Rainy weather means wet socks and sneakers.

So due to the weather causing my socks to get wet, I had to return back to my room instead of going to the drawing workshop I usually go to every week. *Very disappointed things turned out this way*

Which means, no live model drawings today. On the other hand, we took photos of our clay models for my Figure Drawing class so I can share those since they're completed for that 'project'. Our next project is the torso and after that, a head and finally an original character design !!

In other news, related to my comic,
I've started thinking about sketching up and hopefully, painting, up locations related to my comic. But if I do start sketching these environments, I might fall behind on the pages. I might be able to keep pages going if I end up releasing pages every 2 weeks instead?I might just do that, but  that means I need to make a post about that now on my dA in case any readers do pay attention to it.

Teens of Valor Chapter 1 page 11

Story so far: Spark Shock, or Kuri, has made her decision despite orders given. It doesn't seem like things are getting any easier for the groups involved. 

Abandoned Dragon - 50 min speed paint

Topic theme from speed painting group: Abandoned Dragon 

I actually decided to use SAI to work on this; I started with rough sketch lines using the pen and then painting over it with a combination of pencil, pen, brush and water brushes. The painting still isn't tight but I got a little more done in the time limit than before. If my computer wasn't a little laggy, I probably could have gotten the painting a little tighter. I'm watching a live stream of the League of Legends LCS. 

If viewers look at the previous blog post, they might notice a similarity from this painting to my latter 2 thumbnails. 

Painting 4 Thumbnails in one file

It actually was pretty helpful to paint 4 thumbs in one; I was able to get ideas off of the thumbs I painted previously. I didn't make it as tight as I would like though but loose thumbnails aren't too bad if I'm playing around with composition.

I really liked how the building structure I was starting out in thumbnail #3 turned out in the end. It inspired me towards thumbnail #4. I want to combine thumb #3 and thumb #4 for a painting. I might go more towards thumb #3 though since the perspective for thumb #4 was a little odd. 

Abandoned thorn house - 50 min speed paint

Wow, something went wrong with the colors, but it still works I suppose..kinda. It's a bit lighter than I would have liked. 

I mixed and matched several ideas and themes from the Speedpainting group. (Abandoned house from yesterday's selection and thorn house from today's selection. )

I didn't get to put in the gravestones before time ran out so the zombie hand looks out of place. Influences for the house came from several sources: Ravenswood cementary, Stay Alive's plantation house and a bunch of New Orleans' houses. 

In class 5 mins Head drawings

Done with conte crayon and of course, with help of models.

Thumbnails in progress

Moody Gestures - 5 & 7 min studies

"Moody Gestures" is a temp. name since I can't really figure out a better name.
A lot of these were pretty useful poses and gestures that I might use in the future.

Rain Maker - 50 min speedpaint

Of the themes from today's selection of speed painting topics, I selected Rain Maker.  The way I envisioned this was a person being the Rain Maker but I wasn't able to get as much detail in as I wanted. I focused most of the detail on the person, which is what I should be doing anyways since the person is the subject of the painting. The Tree and the background were fairly loose. I've realized I still spend too much time for the base painting part; by the time I get to the details and zooming from the thumbnail into the 100% zoom view, I've got less than 25 mins. That means I spend a little more than half of my time making the thumbnail which shouldn't be happening. 

Teens of Valor Chapter 1 page 10

Chaos within the communication as the threats and personal matters come between the heroes. 

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Readers! You finally get some names of the heroes! I purposely didn't reveal them since I wanted them to be known to the readers as they read, rather than "this name" , "that name" mentioned here and there. I don't know if that was a good or bad idea, but I wanted to try something new for this comic overall. Additionally, how would you introduce tons and tons of characters without the cliched "I'm ..." or "My name is..." or "You can call me..."? As a result, I mention the characters in passing or dialogue rather than the characters introducing themselves up front. I do have one character that will attempt to introduce herself to the main character but fail to continue due to the character's fear. This scene isn't suppose to happen until much later on. 

- - - - -

I tried a different method for this week's page by drawing and shading everything in SAI then bringing it into Manga Studio for the panel boxes and text bubbles. Before this page, I would do everything in Manga Studio, which didn't really allow me much in terms of brush or shading (blending). 

Forest on a Moon - 50 min speedpaint

One of the themes from today's selection of topics from the speed painting group I joined was Moon Forest. I was debating between this, Alien Mall and fanart but I decided against Alien Mall, because it'd most likely end up as a simple 1 point perspective with windows and a few alien like creatures, and against fan art because I had too many to pick from and was afraid I'd do little justice to the fanart. 

Honestly, in terms of realism, there couldn't be trees on our Moon and unlikely to be in such intact shape. Instead I made those craters of our moon, the source of the trees' nutrients. I wish I had spent more time on the tree detailing; I was able to get a little closer to a tighter drawing with the middle tree but I guess I need to speed up my thumb nailing process so I can move onto the details earlier. 

Playing around with SketchUp and its uses

It looks like exporting SketchUp projects as a 2D graphic means the buildings are exported as wireframes. I wonder if there's a way to at least add the planes. I'm still playing around with SketchUp since I only just tried it out today. 

There were models to download that were based off real life locations but I wanted to try making up a city on my own. The city in progress is Haven City, which is a city that will be revealed in my comic in future chapters.
I was hoping I could bring a 2D version of the SketchUp project that had planes included into Photoshop to paint over and build up on but it looks like it's just wireframes. I could work with this though, I just hope I don't confuse myself with the lines.

Robot Junkyard Spit paint/ Speed Paint (50min)

12:27 pm Pacific

I joined a Facebook group that focuses on speed painting. (Super Speedpainting Funtimes for those who'd like to see the group.)

There are usually several themes given for the members of the group to paint daily. I attempted one of today's theme: Robot Junkyard. Originally I wanted to just paint the robot arm coming out of the ground but went with painting a lot more background. In hindsight, I should have stuck with just the arm as the main object and paint very little for the background. The colors are all wrong sadly. Too saturated for the foreground and not dark enough. But it was painting something outside my comfort zone so it's good practice. 

Inspiration from humming songs

4:48 pm Pacific

While I was humming random songs from my head, I eventually hit "Colors of The Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas and the lyric "Have you ever heard a wolf cry to the blue corn moon?". From that lyric, I decided to spit paint something from that lyric.

I got this:

Allergies? Or just dry eyes?

2:24 pm Pacific

I really don't know if it's due to allergies or the dryness or just too many late nights, but my right eye has a small patch  of red. I did have the window open the past few days so it could be from allergies, though I had the impression it wouldn't be that bad since I'm in the city, as opposed to the suburbs. I also did stay up late the past few nights so that could be a factor, though I wonder why it was only one eye and a small section of it as well.

Regardless, it's time I started worked on the next page of my comic. This time I plan on doing all the drawing, and coloring if I have the time, in Paint Tool SAI, and then bringing that jpeg into Manga Studio and drawing the panel boxes and adding the text and word bubbles. I believe this would be page 10 now?

Teens of Valor Chapter 1 page 9

Mitchens is determined to see his plan through and now, it seems Buster is trapped with the poorly contained bio-hazard. 

- - - - 

I wanted to tone this via SAI but it seems exporting the JPEG from Manga Studio into SAI is too poor of a quality. Additionally, for some strange reason, there were double of  page 9 on a canvas, which was really confusing. I think for page 10 and onwards, I'll sketch, line and tone in SAI but get the text done in Manga Studio. I'll have to see how page 10 turns out both in terms of quality and time to see if this method is worth the change. 

Canyon - WIP

11:01 pm Pacific

The original thumbnail I drew out had the figure with a cane or staff of some sort, but very simplistic to the point where I forgot about it when I started this digital painting. Additionally, there were cracks visible along both sides of the canyon, another detail I forgot about it. 

I haven't decided the colors yet, either it's going to be a yellow-blue/purple mix or orange/brown - turquoise mix. When I applied base colors to the painting, in a separate layer of course, I was leaning towards the turquoise . 

I really need to speed up my working process!

6:32 pm Pacific

Today started out pretty poorly since my laptop's time was ahead by an hour, of the new time. I don't know what went wrong since it was perfectly fine and accurate yesterday, after the Daylight Savings change. I nearly panicked when I thought I messed up with the time change on both my cellphone and desk clock but it turns out the Windows Time servers were being odd. Thank goodness, otherwise, I would have to catch a later bus and been late to my class this morning.
During my Figure Modeling class today, I realized how slow my modeling speed is; it might be faster than day 1 of class but it took me two hours to make a rectangular box for the hip box. Then again, so did a lot of my classmates. I guess maybe the reason why I think I need to speed up my process is because it took me too long to remove the clay of my [clay model] foot off my homework board. It took a lot of watering and jabs at the underside of it to finally remove it. Unfortunately, that meant lost time for getting the basic shapes and angles done for today's class. It also took me a while to get the egg shape of the ribcage. I needed a refresher I guess because it took me a while to get it right as well. It had more volume (width) from the sides than need be. In hindsight, I should have dismantled my clay foot model after class so I could spend more class time working on the model instead. Lesson learned. Additional lesson: I need to water down my homework board more often.

Teens of Valor - Chapter 1 page 8

Complications keep piling up for the team as the cooling agent has been inactive for the biohazard containment room and Mitchens arrives, clearly angry. 

-

A lot of experimenting with body language and action poses with this page. 

Lady in the Woods - WIP

9:18 pm Pacific

Earlier in the week, I was sketching out some thumbnails for possible composition ideas and a hooded figure with an old lantern in the woods was one of them. Since I've been telling myself I need to start up digital paintings again, I figured why not paint one of the compositions?
I'm gonna label this as WIP because, while I do love how it turned out, I feel like I should add more. Stylistically, I like how the brush strokes are visible but that's a double edged sword.

To see the WIPs, the Behance profile I've set up recently shows my progress with the work.
Lady in the Woods WIPS on Behance

Wacom Intuous Pro- decisions , decisions

4:54 pm Pacific

I'm currently debating about if (or possibly when) I should buy an Intuos Pro. I'm debating between 4 or 5. It looks  like 4 and 5 don't differ in the number of levels of pressure sensitivity like 3 and 4. I'm stuck on the price though and wondering if there would be a possibility of a sale, either by Wacom or on Amazon. I'm also trying to figure out if I really need the upgrade. I've read that the pressure sensitivity on Intuos is amazing and that buying one wouldn't make you regret it. I do plan on buying on but I just don't know when. I mean, right now, I'm using a Bamboo (Pen & Touch), which I believe the Bamboo series are now called Intuos and the Intuos are now called Intuos Pro. I know, or at least at the moment, the size I'd want to get is a medium. The small's active area is too mall for me. Actually, I wonder what's the active area size on my Bamboo.
Looks like it's almost 5 x 3 inch. Intuos Pro medium has an active area of 8x5, so it's slightly larger than my Bamboo, which is a good thing. The Large is pretty much letter size (~12 x 8 in).  I don't believe I need that big of an active area...maybe. I wonder how big the tablets are for those working in the industry.
Thinking about it now, when is a good time to upgrade? I'm still in school so I don't know how much outside work I could get done. Would the extra levels of pressure sensitivity make that much of a difference?

Loose clothing study assignment

12:50 am Pacific

For our assignment this week, we were to draw 4 full figures, with loose clothing to study the folds and draw them as well as identify certain points. I selected sports mostly because I knew the poses would be dynamic and the uniforms for certain sports allowed for sleeves.

I over-complicate and focus too much on detail

7:18 pm Pacific

I've realized today I tend to over complicate things and focus too much on detail.
Today in Figure Modeling class, I over complicated a section of the figure when sculpting. And then again, during the Clothed Figure Drawing workshop, I noticed I focused too much on the details when I should have simplified. I've been doing that a lot lately. I wonder if it's something subconscious since my drawings of my characters are too simple. Overcompensating issue I suppose.
I wasn't satisfied with many of the sketches from today's workshop; incomplete, too many details and edits. Nothing cleanly drawn.

Spitpaint - Leaf boat

6:19 pm Pacific

I decided to do a quick spit paint in SAI  (instead of Photoshop) to learn the brushes again. The water worked its way to painting a lady bug at first. However, I didn't like the size difference. I turned the ladybug into a red opened flower and then a red turtle. I didn't like the red turtle though so I I got rid of it completely and attempted the opened flower idea again. A lily pad turned into a leaf styled boat.

Teens of Valor - Chapter 1 page 7

Mitchens got away from the first group of Team Q and the unknown possibility of Mitchens heading towards the containment room threatens the second group.

Got a lot of work done on comics over the weekend~

7:40 pm Pacific

I was able to finish up page 7 of my comic and even the next two pages for my friend's webcomic.
I'm also slowly catching up on NCIS; currently on season 9. I might start page 8's draft but I need to further the text version of the story.
I also need to draw up the characters in a character sheet. Well, that's what I've been planning for a while.
So many characters to draw out, so little time!