Catch-up Time

You know, I was doing so well at updating regularly last year before work really started dropping on me like piles of bricks. Here's some updates on that thing I was drawing.

Color to another character.

Reduced the size of the troll, corrections to a pose, a few touch-ups on colors.

Costuming!

Lines.

Colors.

Costuming. Removed a figure for the preview; the wing covers a chunk of the troll.

Color! Also some line for the critter, with some changes to the tail.

I need to get back in the habit of updating more again.

Catching Up

Work seems to have been kicking my butt lately.

It's been a while since I've made an update to the blog, so it's time to play a bit of catch-up.

Visited my boyfriend back in July and had a wonderful time, then came back and went right back to work. Between now and then, the newest iteration of the Pokemon franchise has come out, and I have to say I've enjoyed it. X and Y have put some fresh new mechanics into the games, something that they've needed for a long time. On a more subjective note, the designs of the new batch of monsters have been pretty fun for the most part. I'll doubtlessly produce some scribbles documenting my adventures at some point.

But for now, a bit of sketching.

Playing around with old characters.

 Having fun making an alien species. I knew I wanted it to have horns, four arms, and a goat-like aspect to the feet, but beyond that it was experimentation for a direction to go.

 Four eyes made the species appropriately alien, so I set about playing with the skull: the placement of the eyes, shape of the horns, etc.

 Good lord, I have played entirely too much Mass Effect. Just some color scribbles to experiment with the look of the things.

 I wasn't fond of the armor from above, so I did some more playing around with that and a more "conventional" space suit. The podcast Welcome to Night Vale is a great motivator for art.

A monster sketch, incorporating a few animals into one beastly ogre.

A fantasy-themed mount creature. Drawn on the plane.

In other news, I've got an idea for a short-story-comic. Still drafting the script, though, so it may be a while yet. Stay tuned.

Buttons and Fixes

I am quite tired today, so less ramble, more images.

First, some progress on the gnome sketch. I realized I was trying to make the perspective far too complicated, and simplified things. Still more fixing to do, of course.

Next, buttons! I finished the first set of buttons I'm making for this year's Desert Bus. The next set will consist of Eevees. The buttons are all hand-drawn with physical media; these were done with pencil, pen, and markers.

If you're interested in the Pokemon buttons, keep an eye on the Desert Bus website, as I don't know how my buttons will be used. Really, just keep an eye on Desert Bus in general. It's a lot of fun toward a good cause.

fff

So many things that need correcting.

So much more reference to do. But it's progressing.
Next update sometime this weekend.

Rescheduling

I seem to be having some problems with my current update schedule. I'm going to work out how to improve this for my own good and the benefit of getting things posted on the days I say I'm going to. Mondays and Fridays aren't working well. Let's try every fourth day and see how that goes. So the next update should be on the 25th, since I suppose this is going to read as being the 21st.

Have some roughs for that RPG project I'm working on.

There was a fourth, but since it was from a bad angle, I trashed it.

After the break, a Doctor Who-related scribble.

Work schedule clashed so hard with the update schedule yesterday that I wasn't able to even do a text post. Hopefully I won't have an evening shift followed by an opening shift too many times.

Playing around with lighting. Have some corrections to make and the wings to get to, but I like where things are going so far.

Tired

Grocery store work is rather more tiring than electronics store gaming department work, I have to say.

Anyhow, I've sketched up some progress on this piece:

 

With and without the figure, for your viewing convenience.

Until Monday, bwuuuuuuuh I'm tired.

It's Process Sketch Time!

Time to take a moment to make this post I promised. So, here we go, from start to the current state:

First, a quick sketch to get an idea of what I'm doing with the character.

Corrections! Always making an effort to get the best out of a sketch.

(The rest after the jump.)

I Swear I Still Exist

I seem to have gone off and neglected to post for a month or two. That's unfortunate. I should remedy that before I keep doing it some more.

So, unfortunately, I don't have any scans of sketches I did while in California at the moment. I'm not on good terms with the scanner, but it's not the scanner's fault I haven't gone and scanned in my scribbles. More on those at a later time, when I have scans.

For now, some other things. First off, a new Team Fortress 2 fan-scribble:

My favored class changed to Engineer a long time ago, but I never got to drawing something new until recently. The new Mann vs. Machine mode is heaps of fun, too! You should play it. It is a free game, you know.

Next up, a new take on an older character that got as far as flat colors. This may or may not ever be finished; this version was for a roleplaying game that's gone dead. Still, I'm fond of the work I did on the scales.

The next two are some conceptual sketching for an Elder Scrolls: Skyrim comic idea I've been mulling over for a little while now. The (wood) elf has since been toyed with some more since these images, mostly with eye shapes and in fixing issues I had (and even in the more recent workings, still have) with bodily proportions. 

There is one more thing I've been working on, but it has a bunch of progress shots, so I'm going to save that for its own post in a few days. Assuming I don't get too involved in other goings-on and forget. 

Meanwhile, in Tabletop Gaming

My friend James, a classmate of mine from SCAD, has long been fascinated by tabletop games such as d20Modern and Dungeons and Dragons, and is the person who finally got me truly involved in campaigns and having fun rolling oddly-sided dice. So when he mentioned a new system he and his friend were working on and was offering to GM a game via Skype, of course I made a character.

Here's the result of some drawing during the group's first session.

(She's honey badger-themed.) [Mature language under that link.]

Scanners are awful

So, my grandmother passed away last month, which is part of why there's been a lull in posts again. My family and I were in San Antonio for about a week and a half on short notice, getting there the day before she went, but we were there for her last moments and she was aware of us being there. I understandably didn't really feel like drawing for a week or so there.

I'm fine now, and I have been for some time at this point--the world keeps turning and all that, have to move forward, etc. I did manage to do some sketching on the plane there and in the airport on the way back in my mini-sketchbook, so here are the results that the scanner destroyed which I tried to salvage through some Photoshop adjustments.

People fidget constantly at airports.

I would've loved to have some reference for bat ears. I couldn't quite recall the exact shapes. Pity.

It's the middle of September and I have no title

Oh, right, I was drawing things, wasn't I? Picked up Mass Effect 2 and Resistance 3 recently, and of course Pokemon and Minecraft are huge time sinks as well. With the 1.8 update out I'll probably be messing about on my friend's server.

Anyhow, I forgot to really look at the clock yet again, so no reliable time frame here, but this is probably somewhere in the range of 20 to 30 minutes. Played around with the figure a little before tooling around with costuming. Not sure if I'm satisfied with it yet, there's already a few things I can see that need fixing.

Next Trooper

Starting up a new Seelie Trooper concept. This is about 20 minutes, give or take. The legs needed quite a few corrections to get to this point. Haven't decided if this one's going to be in color or not yet, but it'll probably end up colored. Or maybe I should just work in greyscale this time around and see how it goes.

Oh, I almost forgot the most recent version of the last one. Here we are.

Late-night Scribbling

Finally managed to work up the motivation to do some sketching again. I've been out of it, lately. Sorting through old things I no longer want or need, rearranging my things, being sidetracked by Team Fortress 2, that sort of thing.

So here, have a character scribble.

Still haven't gotten around to the lightbox thing yet, but the headaches that stuff gave me on my portfolio site aren't something I'm excited about going back to.

Widget

(I'm working on getting some kind of Lightbox thing working, bear with me)

So, here we are, the first post with an image slapped onto it. This is a particularly quick scribble from a few weeks ago. Not sure why I didn't post it sooner, but that's probably just my over-thinking things like I usually do. This little griffon-beastie is Widget, based on eagle owls. He's a twist on a Pathfinder character's pet. Did I mention this was a quick sketch? It is. It's very quick.

In other news, I'm a little put off by the new Harley Quinn costume. She's been one of my favorite characters since I became a Bat-fan long ago in the 90's watching the Animated Series. While I don't read superhero comics (ironic, since I love a lot of the shows like Justice League and Teen Titans), it just disappoints me where they've taken the character, at least visually. I'm not aware of anything in the DC canon that's been happening, so I can't say anything about plot points or character development--the last time I knew anything about Harley, it was during the Animated Series and the Arkham Asylum game (ah, what a wonderful game). Speaking of which, I'm excited for Arkham City. Everything surrounding it looks fantastic so far. Trying not to get too psyched up about it, though. I don't want to inflate my expectations too much and have the game fall short. I'll be interested to see how Tara Strong fares as Harley's new voice, too. A bit ironic there, too, since she used to voice Batgirl. But she's a great actress, so I've got every confidence for the character in Arkham City. Even if that corset is far too tight to be breathing, much less doing acrobatics.