Dec. 21, 2013 - Vilppu Chapter 4, Mental Blocks, and Progress

Finally finished up Vilppu chapter 4

I finally finished up Chapter 4 Box and Sphere forms.  Much like the box forms, I had a lot of trouble really grasping the box forms for some reason.  These only emphasizes one of my weaker points when it comes to forms, and drawing in general.  I need to set time aside to really understand boxes and with only one more week of holiday hustle I'll have more time to work on my weak spots.

Few random sketches

 The first sketch on the left I wasn't very proud of.  It has that feel to it of my older stuff so I just didn't bother finishing it.  The other two I did nontimed figure studies.  I was supposed to do more but I just kind of stopped at 2.  I wanted to draw my characters.


And my characters.
 I remembered what I had said in my last blog about not feeling worthy to draw my own characters.  So I wanted to combat that.

I took a deep breath and gave it my all.  I did these without using any reference.  I wanted to see how much I could draw from my mind solely on memory alone.  They all did require a bit of work before i got them to where i was really happy with them.  I had to cut and move a bit here and there.  But in the end too my surprise, they all turned out rather good!  I was able to pinpoint the trouble areas and touch them up to look just that much better.  I'm beginning to believe that there is much more to the mental games of art than I had ever previously thought.  There is an entire unseen area of mental blocks that need to be torn down before real progress can be made.  It seems the more I become aware of these mental blocks the more I'm able to take the necessary steps to combat those. 

One of those images I felt was good enough to finish.  So Holiday Nona was born!

I dressed nona into some festive clothes.  I tried leaving her colors orange but it seemed to clash with the whole holiday theme a bit so I changed her colors to match her clothes.  with zero reference on this image, I might have to say that this is probably my favorite image to date.  While it isn't perfect, it is really a "sum" of my work and effort put into one image.  and I'm pleased with that.

Dec. 20, 2013 - Sketches

Dec. 19, 2013 - Sketches, Rosalina, and The perfect Image Complex

Sketches

Had a lot on my mind during these sketches.  General busyness of the holidays.  oawowoaowaoaowowa  Even still, some turned out pretty good.  Another day another sketch!

And Rosalina!

Rosalina was recently announced for smash bros so i thought i'd do a thing with her.  So here she is throwing a Luma!  Looking back at this i'm seeing more mistakes pop up than I did when creating it.  Even still, I really enjoyed creating this one.  I tried playing around with lighting a liiiiittle bit.  the end result is not bad, but I could definitely ramp it up next time.  I learned a bit while doing this one.  In the end, I'm glad I did it.


Ya know, I was thinking a lot about the need to complete the "perfect image"  Something that I've given the name "Perfect Image Complex."  It's when you complete a drawing/painting/animation/video then feel the fear not being able to live up to that creation the next time you do something.  Like you've set the bar to a new level and it's impossible to live up to that.  I noticed that a lot.  In particular when I was growing up.  Why is that?  I recently saw a video of an artist guy talking about the importance of mileage when it comes to art.  Putting out as much art as you can not only for you to learn from, but to just get the experience you need in order to do things correctly. 

Before I started really trying to improve my art I would have these moments where I would draw or do something amazing!  Seemingly by accident.  And now that I've put hours into studying and trying to learn the internal workings of a piece of art, I'm convinced it WAS just that, an accident.  I didn't really know what I was doing or where i was going with the piece, I just kinda winged the whole thing and if something turned out good then it was good.  Now, however, things seem to be a bit different.  I can SEE why something works or doesn't.  Or, I am learning to see why things work, i should say.  And it feels like an entirely different ball game.  When something ends up looking right, i now know why it looks right.  Because I've put in the extra time/mileage to learn the subject matter.  While my gestures, forms, etc etc need a lot of work, I can say that my understanding of proportions have really excelled.  This is no doubt because of the constant studying I do.  Interesting thing to note about those, proportions weren't even the thing I was trying to learn.  I just kind of learned it while studying the other forms and such.  I'm not claiming to be perfect at anything, but this just shows just how important it is to really keep an open mind when doing any study.  You just might accidentally learn something new.

The end goal, is to become familiar enough with what you are drawing/creating so that there are no longer those "little accident" levels of success, but rather, well thought out and planned levels of success.  It's a slow process.  Slow process indeed.  But it's a thing im doing.  Gonna conclude this blog with a thing I recently heard somebody say.  I don't remember where or who I heard it from, but it really made me think.  It went something like this. 

"People and objects will come and go in your life, but your art is there till the end."  And that's completely true.  If it's gonna be with me till the end, I might as well nurture it, feed it, and make it more amazing.

Dec. 18, 2013 - FMA Maes-Hughes & Not good enough for my own characters.

One more of these!
Maes Hughes, one of my favorite characters in the series.

 Again, like last time, I winged the pose to see what I could come up with.  I don't really have a lot to say about it (and it's really late XD) But I like how it turned out.

 Aaaaand here's the sketch of it.

On the side, I've been rethinking the story and Lore behind my two robot characters Nona and Dogster.  So I figured I'd give them a doodle.

I have no idea why Nona was so large in this one, I think i had the zoom set wrong or something.  Anyway, not my best by any means, but it is what it is.  And that's all part of this blog, the good, bad, and ugly... I need to remind myself that sometimes.  Remind myself that this blog isn't for all the perfect pictures, but for just freakin everything.  Drawing these did get me remembering...  Didn't I say I wanted to draw my own characters more often?  I completely forgot about that haha.  It's an interesting thing when it comes to my own characters, I don't know if anybody else feels that way when they haven't drawn in a while.  I don't like to see them drawn "not good"  Like i'm not good enough to draw my own characters.  It's an interesting feeling, and i've noticed it just about every time I tried to draw them over the course of my return to art. I guess I just never really gave it a good thought and just left it as it was.  That is silly.  That is a silly way of thinking.  There's no reason i should not feel good enough to draw things I made. Perhaps that's the reason why when I draw my OCs they generally turn out worse than other things I draw.  It's kind of like that whole "fear of success" thing I talked about in another blog..  I'm limiting myself because I don't think Im good enough.  The whole psychological thing.  The next time I draw them, which is soon, I should consciously make an effort to combat these silly thoughts.

Anyway, that's it for now.
More training!

Dec. 17, 2013 - Fullmetal Alchemist Edward and Kimblee

Took a side step from the traditional studies to do something a little more complete.  Gestures and forms and values are all very important aspects of art, but so to is line art and coloring, which I know very little about either of those haha.  I needed something to color and I just recently finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, so I figured why not start there?  So here's Ed!

I only used character reference for this one, I wanted to see how I could do on pose and proportion.  I like how it turned out, I do think the proportions are a bit off for the character, and the head might be a bit small, but overall not too bad.  I don't draw without reference very often, but it is a thing I need to learn.  A very interesting thing about reference that I heard from an art podcast a while back is that the more you use it, the less you need it.  It's like saving the images and concepts into your memory.  Recalling them, however seems to be another challenge on it's own.  It seems to be a delicate balance of studying from reference and putting  to use what you've learned and remember.  I can't say exactly how long this took, but I will be doing more colored work in the future, hopefully crammed along side my figure studies.

Next up is Kimblee!

Requested by my good friend shaunzy.  I wanted to push this pose a bit.  I didn't feel the first pose (the first image) really pushed anything and just played it a bit safe.  I tried a bit of twisting and such.  I dont know how well it payed off, but I really like the end result.  Again, I tried not to use reference on this one for the pose or figure.  I thiiiink i did a pretty good job on this one.  I did however really mess up the line work on this.  I wasnt sure exactly sure how to tackle this one and ended up using the line art as more of a sketch thing towards the end.  I also think the coloring job on this one (and perhaps as well as the first one) are flatter than a pancake.  Moreso on this one than the first because of his almost entirely white color scheme.


And because I like this kind of stuff, here are the original sketches.

I have no idea why kimblee was so much smaller in this, perhaps my zoom was off or something.

Line/ink layer.

 and because this made me laugh, here's the ink layer without the line.  Look at eds face.

Dec. 16, 2013 - Gestures

More Gestures

Interesting.  I was able to slip into that mindset a bit easier this time around.  I dont know exactly what it was that set this time apart from other times.  Interesting interesting interesting.  Not only that, but I was able to finish all of these before the 2 min were up all while not feeling too rushed.  which is a bit surprising considering these actually look like i know what I'm doing.  Small steps small steps small steps.  These were more 2 min sketches from http://www.quickposes.com/


More training.

Dec. 15, 2013 - Holiday Rush Continues, Gestures

The holiday busy rush continues.  Here's hoping this is the final week.

Had a busy day, but I did manage to sit down to do a few of these.  As much as I'd like to continue drawing, and man do I, I need to be up earlier than normal this whole week.  Regardless here's the gestures!

These were all 2 min gestures.  I wasn't expecting these results at all.  During these I noticed that I was able to pick out the shapes of the body parts a little better than normal.  The concept of form seemed to be a little bit more in my grasp than usual.  It feels like I was able to capture some of the bending and twisting action Vilppu talks about in his lectures on a few of these.  This excites me.  Ending this blog on a high note feels nice.  I like that.

MORE TRAINING!

Dec. 8 and 9, 2013 - Holiday is Not Over, Pokemon, Dullahan, and Schedule

Silly me, I forgot December had a Holiday.  Busyness has extended another month.
Christmas, Christmas holiday.  owaowaoawowoaowaoawowowao

BUNEARY!  I asked a few friends what to draw and Buneary.

Never drawn Buneary before.  I can say it turned out pretty decent.

Mawile was another pokemon.

Never drew this one either.  I really like how it turned out.  I don't really like how the pose turned out, but overall i think it's nice.

Charmander!

A friend of mine recently had a birthday and I wanted to draw him charmander.  As many times as i've drawn charmander I can never seem to get him right!  I don't know why that is.  I decided to throw out all my reference and freedraw him.  His feet turned out a bit big, but this is much better than the other attempts.  Regardless, I know your probably reading this post, so Happy Birthday again Raz :D!  And as a holiday gift to all of the viewers of this blog, I'll try to keep on top of updates a big more.  More on that after the art though.

Next up, Monster Girl Dullahan

Dullahan?  Their heads come off right?  I'm not too sure, so i drew her sitting on her head.  I actually didn't use any reference for this one.  I wanted to see how It would turn out.  And i'd say not too shabby.  I am really pleased with the proportions.

Lastly, I finally sat down and wrote myself a serious schedule.  I have the absolute worst A.D.H.D. (the one where the mind constantly wanders.  I can sit down for long periods of time, but my brain certainly can't) I very often find myself day dreaming or wondering away from things that i should be doing.  I have learned that the best way for me to combat this is through setting a schedule of some sort for myself.  At the moment it's a pretty basic schedule that consists of times to serious study, work on gestures, free sketching, recording, editing, etc. End goal is to keep me on track with art studies and other various things and to combat the terrible daydreamer mind of mine.  However, with the coming holiday hublub, things will be more complicated these coming weeks.  First and foremost though, i do need to fix this sleep schedule.  Staying up this late cant be a good thing haha.  anyway, MORE TRAINING!

Nov. 28, 2013 - Holiday's Over, Sketches, Figure Drawings & Insect Girl

Oh man, so that break I wanted to take ended up preparing for Thanksgiving haha oh jeeze.

All of that's over and I just wanted to draw a bit before bed.  Here are the sketches sketches.

I found an old sketchbook of mine and it was filled with Nona, so i figured I'd try to draw her...  oh dear.  Normally i wouldn't share these, but this blog is about all that stuff so here ya go!

For the Monster Girl challenge, Insect Girl:

I know almost nothing about drawing insects, so this one was a bit of a challenge.  I kept the pose pretty basic, not sure how much I like it, but it's not terrible.

Lastly.
Figure Drawings:

Some of these turned out pretty alright, but I got pretty tired towards the end there.

Overall, not the best day, but this was at the end of a busy day.
I'm off to bed.

Let's shoot for a better day tomorrow!


Edit:  I've also been thinking about going ahead and starting up that art vlog thing.  Typing this here so i can remember to talk about that next blog entry.

Nov. 23, 2013 - Alpha 1 and Short Break?

A buddy and I were talking power rangers, and he wanted me to design an Alpha 1.  So I did!

Originally Alpha 1, defender of the galaxy!  Alpha 1 defends everything the rangers don't.  Hahaha, it's just a fun character.  I thought it would be silly to give Alpha 1 massive features.  Here is the original Alpha 5 from Power Rangers.

aaaand, Small break?
I appear to be taking a small break this weekend.  I found myself mindlessly watching vilppu not being able to take anything in.  And a recent video game came out that I had been waiting for and I thought I would give that a whirl.  While playing it, I realized I hadn't taken a good relaxation break in a long time.  If it wasn't working on projects of my own, it was babysitting, fixing one thing or another.  So rather than needlessly pushing myself, I'm giving myself a few days to recoop and just enjoy a good game. 

Nov. 21, 2013 - Figures, Zombie Girl 2.0, and Vilppu Notes/ Studying

Another pretty busy day, but I did a thing!
Started off by with some non-timed figure drawings.

I'm trying to further grasp the idea of the human figure. Practice practice practice! and the like.


 Zombie Girl 2.0

 I wasn't super happy with how things turned out on yesterday's Zombie Girl, so I thought I'd give it another go.  I tried doing simple edits tot he original image but I could never manage to get it to look right.  So I scrapped the whole thing and gave it another go.  While I don't think it's perfect, i must say it is better than the original.


Lastly, I wanted to touch on copying Vilppu and why I think it's important to copy things when you don't fully understand it.  When doing the Vilppu studies, i try to take as many notes as I can.  Either things that he said directly or ideas that come to mind when watching one of his lectures.  EVEN IF I don't understand it, i try to copy it to the best of my ability.  Why is this?  Why even bother if i don't know what's going on?  Simple answer,  just because I don't understand something, doesn't mean that I will never understand it.  The closest example of this was the concept of the spherical forms.  First time watching that lecture, my brain was mush.  I didn't grasp the concept, but I kept on.  I kept watching the lecture, and I kept taking notes.  I continued to study the notes and even watched the lecture a few times.  Then it just clicked.  It wasn't all at once, and it wasn't all in the same day, but I was able to finally understand the material because of repetition and "copying" the tools vilppu gave me, even though I did not understand them.

Going even farther back, and in completely different context, a very similar thing happened in a physics class I took way back in high school.  It was a math class.  I have never been good at math.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I have always been terrible at math.  However, this time, I made sure to copy absolutely everything the teacher did on the board.  I didn't understand everything right away, but let me tell you, it sure helped with how I learn things. 

So if you dont understand something, take notes.  Then return to them regularly.  You'd be surprised what you could learn by consistency!

It's late again, I'm off to bed.  Busy day again tomorrow so I'll at least try to finish up some Vilppu and get some figure drawings in.

Nov. 20, 2013 - 75 figure drawings!? - Zombie Girl

I think this has to be some kind of record for one day.  75!  Jeeze!  I was aiming for 100 but but it started to get pretty late.

The first 50 were 1 min sketches.

The next 25 were done 2 min each.

These were pretty good, but I really started to lose focus on the last 5 there.  It was pretty late when I got to those, but I at least made more than I usually do.

And the Zombie Girl

I wanted to give her a different feeling/emotion than my others.  Usually I go for cheery and happy, so I thought why not try one a little less cheery?  I almost feel sorry for her.  She's a zombie, but doesn't fully understand why people run from her in terror.  Oh that poor gal.

Considering how busy today was, I'm honestly very surprised I was able to cram in as much as I did.  Usually on such days I'd just push it off till the next day.  I think this says a bit about how much I'm able to push myself, even if it is just a little.

Another busy day tomorrow, but I'll see what I can get done.  Aiming on revisiting Vilppu chapter 2 and more sketches.  We'll see what happens!

Nov. 18, 2013 - Vilppu Refresher - Succubus -True Monster

Here we are.  Back in the saddle again.
It's good to be back!

I finished off all those things I'd been yapping about finishing off for a while and everybody that should know that my main focus will now be art should know.  It's a huge weight off my shoulders.  I was half expecting a bit of an outrage for my decision, but everybody seems really cool about it.  My friends seem to be more than willing to help if they can, and my followers seem to be excited with where this art journey takes me.  It's nice.  It's real nice.  I am extremely appreciative of their support!  I won't let them down.  NOW TIME TO ART!

I decided to kick things off with some Vilppu revisits.  Chapter 1.

Just trying to reacquaint myself with the fundamentals.  Concept of gesture, motion, and fluidity. A common mistake that I used to make in the past was that I always assumed that I absolutely had to master one thing before moving on.  Revisiting the first lesson reminded me that art doesn't really work that way.  Every time you revisit a subject or a topic, it is entirely possible that you can take something entirely new away from it.  Having learned a bit about how shapes and forms work, I think I was able to take a bit away from this and tie things together just that much.  I'm learning how the gesture fits inside and works with the forms, rather than simply being the "first step" of a drawing.  It all has it's ways of working together.  so attempting to learn ALL aspects of one element is  bad idea.

I wanted to start this session off good, so rather than the regular forms and gesture sketches, I thought I would return to the Monster Girl challenge.  The Succubus

I'm actually pretty surprised with this one.  It turned out way better than I though it would, especially having been away for so long.  The proportions seem to all fit, and the overall image just seems to work.  A friend of mine mentioned that the arm placement could have been a little better and I agree, but overall, well done me. good job. 

Still didn't want to do the gesture sketches and traditional study after that, so I did another monster girl.  "True Monster"

I wasn't exactly sure the direction I wanted this one to go, but so I just kind of threw in a lot of things.  Once again, I'm a bit impressed.  Especially with the torso mouth thing haha.  I'm not sure why but the forms dont feel quite as in tact as the succubus, but hey, it's not bad.


I started all these a bit late, but that's just the timing of everything.  I wasn't able to dive in all those hours I want, but I'll get there.  It's just good to be back.

More training!

Going public?

I've put a lot of work into this blog and have made quite a bit of progress with my art.  An unexpected side effect of this blog has been that it's actually helped a few people, or at least double think some things that have been holding them back.

That got me thinking a bit.  What if I tried being more public with this blog?  Not so much this blog, but to expand the idea of this blog to other platforms.  For example, to Youtube.  Very often on youtube you'll find these already established artists sharing things they've learned.  Never before have I seen an artist in my position, or similar position, sharing their story while it happens.  And that could possibly reach and help more people to improve themselves.  And with the big art push coming up (update on that at the end) maybe I could give it a try.

One of the things I love about this blog is its isolation away from everything.  It feels like my own little part of the internet.  By trying to expand the idea of the blog to more socially driven parts of the internet, my main fear would be that I'd be overwhelmed in some way or another.  But should I let my own feelings and emotions get in the way of potentially helping fellow artists work through their own troubles?  That's a hard question.  One that I'm not sure I have the answer to just yet.  I'm leaning very strongly in the direction of giving youtube a shot.  Even if it doesn't work out I'll always have this blog regardless.  Maybe if I didn't do daily vlogs but weekly?  And sense I'm part of a rather flexible network, potential partnership and partnership benefits could also come into play as well.  Ah who knows.  But you bet I'll keep you guys posted if I start that up.

Update on myself.
I have been on schedule with completing those projects I mentioned in the last update.  Things are still very much on track and the two projects in focus will be finished up by the end of this week.  (unless of-course more life happens, then I'll just deal with as much as I can and try to pump out the finale's this weekend.)

No art this time, but progress is still happening!

...in finishing up other things at least.

Nov. 1, 2013 - Where to start?

While this isn't the "BIG ART PUSH!" i was wanting to go for, somethings better than nothing.  More on that after the sketches!

These sketches were done 2 min each.  I want to slow down my times a bit so i can have a better grasp of the images I am drawing.  For not having done anything in a while, I'm pretty pleased with these.  There are two in particular that I can do some improvement on, 4th on top, and 5th on bottom.  But the others turned out pretty nice.  And even the ones i'm not super happy with, i like some parts of them.

So about that big art push I've been wanting to do.  I have decided to hold off on that for another week or so.  Things have been pretty busy around here lately, and there are 2 other things I would really like to finish.  They are really close to completion and I think I'll be able to knock those out relatively soon so I am shooting for that.

In the meantime, I've decided to just fill in what I can when I can.  If i cant sit down and do the hours of study I want to do, there's no reason I shouldn't at least get a little in. 

...but where to start??
While this hasn't been much of a problem for me lately, the thought had crossed my mind.  "Where to start?"  "I haven't drawn in a while, where/ how/ when do I pick up again?"  It brings me back to the time when that really was a big problem for me.  The simple answer... Start anywhere!  Pick up the pencil/ pen/ tablet and just have at it!  You'll never get anywhere if you don't pick it up and just do it!  So freakin start anywhere and just push yourself.  (you as in reader, or you as in me when im reading this later)  Find a thing you like or enjoy and just do that.  Give yourself permission to not be good!  It's ok to not be good.  Everybody is not good at things, it's those who push forward are the ones that prevail!  ...or so I have been told.  But I'm convinced it's true.  I'll end this post with a new favorite quote of mine. 

Mini Update

Welp, it's been a while my old art blog.
I've been spending the past few weeks finishing up a lot of my old projects.  All of the main big projects are now complete.  The few that are left are rather small and shouldn't take up much time to complete and another I will be starting soon is rather small as well.

As I probably mentioned in previous blogs, It is incredibly difficult for me to focus on multiple things at once.  This was the main reason for shifting focus to finish off those things before I jump head first into massive art studies.  Through the course of the last year I have made amazing progress at rediscovering my love for art.  I have learned to look past the current state of things and focus on the big picture, while at the same time learning to really accept and appreciate the small improvements.  I've learned to not only give myself time to grow, but to give myself the opportunity to grow.  I've located many of my weaknesses, isolated them, and learned how to deal with them.

While there is still much room for improvement in many aspects of both my life and my art, I think I'm in the best position to finally settle down and take this art studying to the next level.  I think I'm ready for the next level.  This past year has been a year of rediscovery.  This coming year is a year of dedication.  Has it even been a year since this blog was made?... I dont even know... XD  but the fact of the matter is, I'm ready.

Art updates will resume within the next few days, and I am very excited.

I'll be setting aside a lot of things that got in the way of my art.  As well as fixing my eating sleeping and exercise habits.  It's important to keep in tip top shape if i want to keep my focus!

I will also be playing around with an experimental story telling method.


First thing first.   Need to keep up my training!

Update - Preparing for a Big Art Move

Just a little update guys.  I haven't really been doing a lot of drawing lately, but that doesn't mean I'm out.

I have been preparing for a "big art move" where I will be shifting my entire focus to art.  This is a thing I have wanted to do for a VERY long time but other projects and stuff have always got in the way.  Now that most of those things are finally coming to a close, I am more than willing to give this art move a try.

I will have more updates when the time comes, but I am very excited.

Also, non art related news, the entire government thing has got me a bit worried also...  Im trying my hardest to not let it get to me, but it's some pretty scary stuff.  This past week i have decided to fight the urge to keep informed on the matter, it's done nothing but hinder my progress in many areas.  Gotta keep moving forward.  Everything will work itself out I'm sure, it's not like being stressed over things i have no control over will do any good for anybody anyway.

I need to stay focused.

Sept, 29, 2013 - Gestures and Sketch Books.

Ya know.
When I was doing these I had that feeling of "These are not good."  When I finished the and was looking over them, they weren't as bad as thought they were.  I need to stop doing that.  I did just finish playing a few rounds of Starcraft 2 and lost miserably...  So I think that might have had a thing to do with it also.  Even still.  Certainly not the worst I've done.  And once again it has been a while sense I did these so they're a bit rusty as well.  I'm really feeling the need to return to my vilppu again.  I keep saying that...  Let's see if I can do something about it  by the next blogpost.

SKETCHBOOKS!
The people I follow always say it's important to keep drawing traditionally in a sketchbook.  So I went to look at my old sketchbooks and I have so many NEW UNUSED sketchbooks!?  Why on earth do I have so many new unused sketchbooks you might ask?  Well, I always felt that I wasn't good enough to draw in them!  It's the silliest thing ever.  So i just kind of collected the things to one day get good enough to draw in them.  Sketchbooks are meant to be used to draw/write anything and everything.  The way I kind of blocked them off as something I need to be good enough to use is pure silliness.  So I'm gonna try picking up traditional drawing once again.  The unfortunate thing is that it will be much harder to get those pictures onto this blog....  I'll try my best to do so, but if it ends up being too much trouble I might just leave it off.  The studies will more than likely be similar to what i am currently doing.  But we'll see what happens.  More on sketchbooks at a later date.  Till then...


MORE TRAINING!

Sept. 28, 2013 - Demon Girl, Animation Past, and Creative Future.

Another Monster Girl.  Demon girl is done!
Not the best ya know, but not bad for not using any reference.

Many don't really know, but growing up I was really into Stop Motion animation.  Stop Motion is a type of animation that takes several pictures of an object and gives it the illusion of movement, think the old Gumby cartoons.  Way back when I used to do stop motion animations, I always had a very particular mind set when doing them.  That was simply to create a thing for myself and myself only.  Well more than half of those animations were created for the sole purpose of making a silly thing that would make me laugh.  There were one or two people I would share them with that would get a kick out of them, but for the most part it was just for myself.  The ideas would consist of just about anything i could think of.  This was some years before I ever had the internet (or even computer) and the video camera I used to create these things on was literally falling apart and had no battery.  I seemingly created these things for the sole purpose of just creating silly things that made me laugh.

Much like my entire creative mind, this too was an attribute that had been lost over the years.  However,  This past week, my brother and I were digging for some old Ninja Turtle toys to reminisce on the "good ol days"  We grew up with very little.  We never had the biggest nor the best, but we did have the essentials.  I think it is because we had so little back then that my creativity really began to take off.  I'd like to talk a bit more about that but I'm getting a bit off topic here.  (and it's freakin late again and I'm tired XP)  Back on topic!  So after a lot of searching we finally managed to dig up his bag of ninja turtles.  We brought them inside, set them up, and farted around like a bunch of old folks for a while.

Then it happened again, just looking at all the old toys I got probably half a dozen silly ideas for dumb things that would make me laugh.  This isn't the first time this has happened since my "return to the arts"  but it certainly was the first time it has happened and I made the connection between my old reasoning for creating things.  That's simply to just create things that I enjoy.  Granted, I'm a bit older than I was back then, and many people still give me the "What the hell are you doing" look when I try to explain this entire art thing to them; but I have confidence that I'm going in the right direction.  I am more certain about that now than I have ever been in my life.

Amidst the silly naysayers, it never ceases to amaze me that people legitimately enjoy my silly creations (even this blog).  This fact has been a strong driving force over the past few years.  Now that I am gaining better understanding of why I did things in the past and knowing what I have learned in recent time,  My excitement for my future grows!

I heard a quote recently that I liked and I'll end this blog with that.  Though, I dont remember exactly how it went, and google doesn't seem to be of much help, I'll type it the best I can remember: 

"People around will often ask why you are doing what you do.
Then when you reach success...
They will ask how you did what you did."

I like to think that perhaps one day that will be me.  I don't want a lot.  But if I'm able to create things, put smiles on peoples faces, and still keep the lights on.  My life would be complete.

Sept. 24, 2013 - Renamon & Ahiru

Good friend of mine has been going through a lot.  So I drew this for her :D!

Seeing that I've never really drawn Renamon, or anthro characters for that matter, I'm really happy with how this turned out.  Like, unusually happy.  I think the hands are a bit off, and a few other little nit picky things, but I'm genuinely happy with it.  I might have to color it one day.  I don't think Ahiru turned out super great, but she has very stylized proportions that I'm not used to.  Still overall not bad.

Sept. 20, 2013 - Wind Waker HD Stream Picture.

So my buddy Shaunzy did a stream of Zelda Wind Waker HD.  He did a 3 heart hero run.  We were joking in the stream and he suggested I draw this picture, so I did XD

The image is shaunzy as toon link kicking that little potato guy.  He's not very fond of that character so this picture came to be.  (although I rather like the little guy XD)

Looking at this one, I have a HUGE smile on my face.  I see massive improvements since shaunzy's last stream of the original 3 heart run of Wind Waker. 
Here's a link to the other stream images from a few months ago. 
http://doggyzart.blogspot.com/2013/02/update.html

It's the strangest thing.  I can just feel that my understanding the rhythm and flow of the human body is much better than back then.  I really need to keep up my training so that I can look back and feel the same about images like this.  It's still not the best, I know.  But it put a smile on my face.  So im happy.

Here is the original sketch.

 And here is an alternate regular hair link color.

Sept. 18, 2013 - Gestures

Some gestures.  Not a lot to say really, but I like the way they turned out.  I tried to keep in mind the few things i talked about in my last blog and i think it might have really helped.  About trying to just get "in the zone" It feels that i managed to get there much quicker this time and achieved the flow much muuuch sooner.  If it weren't late and I hadn't been so busy I would love to delve into this further, but alas it is too late.

Also, these were 90 second gestures from http://www.quickposes.com/ 
I think I really like the 90 seconds over the others.  It gives me enough time to really study the figure a bit more to know what exactly I'm doing before it jumps to the next image.  There are still very important things to learn in faster gesture studies, and doing the quick studies in the past really helped get me in the right gear and state of mine to fully understand how longer studies work.  So I can't speak against the fast studies, but I think it might be time I slowed my studies down a bit.  perhaps even do more non-timed figure studies.

Sept. 16, 2013 - Sleepy Gestures, New Plant Girl & small update

 Few late sleepy gestures.
 It's a bit late but I wanted to get a few in at least.

I almost didn't want to upload these, but I did.  A few were pretty good.

While I liked the last monster girl thing, I didn't think she looked enough like a plant, so I did a little redesign.

I still think I like the other one more, but at least this one looks more like a plant.


A small update.  Things are starting to settle down a bit in real life land.  So here's hoping I'll be able to do more proper studies and gestures in the future.  I'm looking forward to getting back on the ball.

Sept. 15, 2013 - Plant Girl

OH MAN A THING!

I just... it's late...  I like this one though!  Think i did a decent job on the pose.  Not sure if it looks like a plant girl though.  But MEH.  It's for fun.  She looks great and I'm happy with it.  Kinda digging the design though, might turn her into something.  LIKE A SALAD!!! HA!!!  GET IT!? SHE'S A PLANT!?  I'm going to bed.

Sept. 13, 2013 - Few Chibis?

I remembered the strange chibi style (on the left) so i thought i'd give it a try.  I kind of liked it so i tried it on my two characters dogster and nona.  Omg so adorable :3

(sorry so short, but i had to share this one with you XD)

Sept. 11, 2013 - Spider Girl, Best of August & Limiting growth

Spider Girl YEA!

Not to bad! I like how this one turned out.  Although i just remembered that spiders have 8 legs... right? XD  Well this one has 4 :P!

ALSO I finally managed to compile the best gestures of August.  I looked through all of my gestures and pulled the best 5 from each set.

(Edit They look so tiny, why do they look so tiny!?  I'll make them bigger later)
Of all the ones I did, I feel the most proud of these.  I tried to AT LEAST pick 5 from each set.  The ones on the right were a few extras that I thought were rather nice also.  It's kind of a benchmark of how "good" I can be.  Kiiind of.

But anyway, it's hard to not look at these and not feel that I have accomplished something.  Not necessarily on JUST the one month time period, but just looking at how far I have come especially in understanding just what exactly it is that I am looking at.

((It's late again, but i'll try to explain this the best i can.  If I am unclear i may retouch on it at a later date.))
When looking through all of these I was reminded of the thing I have been telling myself sense I started this whole journey.  That is the whole "small steps" mentality.  Now, I still completely agree with that, and it has really helped get me to where I am today, but the thought crossed my mind.  What if this small step mentality had been limiting something that would have otherwise been a much larger step?  What if, for example, I was studying heads and had my mind so set on a "small" improvement that I could have been fooling my brain into thinking I wasn't capable of having a larger improvement.  This kind of throws back to the topic from a previous post about fear of success and subconsciously throwing a wrench in my gears because I'm not "used to" or "scared" of success.  While i still believe that this "baby steps" idea is the best way to go about it, I'm gonna try tweaking my way of thinking to perhaps allow more than those tiny steps if I am able.  (this is hard to explain XD)  Accept all improvements, not just the little ones.  Learn to give myself the flexibility to accept all ranges of improvements.  Something like that.

Also, I need to Vilppu again.  After re-reading the last post it felt like I had completely forgot he existed.  Vilppu is one of the most valuable source of information I have at the moment, I need to utilize it better.  Maybe if i got sticky notes and just plastered my work area with "FREAKIN VILPPU!" I'd get it through my head.