…some recent chunks of sketchbook pages, re: comic, which is getting a reworked setup/plot/background/characters, because I can and because I want it to make me excited. To that end, I’m fiddling with the fashions, adding and deleting characters, etc. as needed. It’s kind of freeing, really, after having felt like I boxed myself in, thinking “oh, this would be interesting to do,” instead of realistically considering the things I know and love (and what I’d be willing to draw regularly). I’m a noob. <shrugs>

I just started drawing in blue pencil. Well, not that I’ve never done it before, but regularly, I meant.

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Mm yeah, when I’m designing a character, sometimes the pencil ghosting gets pretty nasty.

So it’s been a while. <cough>
For one thing, my trusty tablet died, and I never got the productive momentum back after the interim shipping week. I do like my new Intuos3, though, and I was able to get one of those 6D art pens to go with it.

Since then, there’s been a lot of stuff in progress, but nothing finished to show.
Today, that changes!
Behold the reworked ninja bunny gloomday attacks! banner:
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And also my new Halloween Evil Sheep icon, of course. <points up> I made it for Miranda, so there’s no shiny larger image (yet) (if ever).

So here’s a little thing I did last week (or was it two weeks ago?). I know, it’s not particularly exciting, but it was one of those things I had an image of in my head and had to get out. It’s still not right; I keep tweaking it, but without getting slightly more involved in the modification, I guess I’ll settle for this version. For now.
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I’m semi-hard at work (between watching things and poking at my aquarium tanks and surviving another heat wave) at a number of things. I’m in the mid- to finishing stages of a Victorian girl piece for my friend Marc,* I started a reworking of my original (ninja bunny) gloomday attacks! banner, I’m in the mock-up stage for a redesign of my portfolio site, I have take-along sketchbook-making on the brain,** and mm… there was something else, I just can’t remember what. Oh, I was working on comic-y story stuff the other week, too—but that’s not what I was thinking of.

* which I liked yesterday, but not so much today, especially after digging up my book of John Singer Sargent portrait drawings. Right now I want to scrap the whole thing and start over, but it seems a waste.
** I had planned on one design, but I acquired this lovely scrap of black leather last week, so now I want to make something out of it as well.

Excerpt from the Tater Totten Daily Guardian (August 18, 2008):

Asked about the Evil Sheep’s recent fetish for capes—many citizens have been heard to refer to him as ‘Supersheep’ since the trend first started some months ago—his spokesperson had this to say: “Sure, the Sheep is fond of his capes, but really, who doesn’t love a good cape?” We also inquired whether this was to be a permanent look, and were informed that “the Sheep’s personal clothing accessories may change at any time.” The question remains, does “any time” seem likely to be in the near future?

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That stinky loud-mouthed bird (along with all his friends) from the last banner pays for ratting out the ninja bunnies.

I’ve been working on this on and off for a couple of weeks, but it’s finally done to my liking. I doubt I’ll love it in a couple of months (my previous banner (the ninja bunny one) looks sort of clunky to me now), but I do like that I kept at it until it was more detailed and refined than the last one.

It’s rare that I actually run out of pages in a sketchbook. Usually, once I’m partway through one, I unwittingly migrate to a new one through osmosis. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I actually filled an entire sketchbook—it was probably in high school.

Well, today I actually finished off the last page. Of course, I’d managed to fill it up quickly because about two-thirds of it was timed sketches from the past few months, which I’d never done before. I’ve already started thumbnailing a couple of things in my new one, which brings me to a tangent.

I still can’t fathom all the people from my school and all the fancy pro artists with the amazing sketchbooks, the ones filled with gorgeous ink sketches and mixed media stuff (“experiments” my ass). Surely they must have ugly, scribbly ones hidden away somewhere that they don’t show off?* And if so, then how can they possibly call the show ones, ‘sketchbooks’? To me, if I was going to do something like that, I’d consider it an art piece, because that’s really what it is.** Just because it’s drawn/painted/whathaveyou in what is sold as a sketchbook doesn’t make it one, imo.
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But I am going to try being more conscious of my pages (we’ll see how long that lasts, and how long it takes to make me paranoid and uptight about what goes in it, just when I’d started loosening up about what I put in my sketchbooks).*** I don’t think I’ll ever end up with a pretty sketchbook, unless I do one that way on purpose, but maybe I can make it more engaging and interesting to look at?

* Those are the ones I’d really like to see, to be honest.

** And that’s about the only way I can think of to wrap my head around it. Do they plan what they’re going to put in there, and test it out beforehand, or are they just that good? Somehow I think (hope) it’s at least partly the former, so they can make people think it’s the latter. Unfortunately, I have no brains to pick about this, and even if I did, it’s probably all secret society-ish.

*** For a very long time, my sketchbooks were reserved for drawing only. No thumbnails, no drawing from life/timed sketching (though I wasn’t really doing either of these ’til recently), no notes for stories, no random little scribbly doodles, no pasted-in stuff (ok, I still don’t do this unless forced, but I may start)—those all had other places to go (or no place at all). I still don’t really experiment much in my sketchbooks, but then, I don’t really experiment much.

Built up from a 45 second! wire-frame sketch over several hours (lots of work on the hands, cuz hands are hard). Probably would have been faster if I hadn’t decided to keep all my layers so that someday, if I felt like it, I could show the process. It might be funky in one or two places (like, are her feet really at the right angle?) but I’m pretty happy with it. It is flat like the Rae piece, which I kind of like, but it makes me wonder if refining ‘em more with, like, highlights and shadows would be even better. ‘Course, shading and I aren’t very good friends right now, so maybe someday I’ll go back to it when we make up.

Incidentally, I’m told my Rae icon looks like a boy, so I’ll be tweaking that pic a little to hopefully put an end to that. XD

EDIT: Fixed my icon~

EDIT #2: Omg, it’s trying to sprinkle. The air smells all lovely and damp, even if the raindrop count is nil.

EDIT #3 (next day): Hmm, so it’s official her feet are weird; I think I’ll leave it a couple of days and maybe poke at it when I’ve got fresh eyes.

This started as a 3″ high scribble, which—after multiple, frustrating attempts at inking in Photoshop and Painter—I ended up blocking in with color (which fixed the position of the leg I’d been having trouble with, effortlessly). And I’ve been fiddling with it on and off the past few days, refining and building. It’s not speedy, but so far, I’m pleased. Eventually, I’ll decide I’m finished and post a final version.

And then I’ll change my Rae icon again. :X

Unrelatedly—
After reading about the proposed changes to basic LJ accounts the other day, I started thinking about moving to a wordpress blog on gloomday. Before that, I had planned to switch to a paid account when I finally get a job, but now I don’t think I want to. Of course, that sort of sucks in terms of friends I have on here, so I’m still debating (though I do have everyone’s journals on RSS feed now). Depends on what they decide to do, too. <shrugs> Chances are, I won’t be bothered to move in the end. Heads up anyway, though.

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