Page Notes 14
Previous Page Notes
05/12/02
Hey! I made a new Notes page! Wow...

This week, we have a new Title, and a lousy CG. This Title was actually done much more quickly than last time's. And I think it looks better. Thanks to Lord Froggie for the help.
05/12/09
This week, we have a pastel-coloured picture because I wanted to try pastels.

This month will have a few x-mas themed pics. :O
05/12/16
Hmm. I liked this pic when I made it but now...Nope.

Amazing how quickly I can find flaws now. >_<

I don't even like Aldynes' first pic anymore!

I wonder what he's wrapping.
05/12/23
Aldynes looks better in this pic than last time

I suppose I ought to have cleaned up the colouring some; I have a bit of a halo thing going on.

Looking at it closely, I guess Kristin's eyes look really icky. I maybe did too much too quickly.

Next time: New Year's card.

05/12/23
Exhausted, the narrator sleeps after working.

I wanted to use a sepia tone, but didn't know how, so I just made a full-colour version and ran the TIFF through iPhoto, which is how we got this.

I forgot, I have this pic for this week. New Year's Card is really next week. :P

06/01/06
Happy New Year?!

This picture was done using watercolour as opposed to tint! Hence the paper texture. I'm never sure if I want to do that with skin. :\

06/01/13
Friday the 13th. Lucky me.

This week, I didn't have much time to draw, so I decided to go with a very simple picture. I also have Lauren's CD/CC sheet, so I tried doing her usual CD, along with her hat, which I haven't drawn in many many years. I used very solid lines.

Some things I tried new this time:

Some things that didn't work:
06/01/20
This week, a new character...sort of. I last/first drew him almost 10 years ago, but when I pulled out his CD/CD, it was still usable because I'd made it a kind of fancy armour.

His armour isn't so shiny. It's supposed to be well-taken care of, but not super-clean. There are some dents and dings in it.

The picture is presented at 25% its working size. I wasn't sure what I wanted for a BG, but I didn't want yet another 'in the woods' pic, so not so many trees here.

I'm happy that he's not as straight up as most of my other pictures. In the original sketch, he was advancing guardedly, holding his sword out in front of himself but by draft 2, that had been dropped.
06/01/27
Happy birthday to Crys.

This pic took longer than expected! I had a fairly quick sketch because I decided early on that I wanted to do something with perspective, as well as her classic CD. So, that's what I got. I didn't like the white BG I had leftover, so I quickly went over it in green, which looked awful, so I tidied it up a bit.

I'm not sure about her eyes.

One thing I really tried to do was shade to work on roundness and facial textures, but I need to use airbrush for that, I think...

Looking at the fingers, you can tell which one I did first. ^_^;

I notice that by the thumbnails, her angle is very similar to the one I originally intended for Kristin back at x-mas time.
06/02/10
I just spent the longest time trying to figure out why my page was 404ing before realising I hadn't had JAlbum build the page. =_=

Anyway...Last week's CG was done on-time, but I totally forgot about the new Title. So, I threw that together and finished it up a couple days ago, but then realised I might as well roll the updates together. Sigh. Same amount of work, sans one Notes entry and some more archive overhead.

Rhyme hasn't made much of a splash in the gallery, so I put her up. My theme/goal was shading and I used airbrush on her, for an effect that totally didn't work.

Alex's birthday was the other day, so we have a piccy of her again. Airbrush again. It was also a fairly simple pic because I really had a lot to do (and still do!) outside the FDN: CGA.
06/02/17
Ah, yes. Aeyar had a birthday on Wed, so I decided to draw a pic of her. Now that I look at it again, I notice the S&P still isn't that great, and the angles of her arms are also weird. :\

Next time, no birthday-related CG. :P
06/02/24
It's Deistar Forêt. I haven't drawn guys lately, so we have Dawn's father. An elf, yes. (I've been drawing too many, no?) I tried a new angle. Oooh...It didn't work.
06/03/03
Ellen's picture was actually sitting around half-finished from March 25th, last year. Weird...

I don't think I was so happy with it back then, but I went and redrew her, cleaning up the lines, and making her a little older in the process. Not sure how old she ought to be, actually.
06/03/10
I was working on a picture of Dawn and Atéo, but that totally didn't work out. Luckily, I was also working on this slightly better picture of Crys and Jess. So, we have that. I just noticed, however, that Crys' arms don't match very well. >_<
06/03/17
This week, we have last week's pic. Atéo had a birthday just recently, which is why I had him planned out. Dawn came along for the ride. It's presented here at 45% its working size. I suppose his armour is a little too thinly-drawn.

I also see I have Crys and Atéo back-to-back, who are the cool characters with hair hiding one eye. Fear not; neither is missing an eye.

This week's "hundredth point" of an update is because I realised I'd forgotten to make the Spring gallery open in a new window.
06/03/24
And...Amethyst recently had a birthday, too...hence her pic. I wanted to do a more moving pic, so I sketched her mid-jump. I was originally going to draw her older, but the jumpiness is more youthful, no? Just for fun, I drew fingernails, too.

I've also got the new title up. I had a lot of problems making this pic. It just didn't want to work! The shoulders were a real pain, and perhaps her hands don't match. I had to redraw it several times. Not sure if the pockets are supposed to be different or not; all these titles are based on a single piece of official  SNK-Playmore artwork.

Dusk is supposed to look like she's got her sunglasses down at the end of her nose and looking over, but I don't think that effect is really visible. >_< I also used Tinting for the title, instead of pen, like the month.

I also ended up cutting the bottom of the pic off, since her legs really aren't that super-interesting. The good side-effect is that it's made the page shorter, almost like back in the old days. :}

I'm mostly happy with this gallery, lately...
06/03/31
Peering through the gallery, I noticed that I haven't drawn Will recently. I didn't really have much of an idea what to do with just Will, but then decided to have Tiff in the pic, and then thought...what would it be like if he was wearing clothes different from what he normally wears? And why would he be? Ah, because Tiff made him try some.

I don't think he really likes them.

As for myself, I have difficulty with the S&P, like his hands and arms. I'm not sure if he's too buff. Someone remarked he is. He's supposed to be rather slight. Ah.
06/04/07
Today being Jäne's birthday, we have a Jäne CG. I got lazy about colouring and did super-ultra-flat background. I do rather like her hair colouring, though. It's not perfectly done, but has a nice feel to it. Unfortunately, the shading leaves much to be desired.
06/04/14
There were some large issues with S&P this week. Melanie is perhaps too thin or tall or something. The problems were compounded by the fact that Melanie is standing straight while the soldier is slouching from exhaustion.

I also tried to do a trick with her legs and the dress. If you notice, the colouring fades out as her legs go into the dress. The not-so-special effect of glowing around her hands is just a transluscent white layer. I got lazy with colouring overall, as evidenced by the halos around everything.

Hooray for shadows and a different background from green/blue!

This week's tenth is me adding Favicons to pages. (Some.)
06/04/21
Whoops. We have Serena returning for her 2nd picture this week. It's presented here 20% of its working size. Yikes. I'd intended to go for a smoother colouring style, but since it was so enormous, I couldn't manage and went to 3-step colouring.

I also failed to use my CC for her, and coloured until I thought I'd finished. However, I looked at her 1st pic and noticed, gee, her hair is noticeably lighter there. Then, I looked at her character sheet and found yes, it's supposed to be light brown, not dark brown. So, I ended up recolouring her hair. :( Except that I'd given her a bit of a tan, so her hair colour ended up being almost the same as her skin colour!

Also, her hair seems a little shorter than it ought to be.

My current theme is pairs of characters, so why is Serena alone? Well, it's a finished version of a picture sketched on November 9th. So, that's why. I didn't intend for it to be a CG originally, but I rather liked it.
06/04/21
This week...2 pictures. Starting on a scribble, I made Rachel and Skip out of nothing. Beforehand, just agonising that I had no ideas for pictures. Then, poof, sketch, and inks and done! Hours of work went by and I suddenly remembered Thursday was Brittany's birthday, so I whipped up a sketch of her. Now that I think about it, I didn't need to post it, did I? Ah, well. Just to show I'm drawing a bunch of my 'forgotten' characters. I kinda liked Brittany's soft look, but perhaps the S&P needs major work.

I rather like how Skip and Rachel turned out. The great thing is that I have 2 characters interacting, rather than just near each other. This means I had to draw Rachel separately from Skip and composite her on top later.

Problems: Initially, Skip's right hand just absolutely too too small, but I happened to notice and fixed that. Then, I couldn't figure out how to do a gradient to save my life, so I used 2 circles, one slightly blue, played with the opacity, and softened them. Around that, there's translucent black over everything else. Then, the thought bubble was added via ImageWell, although it turned out that the circles were decidedly NOT concentric, so I had to fix them, then adjusted them slightly because they don't appear to centre on the fireball anymore. >_< This then required me to redo the thought bubble. And now I notice some odd stray lines on Skip's neck. And I probably shoulda erased the lines of Skip's cloak that show through Rachel's hair, too. When I originally did it, I thought it looked okay, but now..?

Huh? Where did the dot in "12 km" come from?

Technically, Rachel should have her bag, but, eh...

One trick: The wood grain was added to the signs AFTER I wrote them.

How's Skip's hair? Shaggy enough?

Trivia: I actually spent the time to do Rachel's translucent shoulder things correctly, but you really can't see them in the dark, can you?

Drat, the end of Rachel's sword is at the wrong angle. Is she really that svelte? Wow...
(Actually, it's slightly on purpose.)

Other trivia thing: Skip's sword hilt is wrapped in brown. He's the only character I have with a brown-hilted sword.

I wonder if I ought to have added another shading line for Rachel's right eye socket, as I did for the left. Hmm.

Oh, and ouch! Rachel's forehead line isn't angling back! Crap! ^_^; Don't look. ;)
06/05/05
This week, I almost forgot the new title. O_O So, I drew it today very very quickly. Luckily, I'd almost finalised it in March, so I didn't have much trouble. I rather like her colour scheme. The pose was originally supposed to cover the Korean symbol on May Lee's belt, but uh, it's okay. I love the swoopy scarf AND the red is just fabulous. Logo on top...what colour is the FDN supposed to be? Beats me. Let's use a greeny-bluey.

Yes, the lenses are translucent, which is why the right lens appears green! Should I have done that?

For some reason, I thought I always did the colour bar to denote the season at the bottom of the index. But when looking for last year's summer colour, I totally couldn't find it. Eh??

Thank heavens this website isn't complex in any way or I'd be in deep trouble!

For this week's CG, I'm still on my pairs kick, but I'm running low on real pairs at the moment.

Kind of.

Well, I started off with sisters Jessica and Crys, moved to Dawn and Atéo (Oops, this means I've used Dawn again rather quickly.), took a break, did Tiff & Will, another break, then...hmm. I guess there were an awful lot of breaks anyway. ^_^;

Last week's CGs took about 8 hours altogether, I'd wager. Brittany was about half an hour tops, I'd say. But this week, I spent about 1 hour finalising the lines and colouring the Title and probably somewhere about 2 hours for the CG! Last week was definitely worth its size 1000 x 700, 156kb.

This week, not dynamic. Peaceful. Coloured nicely, although streaky. Nice paper texture, eh?

Perhaps Dawn's waist is a little thin?
06/05/12
Wow, haven't seen Matt around for a while. Terry neither. Looks like they're doing okay. Terry's face may be a bit, uh...big, though. :(

Is it just me, or do their skintones seem to be really different? At times, I think Matt is a smidge pale. Terry is marginally shorter than Matt, but makes up for it with big hair. :P

Please do not ask how they're holding hands because the angles of their arms do not actually work. I know. :( No time!
06/06/02
Interesting month last one was. I had virtually no time, but tried for 3 weeks straight to push this picture through. The first week, I wasn't done. The second week, I finished but it looked like ze crap at the last moment, so I held off for another week. Thanks to Mike Koos for some good advice.

Remarkably, I still have no background, even though I worked on it for so long. It appears here 25% of its working size. I spent most of my time trying to fix Kim's linework.

Kim's shirt is perhaps becoming more torn as time goes by. o_O
06/06/09
The first thing Alex did upon meeting everyone was attack a bunch of people. So...we have a pivotal moment near that very beginning. Presented 25% of its working size. I used a different colouring technique this time, colouring from back to front, except the BG. That was drawn at 50% size and blown up. I coloured grey for floor and ceiling, then dabbed blue to outline the figures in the BG, then added colour and shade. After that, it was imported into the picture, doubled in size, and unfocused several times. To show the BG, I actually magic wanded the foreground colour layer and cut that out of the BG. Unfortunaely, I wasn't very careful with my colouring and so, there's a bit of flash around most edges, especially Crys' right arm. :\

Production notes: Alex's jacket was fully coloured blue before I decided not to use blue. I also shaded (almost) all edges to simulate 3Dness. This is like the first time I've specifically shaded where I hadn't drawn wrinkles, in Alex's jeans and jacket. The first sketch was done 4/18.
06/06/16
This week, I have added 2 extra pictures, and the initial sketch of this wek's CG. Yes, I went back to '96 for a picture idea. New theme...

Anyway, first up, because of the new tablet, I've been playing around to see what I can make. In the gallery, we therefore have the first pic of Anne, who is perhaps tanner than expected.

Dusk looks a bit elongated and perhaps her butt is a bit too big or something. I painted the non-outlined parts on the canvas directly, which perhaps isn't a good idea. And yeah, legs too long, I guess.

Eve is looking a bit eviller than she ought. But she's supposed to look elegant. When did I decide that?!
06/06/19
An extra pic of Melanie for her birthday. Happy birthday, kid.

When she was younger...
06/06/23
Janet without her trademark hat?!

I tried to go for a more top-down camera angle and when 'inking,' the camera skewed a lot. >_< But the bg doesn't fit that angle at all! Argh. And why is it that this pic shows before Melanie's?

You'll notice that I gave Janet a different eye-style. She's always had a different eye style from everyone else, but the old one was a bit weird.

And I see I forgot to finish pic #2 before doing pic #3. D'oh!!
06/06/30
I didn't quite know where I was going with the picture, but I was inspired by real life. :P It's 40% of its working size. Why Rhythm? I haven't drawn her in a long time and it was just her birthday. So, why not?

I like how the sketchy colouring worked!

Her hair is a bit darker in this JPG as opposed to my source because of JPG artefacting bleeding the black into her hair too much.

I should use text bubbles more often. :}

Except...so, at this angle, where are her feet? And how tall would she end up being? =_=
06/07/07
This picture is presented at 25% its working size. I purposely made it larger and larger as I worked on it, so I could get some finer details on Dawn, but then ended up needing to rush the pic anyway. :\ It was originally so simple, with just Atéo and the staff-wielding enemy, but I added more characters.

At least I fixed the order of the images in the gallery.

Not sure exactly why I put a bat in the picture at the last moment. Odd.

Some things had to be changed...I had a more top-down angle on Atéo but had no idea how to handle Taero (she was originally lying with her head closer to Dawn, but that angle was unworkable for me), so I ended up rotating downwards. I'm almost completely unhappy with Ein. I shifted the supporting characters quite a lot as I worked.

The background was slapped on but helps to add some depth to the pic. That and I added the grass details. Looks okay. The enemy's staff is simply cleaned up from the original sketch.
06/07/14
A new Title CG, which isn't so great. Yamazaki just doesn't have a very interesting CD. It's his pose, but I didn't want to do that. :\ Poor Dusk would look so unhappy. Luckily, it won't be up long as Fall gallery starts next month! (In 3 weeks. O_O )

This week's CG has Aeyar out hiking. Originally, her left arm was out farther, but I moved it and recoloured. Ouch. I also dropped in a background and put someone in't, but officially no one.

I've never done white pants like that before, have I? I don't recall. Rolled sleeves? Also a first. Aeyar will be my fashion plate. I like the pink shirt. It's inspired from a picture of a beautiful girl I have, wearing a similar (although more lavendar) shirt.

This pic was drawn really, quite quickly. The background took a little bit of time, though. I finalised the pic, then went back to smooth out the tone around her right arm...and ended up drawing the ruts and the extra-dark trees. I'd wanted to keep everything lighty-pastelly, but that didn't work. How's the reddish-brown bag working out?

Originally, the chain was drawn too largely, but now, it's only marginally too big. And...it's presented here at 50% working size.

Two tenths: Correcting last entry's date and removing some of the "FDN: CGA"s on the index.
06/07/21
A memorial picture for an old friend.

The full picture has Nicole on the left side of the image, with a tear in her eye, but I thought it looked a bit odd, so she has been removed. The last time I had a pair picture downgraded to an individual picture was for Rugan last Fall. Hmm. I think the Spring gallery was much better than this Summer one has turned out so far. The variety was a lot better, for one. I mean my Alex VS and Kim VS pics were right next to each other. I do recall Spring taking way lots more time, though. I am fairly content with last week's CG.

This week, we have Ryan, solo for the first time. Really. Wow. I guess I'd pretty much always drew him with Nick.
06/08/04
Although I had last week's pic done, I failed to upload it. Oops.

I've also finally corrected a typo back in Spring '06 for Ellen. D'oh.

Last week, we had a Michelle pic. Nothing too special there. Just haven't drawn her in a while. She is, however, leaning back.

While preparing Opal's pic, I realised I didn't have to make a new Title this month. I had been hurrying to crank one out, too. I feel so disorganised.

She's drawn with puffier hair than usual, but her butt is a bit too flat. The pic was sketchy on purpose, for effect. You'll also note Opal doesn't have her arm guards on either! Didn't really know what to do with the BG, so I drew a low stone wall. Sounds good to me.

Excuse me, I'm going to go fall down now. Feel really really ill. >_<
06/08/11
Wow, I have Will, Kain, and Tiff in the same picture. They're three very related characters, yet I haven't drawn them together since 98/11/28. I know I just drew will last gallery. Surprisingly, as much as I love drawing Tiff & Kain, this is also their first appearance this gallery.

Posting this, I realise I forgot to make Tiff blush as I'd sketched originally. Oh well.

The pic is tilted for effect. I've decided not to draw whole-body pictures so much, but then we have Tiff, who is. And yeah, the pic uses all 3 of my poses. ._.

So much firefighting was done at the last moment, what with changing Will's head, not actually finalising Tiff's linework before "inking," and reworking Will's hand among others. >_<

At any rate...It's presented here 40% of its working size.
06/08/18
Brittany...this pic was done in about 1 hour, tops. Not too bad, but then, not that super, either. I tried to focus on illustration and having a setting, although the angles are off, completely.

I'm pretty sure that's what a desk looks like. Sorta.
06/08/22
Jäne, for perspective. I also used a different colouring and shading style just for fun. Hmm. Looks wood-cut-y.

The hundredth was to correct a typo on another page...and this page.
06/09/01
Wah! Where did all my time go? I managed (somehow) to get my content ready on time, but then ran out of time on the text bits. (As opposed to Journeys, where I'm waiting on a sunny day to take a pic.)

Just to be different, we have Dusk done in pencil + crayon for the Title this time. I'm not so happy with it, but eh...I sat on it waaaaay too long. :\ Hopefully, the funky colouring will distract viewers slightly.

As for this week's CG, we have...ooh, Serena. She's supposed to be evil-ish and sultry...so, perhaps I actually got something closer to that ideal this time around. (Try #3!) The lightning effect was done with the F-X "Neon Pen." I just connected all her fingers to all the ones on her other hand. I kept making the picture larger and larger, going from sketch to final to colour, then shrank it for the final. Since I used solid lines this week, I figured a solid colouring job ought to go with it. To make the lightning show, I had to dump in a dark background.

Not paying attention, there's a white smudge in the upper right, but I cropped it out. (Why was the pic so wide anyway?)

I spent a lot longer on her right hand than on her left hand. At least I'm fairly happy with her arms and torso. Although I don't like where I attached her head to her neck.

This is probably one of the best pics I've made with my new tablet, anyway.
06/09/08
Not too bad a job on Rugan, I suppose. Apparently, my theme is evil characters. :P Though his face kinda looks odd.

As for the flat black bg + blue lightning? Well, it fit better than flat white, anyway.

Rugan's pants are put on a strange way...he ties them with rope, then folds the top down. Looks bizarre.

In any case, he's supposed to be muscular, and I did a better job of that this time 'round.

Presented here at 20% its working size. Yikes.
06/09/15
I tried to draw Amy getting ready to tackle a sink full of dishes (not going for a gender stereotype, eh). Didn't work.

Tried to draw her playing tennis. That also failes to work.

So, I sketeched this out in 30 min or so. Looks okay...
06/09/22 (28)
So...I didn't get it done on time. Well, I took a bit of extra time and made it look semi-decent. Hooray?

Unlike last time, we have a more accurate height comparison amongst the characters because of the easier camera angle. And in the back, robots. Originally, there were supposed to be workers uh, working on the robots, but that would've made it too busy, so plan aborted!

I also purposely turned down the opacity of my tinting brush to give it a more organic feel. Now, 55% rather than 80%. I should probably have knocked out that upper right corner.

Also notice that Kim has purposely avoided tilting her head back to look up at Kenneth. :}
06/09/29 (10/5)
Working on my backlog...Almost got this week's done. Just need 1.5 hours more or so. I spent 30 min today adding one character, then 30 min on basic colour. So, adding colour details, that's about 30 min, then an hour for bg?

Anyway, Atéo looks ooookay, and Lenny looks a bit odd. This is my first ever picture of him, so...I guess that's my excuse. He has a different eye style. But kind of a vacant stare. :\ I just changed his eyes today because they weren't really good at all before. Now, ack.

I guess it's okay, but this week's is much better. When shall I ever finish it??
06/10/06 (10/11)
Chance and Tiff. This is my first try at putting them together. I'm kinda proud of how it turned out although Chance's arm is bent at a funny angle.

One of the key points of this picture is that you can see Chance's right eye if you look closely. I dunno how closely you have to look, due to gamma differences and things, but you should be able to at least see there's SOMETHING there at first glance. In reality, his eye is not drawn as usual. I merely put in the top line and sketched in the iris. Then I daubed green to colour and put in a grey smear for the pupil. As such, the picture looks pretty freaky without the 'shades' layer.

So, are they shades or a visor? Notes say visor! I drew shades. Not sure.

In order to get the hair over the frame and lenses, I added brown onto another layer and added mode inking lines.

Chance's shirt is not supposed to be a normal turtleneck. The collar is really big.

This is my first (2nd) dedicated picture since 06/04/28. I produced nothing worthwhile this summer! So far, the fall gallery is nicer overall, but Lenny last week is kind of a low point.

The illustration is presented at 40% its working size. For the BG, I threw down blue, then light grey, and dark grey in tinting. After that, I took a dark grey pen and added details. Hooray for dreary post-apocalyptic scenery.

I rather like Tiff's clothes this time around. It's her old school yellow-and-black windbreaker. Rad. We also have my attempt at a headband. Also, silver jewelry!

Overall...Does Tiff look younger? She should...And how about Chance's smile? Hmm! I also had fun with the shadows.

Very ambitious, I think. Did it work?
06/10/13
So, we have another illustration from "Artichoke Hearts," and perhaps the third pic of Zack ever. I  did this picture particularly quickly but decided that last week's was kinda fun because of the BG, so I added in the BG properly this time. Zack is a messy guy, so the room is definitely an important detail.

I'm not entirely sure why I put a Rubik's Cube in there, but there it is.

So...yeah, 2 left arms and both are terrible. Ach...

I sketched out the whole thing in one go, but realised I wouldn't be able to have clean lines for such a complicated pic, so I went with sketchy. After all the lines were redone, I coloured the room and Kim, but didn't quite know what to do with Zack...I gave him black outer clothes and waffled about the long-sleeved shirt for a bit before settling on orange, since it's October.

After that, I added a darker layer to everything other than the foreground and most of Kim...she is dark around the edges. then, I added shading, and dropped all layers before softly defocusing the BG slightly.

The poster is indeed a heavy metal band wearing cowboy duds. I thought it would be different.

I drew Zack a lot younger this time around. I think he looked too old last time.
06/10/20
Perhaps not as good as my last Penelope pic, but a little more ambitious. I was sketching with a small tinting brush and decided I liked it enough to make it the CG. However, I went back and used pen over the tinting, then layer watercolour on top of that. I probably should have used a separate layer, which is why it's so fuzzy. :\

I hurried to get it down and started the next CG as well as the next Title. Since I'm switching galleries in about a month, I should get up a new Title by then!

This week's hundredth is due to slight changes in Page Properties (whee) and fixing the date for the last entry. (I wrote 06/10/06?)
06/10/27
A new Title. Hmm. I didn't notice, but K9999's orange and black colour scheme works well for Fall.

(Problems: Dusk isn't quite as leaning-forward as I'd hoped to draw, and the sizes of her eyes don't match the slight tilt of her head. Blah.)

The leaf turned out nicely...

For this week's CG, I created a new character and CD for her. Abby. Her hairstyle is based off one of the ones in The Sims 2, sans bangs. I forgot to draw them in, and decided that it looked better that way.

I may have put Dawn's blush too high up. :( But when I originally uploaded it, I noticed I'd forgotten to do the blush in the first place!

Don't I have some better tool for blurring foreground objects? This trick didn't work very well.

For the background, I decided not to go with a straight-on angle, but does the angle make sense? To do it, I sketched the wall lines out on one layer, then the table, and used a 3rd to make a final version, then cut out the foreground elements.
06/11/03
For this week's CG, I took an existing character and finally made a CD for him. Peter. I've decided he'll be one of those 'never-opens-his-eyes' characters. although his CD shows him with open eyes. :P

His stats were rolled, and hair and eye colour were picked at random. As both he and Abby last week ended up with white hair, how random is this, again? On the plus side, their eye colours are different. Although now, I'm running around with too many white-haired characters. (7 of 261.) Due to his stats, he's not supposed to be particularly strong or healthy, but should be charismatic.

I'd finalised Mai's CD a while back, and am quite content with it, although her hairstyle lacks definition. She's always been a fire user, so I went and added some detail to Peter, in that now he's a water-user. (This, however, eliminates Mai's magic ability as one of her key defining traits in her series. Oops.)

Astute viewers will note that last week's update never actually happened, other than the CG was uploaded. Whoops. Lazy me.
06/11/10
I've added an extra picture this week. I've been trying to avoid putting the same character up twice (or more) in a single gallery, but...

Wednesday was Dawn and Dusk's birthday, so I sketched out a little picture of them. Initially, I had Dusk leaning forward, but that didn't work. This pic only took about maybe half an hour.

For this week's CG, I took an existing character and finally made a CD for him. Inisth Selib. Selib was conceived one way, but then I rolled his stats and he turned out to be rather different. Since I hadn't really worked on him too much, it was okay. He was initially supposed to be fairly ugly, but his Charisma was rolled as a 16!

The first few iterations of this picture, Selib was gesturing with his left hand but I couldn't get it to NOT look like he was touching Tiff's head, so I had to switch arms. I think it looks better this way.
06/11/17
I dug up Autumn's CD and gave it a whirl...I think her hair is a bit too boxy, though poofy enough. The colouring was done via watercolour but I used a weird one and ended up colouring sideways...so...it looks markery/blocky. D'oh. Well...it was a first try in a looooong while.
06/11/24
I was never actually sure about their relative heights, but I made Ywain quite a bit taller than Karen. It makes sense, since she's a bit younger than him, as well. Since the leaf and Ywain's right hand are on a completely different plane, I softened them. Ah...I almost made it through the whole gallery on my previous theme. Pooh. (Not that last week's fit, either.)

Originally, they were supposed to be in the castle courtyard, but there are no trees there, are there?

As a side side note, I really don't think I have any pics of them together, on paper or digitally.
06/12/01
Welcome to December...Cold today! Cripes.

I'm pretty happy about this new Title image. I wasn't so sure about how Mature's vest (?) buttoned up but I think I got it right. (I looked at Vice's pic, same as for the ribbon around the neck.) Drawing hose is hard. o_O Well, colouring it.

Dusk is perhaps not as busty as usual.

As usual, the bottom bar is ice blue again. Also, I forgot to update the HTMLs last week, so I've incremented the counters appropriately.)

Only at the last step did I realise Dusk's right arm was too long, so I edited it quickly. I'd also forgotten to put the title on the title. =_= I'd written the time earlier...cool, isn't it?

Picture notes:

It was pretty tricky to get the BG done on-time...I had to finish up the title too, so that meant I had very little time to work on things. As a result, I laid it down in layers, doing grass, then trunks. Sky, then leaves, and finally pines. I then selected the white part of my normal color layer, inverted the selection, and deleted. And of course, there was some touch-up to do due to the white parts of Aeyar's clothes.

I corrected Jei's coat, which also had the effect of hiding his bum. I didn't do so well on that. He also looks a bit small, or perhaps Aeyar is too robust?

This is also the first picture I've drawn of Jei and Aeyar together in the last 6 years. There's an excellent reason why I haven't, but only a moderately good one why I chose to draw this one today.

I fretted about how wide Aeyar's legs were, but ended up making them a bit wider. Additionally, her coat was going to be white, but I heard you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day (??), so I gave her a blue one. (But white jeans??) Overall, she looks a bit too thick. I'll blame the coat! Meanwhile, Jason still looks a bit scrawny.

And yes, fall colours really aren't that bright. :\
06/12/08
This week's picture was originally sketched and coloured May 23, 2005, for use on FDN: CGA, but at the time, I was unable to clean it up for proper posting. April 5, 2006, I pulled it up and redrew it, but left the colouring as it was. It was still unfinished, but better. When June rolled around, I wanted to work on perspectives, and also wanted to draw Janet, so I put this pic on the back burner (still numbered 2) and did pic 3. Finally, I got around to working on it again this month and further refined lines, most noticably in the shoes and her left hand. I also touched-up the colouring.

The picture is presented at 25% its working size. I had merely started sketching and it got out of hand. Notice her eyes are a different style. They always are, for her.

I realise her thighs are a bit too short. :\ Also, her right leg is not angled properly to have her shoe at that angle, but I don't have time to redraw. :( That's what happens when I draw so largely; I lose sight of the overall pic. Her left foot is not quite on the ground, either. Ah...

This week's hundredth is a correction to a typo in the gallery.
06/12/08
Ah...I forgot to write notes for 2 weeks. [Note from Dec29]

Anyway, this pic was originally supposed to take place outdoors but due to time constraints, was placed inside an inn. Pretty barren one at that.

It took a long time to get Taero's arms into something resembling the right angle. Dawn also is slightly on the wrong plane. I wasn't sure how upset to make Taero look. At first, she was quite annoyed at the two of them, but gradually, I toned it down so that she looks more worried. I don't think she's the kind of girl to get as into the fight as those two could.
06/12/15
This year, Tiff isn't Santa, but Kain is. How nice. Her hat is a bit off...it's more like just sitting on top of her head. :( You'll note, though, that she has a red ribbon, which is very unusual. I also had no Santa suit reference, but was pleased to note that some people do have suits with the fur down the front like that.

I tried to make the table somewhat cluttered...to a slight degree of success. Tiff's face shape is a bit off, but it was hard to get her head on her arms. I think it may be floating a bit too high, still, though. Or her arm is too long. Or something.
06/12/29
Aldynes always appears in the gallery around this time of year, eh? This pic was originally sketched in July, but I was unable to make it look reasonable until I tried again in Dec. It could stand to be cleaned up a bit more. As usual, the angle caused a lot of headaches.
07/01/05
Happy New Year! Let's make this a great year, okay?! I was a little nervous about having Dusk intending to eat the animal of the year, but uh, I guess it's okay, right? This picture was run through OS X's Sepia filter.

The Japanese characters on the side read, "4-wheel drive." I don't know why. Don't ask me. It was supposed to be formatted to fit a piece of photo paper, but it's slightly too tall.
07/01/12
This picture was started in Dec, but then almost entirely done in Jan. At various times, I think Melanie's head is too tall and the narrator's too wide, but I don't know. I purposely shifted the narrator's reflection so that you could see part of his eye. Originally, you could see much better that he was looking at Melanie. However, perhaps Melanie's reflection is also a little off. :(

Anyway, Melanie's wearing green because I thought it was a nice, soft colour and didn't want to use a pink or purple. The narrator's wearing white as a symbol of a new beginning. Ooh. Originally, I'd thought of red but that's x-mas, anger, and stop, none of which I wanted in this pic. White will be pure, clean, and in Japan, death. Oops!

How I did the window:

Dump "black" over the whole layer, then rectangle select + delete away the bits I didn't want. Put in the snow, soften the focus around them, then select the bottom part of the window and dump a gradient to show the ground, lightly snowed-on, fading off into the dark. Then soften everything twice more. The reflections are 2 separate layers, inks and colours.
07/01/19
Ein's pic ended up quite a bit differently from originally envisioned. And I notice that I've now repeated a character. Crud.

The original idea had Ein jumping forward, but that didn't work out.
07/01/26
This picture is presented at 50% working size and was done entirely with a size 86.9 dry ink brush. Everything was painted onto one layer. 3 photos were used as references.
07/02/02
A quick sketch of Crys. I suppose the style is more appropriate for the WWWH, eh? I've sometimes seen people, esp girls, with their hands not totally out of their sleeves, but I never really tried to draw that before. I think it turned out okay.

I spent a long time trying to get the gallery back into shape because JAlbum 7.0 deprecated the theme I was using. I had to track it down and install it. GAH.
07/02/09
This week's CG was a little trickier than most of the last ones I've done. I tried a much more ambitious angle than usual, and didn't turn the picture too much. Also, foreshortening. Whew. Tricky for me. Also, I didn't really know how to do hair thrown back like that. >_<

Purple shoes?

Also, perhaps I shoulda made the shadows more drastic.

And now, I notice I've uh, forgotten to draw her eyebrows. Perhaps her fists are a little blocky, too.

It's quite obvious that I drew the BG around her, isn't it? I hate overlapping very much. ^_^;
07/02/16
Aldynes was in the gallery earlier, but I went with this cleaned-up older pic anyway. Perhaps his head isn't attached to his neck well.
07/02/23
Black.
Hollow eyes.
A lot of red.
07/03/02
Unfinished.
Fen is way OOP.

The title is black. The gallery is black.
07/03/09
Crys. Pen.
07/03/16
Dawn. Pen.
07/03/23
Kim. Pen.
07/04/13
Melanie. Pencil.
Cherry blossoms fall gently around.
A wish ascends.
Will anyone listen?

The gallery is white.
07/04/20
Sketched in pen, then tinted. As usual.

The index is white.
07/04/27
Sketched in pen, then tinted. As usual.
07/05/04
This page has a very complicated layout and so, took forever to do. Melanie of often off-spec. :\
07/05/12
Layout is simpler, but the lower left panel had a different camera angle. I think I wasted too much space. And once again, we have a funny-looking Melanie pic. :\
07/05/18
I like the action and pacing and people seem to be drawn pretty accurately today. A fairly clean layout! I'm happy with that. Did you know? I approach each week, not knowing what I'm doing.

07/05/25
A lot of motion went on, so I had to do 4 small panels. It's tough for me to draw the small ones because either I use a finer point and make it look oddly detailed or I try to subtract details appropriately and that can look a bit funny. Terry, for example, is not very consistent in height.

I do like what I came up with (on the fly) for her outfit. And since Melanie's in white, she gets a lavender.

I wasn't sure about the tray, but decided to make it totally clear.

Melanie's expression in the last panel was surprisingly hard to draw.
07/06/01
Ultra-simple, but so out of proportion.

I'm a little worried that the sepia will obscure the fact that it's the same 3 in both frames (plus a catcher). Also, since they're at different periods in time, Melanie's hair is different lengths. I like the bottom right panel best. :}

The left panel needs more work. :\ Way more.

I also spent a ridiculous amount of time setting up a new account because FDN:CGA has been over 25MB for a couple weeks now. Not that anyone told me... >_<
07/06/08
Melanie is supposed to be pretty. Jeez. Can't I draw a pretty picture of her? You'll notice that there are few pics of her this week. In the lower right panel, I had a lotta trouble making her look good, so I redrew her several times. This last iteration is not too bad.

My layout this week has far too much open space...

The lower left panel is my favourite. :} Tilted for no particular reason! Well, okay, variety.
07/06/15
Not much time, as I'm entertaining this week. I did, however find time to make something. Whee! I did this in about 3 hours, which is half to a third the time of some of the other pages.

Melanie's changed clothes because well, it's summer now...a sweater is too hot, eh?

And she has an intentionally small purse.
07/06/19
This was actually supposed to be a bonus picture, but I didn't have as much time as expected, so it became The picture. It's quieter than the usual storyline. However, her purse is much too big. I also experimented with the colouring, by softening it.

Too tired to colour bed properly.
07/06/27
I included a small bonus pic because I was sketching a bunch of characters and noticed it was Rhythm's birthday, again. So, here is a piccy. Very artboard like.
07/06/29
I realise I should have coloured the sky in panel 3.

That's a Ford Taurus in the last panel just because I needed some kind of car. Boy the angles in the last 2 panels were hard.
07/07/13
This picture sat around nearly finished until I finally got the colouring done on Tuesday. I softened the colours for no good reason. Melanie in panel 3 looks off.

And I don't know when I'll draw again.

The next two pages were sketched, but that's all. I usually drew one page at a time, but my  first attempt at page 13 looked a bit jarring after this, so I designed a new page 13.
 
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