Weird week and I barely got anything art-related done.
That said, while fucking about late late in the evening with a friend of mine I started doodling a bit and ended up with this character Noggs. A goblin wizard.

Originally, it started as little more than thirst doodles from some horny character generator. Old habits die hard. But as it tends to go, I got somewhat attached to the design I ended up with and went about naming the lad and thinking up some background details for him. I think there's some real potential in this little dude. I mean, wizards aren't quite the first thing to come to mind when people think of a goblin. So what's his deal? How'd he end up getting into arcane study? What challenges would a goblin go through in that sort of pursuit? The way I've designed them, they certainly don't come off as a scholar. So what went wrong? That's all stuff I hope to explore later.
So I was thoroughly obsessed with him into the weekend and decided I may as well do something productive with the artistic urge. I realized I'd never in my life done a character turnaround, even with all the characters I tend to design. Especially if I'm planning a comic idea for him, I may as well have something like that around, I figured. So I went about giving it a shot.

I think it was an interesting challenge of my understanding of how the body works. It certainly ain't perfect, mostly in the waist down. But I'll refine it another time. His hair also isn't as curly as I originally conceived it, so I'll address that. All things considered, especially for a first attempt, I think it was a fairly successful exercise. Going forward I think I'll do one of these for each major character in my stories. Y'know, if I actually finish writing any of them.
Ever.

10/30/2023
Revived on the Day of the Dead

Okay. So.

It's been a solid 200+ days since I posted on here. My energy, motivation, and desire to post declined with time and not too long after, without getting into details, our whole life got flipped upside down. Things are settling down and I've had time to reflect on a lot. I can't imagine anybody cares to read my life story, so what's important is that I've re-re-kindled the fire. Not just to draw, but to improve.
In fact, it's that very mindset of "just drawing" that I want to fix. It's something I recognized earlier in the year, but it's something I've only really started to address, with art and otherwise, only recently. That mindset being my tendency to recognize what I want without taking steps towards it. I've been drawing, taking commissions, etc. But I still haven't been practicing. So now, with my girlfriend around to partake with me and keep me accountable, that should change and I should be able to start populating this place with those exercises again.
So, uh.
Yeah.
Wish me luck, friends.

Exercises
It sucks that it took me so long to start doing it again, but oh well. We're back doing actual studies with photo reference.

image.png3656x3836 2.64 MB

Meanwhile, in invention land, I've started thinking about an lgbt fantasy zine I'd like to start writing. One of my two main character, for now named Bastion, is a half-orc and what's known in this universe as a Fury. That is to say somebody with innate magical power related to the elements. In his case, he can control air and lightning.
Thinking about his hair, this is a rare case in which I think my first idea for him was the best. Contrary to stereotype, between him and his human counterpart he's the far more collected and deliberate. I think the tied back undercut really works for him to express that; it's literally restrained, reflecting his personality, but what's tied back is kind of wild and messy which reflects his destructive power. A big part of the story is getting acquainted with one's identity and embracing it, so I think it could tie into his story, too. Maybe he's tying his hair back in an attempt to show that he's sophisticated and lacks stereotypical orcish qualities. But later as he learns more about his ethnic background and culture he starts rejecting the norms of the society he was raised in and lets loose. Maybe goes for something closer to the third idea. Only time will tell, but it's an idea.

Commissions, Personal Stuff, and Unfinished Sketches
/68b4ea6fcd6059b4e889fccd35381af2e0ed07a4.png" width="867" height="867">

Looking back, while this isn't all I've been working on over the months, I'm consistently shocked by how little I actually get done artistically as time goes on. I plan and theory craft and draft outlines for things, but so rarely do things get to a point where I finish them. Part of it's the focus on commission work, sure. But part of it's just what it always been. A molotov cocktail of genuine laziness and the unfortunate results of my brain chemistry. Both things I can have some degree of effect on and both things I'm working. In the short term it seems to be working. So I'd like to do everything in my power to keep that wave going and hurry along to my next artistic milestone.

That's all I've got for now, so I hope to be seeing you all more consistently from here on. Cheers to ya.

10/31/2023
Leg Day

Took that time I said that I would to do some lower-body studies. Started with five one-minute poses to reference from before taking a look at the MORPHO: Simplified Forms book and having a look at Michel Lauricella's method. Going off of their example, I realized I have a tendency to draw my legs too stubby for one thing. And for two, I tend to make the thighs shorter than the calves.
It's a start at least. Something to work on. I want to keep doing similar exercises over the course of the next few days and continually work on my lower body forms before brushing up on the anatomy. That'll be it's own box of worms.

Additionally, I did some figure drawing practice with my partner again. Ten three-minute poses. I'm certainly not as fast as I used to be, but I think that's okay. I'm just getting back into it so what's the rush? May as well get the technique back again.
Something else I noticed is that during these practices I'm thinking a little too hard about perspective and such when I should really just spend the limited time getting a good gesture. The circled poses were the standouts to me. It seemed like I managed to get myself out of thinking so hard about form and contour and managed to just lay down something that flowed well. I'll do my best to continue that in future practices.
I'm also concerned about my tendency to use sketchy lines. I do a lot of searching lines when I should be taking an extra moment to think before laying my lines down. No doubt a biproduct of me working digitally and being able to fix any issue with ease, but I definitely need to improve my line confidence. Add it to the list of exercises.
Soon enough I'm gonna have to start keeping a physical list on a billboard in my room.

Swordplay

For my personal time, I've also occupied myself with something that combines a couple of things I intend to hone.
For one, I'd like to practice making works that are far more economic with line count. For that, I intend to study art from Studio Trigger; my favorite anime studio at the moment. Their work has a tendency to cram a lot of visual information into just a few lines to decrease how much actual drawing they need to do and I believe that this is a factor in the fact that their characters tend to move and emote far more than your average anime character would. I want to capture that simplicity and the energy they manage to attain in their work, so just another thing I'll need to study.
On top of that, I feel a real need to improve my compositions. Typically I sketch out some pose ideas and run with one, but rarely do I take into account aspect ration, background elements, or "particles" in this case. For the kind of work I want to be making, I need to push myself to have "busier" compositions and learning to arrange the elements in a scene so that it's still readable and I can learn to control where the eye goes on the page.
I recently picked up Mercenary in Risk of Rain 2 and wanted to make a fanart piece of my character Zafni in his gear, desperately and furiously learning to fight. I haven't quite settled on one yet, but what I can say is that I am struggling.
My main goals for this piece are:

• Dynamic Composition
• More Controlled Line Economy
• Extreme Perspective
• Color Composition
• That "Badass" Feeling
  I'm using a wide aspect ratio for this piece to give it a cinematic feeling and I also want to implement some depth of field to make the piece feel really "epic" for lack of a better word. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can accomplish on this. With any luck it'll come out halfway decent. And even if it doesn't, I'll certainly have learned something.

Much appreciated
Here's to the journey!

11/1/2023

image.png4069x1716 1.64 MB

Time will tell.

11/2/2023

image.png4788x2196 265 KB

Mixed it up with twenty thirty-second poses to focus on capturing the pose and nothing else. I want to study the gesture drawing method from Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing and Invention, but I need more time before I implement it. For now. Stick figures. Keeping it up.

11/3/2023

My partner is still getting accustomed to figure drawing and capturing gesture, so they wanted to slow it down today with 5 3 min. poses. I had more time to think as I worked, but as I got to the third pose I started trying harder to keep my cylinders consistent to certain subsections. Specifically letting them take up the space between the joints. I'll have to start keeping it in mind as I do more of these.

I had a friend prompt me for a character design. Just the first thing to come to mind as something to try and develop. I took the opportunity to force myself not to focus on details too much like I often would in an attempt to start thinking more in simple shapes. I could push that idea further in the future, but I feel like it's a good start at least. I want to clean up and refine this idea and develop it into a full illustration. Figured if I want to be an illustrator I may as well start acting like it. Pray for me.

Keeping to the iterative design sketches, my partner came up with a new Pathfinder character that I'm helping her develop. More will certainly come over the weekend as I work on her, but so far I'm digging her idea.

11/6/203
Kept up some practice over the weekend.

Additionally, I'm continuing my strides towards making actual illustrations with my partner's goblin character for pathfinder.

My goal with this piece is to capture the same sort of feeling you'd get looking at official Pathfinder art. Some examples:

A Complicated Plan by Brian Valezap

Hold My Beer by Hai Hoang

Striking Thirteen by Ksenia Kozhevnikova

In Truth's Light by Roena Rosenberger
I quickly realized that doing that would mean switching to a landscape orientation, which I did. What's more, however, is I'll have to really push myself to populate the background with contrasting shapes. In this case, I'm thinking a shelf full of bottles should more or less suffice for the composition we ended up settling on. The foreground will be it's own issue entirely, but there will be plenty of time to figure that out.
Moreover, though, as I get further into this piece I want to be sure to pay close attention to shape. Specifically large, medium, and small shapes; a theory that I'm aware of and have rarely attempted to put into practice other than as an after thought.
That's a large part of what I'm doing lately, I suppose. Trying to hold myself to thinking harder before jumping into pieces so that I end with a better result and internalize better habits.
Either way, under normal circumstances I'd have burnt out by now. But I feel like I'm better able to control my artistic drive now that I've been practicing consistently. It could be placebo, but whatever. I feel good and motivated and that's what's important.

More to come...

11/7/2023
Did some new stuff today.

Started the day with the typical warmups. I think some of my issues with my proportions are slowly being repaired with these, though I still tend to mes up with leg proportions. Also, I didn't commit to getting the pose down entirely before working on forms, so that's something that I'll have to make sure I stay consistent with going forward.

After that, though, I did some figure studies without a time limit transposing poses onto my character Noggs. I feel like it was a decent challenge for myself since I so often accidentally get too focused on the body's contours when looking at a model. I can't do that if I have to focus on putting Noggs body on the pose since they've got such a smaller proportioned body.
I honestly really miss drawing Noggs. I'll have to do it more in my free time.

Continuing my adventures with my partner's goblin character for Pathfinder, I finished the sketch for the full scene. I tragically realized after lying down values that I hadn't really considered lines that draw the eye to the main subject, so admittedly I'm kind of planning to just bet on her bright blue color palette to contrast the warm oranges and yellows of the rest of the scene. Still, it's something I'll have to pay attention to in later pieces. I don't want to keep allowing my pieces to be "good enough". I need to push myself to improve.

Bouncing between youtube videos and books, I've noticed that I'm kind of working on improving a lot of concepts at once instead of lasering in on one. I'm well aware that focusing on one concept at a time helps your mind focus and improvement will come faster, but I honestly find it very difficult to get myself to decide on a single aspect of my work. Working on form is awesome, perspective practice is helping a lot, the gestures and figure studies are tangibly improving my work day by day, and I'm slowly integrating more pen control into my process. I don't know. I guess it'd be healthier to slow down. But I'm hungry. Hungrier for progress than I've been in a long time. I don't want to slow down.