My post never looks right once I submit it. > :(

Totally Random Rant that's somehow art related

2008-02-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Ever get into one of those phases where you see something really cool, read a really cool book, or hear a great song that's instantly your favorite? I'm in one of those right now w/ The Departed. Got it over the weekend and suddenly remembered why it's one of my favorite movies.

Now, I'm sure you're all thinking "How's this related to art you ditz?" The movie's great (yay Mark Wolhberg!) but what I've been thinking a lot about is the design of the cover for the DVDs. There's a whole bunch of them and I can't help but wonder how they came up with it. The pictures in the letters is awesome.

Is finally not a loser:

Completed pieces #1 & #2 & #3/4

2007-11-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

This may be a little bit of cheating, but I'm thinking of including my Sniper Eye piece in my concentration as well. I finished it right after we had started our concentrations and (most of all) it fits perfectly into my idea of "What it means to be a soldier".

... and I want to get critique on it...

But here are the three I DEFINITELY will include on the 4th.

Trenches - Corel Painter X
Brushes used:
Lots

I'm tired of working on it so here. The print-out looks horrible compared to how it looks on the computer. Sad how that happens, but it's just a part of digital art. I'll just have to live with it. So yeah... meant to be somewhat funny, but if you don't laugh that's understandable. It's not over the top funny, at least not to me.

Ikebana - Acrylic
Turned out nicely, eh? The blood was a pain to do. It never looked right. Still doesn't look right, but I'm tired of trying to fix it.

Death of a Soldier - Corel Painter X
Brushes used:
Acrylic
Airbrush
Blender - Just Add Water
Fx - Glow

I like the blue in this piece. It compliments the skin well in my opinion and it's just a tranquil color. I need to work on female anatomy... the face didn't turn out the way I wanted but I suppose that's what happens when you don't use a reference. I did a sloppy job on the baby's face but that's only because I just wanted to be done with the piece and the baby's face was actually hard to do. It's that darn angle. Oh well. I'm done.

2007-10-28T12:50:00.001-07:00

Some of you know what a huge history buff I am so you're probably not surprised I'm doing my concentration on some factor of history.

I'm thinking of doing a concentration on what it means to be a soldier or some time period with some random battle or whatnot. Also, I could look at a general soldier, say from modern day or something, and show the characteristics of a soldier... like an ideal soldier or something... at least how I see them. With the War on Terrorism, soldiers have been getting a lot of negative views and it's sad. I've heard of some amazing stories of some of our own Oregon National Guard that proves a lot of the people who are against the war are wrong. I want to show the emotional stresses on a soldier, the mental stresses, and of course the physical stresses they have to face every day in battle (or at home) as well as what makes soldiers unique in different time periods. Maybe in the 1600s Japan being honorable was more important than faith but in Europe it was faith over honor? I suppose it depends on how you see "honor".

Think over this more, I'm worried it will have a lot of conflicting views on it. I don't want to offend anyone and I'm realizing there is a good chance I could do that. So... no offense to anyone out there if you don't agree with me! D:

Ok, so here are some colored thumbnail sketches of the three pieces I want to complete by the end of November. (Like I'll really finish them by then)

First one is based on the knowledge of how Samurai would practice arts such as ikebana (flower arranging) and calligraphy/painting as well as with the sword. I first thought of doing it with an actual guy there, but I thought I could get a cool angle without the guy... so I went with that. It's simpler.

A friend of mine has a katana (samurai sword if you don't know) that he'll let me look at for reference.

As you see there, I was thinking of putting in some kanji (Japanese characters) in the corner to fill some space and I'm playing with the idea of making this very light in color as though it was a brush painting. I'm not sure if I'll do that.

Here's the kanji if you're curious: (please ignore the sparkles. I had some shiny calligraphy ink on my brush when I dipped it into my ink. It will probably be as dark as this so it looks more like the ink used in brush painting.) If you're interested in some facts at all, the top character (read as "i" in ikebana) has several meanings including life, birth, student, raw. I'm not sure why it's used here. (My Japanese teacher says it means "life" here) The second character is hiragana "ke". It doesn't mean anything. The last one is "bana" in ikebana but it can be read as "hana" which means flower. Thus, the art of flower arranging. =3

My second piece is sad, in my opinion, but it is definitely a part of life as a soldier. Death. Grim is rather cliche, but I always connected him with more 1400s or so than modern day. I first drew him with some knight in shining armor but thought it would be interesting (to me) if Grim paid a modern-ish Marine a visit. I don't like the colors I chose for the wife, but I'll figure something out. I'm thinking of something simple, like white, to contrast the black of Grim and the black of her husband's uniform. Any ideas on this? I also have no idea what to do for the background. I'm thinking of some color mixes or maybe the front door or something with Grim being transparent. I'm not sure. This is why I'm starting w/ my ikebana piece first.

- Note: I'm thinking of maybe doing this on the computer and maybe doing the next one on the computer too just for time's sake. These would take a really long time w/ acrylic (since I'm still experimenting with it) and I'm more comfortable with Corel Painter.

Last, the trenches. If you remember anything from freshman history, we covered a lot on WWI and *big voice* THE TRENCHES! Boy I'd hate to be in one of those as you're bombed out of your minds. I got the idea while talking to another big history buff who enjoys WWI and WWII histories the most. He said "trenches" I thought "noob and vet". I got the idea for what they were holding while over hearing Mrs. McBride talking to someone (sorry Mrs. McBride!) and I thought "OOH! Crucifix and a pack o' smokes! :D" What would soldiers hold when they're about to die? Why, their most precious possession.... which in WWI was probably a pack of cigarettes. In WWII they would stick them on their helmets. So, this one will definitely have the earthy colors. I like them =3 The cigarettes will be a darker red and off white (which didn't come out well w/ the watercolors) and the crucifix will probably be gold-ish or so. I'm not sure yet on that. And of course, like my Vietnam Sniper, they'll have mud all over them! =D I like mud... in case you couldn't tell....

That is all. >_> I apologize for talking so much.

Sniper Eye

2007-10-24T06:13:00.001-07:00

(Finally finished! D: )
1st off, a sniper probably won't be using an M16, but it was the easiest drawing to do by looking at profile pictures of it. It was hard, but I think it worked out.

I'm iffy on my grass there, but it was a suggestion given to me by a friend so I did. Kinda looks okay, I guess...

Lemme know what you think.

Sniper Eye - Corel Painter X
Brushes used:
Airbrush - Fine tip air soft 20
Blender* - Just Add Water
Acrylic* - Opaque detail brush 3

*I used those two mostly.

Sands of Time Sketch

2007-09-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

This is an idea that I had recently to show a little bit of a landscape... but I didn't want to just do a desert scene. Tha'd be kinda boring... in my opinion. >_> So I went for something to go with the phrase "the sands of time". It'll be simple to do, but also really complex. I've done sand dunes before, but not lots of them - one alone was difficult. Trying to get the shading just right on the shadow-side... yeah. Hard. And I've never made a column look, well, like a column. I want to go in and do some details to it so that the cracks look like real cracks. I mostly want to go at this with some texture, basically. I put some color ideas there, but those will always change as I work. The blender will mix things around, I'll adjust the lighting now and then w/ the layers, yada yada... I always add things and I've never really planned for colors before.

Any suggestions?

Arron and Jackie

2007-09-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Arron Black - Corel Painter X
Brushes Used:
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
RealBristle Brushes - Real Blender Tapered
Airbrush- Fine Tip Air Soft 20

Originally this was a B&W drawing but I used a special effect called "Color Overlay" to get the orange tint as well as more contrast to hide my many mistakes. The "color overlay" was just an experiment and the color itself was an accident. I was meaning for it to be blue, but I personally like the orange-red better. It was based off of a photo (more like a guideline) except for the hair and the jacket. The aim of this was to try to make it look like a photo but if you look closely you might be able to see my brush-strokes.

Jackie - Corel Painter X
Brushes Used:
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
RealBristle Brushes - Real Blender Tapered
Airbrush- Fine Tip Air Soft 20

The color isn't quite what I wanted, but that is really hard to adjust and capture the perfect color you want. You have to line up a scrolling color-wheel instead of just dipping into some paint. You don't always get what you want exactly. The blurriness was done by selecting that area with a laso-tool and then using the "Depth of Field" effect. It's fun to play with and I try to use it when I can if it doesn't hurt the image. It's pretty easy, you just fiddle around with the Min and Max ranges. Again this was based on a photo, but I changed the smile so it's a little more of a smile and I removed the glasses which meant I had to make-up what the eyes would look like. That was a challenge. Also, the girl's hair was pink which I personally think never looks good in a drawing with high contrast.

I've always found that trying to repeat something that was an accident is almost impossible, but I think I was close. I wanted the two portraits to go together not only because that would be cool to say "Yeah! I managed to repeat something I did on accident!" but because the two in the drawing are characters I share between a friend and myself who are boyfriend-girlfriend. It's probably not clear that they're bf-gf but I hope that at least there is some connection between the two based on the colors and the style in which I did the drawings.

Battle At Sea, Jewel of the Red Light, ect.

2007-09-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

Battle At Sea - Corel Painter X
Brushes Used:
Airbrushes - Fine Tip Air Soft 20, Tiny Spattery Airbrush
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
Distortion - Pinch, Grainy Distorto 30
Fx - Glow
RealBristle Brushes - Real Blender Tapered

Jewel of the Red Light - Corel Painter X
Brushes Used:
Airbrushes - Fine Tip Air Soft 20
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
Fx - Glow
RealBristle Brushes - Real Blender Tapered

Jealous Eye - Corel Painter 8, X
Brushes Used:
Airbrushes - Fine Tip Air Soft 20
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
Chalk - Blunt Chalk 10
Fx - Glow
RealBristle Brushes - Real Blender Tapered

The Crusader - Corel Painter X
Brushes Used:
Airbrushes - Fine Tip Air Soft 20
Acrylic - Opaque Detail Brush 3
Blender - Just Add Water
Fx - Glow

The Gun Knight - Corel Painter X, Digital Photography
Brushes Used:
Airbrushes - Fine Tip Air Soft 20
Blender - Just Add Water
Fx - Glow
Layered on top of photo -Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7

Psssh... lighting...

2007-09-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

I'm having lots of issues with coloring this picture... don't know why. First, that cigarette is bugging me. I can't get the lighting on it right at all. Actually, I can't seem to get the lighting on any of it. I want to bring out the body parts (especially all those muscles) but with the point of light at a weird angle to him, I don't know where to put the highlight since I'm coloring dark to light (for a change).

I think it needs some critiquing ASAP. D: The facial features took me forever to work out. For some reason finding some reference pictures of a profile angle of a face was difficult. I.. don't... know... why... >_> So I kinda bsed it a little after looking through some Painter artists' portfolios for inspiration. It helped a lot actually. Now, if only I could get some help on those darn pants! Dx

Any suggestions for how to fix this lighting problem??