Totally not late...nope, not at all

Hehehe, let’s just pretend that I’m not late. Let’s picture a perfect world where I updated last week and this is my update for this week. Can you imagine that? Good, now whisper it to yourself for the rest of the day and you’ll believe it. I’ll give you a moment to do that

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*checks watch*

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Hey, welcome back, that was a great update last week. That picture I drew defied all awesomeness. And that picture of my wrestling a lion was just amazing. It’s too bad that an evil leprechaun stole my new found art powers through a convoluted game of tic tac toe (But you already know that because of those pictures you saw last weeks blog) So here I am, climbing out of the ravine known as “Art Block Crevice.” I must say, I’m quite surprised by my progress, but instead of showing you where I am art wise, I’m going to show you my early birthday presents: (art related, I promise)

Madame Mystery Blogger got me these presents now because she won’t be here on my birthday (in other news Madame Mystery Blogger, or MMB for short, backed out of blogging in this, no need to fear, she will receive the coldest of shoulders tomorrow…now I feel like a jerk…) So what did I get that’s worth blogging about, easy:

A brand new sketchbook (I’d like to say it’s because my old one’s full, but I never had an old one…I’m a lot newer than you think)

 Unfortunately it’s not the most full, I haven’ had too much time to draw.

 A box full of erasers (which I really needed)

And a Ghiradelli (I expect my advertisement payment in the morning) Chocolate bar. Notice how gone it is, I ate that puppy in an hour (also notice it’s not there-ness. I put the wrapper on the table to take a picture of it, next thing I know it’s gone…trashed.)

Needless to say I was pleased with my early birthday bounty. I’ll thank MMB now instead of having to write one of those cheesy thank-you cards you find next to the “for kids” section at the hallmark store.

Definitely might be some pictures on the next blog post,

Pikachao

Late wake up call

Yes, this is late, I realize that. I had not one minute of Saturday to write this blog, much less post it. And Friday…well, let’s just say that Nintendo and The internet does not keep me very focused. Oh well, I got it to you now, didn’t I. which should be, I hope, no later than Monday. I’m still going with my once a week plan, this counts for the week I didn’t update on. I’ll still update again on Saturday.


…ummm yeah

Nothing

Much

To add…

Just go to the pictures already.



Amazingly enough, I don’t have much to show you during the two weeks that I promised you. I suppose it’s for a multiple amount of reasons. One is that I’m working on a project that I’d rather show you only when I actually finish it. The other is that I’m getting pickier of what I consider good art…so…I have exactly two pictures to show you…one I’m not the most happy with, but I digitized it, so I feel obliged to show it to you.

Alexandra DeMartin, revived from the character graveyards.

If you watch me on DeviantArt, then you have already seen this, and the next one as well. This is currently my Deviant ID at the moment, and I must say that I enjoy it very much. It’s probably the best digital work I’ve done…pretty much my whole art career. Admittedly, that is Huge or anything, but it’s enough for me to be proud of it. This picture also marked the first time (to be followed by all of my others) that I used basic shapes to form the head of a character. The only thing I don’t like about this picture at this moment are the ears. For some strange reason, the ears have been getting harder to do…meh, I’ll probably figure out why soon.

Penny “Pip” however, was not recently raised from the character graveyards. She’s actually relatively new. Also, for the information of all my friends who’ve seen this picture, it’s a Pokémon, a Pichu to be specific. Sure, it’s a rodent, but it ain’t no rabbit.

Meh, this one is a lot less balanced than the previous picture. There is some stuff I really like, and stuff I really don’t like.

First off, the stuff I like. The eyes, mostly with the color. I feel those eyes feel more realistic than my other eyes. Sure, they aren’t exactly the most realistic eyes in the world, but it’s good for now. The bandana was really nice too. I think my favorite part of it was the little tie-off on the back of it all. I was worried about it at first, but now I like it a lot. I guess the eyes are nice too. I feel the fur that stuck out didn’t look too bad either.

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Now for the bad. First off, this has to be my worst shading I’ve done recently. It’s hard for the burn tool to appear on that yellow, so it’s not noticeable there, and everywhere it is noticeable, I think looks rather unpleasant. The face looks devoid of barely any emotion, she just looks…blank. The neck looks weird. My least favorite thing has to be, by far, the nose…well not so much the nose as the line thingy above the nose. The name of it escapes me, but so too seems to have been the confidence in my non snouted creations. That line bothers me greatly, I’ve already found a way to make that more flattering and I’ll show it to you when I actually apply it to a picture, but that doesn’t make this picture any less unappetizing for me.



Now I’m sure some may disagree with me, but I just have that need to point out all of my errors. It definitely has nothing, nothing at all to do with winning sympathy points…none at all…anyone who says otherwise is crazy.

Sorry if my post is short for two weeks (and two days) worth of pictures, but you’ll just have to deal with it, I’m writing this blog for myself just as much as I am for you, so…nyeh.



Look out, behind you, IT’S A TRAP,

Pikachao

5 fixable things

As it’s the end of the month, I’ve decided to show the ‘interwebz’ my monthly “What can I improve on” session (granted, I do it more that this, but Monthly is my bare minimum.) After days of studying my art, I’ve come up with five things that bother me about my artwork. I don’t hate my art, but I have many ways to improve, I figure that putting out there what I want to change is a smart thing to do (but don’t expect this every month, this won’t happen all that commonly.) These are ranked from least obnoxious to most obnoxious in my opinion, some are problems with my art, others are things that I don’t do in my art, but all are things I need to fix…so, on with the show.






5. I Want To Make More Styles Of Hair

Meh, this one’s minor, so I’ll keep the explanation short. Most of my hair is way similar, so I want to change that to make my characters look more unique (which I’ll talk more about on number three)…and that’s all…simple as that…not much else to say, so I’ll just go right on into number four.

4. I Don’t Use Those Little Shapes And Lines When Starting New Art.

This bothers me to no end. Every other artist that I like use circles, lines, and other shapes as a skeleton of sorts to build there characters. I DON’T DO THAT. It makes me feel inadequate. I don’t mean tat I refuse to try it, I mean that when I do, it always looks bad (I’d show you, but I have no nerve whatsoever to do that. The only good that came out of those was it was a major stepping stone in my style, and by that I mean it made me like drawing furries.) My friend (The mystery, maybe, blogger) Claims that she doesn’t do it either. She thinks it’s too conformist, but I have to point out that EVERY Artist that I enjoy on DA uses this same system (I’m almost sure of it) and look at them, there art is pretty dang good. (This used to be first, but I’m getting better at this)



3. I Want To Make More Unique Looking Characters

This one really comes back to number five. I feel that my characters aren’t exactly the easiest to distinguish. I may be wrong on this considering how harsh I am on my own art (which is rule number one for being an artist, you have to hate your art…bloody terrible rule if you ask me, I can’t look at my art without thinking it’s horrible.) It’s not the character themselves; I know that for a fact, I try quite hard to make my characters look unique in planning. Like the other two below it, it’s both not a huge deal to me and I’ve been getting slowly better at making the characters look more unique.



2. I Feel Inadequate When It Comes To Inking, Paper or Digital.

Another one that drives me insane, after I finish drawing on I do the first logical thing I can think of, scan it into the computer. Now I prefer digital as opposed to inking, but that still has problems with it. I have a tablet that I’m not the best with yet, so it’s not yet the same quality lineart as with the paper. Mostly the main thing that bothers me about digital art is when I add color to it. I can’t ever seem to find a natural set of colors that look like real colors you’d see on what I’m drawing. After I find a somewhat good color scheme I usually end up messing it up when I shade. Shading is more of a problem because I don’t have a set way to do it. I’ve heard of many ways to do it, but most don’t work the best for me. Using the Burn/Dodge tools can look nice, but it’s way too easy to mess up. I’m still in the search for a good way to shade, but, for now, I’m going to have to work with what I can do.



1. I Can’t Make Working Bodies

Easily the most bothersome part of drawing for me. I want to be able to draw my characters…all of them…actually doing stuff. Currently I’m stuck on drawing shoulders and above only. It’s a mixture of a lot of things: I’m scared to start drawing more than I’m comfortable with. I am always worried about ruining a picture by adding something I’m not good at onto it. Another key reason probably has to do with how I learn. No matter how many classes I take, tutorials I read, or art books I buy, I only ever seem to get better when I’m drawing on my time. Sure I study a lot of people’s art and that comes in handy when I’m drawing by myself, but I can never seem to draw something new well unless it’s not completely on purpose. Almost all of the ways that I draw today started out as simple doodles I drew in class or while I was bored. If I was making an honest effort to draw something in some specific way, I wouldn’t like how it turned out. It’s some weird style of learning. I’m sure that eventually I’ll learn my way of drawing bodies, but I have no clue when I will start to do that. It could be tomorrow or five years from now. It’s a little worrisome I’d say. I hope it comes sooner than later.











I apologize for the lack of pictures on this one, but I promise to post two weeks worth of pictures next week. Sound good? I’m also sorry if I sound depressed, cause I’m not, I’m just putting out my goals for all to see. Heck, I’m working on improving it quite a bit as we speak. None of those artists that I like just started. They’ve gone through years (for the most part) of drawing, I started this year. I’ve got a lot of time to improve.



Dont’cha just love walls of text?

Pikachao