Jan 16, 2010

Many Lines


Scary things happen in the dark :
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Burning sun and a chilly cold wind... that's the way all of summer should be.

I thought I'd do my best to step outside the ole comfort zone and draw something with thin sexy lines... and boy did it fail. Repeatedly.
Then I remembered one time I'd done lineart for one picture in painstaking Opacity-Sensitive pens... you can get a really feathered, delicate effect that way.

Well, yeah, no. And the SAI line vectors weren't my friends today either... so I switched in the end to what I do best, or at least most comfortably. Pixels.

Pixels are so, so so sexy.

And suddenly every line had meaning, and a weight that made sense, an angle that worked. I got bold, let them cross each other and leave shapes unclosed, and it all felt right. I guess it's either bulky thick lines or pixels for me, still. :/

By the way in my spare time, usually to cheer myself up out of ruts, I go on fanart hunts. I collect arts for my art folder that excite me either as a fan or an artist, usually both, and looking at these makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ...sometimes they're shipping, mostly they're not though. This is a side hobby of mine that extends many years back... and I must say I'm quite the consummate seeker. This is the one thing that makes me as happy as drawing, or close to (when it goes according to plan, anyway).

Since I'm playing the old Ruby so much these days, struggling five steps into Victory Road, I thought I'd put up a list of what's in my PKMN folder at the moment. Of course, Pixiv is also an awesome resource. :>
Not many eh? Seeing as these old-school gems also have Links pages, I recommend you check those out and flush through them thoroughly for hours of artfix. :>

Jan 14, 2010

Self-righteous Suicide

Hmm man. With the turn in cool weather I thought I'd be doing tons of art shiznit... but I haven't felt like anything. It's funny how when you finish some pictures you feel like "Yeah that's right", everything is sweet and you can't wait to chillax basking in the glory of your upleveled skillzors.
And others you feel all empty inside, like it just took a whole lot out of you just to colour & polish off that biatch and then... nothing.

Times like this you pray to the gods of the Internet for some pointless, timewastingly hilarious youtube video or image edit or obscure historical event to keep you occupied until sleep. And the internet shall always provide...
Protest Signs of 2009
Google Autocomplete Fun



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Also I discovered the story of Yume Nikki the other day. It's amazing how people are just MAKING stuff these days... like Vocaloid. Back in 2005 some guy used RPGMaker to make a game about a hikikomori girl stuck in her unexitable room, whose dreams you get to navigate.
I haven't played it but it sounds surreal. I then spent an hour browsing dedicated imageboards and reading mile-long fanwank theories as to all the deep and significant things every smallest aspect of that expansive dreamworld was supposed to stand for in the ruined life of the protagonist.

Read about it here.

Jan 10, 2010

Planner Uploads


Better original, or redrawn? :/


Soo! It's a happy new year. For the duration of sailing regattas at the local yacht club, our house and fridge is overrun with sailors and both my bosses are busy getting bruised and salt-pickled every day (and nicely toasted every night.)

So there's no work, the days are hot and long and there's not a single cloud in the sky. Besides perfecting my scrambled eggs on toast and iced coffee, I've decided to go through my old planner of 2009 and upload anything and everything of note that I've drawn there.

...but it feels kind of silly to just dump it all... so I'll do it in pieces.

To start with, currently I'm playing a lot of Pokemon again... as I finished Apollo Justice and Hotel Dusk, and Castlevania Eclessia got too depressing (and hard XD.)
So this is to commemorate.

AND I've finally gotten the blogger CSS to do what I want in terms of post width... so there's no reason to keep trying things with Wordpress. I moved this blog there for a little while but it didn't quite work out... a person that makes a living doing CSS doesn't like to be told they have to pay to edit some.


Is it worth going over them or not? I'm quite fond of pen....
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Also: it seems the entire city of Melbourne is completely fresh out of Moleskine planners. Everybody wants one and the only thing left in 6 separate bookshops I've gone to (for different reasons, of course) are tiny and obscure notebooks like for musical notation or with grid paper.... I've watched less crowd-savvy shoppers whine to the floorstaff about the lack of Moleskine planners specifically. Why must it be this way?
I know they're all fantastically stylish and all the rage, but they also happen to be durable and comfortable to bend at the spine which is why I've loved mine for a good 1.5 years with no problems. So disregarding how allergic I am to wanting what everyone else wants, I'm going to have to track one down. :/