AfricanVoodoo's Sketchbook

[AfricanVoodoo]

Artloader: Thank you bro!! It has been 7-8 months since the first time you posted on this thread and I am glad to see that after all this time on this website, I am getting a little bit better. It just takes patience, and patience takes time (i hope that's how it goes) :) Thank you my friend!
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Hi there! 

Sunday 8/27




Well... I finally fucking did it. Thank god I chose to do this today because I would've never done anytime soon.

(Note: The colors are probably off a bit...  They were slightly muted when I uploaded it on Imugr so I tried to remedy it. It's kind of close to the original now i dunno)

(Art): The Bullfrog. I imagined this thing being an actual guardsman in one of my stories but because of my weird color choices he ended up looking like one of those landsknecht mercenaries from the olden times. 

I REALLY could of done better (especially on the lower part of his design), but the cartoony and kindaalmost cel-shaded style is making me happy right now so I won't spoil my mood just yet. I will say, I like the shadowy blues that goes with the greens. I always liked it when people bring in colors that doesn't exactly line up with the dominant color. Since blue was next to green, I might as well use some blues and dark blues for the shadows!

The version with the thick outline is speaking to me tho... like the regular version is cool but that thick outline with the cell-shading is giving me those happy signals.

Monday

Didn't take a nap or a break today! yeah! 





(Art): Some shit at school. The first page was just my warm-ups and some figure practice. Then the second pic is something I gotta do in Drawing Honors, take a picture of some shit and then draw it. Lame as hell right? I have a giant house plant in my house so I decided to draw it my own way. 

I also need to do better boxes. I dunno why, but I just kind of freehand a box without thinking about an imaginary perspective grid first and I need to start doing that because some of those boxes look jank as hell.





After my virtual school session, I decided to start on some finals with Arron's coloring. 

(Art): On the far left was pretty much writer friend's choice in colors. I kept the blue pants, but I made the shirt a 3/4 shirt now and I lightened and saturated the vest to help with the values and the overall presentation. I then said 'fuck it' and did some more variations. Like I said last post, I wanted to try something with the design that doesn't feel too flat (and not too complicated either, I have to draw these characters over and over in the future yall...). So, I made a camo vest! And I REALLY HOPE he considers the camo vest because I like camo vest (I dunno why I'm making a big deal about this cause the characters are gonna wear different outfits throughout the days in the book so... camo vest is makin' a comeback!)

I was going to do two more of these but... I am fucking tired right now and it was 9PM i wanna sleep.



Oh yeah, and I forgot to upload the values version of the preliminary color pass.

Ehh... not as much sketching as I would like to do today but I won't cry about it.

So goals tommorow!: 

• Cry and beg for writer friend to make Arron's vest camo
  
• Start working on a new character illustration that I wanna do in the same style as the Bullfrog
  
• Start drawing in my sketchbook more to get some ideas out.  
  

Tuesday

 I woke up groggy and miserable this morning and it fucking sucked. Then, all day in school I was just in this constant state of low energy and I just wanted to fucking sleep the whole day. My classes were pretty much doing something new every single day with no time to let it sink in and... i just wanna sleep.

My goals? I talked to writer friend and he liked the saturated yellow vest with the 3/4 shirt and I was like yaaasss. He also agreed that the characters will be wearing different things in the book so CAMO VEST HERE I COME

I didn't work on my new character design because of how tired I was today and I barely fucking drew in my sketchbook because my brain was just not with me... I know everyone got that day when we are just not having it but I can't be prancing around saying that I am going to be productive when this shit happens. I just need to roll up to my Pinterest and look at some ref and inspiration because I need something to boost me up again.



(Art): This was literally all I could manage today. Nowadays, because of the boxes, I am thinking of perspective about everything that I draw now. I want to learn how to put perspective into my human figures well (even if my proportions is shitty).

Wednesday

Heh heh, I did more than yesterday and I am more energetic today! Nothing really productive today, just a couple of studies in my style today. I had to go to school, go to my Youth group immediately after, then my friend was suffering through abuse so I had to comfort her and help her move out... Today was something else.



(Art): I literally had this one expression reference sheet of just people yelling/screaming on my phone for literally months and I just wanted to draw their faces. I learned a little bit more about overlapping forms in the human face while doing these. Nice



So... this is pretty much writer friend while we both were waiting for Youth to begin. He had an interesting gesture in the way he was sitting so I decided to draw him. (He looks less nerdy than this... promise.)

(Art): When I took a second glance at how he was sitting, I noticed that his abdominal area was tilted towards me instead of his entire upper body just being straight while his leg are the only thing in action. It wasn't super noticeable in my perspective, but it is something to think about next time.  

Also, the man is tall like... I am really tall but he is slightly taller than me which is omega tall. He tall. I dunno if I captured his tallness here but whatever. The leg that is raised looks... weird to me. I can't pinpoint why but I don't like that leg. Givin me dirty looks y'know?

Writer friend will most likely come over on Friday since we have a school day off. So if we aren't going to be lazy and fat all day, then maybe we might design some concepts writer friend has in mind for his book. ooooo, can't wait. 
(And he might find out how much sketching I ACTUALLY do at home)

Thursday

My last day in school for this week since we got a day off tomorrow. I left school in such a foul mood because everybody was actually being aggravating that day. The only thing that made me happy was that my friend is safe and okay. Other than that, fuck this day and my classes.

Anyways, art.

 

(Art): Y'like my squiggly boxes? (Actually I was pretty surprised that most of these turned out okay actually)



(Art): Update on the plant. I originally disliked the idea of the large blob of black because I thought it would make the plant unrecognizable but the majority of the people who sees this can tell it was a plant (except writer friend, but hes weird). 

No joke, I looked forward to coming to Drawing class every day because after a long day of assignments and quizzes that we only had one night to prepare for, teachers who are low-key dismissive, and just annoying people in general... I wanna draw my tree dammit. I just pop in the Bayonetta soundtrack and just fill in them streaks of black. 

After I am done, I am gonna scan it and (maybe) color it digitally... whatever. This was a fun experiment tho.



(Art): I know you guys probably do not remember the conch shells that I drew at all in the slightest, but they are making a comeback because every single fucking time people see them and say "*gasp* these can be stickers!!" now I want them to be stickers. Fuck...

I ultimately went back to this because of my new way of coloring things now. I am trying to see if I could implement the coloring style of The Bullfrog into the conch shells and... I might have to sleep on it for now. I honestly don't know if it is the colors... or the way that I am doing the flat lines of shadow. Maybe the thick outline will actually make this 10x better and I should just wait?

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So I was watching JelloApocolypse's monthly podcast The Tip of the Tongue and their new video discusses how to get "internet famous". I normally watch their podcasts because they are actually very entertaining and it is one of those podcasts where you can watch and/or listen to it and I think that makes his videos more accessible that way y'know?

Anyways, one of the first points that he mentioned struck me hard... "Doing fanwork is super important and people will not care about original stuff most of the time". I discussed this WAY earlier in my thread but... yeah. Fanwork really does get you dem likes and recognition and it fucking sucks for people who want to create but this is the reality...

I have something planned if I want to truly get into the fanart scene but I learned my lesson and I won't tell y'all. If I do it, then I will show it. If I don't, then forget it until I draw it. 

All I will say is that I will start to utilize DeviantArt and Tumblr way more if I do this sort of stuff because those two platforms are pretty much where all the fandoms are so what a great way to get a viewership huh? I want a following but it is honestly and truly not my goals right now because they are not gonna payin deez bills right now so I am not going to work myself up on it so much...

Friday

Barely drew at all yesterday. I invited two friends to my house and all we did was play Super Smash Bros. and it was fucking fun to play with more than 1 person for once. Honestly... I just needed a break from school and it was fun.

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Overall, video games got me again over this weekend. It's the third week of school and I am already so fucking overwhelmed by it all. I assure you that this "video game phase" will die down quick because I don't have anyone to actually play with other than my friends, who can't come to my house as often because of schoolwork and the likes. 

Someone I follow actually went on my Instagram profile and liked my Bullfrog picture and I was genuinely surprised. Being social on social media actually works... 

Anywho, I won't let video games fuck me over. Productive AfricanVoodoo mode is makin a comeback tommorow.