Posted on

Practice

Today was a slow, lazy day~ Then again it was a holiday, so it’s allowed.

I took the chance to do some pre-work coloring practice (that ended up being what I did most of the day anyway) while looking at Glider/Guraida’s old Len/Rin art.
The result was lovely and I had a ton of fun! The end result didn’t end up looking too much like Glider’s art, but it wasn’t 100% my intention to make a copy of it anyway :) It took me a couple of hours on and off, though… way more than a practice/warmup should.
((The problem is mostly my lines… My sketches are too messy and the lines too thick, while Glider cleans his lines before coloring (and renders over them at the end), meaning I end up painting over them *a lot*, which takes longer…))

I did get a bit of work done before bed and after getting home from hanging out with mom and my MIL to plan decoration and arrangements for the wedding ((It was 1/4 wedding talk and 3/4  mom and MIL socializing and talking about life, though, because of course it was.)).

I also said ‘screw it!’ and bought the Leyendeker artbook.(( It should arrive in like… two months because shipping from the other side of the world + crappy post office 9_9;  )) I knew that if I didn’t buy it now, it’d spend another year or so on my wishlist. I excused it as a work investment :P

My day was pretty uneventful beyond that, and I was so engrossed with coloring and then going to see mom (and cooing over the dogs when the moms were talking), then coloring some more, that I didn’t really muse about anything…

I just hope my drive to practice and study styles sticks! I’m very excited about trying things now! :D

Posted on

Influences and Goals

So… today was a slow day.
Also this post is pretty rambly.

I played with my site for a bit((twitter cards are fun!)), laid some flats on one piece I’ve been working on the past couple of days and slapped some colors on that idolish7 sketch((I actually wanted to finish it properly, but… I wanted to do other things and it would have taken me forever. For some reason that scared me and I just left it as a sketch.)). Then I got cold, dragged myself to bed to code some, but started coughing non stop and feeling like crap, so I got nothing else done.

So, there’s this #artvshero tag going around in social media. Unlike the art vs artist that had your face surrounded by your art, this has your art surrounded by your influences.
I’ve been talking about how I am so picky with fanart that I *have* to imitate the original style and that ultimately ends up influencing my art, but when I thought about my current influences((The featured image of this post is my ‘influence map’ from 2010.)) besides Tales of Zestiria’s anime art (because fanarting non stop)… I drew blanks.  Continue reading “Influences and Goals”

Posted on

Self indulgent Saturday

Today I took the day off.
Fiance got home after 4 am, and we talked for a bit, so I ended up waking up at 11-ish in the morning, and since we finished watching Critical Role right after I woke up, the morning was gone anyway.

Today’s activities were just watch some anime and doodle. I didn’t really get to work on anything I had planned to, but I had a big urge to draw something for both Critical Role’s 19th episode((Yasha’s Necrotic Shroud was just too cool, I HAD to draw it.)) and IDOLiSH7’s finale ((I started i7 on a whim only because a mutual on twitter kept gushing over it… suddenly everybody around me was into it when I started watching! The boys are all precious and I ended up being stupidly fond of all of them. I would install the game, but my phone is really old and sucks. )).

Drawing fanart is something I always think of doing but rarely actually do((Before you call ‘LIES!’, I do want to draw fanart of a lot of things, but I only end up drawing things I’m literally obsessed with at the time. You know the ones >>; )), or at least rarely finish a fanart piece nowadays because work and projects are priority (and also resting from drawing by… not drawing). I also feel incredibly guilty about it, because there are so many things I need to do that ‘wasting’ drawing time on something else feels wrong.
However, drawing for fun is an important part of art, so when an urge that’s not fueled by complete procrastination strikes, now I try to indulge it: chances are I won’t draw whatever it is I have in mind if I leave it for another time, because other things will always take priority, so the sooner I get it out of my system, the better! ((If I don’t draw ideas right away, they fall to the end of the priority queue in a couple of days and eventually get forgotten.))

Now I am rather excited to try finishing the i7 fanart just because drawing the 7 boys was a lot of fun and I rarely ever draw group images! It’s not a particularly interesting composition, but I’m actually proud for not using composition references this time around.((When I sat down to draw Yasha, I refused to look at art for ideas like I do all the time. I also refused to look at group art for ideas for the i7 piece too, just to force my brain to work on its own. I plan to keep doing this for personal pieces now and see if I can get inner inspiration back instead of having ‘I want to imitate this!’ inspiration.)) I also looked at official art for guidance for each character, but didn’t try to imitate the style closely, instead I tried keeping my current style while minding the general eye shapes and making sure the hairstyles looked right without copying them exactly. I tried stepping out from my regular mindset, in light of yesterday’s musings :)((I told fiance when he got home at 4 am about my rigidity with fanart and he told me he actually shares the sentiment. We’re made for each other, we’re both awful. ))

So yeah, even though I sort of had a day off yesterday, it wasn’t a proper day off like today((Unexpected day off because weird mood, aka PMS. I should pay more attention to my cycle app…)) and I’m glad I took it :)