Showing posts with label Drawing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drawing. Show all posts

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Michael's Mini Haul

Hey-hey now! After work Saturday–which was hellish and something I refuse to get into–I got to spin around town and enjoy the rest of my day. From finding $5 books, to buying energy drinks that don’t energy, I eventually made a stop at Michaels Arts & Crafts. With pens drying up and erasers that has more erase than eraser, I did a quick inventory check in my head as to what I would need before I went in there and really lost my mind shopping. I knew I absolutely had to stay away from the sticker and scrap booking area. Since that’s where I usually go ham ‘n’ cheese in the wallet with ideas.


I think it’s apparent these are off-brand markers (Artist‘s Loft?), but I was good with that once I found them. I really needed some fine tip markers and ran across this 36 piece pack for $4.99. I only use markers for those small, precision details; and I really needed a brown marker, seeing that my current one was all dried up and buying a replacement was $2! So after options browsing, I settled on this pack to get what I need to get done.


More than anything, I needed a new ink pen. My lovely, lovely Precise V5 is on its last roll, causing the remaining ink to sputter out. I think everybody knows how much I love that pen for inking. I've been using that brand for years and can seem to find the pens at Wal-Mart. I don't think it’s a crafting pen, but what the hell.  

So I got this Faber-Castell Black India Ink pen with the same 0.8mm nib. It’s not rolling ball, but its nib isn't prone to smudging and absorbs fast. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I’ve bought one of these Faber-Castell 0.8mm pens before. And from my understanding, it dried out before I ever really used it. Unless I used it up during an art course. Anyway, the pen was $3.99 so that had better be the case.

Lastly, I finally got a new eraser for everything but penciling. White eraser for pencil. Gummy eraser for pastels. Then I got home and realized I needed a new white eraser too. So is life. Anyway, this tri-tip eraser was $1.99. I love that it does have three tips because that'll help with precision, and keep me from chopping off smudged pieces from previous erasing endeavors.

I think I budged well. All this for $11.96. Anyway, buying art supplies is an investment, right?  I still need another pad of bristol board and a portfolio.  Maybe next time.

Hope you guys continue to have a great weekend! And keep drawing. No matter how good or how bad you think you are, always ART!

Sunday, April 26, 2015

~5. Back 2 High School - Towel Style~

Nearly forgot to update date the junior year comic post.  So here we are with pages 21-25.


The two stories kind of bleed into one another at this point.  Towel's still there (fighting with her kid brother over video games) and so are the two new girls who decided to chase a cat (it somewhat resembles Sailor Venus's Artemis) into a black hole of some sort.  The Naoko Takeuchi influenced kicked into overdrive at this point.


If you pay close attention, you'll probably recognize that the character with the braided pigtails has on Claire Redfield's Resident Evil 2 outfit.


The two girls jump into the black hole, and on starts another adventure that should eventually cross into Towel's.  Meanwhile, Towel is getting ready to go hang out with her best friends.  Apparently, she's given up on finding the missing students and the hypnotizing new student.  Yet, she still has an uneasy feeling about her night.



We'll see what happens next time...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The Boy I Tried To PNG (Test Run)

This post/drawing came with a technical purpose. It’s my attempt to create a PNG image (portable network graphic or transferable images with no accountable backdrop) out of one of my drawings. I came up with this idea because I wanted to make T-shirts featuring my characters–after some previous failed-looking attempts. The thing is that it looked weird sporting an entire drawing onto a shirt. It almost looked plopped on, with a hefty “there.” It just didn't look right having an entire portrait drawing on a shirt, though outside of Zazzle's digital design tool it may appear differently. Needless to say, I couldn't do anything with all of that.

So I had this random, unfinished sketch hanging around. I decided to get modest (is that safe to say?), sloppy and hurried in my attempt to flesh this bald guy out and transfer him into a simple PNG file to test myself. And it worked; rough and rocky, but I managed. Added to that, I decided to double this into another drawing post/video tutorial. Though I cringe at the actual drawing.  But like I said, he had a purpose.  I made sure his expression revealed such.

At the end of the post comes the video version...

Simple and clean.  Nothing fancy.  Including no hair.




For darker complexion, I'd normally add a second layer.  Not this time.  On to its purpose.






Sunday, March 29, 2015

~4. Back to High School - Towel Style~

The next clutch.  The next batch of five pages from this comic I put together my junior year of high school!  Or was it my senior year?  Upon recollection, I think it was senior year.  Okay.  Anyway...


Last time we left off, Towel's classmates ran out of school under the influence of the new girl, who took it upon herself to attack their teacher.  Considering Towel is somehow immune to the new girl's influence, she somehow convinces herself that it's her mission to make matters right.


Naturally, Towel's investigation leads her to the local bookstore where her best friend, Cornbread, works.  She needs help finding the students.  Unfortunately, Cornbread's sister works at the bookstore also.  And she annoys Towel to no end.  She's one of those kids that talks and talks and talks and talks.


Now the story switch gears.  I have a problem separating ideas sometimes.


For just one introduction page, we meet up with Minno, the strange new girl Towel is chasing.  She's roaming the streets, hypnotizing more and more people (boys mostly).  Meanwhile, two new characters are introduced who are going to expand everything.


Back to Towel's story.  We meet her mother and brother.  She doesn't look like either.  I really love drawing busy pages, and it's obvious I couldn't contain myself back then.  Just about every blank space needed something.

Anyway, continuing forward...!

Friday, March 20, 2015

The Girl Who Wanted Illumination

Here we are with "The Girl Who Wanted Illumination."  Character named, Shi Shi.  Last weekend I came across another bundle of scrapbook paper and bejeweled stickers that I wanted to use.  And here we go with my first shot...


Sketched.  A touch difficult at first.  However, the basis was "something cute."


Filling in her eyelids, the heel of my hand came in contact with some drying spots.  So by accident, I splotched her face a little.  My immediate reaction was to take the drawing and crumble it all up.  But I kept going.  There's always ways around these things, right?  Nonetheless, I left the drawing alone for the night after that situation.


Minimal watercolor in use.  Though I began to think what exactly was I going to do for her backdrop.  Should I paint it?  Paint around her?


In the spirit of my last drawing, I took another slice of bristol board and painted it a soft black.  All materials gathered, I knifed out her clothes.  Or the potential areas for clothes.


Seeing that I would glue her onto the black-painted board, I used tape to keep her "clothes" together.  Too much glue everywhere is messy.  Anyway, stenciling out the pieces were a breeze.  Not complicated this time around.


Lovely.  Chalk pastels are all colored and in place.  Soft blue for the hair and a peach tone for skin.  Layers.


I do not like the way I streaked her hair.  It was so wavy and wild that I lost control of its movement.  Also, I think I should've called it a night at this point.  I was ready to lay down.


I can't say this will be the final look.  I had troubles losing its scale with my tiny scanner.  So I used lighting and my phone's camera to get a larger scale.  So I'm not sure yet.  I work with what I have.  Nonetheless, I revived her coloring which gave her this inner illuminating appeal.  Extra sparkle to her eyes, etc.  I'm still on the fence about this one.  Small things I maybe didn't do as well as I hoped earlier in the process seems to show.  But then I look back and think she's too damn cute!  She reminds me of Aja from Jem and the Holograms.

Well?  Thoughts?


Friday, March 6, 2015

~3. Back 2 High School - Towel Style ~

All right, guys!  Here we are with the next five panels of my old high school comic featuring my Towel character.  It's slowly, slowly moving out of the slice-of-life shoujo style and into the action, magical girl realm.


Ah, in the last post I couldn't figure out this guy's name.  Akiru, huh?  Anyway, apparently he has always noticed Towel around school.  So when he asks is her best friend, Cornbread, her boyfriend, she freaks out and hits him.  While the attack wasn't necessary, she freaked out for good reason.



How inpatient of her.  Here Akiru is trying to ask her out and Towel's like, "hurry up."  I have to laugh, though.  That's very much like myself.  Get to the point.



Here's the new girl again.  She's giving her teachers' hell per usual.  What's her deal?


Yep.  Curse the teacher out.  Snap the ruler in half.  Then kick the teacher in the face while proclaiming how things are about to "change" in the classroom.  Sounds about right with something I would think of back when I was 17.


Now all of the students are flying out of the classroom under her influence–with the exception of Towel who seems unaffected by her sway.  Even Clip sticks out her tongue and splits for the door.  So is this new girl human?  I more or less took this scene from an incident that happened to me while in the tenth grade.  The lights went out in the entire school, and when the substitute we had for English left to check everything out, the entire class got up and left.  I'll never understand why I got into that, seeing as I didn't have anywhere to go.  However, I have to admit that that week of in-house suspension was great.  I spent that whole week writing a story until I finished it.

See you guys in the next 5!

Saturday, February 28, 2015

The Girl Who Dreamt of Earl Moran

She has a name, and it’s Emiko (although I conceptualized her, her surname escapes me at the moment). Japanese? Absolutely. And she dreamt of posing for famed pin-up artist Earl Moran. Or, at least, that’s what inspired all of this; the blueness and semi-sailor look. Oh, also the binoculars that don't exactly look like such (who ever said I could draw inanimate objects anyway?). I have a book on famous pin-up artists, and I use it whenever I want to draw something but am uninspired by anything. So, I take to that book during dry spells. And considering I've promised myself that I would try to draw a new image once a month for 2015, I landed on Earl Moran's chapter. And since today is the last day of February, I’ll let the process images do most of the talking as I try to post this before midnight. Enjoy and comment below. And the image source is HERE!


The usual penciling process.  Sometimes I hate this part because my OCD really kicks in–knowing that if I don't get it right, it's all done for.  While I'll never be 100% accurate or get my proportions right (who needs them in comic and cartooning?), I do use my handy bathroom mirror to reflect the sketch back.  That way, I'll catch some of the obvious little misalignments.


The inking part, of course.


Copic markers for shading and outline.  I've always done this however way.  So not into light sources.


Ah, the stenciling and scrapping part.


I took another piece of bristol board and painted it blue.  A seafaring blue (whatever that is).  The point was to make her backdrop look something like the side of a boat.  I'm going for a theme here.


Dying to use this particular material; I turned her scooped out parts into a shirt.


More color, more pizazz.  I almost didn't get through this, as I was entranced with catching up with How to Get Away with Murder.  Man!  They gave us two episodes this week and they were soooooo good.  I don't think I even ate yet.


I taped the shirt down, seeing that another layer would be added.  Then glued her down to the backdrop.  Neither were as much of a mess as I anticipated.


All done!  Scanned, revived, retouched a bit.  Since I'm not a computer person, I did what I could.  Anyway, Emiko is happy.  Her usual prickly disposition does not show.  I haven't drew her in a long time and have been thinking about her as of recent.  Here's to my girl.

THANKS FOR COMING ABOARD!

Friday, February 27, 2015

Zazzle This USB Flash Drive

Here I stood, just bought a PS4 and frustrated trying to copy recorded game play onto a USB flash drive that just wouldn't connect. It would save me so much trouble to take game play through the PS4’s DVR and into a flash drive; transfer it to my computer and then edit it from there. However, seeing the USB stick I had wouldn't connect, I decided to go onto Zazzle and create one of my own featuring my drawings. Per usual, I picked a random image and came up with this one…


From 8 to about 36 (I bought the 16GB), Zazzle offers an array of GB sizes (prices rise in accordance with size) and colors for their USB flash drive products.  I chose this pastel pink because it went well with the image.  The drive comes in a nice, clear plastic envelope.


Here is the drive semi-swiveled out.  There’s also a hook piece to attach the drive elsewhere.  Say, like to a lanyard.


I chose a fuller image perspective for the other side to keep “variety” in the piece. After pounding on discounts given by Zazzle, I paid $9.95. As for the shipping, I placed the order on the 24th and received it on the 27th (as a Black Member, standard shipping is free). It came unexpectedly. Unexpectedly fast. 

Give me a couple of days to add USB flash drives to the store. In the meantime, you can visit everything else I have to offer HERE.

Once again, thanks for all the support. Stay strong and motivated, people.  And for all my gamer follows, be on the lookout for my gaming channel.  Sub HERE!

Saturday, February 21, 2015

~ 2. Back to High School - Towel-Style ~

Here we are with the next five pages.  Click HERE for the first five.  Or you can follow the labels at the end of the post.


Obviously I made my pages super busy.  Busy, packed and hectic.  Nevertheless, that's how I saw a lot of manga pages; busy and occupied.  I suppose I was just copying, but to an extreme.  I wish I had the skill to tell an efficient (as well as effective) story without too much fuss.  Maybe if I tried to do this these days I could get it right.


Once again a busy page.  I didn't have an manga screens (though later I started to print pictures on tracing paper and go from there), so I had to do all of my backgrounds and effects by hand.  I used what I had.  That's why I always tell people to just start wherever you are and enjoy the process.  

I love Towel and Clip's teacher in the top left corner.  "Break's over!  Let's go!" he says.  And as always, Towel decides to call him a "patty mouth dog."  I don't know what that is.  Should I ever get the time to write her these days, she would never say something like that.  It's not clever enough.  Nonetheless, here her and Clip continue to peep the new girl.


I remember showing this page to a friend of mine and he made a comment about the top panel character's (if you didn't catch it, her name is Miino) expression.  He was pretty direct in his observation that the character looks as if she's about to do something salacious.  I'll leave that to your imagination.  Nonetheless, what I want to point out is how the teachers always seem to be yelling at Towel.  Even this female teacher on the left is yelling at her to take a seat.


Towel's trying to be friends with the new girl, Miino.  Instead, Miino is more interested in strangling Towel.  The scene transitions over into the gym area where Towel and Clip reunite to discuss the new girl, as well as some of the male students playing ball topless.  Said boys have taken a liking to Miino–naturally.  This makes Towel even more curious as to who this new girl is.

I don't think Japanese female students wear bloomers anymore for gym class.  However, this is another obvious testament to my love of the shojo manga genre.


The bloomers again.  Other than that, here is where I introduced another male character (other than Towel's best friend Cornbread).  I'm cringing here as I revisit this particular page.  Why?  Because while I was shaky, I don't like how I drew this guy at all.  I think my drawings of him will get better.  But yesh!

See you guys in the next post...

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

~ 1. Back 2 High School–Towel Style ~

Now this is hilarious. It started out really quite simple: I needed an eyeglass repair kit–but not for eyeglasses. I needed to replace my cell phone’s USB charger port and had all the equipment in one kit, including a useless micro screwdriver. So convinced that I had another one in an eyeglass repair kit, I scoured my room searching. Eventually, I dived into my closet, pulled out a couple of plastic storage crates, and ran across this old comic I drew back in my junior year of high school. It’s where I started to develop and understand this character that’s been in my head all my life. Her name is Towel. (Nicknamed if you will.) She’s young. Highly misunderstood. Stubborn. A romantic. Senseless and often times forgetful. However, most of all, she’s a hero. She’s lived and manifested in many different forms and appearances. Many different races. Many different occupations. Nonetheless, she’s always been influenced by my love of Sailor Moon, Buffy and a variety of other forms and medias that represent women in power.

So it took me a while, but I finally whipped out my scanner, thinking it would be cool to share some of these scans just for the hell of it. It’s rough. It’s hard.  It's random and confusing.  It’s impulsively drawn. But it’s here. So be tickled.  And sorry that some areas are cut off. My scanner isn't that large.

And no. I never found that eyeglass repair kit. Therefore, I was left making a run to the Dollar Store for one.  However, eventually I got my phone repaired.

I’ll release these in a series of 5 per posts...


What other way to introduce Towel other than to make her late for school?  Why was she late?  Because she was busy admiring a dress.  Heavily–and I mean heavily–influenced by Naoko Takeuchi and Miwa Ueda's work, I placed her in a sailor-style uniform just like Japanese students.  Which only exacts her locale.  


While I was rarely late for school/class, I will say that I was not liked by a couple of teachers for other reasons.  Like Towel, I kind of didn't have a filter on my mouth.  I remember one English teacher calling me out because I proclaimed "this sucks" during one dull, boring class period.  It really was boring listening to her read out of some book.  However, school was like that for me; I was always bored.  And though I've always tried, I find it hard to hold back how I feel.  Especially when it comes to the urge to create.


While she may be located in Japan, Towel definitely had my Southern wit.  I also want to mention how, as it regards manga/anime, characters who have blond hair and blue eyes are not necessarily considered white.  In fact, you'll know when a white/foreign character is present in either form, because of the difference in his/her appearance and behavior.  However, the obvious is a silly caricature of say an American or Russian.  


I never really saw Towel as white, mixed maybe.  Eventually she became a black character who dyed her hair blond.  Why blond?  Because Minako/Sailor Venus is yellow-headed of course.  Plus, the color is so light that it's easiest to product and hide mistakes over.


I've always loved these little character introductions in manga.  A quick, running page of information regarding the star and her buddies.  Clip (later changed to Klip) and Cornbread (we'll talk about him later) were always the characters I had in mind as Towel's best friends.  Both have changed tremendously over the years.  Something I'll realize more and more of as I re-read these early introductions.  

Nonetheless, back to Towel.  I wanted Towel to be sporty, unlike myself.  So I made her a basketball player (like my sister at the time) and a gymnasts (so she could do flips like the original Pink Ranger).  She loves to write, which is something that did come from myself.  Ultimately, I shot for well-rounded.


And here enters a character inspired by Naoko Takeuchi's Rei Hino (my second favorite senshi), or other known as Sailor Mars.  She becomes Towel's school rival and later something else entirely.

Perhaps now's the time to ask that you stay tuned for the next half...

Total Pageviews