Cintiq!

After a long, long time saving up for it, I finally have a Cintiq. And it is wonderful.

Everything feels so much more natural, and I've been playing with the new hardware with that character height chart when I'm not working. My hours have gone back up lately, so it's been a good chunk of my time.

Time for some progress images, then.

 Before the Cintiq arrived.

Costume change.

Cintiq arrived; started playing around with it by doing some finished lines.

Next, explored some sketching ability while trying to fix the pose of the troll.

Removed two figures to work on the elf. Also noticed some mistakes on the troll and put down a note. Whoops.

Fixed some pretty glaring problems on the elf, sketched on the troll's arm (still have fixes to make there) and played around with some flat colors. Excited to get to rendering, it should be a lot of fun on this monster of a tablet monitor.

I am so glad I decided to buy this thing. It's a fantastic tool for digital work.

Superb Owl

So the superbowl was this past Sunday.

This happened.

Happy New Year, 2014

So.

Now that the long stretch of holidays is over (as is my short vacation with the boyfriend), it's time to get some activity going here again.

First, some color was added to a sketch from the last post some time ago. Nice to be able to get around to posting it.

 And now, a height chart for some characters.

That's all for now. 'Til next time.

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.

Home stretch

I've nearly finished those Pokemon buttons for this year's Desert Bus! Only two more left to make. Time for some photos.

No longer sick

I've recovered from that awful cold I had! (Other than some minor lingering congestion, anyway.) I've also nearly recovered from a double shift at work. Now I can get back to doing some drawing.

Have some buttons.

Cyndaquil hardly ever seems to be pictured in what seems to be its neutral state. I've always thought it took effort for it to have its little flames going, and some of the shots I managed to reference from the show would seem to back that up.

As a bonus, here's some of the little thumbnails and roughs that get scribbled outside the button templates, as well as the first Charmander pass that I ended up disliking. All the buttons (other than the pokeballs) have had little roughs like this where I get used to the proportions and shapes of the subject while finding a pose that I like.

I don't even

I'm sick again.
Wheee.
While I try to recover from this crap, have a look at these lovely buttons I'm making for this year's Desert Bus Craft-Along.

Buttons everywhere

It's really been nearly a week since the last post? It doesn't feel like that long.

Anyhow, I've made some more buttons and kicked off the Eevee set. Only two more left, and then on to the starters.

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.

Headache

Headache tonight. Have some little practice doodles of some Pokemon I've done in anticipation of this year's Desert Bus.

And a close-up of the Bulbasaur, which has turned out to be my favorite of the doodles.

See you on Thursday or Friday.