Jan. 30, 2014 - Proportions, Sketches

I started out doing some proportion studies.

They look odd for some reason.

Then I did some gestures.

I meant to do more of these, but I was way to tired to continue.  So i'm off to bed.
I've been exhausted all day.

Other than that I had a pretty decent day.  Tomorrow's the last day of January, I know i didn't get a lot done this month, but I at least want to finish hard.

Jan. 29, 2014 - Daily Grind, Sketches, Fox Dude

Ya know, to be honest, I don't think I've been this discouraged in many many years.  Not from art, but just discouraged in general.  Few more months and here's hoping I can get a summer break.  I need to stay focused.

Here's the sketches.

 I did the normal sketches and went back to try more focused studies of
the above quick sketches.  I only managed to get 2 more focused studies done.

Some random character I did.  Doesn't have a name, but i kinda like the way it turned out.  It was a nice way to end the night.  Something I've noticed is that I really like to draw anime/monster/robot people.  There's a lot more I can do with the design, and I dunno.  I think I've talked about this on the blog before, but I just find them a lot more fun and interesting to draw.


Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for my situation I really need to just get back into my studies.  The sooner I can switch my focus the better.  I've been trying to get a new sleep schedule to at least have more time to get stuff done.  I tried this schedule the other week and managed to get a lot more done than normal.  If i could try that then focus that time on art, that would be great.

Anyway, MORE TRAINING!

EDIT~~
Just found this.  I am now giggling on the floor.

<3

Jan. 24, 2014 - Sketches and a Dream

(super tired when typing this) The week I had planned didn't quite pull itself together the way I wanted, but I did manage to get quite a bit done regardless (not drawing unfortunately).   I did have a rather interesting dream the other night.  I'll talk about that after the sketches.

An ok night for sketches.  ALTHOUGH  I must say, I wanted to try to do smoother lines during this session.  I want to be able to have nice solid and precise lines, so I'm trying to cut down on the amount of sketchyness in my sketches.  (cut down on sketchyness in sketches?)  Having solid precise lines could really help with animation stuff and just help with speed in general.  I got really sleep around halfway through this so the quality dropped a bit.  But overall, I am ok with them.

So about that dream.  I don't remember the context of the dream, but I do remember very vividly that it was telling me to draw 20 characters a day.  Now, I don't want to say that my dreams are any more special than the next guys, but there have been many times where it legitimately felt like my dreams were telling me things.  So, that's reason enough for me to give this 20 characters a day thing a shot.

Will I be able to follow throw with it?  We'll just have to see.  Will be trying to start an art vlog thing this week to go along with this stuff.  I think it could be fun and interesting.

MORE DRAWING!

Jan. 18, 2014 - Sketch, and Make a Request!

So I did a bit of thinking today.  True, things are pretty rough for me lately, but perhaps I jumped the gun a bit with a bit of my rage.  Will explain after the sketch!!!  (Request/ Suggestion/ Comment info will be at the end of this blog)

Only managed to get one sketch today, but I did do a lot of looking back.  The idea behind this sketch was to look back at an older picture and to really analyze what it is that I did wrong and to try to correct the image.  I currently don't have all the work I did last year because of my hard drive failure, so I simply looked at yesterdays images.  I took the one I thought looked decent but not that great and really tried to break it down.  I really like how it turned out haha.  The forms seem more solid, and the proportions seem to be pretty decent as well.  This is a thing I want to do more often, but tonight this is all I've got. 


I was thinking back and I think I had been a bit hard on myself.  Everything that's been going on, I have been super stressed that I'm not working hard enough, and how I need to crank out more studies and more drawings.  I still agree that I need to do these things, but I was feeling very angry about it before.  Very frustrated and aggressive in my head.  Almost to the point of belittling myself that I cant keep up etc etc....

That isn't a healthy way of thinking, not a healthy way of thinking at all.  So I'm taking a calm step back, and really appreciating everything that I've done thus far.  I don't want to sell myself short on my accomplishments I've been able to accomplish, but progress has definitely been made.  Progress has been made on a clear, sometimes frustrated, but mainly clear mind.  And I just took a moment to appreciate that progress.  "Baby steps" as I used to say.  There is no other way.  It is Baby steps.  After dabbling around in tumblr a bit (you'll see why in just a moment) I ran across the old quote
"It doesn't matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop" by Confucius and I remembered just how important that, and many other quotes have been to me, not only through this whole art journey but through life in general.  I need to dig up all those old quotes and make a page on here, or better yet, make a wallpaper with them all in there so I can have a nice reminder.  I'd print them out and put them everywhere but the printer is broken... haha.  So that's why there is little art today.  It was a day of reflection.  A much needed day of reflection.

aaaaaaaaaaannnnnd Here's the Make a request thing!

I usually take silly requests from friends, so I thought, why not add a request thing to the blog?  I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but I think it would be a fun experiment.  So I added a "Make a request" button on the the top of the page that you can submit a thing.  Now I can't promise I will draw it, but we'll see.  This could be fun.  :D!

How it works:

It currently links to a tumblr "ASK" page.  But wait, before you explode!!  You won't need a tumblr account to make a suggestion.  I have activated the the "Anonymous" feature  There is no need to make a tumblr account to make a request, I've activated the "Ask Anonymously" feature so you dont need an account to ask.  Also, say something like "I'm from your blogspot" so I can be sure to get to your request quicker.  That way I know you follow me and not just a random guy that found that ask link.  Anyway, have fun with that.

Link:  http://doggyzart.tumblr.com/ask

Till next time.
must KEEP UP MY TRAINING!

Jan. 17, 2014 - More ups and downs Sketches, LoPunny, Angemon

Things have been pretty rough.  I've been taking losing my tablet a lot harder than I thought I would.  Changing the method in which I draw and the setback has really given me a mental hit.  Not being able to get my lines the way I want has been rather frustrating.  Not to mention that on top of everything else in my personal life.  More on that after the sketches!!

I did these, no reference,  Trying to work on the memory.  When doing them I really felt out of my element, as though I had not been training at all.  I couldn't grasp my lines, forms, or anything.  I wasn't even able to continue these I was so disgusted.  However, Looking back at them now, I honestly don't think they are as bad as I was thought they were.  Yea, they aren't as good as with my old tablet, but considering the circumstances they aren't that bad at all.  The top mid and bottom right ones in particular.





Later that day, a friend saw my Buneary Pokemon picture and requested me to try LoPunny.

It was an interesting thing doing this one.  It felt like the change in tablet has helped me see things in a slightly different way.  I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it helped me deal with the sudden downgrade in my quality.  Even to the point where I question whether or not it is really even a downgrade at all.  Being able to see things in a slightly different way...  Interesting interesting.



I also worked on this just today I drew Angemon, one of my favorite Digimon.

It's not as good as I'd like, and it's not even finished.  I'm not sure if I will finish him, but there he is.  I was trying to play around with perspective a bit on this.  I'd say I had mild success.

As I said before, things have been very up and down for me lately.  Even though I'm learning to use this old tablet again, it still hurts that I lost my good one. on top of that, the constant feeling of having to deal with the life choices of those around me.  It seems as though when things couldn't possible get any worse things make yet another terrible turn.  As much as I would like to talk more about who, or what has been going on, I think the personal nature of it would just make it a bit difficult.  It is not a legal issue, health issue, or anything of the sort, but what I can say is that is has ate up most of my time and energy...  Time is what worries me the most..

Rest assured, while my motivation is at an all time low, I will not be dropping this.  It's pure mind over matter at this point, and despite everything falling down around me I NEED to make a push.

I finally managed to get a planner for 2014.  I've filled in my activities for the next 2 weeks.  Ever since I had kept a schedule, I have actually been able to at LEAST finish more tasks that I ever did without a planner.  This first coming week will be spent catching up on lost time from the past few weeks, then the week after that (assuming I'm able to keep up with my schedule) will be focused on that vlog I want to do to see if I can keep up with it.

So much that I need to do.  MORE TRAINING!

Jan. 13, 2014 - Expressions

Finally managed to get the stuff I needed to fix my tablet pc.  Unfortunately it was a bust.  I tried 3 different methods but ended up bending a prong in one of the connectors.  Ah well, at least I was able to save the hard drive.  Better start looking for a replacement.

I wasn't in a very artsy mood tonight because of the tablet, but I figured I'd turn some tunes on and draw some Nona and Dogster expressions.

Actually like how these turned out, I decided to play around with giving dogster eyebrows.  Interesting thing about Dogster's expressions, I'm not exactly sure how his face works which makes things a bit odd.  Either way, I like the way they turned out.  Next time I'll try to crank out some more of these.

Jan. 11, 2014 - Focused Studies.

Had a pretty busy day talking to people about my computer problems.  The guy I talked to said he might be able to recover some files from my recent hard drive failure.  Here's hoping it doesn't cost an arm and a leg haha!


This time around I wanted to do a bit more focused studies.  I seem to always have a bit of trouble with thee exact direction the head is facing, so I thought I would do a few of those.

I used real images of people for these and I think some turned out alright.  I really wanted to do more of these but it got pretty late and I still have yet to fix my sleep schedule, so I had to call a quits here.

Before I went to bed I wanted to at least get a little figure studies in.  I dont know exactly what I wanted to accomplish here.  I took the original image and wanted to try pushing the pose a bit.  This is an idea i played around with many many journals ago and I might have to give it a shot again.

Through my research I've heard many people say to try drawing the same pose over and over multiple times.  I might give that a try tomorrow before the week picks up again.

Jan. 09, 2014 - New Year Resolutions and Sketches

Despite everything that's been going on, I have set quite a few new year resolutions for myself.  They are very much along the lines of what I have been doing, but I might as well use this to remind myself.  Will get to those after the sketches though.

 Some general sketches to get me back in the swing of things.  These were done on my old Graphire4.  It's a bit odd to draw these on this old tablet again so It really feels like I'm having to relearn some things.  Not the best, but I hadn't done anything in a while so i cant beat myself up too much over it.

 A few extra doodles i did without reference.  Don't really have a lot to say, but the proportions turned out pretty decent at least.


 New Year Resolutions/ Goals/ Etc
1.  Continue moving forward.  I've been relatively good at this one, but just as a reminder, I need to keep at it.
2.  Fewer distractions.  Cut out the things that are keeping me from my studies.  While I certainly don't have the free time I once had, There are a number of things I can cut out of my life (or at least cut back on) that can give me much more time to do my studies and improve my art.
3.  Facial Expressions.  Facial expressions are very important in cartooning, and having a better understanding of faces will breath new life into my characters.
4.  More Animating.  Quit beating around the bush and get back to animating.  I need to set some time aside every day to just work on those.  Even if it's just practice.  I need to animate more.
5.  Finish more things.  This one ties in with the animating a bit.  I really need to finish more things.  Losing my stuff on my hard drive recently really opened my eyes at how many projects i actually start but never finish.  Who cares if it's not "Perfect".  Perfect does not exist.  I just need to put my best foot forward and leave it at that.  Take what I've learned, then move on to the next.
6.  Art Vlog.  I really want to give the art vlog a shot.  I mentioned it a few times at the end of last year, I think I'll give that an honest shot.  If it works and I enjoy it, I'll continue it.  If I do not enjoy it, I'll just set it aside.  Should be interesting.  But I want to at least give it a shot.
7.  Have a clear mind.   Sometimes it's easy to just get lost...  I don't know exactly how to explain it, but at times it can feel like all of this is just too late for me to continue.  It's not as bad as it used to be, and I'm positive I'm in a better position to combat this, but sometimes that little thought crosses my mind that my time as an artist has passed.  I need to acknowledge that yes, it is a bit later for me, but no, that doesn't mean that my time is up.  I have seen improvements, I can FEEL the improvements.  I know better than that.  I need clear focus, clear focus.
8.  Stay in Shape.  I'm a gamer/artist/graphic designer...  Exercise is not a thing that happens often, but I need to make it part of my routine.  Keeping in shape and eating right definitely boosts energy.  And having higher energy levels lead to more productivity, thus improving everything else.  So at least try to do a few sit ups and push ups daily.

I think I'm ready for a nice productive year of MORE TRAINING!!!  

Jan. 08, 2014 - An Update

Where have I been!?  I had such big plans then seemingly fell off the face of the earth...  Well, to say I have had a rough past few weeks would be a bit of an understatement.  I don't know what it is exactly that set off a this chain of bad luck.  It literally has been one thing after another.  I already tried writing this blog once before but it ended up getting a bit emotional for me and had to leave it unfinished and unpublished.  I'll throw that original blog at the end of this for the curious.  I will not be proof reading it, it is as it is.  Here's a summary of what's been up.

Our dog had puppies,
1. Some weeks later, after giving most of them away one of the puppies contracted Parvo (A deadly dog virus)
2. After a few days of staying up with the puppy, it unfortunately didnt make it.
3. Another puppy contracted Parvo, this one however I was able to save (or she saved herself?)
4. Immediately after the puppy showed signs of improvement my tablet pc (HP Tx2000) died on me.  It turns out it was a motherboard problem, fixable but will be a pain  (will update on this when i attempt the fix)  This is what I will have to do.
5. I tried migrating to my PC but after installing my Wacom Graphire4, the PC began having MASSIVE errors.  So I had to pull up my OLD Compaq laptop to use that.
6. After a while of working with the PC I was able to fix the ".dll" errors it was receiving.  However, a few days later it turns out everything I thought was the problem was NOT the problem, it was hard drive failure.  I lost everything...  It was the solid state drive windows was on in my PC.  Everything my last hard drive failure didn't delete is now gone. 
7. A mouse got into our family PC so that is now down.  I haven't the slightest clue what is wrong with it, the power button does absolutely nothing.  I suspect either the power button is broken on the power supply is dead.
8. The one bit of good news I can take away from this is that I was able to salvage an old laptop hard drive to install windows on for my desktop, so now I have a temporary fix for the desktop.  And I tried installing the Wacom Graphire4 on the PC and Compaq and it worked on both this time.  So I'll be able to update the blog again.
9. Not to mention a whole flurry of Youtube policy changes that directly affect me.

And that fills you in with everything that's happened since my last post.

ART STUFF

 Needless to say, with all that in mind, the mood for my year is pretty crummy, but I refuse to let all that get me down.  Now that I have means to create again, I need to pull myself together and go at it.  while it does suck that I lost what little I had left, in terms of computer files, I'm looking at this as a 2nd chance. ...  Or 3rd...  I have never been organized, ever after the first failure, I was just scrambling for everything.  Now there is literally nothing to scramble for, all my bookmarks, documents, stories, etc are gone.  Fresh start...?

Anyway, I'm just gonna keep moving forward.  Get back into the routine of things again.  It's a new year, and I really want to get it started out on the right foot.  I will be working on building up my resource folder again as well as daily training sessions.  Here's hoping there is still a chance for my HP Tx2000, I will continue to move on regardless!  NEED TO AMP IT UP!!  MORE POWER MORE TECHNIQUE!











=====Here is the original blog post I didn't finish.=====
Those of you who know me know I am an animal person, so without a doubt, losing the puppy and almost losing another were the hardest bits of my away time.

Dec. 31, 2013. 

""I normally try to avoid purely negative or personal blog posts.  I find them to not really fit what it is that I'm going for with the blog.  However, I also feel that it's important to address all negativity in a positive light or at least acknowledge that it was a thing that happened, pick up the pieces, and move on.  Not to mention through this string of unfortunate events, both my recording/editing computer and my tablet PC are virtually unusable, thus directly effecting this blog for the time being.

Little Bear      

About 2 months ago one of our dogs had puppies.  We nursed them till they were about 6 weeks old before we tried to give them away.  For those who do not know, I am an animal person.  I very much love animals and want nothing but the best for them, so naturally giving puppies away brings some anxiety on if they will all go to good homes or not.  In the end we decided to keep one of the puppies because she was significantly smaller than siblings and we just wanted to make sure that she was big enough to give away.

It didn't take long, but we had eventually given away all the other puppies, but there was one woman that took a puppy in that just didn't sit well with me.  When we talked to her she said that she had lost her previous puppy and she was excited to get a new one.  I didn't even think to ask her how she lost her other puppy at the time, she looked nice enough and I didn't think much of it after that, it was out of our hands.

As time went on we began to become attached to the puppy we held back, we even gave her the name Jewely (spelt that way because we have another dog named Ruby.  RUBY JEWELY GET IT!? HAH!)  She was quick to become part of the family and having to take extra care of her while she learned to eat and drink on her own only made us that much closer.

I'd say it was about 2 weeks later we get a call from the woman we were suspicious about and she was saying that she was unable to take care of the puppy and wanted to bring her back.  Of-course we agreed and later that day she returned the other puppy.  The puppy (now named Little Bear, it was a name we called her before we gave her away so we thought we'd just stick with that) seemed normal enough, at least till she started pooping everywhere.  At first it was normal puppy poops, but then they slowly became more liquidy.  Then it was that very particular smell...  It was Parvo...

Parvo is a VERY dangerous and contagious puppy dog virus that literally eats the inner layer of the intestines of the puppy.  My entire world was shattered, dealing with a puppy with Parvo is the saddest thing I have ever had to deal with.  Over the years I had treated  4 cases of Parvo and have had 2 pull through.  To see a dog go through the stages of parvo is absolutely gut wrenching.  To see the poor little things struggle for life is unbearable...  and here I was having to deal with it again.  Fluids are the most important thing with parvo.  Dehydration is one of the biggest issues with parvo puppies, so it's important to keep the fluids in their system at all costs.

Little Bear stayed by my side every moment of every day she was suffering from parvo.  She got my absolute undivided attention.  It's also very important to keep the puppies moral up so they don't just give up, so I kept talking to her as much as I could just so she could feel comfort.  Every 30 min for the course of 3 days I was giving her fluids, needless to say, my sleep schedule was absolutely destroyed.  I didn't sleep at all.  On the 3rd day, things seemed to be looking up.  The third day of parvo is said to be the worst.  The entire course of the virus lasts about 5 days, so to see little bear doing so well on day 3 was wonderful.  Her vomiting and diarrhea had reduced from every 30 min to roughly every 2 and a half hours.  Things were looking up!  It was pretty late into day 3 when I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer.  I fell asleep for about 2 hours on my bed...  and what I woke up too...  Little Bear had lost all of her strength, and seemingly her will to live.  She was unable to retain any food and she was so weak she could barely walk.  The thoughts running through my mind "How could I have fallen asleep, she was doing so well!" flooded my mind.  I tried absolutely everything I knew to do, but nothing seemed to work.  I continued trying to keep her hydrated as much as I could.  I continued talking to her to boost her moral...  but alas... she continued to fade.  I continued to hydrate her till she could physically drink no more.  I grabbed her poor cold little feet and breathed on them in hopes that warming them would do some good.  I continued talking to her in hopes that my voice would somehow do something.... do anything....  The painful truth began to sink in... There was nothing that I could do.  I continued to speak to her, I don't know why, but I did.  I can tell you right now, there is nothing more soul crushing than the moans of a dieing puppy.  Maybe I talked to her to help her because that was the only thing I knew to do.  But I continued talking.  I continued trying to keep her warm.  As her breath began to fade, so did my talking.  The room was completely silent, almost as if she was waiting for something.  I painfully mutter the words "You'll be ok Little Bear."  and...  there she went...  While I had in fact lost bigger and more important things in my life, I don't ever recall anything hurting quite like this.  I don't know why.

R.I.P. little friend.

(yes, she had one blue eye)

After a moment to clean up and collect my thoughts (what little thoughts I had left) I returned to the other room and held Jewely for a bit.  Wait a minute??  Jewely!?  My heart instantly sank 10 fold.

Jewely     

I sat there holding Jewely completely crushed...  Parvo is extremely contagious...  Jewely is the runt of the litter, I don't want to lose her too.  Instantly my mind is flooded with terrible thoughts.  Feels that somebody flipped a switch and set my brain to full panic mode.  but I HAD to sleep!  I HAD TO!  As much as I wanted to stay up with her while she was still in good health, I absolutely had to get my sleep.  Especially if I am to take on Parvo round 2.

The next day, already Jewely is showing signs...  She became very lethargic and began with the poops.   The thought instantly entered my mind, "she's too little, there's no way she will survive this, should I just take her to the vet now and have her put down so she doesn't have to suffer??"  The thoughts were killing me, I didn't know what to do.  I figured that since I gave Little Bear a chance, I should give Jewely a chance also.  I won't be getting much needed sleep, but I had grown attached to Jewely.  Bottle feeding a little pup will really make her grow on you.

We make it through the first day relatively fine, her poops are getting pretty gross and the terrible smell of parvo filled the air once again...  It was, however, the 2nd day that something verry peculiar happened.  I had been up all night with her insuring she was hydrated.  Then about noonish I hear her drinking something.  I thought she was drinking water so I walk over to the dogs bowl and she wasn't there.  I still hear her drinking but I haven't a clue where she is or what she is drinking.  After a bit of searching, I find her drinking mop water!?  I ju...  What??  Why on earth was she drinking mop water???  I immediately become concerned that she would get bleach poisoning or whatever it is that happens when someone/something drinks bleach.  "Great, this is just what I needed..." I thought to myself.  I decided to just keep an eye on her (as I was anyway) to see if anything strange happens.  I have no idea what to expect, I've never dealt with bleach poisoning before.  Day 2 continues to as a normal day2 parvo would, lots of poop, but surprisingly no vomit at all.  I'd say it was about 7:00PMish when things took a turn for the strange.  Jewely was in a very playful mood??  How is this even possible you are... what??  I can't explain it at all.  Needless to say, I took advantage of this and we had a grand ol time.  Could it have been the bleach in the mop water??  Could it have REALLLY been the bleach???  Bleach is said to be the only thing that kills parvo, you're supposed to clean up after your parvo puppy with bleach, but she drank it from the mop water?? what?  I was still a bit cautious and didn't want to get my hopes up.  I just, I don't even know what to think at this point.  Jewely was feeling fine so I went ahead and went to sleep.  Day 3 is said to be the hardest, so i'm gonna need all the sleep I can get if I want to take care of her.

Day 3 I wake up and she's lethargic again.  No vomit, very very little diarrhea all day.  I continue keeping her hydrated as normal just in case.

And Day 4 she's better??  She's still not very good at eating hard foods yet, but I wake up and hear her munching on dog food and just as well as could be.  I do a little more research on this bleach incident and it turns out that some people actually use bleach to treat dogs with parvo!?  Not surprisingly, everybody that commented on such a tactic was completely against the idea.  It's insane!  It's like Jewely accidentally saved herself!  My mind was blown, and still is blown.

I don't think it's humanly possible for a puppy could possibly receive more hugs and kisses.

Currently don't have my camera so I cant get the pictures off

I have better pictures on the camera, but this is her derpin in the background to the right.

The other two were Little Panda (left) and Mr. Fuzzles (middle)""