Week Five: Revisiting (Artistic Nudity)

This week will be for re-doing last year's Week 10, which is here . In all honestly it's a poorly executed drawing and is screaming to be revisited. My characters deserve better than that, especially considering that one of them had never been done in color before. Will the outfits be the same? That's the idea. The poses, however, won't. Here's the loose sketch from yesterday:

Yesterday in Figure Drawing we had a male model. I like drawing the curves on women, but variety is nice. This guy's also rather slim so muscle and bone structure is easier to see. His enormous beard, however, made the neck area difficult.

Week Four: The Time Has Come..

...to declare this drawing done! The only changes from last night are the lighting and some blur to make the background more background-y, but I was honestly too tired to be bothered with it last night.

This was good practice getting back into using my tablet, and a good learning experience. It also more than makes up for how plain last week's drawing was.

Next week will be a re-do of one of last year's projects.

Week Four: Backlash

Man, so close! tomorrow will be for adding lighting to the smaller background objects and playing with the lighting as a whole. Still too darn tired for a much more cohesive entry than that. Maybe tomorrow.

Week Four: I'm Tired

Yes, yes I am. So sorry, not much to say about it other than that the tattoos and scars are next. And the hair. The hair will be fun. The tattoos and scars might not.

Week Four: Busy (Artistic Nudity)

It's already the middle of the week and this little artist is exhausted. It's been a week of running nonstop with small and few breathing periods and early mornings. But today things are finally slowed down at least enough for me to work on my drawing for the week after a day of creativity including Figure Drawing and actually doing something in Printmaking for the first time this semester. The results are the following. Enjoy!

Also, Scrubs is messing with my emotions. They have a big deal about the end of season 8 which was the end of the show, almost made me cry, and then they have a season 9?! What are you people doing to me?!

Week Four: Fleshy (Artistic Nudity)

Since the semester is officially started, Figure Drawing projects will start being posted, and yes many of them will contain nudity. I'll put a warning on each title, just know that it will happen a lot.

Started adding in the reflective image. The "real" subject (Ivan from Hetalia) will be slightly brighter. The stomach muscles are bothering me right now, but maybe I'll figure it by the time I work on it again.

Yesterday was our first "real" day of class, since last Wednesday was cancelled due to weather. We did a lot of obnoxious exercizes, but in the end were allowed to draw from the model with our own methods. We had to turn it in as a means for the teacher to track our progress, but it was the only thing I did that day that I liked, so I snapped a photo before giving it to her.

It's been a long time since I drew from a model, but I think I'm getting into the groove of it again.

Background noise: Scrubs. Not for much longer - almost caught up.

Week Four: I Must be Crazy

Oh hey, the parts came in to fix my computer so it won't crash with graphic-heavy programs! Turned out that buying RAM cards was all I needed to do, so no need to save $400 for a new laptop.

The idea sprang from watching an artist I admire work on Livestream. She was doing a sketch of the backs of characters and added tattoos. It was a quick sketch so their tattoos weren't overly complex, but since this picture will take a week, why not add a lot of detail? Also, since I'd like the character's face to be visible, I went even further and decided to do a mirror AND some detailed decorations. Like I said, I must be crazy.

Here's a 300% close-up of the nesting doll sitting on top of the shelves:

The other things are some porcelain Faberge eggs, books, a medal, and a portrait.

Week Three: Something

This background is... something, like the title says. A decent background idea just wouldn't come to me. A spaceship interior would have a lot of gray, and the characters do too. So just... random brown. Or something.

Anyway, it's done! I can take the next two days off from Weekly Art, aside from planning Week 4.

Week Three: Minimum Color

The powers that be must be in favor of me having a lot of time to finish this since my school campus was closed due to snow and both my studio classes were cancelled yesterday.

Still no set ideas for the background; probably a linear background. Also, more color will be added to Denver's pants and his face.

Now to keep watching Scrubs and enjoying not being out trudging through the snow.

Background noise: More Scrubs

Week Three: Heavy Lines

Inking this drawing did not go as smoothly as planned, and since it's a different type of subject matter than the last two doing things a bit differently was fitting anyway. The coloring will be different too, probably very flat. I messed up on Denver's face repeatedly while inking it, so I'llbe trying to color around the correction fluid, which is never fun. The background's likely to be very symmetrical, since they're on a space ship.

Today is my first real day of class in both my studios! I'm excited for Life Drawing but have NO ideas for my first Printmaking project. That should be interesting...

Background noise: Extraterrestrial by Katy Perry

Week Three: Futuristic Love

It's time to move on to adding another character in the drawing, and also time to make another attempt at drawing my hermaphrodite alien, Corvus. This time, however, I'm including en's android boyfriend, Denver. He's an awkward adorable thing still adapting to his emotion software.

Corvus' species is rather shy by nature, and also rather short. Corvus is about 5'1", Denver is at least six feet since he's constructed in the image of a famous male model (in that setting anyway).

Also, some more character sketches. Seems I've forgotten how to draw my goat Kenjo. Duke turned out awesome, though.

Week Two: Sweet Completion

The only reason this is being updated now instead of several hours ago was that both my lighter green markers went completely dry and a perilous drive to Michael's had to be made through the snow to spend about thirty seconds finishing filling in the background. Whining aside, however, it was worth it.

This is going to be the last of the semi-Art Nouveau backgrounds for a while. They're fun, but there needs to be a bit of variety. Possibly also the last fancy dress for a bit. My next two ideas don't really call for either of those anyway. Also, here's some sketches of a few of my characters done during class on Friday.

Also, great computer news! My new battery for the "dinosaur" (named Marvin) came in, and it turns out that replacing the RAM cards with some that hold more should fix the crashing issues. Said replacements have been ordered and should be here next week, so there will be digital art this year after all!

Week Two: Stripey

While minty green with dark green was a tempting route for the dress, a more subdued color was just a wiser choice. The background will have the greens and some yellow to help balance it. It'll also be similar to last weeks with symmetrical shapes, though not the same ones.

Also, with school having started, it's sketch in class time! Here's a few scribbles from yesterday.

Background noise: More Scrubs (try to act surprised)

Week Two: Man That's Small...

The gun she's holding is a Vector CP1, because the super-tiny size was an amusing idea to me. In fact, it may still be too large here - the barrels are about 4 inches long. Or were, rather. They were recalled in 2000 for safety reasons. Thanks to my Illustrated Catalog of Handguns for that information. It actually may not even be one that would have a smoking barrel to blow on, but that detail needs to stay because the artist said so.

The dress that inspired this one is actually this right here, but while the vertical stripe pattern will be interesting, a different color scheme would be a better idea since the character is herself white.

Background noise: Sherlock, the new BBC version

Week Two: More Dresses

Inspiration for this week didn't come until about three o'clock this afternoon from a huge pile of art/photography/reference books (seen above). Even trying to sleep this morning absolutely no ideas would come. Thank God for my bad habit of collecting art books left and right and also caffeine.

So in the end we're headed for a crazy combination of my character Kat in Victorian-era clothing blowing the smoke off of a very modern handgun. The background will likely be something stylistic since last week's was so fun.

Background noise: The Affair of the Necklace

Week One: Perhaps Just Inspired By...

This was finished two days ago, but the cat is sitting on my lap finally forcing me to be still and focus long enough to update.

In the end, there's not a whole lot about this that still screams "Mucha", but there are enough similar elements to at least still claim that it was inspired by him. All that aside, it turned out nicely. It's also considerably brighter and more colorful than most of my work.

To my credit, however, yesterday was spent taking down Christmas decorations, shopping for some necessities, and cleaning my entire house aside from the dishes that I'm putting off for as long as possible.

Background noise: Scrubs

Week One: Progress Two

Maybe it was the built up congestion and over-all tiredness of last night, but for some reason this picture looks better today than it did before bed. The colors I've started with are still iffy and the hibiscus flowers are too tropical-looking, but they can still be fixed easily.

The symbols in the crescent aren't Astrology symbols, but I found them on this website, which shows them as what people claiming to be abducted by aliens were supposedly shown. Whether they're real or not, filling the circles with actual symbols rather than making them up seemed like a better idea.

Also, yes, the cigarette holder is backwards. The reason is simply because I didn't want any of the picture to break the frame. If I did it on one side, I'd feel the need to do it on the other and there's no detail that needs to. So backwards it is.

Today I'll be coloring in the background and attempting to draw dreadlocks in a Mucha-like manner. That should be... interesting.

Background noise: Shaun the Sheep via Netflix instant play. Hush, it's cute.

Week One: In the Manner Of...

Alphonse Mucha, a name rightfully associated with the Art Nouveau movement. The picture above is one of his many illustrations with a distinct style that nearly everyone has seen at least once. It also happens to be one of my favorite styles, and one I've been hoping to imitate since last September. The very idea is a truly intimidating one, but it still couldn't hurt to at least make an attempt. The best way to learn is from the masters, after all.

While my own attempt won't be nearly so detailed due to the limits of my patience, time, and what I'm willing to attempt on paper (more on that later), the over-all feel should be doable. This is what I accomplished yesterday, and it's already clear that the background will drive me quite insane.

Like last year, the character of my first Weekly Art is my half-alien named Bit. This is a pose I worked out in a sketchbook last September, though I used this stock photo to assist with her neck and shoulders - a common problem area for me. Today the plan is to work on the background and return to the actual character tomorrow.

And now, more on my computer. See, the computer that I us for digital art is, to the say the least, a fossil. It's four years old, was bought running Vista and now runs Windows 7 (and has since September). Unfortunately, my computer's physical ability is to support about 1 Gigabyte of memory where Windows 7 requires 4 Gigs to run smoothly. Graphic-intensive programs do not fare well. So until I miraculously manage to save at least $400 for a new laptop, most of the Weekly Art will be traditional media.

Background music: Mixed CD

PS: Google Chrome doesn't seem to like Blogger as much as Firefox does.

It Rolls In

It's incredibly belated, but a Merry Christmas/Happy New Year/Happy Any Other Holiday to my readers. I just returned from a long trip down to Tulsa, OK to spend Christmas with my mother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was wonderful and I hope everyone else's holidays were too.

Though it didn't occur to me until just now, and perhaps it's the left-over holiday Spirit, my finished painting above could very well have a sort of Christmas-like theme to it. Either way, it's completed and I consider it a final studio piece worth being proud of.

This year I intend for Weekly Art to return and to have another attempt to see how far into the year I make it. School assignments will definitely count, as I have two studios. One of those is Figure Drawing, so some artistic/tasteful nudity will be involved up until the middle of May when Spring semester ends.

Now to finish unpacking and figure out what this week's undertaking will be.