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.

Sept. 04, 2013 - Studies

Some studies i did.

I used reference for it, but holy crap my studies never look this good.  My studies never turn out this well.  I always have a lot of trouble understanding joints, in particularly where the limbs connect to the body.  Surprisingly this little amount of study really helped me understand what exactly is going on and how things connect.  No doubt i'll do more studies on this, but I had a few nice eye openers.

One thing I have noticed many times but its a nice nod to the effort i've been putting into this is how i've been able to keep the proportions relatively decent.  Thanks gestures!

Another thing differently I did that I might actually make part of my routine, I usually do a small work out after the drawings.  Instead of after, I did it before this time and it helped clear my mind a bit more of silly things.  I will try this again next time to see if it still helps.

Anyway, MORE TRAINING!

Two Steps Back Update

So, I've decided to take 2 steps back.

A while back I wanted to set my art as my main focus.  However, the more I move forward, the more these other unfinished projects are poking me in the side.   Sooo....  I, almost regretfully, take two steps back to try to wrap up these other projects before fully devoting myself to my studies.  As stated many times in this blog, my ability to focus is absolutely terrible, and recently a lot of that focus has been pulled towards many other areas with things that may or may not be happening in the near future...  With those factors, I feel as though I am spreading myself a bit too thin.  The blog isn't going to be abandoned, but my main focus will be to finish off these other things so I don't have to worry about them anymore.  To be honest, I just want this month to be over, and even more so, this year.  A lot of things are going on.  Just gonna have to wait it out.  But for now, need to stay focused.  Keep moving forward.

I had a thing to say about limiting my growth, but i'll talk about that next time so i'll have a thing to talk about next time I do pretty pictures.  I was looking at all my sketches from last month.  I'll get that done by tomorrow and discuss all the goodness!

Edit:  I HAVE, however, been making some decent progress on that game thing I've been working on which excites me.

Aug. 31, 2013 - Gestures and Falling Mermaids

So, i actually did a bunch of gestures today.  Good job me!  I counted, it was 84.  The last few, I was in a skype call.  My creative brain usually completely shuts down when in a skype call, but this time i managed to actually get a lot done.  Good job me again!  84 is currently my most for a single day.

Aaand a falling Mermaid.

Because why not. Who said a mermaid couldn't fall?  HUH!?
Again, I used little reference on this one, and ended up being rather pleased with it!

And here is a picture I did for my buddy Raz.

It's a character of his.  Thought it was rushed a bit, I think it turned out alright.  Maybe the head is a little big, that's why I'm not liking it a whole lot.  Both that, and I'm not too great at heads and details.  But it's all part of progress!  Gotta keep moving forward!  Gotta practice practice practice!

Aug. 30, 2013 - Why so many Gestures?

Another pretty busy day, got some gestures in though.  *high fives self*

Before i end this post I'd like to touch a bit on why I'm doing so many of so many of these seemingly pointless gestures/sketches of the human form.  I'm sure I've touched on it briefly in earlier posts but i'm in a typing mood so lets give it a go again!  The point of these exercises is to learn.  To be more specific, to learn proportions and form.  The end result is to hopefully be able to QUICKLY and ACCURATELY draw the human figure without having to sit and wonder if proportions are correct.  I want it to be 2nd nature.  Like walking, blinking, or breathing.  I want the ability to just quickly map out a characters position and get right to the nitty gritty stuff.  FORM is a thing i am still learning.  But understanding form really brings things together to create an accurate 3d representation in a 2d space.

True, there are many other things to learn.  But I am an animator at heart.  Animation is naturally a very slow process.  If i can learn to quickly and accurately draw what i need for the animation, that could significantly decrease the time it takes to create them.  That way every frame I wont be sitting around wondering if the proportions look correct.

My goal is to one day move my main focus from these gestures to small animated clips as exercise.  But one step at a time, one step at a time.  Less talking more drawing!  Need to keep up my training!  MORE TRAINING!  MORE TECHNIQUE!