Lost an old friend

Lost an old highschool friend today.
We weren't the closest of friends but he was a pretty swell dude and we always got along.  Death is always an interesting topic to talk about.  You never really expect it to hit you haven't been taking this one too well for some reason.  The guy was a few years younger than myself and I think I'm feeling the same thing I felt when the internet lost Eddsworld some years back.  That they had so much to live for.  The whole survivors guilt thing always creeps into my mind.  These people had their lives together and their entire futures were ahead of them.  Yet here I am scrambling around to make ends meet not entirely sure where I want to take things.

I dunno.  Maybe it's just that it happened so soon after the loss of Iwata.  Things may not be the best right now, but I've got to continue.  Gotta keep up my training!  If not for me, then for the people that have had their lives unfortunately cut short

R.I.P.  JJ

MORE TRAINING! MORE TRAINING!

Pokemon Challenge Caterpie #10

CATERPIE!

Got hung up on this one.  Wasn't sure exactly how "monstery" I want these characters to be.  If I wanted them to look more like cosplay or actual monster.  I ended up going with the more monstery option.  They're more fun to me.  In the end it doesnt matter because the entire purpose of this challenge is to draw more.  SO BAM!  Might change later but as i say it doesnt matter too much.

Sketches, Health issues, & Future Plans

SKETCHES!

Sketches sketches sketches!

Did a few sketches, I really need to put some more time into proper anatomy and figuring out how the entire body works together.  The above sketches were done to just kinda gage where I am currently on working from memory.  I think generally speaking I have a pretty solid idea on the basic shapes of the body.  Not a solid understanding of forms just yet, but I imagine it will come in time.

I did a few of these untimed sketches because i hadn't done any in a while.  For some reason I just wasn't feeling it tonight, which kinda beings me into the next topic of Health Issues.


I've been struggling a bit with low blood pressure is past week.  It tends to become a problem when the weather warms up during the summer but since we've had a relatively cool summer (at least compared to other years) I forgot this was even an issue i have.  I spent a good majority of the week wondering why I've felt exhausted almost nonstop, almost feeling like there is something more that I was doing wrong and questioning what was going on.  It really took a bit of a toll on me.  After I finally remembered low blood pressure was a thing it kinda put things at ease for a bit.  While I've talked about this several times in the past on this blog, I'd like to just reiterate how important it is to have an understanding of your physical and mental health.  It can truly save yourself a lot of stress down the line if you are unable to perform at your best.  Mental and physical health play a very important part of all this art stuff.  Just gotta keep that in mind.

NOW with all that being said, I do still feel that there is more I can be doing.  This week I will try to jump back into some of my old study/training habits while poking around to learn a few new techniques.  I'm not gonna beat myself up if I dont achieve this goal, considering my situation and my terribly low stamina levels, but like i said.  I think I can be doing more.  At least more than this week.

We'll see what happens though.

Pokemon Challenge Blastoise #9

BLASTOISE

Wasnt feeling it this time around.  There's a number of things goofy with this one but i dunno.  I'm just more excited to get out of the "starter pokemon" bracket haha XD

I will absolutely be revisiting this one one day, but for not it's fine.  :3  At least I didn't miss the day.

Vilppu Chapter 6

Finally finished vilppu chapter 6

Every time I finish a vilppu study it honest feels that I have learned so much from his lessons.  Yet there is always some kind of psychological thing that that seems to keep me away from seeking out more of his studies or even other tutorials.  I dont know what it is exactly, and I'm pretty sure i've said these exact words every time I pose a vilppu study thing...  But I dont know.  it is an odd feeling.  I always feel at my best when I'm learning new things, but there's some kind of fear holding me back from doing more.  hmmm...  The "fear of success" that I did that one blog entry about.  double hmm...  I need to combat this.  but the only way to combat it is to JUST DO IT!

My  next two vilppu lessons are about Anatomy.  Something I've desperately needed to learn.  It should be a great starting point for anatomy.  After that I miiiiiiiiiight put vilppu lessons on hold for a bit and really dive more into animation lessons.  The amount that I've learned from this guy is insane, but it is only scratching the surface.

Either way, need to make more of an effort to do tutorials and learn more.  JUST DO MORE!  OAWOWOOAAWO!

MORE TRAINING!!!!

Pokemon Challenge Wartortle #8

WARTORTLE!

What an odd pokemon.  Never been a huge fan of Wartortle.  It was always just a bit odd to me.  I can respect em though.  <3

With this design I tried a pose from memory and no reference again.  Again I'm pretty surprised with how it turned out.  Not without it's flaws of-course but that's nothing that future studies cant fix.  I had noticed a habit of mine to place the torso in a forward 2/3rds rotation sometimes facing upward a bit.  This time I tried changing it up a bit by having her face left and facing down just a little.  Not too bad.  I also think that I'm getting a better understanding on how legs work.  For the longest time they were a mystery to me but now after many hours of studying them I think i finally understand them a bit.

I want to talk more about health and stuff but im actually really tired so i'll do it next time xP

Pokemon Challenge Squirtle #7

Squirtle!

I kept getting hung up on this one for a number of reasons but for some reason i got hung up on the head the most.  I need to not do that, dont get hung up ahh just do it!!  Sitting around being confused is worse than just moving on.  Always move on.  Always keep moving.  Always keep training.  Also turn off distractions.  Need to take my own advice.  It's ok though.

Pokemon Challenge Meowstic #678

Meowstic!

This one was a little interesting.  Again, i chose the random pokemon thing and got Meowstic.  At first I was really intimidated about taking on this character.  Not exactly sure why.  I noticed i have a bit of trouble trying to draw characters I really like.  I can't quite understand it, but it is a hurdle none the less.  A hurdle that I think I smashed this time around!  I kept working with her proportions and tweaking things till I got things looking decent.  On the pose, I decided to just go with the same pose as Meowstic.  I wanted to see if I could get the human form in that pose without any additional reference.  Think I did pretty good and feel genuinely proud of this one. 

It's starting to feel like all those studies I've been doing are really paying off.  At least in a small way.  I'll have to return to more rigorous studies.  I'm starting to really crave the knowledge.  and this excites me.  I need to dive into a hefty bowl of tutorials and go nuts!

MORE TRAINING!

July 19, 2015 - HUGE Blog update Notice

Finally getting around to updating this blog.  Things have been pretty quiet around here but that doesn't mean i haven't been drawing!  I will be using the blog's schedule thing to post things on the correct date. so anything after April 7, 2015 to this date was put in just recently.  I may not remember all the details on the particular studies so pardon the absence of info on some.

Edit::  UPDATE COMPLETE!

Tons of new things that I've done.  I wasn't expecting it to literally take all night.  Then again I wasn't expecting to work on it all night.  I was honestly surprised how much I had drawn between now and the last update.  For some reason I thought it was way less than it actually was.  That's pretty awesome.

Anyway, everything but 2 pictures fit where it was supposed to after April 7th.  I found 2 pictures I hadn't uploaded from March that can be found Here


There will also be a few things changing here on the blog.

Titles
The title will change from a "Date" to "Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc."

Challenge Posts
Challenges have become super fun for me to do so I've decided those entries will now get their own post to help keep things organized.  With a challenge "Master Post"

Regular Uploads
Now that things are finally settled in personal life land, let's try to get the daily studies back again!  While I think I'm in a pretty feel good mood right now, I would actually like to try another challenge like the 1000 drawing in 1 week challenge.  If i can get back to that level...  OH MAN!

Nightly Art Streams?
This isn't final yet and I'm still not sure if I want to do it, but I've been thinking about doing a nightly art stream.  It will probably be nothing too fancy and will likely not have a mic.  But hey we'll see.  I'm just thinking out loud with that post.

That's all i can think of for now. I'm way tired.  Off to bed.

July 18, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Charizard #6

Charizard

How do you make a pokemon any more epic than Carmeleon?  I dunno, turn it around and have it reach for the stars?  Haha. I decided on this pose because I wanted something a little different.  I'm not sure how well it turned out as far as pokemon go, BUTT I think it turned out pretty great (see what I did there?)

I really like how I was able to pull out the basic shapes of the pokemon Charizard.  I tried to reconstruct it  with those shapes and forms and it worked surprisingly well.  I think as far as the actual pokemon go I'm just gonna focus on trying to figure out the basic shapes and forms of the character and perhaps less so on making a unique pose for them.  Maybe a little bit of both?  I dunno.  I'm not setting any hard rules for this challenge other than the wanting to draw the monster girl pokemon and the actual pokemon.  So we'll see where we go in the future.

July 18, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Charmeleon #5

Charmeleon

Wasn't entirely sure how I was gonna do this one.  Charmeleon is a but edgier than charmander so I wanted a bit of that to show through.  I originally had her with her arms crossed but I ended up changing it because I felt it took away from her unique arm design so I uncrossed them.  I think it got the full effect either way.  Another one I'm pretty pleased with.  I'm still focusing on learning forms and such.

Here is the original pose.

I would have likely went with this pose but like I said.  I think it took away from the unique arm design for charmeleon.  Something that I think kinda sets it apart from Charmander.  Along with the head shape of-course.

July 18, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Charmander #4

Charmander!

Charmander turned out pretty freakin adorable.  I got hung up on whether or not I should give her hair.  I decided to because why not?  Shouldn't get hung up on tiny details, just gotta try it to see if it works.  If it doesn't then take it off!  Which is what I did with her clothes.  But it's fine.  She's a pokemon calm down.
I only think her face could use a bit of work.  It looks a bit too "default charmander" for my liking.  but other than that im pretty pleased with the end result.

July 17, 2015 - Untimed Studies

Studies of some kind

July 16, 2015 - Art Vlog Thing! - Giving Credit (to yourself!)

Did one of these again.

Think the video speaks for itself.  I will be doing these more often.  While I know the audience for this kind of stuff (on my youtube channel) is a lot smaller than anything else I do.  If it can help anybody at all that's all that matters.  We are all learning.  We are all in this together.

July 14, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Amoonguss #591

AMOONGUSS!!!

What a strange pokemon...   I went to a random pokemon generator thing and it picked this one.  So I did it.  It turned out ok.


what a strange pokemon...

July 14, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Venusaur #3

Venusaur!

Actually suuuuper happy with how this one turned out.  I've been looking over forms and such again with vilppu (will be posting those when I finish the next chapter) so I was really able to utilize that when designing this one.  Not to mention I've never actually done a bigger type of character so I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Very pleased actually.


I saved the base before I added the details.  So good.

July 10, 2015 - Figures and Nona

These were done in Manga Studio

I'm not exactly sure when I did these, but I'll just throw them here because.

I know the ones on the left were basic character studies with faces thrown on them, then the one's on the right were from from the regular quick gesture website I do.

July 7, 2015 - Doggy Direct

Doggy Direct...  Holy crap.

Finally after all these years and MANY setbacks Doggy Direct.  I've been wanting to do this thing for so many years.  It's a sigh of relief to finally be in a position to do it.  This little thing took at least 40 hours to put together.  I think that's a pretty awesome accomplishment on my part.  While I don't think I focused quite as hard as I should have, I think that the fact that I started and finished this thing in 3 days is amazing.  Creating the character, putting him together, animating him, dealing with audio, video, a number of unforeseen issues (that I will now easily be able to avoid next time around)  and also trying to re-familiarize myself with the animating software.  I think I did a good job.  My fingers are crossed for the next one, which should be soon!  I'd like to go more in depth about the "Doggy character" but I think I'll save that for another day.  That'll be a lengthy topic.

Here is an extra tidbit I wrote up on the facebook page about this series.
Here's a fun fact while I'm editing the blog post about Doggy Direct. Did you know the concept for Doggy Direct was originally thought of over 5 years ago? Some details, however, have been watered down and changed over the years, buuuut don't be too surprised if there's a bit more going on than it might first appear. Orbital Replay may still have it's moment to shine. But shhhh SHHHHH!!!! Don't tell anybody!! Here is the original teaser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk89T6_6ths

July 1, 2015 - Pokemon Challenge Ivysaur #2

Next up on the list Ivysaur

I'm still not entirely sure what I'm gonna do with "clothes" or "features" or "little sticky outy bits"  It's all part of the design I guess.  the Ivysaur on the right looks a little derp.  but that's fine.