Spent most of today on matching page 1-6 with page 7's style for my comic.

11:21 pm EST

It was bugging me since I started up my comic again, after nearly a half year break (or possibly more), that the art style of the pages pre-break didn't match up with the pages post-break. So today, instead of switching to digitally painting during the evening, after dinner, I stuck with working on my comic. 
The gallery below shows the first 3 pages done in the new style. 

I might change the color palette I had for Fight in the Distance concept.

12:10pm EST

The orange-red-brown shades I used for most of the concept don't really go well with the green I had on the crystal. Or rather reverse that, the green doesn't go well with the colors. As a result, I'm spending a bit of my usual "work on comic" time looking at color theory materials for new (and better) color palettes.
At the moment, I'm leaning towards changing the green into a turquoise- blue-purple sort of color. Hmmm, maybe more so on the purple, to compliment the orange. I might add in yellows with the orange-red shades.
After I figure out what color palette I want, then I'll work on my comic; I won't work on the coloring until later tonight. Speaking of my comic, I plan on finally uniforming the first 6 pages to the current style I have for the comic. This includes the cover page I made when I first decided to put the story into digital comic form. Unfortunately, the cover might be a while since I have yet to figure out a better cover design. The current one looks...bland. 

I didn't want to go to sleep just yet, haha.

12:17 AM EST

After " finishing "* the Fight in the Distance concept, I didn't want to go to sleep just yet and spent 1-2 hours on this digital painting, including time spent deleting the original brainstorm.
The original brainstorm featured a valley of green hills with a river running through it with a large bird or dragon (or dragon bird) flying from the foreground to the background. But the image didn't look that interesting so I scrapped it and started anew and ended up with a cave.Then came everything else. 

The story idea I began to develop behind the image was something along the lines of some guy survives a crash or something that involved using a parachute and finds this cave. The guy ends up camping out and gathering materials to survive in this cave on some mountain before any help arrives. 

* The reason why I put finished in quotes was because I ended up deciding to continue coloring the Fight in the Distance concept. It'd be a shame if I didn't! This'll be my next large digital painting project, after the Sun Staff concept. 

Fight in the Distance - concept, finished ..?

7:41 pm EST

I'm calling the concept finished for now. The first image shows the values only version while the second shows light color application on overlay. I'm not really satisfied with it, perhaps because of the green for the creature, crystal and object in the sky. 
I might just scrap the object in the sky since it distracts me. The creature also might have to go since it's also distracting.

Yep, I like it better without the creature and the floating object; there are less distractions and confusion of where to look.

Fight in the Distance, values only

Fight in the Distance, overlay colors lightly done

Fight in the Distance, hero only , values

Fight in the Distance, overlay colors; hero only.

Watching movies for reference and as a fan

I spent earlier this afternoon re-watching The Incredible Hulk for mostly my fangirl heart though a few scenes were for research, such as destruction caused by large beings. I'll need to find more scenes to study damages to buildings, particularly the larger buildings. 
After finishing the movie, I spent about an hour or two planning out page 10 of my comic but at the moment, it's mostly text placement and outlines of the panels. The last panel of page 10 had a bit more time spent on it since I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted it to be like: a large panel, page spread or two panels in one. I finally decided on two panels in one but diagonally cut. 
I've noticed I spend too much time on the planning and sketching so for many of the beginning pages, I'll try various work methods to speed things along. Other experiments will include sketching and painting in a manner that won't cause so much tension on my drawing hand muscles. I believe I'm using too much wrist and not enough elbow or shoulder movement. But habit is going to be hard to break. 

Have to rest my drawing hand for today. Tense muscles are a pain.

7:39 pm EST

I just spent almost 3.5-4 hours straight paneling, sketching and outlining page 9 of my comic and now my drawing muscles are sore! I need to remind myself to use the Text tool in Photoshop so I can save some time (and muscle soreness) when I'm doing the drafts. 
Going to take a break (including break for dinner) and see how my hand feels then.  I might do some light digital painting after dinner and rest. 

10:01 pm EST
With a roughly 2 hour break, my hand's muscles are less tense though there is slight tension lingering. It looks like light digital painting it is!

Fight in the Distance - concept, re-outline, color...

10:37 pm EST

Since I woke up later in the day than I wanted to , I spent early afternoon, instead of morning, making the panels and sketches for page 8 of my comic. After that my breaks were for lunch and dinner and for dealing with a cicada killer wasp that got trapped in the garage. (Those things are huge!)

I didn't get a chance to touch the image on the left until after dinner. I spent a little bit retracing the sketch with a [digital] pencil. That'd be the thin lines you see if you enlarge the image. With the new outline, I fixed up most of the previous coloring. I painted in some details such as the "hero" and crystal glows on certain surfaces. 

Spent ~30 mins studying heads

2:40pm EST

I told myself last night that I had to do a study of heads since many of the heads I've been drawing seemed oddly unnatural/unrealistic. 

With this, hopefully I can sketch out more realistic shaped heads from the angles I practiced today. 

Finally continuing comic I last worked on in Jan...

9:46 pm EST

The last time I worked on this comic was back in January, Jan 18th to be exact, and that was only up to page 6!
I stopped so early because, since I wanted to make the comic completely original, I was missing characters the main character would meet. It was time to go to the drawing board and create some characters! I was able to create a few 2 days later. 
Cog
Pitch
Volt
KRoo
White Lie

I told myself yesterday I'd start up my comic again and while trying to fall asleep, I was debating whether or not to use Photoshop or Manga Studio Debut. One of the main debates was the panels. Originally I was going to use Manga Studio since I haven't touched it since page 6. But the lack of painting and Photoshop-ness turned me away so I thought about making the panels in Manga Studio and opening the jpeg in SAI and coloring it there. By this morning when I sat down to sketch in the panels, I went with doing everything in Manga Studio. That lasted until about the 1st box when I decided to scrap it and do everything in Photoshop: panels, sketch, outline, coloring and text. 
I think from working originally in Manga Studio to finishing this in Photoshop, I took around 3-5 hours. If I had been decisive, I probably could have shaved off an hour. 

In addition to having color now, I made the comic 's reading direction left to right, instead of the previous right to left. 

Site Organization - notes (Weebly)

12:21 AM  EST

Notes on what I actually organized:

• combined "works in Corel Painter" and "works in Paint Tool SAI" together into 1 gallery. 
• Labeled each piece from Painter and SAI with corresponding program.
• "Works in Painter" page deleted.
• All galleries have thumbnails on the left. Double Thumbnails for galleries that have many image.
• All galleries have slide transition during slideshow play-through. 
• Added missing sketches and works into Photoshop's gallery. 
• Adjusted spacing and aspect ratio of all galleries to: no spacing above, small spacing below and 16:9 ratio. 
• Renamed "Fan Art Works" page to "Fan Art".
• Fixed "Traditional Art" page's text. 
• Fixed "Artwork" page's text. 
• Fixed "Social Media & Previous Blogs" page's text. 
• Fixed "Portfolio & Bio" page's text. Updated date as a result. 

Fight in the Distance - experimenting

10:10 pm EST

 About 5 hours ago, I decided to try painting the colors on an overlay with only values under it. The image on the left would show the result. While it was different from my usual coloring attempts, it wasn't how I wanted the finished result to look. 
About 2 -3 hours ago I decided to paint on the base layer and see if that made any difference on what I had so far. (I took an hour break for dinner.)
Looking at the painting with the base layer there, it pretty much looked like my usual digital painting, which I was trying improve. So I decided to scrap both the value layer and the current layers involving the colors. New experiment plan was to digitally paint this image, traditionally : layer by layer. Or at least attempt to. 

Colors overlaying the values, no base color layer.

Colors overlay base colors, over values.

11:28 pm EST

Continuing with one of the original experiments of only using 1 brush (hard opacity brush), I went with painting the digital painting, traditionally, or as close to traditional methods as possible. 

With no values layer, at the moment, I have the result shown in the image on the left. 

I also played around with some different layering combinations ( see images below). The rest weren't too unique. 

Sketch layer underneath color layer. Colors on 100% overlay. Sketch on 75% darken.

Colors layer over sketch layer. Colors on 100% multiply. Sketch on 75% darken

Fight in the Distance - values, corrections

5:20 pm EST

 Originally I started painting in the values using the soft opacity brush, but I decided to try the hard brush instead. The image to the left is the rough application of the values. I'm going to go back in, toggling the sketch layer off and fixing the values from what I have. 
The image below is what I have to fix. Most, if not all, the basic shapes are there but it's obvious there's a lot of clean up to do still within the image. 

7:22 pm EST

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I wanted to work on the values without the sketch layer visible. 

Perhaps some parts of the values could have been better but overall I was able to get a good amount of detail in.
I'll come back to this painting tomorrow, with a fresh look, to make sure the values are what I want them to look like. Then it'll be time for the color stage. 

Struggle & Fight - concept , sketch

7:04 pm EST

I decided to sketch up a scene I had in mind about an original character's story. 

(Story scene details written after the "Read More". 

Story: 
(Scene details)

Kathy McClain, otherwise known as "Spirit", gets attacked by a seemly invisible creature. Her allies and members of the organization they work with rush to her aid and get themselves involved. However, Spirit urges them to not get themselves involved, much to their surprise. It turns out this creature and her have some sort of deal or promise between them. 

When the creature starts to harm her teammates, Spirit threatens the creature to stop or risk angering the creature's client. Spirit reveals to the creature that she knows very well of the client's intentions, that she's smart enough to figure out why the creature's after her as well as the client. It all leads back to her control over water, which Spirit's not very surprised about. 
Spirit suddenly develops an idea to get the creature to prevent further harm to her teammates and the organization. Just before rushing off to another corridor, she urges her teammates to keep the creature distracted for a bit. One of her teammates yells out, in her direction, "And how are we suppose to do that when we can't even see it?!".

When she returns, Spirit has a small syringe of slightly neon green, bubbling liquid and demands the creature to back off her friends. She threatens the creature that she'll mutate her DNA to invalidate the deal with the client. The creature believes Spirit is bluffing, that she wouldn't dare to. She retorts saying even she doesn't know what sort of chemicals she mixed together, that she's not that smart. Just before she is about to, the creature immediately releases its hold on her teammates and goes after her, subduing her before the syringe needle contacted her water arm. The quick force and pressure exerted from the creature's counterattack knocks Spirit backwards and causes her to hit her head on the wall in the back of the hallway. It doesn't knock her out but the creature's arms prevent her from moving and using her water form to escape. 
One of the arms grabs the syringe before it hits the floor.

Spirit forces a weak grin, "I guess this means you'll leave my allies out of this" and coughs from the force. 
The creature grins as if to reply yes but just before fleeing with Spirit, it flings the syringe towards her teammates' direction. 
It crashes on the shoulder of one of her teammates and the liquid burns the skin of his shoulder. He freaks out about a possible hazard but a scientist of the organization quickly identifies the liquid as boiling water and green water coloring. 

"So it was a bluff! ... Wow, that was a really good bluff." Another teammate comments. 

"Why wouldn't she just let us in about this. I bet the client is her brother; we all know how her brother feels about Spirit and her powers. But what if it isn't her brother? Might explain why she didn't let us in about it."

Walking Detective - sketch with light shading

5:42 pm EST

After trying to find inspiration during the afternoon, I finally decided to go along with an idea of detectives. The past few days I've been watching The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries series so a bit of my inspiration came off from that. 

Staring out the Window

11:36 pm EST


I had a sudden image in my head as I was eating dinner of a girl looking out the window.
I built on it with some detail of what she was looking at, or at least what was outside her window. 

Costume Designs - Knight theme

9:38 PM EST

Wow, this took me a while to complete, mostly due to not liking how the costume and poses turned out initially.  Originally, the first pose was the initial pose and the upper half of the left character was the original costume, with a temporary addition of a high collar. 
But then I felt like the pose was too generic and decided to change it up a bit and created a second pose, which would be the current right character's pose. With a few adjustments, I added details of the costume onto the character on the right. The head looks... odd though so I messed up there. 
After finishing the character on the right, I finished up the character on the left. 

Cloth knight armor design on left, metal knight armor design on right. 

Fell into a mood, ended up sketching

11:33 pm EST

Unfortunately, some drama occurred today and I put me into a certain sad/lonely sort of mood. With some alone time, I decided to do a quick sketch of that mood using one of my original characters as the subject.

Opening of Light - concept sketch and background

2:21 pm EST

While eating breakfast, I had the inspiration or idea of sunlight pouring into a room through a hole in the ceiling. 
To add a little more detail to it, I imagined a shot of :

• a multi-floor building of some sort 
• camera looking up at an angle that would display the hole but also show the sunlight hitting the floor and the ray being visible due to the dark/unlit room.

While trying to make that sketch, I had to change the angle into a 3rd person view where the whole section of that building would be visible instead of a section of that section. 
After drawing out the building, or section of the building, I realized it looked rather bare and odd in terms of architecture as it raised questions of how anyone was able to enter that section of the building. This led me to draw paths leading to and from the section of the building and for some reason I started to draw squiggles near the pathways (though they are behind them in reality of the sketch). Those squiggles became vines...or wires, I haven't decided 100% yet, hanging from the basement of the whole building. 
This section of the whole building wasn't completely shaded in, though it should be. The only light source would be from the hole in the ceilings. 

Story behind the hole:
 Something had crashed through the entire building forming those holes on each floor of the building before finally reaching the basement. However, that something is missing! It seems someone took away the evidence of the crash but left the holes in the floors/ceilings (depending on perspective). What was it that crashed? Who took it away? And why?

Don't Get Caught -concept , rough sketch

11:44 pm EST

I had the sudden image of metal scratching against the ground (concrete I suppose). That lead to the image of a sword, which turned into a scythe which I suppose lead me to create a Grim Reaper sort of figure you can see in the background. Eventually it all spawned into this sketch. It's really rough since I couldn't quite figure out what else to add in the environment. Unlike my sketch from yesterday, this one isn't as full of destruction since the one doing the destroying only damages the surrounding area when he...it?... kills someone (from the swing of the scythe against the wall or floor.)

On a different note, remember to stay hydrated under the summer heat / during the summer! 

Fight in the distance - concept sketch WIP1

12:54 am est

It's more so a work in progress sketch than a sketch because I'm still adding details to this suh as damage. The streets and building look too 'clean' still considering how much fighting was going on between the hero and the monster and the monsters and the city.

Edit: For some reason the Weebly app dates this blog entry as 7/12/13. That is in correct; it should be 7/14/13. It also was a bit odd with the image position so it's sideways here but upright on mobile. 

4:37 pm EST

I've updated the sketch to add more damage and a slight indication of the fight path. 

Sneak peak on next painting

Sun Staff - concept: Completed

6:16 pm EST

Finished! The image to the left is the digital painting with its colors but pre-color balance and saturation adjustments. The image below would the painting with adjustments. 
I had to erase a majority of my sketch lines since many of them were stray lines. (I don't usually draw line art before coloring so I end up using my sketch as a "line art" layer. )

/edit
I've updated both galleries on my blog and portfolio sites.

Figure drawing practice !

12:42 AM EST

Wow, it's been a while since I did these figure drawing sketches; the last one I have saved was back in April!

I suppose I didn't continue doing these because finals was arriving soon. Though I don't really know why I didn't do these 30 minute sketches during June. 

These were all 30 second figure drawings since I had to restart my laptop, which reshuffled the reference images. 

Sun Staff concept - more detail painted, more to come

8:59 pm EST

I continued coloring in the character and added in the facial details; I also adjusted the eye and nose size and re positioned the mouth. The staff got partially shaded in but it's still missing plenty of details, as is the rest of the painting. 

Sun staff concept - more character progress

6:41 pm EST

I fixed the [image] right hand and readjusted legs; lighting on skin and hair and worked on [digitally] painting the top, gloves and half-cape for today's portion. The hand gave me a bit of an issue so I had to snap a photo of my own arm and hand for reference. 

Sun Staff concept - working on character's colors

7:08 pm EST

Wow, my stomach is growling.

Anyways, I continued my progress on the Sun Staff concept. I fixed the background a little bit, in terms of blending but I didn't fix everything yet since I would have to go back to the background again anyways after I finished the character's color and blending. For the character, I only worked on the skin and hair today. 

Leap, Jump Forward - final colors decided

1:34 AM EST

Originally I splashed some random colors to see what I might like, I believe weeks ago (June 27th). However, today (well, technically yesterday) I had the sudden inspiration/idea to use just one color: blue. 
Though I did end up playing around with color balance and hue/saturation to change the appearance, it more or less stayed blue.
The image on the right shows that. The image below the text though was the digital painting, textured lightly. 

Rocky mountain side with ocean

12:45 am EST

I started painting random splotches and it turned into a rocky surface in the foreground, which lead to the background and then the ocean. 
It's a rather simple and quick background as I didn't want to focus too much on the details. (I might go back to this in the future and increase the detail.)

This is my background for Spirit (remade)'s digital painting.

Spirit - character concept - WIP #2

11:40 pm EST

Ouch, I think my hand finally cramped from all the drawing/coloring I did today.

It's been a while since I last worked on this piece  (June 22nd )!
Regardless, "Spirit" has been colored but the background is on its way!

At the moment, I'm imagining a ledge or something for her to sit on, so I can form a shadow . 

Brand celebrates with Fireworks - colored WIP1 and finished

2:20 AM EST


I actually got through more than I originally thought I would be able to get tonight. 
For the most part the scenery is done, except for detailing and textures as well as the fireworks' reflection on the water.
As for Brand, the glowing fire parts are not done at all. Most of the colors are there, just textures and details (highlights, shadows, glows, more texture) are missing. 

Work in Progress
Contest: Riot Games' League of Legends' 4th of July/ Canada Day Art Contest. 
Oh... I just looked up deadline information; the deadline is actually July 15th. How / why did I think the 8th?

6:54 pm EST

Finished my entry for the contest and submitted it as well. 
I think I spent roughly 2 hours today fixing up the details (highlights, shadows) so.... I think that puts the total time spent roughly 6-7 hours?

The Brand actually turned out pretty well!

(League of Legends , Brand belong to Riot Games)

Brainstorm and In Progress sketch for contest entry

6:32 pm EST

Incomplete sketch  since family wants to eat out for dinner.

Originally I thought I had a week (I probably did but I had to spend time developing the idea and composition), but I've got around 4 days left to finish this before the contest deadline!

11:30 pm EST

Finally finished the sketch! I had to play around with the composition and perspective a bit. 
It's a bit...odd.

By the way, I don't think I mentioned what this entry was for (as in which contest.)
Riot Games' 4th of July, Canada Day Art Contest

Crouched on a knee sketch/doodle

A quick doodle based on a sudden random pose idea as I was drawing out the skeletal form.

I didn't get to draw in the head,face or though.