Meaningful Things, Weird Things, Nothing in Color

I started this as a draft over a month ago. Shame on me.

Anyway, June (yes that far back) was PTSD awareness month as well as the one year anniversary of Voltron: Legendary Defender's launch on Netflix. To acknowledge the former and celebrate the latter, I combined the two into some fanart. Since Shiro and I both suffer PTSD, it only seemed fitting.

The PTSD ribbon is the color I used in the drawing.

A friend had a birthday some time in June, so I managed a quick, decent sketch of one of their characters... named Nanners. That's about all I got.

There's some things I have an interest in that I'll forget about for long periods of time and then suddenly think "You know what was fun and trippy and I should watch videos of again? That thing." In this case said thing is a very odd independent PC game called "OFF". It would take a few blog entries by themselves to explain this image so just enjoy it for the craziness it is, I suppose.

I really truly hope that my next blog entry won't be so long in coming but I tend to be scatterbrained about it since I don't have a weekly art project or anything of the like to keep me focused on it. But I am considering trying Inktober. We'll see how that goes.

Week 19 By A Hair

Technically I still finished this within 7 days, since I believe I started the sketch last Thursday. Still I should try to start Week 20 tonight since this was barely finished on time. Oops.

On another note, one of my favorite places to be in summer and spring is under a tree. I love the shade patterns that the leaves make, and love seeing the cracks of sky through the leaves and branches when I look up. It's like being under a big leafy comfortable blanket. Having said that, I like how the leaf shadows turned out here.

Week 19.2

After being either unmotivated or busy or both for a few days, I finally had time to make real progress with this. Hopefully the pallet looks nice and summery instead of like highlighter barf. It does make me want strawberry lemonade though, which was what gave me the idea to begin with.

I started the background after saving the progress here, and hopefully I'll finish it by tomorrow night.

Week 19's Good Manners

It's time for another bright, colorful piece and also time for an original character instead of fan art. My still un-named plus-sized clothing model is making a return and being adorable as always. This time I actually plan to make a pattern for her dress and not be lazy when I color her and add the background.

The hat I will fix digitally before I color it. without fail whenever I draw a hat it turns out looking really weird.

Week 14: Eagle

Upon seeing the giant-looking handgun a friend of mine said Duke should have a Desert Eagle. Guys really like those for some reason, so I figured why not. They're also relatively simply to draw as far as guns go. Plus one of his arms is cybernetic so it could handle the recoil... then again his shoulder is not. Whatever.

Week 13 Fully Realized

It's colored.

I'm tired.

Thank you all and good night

Week 4: A Little Bit of Patience

At some point today, probably while working on that metal cylinder, I was convinced that I would never finish this thing. But finished it is and relieved I am. One of my possible ideas for Week 5 was just a setting/background study but after this thing you can forget that. I'll do something more relaxing and save the environment study for later.

So even though it did take me a whole week to do, it's a relief to be finished before Wednesday because I have a day to relax and decide what to do next.

This actually turned out nicely and I'm considering selling art prints of it.

Oh, and as a bonus here's a screencap of just the background:

Week 4.4

I'm just kind of trudging through most things today, including drawing. I finally decided to take a break after I finished shading her clothing. I know her pants at least need more contrast and I'm sure her hair needs work but I'm too distracted by other things to worry about it. Hopefully I'll finish it up tomorrow.

Week 4 Got Lost on the Way

On Wednesday, the day originally intended for starting the drawing, I filled in the flat colors on Bit. Then I neglected it on Thursday and Friday and did a little bit of shading and highlighting today, but don't have a preview of that version saved.

The flat color version looks nice, however, so I might as well share it. It would be nice to have this all finished tomorrow and be able to start early again. I'm going on a trip in about two weeks so being ahead would be awesome.

Week 4.2 - Two For One

The inking was quite the labor-intensive step since I was being super-finicky with it all. It certainly paid off though, and to make sure everyone can see all my hard work clearly, I'll post the inked version before I pasted it onto the background that I drew last night.

The background's pretty simple right now and I'm okay with it. I'll poke around online later tonight and see if I can't find any good splatter brushes for SAI to dirty it up with. I also need to figure out a lighting source. Originally she was going to be at the front end of the alley way with a light affixed to the right building but now I gotta figure something else out.

I'm hungry.

Week 41 By the Skin of its Teeth

Even with no color on this drawing, it took me six days to finish. This isn't because it was a really difficult piece, but more because I've been side-tracked with things that I could have easily replaced with working on this instead. Oh well. I'm happy with the outcome and am already brainstorming Week 42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything!

Week 41 Something Something

My coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so no witty title for you today.

I momentarily considered not giving Thatch pants but in the end decided that would just make his hands a distractingly obviously censor method. Also if I add the digital effects that I'm considering, the central part of the image will be his chest and that would detract from it.

The sketch isn't done, I still need to add the chains and maybe some shading and whatever else strikes my fancy. I know the angle of his face isn't totally accurate, but I like it how it is, so it stays.

Week 41's Inner Feelings

This image came to me last week some time. It's Thatch again, but with me attempting to make him expressive. I still don't know much of his back story as he hasn't told me, but I know it royally sucks and may have involved some human experimentation.

I'm unsure of whether or not I'll add some digital effects to it once the sketch is done.

Week 40 Finishes Late

This should have been done at least three days ago, but I was distracted with things and ended up pacing myself more than intended. All the same, it turned out nicely, though Bit's skin is a great deal darker than I planned. My lavender marker was dried up, and while I'm not used to her being colored quite like that, it does look interesting.

Week 40's Inking Job Actually Doesn't Suck

When it came time to ink this one I was determined not to ruin it like I've done so many times. So I focused, leaned a lot closer to my paper than I needed to, steadied my hands, and went for it. My focus and hard work paid off in that I don't totally hate it now that it's cleaned up and inked. The goal for today is to finish coloring and find some lazy excuse for  a background that doesn't look like a lazy excuse for a background.

Week 40 Is Smokin'

Well technically Bit is smoking. A week can't smoke unless someone lights a calendar on fire and then things just get messy.

Thus far I'm really pleased with how this is turning out. It's been a while since a drawing of her just "felt" right, and this one does. Maybe it has to do with finally having a job I love that also allows me the time and energy to be myself.

I will admit, however, that I am scared to death of inking and coloring this at the risk of destroying it.

Week 40 Rolls In

This is my third year doing my weekly art blog, but the first year that I've made it very far past the halfway point back in June. I may not be dead on with which week of the year it is, but if I'm not I can probably squeeze out two drawings a week once or twice if need be.

This week I'm attempting to draw Bit again, and so far she's being far more cooperative than last time. She's sporting some suspenders and a tie this time around (And yes, a shirt), because I wanted to draw woman looking confident, and Bit is probably the most confident character I have, male or female.

Week 38 Changed Its Mind

Last night I sat down to work on the sketch I had already started for this week and totally hated it. Something was "off" and I had no desire to start it again. Instead I broke out SAI a little bit ago and decided that instead I would try drawing my character Thatch again and attempt to get his anatomy and some of his scars down. Having a point of reference is always a good idea for characters that you plan to draw a lot more of.

Yes he is a skinny son of a gun. He was a drug addict for a while and that's what happens.

Week 38 Is... Something

I had great plans for this week's drawing, but I'm currently balancing two jobs (and will soon be leaving one), so understandably it's taken a while for me to have the time and motivation to start the actual drawing.

My original idea was to do something fun and action-based, but after a few pages of warm-up sketches I tried to start four different times and all of them were terrible. So no action pose. Just something... pin-up-y. Almost. This will be a drawing of Bit and she's not one for showing much skin.

Her arm's already suffering the "I have no idea what's going on" syndrome, so that's the first thing I'm going to change when I next pick it up. Also the image is really dark on Blogger and I don't know why.

Week 21 Is Expressive

Despite how much running around I did today, I was able to sit down for a while and finish up. "Sad" isn't an expression Bit has very often. Her usual default "not happy" mood is angry. Maybe that's why drawing her with that expression felt so unnatural. This is also the most I've drawn her without a cigarette.