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!