This category is reserved for the characters I draw, paint, or originally design
Welcome to my 200th day in a row of drawing, posting, and sharing my artwork. I’ve been going through the previous 100 posts, and the first thing I noticed is that there is a lot more stand-out artwork to share in this post today, then there was back when I did my 100th post. Which at the time I thought was a pretty huge post itself! I think today’s will surpass that one by a mile (it did). So, with the introduction out of the way, here’s some of my favorites from the past 100 days.
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 😉
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.
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.
Well, I was able to squeeze a little more ink out of the pen I was using yesterday. It flows terribly onto the page, but it does help to make everything stand out. I can’t believe I still have to get through at least one more day before my new tools/toys arrive! The wait is pretty unbearable, but I’m managing.
I was going to say, “I think sometime tonight I’m going to start setting up accounts with some art websites…” etc. However, I am going to DO it. Not simply consider doing it. It’s something I need to do, and it’s something that will no doubt help me feel better about my artwork. I mentioned it a couple days ago, but I’ll briefly mention it again. Those websites are RedBubble, Society6, Inprnt, and DesignByHumans. And I’m going to create my own accounts on those pages, and put up as much artwork as I can and see if anyone is interested in buying them. I don’t expect to make much, if anything at all, because those sites take the vast majority of the profits, but I need to do something. At least, that’s how I’m feeling this weekend. There are so many positives and negatives about this whole idea that I’m still unsure how I feel about it, but at least I’m doing “something”.
Blaaaaaah! Everything I did today to try and be creative just failed miserably. I mean, I wasn’t even in the mood to draw to begin with, but I tried anyways. I think this is the first time in a long while, maybe since I first started, that I just wasn’t feeling it. I would of done nothing today if it wouldn’t of meant regretting that I missed a single day when tomorrow comes around. Now that I’m typing this out and just about done for the day, I guess I’m feeling a little bit better.
I was expecting my new art supplies to arrive in the mail today, and when it didn’t that’s when my mood began to go downhill. I started drawing and then my last pen ran out of ink. If you look closely at today’s picture, the ink (on the little circles) is all messed up. It’s not perfect? Everything has to be perfect!
Anyways, I still wasn’t in the mood to do any of this after my pen died, but I pressed onward by coloring in those little circles. My dark green colored pencil breaks, then again ….now it’s too short to hold properly and won’t sharpen. Blaaaaah! So I started filling in the lighter green and the exact same frickin thing happens! Okay, okay… nothing’s gonna stop me from drawing a big red monster coming out of the shadows in the background! And well… that kinda turned out pretty cool actually.
P.S. Blah
For today, I finished the last drawing I had to do for those that supported me financially last week, and I drew the orange guy you see above! As far as the supporter drawings are concerned, I knew what I was drawing for Assassin (Rene Moran) a few days ago, and I think it turned out pretty awesome. I almost considered asking him if I could use it for my drawing of the day on this website, but quickly decided against it as I want to keep all of the personal drawings I send out to stay personal. I think it would mean more if no one else has really seen their drawings. I mean, I have no problem with the recipients sharing them online, I just want to keep the process nice and simple; draw something, maybe write a message on the page, sign it, date it, and mail it away. I figure if I change the process up for anyone, then that could bring potential problems. You never know, so I just want to make sure everyone gets the exact same treatment.
I kind of forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that I went ahead and ordered those art supplies from Currys.com. I ordered two different kinds of drawing paper, a set of drawing pens, and some expensive colored pencils. When all was said and done it came to $85, so all of your monies ($81 in total) all went to new art supplies! Hopefully you guys can see the difference in what I post coming up in the next few days or so. Whenever the shipment arrives. It’s shipping from a place just a few hours from where I live, so I’m hoping it’s here tomorrow (Friday), but we’ll see. I’m trying to be patient, but I really do have a hard time waiting for packages to arrive. It’s like Christmas!
Gift Exchange Progress:
Brad Thornhill: *drawing received today!*
Meggz Fuller: *finished and set to go*
Rene (Assassin) Moran: *finished!*
