Deven Greves' Blog

Goodbye January

2012-01-30T23:49:00.003-05:00

OH RIGHT yes, blog, hmm, I need to put things on it don't I? If I'm not drawing stuff for my film all I'm drawing is fanart though, haha. That one may or may not be a Supernatural/Harry Potter crossover oh lordy.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins

2012-01-02T21:32:00.002-05:00

Jon Snow, from A Song of Ice and Fire/ Game of Thrones. This turned out rather differently from what I'd had in mind, but I think that turned out to be a good thing in this case, haha.

I've decided that I should let myself draw more fanart. I mean, anything that makes me 1) draw more, 2) draw things I usually wouldn't, and 3) turn out some art I'm proud of, well it can't possibly be a bad thing. As long as I get my work done aside from it, that is, haha.

2011 Retrospective

2012-01-02T21:19:00.002-05:00

Haha, bit of a mishmash here. I feel like I'm starting to figure something out art-wise though, and I'll be playing around with shape and silhouette a lot more in an attempt to figure out what that something is, haha. Got a good feeling about 2012 - it'll be an interesting year, I think!

Sonic runs

2011-12-09T17:47:00.001-05:00

I uh... uh... tumblr told me to!

Sonik he run fast, get coims.

More life drawings

2011-12-08T12:31:00.001-05:00

Okay, I lied a bit, you only get two more, haha. But they're both coloured! So it's very nearly LIKE four.

Hrm.

Fourth Year Life Drawings

2011-12-02T18:38:00.001-05:00

Yup. I oughta have four more to put up sometime this weekend, including two more coloured pieces. I'm really happy with where my life drawing's gotten to - only took about four years, haha! Geordie, our life drawing teacher, was really damned helpful - too bad there's no life drawing course next term.

I haven't gone to naked life drawing in over half a year though... tried to go to extra life tonight, but it's packed full of the other years who're trying to finish portfolios, haha. I'll try again on the weekend.

Furpeople and Backgrounds

2011-11-15T23:36:00.001-05:00

Have some pictures! The top two are just random doodles (ahaha, stubby-armed Sharpie drawing, yaaay), and the bottom three are backgrounds for my fourth year film.

Crowley and Aziraphale

2011-10-23T10:54:00.001-04:00

Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens, going forth to meet Armageddon. I wasn't going to colour this initially, but I'm glad I did in the end. C:

Also, this is post #100! Whoo!

Cotton is happy

2011-10-20T19:02:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd give my blog a less eye-bleeding colour scheme, haha. Plus, I like making new headers. Here's the uncropped-version of the new one, floating chopped-off legs and all, haha.

"Hooked" concepts and some other stuff

2011-10-12T13:46:00.001-04:00

Whoops! Haven't updated in a bit. Have a bunch of things, then.

My fourth year film's going to be about a doofy mermaid who drowns a hapless canoeist, got some concepts for that up at the top. Did that original character tvtropes meme thing, too.

Oh and these too

2011-08-31T16:10:00.000-04:00

Done internship!

2011-08-31T16:06:00.003-04:00

Here are some sketches from August. Been reading/watching Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, so there's a couple of those guys scattered about in there.

2011-07-11T19:52:00.002-04:00

Quick update. Some doodles I did at work during some downtime.

Yeah! Scrolling is great!

2011-06-11T20:48:00.004-04:00

Here, have a lot of drawings! Halifax is a nice place, although it's been either raining or overcast about 90% of the time thus far. Work's been keeping me pretty busy, and I'm learning a heck of a lot. I'm doing background painting on a tv show, so I'm painting a lot of stuff that I wouldn't normally, which is pretty interesting. Slowly getting faster at it, haha.

I saw X-Men First Class the other day, and it was quite good! You should go see it, it pretty much redeems the X-Men movies after the poop that was X-Men 3 and Wolverine Origins.

Off to Halifax

2011-04-25T22:06:00.005-04:00

Well, that's third year done! The above are all posters I did for the group film. I only coloured the dinocorn though, t'was drawn by Ian. It is way too cute.

Also I'm puttering away on this thing whenever I'm bored. But good god, I can't draw dragons at all! I must think of a crafty drop shadow that will hide his horrible, horrible legs. P.S. Why are there no cowboy-fantasy genre things? Apart from Stephen King's Dark Tower series anyway. I must remedy this for my own sake.

Anywho, I'm leaving on Thursday for Halifax - doing my summer internship at Copernicus studios. Next update will doubtless be from there. I'm going with a bunch of other people, and we're all living in the same house - should be good fun!

Megamind

2011-03-12T00:12:00.005-05:00

Wow, I like this movie way more than I thought I would. It looked pretty lame to me from the trailer, so I was pleasantly surprised at how well-written and funny it turned out to be. The acting is amazing - I love the way the characters move, especially Megamind himself. Everybody's faces are so squishy! I approve of this greatly.

Kyle and I both agree that Megamind's texting faces are pretty fantastic. So I made a gif.

Music Assignment

2011-03-08T16:13:00.004-05:00

A rather fun music assignment we all had to do - make a story to a piece of Camille Saint-Saëns' music. This scenario popped into my head almost immediately when I heard Poules et Coqs... and it actually rather fits with the piece's title, "Hens and Roosters." Or cocks, if you like, haha.

I find that I have trouble with storyboarding, in that I tire of it extremely quickly.I can do rough thumbnails all day, but when it comes time to do cleaner boards... well, let's just say that the above is about all I can handle without going crazy. Which is probably okay, I think, so long as they read well.

Pinup Guy

2011-03-01T20:20:00.004-05:00

Got most of the way through this piece before I realized that it looked better compositionally if I cut it off at the hips. Whoop, well, that's what I get for just going at it with no planning whatsoever. Also, in case you'd like a bit of a laugh, this is usually what my stuff looks like after the super scribbly first pass:

Lolol. Good tiiiimes.

Group D Girls

2011-02-22T00:35:00.002-05:00

I can't concentrate on anything productive right now. So instead, I drew some of the ladies from group D and their favourite things.

Totally ganked the picture of Rainbow Dash off google images, fyi.

Mr. Tulip is not a scary man

2011-02-20T17:01:00.003-05:00

A quick sketch of the two villains from Terry Pratchett's "The Truth," Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin.

February Post!

2011-02-09T03:27:00.002-05:00

Hullo again! Most of the stuff I've been doing lately is group-film related, so here is some other stuff! The top two images were done for the HP Fanart Project, the middle one is me trying some redesigns of a couple characters of mine, and the bottom on is a Dvorak I did for a music class presentation.

I suspect that I am going to be rather busy for the next while... so see you whenever I have the chance to come up for air!

Esben

2010-12-31T17:59:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd sneak this in before it's 2011. C:

Action Analysis & Esben

2010-12-22T10:33:00.005-05:00

Well, now that I've got a few weeks of break, it's time to fill some holes in my portfolio! I decided to pick a fairy tale to build some concept art around, and settled on Esben and the Witch. I condensed Esben's twelve brothers into one, since they seem to function as a unit anyway, and named him Arvid. Also Laerke is a beautiful princess for Esben to rescue from The Witch.

So, rough characters for now, and some buildings and scenes and colour stuff will be popping up in the next while. C:

Things and stuff

2010-11-16T20:35:00.003-05:00

Another paintover! The old version of this is from 2008 - can be seen here: http://aspectabund.deviantart.com/art/The-God-Eugenides-73804155

Colour keys for the group film! Golly they are blinding all together like this, haha. I'll have to do some for the more mellow moments to balance these out I guess!

Paintins

2010-10-14T17:57:00.004-04:00

A paintover of an old painting of Valjean, took maybe an hour or so. I like to do these when I don't feel like starting a whole new painting. C:

This was just a quick colour test I did up, to see how I might in the future handle painting the magic FX and body shadows for my action analysis. I considered doing some blue light glow on everything, but it just looked silly when I tried it. Maybe it would look better with a background? Dunno, I'll try it later when I get that far on my AA.

Lawrence and Temeraire...?

2010-10-13T17:17:00.004-04:00

This is all I can think of whenever I'm reading Naomi Novik's books. I can't help it! It works so damn well.

Stop Mo is fun

2010-10-08T17:14:00.004-04:00

Do you know what's a fun class? Stop Motion. I like that class. This here's my first assignment, where we had to make Bumper Cars near miss and then hit on certain frames.

Aaaand, I just tried like five times to upload my stop motion puppet arm tests from today, but the files weren't working. :I Quicktime was telling me that it has no idea what an .mov is, so I am assuming the files were corrupted somehow. Dang. I'll try again some other time.

Mermaids

2010-10-05T17:08:00.004-04:00

Here, have some sassy mermaid ladies I did up for my group film pitch. C:

September 2010 Sketch Dump

2010-09-30T00:56:00.002-04:00

Whew. I still have a bit more in my little sketchbook, but I left that at school so I'll scan all that later. Anyway, there ya go.

Freckly.

2010-09-05T19:35:00.003-04:00

I like drawing pointy noses. That was the whole basis for this drawing.

PS: Schooool starts Tuesday! Friggin' finally!

Ouch

2010-08-15T13:22:00.004-04:00

That's gotta hurt. Some fanart for King of Attolia, although I seriously dislike the colouring on it, haha. :B

EDIT: Oh, and have this too, before I start to dislike it and then never post it. It is a Tony Stark head! I doodled it yesterday. C:

Fantasy is cool okay

2010-07-03T16:31:00.004-04:00

The knight's name is Mar, and he's a rather pleasant fellow. The sorcerer, Dekus, is not though. I don't know why they hang around with each other, really, but they do. :B

Just leaving this here...

2010-06-23T20:26:00.002-04:00

Gogol Bordello is way too cool.

Redo Sketch

2010-06-21T08:19:00.003-04:00

Redid that sketch from yesterday, via the wonders of tracing paper, haha. I didn't try to trace accurately though, and stuck a couple pieces of blank stuff in between the sketch and the piece I was drawing on. Just sort of roughed in the graffiti though, and gotta fix that far leg now that I'm looking at it again. C:

Sketches!

2010-06-20T12:58:00.005-04:00

So I've been realizing lately that I've hindered myself a bit by getting stuck on realism. I think it was helpful to do for a while, but I think I held on there a bit too long, since I'm having trouble busting out of that now. Whoops.

Ah! Gay! Get it away! Hahaha. I drew this the other day, while trying to not be realistic, ogling my Nico Marlet sketchbook for inspiration. I'd wanted to have the dark-haired guy putting his hand on the other dude's chest, to break up the solid mass a bit, but it turned out to not be the sort of day where I could draw an adequate hand. Alack.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love drawing on tracing paper? Because I do. A lot. You need a kneaded rubber to erase adequately, which I don't have with me at the moment, hence the dark smudges. I love the texture of tracing paper though. I might do more with this, we shall see. Also whoa, it totally looks like he has a unibrow in the thumbnail here, haha.

What I'm working on

2010-05-30T23:32:00.003-04:00

Here are a couple of images I'm rotating through right now. I find that I get things done faster doing this, since when I get tired of a particular piece I am just switch to another. C:

Life Drawins!

2010-04-25T14:05:00.004-04:00

25 mins

10 mins

5 mins

2 mins

1 min

30 secs

Hrrrruuugh. Just about died there for the lat couple of weeks, but I persevered! Summertime now, and we shall see what that brings. For now, here're the life drawings I handed in for my portfolio this semester, since I never post life drawings.

There's a centaur creature creation that goes with these too, but it's up on the wall right now, being upstaged by Hai Wei's centaur and Bora's satyr and that awesome crab thing by someone else so I don't have a photo of it right now. :B

Villainess

2010-02-12T20:44:00.003-05:00

Been doing a lot of thinking already about what I want my period story to be about. Here's my villainess, Carmine - try to guess what she's like, haha!

Here are some sketches

2010-02-08T01:03:00.001-05:00

Aw jeez, Blogger scaled it down. See it bigger over at DA: http://aspectabund.deviantart.com/art/Wot-Ho-a-Sketchdump-153327668

Bandana Man

2010-01-24T00:25:00.002-05:00

I knew a girl from my elementary school who had eyes like this. They were freaky, in a cool sort of way.

I promised myself I would draw and post things more this year, so I doodled this up and pooped some colour on it really quick. 45mins total maybe?

Kerol Designs

2010-01-18T20:37:00.002-05:00

Noodling about with some ideas for a nervous accountant frog who has a crush on his boss. Still need to doodle him a lot more and try out some things. Also, some frumpy wimmens (the short-haired one is me C:)

Unfinished Improvement Meme + 2 Pics

2010-01-08T14:42:00.005-05:00

Ehh, this isn't done yet, on account of not having stuff from 2003-2005 with me. But I won't have it anytime soon either, so I'll leave it as it is for now and fill in the earlier stuff when I find it. C: It seems like most people went through an anime faze, but I don't think I ever did. Certainly influenced by it, but if I ever went full-blown it certainly didn't last very long because I can't recall doing so. Guess I'll have to check that when I find my older stuff.

I believe this to be because I found twirlynoodle in my formative drawing years, as well as makani, both of which draw expressive cartoony/semi-realism. So well done, Harry Potter fandom, haha.

Also here's another commissiony thing I did like two months ago and forgot to post here. I was about two milliseconds away from sending it off to the person when I realized I did the colours wrong, having forgotten the white. So I had to go back and fix it, derp. Not sure which one I like better.

Sexy Kyle

2010-01-06T22:07:00.004-05:00

I always draw Kyle in such a flattering manner.

EDIT: Oh, and here, have a song that I've been a bit stuck on for a while. It sounds so familiar too, I wish I knew why...

Old Pink Panther BG

2009-11-11T23:32:00.002-05:00

So, I was putzing around in my old files, and found this - it's my background from the Pink Panther walk from last year, second semester. I still rather like it.

Happy Frennnns

2009-10-17T01:43:00.002-04:00

Mannn, I want Steve and Tony to come back to the New Avengers. But Steve's dead, and Tony's off in Afghanistan slowly getting stupider by the minute as he deletes his memories or something and is also hated by pretty much everyone including the superheroes.

But look... they have fancy pajamas. And they are frens.

I want them back. :C

Fancy Pants

2009-09-18T23:35:00.001-04:00

A commission. Lol, I put him in fancy awesome incroyable style clothes. It made me happy inside. C:

Some shtuff

2009-09-04T21:23:00.000-04:00

Some shtuff. C:

Sirius is a little upset

2009-07-28T21:04:00.006-04:00

Just when I think I'm over Harry Potter, they go and make a movie that's actually good and get me going all over again. I mean geez, Sirius wasn't even IN this movie.

Anywho, this is supposed to be just after the Potters' house blowed up and Sirius is going to go try and kill Peter. Except he will be a loser and fail miserably and get sent to Azkaban. Which is kind of embarassing, really. So I gave him a David Bowie shirt to make him feel better. C:

Aaand you guys get other versions because I seem to have kept accidentally saving new files places in varying degrees of done-ness.

First drawing, realized the expression was all wrong and the hair too long.

I'm a little ADD when it comes to CGing- I get bored of lines after a while and switch to colours. Which is kind of counterproductive, since I often change the lines and have to go back and repaint things. Dur.

Pretty much done, just no fogginess.

Valjean!

2009-07-23T21:45:00.000-04:00

Oooo, Valjean! *swoons*

Eric!

2009-07-20T15:55:00.002-04:00

Whoops, I forgot to post Eric here. Copy-pasted text ahead!

Meet Eric. His is a sad tale. Born of two ordinary mermaids, Eric has a rare disfigurement that makes him the opposite of the mermaid norm: fish top half, human bottom. Teased as a small child and neglected by his ashamed parents, Eric grew up very depressed, all the more so because he is unable to frown. He cannot swim very well, and although he is intelligent he cannot speak human and has no hands. He is, in his own words, KEKEKEKEKEKE (translation: royally shafted by Mother Nature). He does have eyebrows though, of which he is secretly fond.

To combat his depression, his psychiatrist suggested he take up a recreational activity, and it is in this way that Eric realized his amazing potential for jogging. Currently he is the world's top mermaid jogger, and runs a surprisingly successful gym.

Sk-sk-sk-SKETCHDUMP

2009-06-13T21:05:00.004-04:00

I know I've posted some of these here before, but lalala I don't care. :)

Also my layout is being a poop. Checked with the source, and it seems like someone moved images and messed up the links in the layout code, lol. I'll wait a bit to see if they fix it... if not I guess I'll have to switch again, HRM. >:|

Girl with a bat

2009-05-30T23:03:00.001-04:00

Puttering about in Photoshop today surprisingly yielded viewable results. Highly unusual for me.

Hurf durf durf I'm Sniper

2009-05-30T18:23:00.003-04:00

I always get the feeling that, after a job well done, Spy loses all sense of subtlety and restraint.

I had Sniper's corpse all drawn in the pencil sketch, but I like it better without him:

TF2 Sketch Page

2009-05-27T22:19:00.003-04:00

Been playing a lot of TF2 lately, so here we are. All the characters are such awesome psychos. :)

Animations Wot I Forgot to Post

2009-05-10T16:21:00.004-04:00

I had been holding off on posting these because there are a couple things in each of them that I wanted to fix, but I have come to the conclusion that I am extremely lazy and will not fix them for a while.

So yeah, any glaringly obvious flaws (like the lame flour sack dance at the end, or the funky shoulder action on the dog) will hopefully be fixed sometime in the future. Feel free to point them out if you really must though, haha, I've probably missed some anyway. Apologies for the darkness on the floursack too - again, I was thinking I would be reshooting it soon anyway.

TCAF

2009-05-09T19:57:00.005-04:00

Whee, went to TCAF, got some nifty stuff from some independant comic book artists, including Kate Beaton's book and a couple of things that looked cool from random people I didn't know. Got my caricature done there by Joe Bluhm, as you can see. He's the guy with the Rejects caricatures book wot Mark showed us. Randomly bumped into Tim there, too.

There's lots of neat stuff at TCAF, and it's still on tomorrow if you can go check it out. It's free to get in, and even if you just look around you'll see loads of cool stuff.

New Pixar studio... in Canada!

2009-05-08T14:30:00.002-04:00

"Pixar will be opening a second studio in Vancouver according to the Vancouver Sun. The 20,000 square foot facility will employ 75-100 people and will be tasked with making the company’s short films." - Animated News

Now that, my friends, is what I call news.

HB Master Copy

2009-04-26T00:47:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah, forgot about this. This is kind of really the only painting I did this year for Tim's class that I actually like, haha. It's a panel from "A Box Full of Evil." I got tired of those circles after about three seconds, and they more or less cease to be circle-shaped as a result.

Just used gouache and ink, mostly brush for the ink as it was much faster. Also, the damn watercolour paper kept clogging up the crowquill. Also, I suck at crowquill. :)

The Beach + Awesome 2 mins of 9

2009-04-22T10:45:00.006-04:00

Here is the beach scene I did for painting, starring the most generic otter in the universe and a misshapen palm tree. Blah, I need to work on my animal designs. :|

And homg, there's an awesome clip of 9 available on the interwebs now. The one official one is "unavailable in our region," but it has since leaked onto youtube, in high quality no less. I uploaded and embedded it here too, though, in case the youtube police take it down as they are wont to do.

Summer project doodles

2009-04-19T00:17:00.003-04:00

Just some doodles I did up of some of the plot and characters of a comic I'm planning on working on over the summer. :I

I was dinking around trying to figure out the style of the characters when they're far away and close up, and how I'd like to colour it (if I decide to), stuff like that. Goggle-guy's name is Clark, and I think the other dude's gonna be Rudy or Barry or something like that. I don't think the names are ever really spoken tho, lol, but it's easier than "the dude with the goggles" and "the other guy" anyway.

Next preview will be of Happy Masked Man, as I refer to him as. I like him. He is kind of disturbing.

PS, note to self, do a texture pattern for CADPAT-AR, as it is hard to paint over and over again.

Mouse Colouring Funtimes

2009-04-12T23:41:00.003-04:00

Hooray. I haven't cell-shaded in a long time, probably because it's been a long time since I was forced to colour with a mouse, and cell-shading is really all I can adequately do with a mouse. It ain't nothin' fancy, but it helps to define his form a little better so I am posting it.

Guess who

2009-04-10T19:38:00.008-04:00

I have a deep dark secret that I have only recently admitted to myself - I actually like drawing realism/ semi realism better than cartoony stuff sometimes. So I am going to do that more, when I can.

Anywho, it's a kind of crap scan, but whatever. I don't have my tablet here right now anyway to colour it adequately, so I guess it ain't a big deal at the moment. I also just noticed that his crotch is rather high, lol, whoops. I'll fix that before I colour it I s'pose.

I also think Tony Stark is cool, especially with hair like this:

Mm yeah. That's the stuff right there.

Toodle pip!

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer

2009-03-26T23:26:00.001-04:00

This looks like it will be a fun movie. :)

A Quick and Dumb Comic

2009-03-25T21:52:00.003-04:00

I've often complained, mostly to myself, about my evident lack of line quality, stemming from my tentative lines. They're mostly small conjoined lines - I don't just do things in one stroke. So, to trick myself, I think I'm going to be doing some things in pen, which looks stupid when you do wispy lines and thus I am forced to embolden them.

This was done in about half an hour with zero planning and, because it's pen, no erasing. Hence the glorious things like the car in the first panel, haha. You'll notice I stopped trying to draw cars after that. XP This happened yesterday when I was on the way to the mall to get pad Thai, after stopping at Curry's.

Anywho, I figure the quality of these things will slowly increase. Could take a while, though, haha.

Regurgimitated things

2009-03-10T21:50:00.008-04:00

. . .

"Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace."
"I know that one," said Vimes. "Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal."
"Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?" said the inspector with a brief little smile.
"I do that too. All the time," said Vimes. "Believe me."

- excerpt from Terry Pratchett's Thud!, page 19 of the American hardback edition

This little exchange rather coloured my interpretation of the recurring phrase in the Watchmen comic, as I had read Thud! before I had read Watchmen, although the former came out much after the latter. I can't help but bring it to mind whenever I hear the phrase, and it was ringing quite solidly in my mind all throughout the movie. Just an odd little tidbit I thought I'd share with you all. :)

. . .

This is my flipbook (yearbook) page for this year. It's nearly all stuff I've posted before, buuut I don't care, haha.

Also, as I mentioned up there, I saw Watchmen at the midnight showing on Thursday (technically Friday). I thought it was rather good, although it seems like you either really like it or don't get what the big deal was after you see it. 8D Say what you like about the movie itself... but I think it is inarguable that the opening credits were really cool. They, uh, might actually be my favourite part of the movie.

Thank heavens I can watch the Watchmen's opening credits over and over and over at this link: http://pixelatedgeek.com/2009/03/watchmen-opening-credits-video/

She looks rather like Courtney Love.

2009-02-27T22:33:00.004-05:00

Argh. It is March Break, and my tablet is currently with Wacom having its cable replaced. :( Used Jee's tablet for this, so that I might properly celebrate a week of no deadlines. Not a week of no work, though, of course...

Next on the agenda: use bright, sparkly, non desaturated colours. Like Kathryn Durst.

A Frank and a Panther

2009-02-24T13:10:00.005-05:00

A caricature of a certain Frank Madden. Done in Digital Tools class, waiting fer Brad to go away so I could finish my Pink Panther, which I had smartly saved to the computer he was at instead of my student drive. Dur.

The finished Pink Panther assignment in question. It only took about an hour for me to import and pan things - the upside, I've discovered, of waiting until Apollo's done explaining things is that I actually fully hear what he's saying. Also, I hear what problems everyone else has and eavesdrop on them when they call Apollo over, so I can quickly get myself out of those same problems without a hitch.

New ID

2009-02-20T23:34:00.002-05:00

D'aw. In real life, I look like a moron when I smile like that. Ah, the wonders of artistic license.

Was playing around with some new pencil things I bought today. Never drawn in sepia tones before, but it kicks bum, definitely gonna do it more. :)

A Pathetic Story

2009-02-20T17:09:00.003-05:00

I bought a lead pointer today, to sharpen my 2mm leads, right? I opened its little packaging, it told me all its features... but not how to use it.

I was positively STUMPED, my friends.

I kept poking my lead into the little holes and turning the pencil, breaking the lead, turning the top part, breaking the lead, sticking it in the big hole, breaking the lead.

I was forced to google "how to use lead pointer" after ten minutes. Found a Penciljack forum which indirectly gave tips on using lead pointers. I would NEVER have figured out that the little holes are for measuring the length, and then you stick it into the big hole and turn the top spinny bit of the pointer* to sharpen and get different tips. Didn't know what the hell the little white squishy thing was either. I took it out at first, thinking it was filling the hole I was meant to stick my lead into. And yes, it broke again upon trying to put it in there.

Works nice now that I know how to use it... half a freaking hour later. The lead my equally new Koh-I-Noor lead holder came with has been snapped down to the nubbin. :|

Dur.

* GENTLY. I turned a little too excitedly at first, armed with correct-lead-pointer-usage knowledge, and snapped the lead again.

EoPJ rough pencils

2009-02-03T13:27:00.005-05:00

Went through about three more entirely different painting concepts after the last one I posted before settling on this one, haha. They never made it past the "unintelligible scrawls" stage however, so posting those would be pointless.

I am much happier with this piece, which I am calling Earthman on Planet J. Initially, I'd had this kind of dome-like city in behind him, with a landing port on the side. Each side was the same scene from a different perspective... but it looked odd, and the dome cut into his head funny.

I'll be fiddling with the colours for a couple hours, and post the finished Photoshop colour test here when I'm done. :)

Multicoloured hair girl

2009-01-31T17:18:00.002-05:00

Figured I might as well do my header now. :) Discovered a fun way of picking colours while colouring this - turn your background into a horrid blotchy mess of random colours, and pick from that. Makes an interesting colour scheme for sure.

le pink panther

2009-01-29T19:56:00.002-05:00

Yup, pink panther pan and walk cycle combo, first animation assignment for this semester. I'm fairly pleased with how it came out, smug jerk looks like he needs a pair of headphones to bop to, haha. There's one frame on every loop where his tail shrinks a bit when it's coming down, buuuut I don't care. 'Tis done and done.

Painting concepts

2009-01-26T00:37:00.008-05:00

An idea I sloshed out on PS this evening, as a concept for our light/dark sci-fi themed thing for painting class. I've always wanted to try painting one of them sunlight-dappled pieces, and I figured this'd be a good time to give it a go. I have a lot of fiddling to do with his outfit, it's a bit too boring for my taste right now.

Here's some screencaps of my other idea which I eventually gave up on, as I realized it was failing pretty hard. I had no idea what the guy was doing or looking at, or whether I'd be able to effectively render his reflection in a window, and I really only liked it because I liked how I drew the dude's butt which was not really a very good reason to keep going. I like the green thing though, whatever it is. I named it Blorgh.

Not a new id

2009-01-19T18:01:00.009-05:00

It was going to be, but then I spontaneously stopped liking it, probably because it's kind of static and boring. Looks a lot like me, though.

Also! I have always disliked the fact that tablets are slippery and do not feel like paper... a fact which can, I discovered, become somewhat less fact-like if one simply tapes a piece of paper overtop of one's tablet. Not quite the same, but certainly a lot better.

On that note, I hope to one day find a sketchbook that is simply printer paper put together. I've found a few that come close, but, well... I find I abandon my newly-bought sketchbooks in favour of loose printer paper that I then proceed to leave all about my room and step on and lose and drip pickle juice on and so forth. Anyone else really like printer paper or am I just odd? (Besides you, Kyle, I think we've established that we're both about equally weird.)

Oh! And I really really like this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

It sounds like the person(s) who was writing it was thinking "yes, I know this sounds weird and doesn't make sense, just hold on for a few more sentences and it will all become clear" all throughout. And then, when they got to the part where it makes sense, they realized that it still sounds really weird and gave up trying to make it sound not weird. XD Also, I laughed all the time reading it just because the words "brain" and "vat" are good fun, especially when in close quarters.

Sketchdump

2009-01-09T04:15:00.005-05:00

Can't sleep, so here's a few things sketches I did over the break. I think my favourite's the guy with the big nose. He looks like his name would be Sven or something. You can totally see my Tealin influence on Harry - I learned a lot of my mouth and head shapes and posing off her when I was just starting out, and it shows from time to time, lol. I think a grateful pimp is in order here: LOOK AT TEALIN'S STUFF.

This sketch looked better on its own. :B I discovered that it's harder to draw expressions on a character that has a black eye, as it will be droopy and doing it's own thing. Kinda fun though.

I'm rather pleased with how my drawing ability has coming along since school started. I hadn't really noticed any difference during school, but over this break I have. Stealth improvement - it could catch on, you know.

Things look done when they glow

2009-01-05T14:34:00.009-05:00

Just a little Photoshop quickie. Took longer than it should have, about 20-30 mins. Haven't used my tablet for a couple weeks, got a little rusty, lol.

EDIT: Whoop, forgot to post this jumping guy. He was the last thing I did before the lull, added the arrow and quick bg just now though:

Not very good intestinal poetry in iambic pentameter

2009-01-04T04:26:00.005-05:00

Intestinal Congestion

It would appear that my intestines hate me.
They gurgle and they pinch, and poke, and prod.
It feels as if my stomach will fall out, but
I rather like it where it currently is.
I hope I don’t relieve myself in my
Pants. That would really be unpleasant.

What did I do, that they should loathe me so?
I wonder... was it something I, thinking not,
Perhaps consumed? Likely. Not certain though, as
My abdomen has oft conspired against me
In my quite recent past. Tums, for example,
Are my constant companions and my saviours.

Regardless, I do owe to this my current
State of alertness. I perhaps will sleep
Soon, but it’s likely I will just be
Uncomfortable. I bid you all good night.

Yesss 89 points! It goes 5 points for both trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions, and 2 points for either a weak ending or an enjambment! What fun! 8D Here, see:

Go on. Give it a go. You know you want to.

In other news, I've changed my blog layout, again. I get bored so easily. Still haven't done up a header yet, so it can continue to remain funny-looking up at the top there until I see fit. As well, I am going to officially give up going to sleep, and just play Final Fantasy XII* until my intestines leave me be.

... What? Did you think I'd made that all up?

*Yes Kyle, I picked it up again today and actually got into it. On that note, Vaan is a weiny-head. I wish he'd shut up and let Balthier do all the talking. Also, even after hearing it said about a billion times by the characters, I am happy to report that this has not dampened my mental pronunciation of Balthier's name, which remains "Bal-thi-ay." Yes, indeed.

Excuse me while I flaunt...

2008-12-25T13:26:00.000-05:00

Ahaha, I am so infantile and easy to please. I think the winners of the day would be the Stash Sixpack and the Kung Fu Panda backpack. I checked out the first disc of the Sixpack, it's great! It's basically a collection of short films, tv commercials, virals, music videos and so on that have various sorts of animation in them. It's amazing to see the different kinds.

Also, haha, I need to clean out my phone card, I still have cows on it from the Royal Winter Fair. Found this little gem on it, from the convention in Toronto:I'm pretty sure there were other cosplayers from TTGL standing to the right, as in part of the other three's group... but I kind of just zeroed in on Kamina, haha. Pierce the heavens with your drill, Shimon! XD

EDIT: OH YAH and I got this cookie jar, although mine looks a bit different than that one. Same general idea though. And you know those bracelets that were "in" for like three seconds? You know, the kind of square interlocking things that you could change the charms on? Anywho, my mom realizes that they are passé (and rip my arm hairs off :|), but she got me 9 Johnny Depp charms for the lulz. Ahahaa. Mom.

Mr. Depp

2008-12-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

I figure that caricaturing people ought to help me with my character designs. Pretty much everyone can agree that Mr. Depp is a good-looking gent, but it's easy to forget that he's also kind of odd-looking.

Google images was annoying me by not providing me with a picture that showed his eyebrows, but I got one eventually. 'Course, it was only after that I realized I had two gigantic posters of him as Jack Sparrow on my wall. Dur.

Couple of animations

2008-12-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

I finally got over 80 on an animation: the box fold, so it earns an honorary post on my blog. My ball and tail is up as well, which I just finished this morning.

I'm getting the hang of this animation thing, although there are many obvious things that need improvement. I think the biggest one (that I'll focus on next semester) is just simple time-management: I did 100% of my ball and tail within the last 24 hours, largely because I realized I had to redo it last night. If I had started it earlier, realized it sucked earlier, and began again earlier, I know could have had this thing done by last weekend and about three times nicer to boot.

Alas. So I am posting it to remind myself not to procrastinate so much.

Timmy Expressions

2008-12-02T19:15:00.001-05:00

Well, no point hiding it now, haha. Here we have Timmy, who is a massively redesigned character of mine from grade 11. Anyway, he used to look like this:

Ahaha. Oh, grade 11 me. I had forgotten entirely about my really-big-head phase until this image. Hey wait, grade 11 was only two years ago... hmm.

I Love the Whole World

2008-11-28T18:22:00.001-05:00

This... is amazing. Discovery Channel, you rule.

Your Master Wuvs You

2008-11-25T19:12:00.001-05:00

D'awww.

A result of the minor realisation I had today: that I was more into Tai Lung's character than Po's, and that I was more depressed at his defeat than euphoric about Po's victory. I kinda felt like "bringing peace" to Shifu would have required a bit more acknowledgement on Tai Lung's part, apart from Shifu's apology to him... of course, 20 years in prison probably put him a little past an apology.

Also, I am of the opinion that most bad guys just need a hug to be completely and utterly defeated.

Uh.

2008-11-22T19:33:00.000-05:00

What does it mean when your cinnamon gum is packaged as cinnamon gum, looks like cinnamon gum, and tastes like cinnamon gum, but there is ONE piece in it that tastes like spearmint? 8|

On another note entirely, I watched Wall-E yesterday, as Kyle had bought the DVD. It made me happy. I tried to draw Wall-E as a human, but he looked like Woody Allen and it freaked me out so I stopped halfway. I just bought Kung Fu Panda from Blockbuster, and will proceed to watch it instead of doing my 2-point perspective room, which I will do later. Fyi, the Furious Five thing is quite funny, and it's only like two dollars more so get it. :)

Now I am off to tentatively taste more of my gum and watch Po kick butt.

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, I have concluded that the ending to Kung Fu Panda is definitely lacking something, something to do with how Tai Lung is defeated and what happens to him. When I figure out what it is, I shall draw it in comic form, mkay? :)

A Logan ETA: and now with Messrs Green and Orange.

2008-11-21T01:02:00.000-05:00

For the superhero wall we have going in Room 260-something rather. 262? I just blanked out.

Anyway, I have no idea why he wasn't taken already. He seemed an obvious choice to me. He has more of a torso in the actual piece, and I fixed his far shoulder, but other than that it's the same. The whole thing isn't on here because my scanner and I are having a bit of a, ah, disagreement. We aren't, erm, talking.

I think it heard me using Kyle's scanner the one day and it got kind of jealous. And it whined to Computer about my infidelity, who in turn had been whined to enough over the past few months and decided that enough was enough, it was a computer for gods' sakes, it oughtn't be cried on and it didn't have any shoulders at any rate.

So Computer is now entirely ignoring Scanner's TWAIN functions in the hope that it won't be able to hear it any more, and I must use Scanner's WIA function instead. The technological equivalent of tapping on a tin can as opposed to using a telephone, really. The scans turn out incredibly pixelly and I am unable to revert the scanner's auto-adjust, which in turn absolutely kills the levels of darkness in my drawings. You should see the full-size scan of Logan here... actually, no, you shouldn't. It's quite frightening. At any rate, I'll mooch Kyle's scanner again tomorrow while he's at class and scan some crap I've got hanging about.

Yes, again, I will use Kyle's scanner. I hope you realize, Scanner, that you have not helped the situation any. It would have been far more mature of you to have just talked the matter over with me, and we could have acted like civilized folk. We could have had tea, (or at least I could have had tea with you watching), and you and Computer would still be enjoying a tentative truce. But instead, we do this. How shameful. You have brung me low, Scanner, brung me low indeed.

And now, when you post a multi-paragraph eulogy about your fictional disagreement with your scanner, it is time for bed, so off I go.

EDIT:
Or, instead of sleeping, I could do this comic. I must add, I understand what Mr. Orange's point is, but, well, I have to agree with Mr. Green.

Disney freezeframe

2008-11-15T15:43:00.000-05:00

Whoop, haven't posted in a bit, and I'm not even posting art today. Oh well, I will soon. But today, I have for you all some Disney Freezeframes of Doom!

Have you ever been animating and find that there's that one frame that looks absolutely ridiculous, yet in the actual animation itself you can't notice it? Well, everyone else has those too. Even Disney. Whether it's on purpose via an action smear, or by accident via a tired inbetweener or clean-up artist, Disney has its fair share of ridiculous frames, and I am here to share some with you.

Today, it is Tarzan and Pocahontas, two very lovely films. Which makes it all the sillier when you see the freezeframes. And I solemnly swear that no image editing was used for these, save the "Prt Scr" button and the cropping of the things that were not the video image. :)

I'll be having none of that "saving the best for last" crap. This is the best. It comes first.

This one amuses me too, for some reason. The perpetual smile that Tarzan wears in this scene is gold.

On purpose, of course, intended to imitate foreshortening.

This one isn't even funny: it's heartwrenching. Tarzan is so SAD. :(

"Durrr, what's wrong Pocahontas?"

Oh John. Are you ever on-model? The answer: he is at the beginning, during the storm, but throughout the movie after that, he is rarely on model for an entire scene, if ever. I don't just mean minor transitions like this either - I mean in entire sections he looks like a different person. Mostly it's something odd about his nose, but in this instance it was... um, everything. XD I could have had dozens of off-model Johns in this post, but, well, there are funnier things than that.

The entire "Colours of the Wind" scene looks very silly out of context. Well, it looks quite silly in-context too... Anyway, apart from the obvious folicking, both John and Pocahontas' faces look very odd here.

Haha, I just like their poses here. XD

Crazy foreshortening again, especially Pokey's arm.

If you're having trouble figuring out what's wrong here... tilt your head to the right so that Pokey and John are right way up. Result: John is proportionate within himself, but enormous in relation to Pocahontas. The image before this was legit, as it was simulating foreshortening, but this is the pose that image is intending to settle into... this was a mistake. :(

John's a bit off-model here, (surprise surprise) but mostly it's his expression of "Oh wow, a bear baby! 8D" that gets me. I wish the bear was higher up in the frame though, and that John was looking at it more.

Everyone's on model in this picture for a change, but, well... John's looking at her boobs and not even pretending not to be.

Finally, Jane and Pocahontas are smitten by disembodied male hands. Jane's expression is funnier, though, especially because Tarzan's arm is so high up that, without context, we don't know why it's there.

I really do draw a lot...

2008-10-02T00:40:00.000-04:00

...it's the finishing that gets me every time. :l These are all digital doodles, btw... no pencil sketches, lord knows I have enough of those too. But I hate scanning.

Anywho, spent the last two hours tinkering with the new layout and retyping all my links, which were deleted in the process (grumblegrumblgrumble). I like this one much better, still a couple things to fix though.

Kyle Turnaround

2008-09-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

This is my finished character turnaround for class. I based it off my roomate Kyle... it doesn't quite look like him anymore, but it's still fun to associate it with him. XD

Of course, now that I've handed it in I've noticed stuff I would've changed, blargh.

Nameplate

2008-09-17T16:21:00.001-04:00

My nameplate for Digital Tools class. 'S me on top there, and Kyle is the rather dashing fellow on the bottom. :)

Charactatures

2008-09-04T12:21:00.000-04:00

I have no internet, phone, or cable until Cogeco comes on the 12th to install it. Haven't had it since two Fridays ago. It sucks muchly. So I'm in Sheridan's Connexion thing using the interwebs for freeee. 8D

Anyway, here are some charactatures; they are as labeled, except for the one who isn't labelled at all, who is Shen. Drew the first two in Painting class, Shen in Character Design, and Chris Walsh while he was lecturing us in Visual Concepts.

I had life drawing today, but I ain't posting any because they are poo. Extra life drawing, here I come... uh, next week, when it starts. :

Finished Thane

2008-08-15T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm happy with it. :)

Semi-Realism Thane

2008-08-14T20:44:00.000-04:00

Yep, felt like practicing some semi-realism. I'm getting there, but the face needs a bit more. I'll work on the eyes a bit then switch over to the hair, and see how it all feels after that. :)

Red head

2008-07-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

This week's Art Jumble theme: Redheads! So here's mine. :) And look, it's a female! Crazy!

Some sketches

2008-07-06T17:39:00.000-04:00

A sketch dump! Also includes unfinished things. And a doodle of Neil Gaiman. And two pictures of my OC, Thane (the guy at the top left.) I gave up on the second Thane because he had pretty much the same head angle and expression as I always give him. o3o

Ah, the many moods of Izzy. She hangs out with Thane. I felt like doing a kind of sequence thing with her, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

This is me as a penguin. :)

Harvey the Pig

2008-06-22T22:11:00.000-04:00

This is Harvey, and he is a pig. Be nice to him, he is a bit on the sensitive side. He also enjoys cauliflower.

Vimes and Young Sam

2008-06-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Kay, so, I'm not too happy with the background or the hand, but other than that I'm pleased with this. 'Tis Sam Vimes and Young Sam, in the underground cavern after the main events of Thud!

The lineart of thes Vimeses, because in many ways I like it better than the final. :)

Judas Clip

2008-06-12T17:29:00.000-04:00

Whoo. Haven't posted in a bit. Busy time of the year, y'know? Anyway, only four school days left, then it's goodbye high school for good! I had a brief realization a few days ago. I'd been hesitant about animating because I had no idea what I was doing, but since I STILL won't know what I'm doing when September rolls around, I might as well get that whole cluelessness thing out of my system ahead of time.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted to try a lip sync, so I picked a clip from Jesus Christ Superstar because it's cool. I intended to do more with it, but, well, I had other stuff I ought to have been doing so I didn't. Did it in Flash because I figured I wouldn't waste paper that way, heh. So yep, second-ever animation, so please excuse the lameness. Sound is a bit off too... oh well. :)

And the next thing's an Easytoon experiment. Easytoon's pretty cool. Again, I had intended to do more with it (hence the odd opening - those where markers for me as to where he would step), and I think I still will, but not for another week or two at least. :) Need to put the other guy in there who he's fighting - he just looks like he's doing a bizarre dance at the moment. So animation #3 of ever, lol.

Future Me

2008-05-04T20:57:00.000-04:00

A meme started over at davario's blog. The actual meme is to draw what you were like as a teenager, but since I AM a teenager, I am to draw what I assume my future self will be like. Anyway, I really believe that I will have horrible hunchy posture, carpal tunnel, and be pudgy and as tough as a noodle, and possibly be an okay writer and draw-er. I was going to draw a wishful-thinking vs. reality thing, but as you may know, I am far too lazy for such things.

I'm still pushing for that robotic arm, though.

A Speedpaint

2008-04-28T22:21:00.001-04:00

Decided to give one of them "speedpaint" things a whirl. This one took about thirty minutes, most of it trying to fix that fail-tacular shirt, which I gave up on. Did it in Opencanvas, which was rather silly of me, since I don't know Opencanvas very well. Oh well, one way to learn, eh?

In other news, I think I've found a place to stay for the school year. A nice condo right across the street. We'll see how it goes - I think we'll get it though. :)

73, 75, 78.

2008-04-14T20:41:00.000-04:00

So, I've been wanting to do one of them 100 Themes Challenges... except that a lot of them had themes that I had no interest in whatsoever and/or were incredibly stupid, so I made up my own. They mostly focus on character design, which I feel I need to drastically improve on, and making me draw things I don't usually draw. I really need to work on exaggerating things.

I like the baby the best.

073.Rounded and shiny

075.Short and stubby

078.Slouchy and shuffling