Adrift

 

The final version of this that I uploaded to Tumblr and Cara isn't too different from this version. Progress! Still taking me two hours to do them. Still things to improve, as always.

Stray Gods just hit its one year release anniversary. The soundtrack for this game helped me through the thick of last year. Especially the song Adrift. The song came up on shuffle as I was about to start a DD for today. I started crying. Is this an Austin Wintory thing, maybe. I will cry if I hear I Was Born For This without warning.

To this day I still haven't sold anything on Redbubble. I opened the store in March of this year, had enough designs to open in late May, early June. So while I made it 5 months ago, it's only maybe been active for roughly 3 months? I'm trying to stay positive. One of my big problems is marketing. I had hoped that if I uploaded weekly that my designs might pop up in an algorithm somewhere for an active store. From what I've read on reddit, not the case lol. No chance of being found on the website unless I market myself externally. The time to create an insta account is approaching...

Before I do, I still hope to start a Ko Fi. Maybe have some promotional free downloads. I want to... make a papercraft something. I have an idea for papercraft rpg dice? In a terrarium, aquarium, or gelatinous cube design. As much as I'd like to try for the terrarium, its maybe an oversaturated idea? I hesitate to research - I'll probably be disheartened that I won't be able to compete with other people's designs that I envy. But dice shapes should be pretty easy? I'm going to test it out anyway. If not, I thought... of a Dragon Age garland lol. Flat image. Minimal assembly. Line up of all the party members with their hands to their sides in a T pose kinda, so if you string them up it will hopefully look like they're all holding hands in a line. lol. maybe. Will likely be more time consuming than the dice though? So. I dunno. Not sure if I should set a deadline for having that. Maybe by the end of October? I've got busy months ahead. I don't want that to discourage me. Go me. GO ME I CAN DO IT. DO MY BEST. 

This is maybe pathetic, but I placed an order for a few of my Redbubble designs. There's no tally for the number of items sold, so it's not as though I'm inflating my own numbers. It just... kinda feels like an L that my first sale in my store was myself. But anyway, i wanted to know how the colours look on the final product. I have a lot of dark grey designs that look almost black on certain monitors. That bothers me. So I'd like to verify if I should adjust them and take note of the shading values. Additionally I think I'll try using the ones I've bought for marketing purposes? I bought some of my potion labels (lmao I ordered the Holy Water before catching the grammatical error and uploading a correction) that I plan on taking some snaps of. Buy some green soda, put it in a bottle/jar, slap a Poison label on there, take photos. I don't know if I should be weary about advertising a label that says poison. I'll have to put a safety message in there?

Upcoming label ideas: blanks (animals holding up fillable label boxes, invisibility potions, health potions (varying strengths), variety potions (genuine snake oil (would I be allowed to do this??), battery acid, potion seller's strongest potion, and idk what else. something fun hopefully).

Still Free

 

space sapphics

i ended up colouring much more of this, but it took an extra 80mins so here's the roughest splash of stuff for this wannabe Haven movie poster. I want to try and do more fanart in this poster-looking style. It's good practice for me to work on my eye for composition, and a nice way for me to journal and wear my fandom on my sleeve.

In July i've been working on developing a format to open commissions. I got 4 portraits done of OCs belonging to friends. Learnt a lot through trial and error for how to engage with what someone wants, and how I should streamline the design queries and get the illustration done too. That has been my focus, as well as gradually getting better with my redbubble. I'm trying to post something every week on either Friday or Saturday, however I was delayed last week and only uploaded something today.
annnddd, to my surprised my Ezio pixel designs are visible! My submission was approved, and I now have a Fan Art Artist badge of achievment on my profile! Woohoo! Hopefully it will help get eyes on my store. 
hoping hoping hoping~

in unrelated matters, Haven! I just finished playing Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden yesterday. I've wanted these poster-ready designs of fan art for games that I like to be an ongoing personal project. In Banishers the two protagonists have really intricate designs. And very realistic-looking. It felt a bit steeper of a challenge than I wanted to comfortably attempt tonight, so I went for another great couple in a video game. I've been meaning to draw these two for a long time. I actually wanted to design some stickers for them to put on redbubble before I read up on the IP and unauthorised fanart policies. 

I really loved this game. 
I'm still not sophisticated enough to articulate the things I loved so much about it. I need to post here more to work on my writing. Actual writing. Not just typing like I am now. Creative writing, and read up on it.

Ghosts Again

 

only medusa heard my prayer.

Medusa has morphed into something I need to turn to, kind of? 
i was treated badly for years, and i was silent as stone about it. i fought back and am seen as a monster, when i would argue the one who did it is the true monster.

something like that.

i just bought the perpetual license for clip studio paint. I've been doodling around for a couple of hours, it's going to take some getting used to - but it's fantastic. the breadth of options, my gosh. maybe it's just cause i'm coming from years of using just SAI to do everything that it's mindblowing to me. i like the EFFECTS brushes! MANGA EFFECTS. the bishounen-loving 15year old within me is RATTLING in her cage. 

Seriously though, by the end of the week I need to have a Redbubble update. 
Still no word back on my AC fan art submission. Fingies crossed, man.

Confide in Me

 Lots of music video inspo this year. I had the idea jotted down in my sketchbook to do stylised drawings of all of Kylie's different appearances in the video clip for Confide in Me.
I'm trying not to be too hard on myself for how this turned out. I keep wanting everything to look amazing, but I end up feeling so disappointed with how it takes shape. I think I need to focus on figure drawing and speed sketches. I'm so concerned about how long it takes me to draw anything, so I think I need to try focusing on speed.

in redbubble news, I saw the list of affiliate IPs for fanart had been updated - it now lists Assassin's Creed! I fixed up and made adjustments and resizes to some old Ezio pixels I did years ago. Uploaded, tagged and awaiting approval. Hopefully it brings a bit of attention to my store!

I need to work on some designs to add...

I've had a sketch for Unown designs for a Pokemon Gold and Silver poster I've been wanting to do. I think I came up with the sketches while procrastinating on working on the wedding invite stuff? Well, i'm putting a pin in those designs. Only working on printable stuff. Because. Anything I upload to redbubble, especially if its fanart, I wave the rights to. I'm the creator but not the owner anymore. I'm really attached to these Unown designs so.... I'm going to keep them as mine haha. If I reach a point where I want to print and sell my own stuff, that's when I might bust them out. In the meantime, I have to build my portfolio of designs. In the coming weeks I have to work on self-promo things. bleh. embarrassing and cringe.

Recap of where I am:

Tumblr - the showoff blog, has the most regular updates.
Cara - doodles and sketches, with the occasional thing I'm proud of. Maybe to promote work? Maybe I should network?

Where I should establish:

Facebook? - I'd be able to share updates with people who I know by sharing updates to my personal profile. Then again, I'd just be making a facebook page to avoid spamming my personal contacts, so what's the point. gosh i dunno, again this is the embarrassing part. 
Insta? - The data scraping with no opt-out option is very concerning. Maybe if/once they allow for opt-out I will reconsider. 

I've been mentally prepping and forcing myself to understand that once I upload an image ANYWHERE, that its use is out of my hands. I can't control its use, so I have to emotionally let go of what I create. It's still mine, but not entirely anymore. That will change if I print my own, but for now in the self-promo phase, I will make these loose designs. Unfortunately this also means, I don't LOVE the designs I've got out there. My redbubble is going to feel so mid. I'm so fucking poor right now though so I have to aim for the cents not dollars yet, work my way up. 

I've not sold anything on my redbubble yet. Why? Because I haven't advertised anything lol. I keep hoping that the people who like the maneki designs will somehow discover them organically. It doesn't really work that way though does it.

『バッハの旋律を夜に聴いたせいです。』

 

hastily done DD.
squeezed it in juuust before midnight.
i really like sakanaction. it's pretty good for almost depression music. like i'm not wading through the muck of depression, i'm not in that pit right now, but there's something nearby. that's my sensation listening to their music. it's like they get it.

I've finally, FINALLY, gotten the ball rolling on my redbubble. It's made me realise I need to develop my sense of design alongside my illustration aspirations. Drawing for whatever VS developing a design for a product has different principles. I think for years I had this sense that selling art like this was somehow selling out. That it compromises "real art" to do this. I haven't had this view regarding other artists, it somehow only applies to myself. Eariler this year I attended a local workshop/info seminar about starting your own business to sell art. It was aimed at ceramicists and fine artists, I felt like an absolute outsider as a wannabe digital illustrator, but welp there I was. I did take away some useful tips though, and one helpful affirmation: selling art as a product is a traditions that's been ongoing for centuries. Millenniums! So attempting to enter the market with my own shop isn't shamefully compromising some core principal of art, the speaker at the seminar called it noble. Which was... profound to me. Surely it's something that's been said before, but it was my first time hearing someone talk about it in that way. It's something I needed to hear, and I heard it at the right time in my life.

so there's RedBubble.

The current goal is to sell on Inprnt someday. I'm intimidated by the quality of art that's available on there already - a lot of artists I admire are on there, and it's daunting to imagine my art appearing alongside that level of skill and beauty. Also practically, I think anything I do couldn't hold a candle to their artworks, so who would buy my shit haha. Understandably! 

So I think, my roadmap to inprnt is to update my tumblr with shop updates and continue to upload my own non-sellable art (like fanart, anything I don't have the IP right to sell) and get more comfortable and familiar with that process. I signed up for Cara the other day, I don't really have a feel for what the climate is like there, so I think I might post shitty doodles and sketches that I don't want on my tumblr to there. At some point open a Ko-fi? There's a shop function there? At least I can drop my hat on a sidewalk there for folks to donate alms to if they like any fanart I do that caught their eye. That sounds so... bad. I dunno. That's still an uncomfortable idea, but I dunno, is that something to just overcome in the pursuit of art? I'm dipping into my savings every month to pay for things. Currently only working casual hours has been rough, especially now that it's getting colder. Putting off heating the house and keeping my grocery shopping to a bare minimum. I think I've only gotten food delivery a couple of times this year? It's just too expensive for my tight budget. But anyway, this is all just to say, it'd be good to have this time that I have to PROPERLY invest into working on developing my art and try to create things that people would be glad to buy. Product design is kind of exciting! It's so creative. I have to be honest with myself though - do I like the idea of it, or do I actually want to make the things. Like how I wanted to learn violin years ago. Do I actually want to play the violin or do I just like the idea of being able to play songs I like on the violin. I'm not passionate about playing any instrument. What if that's how I find that I feel about creative designy things. hhhh. i hope. i like it. so much. that i do it. in all my free time.

ラブストーリーは突然に

 

i feel the big sad.

and why oh whyyy can't i make anime faces work.

A Human's Touch

 Cover art appreciation for TWRP's new single "A Human's Touch".

I'm pretty sure the original artist is Lazerhorse.
I want to do a mini album cover art tribute to their work they did for TWRP's music, I love these covers.

Thinking I might get Clip Studio Paint? Didn't know it has an animating feature. Since losing Photoshop I haven't had any software that lets me animate. Not that I ever did anything grand with it, but having it as an option was nice?

Well. art updates?
Focusing on redbubble stuff, maybe inprint down the track if I can get in? Sell some fanart there. Stickers to start on redbubble.

Luv (sic)

 

MyDcmbr

Cheating a bit with today's DD, I was lining a Demeter portrait and realised it was close to midnight, so I quickly slapped some colours here. It's a work in progress that took a small detour. Two hours later, the portrait was completed though! Glad to be posting to tumblr, just gotta try and keep this a regular thing...

Well, so that's the 3 Hades portraits done. My next project is to get a painting done for my bathroom and plan what to do with a giant canvas I bought. I had some inspiration yesterday to paint a Tears of the Kingdom painting - can't recall why though? 

I'm intending to participate in more Sketch A Day challenges, but I haven't yet...

No digital projects at the moment, so maybe another 3 Hades characters? Zagreus, Thanatos and Megaera? 

........

I've been thinking about what my "thing" could be for poster prints, what the appeal of my stuff could be, and I think groups of characters? I thought a poster of Ace Attorney characters could be fun. Possibly have it so that no matter how you rotate/flip the poster, it still looks okay? 

If not Ace Attorney games, something else that's appealing for me to study.

--- ❄️ ---

16/2/24 Notes on the Demeter portrait.

I sometimes look back at something I've drawn and wonder what I was even doing. So, I'm going to jot down what I remember was going through my mind and the progress on how this image formed.

From the beginning, there was the sketch.

While I'm at it, here's the sketches for the previous two Olympian gods.

Visual studies. I learned through doing these that they all have unique laurels using different plants! That was a really exciting visual motif to discover. Also, that they all have little fun motifs.

From Demeter's study, I saw that she wasn't wearing a laurel on her head, rather that it appears to be what's floating behind her head. Her story of seeking out her daughter, I found that Persephone inherited some of Demeter's visuals - the braid (both have that wheat shaped braids!) and some colouration. Another detail I never picked up on in the game, is that Demeter is holding what looks like one of the green ribbons in Persephone's design. Her frosty themes, like the snowflake shape on her shoulders, I wove into her laurel design. She grows plants, what if maybe her bitterness and resentment wove its way into the plants' form that was used in making her laurel?? Also, and I don't feel I achieved this one, the shape of her eyelashes - specifically what direction they branch out from, was intended to be hexagonal like a snowflake. 

From the jump, I was a little uneasy about drawing Demeter. I learned back in January when I was drawing the Rolled Play S2 character Graham that I really am inexperienced with drawing aged faces. Demeter was good practice for getting more comfortable with that infrequently taken road. 

I don't know how to work these into a paragraph so, dot points:

* Previous two gods, when drawing them I sketched the anatomy to build their forms. For Demeter, I just drew her and made adjustments by sight. This was SUCH a different approach, and I feel like the results, to me, feel different, more loose. I feel that pretty often my character drawings look stiff in their poses. 

* I thought, hey if I ever look for something in the old library of stuff that I want to have a go at animating someday, what if the red on her shoulders, under her snowflakes, had small red chunks of fabric that crumble and fall off, slowly dropping like snowfall. 

Lines and c o l o u r

lineweight. bringing something forward or letting it fall back, create depth.

I've found that, even though working with a small 500 x 700 canvas, I still ZOOM IN so much to get fine line details in there. When I would turn the original sketch layer back on, I found that the laurels behind her had chunkier lines than the thin, finer lines I had just used for her face and hair. Then, ZOOMING BACK OUT, I would see the disparity. I think I have to decide to either work with a bigger canvas size, or stick to what I'm doing but limit what size brush I'm using. 

*When creating a work in future, do some prep. Decide on brush size, maybe after a sketch is completed/cleaned up, map the colours. Can help decide line weight. Eg, using a DD size canvas, brush size average will be 6.0, scale from that starting point to create depth accordingly.

Another thing from studying the Hades characters I wanted to do, as well as look at the structure of their designs, was to analyse how Jen Zee uses colour. I loooovelove her use of colour. Demeter's got what could be muted, warm colours, but a lot of her shading uses a cooler tone. It really creates a good visual contrast that also works with her narrative! 

This is the final piece! For now, anyway! I'm not 100% with it, but I have to stare at it longer to pinpoint where I think could improve. I don't like that her braids look like one shape around her neck, I wanted her right braid to easily be discernible as crossing in front and the left braid drooping behind it. I thought, a highlighting line to separate them like I did for Dionysus' arm? But, idk, I actually don't like how that looks in his picture v much. 

* LINES: I had admired a technique I'd noticed a number of character illustrators do which is to colour segments of their line work (if using lines to outline, cartoon-style?). I thought about doing that for Demeter too, I realise that it helps with that depth and breaks up the design - segments things apart. 

I don't know how to credit that idea. Do I reference other artists I've seen use it? I try not to stare too long at other artists' work anymore, I tent to subconsciously study their technique and it feels like copying when I do something later and realise, oh I think I got this idea from elsewhere. 

so bad at typing this out. I'm constantly distracted. I keep wanting to check tumblr for updates on how the Demeter I posted there is doing - she's a hit! Within the first 12 hours I got more notes than either Aphrodite or Dionysus got. Not bad for the character I was the most nervous about. I wondered if I should go back and fix both of those characters so that they're as detailed as Demeter ended up being. That's the thing, I wanted them to be a triptych. But they don't look similar at all. Why did I add this light coloured border to Demeter's background? I thought it looked better than a solid colour. (also I think it's because I'd been looking at photo frames quite a bit recently, shopping around for the right one to hang up some prints I have to deco the house).

uuggg is this everything? it doesn't feel like it, but hopefully i'm reporting the significant stuff. 

Asleep Among Endives

I feel heartbroken that I have people who care about me that I feel like I can't engage with and tell them everything that's going on in my head. 

I sometimes get facebook memories of text conversations I printscreened and uploaded to save reminders to save as evidence, and a small hope that maybe my circumstances would be different when it comes back to me in a Facebook Memory. For the past few years, it became a reminder of how much hasn't changed. My circumstances are very different now, I'm free from a lead that I blame for much of my weakness. I look back at the times friends urged me to go to police about events. I've never had the conviction to stand up for myself. "Why bother."

I envy people who appear to be embracing life, and the world.
I struggle with seeking any help. I can't even bring myself to book an appointment to get my glasses updated. Even though they embarrass me to wear cause they're visibly damaged, I cannot muster some sort of courage or strength to go and get them updated. I couldn't defend myself from accusations. It feels like an opinion is made, no one is curious about my side. I want to say, "has anyone ever asked my side??". People like my friends have. Who have known about my struggles for years. They want to help. But I can't, and I don't know why. I wish I could move, I have the ability to move my limbs, I know I do, but I won't. I don't know why. 

I have the capacity no. I don't have an excuse not to. And yet, I still can't at the same time. 
I don't know if it's because I've been this way for so long it just feel safer within myself to turn to stone, let gentle lichen grow on the body I hate.

This doesn't make sense anymore. I thought I'd do some stream of consciousness to help me figure out how I feel.

I wish I were a cinderblock. Standing at the end of a dark wooden pier pointing to the centre of a lake.
I'd move my stone body over the ledge. Soothing dark, crystal water. 
Not really. I'd be imagining it, unblinking. I'll drag myself home, thinking about the water and the calm. 

NEO-FUTURE

Dionysus from Hades, original design by Jen Zee.
He's the 2nd of my planned 3 Hades character design portraits and studies.

Filling a page of him in my sketchbook felt rewarding, getting back into trying to feel more active with creating something. I really struggled with the pose for him, I did want to include his sceptre/staff he has in his original art, but I couldn't make it work. Anything I tried I felt looked unadventurous, too familiar with the original.

The last sketch I did of him was of him doing the Prince Sidon smile. It was just for funsies, but I ended up liking that one best. 
My DD today is of the unfinished linework I did for him.

One thing I want to call myself out for: I don't know what it's called, but I notice there's a trend over the past few years of colouring characters with lighter colours where the shadows would be. It could be the bounce light, but it really looks good to me. I don't really know how to do it though, this is just me trying to recall what I think I've seen (never want to look up a reference when I'm doing it - I used to accidentally mimic what I saw when I would).

I'm thinking I'll remove his left arm for this pose when I work on it more. I don't feel like it works, and I don't like that he's off-centre. I want to look similar to what I did for Aphrodite, even though there's some perspective stuff going on that I don't think I can work into Dionysus unless I change a lot.

Ladybug

 

Had a productive day of art.
Nothing grand, but a big one for me.

No work today because of the public holiday. I was lounging around, can't recall how I got onto think about it, but had the idea to create print-ready portraits of characters from Hades using old depictions of them. Like statues from antiquity. Also get some character design practice in, studying Jen Zee's art style (with no intention to copy/mimic, just zero in on what I like about them so much).

I whipped up reference sheets for Aphrodite, Dionysus and Demeter, then went to Office Works to print them. I didn't want to be using a screen as I sketch the character in my sketchbook, and I think that was a really nice exercise. 

I've since decided to not use references from antiquity art for the poses - turns out that's been done quite a bit already. I think it could be okay if I tried my own hand at doing it, but it actually didn't feel like an exciting idea from the beginning - I just figured it could help with anatomy if I found a photo of a marble statue one of the gods.

So, here's Aphrodite as she appears in Hades, designed by Jen Zee.
Studying and then drawing her was fascinating, there were a few details I never picked up on, like that I think it must be an olive plant used in the laurel, including a few actual olive fruits. 

Anyway, so this isn't print-ready. But, it's a sketch I could use for something someday if I wanted to pursue it further.

新宝島

Didn't want to look it up, but working from memory tried to use the video clip for this song for palette inspo.

I've been thinking about fashion lately, specifically how I dress and how uncomfortable I am with my own appearance. I've been this way for years, to the extent that I thought everyone feels the same way I do about it - we only dress up to fit in. I know that's not true, it really depends on the day, but for most days I wear a shirt and jeans to get by. The only way I can express any aspect of myself is by the cut of my tshirt (fitted, rolled sleeves or not) and the print. I buy band shirts, print tees of IPs I like, and just pair it with a pair of jeans. I've tried experimenting with coloured pants to feel fun in my appearance, I like colourful things - but sometimes feel uncomfortable drawing attention to myself, and revert back to black shirt with blue jeans. I'm very boring.

I'm very boring and very lazy.

Tenrai's Fortress

 

I had watched Shall We Dance (the 1996 one) and Departures over the past few days. I can't recall the direct path my thoughts took, but I was thinking about slanted eyes, how I don't see "natural" eyes so much in popular tv and movies so much recently. By recently, I mean the past few years. I don't watch very much Japanese tv and cinema but, idk, got me wondering.
I've been really self-conscious of my own appearance lately, wondering if I had the financial means would I look into getting cosmetic surgery? A few years ago I was researching forehead shaving, I don't like the shape of my forehead? I'm cis, but I don't feel feminine. At least, feminine in a way I wish I looked. 

I wanted to tick two boxes today: video game art, and slanted eyes. I only had one candidate: Ayame from Tenchu. For no reason, I wanted to draw some demonic Ayame. With her hair implying horns. 
It sucks, and I hope I can get to a point where I can be proud of a DD this year.