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.

Edison

Done goofed and used the same muse song twice in a row. Whoops.
Yesterday I was downtown and just saw a stranger with sick fashion, whom I now deem: The Coolest Person On The Street. At that time and place, anyway. 

Edison

 

Holy shit, I have an update to post here.
It's hard for me to think about how I haven't had anything to update this blog in so long.

For the first time in years I have some up-to-date portfolio pieces! May was a busy month. Muscling through the rust to get a handful of portraits done. Man, it's embarrassing how much I haven't had anything to show for the past few years. I'm trying to get out of that headspace and just DRAW, but it's hard.

Anyhoo, so I knew Ghost Trick is coming back but I was not aware that it's not just coming back to Switch?? I spotted a listing on PSN the other day, and hhhhhh I'm so excited to play it again.