Welcome to my home on the wired. Here is where I put up some of my drawings and otherwise link to other parts of the web I reside on. Feel free to take a look around, and if you like, drop me a few lines. I'm always up for hearing from those who stroll by my site, so don't be shy, I won't bite. ^_^
*//blue_halo
Just a warning that I’ll be messing around with the site with a new layout, so if things look funny, that’s why. Keep a look out though, new layout inbound!
So life hasn’t been as kind to me as I would like, work soaks up most of my time these days, but I’m trying to find time here and there to draw more, so with any luck I’ll be posting more too. I’m working on a new site design, though I’m not certain when that will go up. I also have to focus on my professional portfolio and I’m also considering Grad School. Lot’s of stuff on my plate, but I really feel like I need to be drawing more. I want to reboot my art galleries, this place included. No promises on when, but it’s in the works. Hopefully with any luck I’ll be back on track and producing art again. I dearly miss it.
As it is plain to see, haven’t been doing much of anything since the start of my final semester at CCAD. Just graduated this past December and have been on the hunt for a place to work for, and may have found one (or at least I sure hope so). Either way, I feel my last semester sorta got me in a place were I just stagnated artwise for a while, which isn’t good. So I’m working on getting back on my feet. Trying to get back into some sort of flow, and yes, trying to get back into playing video games again. I haven’t really played much for so long it’s difficult to find time to sit and play these days, funny enough. But I have a good batch of stuff to play, as of late it’s Beyonetta (of which I highly recommend, it’s just awesome) and my copy of Persona for PSP just arrived in the mail, so there’s that too. Then I’m also playing through Muramasa (a must have on the Wii, especially if you enjoyed Odin Sphere) But enough of games, on to what I’m working on…
Just something I’m currently inking digitally, a quick sketch of some doe. For some reason I just have been wanting to draw one lately, so I sketched something up and here she is. I also have a concept started on a full composition piece I want to start, and I also have something I need to draw for a couple good friends of mine still. But I figure I’d draw a few things for myself to grind off the rust and get into rhythm.
Nothing too special today, just a simple update and clean up. I fixed my email link, so hopefully those of you looking to email me can now do that. It’s apparently been down for a while now, but should be up and running now. I also uploaded a sketch, since I’ve hardly had an update here for a while. I’ve also added a link for Tempest Omega (otherwise known as notveryathletic on DA). But really that’s about it. The summer hasn’t been as productive for me as I would have liked, but we’ll see how things go. I’m taking a character design course this semester so I may have more things to post soon. It all depends on how things go.
So I’ve hit summer now, and I’ve been keeping myself busy. I’ve also been drawing again lately. I have to say I’m really enjoying picking up a pencil and drawing what I love to draw again. I do my fair share of drawing while classes are in session, but I’m usually limited to what the assignments require of me. Not as much fun as doing commissions or drawing for myself. Next week I plan on putting some hard work into those commissions I’ve been lingering on. I’m sort of ashamed most of them are taking me as long as they have, but school really kills any free time I would normally have. But resuming work I shall, and I believe I’ve done well to break off the rust and ready to go.
I picked up a CycloDS at the beginning of the month. I’ve been wanting one for the better part of a year now, and I finally got one when I found a little extra money from my second job I picked up on campus. That and all the time I spent at work over winter break I sure helped out too. But I’ve been wanting one of these for a good while, the biggest draw for me was a piece of software (among many others) is called Colors.
It’s painting software for both the Nintendo DS and iPhone/iPod touch platforms. The software isn’t perfect, but considering it’s a portable app on the DS, it may as well be considered so. It’s a really nice piece of software, lots of fun. Even has playback so you can see how a particular painting was done. The best part about it is that since it’s being well used and now has an app on the iPhone/iPod there might be more development on it, with the hopes that he might even include local networking on a single canvas (openCanvas anyone?)
Well posted above is my first run with the software. I’m still a little slow with it, but I’m starting to pick it up. I hope is that since it’s loaded in my DS, and my DS doesn’t go anywhere without my CycloDS that I’ll be tempted to draw more often. I even set up a new gallery just for drawings done on Colors and oekaki as well, incase I get back into that. But anywho, just a little painting that I thought I’d share.
Also, if you would like to watch an animation of it being painted, you can go here to view it. ^_^
Guess I should have done this a bit sooner, seems like my presence on the net is slimming down more and more. I really need to work on that, and I need to be drawing more. Though mostly, I’m a bit frustrated with pretty much loosing my entire break to work. Just seemed like I could never get a break. So, all my plans on trying to get stuff done went down the drain. I had plans of actually having some new CG stuff to show too. But here I am, on the last week of break and I’m working pretty much every other day. But other than that, I guess things aren’t too bad. I’ll have to find more time to draw while classes are in session and all that.
As for updates. I put up a new drawing in my “sketchbook” and “black & white” galleries as well as the color piece featured in this post. Just a couple of drawings I did near the end of last semester. I’ll have to see if I can put up a few doodles I’ve done here and there over break.
Finished one of my long running commissions. This one took me a while for several reasons. School, work, equipment falling apart and my own lack of confidence pushed this thing to take me forever to finish. However, I’m fairly happy with how this one turned out. As tedious as those bricks were, I actually had fun working on them. I just threw on some music, (a newly purchased Justice album hit the spot) and just went at it. Learned quite a bit from this one too, I had never done scales before, now I know I can. And I never really attempted to paint brick like that either. And I really went to town experimenting with some of the painting and color techniques I’ve picked up from school over the past few years. A friend of mine said it’s the best piece I’ve done yet, he’s probably right. I poured a lot of my heart and soul into this piece, even though it’s a commission, and it shows off some of the new things I can do skill wise now too. It’s also one of the largest. Below are a few detail shots to show off some of the brush work I put into it.
Another sketch. It’s a little cut off though, my sketchbook is bigger than my scanner unfortunately. I had one of those itches to just draw something, and this came of it. I’m liking where it’s going so far, gonna take it further and finish this one, color it up in Photoshop and everything. I know I should be working on my commissions, but I think I’ve been killing myself by not just drawing for drawing sake. I definitely feel better after spending some time drawing this one. I even had fun with the details that are in it so far, like the MD wand and actual Audio Technica headphones. This will be fun to paint, I actually can’t wait to get started! It’ll have to wait until after I finish a few commissions first, but I’ll have something to look forward to, right?
I had an interesting and overall good weekend, actually. Haven’t had one in a good while, so it was well enjoyed. A small group of fellow artist friends of mine headed out for a local bubble tea place we like to hang out at, to chill and doodle a little. Got to talking with one of my friends and we both agreed that one of my biggest flaws is that, well, I draw way too slow for my own good. I got out of that bad habit in my figure drawing class, and I’m getting better in my animation drawings speed wise, but when it comes to drawing my stuff (as well as drawings for story boards for some reason) I just don’t feel like I’m quick enough. Which is the primary reason behind me being a little shy to take on commissions. So I’m gonna start working on fixing that problem. My latest doodle was just a small attempt at getting better at drawing fast, the sketch took nothing, was probably done with the line work in under ten minutes and fought the urge to add much more detail. I have a tendency to nit pick my drawings to death. Came home and threw some quick inking on it, scanned it in and poured some quick color on it. More of a doodle, but eh, I feel it’s not too bad for a quickie. I’ll probably have to do a lot more of these to get better at it. This semester I’ll really have to drill myself on getting faster. I did come up with an idea on what might help though. Some friends of mine used to push me to try making a comic of some sort in the past. I’m thinking if I made my own web comic I’d be sort of pushed into drawing things faster and I might better myself for it. Still just sorta tossing the idea around in my head, but I’m thinking I might go for it.
Just got my new tablet in today. My old tablet started to die on me near the middle to late last semester. Well, tried to fix it with a friend of mine and it ended up just putting the final nail in it’s coffin. It’s been tough trying to find another one in my price range, mostly because I stick with Wacom tablets. Last week I got pretty lucky, I stumbled upon a site that actually had a couple refurbished Intuos 3s in stock. They were exactly the size I wanted and by some miracle, they were actually cheaper than my last tablet, which was one of Wacom’s lower end Graphire 3 series. I had a little trouble getting it through the site, but surely enough, it arrived. And since I had my new tablet, I gave it a nice and quick run through openCanvas with this doodle. I seem to be doing alright, not too rusty I suppose. Just a little something I did for fun mostly. Now it’s back to work, hopefully I’ll be able to work out something nice with my shiny new tablet.
Just throwing a partial scan of this drawing I found that I started last year. I was really getting into it, set up a back story for this character and a whole race of people he was related to. Then Odin Sphere came out and as I played it I found that the background I came up with for my character was near identical to that of a character in the game. So I got discouraged and put this one away for a while. I’ve been looking at it recently though, and I think I’m going to finish this. It’s fairly large, so scanning this one will be tough. but I’m not even sure if I want to color this one. I just want to finish it. And I figured I’d should say so here, because I feel like it. That and work has been grinding me into the ground removing my drawing time from me.