I got manga studio for a song on black friday and have been mucking around using it to do linework.  It's very nice!  A lot sharper than photoshop, which generally feels like trying to ink with someone else's hand.

here's some liney stuff I've done with it!

older pieces!

I found some old .psds from sometime in the last year-ish, and found a couple of things I'm going to refurbish.  Posting them now pre-refurbishment for reference...

(with a little bit added on)

a sketch that still cracks me up...

also I did this magnificent self portrait.

ain't that a kick in the head...

Well, today...yesterday, now... was not very good at all.  Long story short, one of my cousins died - he was only a couple years younger than me.  It's hitting pretty hard.

I did some art things, though - one from Friday, when things weren't so heavy, and two from today.  Figured it'd be worth throwing them up here, but I think it's also pretty clear which two are the broody dark ones...

another stupid .gif (and other things as well!)

I got photoshop recently (it was...kind of an ordeal but I'm happy I have it) so I've been using it for things.   It's pretty fun, but I need to figure out a way to make my own gifs without using some stupid internet website.

I've done a lot of studies and weird doodles (and some good pictures here and there) so I'll put 'em here in case anyone wants to take a gander at them.  Critiques are always welcome here, too, so please don't feel shy in commenting if something looks strange.

Sometimes I get bored midway through drawing something (or attempting to draw something, which is what happens most often when I'm trying to doodle on the computer).  So stuff like this happens.

Art portfolio blog!

I'm trying to fill it with stuff that I actually think is good and evocative of my work, but, y'know, work in progress.

Here it is, if you wanna see all the other junk I make!

Lazy Person Animation

Sometimes I feel bad about the work that I do and then I remember that I made these things and at least I am amused

Done!

Done done done done.  There are things I could go back and change, if I was so inclined, but right now classes are clamoring for attention and I need to wade my way through chapter 1 in my nutrition textbook and write an essay due on Tuesday.  So even though there are improvements that could be made (there's always improvements that could be made), I'm happy to call this good enough.

Adventures in lefthandedness!

I'm fortunate enough to be friends with Mauvais, a great artist, fantastic model and an all-around lovely person.  I've attended a couple of her life drawing sessions recently, which was pretty awesome.  Unfortunately, as I'm having wrist problems, I spent approximately 50% of the time drawing with my left hand.  I did better than expected, but there's still no question that my right hand draws better.  

I think all of the below are labeled.  So, laugh away!  XD 

Welp I'm in the endgame with my comic pages for the BASA anthology (phew, finally!).  Everything's going pretty well, so I'm temporarily focusing on my writing.  However I did take a short break to make an ineptly dancing bean.

Go bean go!

A little video for y'all

Still working on my comics (it's super exciting and somewhat exhausting) but I figured I'd throw this out there because I am loving both this music and the animation in this video.  Keeps cracking me up.  Go go Goldfish!

plodding away

well, despite some wrist troubles I am still hammering away at the comic anthology story I've got.  Page by page.

(The aforementioned wrist troubles!  My wrist brace, which I've also taken to calling my exoskeleton...) 

My pages!  They're taking up the entirety of the coffee table (alack and alas I've no studio to work in, nor desk to sit at.  My poor roommates have to deal with art crap everywhere)  

Below are some rough pencils for a few panels, trying to get things blocked in and ready to be inked.

Having this comic anthology thing going on has also given me the proverbial kick in the ass to actually work on the comic that's been lurking in my brain since 2009.  I've been mucking about in my sketchbook trying to nail down character designs for other people in the comic, but I've also blocked out a page spread for the main character, a kind of vaguely propaganda-poster-ish piece of work.  

It's now currently inked, but I have no idea how I'm going to color it (aside from her lenses, which happen to be sharpie).  

I still feel like I've got a long ways to go before I'm really happy with my work, but at least stuff is getting worked on!  Better than my usual summer malaise where I do nothing. Work!  Enjoyable work!  What is this?!  

Thumbnails? Progress? What?

So I scanned in my thumbnailed comics and I'mma post them here because I'd love some advice...from anyone, really.  I wanted to see if the basic thumbnailed panels actually are somewhat legible.  They probably won't be, because of my sharpie-addled scribbles, but... oh well!

The skull creature is Tim the Monster, a character I've doodled around a few times.  Here's what he looks like when he's not a sharpie scribble, so you've got an idea of what he's supposed to look like...

and now, for the thumbnails!  Please, any critique would be rad amazing.  

Comics!

Unsurprisingly, I changed my mind regarding the story that I am going to try and write for the BAD TSA anthology.  However!  My new idea (actually my first idea, believe it or not!) is pretty well set up, and today I took what I think of as a pretty big step forwards; I thumbnailed out the whole thing.  So far it's coming out to six pages, which is good for me, although I might want to consider stuff like an opening page.... or where to put the title...or if I'm even going to include a title, which I probably should, all things considered.

All that being said... I probably shouldn't have thumbnailed the whole thing with sharpie.  The fumes might be...getting to me...

BAD TSA anthology

I've been thinking pretty hard about this; I really want to put in a story, but I've only got two story ideas and one has no resolution.  I think I'm probably going to go with the short story in my Doctor Oddity universe, considering that I've really wanted to get something out of that universe for a while now, and it'd be good practice.   That being said... it has no resolution, so now I'm stuck with an idea and some character designs.

Pardon the bad cell phone photo.

Two nameless nerds, potential characters for the short comic.

The basic idea would be about Doctor Oddity AKA Audrey, a reformed supervillain who's been kicking around in my head for some years now.  I always figured she'd have a small cult of dedicated fans (you'd have to if your crowning achievement as a supervillain was filling the white house with green jello on a dare) and also figured there would be endless hilarity if she ever had to meet her fans.  That's the springboard for my comic idea; Audrey meeting a couple of her fans.  I just have no idea how I'm going to resolve it.

Well, I've got a little time, at least.  Back to the drawing board...

I am really bad at updating this thing!

I've been doing a whole lot of random stuff, though sadly not much to do with drawing lately.  Most of the drawing I've managed to do has been relegated to doodles in the margins of my history notes.  But the other night I did some doodling; a poster for a story I have in my head, an experimental panel for a comic that I someday should write, and a fan doodle since Legend of Korra came out and has been gently gnawing on my brain since I first saw it.  

 This is the poster - I need to ink it.  I think it'll look significantly better when it's not just reds and pencils, but then again, I'm not super good at inking either.  Ah, well.

 This is the theoretical panel for my theoretical comic - needs work, and lots of it.  Perspective?  Who needs it, amirite?   (artists.  artists need it.  bollocks.)

And of course Admiral Zhao versus Tarrlok.  Borne of the fact that there's something about Tarrlok that makes me think of insidious evil, and Zhao was the first season antagonist that everyone loved to hate.  Admiral Zhao is kind of my favorite, not gonna lie.  He's such a dick.  

That's it for now!  I'm not dead!  Yaaay!

true story.

Emerald City, You Are Wonderful

So for spring break, I've hopped right on up to Seattle.  Just in time for the Emerald City Comicon, in fact!  It's been a fun time; I'm staying with a very good friend and her family.  It's been all cooking and geeking out and talking video games and watching movies, and it's been fantastic.  I made bread animals!

A bread mouse, for your entertainment. 

We did go to the convention later, a couple days after I flew in.  It just so happened that, a little bit before the Comicon, there was a ceramics convention as well!  Exciting for me, having played around quite a bit with ceramics.  We went through a couple of the exhibitions in the convention center and enjoyed some art; and then we went upstairs and enjoyed significantly more nerdy art.  

I'm a little sad, because a couple of exhibitors that I wanted to see only went to Wondercon, but I did get to do some awesome things and I have grabbed some sweet con-swag, so over all I'm pretty happy.  

I met Yuko Ota, of Johnny Wander fame, and she drew me an awesome squid/dragon/eel.  It's magical!

I also got the first volume of their comic, and she drew this for me, which is amazing as well: 

All of my happies, you guys.  Every single happy. 

I also managed to find this;

My aloha girl! I’ve wanted one of these babies since I found out they existed; I’m a little sad cuz they had the red dress version when I first stopped by, but I didn’t have the moolah. So I went on an ATM adventure and by the time I got back, red dress had sold. Later on it was pointed out to me that getting the blue dress was kind of like taking the paragon option (if buying con goodies is like conversation trees in Mass Effect, at least), though, so that’s cool.

And honestly I’ll buy almost anything Chris Sanders, so it’s all good.

My feet are tired, but I am quite happy!  I think I'll make the attempt to hit the ECC again next year, too. 

Photoshop beta!

Adobe has released the photoshop beta for free!  This is awesome for now, because it means I get to muck about with photoshop without paying for it yet.  I'll take that, even with any miscellaneous bugs that might crop up.  Yesss.

I shall now paste the things I've doodled; if anyone has any critique, please send it on over!  I know I need a lot of work.  Adobe's not my medium of choice, so it's kind of like slogging through jam trying to get my art to look good in it.  Any suggestions are welcome.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite drawing on the blog...

So I've been playing Mass Effect 3, which, for me, means mucking about and painting aliens.  I have more doodles (most of them in my notes for history class...oops) that I've yet to scan in, but here's the first in what I'm sure will be a wave of monstrous and/or stupid creatures.  Yay!

fiddlefaddle.

It's one of those awkward moments when things are going relatively well, and I'm afraid I'm going to muss it up somehow...Especially since her skin tone is supposed to look somewhat corpsified, and I've got problems with normal skintone.

Welp, time to save and keep trying...

Edit: And more!