Still Truckin' Along

It's been a while since I did a blog post.

In the meanwhile, I drew this:

Pen and colored pencil, and a piano with slightly wonky perspective.  (This is technically fanart, just weird alternate-universe fanart, so ten points if you can name the man, twenty if you can name the chic.)

On the video game front:

(It might be helpful to note, for anyone who doesn't know, that a "thomas" is a large, flightless bird that exists in the Trigun universe.)

I've got the first bit of game started, but I'm like 1/2349728347928th of the way through. XD  But the beginning is going to go the slowest, because I'm having to make graphics and learn the program.  I'm holding out hope that it will go faster later in the project.

So, yeah, that's it for now, I guess.

Peace out!

Project Wrap-ups and Naka-kon

Okay, let me start by getting this picture out of the way.

Here's Vash with his gang of Pokemon.  That makes all four of the main characters, and this little series is complete!  Yay!

I've also finished my stun gun.  Remember how I was putting paper mache on the whole thing?  It took longer than I thought it would, because when I put the paper mache on, I had to leave some parts of it dry, so it could sit on that part while the rest was drying, so I had to break it up into parts and do a part a day.  (And also because I procrastinated some.  But you didn't hear me say that.  Sh!)

When I hit crunch time, though, I couldn't afford to do it in parts, and ended up with wet areas all over the place.  I got a little creative trying to figure out how to let it dry.

Then I painted it, which went much faster than I expected (and waaaay faster than painting styrofoam goes), and so, finally, I had this.

Which is pretty much how it looked before, just with a different surface texture.  I took it to Naka-kon this weekend and I'm very pleased to announce that this is the first con which I didn't have to do any repair work afterward.  It got a little bumped and scraped, but nothing is loose and no paint came off.  Woohoo!


Naka-kon was a lot of fun.  (Of course!)  I think I had fallen into a rut before hand, in which nothing existed in the universe except for my job and the internet.  It was nice to have a reminder that there's a whole world out there with fun stuff to do and awesome people, and that those things make me happier than the internet does.

I won't post pictures on here, since they're already on facebook, but I will share one since I likely won't post it anywhere else.  I met one of Trigun's villains, Legato, and he suggested we take a picture of me shooting him.  Except I tried to kind of scowl at him and just ended up laughing.

(This guy was one of the highlights of the con for me.  Not only was I really excited to see someone cosplay Legato, but he was a super nice guy.  He caught sight of me the day before and told me he would be Legato on the next day, so "you should come find me and shoot me."  I told him his costume was fantastic and he said, "Thanks!  It makes me feel pretty.  I think it's the hair.")

Okay, that's everything!  Peace out!

Wood Puzzles, Pokemon, and Paper Mache

When I first started those Trigun + Pokemon pictures, I originally meant to do the main quartet, plus the main bad guys and perhaps a few secondary characters.  But I knew my attention span wouldn't hold out that long, so I cut it down the to four heroes.  Good call, because I have one left that I've started the sketch for and I'm itching to do other things!  So much so that I've been slipping in other small projects.

Project One:  Last weekend, I revamped a wood puzzle.  A friend gave it to me, and for some reason, I looked at it and said, "I want to paint it."

 

I painted the pieces black with acrylic paint, and then drew on the pieces with a silver sharpie.  I've been playing Zelda: Twilight Princess, and got the idea for the color scheme from the Twilight Realm, which features dark colors with light highlights.  The text is the Hylian alphabet used in that game.  It actually correlates with the English alphabet, and the blocks have real words on them, although I chose random, Zelda-related words like, "Link," "Hyrule," "Hero," etc.

Project Two:  If you could call it a project.  There's a drawing challenge floating around tumblr in which the participants go to a website that generates a random pokemon.  They then redraw that pokemon three times, redesigning it three ways.  It's for general drawing practice and for exercising your imagination.  I spent an evening doing some sketches.

Look at this derpy guy!  I tried to make him look a little cooler.

Keldeo's a little cutie.  Here's "Slightly More Realistic Keldeo," "Epic Stallion Keldeo," and "Baby Keldeo."

Project Three:  Naka-kon is coming up and I need to get cracking on my stun gun.  Today I started paper mache-ing it.  My paper mache paste kinda weirds me out.  It's made from flour and water, which the internet assures me is a totally common paper mache recipe.  But it has the look and feel of thick pancake batter, and I can't shake the feeling that I'm smearing pancake batter all over my gun.  I feel like a mad scientist creating an experiment in which a styrofoam gun, breakfast food and newspaper combine together into one monstrous abomination of nature.  Science has gone too far!

Here's a picture, by the way.

Tomorrow, I'll smear pancake batter on the other half.  Later in the week, or next weekend, I'll add a second layer.  The internet says to use about four layers, but I think that's for a hollow paper mache project that needs to be really sturdy?  I'm just going to go with two.  I think that'll do me, since I'm doing it to hide tape and to give a better surface to paint on, and I don't need it to be all that sturdy on it's own.

That's all for now!  Peace out!

Surprise! More Pokemon!

Okay, so it's not really much of a surprise.  Here's the next picture for my Trigun + Pokemon stuff.

Not much to say, I guess.  Just like the other ones, this was inked in pen and colored with color pencils.  It's dark, but it didn't come out as overwhelmingly black as I was afraid it might. XD  One of the precautions I took was to layer the black with another color.  So his suit is black layered with blue, and the pokemon are black layered with brown.

Something funny:  Trigun's creator once jokingly implied that Wolfwood looks like he belongs in organized crime.  (He totally does, by the way.)  I worked on this while I was visiting my parents last weekend, and my mom looked over my shoulder and says, "So, is he kind of a dark character?  Because his pokemon are kind of scary looking."  Dangit, Wolfwood!  XD  Stop being such a bad-guy-esque good guy!  (Just kidding, don't stop.  It's one of the things I like about you.)

Okay, so, I have Vash next, and then I'm done with these pokemon pictures.  And after that, I promise, I'm gonna do some not-Trigun stuff.  I know it might be hard to believe, but there are other things I care about besides Trigun.  And those other things need some love.

Peace out.

Happy Valentine's Day

I made some Trigun themed valentines to share on the internet.  I always think it's cute and amusing when I see people make their own valentines based on their favorite things and wanted to do it, too.

(An explanation of the jokes, for those not familiar with Trigun.  "Makes my heart stampede" = Vash's nickname is Vash the Stampede.  "I need to make a confession," = Wolfwood is a priest.  He's holding his "portable confessional," which is a little model church that he claims allows him to take confessions anywhere.  He can never talk anyone into using it, though.  "Just doing my job" = It actually is part of Meryl's job to follow Vash around everywhere he goes.  "Mille feuille cake" = Milly loves food and mille feuille cake is one of her favorites.  The last two are bad guys.  That should pretty much explain everything.)

I think the seeds for this idea were planted quite a while ago when I saw someone add pick-up lines to pictures of a Trigun cosplayer.  Then, there were some valentines going around the internet lately featuring historical figures with pun-filled pick-up lines.  And then this happened.

I wanted these to be quick and easy, so I drew them on paper, did the line art in ink, and then scanned them.  In photoshop I colored them with the paint bucket.  I put together the backgrounds and text in photoshop, too.  (Fun fact:  the hearts are on their own layer, and are actually black in every picture.  The layer is set to a low opacity to make them appear a darker shade of the background color.  This way I could copy/paste the layer onto every picture without having to recolor them.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Stuff that looks suspiciously like stuff you've seen before...

Second picture of a Trigunner with their pokemon.

(I accidentally made Meryl's hair a touch too long and it blurs together with her eyes.  Oh noes!)
Meryl has water and ice types.  At first I was afraid that Krabby would be this awkward red blob in the middle of the picture, but I'm actually really glad he's there, along with other areas of red and yellow, to give some warm spots to the picture.  These are kind of giving me a lesson in color choices, I think.  I liked Milly's a little better, with the pink, yellow, and brown pallet, and seeing this one is kind of making me worried for the next one, since it's going to have a heck of a lot of black in it.  (Vash's picture is last and it's all red and yellow.  It's either going to look good, or it's going to look like the page is on fire.)

Anyway, not much else to say, I guess.  This was done exactly like the last one, with inked lines and colored pencils.

In other news, remember my cosplay prop?  My stun gun?

You know, that thing that I bring up because I have to repair it over and over again?  Well, I think I went to a whole ONE convention without it, and I decided I wanted it back.  But I had deemed it too unstable and unrepairable, so I was mulling over my options and decided we can rebuild it!  We have the technology!  It's going to take drastic measures, though.  The plan is to duct tape the ever living daylights out of the weak joints, and then paper mache over the whole thing, not just to cover the tape, but to give me a more reliable surface to paint on.  (The paint is constantly chipping off the styrofoam.)  Yesterday I did the duct taping, but I might add more for good measure.

So, yeah, that's it from me.  Peace out, guys!

Because I'm an adult, dang it, and I do what I want, even if it means drawing pokemon but not doing my chores.

So, there were some pictures floating around the internet of the Avengers and the pokemon that they would own.  (You can find them all here.)  I thought that was a really fun idea and wanted to do something similar.  Only, of course, there's a certain anime that's my one true love, so guess what characters I used?

I want to do at least Vash, Wolfwood, Meryl and Milly.  If my artistic ADD hasn't kicked in by then, I may do some bad guys and/or secondary good guys.  This week I did Milly and her team.  I told myself it was because I was saving Vash for last, as something to look forward to, but I think, honestly, I just love the crap out of Milly and wanted to do her first.

Milly's an uncomplicated girl, (in fact, she's pretty much the only one in the story who doesn't have issues) so I went with normal type pokemon.  And she's the type who'd love anything adorable, so I gave her a bunch of cuties.  (By the way, the walking Easter egg on the end there is pretending to be Milly by wearing her coat, and the pinkie on the other end is unhappy that the coat is being dragged around and made dirty and such.)  The Avengers pictures gave stories for how the character gained each pokemon, but I didn't bother.  (Although I like to think that maybe the Chancey was given to her by her parents, because it's associated with nurses, and they know that Milly's a bit ditzy and that she's running around having adventures with a guy who's a supposed outlaw, so they're like, "Oh gaw, our baby could be toast any minute.  Take a nurse with you!  Take a nurse with you!")

Anyway, as far as the drawing style/technique goes, I was pretty much making it up as I went along.  I've gotten into the habit of doing little doodles that I outline in pen and then color with markers.  But the markers are kinda lousy because it's just a packet of twelve crayola fine-tip washables (some of them smell like fruit and the black smells like licorice) so they don't exactly do a professional level job.  For this picture, I felt like doing more outlining in pen, but wanted to do a better job than the markers, so I went back to my colored pencils.  The texture that the pencils gave turned out to work really well, since it kind of gives a soft, fuzzy feel, and it's a pretty cutesie picture.  So, yeah, this is the first time I've used that pen/pencil combo and I kinda like it.

Okay, that's all from me!  Peace out!

Legato Drawing

Okay, here's the drawing I did but wasn't able to post last time.

This is Legato from Trigun.  He's not very high of my "Favorite Characters" list.  In fact, he's creepy, sadistic, and... creepy.  Oh, and he's creepy.  The first time I watched the anime, I absolutely hated him, and every time he'd come on screen, I'd point my fingers like a gun and pretend to shoot him.  But the manga gave him a little more character development, and, over time, I've developed a sort of morbid fascination with his character.  What led me to actually draw him was someone on tumblr complaining that there wasn't enough fan art of Legato out there, so myself and a few others volunteered to provide some more.

I actually started this drawing by tracing a screen shot from the anime, and then tweaking everything into more realistic shapes and proportions.  (Which actually was an act of laziness, to be honest.  I could have just looked at the picture and drawn it, but whatever.)  You don't really realize how wonky anime actually is until you do something like this.  Apparently anime characters use volumizing shampoo, because there's, like, two inches of hair sitting on top of their heads.  (And those are the ones without the spikey hair.  Like, seriously, what hair products does Yu-Gi-Oh use?  I want to know!)  And when their head is turned a little to the side, their eyes are still so wide, they're practically on the sides of their heads.  Oh, and their eyes are big and their noses are pointy, but we knew that already.

I had a hard time with his expression, because originally, I was going to give him a wicked smile.  But with his hair across his face, I couldn't use his eyebrows to portray emotion.  So if I made him smile, he looked like a genuinely happy guy.  (No, Legato.  You are NOT a genuinely happy guy.  And if you ever were happy, you little creep, I'd be worried.)  So I changed his expression to hopefully make him look kinda ticked off instead.

On a related note, I took art class every year of high school, and a portrait drawing class at a Vo-Tech, and the portrait drawing class was the only useful thing out of the lot.  I'm pretty sure the teacher was gay.  I don't have a problem with that, I just distinctly remember noticing that he tended to call his students "honey," and the fact that that's the thing I remember the most is amusing to me.  He also had a prop one day that was a skull with pantyhose pulled over it to illustrate the curves and indentions of skin on the face, and he made some joke about how the pantyhose weren't his, he had bought them just for the class, and I thought, "Really?  Are you sure?"  I'm not really sure why I included this story.  It's just that I remember that guy every time I draw a portrait and I felt like sharing.

Peace Out! 

I'm still doing things... sort of...

So I haven't posted in almost two months.  XP

I was going to post regularly during Nanowrimo, but I didn't.  I think part of that was because every time I thought that I ought to write in my blog, I told myself it would be more constructive to write on my story/story ideas.  Another reason was that I didn't do too hot during Nanowrimo and I think deep down I didn't want to broadcast my floundering efforts to the world.  Floundering is a good word... Like a Magikarp...  Sarah used Splash!  Sarah wrote 200 words.  Sarah fainted.

I meant to push on through December so that I could at least claim my word count goal as a prize, even if it was late.  But then we had this project of doom at work and I had to work overtime for about three weeks, and that killed me.  Those were dark days in which I was chained to my desk at work, a chain with links too thick to saw through with my nail-clipper file, while someone came by once a day with a shallow bowl full of slop so that I could keep up just enough strength to keep going.  I tried to send help to the outside world, but all I could do was write notes on post-it notes, fold them into paper airplanes, and then aim for the open door whenever someone came in or out.

Okay, just kidding.  There was no chain, the slop was actually Christmas cookies, and I complained a lot to several people, who listened and sympathized, so that was nice of them.

Soon after the project of doom was over, I had to get ready for Christmas, and Christmas break, and for the past week I've been doing some really awesome chillaxing.

I drew a for-real, honest-to-goodness pencil drawing, but I'm at my folks' right now and I don't have a scanner, so that will get plastered on three different websites once I get home, including this one.  I've had artist's block for months, so drawing again felt REALLY good.

And then there's my fanfiction.  I worked on it during nanowrimo and got up to the climax.  At that point, I was able to look back very clearly on what I had written and realized I had accomplished the most boring fanfiction ever to be fanfictioned.  The IDEA of the story I still like.  But the plotline was terrible.  I decided to set it aside for the time being and come back to it with fresh eyes.  In fact, in the last few days, I've been musing on it, and I've already come up with some alterations that improve things greatly.

Things on the horizon: 

• More drawings, hopefully.  
• Since I'm nearly starting from scratch on the fanfiction, it will be awhile before there's anything worth sharing.  
• I plan on doing some cosplay/prop tweaking before Nakakon in March.  
• All-in-all, though, it's a little hard to say.  I feel like the new year is a chance to make some resolutions and take care of some flaws/bad habits, so it's possible that I may not get much creative work done while I focus on some self-improvement.  Also, I got a nook for Christmas, so I may not get much creative work done because I'm reading.

So, yeah, that's what's up with me these days.

Peace out!

The Little Mer-seal

muse
-noun
1) One of several goddesses of classical mythology presiding over the arts.
2) A person who serves as a source of inspiration to an artist.

Alternate definition:
The part of an artist responsible for inspiration and creativity, referred to as it's own individual entity, due to it's habit of defying reason, logical thought, and occasionally the wishes of the artist, as if it had a mind of it's own.
Example sentence: "My muse demanded that I draw my favorite character.  After that, my muse must have gotten mad at me for something, because it gave me artist block."


So, for the past, like, two freakin' years, my muse has been all, "I am in love with Trigun!"  This past week, for reasons I will never be able to explain, my muse came to a screeching halt and said, "Vash?  Who's that?  Whatever.  I'm all about making my own characters, baby!"

Knives and Dresses

...are two things that don't usually go together.  This is especially true, considering I'm referring to an anime character whose name is Knives, and he definitely does not wear dresses.  But I would pay to see him in one.

Okay, this time I've got a quick note on "draw impulsively," a drawing, and plans for a dress.

Draw impulsively! (Kekkai fanart opitional.)

I did two drawings in two weeks!  Woo!  I want you to envision me sitting at my laptop doing a happy dance in my chair, because that's what I'm doing right now.

I'm tentatively trying out a new art motto: draw impulsively.  Usually, when I get an idea for a drawing, I log it away in my head.  Then, when I actually feel like sitting down and working on a drawing, I'll browse my mental list of ideas, pick one that sounds pretty good, and work on it.  "Draw impulsively" means that when I get an idea for a drawing, within twenty four hours, I take up my sketch book and do a quick loose sketch of it, maybe 15 minutes, 30 tops.  If it's looking good, I'll finish it.  If the idea (or my ability to draw it) turns out to be lousy, I'll drop it and move on.  I've cautiously set a goal of one drawing a week, but we'll see.  I need to get started on some costumes, and that may throw that goal out the window.

Art things and Life things

Well, gang, not much here, but here's what I've got.

Death the Kid Picture, & Drawing in Anime Style

Okay, first of all, my Nanowrimo efforts seem to have gone down the drain.  The last few days I've had the strong desire to draw, and so I decided I had better take advantage of that.  I'm afraid that if I were to wait until after Nanowrimo, I won't feel like it anymore.

So, I'm back to drawing.  I haven't given up on the story I'm writing, I'm just temporarily shifting around my priorities.

On that note, I finished a picture!  (And I plan on starting another one as soon as I'm done posting this.  I know just what I want to do.)

A Ramble on Drawing

Hey, look, guys!  I actually drew something!

Inspiration Folder

Good grief, it's been almost two months since a blog post!  I just want everyone to know that I do intent to continue my blog, I've just been distracted lately and I've done next to nothing when it comes to anything artistic.

That said, I do have a drawing started.  After that I've got a To Do list of drawings and projects.  It's been so long since I've done any drawings (like a year) that now I'm itching to do a bunch of them.  Pencil drawings and colored pencils are the things I always come back to eventually.  I wander off to foreign lands of painting, sculpting, sewing, and the like, but I always come home again to pencil drawings.

To hold you over until I actually have something to show, I will give you a peek inside my Inspiration Folder.

Comic Strips

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the responces, encouragement and advice I recieved on my last blog post and on facebook as well.  Being able to share this with others and hearing back from them really helps a lot, and I'm very grateful to everyone.  THANKS, GUYS!  YOU ARE AWESOME!

Secondly... remember that thing I said about how I wasn't going to mention Trigun in my next post (ignoring the Post of Angst I wrote last time)?  Well... I kinda... lied... I had thought that I would spend the week making a necklace for my sister and then blogging about it, but instead I've spent a whole lot of time doing nothing.  But I did mention an Easter comic that I was going to blog about and it... might... maybe... involve... characters from a certain anime, the name of which begins with "Tri" and ends with "gun."

SO ANYWAY, here's a belated Happy Easter to everyone!  Please enjoy my belated, silly, and kinda crappy comic that I made.  (And don't worry, you won't have to know Trigun to appreciate it, although it might be a little helpful to know the guy in the suit is a priest.)