Paint Yourself Into a Corner: Day 176

January 31, 2015 by Robert Chapman

There’s nothing all that exciting going on today. The picture I’m working on is coming along nicely, but it’s certainly not especially interesting as I already know what it’s going to look like tomorrow. I’ll probably get half of the right side finished! I’m still trying to figure out a way to add something special to this picture. I guess I kind of like to “paint” myself into a corner, as they say. Start with some simple ideas and try to execute them well, and then just figure it out as I go along. Kind of like writing a novel or any script really. Seems you have some basic ideas to start with, and then as you go along you figure out the characters and what decisions they would make, filling in the plot details as you go.

Alright, question time again! I’m just going to answer one question for today. I have laundry in, and my dishes are soaking, and it’s already getting late in the evening. There’s only three questions left from the list of questions that Crystal posted anyways. Actually, I think I’ll answer one question each day for the next two days. That sounds like a plan.

What draws you to this project?

I may have answered this one a little bit with some of my more rambly answers from the previous questions. But I’ll take a stab at it nonetheless. First off, I’ve done a lot of drawing in my life. It’s kind of been something that I’ve felt really defined me. While I was growing up anyways. Then I stopped as I did more “adult” types of things. Like getting jobs and moving around a lot. Now, I’m at the point in my life where I want to do something special. Something I can feel good about doing. I’m realizing, as I’m going along with this project, that I really love to create things. Whether that be characters, environments, or entire worlds. It’s something I really feel like I need to do. I’m 100% dedicated to figuring out a way where I can make a living creating.

So, a more simple answer would probably be that at first I was drawn to this project for simple reasons. You know, “Let’s try this out because I used to draw a lot. It’ll keep me busy while I have nothing really going on in my life.”. Then it kind of became more important to me. I have to finish what I started, and make it a life changing experience.

Hurry Up Money! Day 175

January 30, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I figured it would be a good idea to post today’s drawing progress now, before I spend hours filling in half the image meticulously with black ink. You know, while I can still feel my hand. This is going to take awhile, but I’m actually excited about it! The last few days, after that swamp drawing, I’ve been feeling a bit… off. I think winter is finally getting to me as I haven’t been out much, and I’ve been very tired. I’ve found that I’m sleeping in later and later in the mornings, and I would even go so far as to say, if I look at myself in the third person, it would seem I’m a bit depressed.

Even when I sit back and realize that maybe I’m being impatient about everything (Hurry up Spring! Hurry up money! Hurry up feeling better about stuff and things!), I still feel like everything is moving entirely too slowly. I guess, when I’m feeling sluggish myself, it certainly doesn’t help any. Ah well, it’s January, no matter how I feel or what I do, the next few months will eventually end up behind me and I can perhaps look forward to something more positive. I miss being excited about stuff. You know, beautiful warm (dry!) days, having/making money, doing something new!

At least today I’ve felt a little better as I’m content with today’s drawing. Right away I started using my 0.05mm Micron pen (for the first time! that’s the smallest one I have). It felt pretty good! I didn’t plan anything out, I didn’t hesitate, I just started drawing. The left and right sides of the picture will have a black background, and I’m not sure what will be in the center yet. I’ve tossed around a few ideas while I was drawing the curved figures, but I haven’t settled on anything yet. Maybe there will be nothing in the middle!

Alright, question time! I have like 4 or 5 more questions to answer. Here’s two more for today:

How can you help people?

I don’t believe I’ve ever been told that I “inspire” anyone, but I think that would be… well I don’t know how I’d actually feel. I mean, obviously it would be a positive feeling to be told that you inspire someone. Maybe there would be a lot of disbelief mixed in there too. Anyways, I think that would be a pretty cool way to help someone out.

I guess I have inspired people to do some things before though. My nieces are pretty excellent artists themselves. They’ll probably be famous for their creativity a lot sooner than I’ll be! Oh, also… I remember my cousin Brad, who’s always commenting on my posts here, started a blog of his own several years ago after reading my old movies/TV/video game blog I used to have. He may have only wrote a couple posts, but he found motivation from me. Well, inspiration, I guess.

So, to summarize, I guess the best way I can help people is to inspire them. I would love for more people to make the decision to be creative, and if it’s because of something I did, I think that might be pretty cool.

Why are you taking on a year of creative habits?

Well, when I started reading Crystal Moody’s blog, I, myself, was inspired to take on the challenge, after going through most of my life unsure of the reasoning for why I’m even here. For most of my life I tried desperately to hold onto motivations for goals I cared nothing for. I saw what everyone else was doing, and I was told what I should be doing, and just went along with it because it was easy to follow along.

I felt the need to do something new and vastly different than how I’ve spent my time previously. “This Crystal chick wasn’t doing what was easy! She was trying to do something interesting.” She was promising a new piece of artwork, and a blog post, every single day. I put my time in drawing crazy creatures and such while I was growing up, and I had a blog for a few years too, so I could write decent enough! It was making too much sense for me to do this year of creative habits thing.

As I’ve mentioned, I used to be good at drawing, and spent most of my childhood and teen years drawing on whatever I could find. I figured it would be fun to see how much I’ve forgotten over time. So I dropped everything and make the decision to take this challenge full on. Hell, it’s not like I have any other obligations going on. And now I feel like I have a purpose. I really don’t know precisely what’s going to happen from here on out into my future, but it’s definitely going to be revolving around my creativity. This creative habit project will be the most important decision I’ve ever made.

Words That Describe You: Day 174

January 29, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Nothing I was drawing today seemed to be turning out the way I was planning. This cloud picture was my third try at something interesting, and I’m just settling on using this as today’s work because nothing else looked post-worthy!

I’m not sure why I was having so much trouble with my drawings today, but I seemed to feel frustrated even before I really got into it. It just wasn’t a good day creatively for me, I guess. I’ll try to change some routines up for tomorrow to hopefully help put me in a better frame of mind to try and create something fun and/or interesting.

Now, let’s leave the actual artwork behind for now, and move onto answering a couple more questions about myself!

What are some words that describe you?

This is not a simple question to answer! I have a hard enough time answering questions about myself as it is, but only giving a few words to describe myself just compounds this already difficult task. Let’s try for a couple words though.

Dedicated is the first one I’ll go with as when I make the choice to do something, I always do it to the best of my ability. No matter how much time I need to commit to make it happen.

Oh! The other word will be positivity, hopefully for obvious reasons if you know me personally. Well, even if you don’t really know me, just understand that I always feel that absolutely everything in the universe is awesome and has some sort of purpose. Even if we don’t always immediately understand the reasoning for everything.

How do you want others to feel about your creative work?

Oh man, these questions really are fantastic at getting my brain going! They’re giving me things and stuff to think about that I haven’t really thought about previously.

First off, to set up my answer, I made the commitment by starting this year long creative habits project in order to make a career using my artwork. So, with that in mind, the answer that popped into my head almost instantly is that I want people to get attached to characters and worlds that I build. I get goose bumps just thinking about helping to create something that hadn’t existed previously, and people enjoying the mythology and detail of the world so much that I have this feeling of obligation to continue making it. So again, I want people to enjoy the content so much that I can build upon a universe and do that everyday.

Ready Player One: Day 173

January 28, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Here’s an idea of what I’m trying to go for with my android character. Well, one of them at least. This guy here is supposed to look like he would adhere to the rules and make all the expected logical decisions. However, I also did a few really basic sketches, which I will include below, and I kind of want to find something in between these two. Because then I would be able to draw the characters many times and it wouldn’t be a chore, while at the same time make the environments really stand out! I love drawing alien worlds and space and such, so I think keeping the main characters relatively simple in design could be a huge benefit in the end. Really though, these are just some very early random ideas.

So, I’m going to answer the next two questions today from Crystal’s blog or …well honestly I can’t find where I got the questions from. It could of been from a newsletter, but I can’t seem to find the original email! Might of been one of her recent posts on her blog as well. Anyways, I’m glad I wrote them down!

What’s important to you?

Right away, I’m feeling that this is a pretty easy question to answer. I have so many people, friends and family alike, that support me the whole way. I swear, as soon as I make a new feature available, like donations or products to buy with my artwork on them, my supporters jump on the opportunity to help me out within a day or two. It’s fantastic to have so much motivation to produce quality content. It’s nice knowing there are people that will see it, and show their appreciation. I know that there have to be people out there doing something similar, you know, trying to do what they can to be creative, and they don’t get nearly enough support online. So, I guess I realize that I’m pretty lucky when it comes to that stuff.

What are you passionate about?

Another easy one! Or maybe I’m just in the mood to write today. I dunno. The first thing that pops into my head that I’m absolutely passionate about is technology. I’m talking, Star Trek Holodeck type stuff here! Hmmm… I guess I mean that more literally than I thought, as I’m going to specifically talk about one type of technology.

I was watching a Youtube video today where a girl was talking about the benefits of virtual reality. Studies were showing how being in a virtual world (you know, with the whole headset thing tricking your mind into thinking you’re somewhere else) would change how people would think. They did studies on putting people into bodies that were of a different ethnicity, and through some clever tests, they found that all of the subjects gained increased feelings of empathy. She explains it better than I can right now, but I think all the time about other benefits (like having wheelchair bound people walk or run in a virtual world) of virtual reality, but to be completely honest, I personally really just want to explore the universe. I want to go to fascinating places that don’t exist, or that would be completely impossible for me to visit.

That all being said, I don’t want this VR headset to make me feel isolated from the rest of the world. I want to be connected with the rest of the world through the Internet, and explore virtual worlds together. I really hope that, within the next 2, 5, or 10 years, that we really invest into this technology and find educational uses, as well the entertainment. Of course, entertainment will the focus right out of the gate, but what I’m trying to say is that I want to live out Ready Player One 😉

Questions: Day 172

January 27, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Say hello to android #1. Or at the very least, an early version of him. There are still so many features of his that I’m still not quite settled on, and I’m still going to mess around with his look in the next few days. I’m really hoping I can get a good amount of feedback, but I think there’s only one or two individuals that I can depend on to help me out with answering this important question! How does he look? I think I know what looks good, and letting me know what looks good isn’t what I’m looking for. What I need to know is what stands out or doesn’t fit, maybe something doesn’t make sense, perhaps a specific feature is really great, or maybe he reminds you of another character from something else. This is the type of feedback I would love to get today. That all being said, maybe I should direct the question to my Facebook readers. I think I’ll ask again in a day or so and post the question on there.

Yesterday, Crystal posted something on her page that I thought I would address today. She asked some questions for her readers to answer and I thought it would be fun to try to tackle a couple of them today. This will no doubt take me awhile to complete as I find that answering questions about myself is difficult to do, so I’m just going to answer two at a time. Let me know in the comments what your answers would be.

What’s your gift?

My gift. So I’m going to assume that gift would be something you have innately. Something you feel that you naturally gained somewhere along the way in your lifetime. That’s how I’m going to take its meaning. You see, if my “gift” was something that I worked hard for, then I wouldn’t feel like it was given to me. Whatever artistic talent I have, I would definitely treat that as a gift. I don’t really feel like have anything else that I’m even remotely good at. I don’t remember a time before people told me I was artistically talented.

What’s your superpower?

Well, I can’t use that last answer again, can I? Oh, come on… I’m more creative than that, I have to come up with something here. Okay, one thing I’ve been working on for a few years now, is something that I apparently would consider a superpower. I say “apparently” because I was wracking my brain trying to think of what my superpower could be, and this popped into my head

For a few years now I’ve worked hard on being emotionally steady. It’s a pretty lame superpower as far as superpowers go, but it was very important to me to try and get better at self control. I’ve always felt weak when it came to my mental control, how I would present myself, and my overall decision making. I was never good at thinking before I acted on something. I’m not going to go into every little detail, but after years of practice and mental training, I’ve become the Batman of self control. What? Batman doesn’t have superpowers… well I’m leaving that in there.

A Couple Androids: Day 171

January 26, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Hello! Just a quick update for today’s post. I just sketched these guys using an HB pencil, and followed it up with pen. I’m digging how they look so far.

They don’t have names yet, but I really don’t have to worry about any of the details right away. I figure I’ll just mess around with some interesting ideas in the next few days and not take on any serious projects for a little while. I still have one more robot to draw anyways, so I’ll save that for later.

I’m also planning on recreating them in Photoshop once I have the look down pretty good.

The Next Generation: Day 170

January 25, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I’m starting to think that rather than calling this is a Star Wars drawing, I should use this (or something similar if I want to draw another one) as a location for my characters to visit in my imaginary comic book series. You know, those pictures I did awhile back. Anyways, I could potentially make it a Star Wars reference rather than an actual Star Wars location. I’m thinking that I could maybe have a little green Yoda-like creature giving advice to the main characters as an obvious reference. Hell, the story could be filled with all kinds of geeky references!

Okay, so speaking of my imaginary comic book idea, I had a dream last night. I want to make sure I talk about this before I forget and the idea disappears. Talking about it might also help keep me accountable to actually do something with this idea. Anyways, so I was thinking maybe I should go through with creating a web comic. I have whole bunch of interesting ideas about the whole comic book idea in general; like how to sell it, how big each issue will be, time frames, etc. But what I want to talk about today is my idea for the main characters; what about a web comic series centered around 3 androids who explore the galaxy Star Trek style?

Speaking of Star Trek, think about having a crew of three Data-like characters. Data was an android from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he was without a doubt the most developed character on the series. He goes from being the traditional “straight as an arrow” android, to fiddling with new found emotions, dreams, and more or less trying to deal with his own existence and humanity. I say “humanity”, because in his case he was built by a human scientist, so he has lots of human characteristics. Anyways, my characters would be quite different, but they would deal with some similar themes. They also wouldn’t have a human-like appearance. Data even ends up owning a cat, that alone would be an interesting (and hopefully humorous) situation for one of the more eccentric characters to deal with. Well, maybe that’s not the best idea, but I haven’t thought through actual side-story plot details yet.

I was thinking of basing the characters off of the 90’s WB cartoon, Animaniacs. Yes, I’m quite serious. You’d have the down to earth (well, so to speak) and mostly logical android, the constantly malfunctioning and unpredictable android, and then the feminine info-heavy android. I’m thinking of making that last one a little sphere or hover-bot of some sort. Like the R2D2 of the adventure. Or maybe, if anyone remembers that robot from the Robin Williams movie, Flubber. No? Well never mind then. I don’t know! These are just some early ideas.

Am I crazy? Does any of this sound interesting to anyone? I’m feeling like this is something I definitely need to pursue and go all out on. Maybe I’ll dabble a little here and there with character building and some basic designs and such. Once my year of creative habits is over in August, I can go full force on building a first issue!

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Monthly Archives: January 2015