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.