[Illustration Friday] Round 12: Linked

Alright, I'm nearing the end of this postingpalooza (unless I find more neat stuff to show you before time runs out), So here's another hand-drawn thing showing off something we all probably have experienced before:


There's always ONE.

Ah, HTML. I could be happily coding a table or a post, but miss ONE LETTER and the whole thing goes to heck. Incredibly frustrating, especially if it's like, a lengthy bit of story you wrote in a comment and now it is uneditable because you posted it but the code is wrong and you can see where you made the mistake and it's right there but you can't fix it--

Right, right, so, I liken this to those Christmas lights, y'know, where one bulb would go bad and then the rest of them don't work? I've never seen that personally (probably because mom and dad are like ninjas when it comes to getting out decorations; I could be in my room for an hour and then I'll leave and find the Christmas tree assembled and ready), but I have a feeling that searching through coils and coils of lights is like searching through lines and lines of text when it comes to this sort of thing. Assuming you only made one mistake, too.

Pen and ink again, with marker as the outgoing link in my hands there. I think my hand slipped on the jaw, but I kind of like it like that. Glasses are small so the eyes aren't completely blocked out by the frames, I hate it when that happens, and that's the only reason I still occasionally 'forget' to draw my glasses. God, my drama teacher was right about that, I never thought I'd agree...

Next post is going to be AWESOME.

[Illustration Friday] Round 10: Rescue

HERE WE GO AGAIN WOOOOO--

-checks drawing for this prompt-

--ooo, right.

I was a little... Melancholy, shall we say, when this prompt ran, and most of my concepts ended up here:


How can you tell if someone needs rescuing?

Well something like that, to the effect of not all damsels and dudes in distress really show it. Because I was feeling really self-pitying that weekend (as usual, I put the blame solely on sleep deprivation, and nothing else *nod*).
I'm not sure if it came out quite as clearly here, though. That's supposed to be, like, that writing you do when you breathe on a window? Like that, so it's hidden unless you know where to look/breathe.

I did this entirely in pencil, with the words done by etching them in with a dead pen (and now the page beneath it has cool secret writing too!), and then going over it lightly in pencil, and then blurring that pencil with an eraser. Done and done.

I probably should have darkened the space behind the dude, though, but eh, next time.

I seem to swing between childish-ridiculous and whiny-depressed. Curious!

[Illustration Friday] Round 7: Brave (missed)

SO YEAH I really actually like this one and I wished I finished on time (partially because I had that texture technique fresh on my mind at the time, and now I forgot it).

For this one, I thought about brave things. Knights are brave. Lions are used to represent bravery. When you're little, you try to be brave and sometimes wanted to be a knight... Well okay maybe that's just me (and my steed was totally a dragon, not some silly little lion), but still!

With the childish thing in mind (and because I like doing simplistic drawings sometimes - feels like taking a break, y'know), I went forward with this! ... Several weeks after it was due!

... I should probably stop going on about doing things late. >__> Well, I mean, I had like five other things to do at the time but--

RIGHT. CUTE ART.



So I did this little number up in Illustrator, but I forgot how to properly, like, put textures on individual pieces because I'm a pro. I will bet you actual money that I remember how when I get home tonight (in which case I'll redo this and add it to the pile of 'remixed art' I'll release some time). I should probably not talk about me forgetting things too.

Ahem, right, I still wanted to throw down the papery texture, though, so it felt like a children's drawing or something out of a kid's storybook. ... In this case, a well-worn storybook. Because... it's real popular, yeah, that's right...

Honestly, there was a period there where I was afraid I was going to really hat that knight when I was done with him but he turned out surprisingly well! I did some neat little multiply-transparency-gradient to make the armour shiny, and gradients for the little visor-slots and the shading on his feather.

The lion, I had a decorative brush, I think? I had one of those outline a circle, that's how I got the mane down. It worked better than I had hoped!

So yeah I really like this. PS, here's a version without the texture so you can see it in its original eyeblinding glory:



Yup! That's all for this post.

... Y'know, I should draw cutesy things in Illustrator more often...

[Illustration Friday] Round 4: Adrift (missed)

So, yes, this is one of my old Illustration Fridays that I missed and thought 'oh well, I'll finish it later and it'll look awesome'. Yes, well, apparently, I need these Illustration Friday submissions for, like, marks. WHOOPS.

SO, here is Adrift:



Oh no! A rare sky-jelly has been knocked astray from his cluster! Poor little guy!


*ahem* There's a bit of an embarrassing story behind this, as I was all set to use a nighttime city background to make it look like he's drifting high above the earth, but not having any on hand, I hit flickr. I realized that this was one of those things I'd need permission form, but I am way too shy, so I asked 'is it okay to just use this if I link back?'

It was one of those moments where you realize you're saying something really, really stupid the moment you open your mouth, and you can't stop yourself - you can only listen to yourself ask that dumb question in glorious slow motion. I'd like to say I was tired or desperate or something at the time, but ehn, no excuse. God, I felt dumb that day.

Yeah, no, you can't just use stuff and credit without asking. This isn't DeviantArt, after all.

SO YES, don't worry, with all the extra time I got after missing the Illustration Friday deadline, I had time to scrounge through some old pictures of ours and found a blurry .JPG of Toronto at night that we took from a hotel one of the years we were at Anime North. Good times!

Actually, with a little tweaking, it worked. It kind of looks like a city street or something, right? I mean, technically it is, but it looks like it's from real high up right?

... Yup, and thus begins post one of the post-a-thon today. (Why yes, today is my last day of class, how could you tell?)

Assignment [Ride for Cancer Research Postcard]

Yup! The idea here was to draw something nice and post-card-sized to hand out to people for donating to the Ride for Cancer event, and make it something that someone would want to post up.

For about a week I was waffling on using some terrifying huge-eyed cutesy character congratulating someone for making a donation, but then as I was reading something with my brother, we somehow got to talking about this achewood strip, and I was struck by a brilliant new idea.

At least I think it was the achewood strip. I'm not sure now, but if I were to put money down, I'd say that's where it came from.

ANYWAY

The idea behind this postcard is a bicyclist making a ridiculous jump across a huge canyon, an 'awesome' move, much like the recipient of this card donating money to a good cause.



I drew this entirely digitally, so no rough sketches, though I did muck around with the text placement. Originally, it was on the lower end of the card, but after leaving it for a few hours, I reopened the file and realized that the text was covering up and filling up the nice little canyon I drew, and decided that the sky was less important than the depth of the canyon. Soooo I moved the text.

The original:




And because I like it so much, the card without the text:



I think the canyon's edge might be a little sharp in places still, but I was having a heck of a time trying to get those corners blunt and still looking good. Eeehn. I kind of still like it like this, though, so there.

Assignment 2 [Storyboard: Trace]

... Yup. We'll just... pretend... this happened a month ago.







My younger brother was the model for this shoot, though I took some liberties with his hair (it's brown now), height (a little taller), and clothing (wearing a coat; not in track pants, clothing colours). I wish I didn't have to make him take off his awesome glasses, but alas.

So that's enough embarrassing my brother on the internet. I kind of blanked out on the background. But... For practice (not for anything I'd ever post seriously, though), I should trace some photos of mine sometime - just doing this helped me figure out the clothing fold thing a little better. And also the legs I've been sketching have been looking a little out of whack lately...

But enough trying to distract from this!

Assignment 2 [Storyboard Roughs, no reference] [ALSO LATE *SOB*]

[Scene: INT. DAY]

ME: HEY SELF GUESS WHAT
SELF: WHAT IS IT, ME
ME: EVEN THOUGH WE ARE WAY BETTER AT DRAWING WITH PENCILS, WHY DON'T WE DO IT DIGITALLY
SELF: SOUNDS GOOD I MEAN WE COULD USE THE PRACTICE
ME: EXACTLY NOTHING WILL GO WRONG HERE
SELF: I MEAN IF WE TAKE THE TIME TO IT
ME: BY THE WAY THIS IS DUE IN TWO DAYS
SELF: SAY WHAAAAT THAT IS SOME CRAZY STUFF

... I'm going to end that there and give my shift key a break (capslock is for wusses), but you get the idea.

This is late for embarrassing reasons I won't get into (the reasons are also lame), and these are subpar. I think tracing my own photographs might indeed be a better plan.

I was also going to do more than three because these three are pretty lame and also basically copy-pastes, but... time. Even though this is late. Just work with me on this.



[board one: Cartoon is playing.]



[board two: Door opens, Roommate walks in.]

Roommate: Hey, it's -



[board three: Roommate does a double take.]

Roommate: *disappointed* Aw, Tom, have you been into the Din-O's again?


And that's it. I... will either do more/improve this or abandon it and pretend it never happened when I get to the photo-traces. -( ._.)-

NEXT POST: Missed Illustration Friday, theme: ADRIFT. After that, hopefully, not-missed Illustration Friday, theme: BRAVE!
And, y'know, somewhere in between, another missed assignment, I'm sure.


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