Brass and Gold

Figure Drawing for Animators 4

2012-01-05T00:47:00.000-08:00

Decided against uploading *everything* from that class, but just the good stuff that I ended up using for my Advancement Portfolio. I really, really do love Figure Drawing. I feel like this was a good semester for digital figure drawing, especially! Shame though, I'm not scheduled for anymore figure drawing classes for the rest of my school career. Dang nabbit!

Yeah yeah, I'll get back to drawing more Cans of Beans. Here, take a silly preview image of the next thing I'm drawing.

Dude is always fun to draw.

Cans of Beans Concept Art

2011-12-28T23:31:00.000-08:00

Just some conceptual art for my upcoming comic, Cans of Beans!

Carl and Dude's dorm room. I do hope you can tell which bed belongs to whom.

Dude and Carl expression sheets. Ah, I do love drawing expressions. : D

Animal Drawing Final - AVFM Comic Pages

2011-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

For Animal Drawing, I did two comic pages from my story, A Violet for Master. If I gave any context to this, it would spoil a large part of the story, so I won't. Just know that these two pages aren't quite sequential, and that the horse is freaking out because a certain red-haired handsome creeper is around.

Will upload more later!

The Point of No Return

2011-10-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

Title tribute to The Phantom of the Opera. Happy 25th Anniversary PotO, and thank you for being an amazing source of inspiration for this comic.

Not too happy with the way the background turned out, but what can you do?

At Least I'm Not the Sad Sap I Used to Be

2011-10-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

More school madness!

First up, weekly figure drawings from Figure Drawing for Animators 3-5. Fun model this week, I actually got some good gestures down this time.

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

Here's some stuff relevant to Marshall Vandruff's Animal Drawing/Anatomy class. This particular drawing was just done for practice using Pixel Lovely's Animal Gesture Tool at 60 seconds each.

Mechanical skeleton study assignment. I'm not that happy with it, but whatever.

And finally, stuff I do on my free time! Here's the complete lineart along with a WIP of how the colors look so far. I'm happy with the color scheme, but not so much the actual coloring. Still, I'm happy with the line quality, unlike that horse skeleton above.

A Sketch Dump!

2011-09-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

I actually have more to post here, but I haven't taken pictures/scanned them in. Maybe tomorrow!

Lauren's character, Sickness. Decided to take a stab at drawing him and practice my coloring. Lordy, am I rusty.

Liam and Violet, where Violet probably said something suggestive. Oh you didn't know they're an item? Well now you know.

Obviously, this causes problems.

Figure Drawing for Animators 4, or Digital Figure drawing. A new semester of figure drawing goodness, hooray!

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

Selene Color Exercise

2011-09-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Another limited color palette exercise. This time featuring Selene. Pay no attention to her.

Oh Look, School Time

2011-09-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

School time means less free time to draw stuff I want, but I try anyway.

It's Carl, creepy store clerk extraordinaire! I'm actually doing a 3D sculpture of him (clay-based and Maya-based), so keep your eyes peeled for later developments!

Liam 30-minute speedpaint in a limited color palette. He's just as confused as you are, don't worry.

Ugh, still haven't completed this yet. I swear I won't throw this one aside, arrrgh!

And that's what happened. I might scan in my animal drawing sketches later, but I dunno, I'm not particularly proud of them. And now, to freak out about Portfolio Reviews, awwww yeah!

Birthday Card for my Sister

2011-08-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

A birthday card I made for my sister, with two of her favorite animals and the symbolic zot-zot anteater of UCI. Done with technical pens, watercolors, and sharpie. Happy birthday!

Dude's on the back, of course.

CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMAAAAANCE

2011-08-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

The inks are coming along nicely. I do love inking, I'm just really meticulous about it.

I feel like I'm finally beginning to understand how to draw hands. Woo-hoo!

INSERT TAYLOR SWIFT SONG HERE

2011-08-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

Time to draw sappy romance scenes! I really enjoy drawing couples in general, it really pushes me on everything: structure/anatomy, gesture, emotive feeling, composition, etc. I kind of like this sketch, I might pursue fleshing it out.

Edit: Structure time, baby!

Just Liam and Marcellus, Marcellus looking serious as usual and Liam being unsure as usual. A friend and trusted advisor pointed out that Liam and some of the other characters have more Disney-ish qualities to them. I guess that's where the animation-training is seeping through?

Gearfish posted this awesome link called They Fight Crime! I got the description written on the image, and I just had to draw it. This was also a pretty-fail attempt at trying to draw really cleanly.

The firefighter is straight as spaghetti, I swear. And I'm still working on that line-up! And writing. And a million other things.

Characters of "A Violet for Master" 2

2011-08-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

Sketch complete, time to get inking!
From left to right: Violet, Marcellus, Ya Lian, Liam, Roshan, Elliot, Felix, Selene.

Fixed problems with Felix's rifle. GUN SAFETY YES.

Watercolor Doodles

2011-08-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Just some watercolor headshots. I'm still trying to get back into the groove of it. Ya Lian isn't interested in Marcellus, by the way. Unfortunate positioning is unfortunate.

Characters of "A Violet for Master"

2011-08-16T02:16:00.000-07:00

Some stuff I've been working on! This is the whole major/minor cast of my upcoming comic, A Violet for Master. From left-to-right: Violet, Marcellus, Ya Lian, Liam, Roshan, Elliot, Felix, Selene. Still working on the rest of them, I plan to finish this before school starts. AMBITION!

A thumbnail for a quick vis. development sketch for some of the portions of the comic, which will have a completely different feel. AMBITION AGAIN!

I'm actually not sure why I'm including this, other than to show my thumbnails are frickin' sloppy and I really need to work on draftsmanship.

Alaskan Adventures

2011-08-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Select sketches from my trip to Alaska. Not much to say except that it was really cool, figuratively and literally. I just drew whatever what was on my mind or in front of me. I do enjoy drawing animals now, even if I'm terribad at it.

Anchorage Zoo.

The seal on the bottom was a total drama queen.

Trip to Seward and the Seward Aquarium. The bird was totally posing for me, it was so weird.

Back in Anchorage, where I ate at Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse. It's got wonderful Apple Beer!

I sure do love drawing expressions

2011-08-05T00:14:00.000-07:00

Small sketch dump!

Roshan looking angry on the left, and to the right is Elliot. I may have posted drawings of him in the past, but now he's finally got a purpose and not just a random character design. I still have to get the hang of drawing him though. Elliot Rodgers is a patriot, a family man, and is well liked by the crew. Perhaps a little too well liked by the crew. And Roshan ain't happy with it.

This actually would be a better "anger" expression for Marcellus, but I like him being demented better.

And here is Ya Lian enjoying a sandwich. She doesn't like being judged for her tastes.

By the way guys, I'm going to be on vacation in Alaska, so I'm not going to be able to upload sketches for at least a week. But I will be drawing, and I will be writing. :D

Summer Gesture Drawings

2011-07-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

Drawn from photos off of Pixel Lovely's Gesture Drawing Tool, at 2 minutes each. Trying to get back in the groove of figure drawing again, bluh. I just realized how much I've updated this July, holy crud!

Sketches and Thumbnails

2011-07-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

Sketches of all sorts this time.

I had this idea rattling in my brain for a while, so I did some thumbnails and sketches for it. Why yes Jonathan, you are going to have another freak out!

This is Selene, or at least a Selene concept, and it's a bit premature to talk about her for now since I'm still developing her. I'll just say she's part of A Violet for Master and leave it at that.

Guess who went to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA? Honestly, I drew more from the Art of the Pacific exhibit than the Tim Burton exhibit. It was interesting, but the primal artwork and sculptures is what fascinated me more. The sketches below are based on Tim Burton's stuff and Pacific Art stuff.

And Her Name is Desu

2011-07-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

Felt silly, so I drew the most generic animu character I can draw.
What is this I don't even-

I promise that I'll upload something legit sometime soon.

Roshan Sketches

2011-07-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Character unlocked! This is Roshan Gulabani, First Officer to the HMS DeRosa under Captain Violet. He's the killjoy of the group, which Violet is perfectly fine with. He rarely thinks with his heart and can be very suspicious of others, to the point of self-preservation. Ya Lian doesn't like this guy very much.

Violet Head Studies

2011-07-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

Learning how to draw Violet over again. I hate how inconsistent my headshots are from angle to angle, ugh!

By the way, I posted a journal entry on Comic-Con. Care to read?

Disneyfied Characters

2011-07-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

Felt a little silly today, so I drew my characters in a more Disney-ish style. The more I think about it, the more Liam already shares Disney-ish qualities. Oh well. Stared quite a bit at the Art of Glen Keane for reference, but came up with my own angles, expressions, etc. Diane and Jonathan on the bottom were drawn without looking at anything in particular.

Lovely Ladies

2011-07-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

Some concept sketches for A Violet for Master. There is a fancy reception party for Ya Lian's exhibit, so I figured I better design their costumes.

Ya Lian was a lot of fun to work with. I took some inspiration from old Vietnamese fashion mixed with the Chinese Qipao, mixed in further with cues from the 1930s. Yeah, yeah, I have a total disregard for the time period. Evening dresses from the 1920 were a bit too theatrical for my tastes, and not nearly classy enough. Thinking of giving her creme + pastel yellow colors.

Violet proved to be more difficult, because she is a lot more shapely compared to Ya Lian. I had to give her a dress that complements her full figure while making her look good. I decided to emphasize her upper half more so that her hips wouldn't be as robust. I'm probably going to make her neck-wrap purple and her dress a purplish-black tint.

A younger Violet with long hair wearing a 1930s spring dress. Thinking of a light color, possibly pink.

Much inspiration and reference taken from OMG That Dress! Check it out if you're in need of awesome dress suggestions for character design or otherwise.

Sketches of Liam

2011-07-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

A whole sketch page dedicated to Liam, who I've never really drawn like this. Must be a miracle.

He's the "other" ambassador, who's on a side-hunt on finding out what happened to his once-was-in-power family.

Marcellus - Confused

2011-07-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

This was probably his expression when I changed his cravat to a tie.

#5 for the 25 Expressions Challenge. Next up, Tired!

Marcellus - Angry

2011-07-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Even when he's angry he's gotta have that snarky smile. But there is something stronger than just plain ol' angry down the list, so I'll save him being truly angry for later. :D

#4 of Expressions Meme, Angry. Next up, Confused!

Marcellus - Pleased

2011-07-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Marcellus looks pretty proud of himself. Someone probably died.
#3 of the Expressions Challenge. Will color later.

Marcellus - Happy and Sad

2011-07-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

For the 25 Expressions Challenge.

I think I might color my whole comic like this, I'm getting pretty fast at coloring now.

Carl - Happy and Sad

2011-07-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

Oh Carl, you're too hopeful.

Done for the 25 Expressions Challenge!

Posing for a Photo

2011-07-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

After days of turmoil with this drawing, I'm finally done.

Formally introducing Ya Lian to everyone. :D

Onto the Background

2011-07-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, redoing the colors was the best thing that happened to this drawing.

Redoing the Color Palette

2011-06-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Decided to start the colors over from scratch, and I'm immensely happier with it. I went for a more subdued look, since a friend pointed out that she looks like she's posing for a camera, so why not put a more vintage look on her? Good point!

Working up the courage to say to your own work, "this piece stinks" is an important part of being an artist. But it takes even more gut to act on it. As the old adage goes, you learn more from your mistakes than your triumphs. And in this case, it all starts with a great color palette.

I also took a piece of advice floating around ConceptArt.org. "If you're going to work in color, just work in color. Don't bother with the grayscale underpainting." Decided to take that advice for a spin, and I'm quite happy with the results so far.

Let's keep on working!
Update:

Anatomy Studies and Sketchy Doodles

2011-06-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

These are all sketches done on the last 2 days. Most are anatomy notes from Marshall Vandruff's Anatomy Course with combined doodles. I'll put some extra notes here and there explaining stuff in my sketches.

Done while visiting Dad at Forest Lawn. There was a family next to us with a bunch of kids, so I drew a few of them in that second page. Oh, and obligatory cartoon birds.

Sketches inspired by the John Frame Exhibit at the Huntington Library and Gardens. A very haunting and inspiring collection of works by a very talented man. If you hear word of John Frame in your area, I demand that you check it out.

These are only a select few pages that I felt were interesting enough to share. As this was the last weekend of the anatomy course, we covered neck structure, head structure, and facial features. Wished we could have went over facial expressions in more detail, but it was still a remarkable course that I recommend in every way. If you live in California and want to learn anatomy (or brush up on it), check out Marshall Vandruff's seminars. I also highly recommend his composition course, that seminar is legendary!

Ahaha, oh Violet. You look like Azula and Juri. XP

I'm actually pretty happy with the Marcellus sketch on the left. The right, not so much.

Failed attempt at drawing Katrina's character, Ko. Oh look, Dude and Carl!

Lips!

Note: Any oddly written bones/muscles is completely my fault. I'm pretty awful at figuring out how something is spelled (example: hyoid bone = highway bone. What was I thinking?!). Tune in next time!

Yet even more Ya Lian WIP

2011-06-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Been busy all week, so I couldn't work on coloring as much as I wanted. But here's what I got.
Did a lot of sketching though! I'll upload those tomorrow or so.

Finding the Happy Medium in Coloring

2011-06-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, coloring, my arch-nemesis. Alongside draftsmanship, anatomy, composition, and a million other things. I think I know why coloring (especially finding a coloring method for the comic) is so difficult for me.

Full blown digital paintings take time. I'm somewhat content with the way I digitally paint, but as a result, I lovingly render the whole thing, I'm not afraid to make mistakes because I can just paint over it, and I do it all in one layer, like an oil painting. But this ain't oil painting, this is comics. And...

Mass coloring lowers quality. Back on Spire Isle, I used a plugin called BPelt, which saved my butt on more than one occasion when it comes to deadlines. But, I wasn't aiming for super high quality, I just needed flat colors. Now that I WANT super high quality comic pages, BPelt is actually hindering me. The quick flat colors are nice, but my coloring becomes too reliant on the flats to start. Compare this to digital painting where I block in colors and then mess around from there what works and what doesn't, before fully rendering everything.

So this leaves me with a few options on how to work.

1. Paint digitally like I did before but with lineart, and hope that my coloring process speeds up.

2. Choose colors smartly from the start. This probably would go in line with number one, but if I can choose good colors to start with for the BPelt flat colors, I can combine it with the first.

3. Try to pick up a new coloring style to work from.

Well, drawing is all about making mistakes. And I'll keep making mistakes until I'm happy with my work. So that probably means I'll never be happy with my work until the end of time, but hey, the journey is what makes it fun. c:

More WIP of Ya Lian

2011-06-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

The painterly background fell flat, so I'm back to square one. At least I inked the background this time! NOW let's try something fancy. C:

The Ambassador INKED

2011-06-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

Finished inking her last night. I think I'll try a no-lineart approach for the background and see how I like it. Experimentation, yeeeah!
Edit: Fixed her shoulder.

The Ambassador and her Teapot

2011-06-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

Qin Ya Lian showing off her collection. I plan on finishing this sketch. I just don't have any completed illustrations of her, so I figured I might as well make one now! She's such a doll.

I wanted to emphasize her a bit, so I used some perspective to direct the eye to her (the floor boards, the sliver of a glass case in the foreground), and I also played up the wallscrolls in the background. I tried to make all the elements in each one point to her in some way, designing the Chinese mountains and clouds till I see it fit. Never underestimate the power of backgrounds!

Later same day. Took a screenshot from Manga Studio EX 4. Inking Ya Lian almost complete, I'm not sure if I'll be inking the background as well.

Manga Studio is a pretty great program for inking. I love the pens on it way more than Photoshop's inking capabilities. With that said, Manga Studio has a somewhat clunky interface. A lot of the hotkeys were not intuitive choices (Command + - = Zoom Out, but Zoom In was completely different! Argh!), but thankfully, those can be easily changed. I think for now, I'll just use it primarily as an inking program. C:

More to come!

Focus of the Month: Inking

2011-06-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I've realized I use frightfully thick brush strokes for inking. Even if you hand me a 0.1 Technical Pen, I'll try to get thick bold strokes anyway, even if I have to fake it (by filling it in or otherwise).

Now, there's nothing quite wrong with that, but it's a bit of a problem for someone aiming for a serious graphic novel. I decided to do a test using MangaStudio EX 4, inking a single, simple panel from an old comic page.

The one on top is me free-handing, without really trying or thinking too hard. As I said, EXTREMELY thick strokes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this is probably more appropriate for a more cartoony style. The image below is me methodically thinking it through, choosing a thinner brush and really trying to figure out where it would really get thick and where it wouldn't. It's not perfect, but the results are more worth it.

So here's to practicing my inking so it looks good and is productive! Cheers!

Coloring Process and Cartoon

2011-06-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

I actually had this uploaded on deviantArt for a while, but I decided to show some broad steps on how I did it.

Done on Photoshop.

Transferred to Flash 8.

Transferred back to Photoshop to color.

And here's a quick doodle I did for a friend who's starting a video game blog. Check it out!

Won't Miss a Thing

2011-06-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

A thumbnail-sketch of another character, Diane. I dunno if I'll flesh out this one, but I like the thumbnail for this a LOT. This is just a sketch with a bit of a splash of color. My thumbnails are pretty energetic, I know. XP

Bones and All

2011-05-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

Oh snap, fan art. I'll be editing/updating this as I work on it more.
This is Juri Han from Super Street Fighter IV. I apparently love psychotic women with those kinds of bangs.

Thumbnail stage. I wanted to go with a more swirling, dynamic composition for this. The first one felt more powerful, but I felt it was a bit too much.

I pulled back her pose a bit, decided to go with this one.

More cleaned up defined sketch, working out the anatomy. I'm not too keen on using photographic reference (sorry Lou), but I keep the Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Peck handy at all times to refer to specific muscle and bone structures. Besides, I'm not athletic enough to pose for Juri.

Decided to work with an orange color scheme, changed her facial expression slightly, rendered the face, blocking in everything else. Background can always change later. XP

5/25/11 - More painting. Whoa, .pngs have a weird compression. Anatomy, gotta work on that.

5/26/11 - Getting close to finishing. I'll probably finish it tonight. C:

Finished!

Lux Aeterna

2011-05-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

EDIT: Done!

-------------------------------
Just a WIP from today. Forcing myself to finish this painting. Also, forcing myself to use magenta, which is a color I deeply hate. Highly influenced by the soundtrack of Requiem for a Dream (and a bit of Sherlock Holmes).

Poor, poor Jonathan.

Pencil Brush

2011-05-18T00:10:00.001-07:00

Violet in a not particularly interesting pose. It was more of a test doodle for this custom brush I found on ConceptArt.org. It's about as close as you can get to having a pencil brush on Photoshop. The handling is quite nice too!

Yes. It's digital.

Liam Concepts

2011-05-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here's another character I haven't introduced until now. This is Liam, whose design is still pending despite the fact he's a main character. I went for a cooler color scheme to contrast with Marcellus.

Incomplete Marcellus Sketch

2011-05-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been having some difficulty with this sketch. In addition, it's just not cutting it for me. The lineart started turning out pretty decently, but it's a pain to work with this kind of inking.

I might work on it more, who knows.

Animation 2 - Dialogue and Final

2011-05-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Finally uploaded the other 2/3rds of the projects I did in Animation 2. They're nowhere near as impressive as some of the other Animation 2 students, but I felt a lot of growth in these, both as an animator and as an artist in general.

This is the dialogue test we did for our midterm. The dialogue is from Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series by LittleKuriboh, with the line itself spoken by Bakura. I made up the character here, who I affectionately call Carl.

Animation 2 Final. We had to make a 30 second situation/story and animate it. Carl once again is in it, and if you remember this guy that I posted earlier, he's in it too.

I really want to thank Dave Pruiksma for guiding the class throughout the whole semester. Couldn't have done it without him. C:

Sun King

2011-04-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last figure drawing session until the fall! :( I'm actually pretty happy with this set, so that's always good. Great model, lots of nice angles and dynamic poses.

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

And here's some added silliness. It's a fake movie poster I drew up & colored in ~1 hour during the break(s), featuring a character from every storyboard project from LCAD's Storyboarding Spring 2011 class. From the left, Mr. Marshall is from Animalia (our project!), Destructo-bot 9000/Mr. Robot is from Super-Date!, Lizzy Flutterback is from Fairy Godblunder, and Mr. Wong is from It's Nacho Day. I'm trying to get back into the comic-making mindset, and this is certainly helping. :D

Storytelling: Video Games versus Film/Animation

2011-04-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

This was inspired by a Facebook post by a friend majoring in Game Art, who felt that crafting stories for video games is much more difficult than storytelling for animation or film. I'm here to dispel that.

I will first say I'm not a Game Art student; I'm an animation major with an interest in storyboarding, animating, and graphic novels. I don't have any real desire to create video games, but I deeply admire many of the games out there. I love video games, and if I didn't give my free time to creating comics, I'd spend an eternity just playing games. Chrono Trigger practically shaped my childhood, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has deeply affected how I see the boundaries of storytelling, Portal was absolutely electrifying, Phoenix Wright has made me laugh more than any comedy out there, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 was crafted wonderfully, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent will continue to stay on my desktop as a reminder that I am a wuss.

However, I have and always will be passionate about storytelling, and it's precisely the medium that makes video games seem like the harder platform. Before we can jump to any conclusions, let's define video game storytelling.

Role of Story in Video Games
Story functions for two purposes in video games: to be the glue that keeps it together or to actually serve as an underlying basis for the gameplay to be based around. In a more practical sense, it's whether the gameplay is king or the story is king.

Fighting games, such as Street Fighter or Soul Calibur, tend to triumph gameplay over story. The story is just a device that gives the characters a weak excuse to punch and kill their way around. These characters might have interesting or unique background stories, but at most, the story is secondary to what the game developers want you to focus on: the awesome fighting mechanics, the cool character designs, etc. Games such as Gears of War also are guilty of this; story is an excuse to go blow things up, while in games like Katamary Damacy, it only serves to add to the eccentric atmosphere.

Then again, video games by nature are an escapists' fantasy, which leads to the second function of story in video games, that story works symbiotically with the gameplay. In order to progress in the story, you need to go through the game. You have to complete tasks and objectives in order to "unlock" things, and often times, that would be revealing the next plot point. There is an overarching story, and you are playing/designing in the boundaries of this story. This does not make games the harder storytelling medium, however.

The Nature of Video Game Storytelling
The main difference between video games and other conventional forms of storytelling is that you are the character. It is your executive decision to press the "W" key and move forward, or to select the "Magic" tab and cast Firaga on Cactuars. The gameplay helps enhance this perception, and you automatically feel the need to project your feelings into the character. As a result, games such as Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Half-Life utilize "silent" protagonists to take full advantage of this need.

You're immersing yourself in a dangerous-but-virtual environment, while in films/animation, you're watching the story unfold by itself. You will still project your feelings and thoughts into the characters on the silver screen, but the feeling is more like you're along for the ride rather than making actual choices. This sort of immerse quality is something that only video games can achieve.

But, once again, that's not a reason why video games are a harder medium to work with, at least via storytelling. It's simply a different point of view on creating a story. It's the difference between a novel with a first-person narration and a third-person omniscient novel. In video games, it's not a choice between the two, you are automatically in the first-person storytelling genre (although in-head narration is merely optional). You are the character watching this story unfold before your eyes, and everything you do contributes to it.

Difficulty in Video Game Storytelling
The only valid reason why video games may be considered more difficult to work with among other mediums is the very nature of first-person storytelling. It has to be immersive, and the gameplay must contribute to it, and at the same time, it must be veiled enough so it doesn't feel like you're stuck on a road. At its very core, story is a road, and everyone knows there is a beginning, middle and end, an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. Video games face the unique problem of camouflaging this arc so it still feels like the player is in control of his or her actions, and is merely a victim or victor of what has happened.

Storytelling for video games requires a certain amount of attention to detail as a result to keep the escapist fantasy alive and unseen, but it still is a story in the end: the story cannot make things easy for the protagonist, there must be plants and pay-offs, the pacing must feel right or you risk losing your audience. Ultimately, video games face everything a typical film/animated story faces.

Conclusions
Crafting stories for video games is certainly different compared to other storytelling mediums, but it is only "more difficult" based on your own storytelling abilities. Writing an epic can be just as difficult as writing a short story if you don't understand how to craft a story to begin with. A video game, epic, multiple-perspective-type plot will take longer to weave together, but only because of the nature of those kinds of storytelling platforms. A good storyteller with a firm grasp of the craft will always be able to tackle any medium, video game or otherwise.

Animalia - Horror Storyboard Reel

2011-04-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Final group project for Storyboard 2011 in LCAD, created by Katrina Carras, Klaudia Usnarski, and yours truly. I had a lot of fun working this animatic, and learned a heckuva lot about the storyboarding process. Enjoy!

P.S. I drew the ending, starting from ~8:30 up until the end, including credits. C:

Til the Radio Plays Something Familiar

2011-04-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

Another iffy figure drawing session. I'm not too used to this particular model, he was rather challenging. Well, here's the best ones out of them.

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

20 minutes.

And now some personal doodles. This is my formally introduced drawing of Qin Ya Lian, a character from a comic I'm working on. She's an eccentric feminist, but loving. She also has a thing for really gross food.

And Violet again, with her gun. I just love drawing her.

Added Friends & Amigos :D

2011-04-08T09:45:00.001-07:00

All right, I put a rough list up. I may be forgetting some people, tell me if you'd like to be part of the list. If you want me to change your name to a preferred screenname, remove the link entirely, or change the link to something more professional, let me know. I won't be hurt, I swear. XD

The Spring is Upon Us

2011-04-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

More Fleet Fox-inspired title posts! I know I've been uploading a whole lot of figure drawings lately, I'll try to get some Storyboard related stuff in a few weeks. Busy, busy, busy! And I swear I'll get my animated dialogue sequence cleaned up so I can parade it around.

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

30 minutes.

I'm thinking about putting a link-out category in the side bar as free advertisement for friends, mentors, and anyone I deem awesome. I'll try to get that up by next week.

Run With the Devil

2011-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Session today was kind of blah, but I got some decent stuff out of it. We got to listen to a lot of Fleet Foxes today, which was pretty awesome. C:

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

And a doodle of Violet being snazzy as usual. Her outfit here is a little different from the one I normally draw for the OCT. This time, she is wearing a skirt, which makes her look a bit more professional, I guess. I'll try to start sketching and uploading the rest of the cast for fun.
Edit: Fixed her arms, they were too beefy.

See you next week!

All of My Memories

2011-03-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

I'm back again, with more digital figure drawings! Still trying to shake spring break out of my system. And by spring break, I mean a week where I got to sleep 2-3 more hours than normal.

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

And here's a quick doodle that I'm not sure if I'll complete or not. This is Chel from Road to El Dorado dressed as Chel from Portal. Because I'm a dork and Chel is a really hot character.

How I Wanted You, How I Haunted You

2011-03-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

...all to myself.
I'd like to think I'm clever for referencing almost only song lyrics for many of my blog posts. Aw well.

So, this particular session was a bit unusual because I started only banging out semi-decent stuff toward the end of the class. Before that, my work was pretty awful, and my teacher was giving me the evil eye over it. And then by the time I knew it, he came around to me and made a 180-degree heel-turn and told me I was rocking it out.

Anyway, this is probably the first time I've drawn an Asian male in a figure drawing class. Very exciting!

10 minutes

30 minutes.

30 minutes

30 minutes

Here are some sketches I did with an Ackerman Pump Pen, borrowed from one of my favorite teachers of all time :). It was filled with Walnut Ink when I used it, which results in the wonderful black-brown gradation you can see. It was VERY unpredictable to use, and would splotch out randomly, so I would just have to work with whatever was given and pull/push the ink around. Some of the characters here are ones I haven't published onto the internet yet, and some are fairly recognizable. XP

Cheers! And now, on to Spring Break for me.

Laaaadies

2011-03-03T22:45:00.001-08:00

A decent session this time around! I'm pretty happy with the ones that DID turn out well, I really do think a good model does make all the difference. But, then again, I doubt my own abilities most of the time. Anyway, here are the best from the session.

3 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

And here is something I doodled in class. This is Carl, another character who will be showing up in a 30-second short animation I'm working on. Unfortunately, he will not be in a trout costume, but something much hairier. If I could describe Carl in one word, it would be 'creeper.' In two words, it would be 'socially awkward.' But, he's honest. :3

Another Brick in the Wall

2011-02-25T00:17:00.001-08:00

Another pretty bad session. Better than last week's, I guess. Here are the results.

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

And here's a doodle I was messing with during the breaks. Creepy granny loves you!! :D

Mad World

2011-02-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

Bad session this time around. :( But, I still managed to get a few decent things out. Here they are.

30 minutes.

20 minutes.

5 minutes.

And here's a quick doodle of Violet because I had nothing better to do during break.

Bluh.

Shapes and Angles

2011-02-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

I think I'm going to be uploading the FDoA3 stuff weekly. I wasn't able to post for the last two weeks because we worked with (rather unorthodox) traditional mediums. But, I am proud enough of them to upload them sometime in the future. But for now, enjoy the digital figure drawings!

10 minutes.

20 minutes.

Animation 2 - Timing Exercise

2011-02-02T13:21:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! This is my first project from Animation 2, the X-Sheet/Timing Exercise. In this assignment, we had to animate a character that must enter the scene, turn its head, react, and then leave, in only 48 frames. It's more or less an exercise in budgeting. I'm quite pleased with how this turned out.

Oh, yes, this is Dude, by the way. He will show up in another animation assignment, trust me.

Figure Drawing Session - Digital

2011-01-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today was my first Figure Drawing for Animators 3, which is purely digital! I'm kind of surprised by how fine artsy this class is. I don't really mind, but it's a huge change compared to the extremely analytical and break-down-to-basic-shapes approach of FDoA 1-2.

Animation 1 Final - Doorscene

2010-12-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Final project for Animation 1 class. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, although there are probably a billion things to fix. As stressful as it was, I had fun with it. The project was called the "Door Scene," where you have to animate a character who was told not to open a door, but does it anyway. Once again, I tried to force myself into another visual style.

"So what about the other animation projects?" Ahahahaha, don't ask about them. They're terrible.

Figure Drawing for Animators 2 - Portfolio

2010-12-17T20:02:00.001-08:00

This was my portfolio for Figure Drawing for Animators 2. I'm actually pretty proud of it, minus one or two pieces in here. Looking back at it, I guess I did learn a lot from it! I'm happy to see myself improve. C:

One Shot - Final Sketched Pages

2010-12-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

So, here's my comic project for Marshall Vandruff's Visual Storytelling class (and NaNoMangO 2010...lololol). It's still pretty rough, but I cleaned it up as much as I can to make it readable. A lot of the backgrounds are missing because of time restraints, but I swear I will ink and finalize these pages in a few months.

Took roughly 3-4 months to crank out the story and work around with the thumbnails, and the pages I cranked out in almost 2 weeks with other projects going on. Phew!

I hope you guys enjoy it! I had a lot of fun working with it.

Tell Me Why You Lied to Me

2010-11-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

More Jonathan?! And why are you posting OLD drawings?!
It's mostly to show my thought process. I don't encourage anyone to follow how I draw, because it's not very good and there are a lot of obvious problems with it. Without further adieu, here's "how I draw, the Kupocake edition." All done on Photoshop CS3 with a 4x5 Graphire4 which I hope to replace soon. >_>

I start off with a gesture, which could also be called a really rough sketch. I use a large canvas size, but I work zoomed out at this point. Maybe at 25%. This took me probably less than 3 minutes to do.

New layer on top of the gesture, and I pick it apart and try to solidify the gesture with form. Eventually, I'll turn the gesture layer invisible and work only on this. I probably spend the most time on this one, about 45 minutes to an hour.

The lineart layer, probably 30 minutes of work. Holy cow, the lines around his legs got really thick and it looks really bad now that I look at it. Maybe I'm just a really bad artist when it comes to legs? This IS before my class covered leg anatomy...

The final image. Coloring is kind of its own problem, but a lot of my time is spent trying to figure out which colors look best.

And since you guys have been such good sports, here's my latest work in progress. It's of Dorothy and Toto in the land of Oz, but with an Ancient China-twist.

It's technically "done," but there are some problems that Lou wanted me to go over and fix. So, I'm not going to upload it to my dA gallery until then.

All You Need is Love

2010-11-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

Splash page from a comic I'm working on. Still gotta refine the background and add the shading on the characters, but I just wanted to show what I was up to. C:

I reeeally enjoyed working on this one.

He's a real nowhere man

2010-11-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Hey look, a drawing that isn't Violet or Marcellus. Remember Jonathan? Schizophrenic writer extraordinaire?

This is a test on using pencils for ink. I'm trying to figure out a faster method to inking because it seems to be the bane of my existence. Previously, I've done all my lineart on the computer because it gave the smoothest results, but I'm slow as hell on it.

Typically, on a drawing like this I'd spend about 15-20 minutes on the computer for inks. This took me about 5 minutes. It's not as pretty as my Photoshop lineart, but it looks pretty fine as is! If I drew bigger, it might have looked less choppy. And after the bumping up the contrast a bit, it was Multifill-usable, hooray!

Materials used: Photoshop, mechanical pencil with 2B lead, non-photo blue Col-Erase.

Adventures in Irvine Spectrum 1

2010-10-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

A life drawing session for my Figure Drawing for Animators 2 class. These are actually a few weeks old. We spent around 6 hours doing nothing but drawing (and enjoying some mall-food court food) drawing the various people walking by. Here are just some of the drawings from my sketchbook.

All done with a Tombow brush marker and a technical pen. Each figure probably took no more than 3 minutes each to draw, probably less.

Oh those Greenpeace volunteers.

My friend Cathy saw I was drawing her. Heheheh.

Mmm... luscious fat-bottomed girls.
They're fun to draw, really!

I don't really know how every person approaches life drawing, but I always see it as illustrating a story. There's a huge difference between a woman looking at clothes and cougar-mom lusting over a delicious pair of shoes from behind glass windows. It's more fun to think this way, at least I think so. :3

I liked this page a lot for some reason. Probably because of that sweet couple I saw in the bookstore on the top-left corner.

Will be posting more later. Mwahahha.

One Shot - Leftover Sketches

2010-10-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post this earlier. Here are a bunch of sketches from my in-class comic named One Shot. It's in this format because this went on my presentation boards for Visual Storytelling, along with a bunch of other drawings. One of them is in my deviantArt, several of them are in my blog, but the rest I'm not publishing on the internet for the sheer crapness factor.

Harbor Scene

2010-10-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Shitty practice drawing. Forever practicing because I'm terrible.

I look at environment/visual development artists and go "how the heck did they do that?!" I'm very much fascinated by how visual development artists work, especially in video game concepts. They have such a different mindset compared to animation. I'd like to integrate these types of environments with my comics someday, it seems more do-able.

Capital City Speedpaint

2010-10-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

About 1 hour, Photoshop CS3.
Still trying to get the hang of stuff like this. Urgh.

Jonathan and Diane

2010-09-25T09:13:00.001-07:00

This stuff is class related I swear! For Visual Storytelling, but they are my own characters that I loved and neglected over the past 2 years.

Jonathan Marlon is a depressed writer, stuck in a dead end 9-5 job. His only sources of joy are writing children literature (which he has sadly neglected) and his girlfriend, Diane, who he's very protective of. He's normally a pretty nice guy, but can have angry, cuss-filled fits when he's out of smokes. May or may not have schizophrenia, but he's convinced a shadow is after him. Sometimes awkwardly pretends to be macho to impress Diane. She laughs it off.

Diane Lu is something of a wannabe flapper. She's free-spirited, not wanting to be held down by the regular demands of society (see: unemployed). Sometimes she unconsciously flirts with other guys, to the dismay of Jonathan. Regardless, she's a good girlfriend, and wants nothing more than see Jonathan actually happy for once. Her left eye is not normally swollen like this.

Will talk about it more later. For now, enjoy the sketches.

Chinese Wizard of Oz - Glinda Sketch

2010-09-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

Class assignment, choose a story with interesting characters, an artist's style to emulate, and a theme/different setting from the original story.

I chose Wizard of Oz, Tex Avery, and Ancient China. Here's my Glinda work-in-progress. Gonna go submit this to the teacher, see what he thinks. XP

Oh and.. yeah. I need to update my blog more. Harharhar. @W@

Life Drawing OMG

2010-08-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, I drew some things from life for once. I spent a large portion of my day yesterday at the mall with an art buddy, and we had a little life drawing game. We were at the food court drawing whoever was nearby. xD

I think this is the best page out of the bunch. There were a lot of hyper kids, I wish I could capture their poses better.

Shortly after our food court fiasco, we went over to a frozen yogurt place and decided to draw each other. Here's my attempt to draw my friend. I'm terrible at drawing portraits. ;_;

Well, now I know where I stand. Gotta keep drawing to improve!

Surfer Girl

2010-07-30T01:26:00.000-07:00

As I blow the dust off this blog, here's a quick 2 hour drawing of Violet with a surfboard. Her outfit is based off of my own GaiaOnline avatar. >_>;

Why yes, she is wearing nailpolish!

Violet Epic

2010-07-09T14:58:00.001-07:00

Some fanart of Gearfish's lovely character Violet from her comic Violet Epic.

Violet is a cool name and you know it.

My Heart is My Keep

2010-07-08T23:12:00.000-07:00

Not the greatest doodle I've ever mustered, I know, but this was more or less a test doodle for a coloring test. And I am very pleased with the outcome and how fast this coloring method is. (3 minutes, tops)

Anyway, shameless plug says go listen to Jukebox the Ghost. They're giving away free mp3s of "Empire" from their new album, and it is FANTASTIC. I've listened it at least 7 times over in one day.

Violet is smiling. Wonder what she's thinking about. I also need to stop making her look so Asian, cripes.

Fund. of Animation Final

2010-07-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

Whoa, I realized I didn't upload my fundamentals of Animation final here. So, here it is. The prerequisites were that it had to be a 10-second "restaurant scene" with a character. The character must react to what he/she/it is being served (or lack of) in some way.

180-something frames, and here we are. Sorry if it's a bit hard to see.

The Queen

2010-06-13T13:08:00.001-07:00

Testing the chaos image generator "Alchemy." It's pretty interesting, too bad I'm a terrible speed painter.

Figure Drawing Spring 2010 (And Older Work)

2010-05-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

Serious update time! A majority of this update is from my Figure Drawing for Animators 1 class. Holy crap did I learn a lot in here. Highly recommended, A++. This is a combination of all the stuff I did in class, from 15 second gesture drawings to 20 minute poses to studies on certain parts of the human body.

Also, NSFW warning, if you don't like looking at naked men/women.

15 minutes. Ballpoint pen.

3 minutes each. Ballpoint pen.

1 minute each. (Dying) Copic Marker.

5 minutes each. Charcoal pencil.

30 Seconds each. Sharpie marker.

5 minutes each. Col-Erase Blue Pencil.

5 minutes each. Charcoal pencil.

5 minutes each. Charcoal pencil.

5 minutes each. Col-Erase Red Pencil.

3 minutes each. Charcoal pencil.

5 minutes each. Col-Erase Red Pencil.

15 minutes each. Prismacolor Colored Pencil.

5 minutes each. Charcoal pencil.

5 minutes each. Charcoal Pencil.

5 minutes each. Col-Erase Blue Pencil.

5 minutes. Charcoal Pencil.

5 minutes each. Blue China Marker.

30 seconds. Charcoal pencil.

30 seconds. Charcoal pencil.

3 minutes. Charcoal pencil.

20 minutes. Charcoal pencil.

The following are older projects from last semester that I didn't bother uploading until now.

Final project for Fundamentals of Perspective. I chose 2-Point perspective because I understand it better than any of the other perspective methods.

Final for Fundamentals of Drawing. This is why I'm not a Fine Art major. D:

Happy (Early) Star Wars Day!

2010-04-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Star Wars day is next Tuesday! I drew up a quick sketch to show my appreciation for my favorite sci-fi series of all time. :3

And of course I have to integrate Violet into it. Of course I do.

In my realm of fantasies...

2010-04-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

...won't you dance with me? I got this crazy concept in my head a while ago, I thumbnailed it but never really worked with it until now. So, here it is to life, and some progression stages.

I start off really loose, just as a sketch on Photoshop CS3. I block in colors, and I like starting with the face. It's just a lot more personal that way. XP

After most of the colors are blocked in. I fixed a bit of Violet's body, I felt it was too dynamic. I also changed the position of her arm, to make it a bit more intimate.

Finished version. Something looked wrong with Marcellus's left arm, so I did some skeletal drawings to fix it, and then repositioned his capelet. I still wanted to give that billowing form, so I made his capelet a bit loose.

Are Violet and Marcellus OOC here? Maybe, maybe not.

Marcellus Sketch Dump X3

2010-04-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

This particular sketch dump is all dedicated to Marcellus.

Two reasons.
1. I need more practice for Spire Isle.
2. Spire Isle followers/regulars should know the second reason. ;D

Marcellus drawn on a bunch of Post-It notes with a blue ball-point pen. All of these were drawn in 5 minutes or less.

A sort of reference guide I made for myself of Marcellus. Rarely seen emotion on the bottom right corner alert!

This one is actually kind of old (one month old sketch). Drawn with a black ball point pen, a highlighter, and two Col-Erase pencils.

...I blame Arxce for all these Marcellus-drawings. Now I can't stop drawing him. @w@

I Shot the Sheriff...

2010-04-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

I got bored, so I drew Marcellus and Violet as characters from the Wild West. Violet's design turned out better than I thought it would be. As for Marcellus, eh, I didn't really change much. I should really work on that essay...

Quick Warm-Up Sketch of John

2010-04-15T19:41:00.001-07:00

Not a real update per-se, but here's a quick sketch I did of fellow competitor John in the Spire Isle tournament. I say, he's quite a character. XD

Done in 10-15 minutes on Photoshop.

I might update from my sketchbook tomorrow. Maybe.

Incomplete Sketches

2010-04-06T19:56:00.001-07:00

Whoa whoa whoa, another update?

Here are a bunch of incomplete drawings I never got around to finishing, of varying degrees of quality. Time ranges from an hour to 15 minutes.

Violet, done just earlier. I didn't like how she was turning out, so I stopped. XP

I meant to complete this sketch, but I never got around to. Probably because I didn't like the way her head was turned and I didn't feel like re-drawing it.

Kind of a gag drawing. Started off way sexier. >_>;

Jonathan! You little bugger. He's a very nervous, shy fellow, and also the protagonist of a comic idea (Vault 357).

More Jonathan. With a cigarette this time.

Lavender! I think I made her a bit too chunky here.

Fat Bottomed Girls!

2010-04-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

AWWW WON'T YOU TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT?

This is another assignment from the magical land of Fundamentals of Animation. It is your basic jump scene, but I decided to draw a nice, plump woman. Will revise later.

Spire Isle Audition Entry

2010-03-13T23:18:00.001-08:00

Finally finished all 5 pages. This is my audition entry for Spire Isle OCT. I'm entering Violet and Marcellus, my OCs.

Wish me luck!

Anatomy of Violet's Outfit

2010-03-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

I drew this up instead of working on homework/comics. Hahaha. XP

I wanted an excuse to draw Violet, basically. Sketchy sketchy!

Violet's outfit mostly comprises of an oversized men's uniform, belted together to form a very short-dress. She wears a small corset due to the fact that the modern brassiere hasn't been invented yet (she comes from a 1920s-inspired era). I can't really give a good explanation of what her bottom is, but they are not pants. You could think of it as what some gymnasts use, although she isn't much of a gymnast (but she gives very powerful kicks!).

Oh also, she's OOC up there. She rarely strips like that on her own free will.

More Speedpaints?

2010-03-02T23:30:00.001-08:00

Speedpainting = ultimate stress-reliever, I swear.

10 minute speedpaint of Violet, in a very stylized gesture. God I love drawing her curves.

This is Raze by Arxce, another fellow competitor of the Spire Isle OCT I'm participating in. It started off as a really quick sketch but it grew int something somewhat more complex. 30 minutes~

Speedpaint Dump

2010-02-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not neglecting this blog I swear! Here are a bunch of speedpaints that I've been doing, most I drew just before going to bed. XD

It's... me. Yeah. Self-portrait speedpaint. 2 hours.

A speedpaint of Sam, Gearfish's character from the OCT I'm entering. His hair is so curly. xD 'bout an hour.

I'm not proud of this one at all, but I'm putting it up anyway. It's Lavender. About 10-15 minutes.

Lavender again. I was kind of surprised how fast I did this in (20 minutes). HOORAY FOR IMPROVEMENT.

Speedpaint of Violet and Marcellus. I was really pleased how this one turned out, even if it took 2 hours and 30 minutes. *cries*

Bouncing Ball

2010-02-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

My first real animation project for Fundamentals of Animation!

Random Doodles Time~!

2010-01-31T23:07:00.001-08:00

I'm putting these on two separate entries because the other one is more serious. This one... is pretty much random crap I have in my sketchbooks. Take a look, if you dare.

These were concept stuff for the art trade between Kaytseki and me. This is her lovely character Liliette which I butchered greatly, especially as a Simpsons character and Amuria shiny desu. @w@

I feel I neglected drawing Jonathan for a while, so I decided no harm in doodling him again. He is singing various Oasis songs, all from the "What's the Story Morning Glory?" album. Harharhar.

My sis's OC, which I don't quite remember his name. She called my drawing of him fat. D8

A re-done version of the same character above, with various um... Star Trek doodles. Yeah.

And this is a very random page. I drew her character as a woman, a stick figure, a morbidly obese prostitute, and a handsome Squidward-face. Insulted, she drew Violet and Marcellus as...yeah. IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

Liliette - WIP

2010-01-31T22:42:00.000-08:00

Sketch of Kaytseki's Liliette, part of an art trade. It will be pretty and everything in the end, but yeah. Read the note on the side. D8

Apologies if I butchered your OC, Kay. :<

Character Reference Sheet - Violet & Marcellus (OCT)

2010-01-21T23:41:00.000-08:00

All right, here is the finished version of my character reference sheets for Violet and Marcellus. I am submitting them to a Gaia Online-based OC Tournament, wish me luck!

It's a huge image, sorry. It also took me forever to draw. @_@

EDIT: ARRRRGHH. Stupid Blogspot keeps shrinking down my image for no good reason. I uploaded this on dA specifically to counter this problem: Click here to see a better version.

Violet - Frontal, Profile, Back.

Marcellus - Frontal, Profile, Back. And yes, he is wearing a barrette in his hair.

Character Designs - Violet & Marcellus

2010-01-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

More stuff from me, to show I haven't been totally lazy this whole winter break.

This is Violet. Yeah, I posted a WIP a while ago.

Marcellus. I redid the whole sketch, to be honest.

Apologies for the blatant watermark, but I prefer that these two characters stay within my own use. I don't want to see 'em showing up in RPs or T-Shirts in Brazil or anything.

Comic Pages!

2010-01-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, I seem to have neglected this blog. Anyway, here are two pages I did, one is for a personal webcomic, the other is for an OC Tournament.

Vault 357, page 1. I think I need to fix some things for this webcomic page, such as adding smoke and fixing Lavender's breasts and whatnot.

Spire Isle OCT, I just finished it today, I don't know what to fix honestly. Right now, it looks fine and dandy, but if I come back tomorrow I'm sure I'll find a billion things wrong with it. As usual. DX Naturally, this page is darker and grittier than the Vault 357 comic.

It's Time...to DOODLE.

2009-12-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm on an updating roll! This update is mostly doodles from December. I selected the best non-class related doodles for this update. Once again, my odd animu style.

These are 4 of my male original characters. I actually have 5 male OCs, but I didn't bother drawing Russell because I want to update his design a bit. Drawn on Post-It notes because I'm a cheapass.
Top left = Marcellus
Top right = Jonathan
Bottom left = Elliot
Bottom right = Yang

Marcellus and Violet. I know, Violet's breasts are off, I'm too tired and lazy to fix this sketch.

Practicing couple poses again, with Violet and Marcellus, again. I actually started off wanting this to be a "cute" couple pose, but it turned out sexy. I need to practice more. ._.

Doodles drawn during the Chris Buck (co-director of Disney's Tarzan and Sony Picture's Surf's Up!) lecture. His words are on the bottom right, and they are so important for all commercial artists to understand.

Doodled while watching "The Dark Knight" with the family. You can tell by the little Batman headshot on the top. XD

Paintings Updated!

2009-12-07T22:25:00.001-08:00

Here's both of the paintings, finished. I forgot to edit the first one on Photoshop to make the colors more true to the original, but I think you get the gist of it. I was granted an A- on both paintings, which I completely understand. Both should be refined a tad more. @_@

I have one more painting left to do for this class, which I will work on over the weekend. Empowerment!