MaD T-Shirts (pt 3.5)

This morning I revised my design from last night. I did a more "finished" looking version for my DeviantART account, in which I found old portraits and woodcuts of people and made them into a textured background (do you see the people? Do you see 'em??). Then I added ink splatters, because ink splatters are the lazy man's answer to a static composition (in other words, it makes the picture flow).

Anyway. The paint splatters looked so much better that I added them to the t-shirt design, too. Enjoy!

MaD T-Shirts (pt 3)

I know I promised I would put up some real work yesterday, since Thursday I spammed you with Varric Tethras and nasty old artwork. But I suddenly remembered the chapter and quiz that I forgot to do for my Geology class, so that's what I did last night instead of drawing. :/

Another design! This was a little more impromptu. It's an old photo of mine that I came across today and thought might work well. And I think it did. I don't like it as well as the other design visually, but I feel like this one communicates better.

My first design I had a lot of people saying, "Well, what does it mean?" And it's pretty simple, really. A girl laying, daydreaming or something. This one I chose the picture because of the honesty in the expression. And I tried to draw it very honestly. Being a self portrait, it would have been easy to try and make this flattering. But it's not supposed to be beautiful. It's supposed to be truthful. The thing I love about Meg and Dia's music is the incredible honesty that it shows. They're laying their bleeding hearts on the table, and that's pretty rare in today's music industry. So with this picture I tried to match that honesty visually. I hope that it worked.

Draw Varric Thursday

It's Draw Varric Thursday (or Friday, or Saturday) on the Bioware forums in the Varric Tethras appreciation thread. The forums, and in particular that thread, are home to some very talented artists, and seeing their adorable and hilarious renditions of some characters that we mostly know nothing about from a game that doesn't come out for another month makes me want to do a little doodling.

Soo... here's a little something that's pretty different for me. Out of my element and no reference, and not much time for drawing today. In that context, I think it turned out well. It's also fun to draw jaunts like this once in a while.

I leave you with this quote from Mary Kirby, the writer behind Varric Tethras, which just goes to show how awesome the fans in that thread are:

"... holy crap.

Yes, Varric's voice is provided by Brian Bloom.

How the heck did you work that out? You haven't even heard him yet...

*boggles*"



I'll do some real art tomorrow, I promise.

Old artwork.

I am not naturally talented. Some artists are. Some can inherently look at things and draw what they see... not me. I'm a good artist because I've practiced, like any musician or cook or athlete. I have people tell me all the time, "I wish I could draw like that!" Well, five years ago I thought the same thing. And I've put a lot of hard work into getting where I am now.

I was going through my DeviantART scraps to find some old artwork to emphasize this point. The atrocities I found... I had forgotten they even existed.

2005:



2006:


2007:


Also, I was just really entertained by my stupid younger self. I thought I was so cool. *eye roll*

MaD T-Shirts (pt 2)

More designs for Meg and Dia t-shirts. I added a little bit to the typography one I presented last time, and I finished the one of a girl laying. Really happy with both. What do you think? Would you wear these on t-shirts?

More to come.

EDIT: Changed some things on the laying down picture. Made it stark black and white as opposed to shades of gray, changed placement of "and", and added a black outline to the figure to make it stand out more. (Bottom image is new.)

I was a mermaid in a past life.

That title doesn't even make sense now. It used to, because I had colored my hair in this one, and it was bright red and I looked like Ariel. Not so much anymore.

Anyway, it's me. I did this one intending to try and copycat my friend Ryan, because he has an incredibly beautiful style of linework, but... it failed. And just turned into a really fast sketch. Only about 45 minutes in this one, as opposed to the 3 hours I usually spend on a drawing. Doesn't even look that much like me, but that's my own fault for not investing enough time.

Would have liked to do more drawing today, but most of my free time was eaten up by tedious drawing 1 homework. Seriously. Tedious. I'll have more time to do artistic things tomorrow after my classes are over. Will probably do some MaD related stuff, since I'm having a friend come model some pose ideas for references.

Blargh. Vegetate tiem plz.

MaD T-Shirt Contest (pt. 1?)

So, Meg and Dia is having a t-shirt design contest. Which caused quite a stir among myself and my two friends.

These are a few ideas I brainstormed for it tonight, the ones on the left featuring Chandler from Meg's jewelry business. My favorite Chandler idea is the big one with the red balloon. Alyce brought up the point that she wasn't sure whether the band would want to use Chandler, since it's a separate entity, but he could always be replaced with an equally adorable robot... or semi-human figure. And of course, the idea of floating away on a balloon with your house disappearing came from "Your feet fly off the pavement / your house a tiny spec of dust" in Less of Me. The others aren't so much potential submissions as figuring out what to draw.

Alyce also suggested that I submit a typography design, since MaD have quite a few, very tasteful, retro typography based shirts. Out of the ideas here, the big one in the bottom right is my favorite. It feels like a classic novel (Alice in Wonderland comes to mind for me, and I thought about including an Alice motif, but I had a mental image of a stick figure Carlo walking up and bitch slapping me. "WE'VE DONE ALICE ALREADY, FOO'!").

... Suffice to say, I left it as it is.

The one on the top left is my least favorite. Something about the tilted E made me think of a cheesy sit com... D:

And I like the idea of text going up the side of the shirt, so that's my second favorite typography.

So those are my first two design ideas, in their rough incarnation (or for the typography, maybe final incarnation). For my last idea, I'm thinking of doing a realism sketch of a girl laying, maybe with a book, and the text "the place where I feel most like me / Meg & Dia" or something. That will be trickier, since I'll probably have to rope one of the girls in the dorm into posing for a reference so I don't have to worry about stock credits.

As for the color, I chose blue because I thought it looked good with all of them, but it could really be replaced with anything light.

Dwarf chicks can be hot too.

Did I really just draw this?

... Yeah, I guess I did.

Another video game fan art. This time, for Dragon Age: Origins. The great thing about that RPG is the level of individuality offered to each character. There are six different origins your character can start out from, depending on the race and class that you choose. That aside, whenever I build a character I form a bit of a story and personality for them which may or may not differ from their in game persona (this is especially true of games like Mass Effect, where you can customize the appearance but the voice is always the same and you only have choice of paragon or renegade personality). Building characters in this way you naturally form some attachment to them, and its no wonder you get so many drawings of OCs on the internet.

Anyway, this is my dwarf tank, Skadi Aeducan. Daughter of King Endrin Aeducan, she is a princess, but being a princess in a dwarven society ain't prissy (you can't see it in this picture, but her hair isn't pulled back, it's just boyishly short). Naturally, I had to give her some massive armor and a battle axe as big as she is. I really love the Aeducan origin. First of all, Gorim is awesome solely for the fact that he is voiced by Steve Blum. Known for a plethora of roles including Spike Spiegel, Urdnot Wrex, and Vincent Valentine, this man's voice is a close second in sex appeal to Brandon Keener, voice of Garrus Vakarian. Alos, there's nothing quite as dramatic (in a badass kind of way) as being betrayed and left to die in a game of political intrigue. And then showing up a couple months later. "Oh, hey guys. You thought I was dead? Oh, that's cool. Actually, I'm a big damn hero on the surface now."

Long story short, I've been playing Dragon Age, trolling the DA2 forums, and needed to get this out of my system. Same story as Trip from Enslaved.



Other Grey Wardens: Apollo Cousland, Rhea Amell, and Amanali Mahariel.

Will

This is another friend from high school. When I saw this picture, I just had to draw it. It was so expressive and captured his personality so well. He's a really nice, energetic guy. I was especially interested in including the hands... they look super weird, but they're there.

Maddie

Drawing of my friend from high school, Maddie. When I mentioned the possibility of drawing some of my friends on Facebook, she was really enthusiastic. So enjoy, Maddie. :)

I really love her hair. I haven't drawn really curly hair yet, and it was kind of intimidating, but ended up being really fun.

Meg goes Steampunk

So yesterday I was contacted by Meg Frampton. The awesome Seventeenth Star (Alyce), a mutual friend, had sent my picture to Meg and she loved it, so she contacted me about using it on her blog. However, she felt that it was very feminine and not quite in line with the steampunk style of her jewelry (and I can totally see where she's coming from). She asked me to replace the butterfly with some cogs. Clearly, I went a little further to make the entire image more cohesively steampunk. That said, I think it turned out really well. I'm happy with it, and hope the she is too.

Obviously this is a hybrid of drawing and photomanipulation, since the cogs are all pictures of watch and clock parts that I didn't paint. It was a lot of fun to do. I've always wanted to try a steampunk piece, but never knew quite how to piece things together. Now that I've figured it out a bit, I may do more steampunk in the future.

No Death in Love

And once again, we have me experimenting stylistically- same sketch, too. Why Trip? I dunno. Because I like Trip, and I haven't gotten Enslaved out of my system yet.

I feel this one was immensely more successful than the disaster I churned out this morning. Obviously a rainbow color scheme isn't the brightest idea. I grabbed myself a copy of The New York Times on the way back from Drawing 1 tonight (perspective and shapes in perspective... UGH) and approached it the way I might have back in AP Art. My teacher was really into collage backgrounds, and let's face it, newspaper texture makes just about anything look better. I also implemented a few ideas spawned from the inspiration pictures I posted yesterday- messy paint, hand drawn designs to lead the eye, and overall a rougher, more painted look. I really like it. I'd like to continue in this direction and see where it leads. And as always, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Even if it's just encouragement, I'd like to see if the world agrees with me. (For those of you from AP, maybe a little Paige here?)

Last note- lyrics come from No Death in Love, from the soundtrack of Enslaved. Beautiful song, totally worth a listen if you have the time.

I puked up some color today.

In my desperation to include a little color in my grayscale work, I created this hideous bride-of-Frankenstein.

If I hate it, why put it up? I dunno. Maybe it's a step to something better.



EDIT: LOOK MA, I FIXED IT. 8D

Smoking is bad for you.

Caaaaaaaaaarl. O. Don't teach kiddies bad habits.

Carlo from Meg & Dia.

Sort of ran out of time on this one, so the hair is haphazard and the jacket is just an outline. Nevertheless, turned out well. I rarely draw men, so this is a step in the right direction.

Yes, Carlo, you're badass.

EDIT: Went back and did some revisions. More details in hair, less contrast on cigarette, some minor changes to shading, especially on the little open part of his lips. I thought about attempting the leather jacket, but didn't know how to go about it with cross-hatching. Hint: the top one is the new one.

Sweet Potato

Just a quick sketch today. I admit, I paid too much attention to the shading and not enough to accuracy (don't think too hard about that nose...).

1920's art and photography. How can I express my love? It's so classy. LOVE.

Stock reference from ~Hello-Tuesday.

Maybe a little bit of Winslow Homer in this one?

He greets his stranger meekly a thing that she accepts
She sees him waiting often with chocolate on the steps
He senses she is lonely she's glad they finally met
They take each others hands walk into the sunset
Do you like sweet potato?
-Sweet Potato, Sia

I hope Meg likes butterflies.

'Cause there is now one on her head.

Remember how I said I might mess with this sketch a little more? Well, I did today. I might even do something different with it later. It's a very open-ended piece.

Anyway, hope you like it.

What If

Meg Frampton from Meg & Dia (see also: Dia Frampton/Yellow Butterfly).

I'm really happy with how this turned out. The expression was hard to work out and I'm worried that her features aren't as recognizable as they would have been at a different angle (and therefore I must draw her again, so that people look at it and say "OLOOKMEG"), nevertheless, I really like the composition with her long hair. As you can see, I made a couple colored variations. Not sure which one I like best. Which one do you like?

I may add onto this later, and turn it into a painting/sketch hybrid, or just add more. Like I say, I really like the composition with the hair and feel like it has potential.

Drawing practice: ONWARD!

Seventeenth Star

Starring my awesome friend Alyce. I've been promising to paint her forever, so I guess this is kind of a placeholder until that time rolls around.

And I swear her hair was really like that in the reference picture.

Yellow Butterfly

Dia Frampton from the band Meg & Dia (see also: Meg Frampton/What If).

This was a really hard sketch for me and I think a lot of the reason is because Dia has a weird face. Gorgeous, but not the shapes that I'm used to drawing. I'm really proud of it, though. I put a lot of work into trying to get it to look just like her, and I'm giving myself bonus points for the fact that she's a real woman rather than a video game character (woo!).

So enjoy, and if you have time to spare, go check them out.

Trip

"Are you, um... are you and Trip... y'know..."
"Are me and Trip what?"
"Y'know... are you together?"
"Trip enslaved me. And if I don't do what she says, she causes me a lot of pain. And if I still don't do what she says, she kills me."
"Alright! I've just always fancied my chances with Trip, y'know... but if there's something already there, I'm not the kind of guy to go muscling in-"
"Pigsy. She can hear every word we say."
-Monkey and Pigsy

I finished Enslaved today, and it was a fantastic game. Especially after Pigsy showed up; some of the dialogue got to be really humorous then. I really wish it was longer, though. I would have liked to see more of Trip and Monkey's relationship.

I have to say, Trip is a great character (as I was saying with Monkey). I'm usually very difficult to please with the eye candy female leads in video games; I really don't like sexy babe inserts that are only there to please the male demographic. Trip, however, was sweet and innocent, but also sassy and lovable. As always, the fantastic voice acting made the character.

If I ever considered going lesbian for a video game girl, it would be Trip.

Monkey!

This is Monkey from Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. A few words about this guy: he is arguably the best video game protagonist I have ever seen. Not because he's any more badass than the next guy- more precisely, because he isn't. He's not a player insert, he's a real character. He's adorable in the Tarzan-with-a-Brooklyn-accent sort of way. Andy Sirkus (performing the voice and motion acting) really brings this guy to life.

I've been playing Enslaved the past two days, and I'm on the last couple chapters (the biggest flaw with this game- it's pretty short). It's a major contender for my all time favorite games list. The visuals are incredible, the characters lovable, the story gripping, and the gameplay is an absolute blast. Go read some reviews, you'll find most people agree with me. Then watch the trailer. Then go buy it.

Obnoxious Banner

It turned out obnoxious and I hate it.

I'll replace it soon when I'm feeling motivated.

EDIT: Fix'd.

The New Silicon Valley

Working title- Shep 2.

This was after I had developed Shep a little further. I wanted to do a better job with skin tones, so in this one, I used a skin tone palette from this skin tone tutorial (which is excellent and I recommend to anyone- especially if you're looking to paint a skin color besides pasty white). The background was specifically designed to be reminiscent of a computer chip.

Shep

The painting that spawned the story I've been working on the last two weeks (working title Shep, possible actual title... Syntrofos). It features the main two characters: Sabrina Shepherd, a software designer working on a groundbreaking AI, and Obsidian, a reputable bounty hunter.

Main two influences here were Daft Punk (seen in the helmet, and the general feel... I must have listened to Daft Punk for a week straight) and Mass Effect. Those were also where I got the title. Shep is obviously a nod to Commander Shepard from ME, but also to the lesser known character Shep from the anime movie (Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem) compiled from the music videos of Daft Punk's album Discovery.

Even though the colors here are horrendous (the sallow hues in Shep's skin completely ruined the painting, and I may repaint it someday) it was a great achievement for me personally, because I drew everything from imagination and improvised Obsidian's armor. Not only that, but I'm in love with the story it spawned.




A note on this one: I originally planned to have Obsidian in leather, as a more direct nod to Daft Punk. However, it looked like a sad excuse for a turtleneck, so I added armor instead. Note the uncomfortable resemblance to an Awkward Family Photo.


Fun fact: I was in a floor meeting for my hall in the dorm when I painted the armor. I was shocked at how well it came out because my mind wasn't on what I was doing at all, and I didn't have internet access to look up examples of armor.




Armor Detail:

Garrus Vakarian

Progress from my painting of Garrus Vakarian. It was a relatively short painting, roughly six hours. I would have liked to do more, but I had other stuff to work on for classes.





Detail:

Queen of the Night

I only did every other progress shot for this painting, since I invested a massive amount of time and took a lot of progress shots.









And that was the end, but there was also an alternate version with a head piece.



Details:




And I added a surprise since I had to present it for my 2D Design class.