This week's CG is of Rachel. I only CGed the part of the picture that I like. :} It was quite a tough picture to work with because the original was partially inked. That made the lines different widths and so, harder for me to go over on the computer. I simply used a 2B pencil and went with my best guess. The colouring is typical watercolour, semi-careful.

I updated Rachel's character design a bit before drawing her. That's why she has so many belts on. Of course, it helped that I actually looked at her old CD before drawing this time, so she's got those ties around her elbows. I couldn't flat-fill her shoulder plates on this picture, so I tried faking it with a light grey.  (Tough to do because I couldn't bleed over the colours very much or else it'd get muddy!) I think it's okay.

This week, we have a real, live background. Yay! I actually wanted to put a shelf in over the desk but it would have taken another 20 minutes or so, so I thought I'd better work on the WWWH pages, instead.

This CG was special in that the sketch was actually inked before I CGed it. I normally leave them in pencil. Now that I think about it, I probably should have used a pen to CG it, too. :) I also used an actual human being as a reference when trying to figure out the angles for his arms. As such, they are somewhat realistic. As for line placement, well, we know I can't be expected to get everything right. Pencilling was nothing unusual. Colouring was kind of interesting. In order to not end up with a completely grey picture (he lives on a spaceship), I added pockets of colour to the picture, like his socks and the poster. In fact, his chair was originally going to be all grey but I made it yellow/red instead. :) I also did very basic shadows. Though, now I remember I forgot to shade his skin. I don't know how to shade skin very well. :(

This week's CG was very unusual in how it came about. I had planned the basic idea out (as I have for the next few weeks) and when I pencilled it, I drew Jäne on a separate piece of paper from Janet. Then, I cut Jäne out and taped her onto Janet's sheet. Very unusual. Next week's will be drawn on a single piece of paper.

I experimented with a new way to draw baseball caps, so it may look odd. (I think so.) Also new, the picture is 33% of its working size. When I scanned it, I zoomed in 300%, VS my usual 200%. However, since the Macs I use only have 32MB of RAM, it was slow going once I began to colour, so I have to stick with 200%. It's a pity because the brushes seem to work better at larger sizes. I think an ideal size would be 400%...But my file is too large as it is. I'm nearing Photoshop-level sizes. :\

The picture was also traced in fine felt tip pen, rather than a smaller drawing utensil because of the line width. I think it worked pretty well. Colouring was half rushed, so it looks kind of odd at places. I particularly like Janet's shorts. :)

My pencilling was particularly difficult this week. I suppose it's because I tried too many things. First off, I tried to imagine what Kim's hair would look like completely wet. Something like that, I guess. I also chose to struggle with the 3 o' clock view of Kim's face. I haven't got that down very well, as you may notice. I tried to fix size and proportion problems by adjusting head to torso proportions but I still can't get that right. As for the narrator, I tried to do perspective on his arms, which didn't work. Besides that, I tried to simulate depth without any cues. The narrator is supposed to be walking down the sidewalk towards Kim but since I foolishly thought I could add the BG in later. As a result, we get this squiggly grey one. Argh. I couldn't point the eyes properly when I CGed it. I think my linework on paper is much better than what I did on the computer. The mouths are a bit off, as well. Kim is supposed to be pleasantly surprised and the narrator's supposed to have a bemused smirk. So much for that. For rain effects, all I did  was darken the top part of Kim's jacket. Ho-hum.

Why rain? Well, it's been raining here the last two days...blah.

Well, I did 9 good pictures in a row. That's my longest chain. Let's see how long my next one will be. Sadly, I forgot to make bios. Next week, next week...

Sigh. The last few pictures haven't been very good at all.

This week's CG is Dawn. I never noticed that this is only her second solo picture in the gallery. I draw her so often on paper that it never crossed my mind that I haven't given her many pictures by herself. This picture was another experiment, albeit a rather safe one. I, poor artist that I am, have difficulty doing simple things like differentiating the back of the shoulders from the front of the shoulders. Here, I tried to show her back and I think it worked out okay. I also tried to do a slightly more detailed drawing than normal, hence the excessive eye-details. Her hair is also somewhat more complex. Colouring was watercolour as usual but this time, I used the 'broad chisel tip' brush and I tried to shade more, even shading her skin and eyes as much as I could. On paper, her picture's nearly the full 8.5" x 11" sheet and since I was working double size from what's up in the gallery, that was a lot of brush-strokes! Another pain-in-the-neck (literally!) was that I drew her neck too long. It's been digitally shortened a bit here but I still feel it's not right. Also, her torso seems to be too small and her skin is a bit lighter than it's supposed to be. :\ Consistency...what's that?

In other news, I listed myself in the Online Comic Artist Directory at http://artist.anime.net/ two days ago. There, you can find lots and lots of people who, unlike me, actually know how to draw.  Hooray! One person found me in there and randomly visited here already! Thanks! (...I've probably already frightened my visitor away...I must draw better!)

Now, to make a banner and thumbnail. (Can I really design anything that small?)

Well, today's Jason's birthday, so I decided to do a CG for him, kinda-sorta. He's not really the focus of the picture, as you can see. I actually intended to shade the picture but after working on it for so long, I decided I really didn't like it enough to invest more time in it. (And here I am, complaining about lack of visitors...) I tried to draw them younger than I typically draw characters nowadays, since it happened in the past. I think that actually worked to a certain degree. But I  should have designed Jason's picture better.

Unfortunately, this week, I've been very pressed for time. Especially right now, as I'm trying to figure out what pictures to replace for the CFHP...

Ah, yes. About the title I put up last week: The picture being worked on in the screenshot is actually THAT picture. Before I coloured it with marker, that's what the creases for her left jacket elbow looked like. The window behind the main window is easier to make out. It's her right arm.

But I always mess up her pockets. They're not too bad...I've always liked the colours of her clothes. The sombre blue, white, and black are contrasted by the red. This picture was done in pencil and then air-brushed.

Tæro was drawn in 2B pencil and coloured with simple crayons. I used simple crayons because waxy crayons tended to cover up my lines. I realize I ought not have outlined her glow like that but it's not supposed to be very complex. I rather like how I did her hair. That's a first because I've been unhappy with how I've drawn her hair ever since I first drew her many years ago. I see I'd better learn how to draw hands and her sleeves aren't wrinkled properly. I think the blue and white looks nice, though.

And I wonder why I keep drawing brick walls. They're dull to look at and repetitive to draw...(As if the rest of the picture isn't?)

When drawing the window, wherever glass blocks the view, I softened whatever was behind it by a radius of 1. So, in the one overlapping part, it's double softened. You can hardly tell, can you? And I don't think that window can actually close. The lower pane is too small. :}

Watercolour and pencil. I tried to work on flat shading and it nearly looks right except the shading of his hair looks way off. I think his shirt colour is really neat. :)

Hmm. I still haven't updated any webpage other than this one. What do I do all day?? Lazy me.

Anyway, this week's Mark because his birthday was on the 10th. The picture was drawn with the single pixel pen tool and I went over each line twice, so that it's more like a double-pixel line. Then, I coloured it with coloured pencils. Because his picture is so monochromatic, anything coloured really stands out. Originally, his pants were white and I shaded the entire background black. But when I remembered his pants were black in the last picture, I coloured his pants and cut the background out on the bottom half. I felt I had to heave the top half in to balance out the white of his shirt and very, very light grey of his utility box. What do you think?

However, at the same time, I was working on a few other pictures, so I didn't really have much time to concentrate on this one. :( After sketching it the first time, I re-drew it somewhat cleaner, trying to improve the first's faults. However, since I was short of time (as usual, big surprise...), parts of this new version didn't turn out quite as well as hoped. So, when doing this CG, I scanned both sketches in and cut-and-pasted them together into one usable composite, selecting what I thought was the best version of each panel element. This introduced some slight size-and-proportion problems but nothing quite as major as what I normally have...

After that, it was sharp pencils and watercolour. Nothing too unusual.

My initial idea was for Nicole to also comment about how small the cake was and for her to point out the date. However, as I mulled over that idea, I noticed how that made Nicole look very mean and inconsiderate. So, instead, she stands around being embarrassed. I liked her expression in the last panel. On the original pencil sketch, the look is very soft and concerned. Sharp pencil and mice don't help that mood!

In the first panel, Nicole looks slightly too young. I wanted her to look cute and unsuspecting. But on the other hand, Ryan looks completely out of proportion and awkwardly posed, to boot. Sigh. I tried to differentiate their hair colours but Ryan's hair is only slightly darker. Likewise, Ryan's skin is somewhat grey.

Misc notes:
Ryan's watch seems too small in panel 3 and then is accidentally left out of panel 4. Doh.
It's very lucky that Ryan's left handed. Panel 3 flows so much nicer because of it. :)
I have no idea when this is supposed to be taking place in their lives. It's merely meant as a timely CG joke.

Let's see. I have next week's all done already but...it's so miserably horrible and awful that I'm going to redo it!

If I understand correctly, this was scanned at 200% and has now been scaled to 50%. So theoretically, this is the actual physical size. (In so much as anything on a computer screen ever is.) The one place I really feel is lacking is Karen's hands, since I didn't actually draw them in. :} Other than that, the fact that the background is a slightly modified version of the original background means that they're not sitting properly on the wall. And speaking of the wall, there really ought to be those um, blocky things on top, right? I don't know what I was thinking when I originally made the wall. (Those darn stones again! ;) )

As usual, this picture is a 2B pencilled, water-coloured affair. Certain size and proportion problems that existed in the original rendering have been fixed. Henry's still not quite right but on the whole, much better.

I'm very happy with this picture, so far. And tomorrow...new gallery?!!?!?! I'd change the layout of the actual gallery but I told myself I wouldn't.