: New logo for the new year
Wednesday, February 3 2010
Technically I spent half of January working on this logo header, but in the gallery it will be listed as February. As usual, Cilvia looks the best. Comparing the logo from last April to this one really shows how my work has changed. Over the course of 2009 I...
-stopped using multiple layers
-stopped using rough black outlines
-started to use a hard brush for better blending and texture
-went back to drawing an outline first
-realized shadows aren't as soft as I thought
-started using hard light layers for shiny and glowing things
-gradually used more varieties of brush opacity, ranging from 1 to 100%
Well that list was more for my sake than anything else. Now for the standard links. The top one is the old logo, the bottom one is the new one at twice the size it is on this page.
: More than a week late but still good
Wednesday, January 13 2010
So I wasn't too pleased with my last drawing, and when I can't seem to get something right, I draw Cilvia. Cilvia never lets me down.
My only major concern here is that she looks a little too young. Other than that, this is what Cilvia looks like. I think she turned out right and I think the water sprite that I have been putting off for so long also looks pretty juicy. I could have kept going on him, but I think I would have ruined it soon after I stopped here.
As for the subject line, this drawing was practically done last Monday. I had numerous computer hardware issues to deal with over the past week and I would like to say that they are now resolved. Well my new video card likes to drop me out of dualview mode when I turn my TV off and I had to reinstall my tablet driver BUT OTHER THAN THAT I think I can be happy with drawing again. My next piece has 9 characters in it. Still not breaking the Valkyria record, but it's damn close.
: the last time this year, i swear!
Tuesday, December 29 2009
My initial concept for Luciliae was very simple:
-glasses
-blue hair
-sort of alien-looking
Just about every time I drew her, I had strange animal/elfish looking ears and I always hated it. I never wanted to make her look like a furry...but then I saw Avatar! If James Cameron has taught me nothing else, it is that aliens are furries. So this time, finally, Luci has special ears.
That's a whole lot of build up for a whole lot of nothin! I would love to be able to animate sprites day after day, but I just can't stop illustrating. Maybe I'll post the pre-sprite animation for what I am currently working on. I had to take a break from sprites because I wanted to draw Luci again. Overall I'm not even sure if I like it. I want her to have some kind of face marking.
: Zetch is crouching again
Friday, December 18 2009
So after I "finished" Tomoe's stance, I realized how much I wanted to fix Zetch. I changed a lot so I had to go back and redo his crouch animation as well. I added some more frames and just touched it up in general. The left one is the new one.
I have an idle animation for his crouch in mind, but I'm not sure if I want to do that now or move on to his stance.
: Takin a little break from sprites...
Wednesday, December 16 2009
"Blue Girl" finally has a name. I decided I wasn't going to force a name on her since she is not part of Rudra and the less I think outside of Rudra, the better. So here's a quick (for me) portrait of Luciliae.
That's loo-SILL-ee-ay in case you were wondering. Hell, I was. I had to look it up! Her name comes from the flower "Glory of the Snow." It's quite possibly the manliest naming convention I have ever used. Here we see Luciliae barking orders to her subordinates on an airfield on a planet far, far away. I'm just going to call her "Lucille" for my own reference.
: MORE FRAMES
Wednesday, December 9 2009
I wonder if updating with little sprites like this makes my site a little less interesting to look at...oh well!
*EDIT* The image on the left has 8 frames. The one on the right has 12. I'm going to be honest, I'm mostly posting this here for comparison's sake. The skirt seems to be bouncing a little oddly.
: some more progress
Sunday, December 6 2009
I decided that before I got into the heavy animations, I wanted to get the 2 most important characters down first. I started working on Tomoe's stance. She is always listening to music and always dancing. I hope to have double or maybe even 3 times as many frames in her final stance, but for now this is the meat of it.
: Here's what I've been up to...
Sunday, November 29 2009
Originally I had a stance, but I decided to fix him up and I like the look above much better. Here's that stance:
: Aegis and leaves, together at last
Wednesday, November 11 2009
To celebrate Martin finally giving me the Persona 4 t-shirt he promised me a year ago, here's some Persona 3 fanart.
I always feel like my backgrounds are too blurry and sloppy, but I also use them to make something a little more "painterly." I'm not sure if this is really final but man that's a lot of leaves. I think the face looks a lot better when zoomed in completely.
: Get a haircut!
Thursday, October 29 2009
Looking back on my first major attempt at Painter while working on this next piece really shows how far I've come.
Everything about Tomoe is big. Big hair, big zippers, big attitude, and most notably...a big heart. I probably spent a good third of this drawing just working on the hair. I don't think I'll draw her hair down next time. I like how it came out though. I'd like to think every drawing I do gets a little shinier.
