The Pages Just Keep Coming

I am doing a poor job of updating this blog every week with a comic page, so my apologies there. I think it's partly that since I post links to it on all my other social networking websites most people see it anyway. Also I don't always have an unrelated drawing to show. That's something else I'd like to work on.

The unrelated sketch this time was a birthday present for a friend. Her birthday is not technically until the 3rd, but she received her package and the drawing yesterday so I can post it without ruining any surprises. It's an RP-related thing with characters from Blue Exorcist and Attack on Titan.

Here are pages One an Two from Chapter Two of Rose With Thorns, which started on March 20th, and of course a link to my portfolio blog, which has both pages without text.

Week 35: Fictional Birthday

It was a week of major artistic blockage... and then yesterday I remembered that a fictional character has her birthday on the 5th of this month (Friday!) so I decided to celebrate with a nice, quick sketch. It's Hanji from Attack on Titan, the lovable eccentric scientist soldier.

Week 30: Dude Your Hand...

I just now scanned this and realized it looks like a bee (or several bees) stung his hand. I'm gonna fix that before it drives me completely up a wall.

Week 28 Is Enough

July 12th was one of my close friends' birthday (the day after mine!) so I drew him a little gift of two of our characters hanging out. Mine is obviously Kat, the er... cat. His is Kyle the hyena. He's like her cuddly little brother.

I had plans to do something full color and all for this week, but it didn't work out. This turned out well however, so I decided it would work for this week.

Week 18 Is A Rebellious Teenager

...or at least pretty close to one. Every time I sat down to draw, my inspiration told me I wasn't its boss, I couldn't tell it what to do and that it was going out with its friends whether I liked it or not. Yesterday I sat it down and it agreed to behave... for now. As long as it was allowed to create something totally self-indulgent. Since that something happened to be a sketch of a pretty man sleeping, I was agreeable.

Week 8 Wants to Stay in Bed

I'm still not operating at 100% after returning from my trip, and I've been home for almost a week. I can't explain it or fix it, so I'm just rolling with it and trying to fall back into routine in hopes that my body and brain get the hint.

One of the things I really can't seem to focus on is drawing when it requires me to get past the sketching phase. But I am trying, darn it all, so we'll see what happens.

Week 3 Employs the KISS Method

KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid, or Keep It Super Simple if you want to be polite. It doesn't necessarily refer to the fact that I would totally be okay with kissing this guy. Well, I would if he hadn't just been smoking. Cigarettes are disgusting, yet sometimes I think they add a lot to a drawing. Maybe it's a morbid fascination.

As I worked on this and became more and more involved with the sketching phase, I realized that erasing the sketch lines and trying to color it would just take away from what's there. Part of being an artist is knowing when to stop and not over-work something, so that was my route this time.

Week 23 Is Sluggish

There are yet more wrenches in the works of my life, but I'll spare you the details and show you what I've managed to start after erasing and starting over more times than I care to count. Something simple and sappy.

Week 18 Is More Paid Sillness

Since I'm only doing one drawing this week, the last of the commissions, I'm going to pace myself more with the completion. I'm happy with the sketch aside from the pets - I feel like they need to be more proportionate.

Week Thirty One Is Going to Get Crazy

As I may have mentioned, the next painting assignment is surrealism. For years I've had the idea of a wine glass with a night sky in it, but that's just a start for a painting. So I spent the first hour of class today looking for inspiration online and brought together what you see up there. The dripping substance will hopefully resemble wine and have some sort of imagery in it. The lamp hanging off the left of the cheese-house won't be used.

Since I spent so much time conceptualizing, there isn't much to see as far as the painting except the blues of the sky that will be between the city and the dripping wine. Looks neat anyhow.

Week Thirty is Almost There

Hopefully this is "abstracted" enough for my professor, because that's as abstract as I'm willing to make it. All that's left to be done is to add a bit more to the flame at the top in the very corner. I had to make a frame for this painting. It was a fiasco that I don't want to discuss.

I also finally did some art for myself. Just a simple character sketch.

Week Sixteen Start

This week I decided it was time to draw one of my own characters again. It's been a while since one of them last had some spotlight, and if memory serves my character Duke hasn't had any at all this year, poor guy. Actually, I doubt he cares. Look at how characteristically unimpressed he is.

I've re-drawn his face several times and it's still bothering me, so we'll see if I can get it to a point where it looks right. Also, this week's pose is brought to you by this stock photo.

Week Twelve Free Styling (Nudity at End)

Here's just a gathering of some sketching that I was finally able to do for fun of my take on a Hetalia character and a gathering of some work from Figure Drawing. Enjoy!

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

Diving In

The time has come to begin the final project for my Painting I studio class. This painting is free-subject, but must reflect everything we've learned. Since I'm sick of still life and don't want to do another portrait, I'm going the surrealist route with it.


The starting sketch is rather confusing, but the idea is that of a woman in white dress that is draped over buildings in such a way that they are quite pronounced. She looks to the heavens, arms outstretched, with the night sky behind her. I didn't realize when the idea first struck, but it does have a lot of undertones of my Christian faith. And that's just fine.

The surrealist nature, however, does not mean that I get to make it all up. This piece still needs believable elements, so a still life does, in fact have to be used, as seen below:

The fabric isn't the right color, but it is the right heaviness. One of our lessons was that color is arbitrary however, so painting it as while should work out just fine.

This is it as of today. The "blue" of the dress will be white eventually, but the trick with oils is to start dark and work up to the brighter and lighter tones. A fellow art major has been giving me a lot of feedback and several ideas, all of which I think can take this idea from "neat" to "amazing". Also, the buildings will be exaggerated so they have more definition.

Onward Ho!

So the art block is still mercifully non-existent, and to keep it that way I'm just rolling with whatever kind of mood I'm in. Right now it's a sappy fan art mood, so you'll have to bear with me until this drawing is complete and it's out of my system.

More Hetalia characters, Ivan (Russia) and Lien (unofficial name of Vietnam), and also a little addition that's incubating. Yes, clothes are coming. This is just how I work.

Week 19: Better Late Than Never

So... I'm three days behind in starting. Whoops? Suffice to say, it won't be overly complex. Right now it's just going to be my character Duke quoting a line from Terminator 2. I'll leave you to try and guess based on his expression and state.

Background noise: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Week 18: Paid Job

This week's project is a commission for one of my friends on DeviantArt. I wouldn't feature a black and white commission on this blog, but since this one will be full color I think it should qualify as a week-long project. And this way the client can see what I'm up to.

These two are her version of Metal Knuckles and Metal Sonic 2 from the Sonic games. Thankfully she allowed me to draw them in my own style rather than that of the official art, since she doesn't draw them that way either. Humanoid anatomy is more fun anyway.

The female character will have clothes, this just seemed a good point to scan what I had so far.

Background noise: "The Shining". What? I'm bored. And it really sucks compared to the book, just FYI.

Week 5 - Progress 1: Begin Again

Even though I did start on the actual drawing today (working on it between typing, in fact), I decided that I rather like starting with the very beginning of my process. It shows how I think, I suppose, though that's not necessarily a healthy thing for everyone else to see.

This week is fan art, and traditional media again. Also it'll be containing a perspective-using background again. Because I'm a masochist in that way, I suppose. The two characters are from the obscure anime movie/manga I love called Spriggan. They're... wrestling. Or something. Some guy thing. They will be fully clothed, I just don't bother with those things while mapping out poses.

For those not familiar, yes, the guy who is "losing" is tugging on the ponytail of the guy who is "winning".

Music: None, just a quick couple of doodles