Art Usagi

Hey Any and All

2008-08-26T20:26:00.004-04:00

I am moving to my official website, artusagi.com, where I will continue the posting of various art things (which I have been remiss in doing lately, apologies) and where I will have some other cool stuff. It is still under construction, but serviceable, so bear with me.

The Raven - shadows and highlights

2008-08-13T19:43:00.003-04:00

The girl has yellow highlights and blue shadows, the raven has blue shadows and green highlights. The green is more like iridescence. Colored inks, like before.

Raven Painting - Filling in skin tone

2008-08-05T08:54:00.003-04:00

Adding color with inks. The skin is always the hardest, because you notice immediately if it isn't smooth. Also, the color is hard to get when you're mixing your own colors. But anyway, it's a good start!

Sketch and Skirt

2008-07-28T08:09:00.002-04:00

I did this sketch while I was making the NBTSC T-Shirt logo. I'm currently in the process of inking it. I apologize for the crappy picture, I had to use my camera because my scanner hates me.
Blue hipster skirt done! Hoozah! Picture taken in my messy messy apt.

Wrap Skirt Progress and More Paintings

2008-07-24T09:25:00.002-04:00

The sides all sewn together, and hooray, it fits!
Now cutting out the interfacing for the lining of the waistband.

Also: Two more paintings in the sketch phase. I've touched up the sketches and sealed in the graphite with gesso entirely on the top one, and about halfway on the second one.

Wrap Skirt Coming Along

2008-07-23T08:48:00.002-04:00

Making darts for the new wrap skirt. First I pin, then I handstitch (baste) it in place.

Without the pins in the way, it's easy to sew the dart.

Then I take out the basting and it's done.

Now the ties... pinning them here.

And here I'm sewing along the edge... I wont show turning it right-side out because it's really an annoying job. Let's just say that's done too. (>_>)

Pickles and Painting

2008-07-14T10:34:00.004-04:00

A batch of pickled jalapeños.

A sketched out painting! It's two canvases side by side, and both were severely smudged. The one on the right I painted gesso over the smudges and lightly over the lines. I started doing that to the one on the left as well.

Yes. Today was a varied day.

Blue Hipster and Purple Wrap

2008-07-12T20:18:00.003-04:00

Basting the waist band down. I'm going to have to hand stitch the band in place because attempts with the sewing machine proved to be disastrous.

Laying out all the shapes needed for another wrap skirt. Added an extra 2 inches to the back piece and 1 inch to both front flaps. (as well as added inches to the lining/waistband pieces)

Blue Hipster Skirt

2008-07-09T20:38:00.002-04:00

Took the zipper out before cutting the waist off.

Cut the waist off.

Sewed the zipper opening closed temporarily so that it doesn't slip around while I'm working with it.

I lifted the top of the ribbon trim so that I can tuck the waistband hem under it then sew it back on.

The hem was tucked under the ribbon and I pinned it down. Next step will be to sew it down. Then I'll re-attach the zipper and I should be done!

The Purple Skirt is Done!

2008-07-06T10:44:00.006-04:00

I did a slip stitch on the hem...

...and attached a snap button.

It is now done! It fits me perfectly. I don't think I have a better fitted skirt than this one. It falls nicely and I can wear it over pants no problem - it doesn't ride up the sides or get stuck to the fabric of the pants. Now that this one is done, my mom requested one in the same style for herself! So I'll be working on that and...

This skirt that I got at a thrift shop for 3 bucks.

It has a high waist, and I'm going to turn it into a hipster skirt. (one that sits on the hips instead of choking the waist). Here is the plan. I'll take off the zipper and set it aside for later. Then I'll cut off the first decorative ribbon trim that is serving as a waistband, to about 2cm above the second ribbon. I'll lift the ribbon and turn the fabric under, then sew the ribbon back on, making a new waistband. The second ribbon trim happens to be at the perfect level, so it should fit well by the time I'm done. That's what I'm hoping anyway. (>_>);

Purple Skirt Nearing Completion

2008-07-03T11:22:00.004-04:00

The interfacing, now sewn together, tacked onto the skirt.

The interfacing sewn on and turned to the inside, after much ripping of stitches, clipping of excess fabric, and curses. See my crisp corners though!

The interfacing was then sewn to the outside of the skirt, at the level of where I wanted the hem, then trimmed.

And here is my hem turned in. Now I just have to sew along the edge (hem) and it's all done.

Yes She is Still Doing Art

2008-07-02T18:43:00.003-04:00

My posts lately have been filled with fashion, but I'm pretty busy in the art department as well. This is a T-Shirt logo that I'm entering in the Not Back To School Camp contest. It took a lot of sketching and designing to get the look I wanted. I used inking pens, a brush-pen and a no. 2 brush to ink, switching as needed. Also used white ink to outline the word "School".

Scanning onto my computer was a nightmare. The paper was just a cm too tall for my scanner, and part of the picture would get cut off no matter what I did. I had to scan it twice, one with top cut off and one with the bottom cut off, and paste them together. For some reason (because my scanner hates me) the two images were slightly different sizes, and so they didn't line up quite right. (>o<)*

Somehow I managed to work it out and got this in one day before the deadline... ha ha ha. (._.)

Work on Skirt

2008-06-29T14:35:00.004-04:00

I'm beginning with a close-up of the fabric I'm using, because I forgot to do that last time. It's a really silky cotton - it falls like water.

Here is the main body of the skirt, the sides sewn onto the back, with the ties attached. (It's a wrap-around skirt)

The interfacing being cut out.

Pinning the interfacing to the lining/waistband in preparation for sewing.

Purple Skirt

2008-06-25T17:49:00.002-04:00

As you can see, I've cut out the pattern for another skirt. This one is a wrap-around, and as usual, I've had to edit the pattern to actually get it to fit. I'm not sure on what fictional characters the pattern company has based their sizing chart, but I sure don't think there are many real people who would fit the measurements.

I'm sure that another obstacle that I'm running into is that I prefer skirts that rest on the hip, rather than choke the waist, and those are pretty hard to find. (>_>);

Shirt Project complete!

2008-06-24T09:15:00.005-04:00

Seen here on an old dressmaker's mannequin that was rescued from the trash.

The neck was too tight to fit over my head, so I made a small "V" in the front. I first zig-zag stitched the shape with the sewing machine so that it wouldn't fray, and then went to work with the scissors.

The side. The dragon sort of wraps around.

The back, with the zipper in place. Sewing something as unbending as a zipper onto something as slippery and stretchy as T-shirt material is something I wont be doing again in a hurry. But, it worked out fine in the end.

You can also see that I cut the back of the sleeves, because they poked out in a weird way. Now there's ventilation.

3/4 view on the other side, just because. I'm actually amazed at how tailored the shirt looks, as what I did was essentially just one big huge dart in the back.

(See shirt in progress here or just look below.)

Shirt Project

2008-06-23T14:12:00.006-04:00

This is an old shirt that wears like a box. So I drew a design onto it, using a ratty old brush and a capful of full strength bleach. You can see the dragon design in the above pic.

To fix the way the shirt looks on me, I pulled back the material along my backbone and pinned it, the result of which you can see above.

Then I found a zipper on another old piece of clothing and used the seam ripper to remove it. (seam ripper is the two pronged yellow handled thing in the picture, and an extremely handy tool.) I'm going to attach the zipper to the back of my shirt along the pinned line, and have a nicely fitted T-shirt (hopefully).

Skirt- Finished!

2008-06-22T16:28:00.005-04:00

Yeah I had it done a while ago but here are the pictures.

*edit* I forgot to mention that I ended up chopping about 3 inches off the waist, and then measuring and sewing on my own waistband pattern. This way, it rests comfortably on my hips, instead of being a weird, bulgy waist-height skirt. *edit*

The front, with two pockets. One for my pencils, and another for my eraser.

The back.

A closeup of the eraser pocket and zipper.

Yay, Progress

2008-06-15T23:29:00.004-04:00

Did some work to the background on this picture. I used a different program, painter, to fill in the cobblestone and building details. Painter is designed to feel more like traditional drawing or painting, and it is my new-found joy. I found that it was way easier to do backgrounds with this program, which is cool because I usually hate doing backgrounds.

Tis a skirt

2008-06-11T23:24:00.003-04:00

Lack of decent bandwidth does interfere somewhat with updating the blog. Anyway, this is my skirt. You can see here the pattern of my main fabric and all the little bits that I had to cut out. What you can't see is the obscene amount of care I put into cutting it all out. This is high stress stuff. >_>;

Spirit Bee

2008-06-05T23:14:00.003-04:00

A logo I drew for the MMORPG that I'm working on with my dad. ^_^ I put it on a T-shirt and it looks great!

Speaking of T-shirts, I did a whole bunch of bleach designed shirts, which I'll try to take pictures of tomorrow and post them up here. I'm also sewing myself a skirt, and have some in-progress pics of that as well. Just to let people know I haven't been slacking off! >_>;

(Color pencils, acrylics. 2008)

Filler Post

2008-05-30T08:25:00.002-04:00

I've been updating my Mac's icons, because that overly shiny bubble look was driving me crazy. There are some really good sites that offer free mac icons, so I thought I'd share them.

Interfacelift has some good system icon replacements, as well as FAQs on how to replace the more stubborn icons. They also have icons for windows machines.

Iconfactory has a lot of icons as well, but many are themed packs and really tacky. They have icons for both macs and windows.

Pixel girl offers proportionately more of the cute critters icons than other sites, and that is fine by me. They also have icons for windows and a lot of random cute merchandise that might interest some people.

Wacky Pixel is too bubbly for me, but they have a LOT of icons. For windows too.

The Mask

2008-05-22T23:03:00.003-04:00

This is the final version of that pic I posted a little while ago. I'm really pleased with how it turned out - so much so that I will use a smiley. :)

WAY

2008-05-17T01:49:00.004-04:00

A logo I did for the band that my sister and I have - The Way of the Rabbit. This is acrylic paint on canvas paper. It's going on a pair of T-shirts, and I'm pretty sure it'll look good like that. Who knows tho.

Painting

2008-05-11T21:10:00.003-04:00

Finished this a little while ago, took about a year. God, I was so blocked on this. And I don't really like it as it is now, but I refuse to do any more work to it. (^_^)b

Testin the new tablet

2008-05-07T10:26:00.003-04:00

Here is a little doodle I did my my new wacom tablet. I wanted to try out the different nib types, and you can see that each doodle is labeled with the nib I used. I didn't feel that much difference between the brush nib and the regular nib, but the pencil one was pretty cool. You get some traction and it changes the way you make the stroke. I colored in the girl on the bottom of the page, and once I finish I'll put up a more detailed pic of her.

A Bear Doll

2008-05-04T10:47:00.002-04:00

I'm working on some new doll designs. This is the master pattern for the prototype bear doll. Don't laugh at him because he's a little lopsided D:

2008-05-01T13:23:00.004-04:00

Here is that princess on acetate that I was working on earlier. Unfortunately, the pic of the coloring in progress didn't turn out, so I'm just posting the final version.

For those of you interested in the technique, here it is. I started with a sketch of the princess, with a basic idea of what the background was. I did this for a contest (which I probably wont win because they'll most likely pick a fan art piece instead of an original art, something that I only found out about after I finished this picture and am infuriated about but anyway...) so I had a basic theme to think about. Then I put the sketch under acetate and inked it with india ink. I had to flip the sketch so that she would come out facing the right direction in the end. Then I used an exact-o knife to cut various origami and Japanese wrapping papers to the right shape and pasted them onto a sheet of hemp paper that I taped onto the underneath of the acetate. I also used some acrylics to make a water color look.

Hey, we hit 200 posts 2 posts ago! Woot!

Progress

2008-04-30T00:29:00.000-04:00

Cut out all the circles and stuff! Oh and the rabbit is fully sewed down.

The Lineup

2008-04-28T23:19:00.003-04:00

Sketches of my characters all on one page. I focussed on the height, weight and build differences, as well as the distinctive physical characteristics and personalities of each character that would make differentiating between them easy.

Of course, most of them have had at least one design change since then. Thinking about changing the art style too. And I drew this about a week ago.

The drawing gets a little weird around the edges and is not very dark because I had to take a picture of it. The sketchbook by far is the largest I have ever owned and will definitely not fit in the scanner. (o_o)

Japanese princess pt. 2

2008-04-24T19:59:00.003-04:00

The next stage: inking on acetate. I've never done it before but it was necessary for the plan I've got for this piece. It is a really weird feeling - at first I had so much trouble with depth perception, but I've gotten used to it now. Eh.

You can see the sketch that I taped underneath, the one that I posted earlier.

I'll post progress as I get further.

A Princess

2008-04-23T07:42:00.002-04:00

Mostly Japanese inspired, esp. her clothing. This is the start of a very cool picture which is going to be taking up all my time as it's for a contest that ends very shortly.

Muscle man

2008-04-18T20:35:00.005-04:00

I don't like drawing this type of thing and I never really have, but a situation came up where I had to. Here is my warm-up sketch of a muscle man.

This is something that I did for fun afterwards. Yes, I know his right hand is messed up.

He's one of my characters that's supposed to be buff, but I never really drew it in until now. It was handy to do this as a reference.

New sketches

2008-04-16T17:11:00.003-04:00

Of my bird girl. I'm planning on inking the one on the bottom right.

Fire elf in ink

2008-04-14T18:18:00.002-04:00

Fire elf, demon, a warrior in a fierce matriarchal society, whatever. It's inked and crosshatched to hell, and I have mixed feelings about it. Let's just say that sometimes I really wish there was an undo command in real life.

This pic is actually a modern revision of an old picture of mine. I always liked the concept, but I didn't pull it through very well the first time. Eh, well it's a bit better this time... I guess I'll have to redo this again in a year or two and see if I get it once and for all.

Picture progress

2008-04-10T18:01:00.003-04:00

Bit of background changes, lines cleaned up, and some facial adjustments.

Something is revealed...

2008-04-09T22:15:00.003-04:00

Progress on that design I had laid out! I'll bet you can hazard a guess about what it is now.

Inky Dancer

2008-04-08T10:04:00.003-04:00

Several posts ago, I put up a sketch of this dancer lady. I tried to go for a sumi-e look with the inking style. She looks a little funny but I like how her skirt turned out.

A new pic in progress

2008-04-03T11:08:00.005-04:00

Yes, yes, I know. I have more than enough pictures "in progress". But this one suddenly popped into my head, so I had to go with it. It's fault, not mine. (^_^)v

It was originally supposed to be Kisha, one of my characters, but it doesn't really look like her anymore, so it'll probably just be member of Kisha's clan or something.

Note that I didn't start with any lines, and I'm trying to make it more realistic looking than usual. Except for the pink hair.

I would have posted this sooner, but she didn't have anything decent on and I'm trying to keep this a children-friendly blog XD

Sewing stuff

2008-04-01T12:30:00.006-04:00

Somehow, all my dolls turn out to be "creepy-cute". I really like how the mouth turned out, though! <3 Is he frowning... or smiling?
And... what's this? A design layout for... something! I'm not telling what. :P Really, I'm making more of a deal out of it that is necessary. But it's fun! More will be revealed - later.

In other news... I have discovered that there is a kind of deer that hunts and eats small mammals and birds! O_O And it looks so innocent!

A little bit of progress...

2008-03-28T21:27:00.001-04:00

On my mini comic. Just a tiny bit. Of progress. >_>

Kappa

2008-03-25T21:26:00.002-04:00

A little felt water sprite, about 3 1/2 inches tall. He's got a little smirk going.

He is based on a pattern from "The Cute Book" by Aranzi Aronzo.

T-Shirt logo

2008-03-21T11:21:00.004-04:00

This is the logo I submitted for the Willie Mae Rock camp t-shirt logo contest thing. WMRC is awesome, so I tried to make something equally awesome. It was difficult.

Basically, I started with a sketch of the girl and then inked it, scanned it into the computer and edited it digitally. It took longer than it should have for some reason. Probably because I tried too hard or something.

Anyway, I saved it over a couple of different colored backgrounds, so you can see that it can go on a couple of different T-shirt colors. I can't wait to see the outcome of the contest! >_

Art Meme

2008-03-20T09:41:00.006-04:00

I did this for Deviant art, but I like some of the pictures on it, and it looks cool. So I decided to post it here too.

I actually have no idea what exactly a "meme" is, in terms of it being an art one. But this is pretty much a questionare that you fill out with artwork. It was fun to do, and I hope people have fun reading it. ('>')

Backwards

2008-03-18T09:54:00.003-04:00

I drew this on a whim, and I liked how it turned out so I inked it. I avoided using pure black, and inked in only grey tones. I think it looks softer, which is exactly what I wanted for this picture. \(^o^)/ Yay!

Inking warm-up

2008-03-17T14:11:00.003-04:00

I was looking through my sketch book for things to ink, and this is one of the sketches I ended up inking. I did it as fast as I could, without thinking about anything much really, and I like how loose it turned out to be.

Toh'ra sketches and re-designs

2008-03-07T19:15:00.004-04:00

In this one I re-did her face, which I wanted to be longer and more like a wild cat. (I drew the cat head on this page from a picture of an Arabian wildcat.) Translated her front view into a profile as well. And I did little drawing of Chou above Toh'ra's head, just to see if they looked good together. Which I think they do, more so now than before. ^_^

Here, since Toh'ra is a dancer, I did some dance poses. Usually she uses her moves to attack people, so I had to think of ones that could do some serious damage. I did some research on belly dance and all that, but I couldn't find much of the traditional stuff. Mostly just American versions, which are way too feminine and weak for a character like Toh'ra. Her dances need to have power and raw energy!
An update to her costume. She still needs more dangly and jingly things! Also did a quick sketch of just some random dancer lady. It's not a very strong pose, so I probably won't use it for Toh'ra. At the bottom of the page: Toh'ra's wind-up and attack! Just to see how these moves flow.

That's it for now! (>_<)/

Vera

2008-03-02T15:07:00.003-04:00

This is a quick sketch that I did of Vera. Surprisingly enough, I didn't change any of her design this time around, even though that seems to happen every time I draw one of my characters. (-_-)

No, the thing that changed this time around was the style. I don't know if I'll keep drawing her like this, but it was fun to do all the same.

I might get around to coloring this at some point.

Mini comic - half inked

2008-03-02T00:17:00.003-04:00

As the title proclaims, the inking is about 1/2 of the way done. The first panel is entirely done, but the others are still pretty rough and the last one is non-existent. ^_^;

Here is the link to the ROUGH rough. Woof. (-_-)

Ze Mochi

2008-02-29T23:32:00.004-04:00

Well this is the most recent and current version of Mochi, in ink. I used the dreaded inking pens again, and I hate to say it but not only am I getting used to them, I'm starting to see their advantages. No need for a big container of water to wash the inking brush, for one thing. And it's just more portable. Oh well, I'll still always love you, inking brushes. ^_^

This was actually originally just supposed to be a sketch, but it got so dirty that I had to ink to get any sort of clarity. And it's so annoying, no matter what softness of lead I use to sketch with, I always end up with pencil marks that I have to erase on the computer. This was done with 6B (which would explain why it got so dirty, at least >_>) and still I couldn't erase every mark off my paper. It must be the way I use it or something...

I'll be coloring this at some point, but at the moment I have so many pictures in progress that it will be put on hold for the time being.

(In case you were wondering, the stuff between her thumb and forefinger is fire. No, really.)

Mini comic

2008-02-25T07:56:00.004-04:00

This is the beginnings of a mini comic that I'm working on. It's using two of my old, old characters, re-vamped a bit. This is pretty much what I had planned for them, so really I'm just taking a story that I wrote a while ago and drawing it now. It's very interesting. It almost feels like I'm doing a commission for someone, like it's not actually my own.

In any case, the main idea behind this one page mini comic is just a magical girl parody.

Using lilac, I sketched out the panels and the basic things that would happen inside of them. Then on a new layer, I drew out the borders in black. This is my lines layer. Back on the rough sketch layer, I used a darker purple to draw out the details of all the panels. I've just started inking the top panel in black (on the lines layer) - this will be what it finally looks like. The text and word balloons are in different colors, so I can read them better. I'll probably end up using the type tool to write out the words.

Snow Day

2008-02-25T00:46:00.001-04:00

It snowed a centimeter at Cottey, and it was the end of the world. Classes were even canceled that day.

Butterfly, complete!

2008-02-22T22:26:00.003-04:00

At long last! ... (>_>)

Not much has changed, just touched it up, added more depth to the shadows and highlights, and of course, the background. Oh yeah, and the gold swirly bits on the body.

I like how it turned out. ^_^

Butterfly with color

2008-02-20T22:56:00.003-04:00

Well, here he is with some color. This is just blocked in, I haven't smoothed it out yet, or added shadows or highlights, except for a little bit on the body. I'm not too fond of the green color on the wings, so I think I'll color in something different. Also, I find his eyes are too dark.

I looked at some pictures of butterflies for color reference for the wings. There's a certain way that colors interact on butterfly wings, and I wasn't getting it right until I looked at some photos. Originally, the dark brown was supposed to be red, but it took over the whole picture. It also made him look like a fire elemental rather than a wind elemental, which he is.

Anyway, I'll post the finished picture tomorrow, as long as I don't find things wrong with it that will take forever to fix.

Butterfly continued

2008-02-19T13:34:00.003-04:00

These are the lines, all complete. The pattern gave me a headache, but I finally got it all down. Working on the coloring now, which is actually going pretty well! O_O

:Edit: I just realized that the butterfly reminds me of a Flaminco dancer! >o<

Little kid and Kitty cat

2008-02-17T09:00:00.005-04:00

This is a submission that I did for Pixish. They are, in their own words: "...a place where people who want images and people who make images can easily find each other and collaborate on creative projects together." Cool huh? Anyway, just for contemplation, I posted the same picture below, minus highlights and color adjustments.
Bleh! So dull! But this is how I originally colored it. I first do the midtones, then the shadows, and then the highlights. (this is before the highlights) And THEN after everything is done, I flatten the image so that the whole figure is on one layer, and play around with color adjustments. These settings can be found under the "image -> adjustments" file menu.

To get the image looking like it does at the very top, I increased saturation and contrast, and played around with "color balance", mostly adding more green to the picture, as well as a bit more red. And voila! (^_^)

(First inked on paper, then colored in photoshop. 2008)

Further progress

2008-02-14T17:50:00.004-04:00

Blocking in color for the background. I also changed around some of the colors on the girl herself, made them better match her surroundings and each other. And also, her eyes are now pink/orange/red. ^o^

For comparison: older version.

Stage 1 - inking

2008-02-13T07:44:00.003-04:00

I'm planning on coloring a sketch that I made a while ago. Meet chaos butterfly, a cute little spirit that will be used as a killing MACHINE in my mmorpg. XD

Anyway, this is the first stage of the coloring. I inked with a tablet, which I still have to fiddle around with because I'm not happy with the lines I get. Even though they're at the sharpest, the lines aren't sharp enough! >_< You can see that I'm not completely done, I still have to fix up some lines.

This is why I much prefer inking on paper, with real ink. It gets the right look, and you've only got one chance to make the line. No undo, no eraser. -_-

Obviously work in progress

2008-02-10T23:35:00.000-04:00

But yeah, I felt like posting it. I'm going to end up changing the colors of the girl a bit, making them a bit brighter, but I wanted to get a background in first, so that's what all the scratchy brown lines in the background are.

I'll hopefully be posting this pic through each of the stages of coloring, so an interested viewer can sort of see how I do this kind of thing.

I really don't know how this pic is going to turn out. >_>;

as a side note, she's kind of freaking me out.

AlphaRev

2008-02-10T20:32:00.000-04:00

Drawing I did of AlphaRev, this whiny falsetto boy/man-band who came to perform.

Gawd's Gift to Da World

2008-02-10T20:25:00.000-04:00

My character on a web comic we're collaborating on: Marigold.

Spring, get your butt over here.

2008-02-09T14:23:00.000-04:00

Man, I really miss not having to put on 5 layers of clothing before going outside. (._.)

Made this a few days ago, with a happy color-scheme to scare away winter. It hasn't worked, in case you were wondering.

Materials: Turquoise (yum, turquoise XD) chips, assorted glass seedbeads, mother of pearl pendant. Picked up the mother of pearl disc thing (and a few others like it) at a kitschy shop in NYC. Seriously, I'd like to know how they make this sort of thing. O_o

Oh, and all the wire-work is mine. The clasp I shaped and hammered, the gold pendant hanger thing I hand wrapped, and even the bright blue french wire that holds the clasp I did myself. Cheaper that way ^_^.

In a related note, I've been making a ton of necklaces, so I'll probably be posting some more later on. :D

A bunny and a Bee

2008-02-07T14:30:00.001-04:00

Oh noes! XD

A girl

2008-02-04T09:26:00.000-04:00

This was the result of fooling around with a paint brush. There weren't any pencil lines, so if something looks a bit wonky, that's why. I really have no idea why she's all manga style. ^_^;

Daily ink sketch

2008-02-02T14:39:00.000-04:00

I do these sometimes, to warm up. I don't use pencil lines so often they get really demented looking, but this one turned out alright. He kind of freaks me out though. >_>;

Self Portrait

2008-01-26T15:36:00.000-04:00

I've never done a self portrait before so this was interesting.

I sketched myself out first on paper, then scanned it and inked it with my tablet.

This is really just a smaller part of the drawing I'm doing for my DevID on Deviant art. But I decided that I liked how the unfinished black lines looked, so I made a separate file and did this one. The other piece will probably be colored differently.

Perspective

2008-01-20T17:28:00.000-04:00

It is hard.

(India ink, 2008)

Last card

2008-01-18T10:24:00.000-04:00

Outside, then inside.

(2007)

Sitting Down

2008-01-15T13:29:00.000-04:00

This is the colored version of the inked picture that I posted a while back. It took a bit longer than I was hoping, but at least I had way less than a hundred layers this time. -_-;

It was hard to find the right balance of color for this picture. The girl is very light, and so the background had to be even lighter than her, but if it were too light, it would be blinding. I ended up getting it alright, but I'm not entirely happy with it.

The pattern tiled in the background was hand drawn, and I have to say that I like how it turned out.

The girl herself looks pretty good, and I used a few new techniques for the coloring. For instance, I made an under painting for the skin tone, using bright green, red, blue, and yellow. Then I painted in the peach color on a layer above that, and make the master opacity something like 96%, so the under painting showed through just a bit. After that I added the shadows and highlights. I like the look of her skin, it has a certain realistic edge to it, as if there are muscles and veins and stuff underneath.

Cards pt. 4

2008-01-14T09:41:00.001-04:00

Three cards, first the outsides, then the insides. The card in the middle doesn't really have an inside, so it stays the same.
(2007)

Cards pt. 3

2008-01-10T14:30:00.001-04:00

Three cards, first picture is outsides, second is insides. The card in the middle doesn't really have an inside, so I left it the same for the second picture.

(2007)

It is a Rabbit

2008-01-08T14:44:00.000-04:00

And so it is. Except this one is in color.

Cards pt. 2

2008-01-08T07:28:00.000-04:00

Three cards, the first picture are the outsides, and the second are the insides.

(2007)

Cards

2008-01-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Three different cards, fronts first, then inside.

(2007)

Inking Pens

2007-12-31T08:45:00.000-04:00

For some reason, I find pens really hard to work with. I'd prefer a brush any day. But I thought I'd try it out again, and it was almost a disaster. Well, not quite, but you can be sure I'm not going to do anything like this in a hurry. -_-

The faces of Mochi

2007-12-25T07:23:00.000-04:00

I already sort of knew what her face would look like, but I couldn't decide on the hair. The 'do on the bottom left-hand corner with the arrow pointing at it is the one that I ended up going with. The one in the upper right-hand corner is her with her hair tied back, and below that and a little to the left is the front view of the same. To the right of that is her with her hair tied down low at the sides. There is also a side view of her hair tied to the sides, and above that is her with her hair tied high up up the sides.

More designs

2007-12-21T10:08:00.001-04:00

Chou's design. I drew two different ones on the very top: one with high cheeks and one with low cheeks. I ended up picking the low ones, and then I drew the stuff below it. She looks only a little bit different from before. >_> Hopefully it'll stay like this.

Kisha

2007-12-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

Going through some redesigning stages again, and this one turned out pretty well. The top picture is the first page that I drew, just messing around and trying to get the right hairstyle. (You can tell because it's really messy -_-;) I like the girl with the short wavy/curly hair, but I wanted this character to have long hair, so then I drew the next page.

This one above here is what I'll most likely go with, although I'll probably change it around before long. The face is also pretty much settled, but as you can see I drew each one a bit differently, so I'm fiddling with that aspect as well. So much fiddling! But I'm hoping that I'll hit on something that I'll never want to change. ...Yeah right. (._.)

Rabbits

2007-12-15T14:21:00.000-04:00

And today's theme is, surprise surprise, rabbits. I only wonder why I waited this long to draw them. >_> I haven't decided on a face type, but the bodies are basically what I'll use in the final version. Arg, should I use straight or floppy ears? Or inbetween? >o<; How can someone decide something like that?

Finished

2007-12-10T22:11:00.000-04:00

115 layers. *Falls over and dies* (x_x)

Preview

2007-12-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

This is a preview of a piccy that I'm working on. It is taking me far, far too long. I have about 100 layers, and I'm not kidding. I'm never coloring something with this technique again. -_-* Bleh. And I spent so much time zoomed up close that it doesn't look so good from far away. >_<* Just GRRRRR in general!

"Direct thy Feet..."

2007-11-28T14:16:00.001-04:00

"...where thou and I may henceforth never meet."

It's probably obvious where this quote came from. After reading it, I was inspired to draw this picture. He's probably not wearing the right clothes, but he's certainly wearing the right expression.

As you can tell, I'm still working on perspective as it relates to the figure. >_> Got a ways to go...

(2007, pencil & paper)

Girl Sketch

2007-11-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

This is a very strange expression she has. Is she grimacing or grinning? >_> Even I don't know.

Red Panda

2007-11-17T20:40:00.000-04:00

If you have never seen a red panda before, you are seriously missing out. They are actually more closely related to the raccoon family, but eat mostly bamboo, and thus are referred to as pandas. All I can say is EEEEE KAWAII!!! >_< !!! The picture I drew was based off the one at the top of this page. I didn't capture all of it's cuteness. T_T But I'm hoping that it will look better in color.

Nobles

2007-11-13T09:08:00.000-04:00

The various faces of noble women. You can see Chou there, on the right-hand side, striking a particularly absurd facial expression. ^_^ Oh and on the bottom right-hand, underneath Chou, is a drawing of our newest horse, Sa'id (sa-eed). He's probably just as noble as the rest of 'em.

Making Up Stories

2007-11-11T19:51:00.000-04:00

We all like to make up stories sometimes...

Look At Me! I'm Surrounded by Guys!

2007-11-11T19:42:00.000-04:00

Lots of girls like to show off their popularity amongst the boys, like it makes them powerful or something. Am I supposed to be impressed? Jealous? What the HECK??? It's the Cleopatra complex...

...And why put power into the hands of males like that? Like your worth is measured by the men you're with...

Most the time these girls aren't even DOING anything with their guy friends. Just sitting around doing nothing. WOW. Yes, very special.

Python! And DA!

2007-11-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

Got a new Deviant Art username, it's ArtUsagiChan, to go along with my blog and stuff.

Today's blog entry is a sketch of a python, drawn somewhat in a personified style. I say "somewhat" because there's only so much you can do with a snake. It has no legs for crying out loud!

On a related note, pythons are cool.

Crowned Crane

2007-11-08T18:43:00.000-04:00

These are vicious little buggers.

African Wild Dogs

2007-11-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

These dogs are really cool. But also endangered. I'm not sure if there is a cool animal that isn't.

Their hunting methods are like a coordinated dance, each dog knows what it's job is and relies on the others in the pack to get their jobs done as well. If you're interested, check out this Wikipedia article. The BBC series "Planet Earth" also covered the African wild dog. There are also a few pretty good videos of them on YouTube.

Humming bird

2007-11-03T08:46:00.000-04:00

I like the hint of malice in the face of the one on the bottom of the page. And there actually is a humming bird with a tail like that.

Crazy Animal Day

2007-10-17T10:36:00.000-04:00

This comic turned out sorta crappy... True story though. I was attacked by animals on all sides!

Shoot the Girl

2007-10-14T17:22:00.000-04:00

What a gun luvin' country... -_-;;;

Women-hating women?

The Paper Towel Scandal

2007-10-13T19:57:00.000-04:00

AH, college... Oh, the scandal...

More Sketches

2007-10-11T17:47:00.000-04:00

These are based on various quadrapeds, and I drew them from pictures. Except for the horse head, which I just doodled for fun.

College

2007-10-05T11:38:00.001-04:00

Ah... The slow, steady degradation....

Goat Warrior Girl

2007-10-05T11:35:00.001-04:00

New sketch! Haw haw haw.

Colored inks!

2007-10-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

I've now got a bottle of india ink in every primary and secondary color. To celebrate, I made this.

I never did these characters in color before (except for Mochi, using my tablet - which is still out of order, by the way), although I had a basic idea of their color schemes. So some of it's messed up. I colored Kisha's skin too green, and although it looks good on the paper, Chou is almost too light to be visible. But I guess that's okay, because she's supposed to look pretty ghostly.

Also, still experimenting with their character designs, but I think I'm nearing a final look for each of them.

Also just realized that there's only two happy people on there. (>_>)

(You really should click on the picture to get a closer look, the thumbnail doesn't look good at all compared to close up)

De Fire Fingers

2007-10-01T11:24:00.000-04:00

Well you can't see it here but in my little short story, she uses her fingers like a match. Thus, the fire fingers thing. Don't really know if I'll make that the title of the story, but it sounds cool so I'll go with it for now.

Anyway, the story goes that this character is slightly moody all of the time because her friends force her to be the responsible one of the group. They do this through their ridiculous and reckless actions. And every time she mentions it, they tell her that they never asked her to be responsible and that she should lighten up. But if she wasn't taking care of them, then they would probably be dead at this point. So you can see her dilemma. And she knows that she should be doing more than just being a caretaker, and that she's got potential in her (the um, you know, the fire thing), but she's stuck and can't do anything about it. Yup, that's basically the summary. But I ain't saying the ending, mostly because I have no idea what it is. (>_>);

As you can see, I drew the side view, 3/4 view, and a front view with see-through hair, so that her face structure is more visible. And as you can also see, the page got REALLY smudgy.

The eyes along the right side of the page are both experiments and practices. It was hard to re-draw her eyes, for some reason.

Yellow Snake Design

2007-09-30T15:23:00.000-04:00

Yellow snake design I painted on the back of my notebook with acrylic paint. All hail!

Sketchies

2007-09-28T19:11:00.000-04:00

I sort of left my computer in a hotel room, and that's why I'm a bit behind on posting. Hah ha ha. (>_>);;; Got it back tho.

Anyways, I've been working on a game concept, and these sketches are some possible designs for the game's art. You can see which ones are more usable, but I did put little arrows pointing to the ones I'd use for reference.

And of course, I'm having some major technical difficulties with my tablet. It's blaze of glory has gone kaput. I don't know when I'll be able to make another pic with it. Sigh.