January

Long time no update, blog! It's been... Well, not a quiet set of months, but not exactly exciting reporting stuff.

Well... I guess acceptance to a certain school I've been eyeing is pretty big news...

Anyway, I've been working on a few personal projects, mostly stuff that's been practice or playing around in other people's work (drawing my super-awesome Pokémon, drawing Legend of Zelda fan-characters messing around, that kind of thing), or stuff I want to touch up more before I put on my blog. Er, when I remember to.

An example is today's piece:



I thought it would be neat if I did a drawing of myself for every month. As I finished this closer to the end of January, I figured it would be how I felt about that month. Or... Something artsy like that. As for why I'm posting this in March... Eheh, I forgot to put it here. And then February happened... Which is another reason I'm posting this in March, without a February to accompany it (and March is proving to be pretty slippery too - It was sunny and snowless two days ago! Why, Canada, why?!). February's just about done, and I'll elaborate more then!

Okay, enough talking, back to work.

Nidd the Dragon

This one less obviously than others, but hey, look! It's a vector dragon!



This guy is called Nidd. As my Flickr description will say, he is for a children's story I am very casually writing notes for. He appears as a statue in it, but I wanted to draw his true form for fun and for reference.

I originally was going to try making him more 'Norse' looking, but as I researched that I found out that Age of Mythology totally lied to me, and the dragons up north are more like big serpents. So I gave him more of a snaky body, realized he was looking a little oriental in style, and then something occurred to me. There was this museum exhibit I went to while I was in Edmonton (that was mostly for children, admittedly), that talked about dragons and their origins in human legends and history, and mentioned how some were pretty much a mish-mash of animals.

So I thought I'd try my hand at that. I tried to give him a wolfish, horseish head shape, with long horse/goat ears, antlers, a snake's body, thick fur (either wolfish again, or something with a thicker coat), bird's legs, bat's wings, and a tail of my own design.

... What?

Anyway, for this world, I figured dragons were more of a description than an identifiable species. Y'know, magic creatures, right? And the kind of dragon Nidd is are shapeshifting types anyway, so your guess is as good as mine when it comes to putting science to them.


The background, as usual, was an afterthought, but I wanted a colour that would make the drawing pop out. Somehow red was chosen. For the real thing, though, I'm not sure. I didn't draw him with a background in mind (probably because I didn't initially plan to post this to the blog, eheh), but maybe I'll draw the carnival he works at in later... Hm...

Well, until then! See ya later!

Evolution of a Character

/ What I've Been Doing For Four Months, Part 1

Hey, remember these guys? Or at least Nero?

Well, y'see, one of the side effects of drawing every day (even if I don't post it) is that your style changes. Usually for the better. Sometimes, you can notice that change over a month, or sometimes even a week.

Blah blah blah, dramatic build up, hey look at this!



Sketched on paper, then scanned and inked and coloured in photoshop!

Still a Work In Progress, though. I keep doing this multitask thing, look where it's gotten me! ANYWAY, yeah, the backgrounds very obviously need work, and admittedly, I mostly put them there so there wouldn't be huge gaping blank spots behind the characters I was so proud of.

But yeah, my point is, hey look! Spot the differences!

Yuu's wings are better! And I figured out what his suit looked like! And his hair is - well you can't see it here, but his headshape and hair are better than in those early doodle pages.

Nero's got a larger and pointier chin, likewise with his nose, and his hair has flared out into four spikes on top, and however many I feel like for his bangs, because I had to draw him repeatedly for a project I will mention later, and the best way for me to stay consistent was to cut corners.
... Uh.

And Krii is- not in this picture, but rest assured his structure is better too.



That's all I have for now! See you next post!

WIP it good!

Well, it's not Wednesday, but this is a WIP that I kind of like and would like to show to the world before I ruin it further!



There's a long story behind this starting with me jokingly creating a fan-character for Sailor Moon based on the stars of the constellation Draco, but then she, er, turned into her own character. Tadah!

ALSO the title says this is a Work In Progress. That is because her right hand will be holding a sword (that will block her nice shoulder-frills and mouth), and also I have to put shading to it. And probably pick a better hair-colour, and a less eye-burning and rushed background.

Professionalism!

But yes. More on this when I have a more finished version to post, hopefully with her sidekick/ward/boss. That's all one person, by the way.

See you in five minutes next post!

Wow look at the time!

Well it's been about four months since my last update! Funny story, really, which I hopefully will get to in the next post. As it is, I'm speed-updating to make it look like I am a very active blogger and illustrator!

Look!



I call 'em Bocas, probably after ten minutes of looking around Wiktionary for a word that means 'mouth'.

I made this for this group I'm in at deviantArt, but I am reluctant to link to my dA activity because that is way more casual than the tight professional image I cultivate here.

Er. Biology notes! They don't eat a lot, given that their mouth and eye takes up most of their body; the trees they normally nest in bear fruit that looks like them... but they don't exactly have the brainpower to know this, so you could just as likely find them in an orange tree; their children resemble burrs and stick to the fur of passing creatures to get carried to a new location; they can reel themselves up or down or swing from their tiny little legs; and they will eat anything they can fit into their mouths. Fortunately they are about the size of a grapefruit, maybe.

That's all for now, tune in in five minutes!

More Snakes!

And when I said 'this weekend, with sketches', I meant 'two weeks, with more snake drawings'.

*ahem*

So, I've got the five-man band complete with these next two:

Paul Python:


A ball Python, I took some artistic liberties with the pattern, and then I played around with the colours... I definitely prefer yellow and black. Yeeeeah, I also don't have any shading here quite yet, since this is more of a pattern/design/shape/colour test, and uh, my other flimsy excuse is that I missed a week once already, and if I don't update now, I might miss another one. ... Also I'm excited to have these guys done up because cute toon snakes, am I right? :D

Bella Constrictor:


Much thought was put in to how terrible of a pun her name would be. Other suggestions were Beaux, or Bo (back when I was also wondering if she was going to be a guy or a girl), but I like this one better. It's so terrible, it's perfect. >wipes away single tear of pride<

Oh, right - I know snakes don't have eyelids, but it's important to making them more expressive.

Soooo yeah, I ran through making her greenish with a brown/red pattern because that's what Boas are like in real life, and then I googled Boa Constrictor colour morphs and got creative. I found a pinkish one somewhere, and I was going to use that colour to compensate for Vicky's lack of pink. Alternately, I could just make her more of a burgundy/red style... But then I run into problems with colour uniqueness and the rest of the team.

Speaking of,

The Team:



As you can see here, I'm already having problems with Colby not standing out as much, since Horatio is almost the same colour of tan as Colby, and since Paul also features black in his colour scheme... Eh, I'll work it out somehow.

And... That's all for now, I think! Maybe this weekend will be the lucky one full of fun sketches!

WIP Wednesday - SNAKES OH MY GOOOOOD

Well, it's been a fun little break, hasn't it? That is totally it and not forgetfulness on my part.

Well, actually, I was camping for about two weeks back there. So yeah! Which, actually, led to a lot of neat stuff in my sketchbook, which I will try to scan and upload this weekend. We will see, we will see.

In the meantime, it's WIP Wednesday! And it is still totally Wednesday because I haven't gone to bed yet! And on that note, we see the return of the 'Late Night Theater with Rex', there to absolve me of any posts full of fatigue-induced typos and dumb wordings!

**Also also, on a technical note, something weird is happening between flickr and blogspot and I am waaaay too sleep deprived to figure it out and make it pretty again, so as a consequence of that... uh, you'll get to see into my flickr account too, I guess./professionalism**


Aaaanyway, today is a very special episode of WIP Wednesday. Not only have I accidentally made it an actual feature instead of just a one-shot-joke, but I have something new, something strange, someth- OMG CARTOON SNAKES YEEEEEE--

Ahem.

I've been playing around with the dudes from here, sketching them and then drawing them in Illustrator. Interesting process. Blah blah blah, more padding about the process and my thoughts on the matter, and now snakes.

Starting with Colby the Cobra:



I was playing around with his colours, mostly because there may be other snakes that have black or brown as a secondary colour on this little team, but the general consensus so far is that black and tan is the best combination thus far. So, yeah, will probably go with that when I make fancy wallpaper for him later. *cough*



VICKY I love you more every time I draw you~~~!

Ahem, excuse me. See, Vicky is an eyelash viper. Again, I'm playing around with colour combinations, and now, patterns as well.

See, the problem is, I like her in green, but I have seen a picture of a pink morph on the eyelash viper (among many, many others), and my brother is insistent that I not give up this opportunity to have a female animal character that can actually be pink and have 'eyelashes' in real life. I am torn between this, but since she is my character and not his, I'll probably go with green. This is okay because if I am to believe every breeder site I read, pythons and constrictors can sometimes come in pink. Pinkish. Albinoish. -ahem-

The yellow morph was thrown in for kicks. So, yes. To my Mom, what does you and your office think? loyal readers, what do you think?



And finally, the most WIPish of the batch today/tonight, but my favourite snake in the group, Horatio the Hognose snake.

Seriously, Hognose Snakes are awesome.
Normally I'd be happy and willing to give you the spiel on why these are the best snakes ever, but I'll let this youtube video of its defensive techniques do the talking.

Aaaanyway, I at least put in the effort to give Horatio a pattern on the top left. Probably not an accurate one, though. The others are more bases to pretty up when I am not tired, but also there so I can have fun with his expressions. Man, he's the best.

I know what the last two in this snakey five-man-bad are going to be, their names, and what they look like, so they will be... um. Let's say next week. *bites lip*

So... yes, I'm still alive, and still drawing ridiculous stuff. Hi guys!