Pirates and Contests

There's this group on Facebook that is essentially a design competition.

So I joined, thinking it would be a good exercise.

First month's theme is Pirates.

I'm really intimidated.

Because everyone's submitting this really awesome stuff and all I've got is this SoB.

He... ugh I can do so much better than this.

His character is far more interesting when he isn't all dolled up for the sake of looking "piratey."

He normally doesn't have as many tattoos, wears much lighter shoes, and his headband is usually a thin gold band.

The monkey isn't even his, I pretty sure he's borrowing it from his captain to try to get in someone's pants.

He's a faerie pirate, hence the wings. He isn't the captain of his boat but many believe he owns it due to his wealth which he may or may not have obtained from his many rich ... suitors.

His good looks rarely go unused as he is incredibly talented at convincing people to do what he wants.

Pretty much what I wanted to do was change up the usual dynamic-looking male characters and standard-issue pretty female characters by making a pretty male character.

Maybe next month will have something I can make a creature out of.

And maybe I'll show that I'm actually competent.

Luckily I forgot to turn this one in on time, so maybe I can spare my dignity a while longer.

~Allie

Your (Ir)Regularly Scheduled Update

I've been informed that I've done a poor job of keeping this blog interesting.

My bad.

Guess now's a good a time as ever to do a review type thing, excluding that which I've already posted here. (Plus my plans for the New Year consist of watching Enchanted and pretending that I'm going to do something productive before the semester starts.)

Plus I promised an update on this:

I finished this a while back, but forgot to let you guys know.

And I did this to see if I could still use markers:

(just pretend the wallpaper doesn't look ridiculous)

This is me attempting to do Bioshock fan art, but it's more like a precursor to something more polished. And inked.

Speaking of Bioshock: 

This is what happens when your professor introduces you to ADAMS software when you're on a gaming kick.

Also, some time ago it was "Draw your cat in a dress day" 

I did my best.

Here's a cute monster that I cannot replicate for the life of me.

Why must the cute ones be so hard to draw twice?

And if anyone looking at this happens to go to UAH, this never happened: 

The last class of the semester is rarely interesting, so I ended up drawing my circuits professor instead of paying attention. (Seriously, this never happened. I'm watching you.)

(Besides he smiles a lot more than this, neutral expressions are just easier for the first time with a face.) 

And that's all I had the motivation to track down.

I will try really hard to actually do some finished work and post it in the coming year.

(We'll just pretend engineering is not a time consuming major and that in my free time I won't be completely braindead.)

Welp

Later dudes,

~Allie

Wall Art Progress (Thursday)

So, you may remember a while back I posted a picture of a chalk drawing on my wall?

Well, it's been a while, but I actually did some work on it!

The first coat is done, but the second is proving to be an issue. Turns out that rather than the very careful method I'd employed for the first coat will not get this thing done quickly. I am having to liberally slather paint on the areas I've worked on several times. This is making it go a bit slow since I want each section to be done before I work on the next. And after the tree, I have the text to do at the top.

At least I'm getting somewhere.

You may notice the distinct difference between the parts that only have one layer and the ones with more.

The text at the top is elvish for "Speak Friend and Enter" plus a little embellishment because I didn't want to go back, erase it, and center it. I chose to do that instead of the stars when they decided to be a huge pain in the neck to get right.

(Very geometric things look very wrong when there's only a slight issue.)

So I'm going to get back to working on this.

Go with God,

Allie

Finals (Monday)

Of course by "later this week" I meant in about two weeks.

Sorry for the delay, the semester's wrapping up and so things got particularly busy after that post. It's Finals week at last, and with inclement weather delaying tomorrow's final I found myself with time do scrounge up some of my more finished work from the semester.

This is brought to you by watching way too much Face Off.

Pen sketch I did at a campus ministry event. It looks off because I didn't have a pencil to do any basic proportioning with first.

And this was referenced from a picture in Hyrule Historia. I'm particularly fond of the environments from Skyward Sword, so I thought I'd take a stab at copying one of the concept sketches. Didn't turn out terrible, so it's here.

Once I move back home, get my desk set back up, and go through my notes I'll have some doodles to show you as well. I haven't been entirely idle this semester, I just haven't set aside much time for practice.

So sometime after next week I will post again.

(Hopefully it doesn't take me longer than a week to move back home.)

Go with God,

Allie

I'm Alive! (Thursday)

Just wanted to let you know I'm alive and I have some sketches that I will scan later this week.

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Go with God,

~Allie

School Starts Wednesday (Monday)

So here's some art I've worked on recently.

(At least the more finished stuff.)

Just a note, my scanner's decided to start doing this thing where when the paper you're scanning isn't perfectly flat it shows these weird shadows where there aren't any.

I'm trying to think of a way to work around this.

Info:

The first is a magician concept. She's still in flux at this time, I really can't pin her down, but this has presented itself as an option.

The second is an odd character who, despite having been sitting around since before winter break has elected not to entirely reveal his true nature. However, his look is rather fixed at this point, so you get that.

The last is something I drew last night. She's one of the elemental judges; earth, if you couldn't figure that much out. Her leg is made of "living" branches because of backstory issues. Her coat, face, and figure I like, but I think the dress needs to change. Maybe.

And I just drew the little cute thing for my own entertainment. Thinking about giving the full one a quick color… maybe with pencils.

Go with God,

Allie

Halloween (Thursday)

You didn't really think I'd pass up this sort of opportunity, right?

Well, our door decoration is up, but I haven't taken a picture yet.

HOWEVER.

I DID SOMETHING COOL AND I'M A LITTLE EXCITED?

IT'S NOT TOO OBVIOUS RIGHT?

Here's my Halloween costume!

It took 45 minutes, but the look on my Statics professor's face was worth every minute.

*evil cackle*

And thanks to a little forethought on my part, I took process photos!

(So if you're not terribly interested in how this masterpiece came together, you can go now.)

Step 1!

Outline your wounds:

I didn't really want large open wounds (because those take a lot more effort), so two slightly open slits and a closed cut seemed like enough. Also, now's a good time to put your eyeliner on. I used a dark brown for this step.

Bonus:

I included the neck cut to add an obviously not real element, so as not to scare the people who care too bad. The first time I tried this out, my roommate asked if there was anything we needed to talk about. Which was nice, but still something to be avoided.

Step 2!

Bruises:

I started with some yellow around the "cuts" and then blotted on the purple. Applying the purple this way makes it look more natural. Then I lightly put some green on the edges of each bruise, just for a more rounded look, but it's not entirely necessary. And don't forget the shadows under your eyes, particularly when including a nose wound!

This is probably the longest step, and it seems horribly simple for the amount of time put in, but it really isn't all that difficult.

Step 3!

Where we make use of white eyeliner and black lipstick:

For the white eyeliner, the key is to put it pretty much on or around the dark brown lines you started with. Also, if doing stitches, put dots where the thread "goes into" the skin. I would also recommend brushing a very light brown over the white so that it doesn't look as stark. This give more of an appearance of having broken skin.

For the black lipstick, put on a line on the bottom lip about where your lips meet and rub your lips together, then wipe off some. I also used some of the dark brown left over on my brush to do the drips from my mouth. This will make it look as though you've been either eating blood or coughing it up.

Yay!

Step 4!

Bring on the blood:

Ok, not a great picture, but still.

Now's the time to fill in those little gaps with a good amount of red. This is no time to be stingy, inside the wound needs to be dark. I also did a line of red over the neck line. (Adding a little trickle here and there makes for some really good reactions.) Also, anywhere you may have added "dry blood" (a.k.a. the dark brown near my mouth) brush a little red over it to get the right color.

Step 5!

Stitching it together:

Should have taken a close-up of this part.

Oh well.

Here you'll want black eyeliner to play connect-the-dots with the white spots you added earlier. Also adding a spot of red at the ends of your stitches makes them look cooler. 

And with that you're done, and ready to startle some unassuming teachers!

Almost makes me wish I had more classes today.

So have a Happy Halloween, and I'll post again sometime soon.

Go with God,

~Allie

Look at all this art I'm producing! (Tuesday)

...

 Yeah.

I finally caved and bought those ridiculously expensive awesome markers and I've done exactly nothing with them.

So, to recap, while I've been practicing in the margins of my notes, the minute I sit down with a sketch book and an idea, everything falls to pieces.

The fact that I recently realized I am verymuch behind in Statics and none of my classes will slow down to let me catch up is probably a big contributor. Maybe once I'm all caught up I will be more artfully productive.

In other news, I've signed up for NaNoWriMo!

For those of you who don't know what that is, November is National Novel Writing Month. There's a website dedicated to it, but as it's down for maintenance right now, I can't post a reliable link. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month.

Yes.

Fifty

Thousand

Words.

You don't actually have to sign up to participate, but registering with the website allows you access to several "motivating" tools, one of these being the forums where you can communicate with others in your area to keep inspired.

Since I've signed up, I've decided what I'll be writing about and have already started building scenes in my head and trying to construct realistic scenarios.

I don't know if I'll post it here.

As a writer, I'm fairly inexperienced, so the first draft will likely be excruciatingly rough and probably around 75% will have to be totally rewritten.

However, I'm looking forward to the challenge, and I hope I will return with good news in December.

(I will try not to go that long without posting, but we'll have to see.)

I'll try to pull something together to post here drawing-wise soon.

Go with God,

~Allie

Now You See Me (Saturday)

So whenever a vaguely interesting movie pops into the dollar theater, I'm likely going to see it.

This time it was Now You See Me.

So, for your recommendation:

This movie is pretty good. Good effects, good characters/actors, and good pacing.

I felt that some of the story was a bit obvious, but according to the second-time viewers I was with, it wasn't obvious to them the first time, so that may just be me. The only other complaint I have for this side of the review is that they should've stuck with all physical effects, no CGI whatsoever.

So I do recommend this movie, and hope that you enjoyed it at least as much as I did.

Onto the Review!

Spoilers:

The opening does a really good job of introducing the main... anti-heroes.

The tricks were clever, but Henley's escape trick certainly seemed to have help from some movie magic.

This was how I felt about the magicians throughout the movie,

"Wow, that was really clever! I bet they can't do that live."

Call me a skeptic, but the abundance of computerized effects made it pretty obvious that the things that seem like magic are digital, not actual illusion.

I have to hand it to the Four Horsemen, though, they really made characters that you could get attached to and almost want to see succeed. 

And there lies another issue I had.

Why does pop culture glorify criminal activity so much?

Is it so hard to believe that in the modern era you can be amazingly productive and help people without actually committing a crime?

And why do I wish they'd had more screen time?

Moving on.

Dylan Rhodes was an interesting character, but apparently I was the only one not entirely surprised that the "Eye" turned out to be him.

He really started out as a good character, but towards the end it felt like they were to lazy to hire or write in someone to play the puppet master, and so just threw him in instead.

And to justify all his actions: revenge.

What.

The.

Seriously?

I get it, Thaddeus Bradley ruined your dad's career, but it's not like he locked him in the safe and threw him in the river himself.

Thaddeus's job is debunking magic.

As I see it, he reveals the oh-so-simple-it's-almost-stupid ways that magicians fool us, but you know what? Despite the fact that we know how most magic tricks work these days, it's still really clever.

Honestly, how many of us would think to put a mirror inside a box to make it look like a bunny's disappeared?

Dylan is so mad that this man "caused" his father's death, he's willing to let him get locked away for a crime he didn't commit. Why is it so hard for him to see that maybe it was his own father's foolishness that was the problem?

It really pisses me off when I see themes like this;

Justifiable revenge.

It's cheap and shallow.

Stop doing this.

Please.

So, now for the ending.

Everyone lives and people are in love.

Where have I seen this before?

Oh yeah.

Real original, guys.

The movie could've ended perfectly without the implied romantic attachments at the end.

Really, nothing would have been missed.

The failed relationship between two of the horsemen added to their character, and it would have been more believable if they just stayed broken up.

There's also a lot of loose ends.

Why did the French lady get involved?

How did they do half of the illusions at their last performance?

Where do the Horsemen go now?

How did Henley get her card out of the piranha tank?

I mean really.

If you're going to leave so little room for a sequel, at least answer the questions you bring up.

So all-in-all, the biggest problem with this movie is the writers' sorry attempts to fill plotholes.

The effects, acting, and videography were great.

If that's all you wanted, good for you!

But seriously, this movie is fairly engaging and the characters are memorable (even though I had to look up their names for this).

Go with God,

~Allie

Oh, just found out that there is some hope of making a sequel to this movie.

Maybe they'll do better next time.

More Progress (Tuesday)

This is how far I've gotten.

Just the chalk outline, no paint just yet. I probably won't be working on it much as school is starting back soon, and I've got move-in stuff in a few days.

With school starting back, I do have a request:

I would like some ideas for what to draw during the semester.

I may try and do some more photo-realistic stuff again (I have the sudden interest in drawing Matt Smith really well), but it will likely be more of my own style. I would like to try some new expressions and poses, so it all might just be a bunch of practice pages. Or some full shaded/colored stuff.

You never know.

So if you want to see more of any particular thing or want to suggest something new, let me know in the comments!

Go with God,

~Allie

Sleeping is for the Weak (Saturday)

What happens when you're awake at 12 am with hours worth of energy?

Art.

Art happens.

And for some reason it turned into three dwarf ladies at a pub.

Well, there were three, then one went to go use her perfectly styled beard to attract a young warrior. Hers is less practical than her big sister's, and little sister is only starting to get significant beardage.

The book that would really help me nail the clothes and furniture costs about $40.

As fascinating as it is, I would rather figure it out myself.

(Soon as it's on sale, consider it mine.)

Also, if you look up pictures of the dwarf ladies from The Hobbit, they are significantly less bearded than I have deemed necessary. Really now, how are they supposed to catch themselves a decent man with only that little bit of fuzz?

So yeah.

12 am   =   (magnificently) bearded ladies

Go with God,

~Allie

And yes, I'm starting a dwarf tag. May come in handy in the future.

Progress (Saturday)

For the amount of time I have had with the Tree of Gondor, my progress is pitiful.

Less than half of the branches are done, and I seem to be constantly making adjustments to the ones that I've deemed "complete."

For having all the time in the world to do anything I please, I seem to take great pains at doing anything at all.

It worries me.

When summer break started I figured I could get this project knocked out in a week or two, tops.

(In case you haven't noticed, it's been a month.)

Perhaps I'm thinking too much; perhaps I'm not doing it right.

In case you haven't noticed, I tend to not spend a great deal of time on my art projects.

I just get to a point where I'm like "screw it, let's just finish."

Hopefully it won't come to that.

Maybe soon the light will come on and I'll finish the things I've started.

Go with God,

Allie

Dwarves (Monday)

So I've been slacking recently, but I drew this.

Just wanted to take a stab at drawing a dwarf lady.

Not as detailed as I'd like, but a decent start.

I chickened out a bit on the facial hair. I'm not practiced at drawing beards, and I didn't want to put an ugly beard on a lady. Maybe I'll try drawing some dwarf gentlemen to get a better idea of how to style all that hair.

(I feel like her arms should be thicker... hmm.)

I'll try to get something else accomplished soon.

Go with God!

~Allie

Busywork (Saturday)

Arts soon, I promise.

So I've got two projects I'm (actively) working on right now:

Painting the White Tree of Gondor on my wall

and a drawing of 3 of my Dragonfable characters.

The first is in sketch stage. I'm using the grid method to try and be as accurate as possible. Seeing as the design is symmetrical, the left side is proving to be difficult (blame it on my right-handedness). However, it's also pretty curvy, so if I get the general angles right, it shouldn't look too awful.

The second is in concept phase. I've now got character sheets of two of the characters and an initial idea sketch. I'll post the character pages once I've finished the last one. I've already nixed the first location I picked, and am pondering a different background as well as altering some of the posing.

Other than that little bit of work, I've really been lazy so far this summer. 

My sister's getting married this July, so somehow I've been dragged into wedding planning. I don't really mind being asked to do some things, but if I keep getting asked to do any more artistic work, I'm gonna start charging. I've got my own ideas to (avoid) work on.

Again, I'll try to get some art posted here soon.

Go with God,

~Allie

Final Project (Wednesday)

*Drumroll*

Ok, not the best picture, but it really isn't my best work either.

I really wanted to use characters for this. And my own style.

I had to ask the teacher for permission to do a lot of things before I went full-tilt into this project.

He gave me the go-ahead, and I got an A for it!

So, process time!

---

This was originally going to be much more complex, but once I got into it the task became more daunting. 

First off, I've never actually drawn elementists... elementing.

I've designed them before, but never took on the elements themselves. I ended up referencing Avatar (the cartoons, not either of the movies) a lot. The water was fairly simple, but fire was a whole other animal.

See, water has mass, whereas fire (at least what we visualize as fire) is actually combusting ash.

How do you even draw that?

Here's one of my practice sheets.

I ended up treating fire as, rather than a stream of flame, smaller comets with an implied center of mass.

(I almost snuck a little eye on the main one because they reminded me of fish.)

The big problem I had with the water elementist was her positioning.

I initially wanted her to be facing the viewer more than her opponent. I chose that so I could show that I could draw a face from more than one angle and still have it look good, but she ended up looking detached from the situation, so I turned her to profile.

Also notice, she has both hands visible, and the fire elementist doesn't.

I admit to not being very good at drawing hands, so I attempted to avoid them as much as possible, but that didn't really work.

When I first sketched the idea (during a Physics lecture), both were wearing gowns, but I also sketched some "battle gear" in the event that the dresses didn't work.

I tried. I really did.

They added an extra level of motion and complexity that I felt a final project needed, but they were also bulky, and didn't show the posing very well. Not to mention they felt really out of place in a battle scenario. (I mean, did it start as a heated debate over cocktails or something?)

If any of you remember when I drew those dragon ladies a while ago, you may be thinking that these two look really familiar.

Don't judge me for recycling ideas.

The dragons exist is a different story-verse than the elementists, and they're still deep in development.

Fun Fact: I actually drew this twice.

Yup.

I was particularly brilliant and went into coloring mode and forgot to bring shading mode with me.

So I got to draw this again.

It was kind of a mix of tracing and just plain redrawing.

I've sketched these poses enough (I've got about 5-7 pages of practice sketches), so I knew how to do it, but I had already done most of the work, so I loosely traced it.

Also, really proud of the fire elementist's right foot.

Look at it; it's marvelous.

---

Ok, I'll stop rambling for a bit now.

For all its faults, I am proud of the amount of work I put into this piece.

I've shown myself that I can sketch an idea and then draw it later.

It also proved that I can redo a piece I've messed up and not be so far behind that I can't make a deadline or something.

So I guess I did learn something from my art class, even if I did have to teach it to myself.

Go with God,

~Allie

Moving Out (Thursday)

Sorry, no art here.

Ungrateful people, move along, I'm just typing up thoughts here.

So move-out day is.... hectic.

Triple checking to make sure all the drawers are empty, deciding which electronics stay out of boxes to keep me entertained, and folding mattress pads is busy work.

I might miss the ... coziness of the dorm, but I look forward to having more space (and a spinning chair).

My sketchbooks are either at home or buried in a box, along with my scanner, so it might be a little bit before I care enough to get some things done.

I will, however, be doing some painting (this might be the first thing I do this summer). So that may be posted here.

Got an A on my final project (yay!), and my teacher acknowledged my having already developed a style before joining his class. Even though I made a good grade in the class, I'm not looking to take another one. I've found that I manage to learn just fine on my own with the internet and other artists' work available to look at.

I've also been practicing with my copics again. I would like to do more shading, but I'm going to need more markers. It might be time for me to just buy a set or something. (First I need money.) I don't really want to because I'd have repeats of markers, and with them being stupidly expensive I don't like that. Maybe I could find a used set somewhere... (Woah, there's 5 different sets of 72.)

So that's what I'm up to today.

I'll get back to you once the dust settles.

Go with God,

~Allie

Finals and Whatnot (Tuesday)

Taking a short break from studying/busywork and thought I'd give you this.

Silly thing I drew in physics.

Rather happy about the hands.

So, yeah.

Finals coming up.

Working on my final art project (tell you more about that when I finish).

Also preparing for move-out day, that'll be... interesting.

Well, I need to go get toner so my printer can, you know, print things.

Go with God,

~Allie

My Art Teacher... (Friday)

Is completely pointless.

Well, maybe not completely, but he has frequent moments.

So we were supposed to do some random lines and make a sort of drawing out of it.

I have actually done a similar exercise on my own, but most of the time my method does not create a good opportunity to create a full piece out of it. So after staring at my random lines for a good bit, I ditched that in favor of something more fun.

(Mind you, the teacher passed my work multiple times while I was working on this and said nothing.)

---

Most of the demon itself was done in-class, but I had to run out and get the red, black, and brown pencils to add some depth and color to him after.

He is all graphite and colored pencil, and the background is hard vine charcoal for the lighter parts and soft charcoal for the dark in-between bits.

The background if really finicky. You so much as look at it wrong and it smudges.

Ugh.

---

I really like drawing snarly faces and pointy teeth.

My classmates must think I have some emotional issues.

Anyways, he looks a lot like Roger(who's changed a bit recently, might alter him some more), but he isn't. Must be some spectral relative of his.

I really haven't had the opportunity to sit down and really draw some fun things. Well, there is one, I'll try and scan that tomorrow and post it. For the most part, outside of class I haven't been particularly inspired.

I guess I'm most productive when I should be doing something else.

Go with God,

~Allie

Grid Drawing (Friday)

So yeah, we did these grid drawings.

I still much prefer free-handing it. More flexibility that way.

But here's a shot of the progress and then the finished piece.
Matt Smith, everybody.... I tried....

His shirt was a pain in the butt.

So was his hair.

---

I started with graphite pencils, doing the outlining of his face and shoulders.

Then I went and fixed everything.

I used a sort of smudgery to shade his face.

By that I mean a colored this really dark spot elsewhere on the page, rubbed my finger in it, and used that to shade his face. Some of the darker spots I had to use a pencil then blend it, and then some work with the eraser to sharpen some shadows.

I used graphite on his hair, laying down a general shade then darkening it where needed and using my eraser to do highlights.

The pattern on his shirt was pencil too, shaded by charcoal (and my finger).

I only used vine charcoal on this; I started with hard on the jacket, but then I went and got the soft stuff to really shade it.

(Soft charcoal gets darker than hard charcoal.)

The bowtie was all soft charcoal.

I worked off a picture, but I can't be bothered to put it up.

The grid was drawn on the picture too, the drawing is about twice the size of the original.

---

I might post again soon.

Teacher let me draw a dragon in class and I've continued to work on it.

Growing fond of it.

When I get an adequate amount done on it, I'll post a photo.

Go with God,

~Allie

Tired (Saturday)

I tried to sleep in today; woke up at 8.

Sorry I haven't posted anything, I've been incredibly lazy.

Anyway, we drew faces in art class! (Like, a week ago! At least.)

So here's proof that I actually knew something going into this class.

Apparently these are fairly accurate.

Just a note, this girl doesn't like her profile. I think it's lovely.

Yes, we did draw from models (each other), so I am somewhat competent.

Wish I had my sketchbook back.

The professor keeps taking them over the weekend.

My teacher likes to take an hour to say anything, so I get to drawing fun stuff during that time.

I'm not kidding, he went on for at least half an hour about how he wasn't going to talk much during class.

However, we have finally covered perspective and shading (or "value" as he calls it), and I might have learned something.

Go with God,

Allie