AfricanVoodoo's Sketchbook

[AfricanVoodoo]

Welp, my fabulous streak of posting art on here frequently has come to an end obviously. Now I am posting whatever the fuck bullshit I can find on my computer to stay active. Whatever, this isn't the end of the world though. Since I am not getting any new crits, I am STILL going to work on my form studies. 

Which I am not doing... cause of work and school and all that. I've got a policy with my art studies. Yes, doing my drawings are important. But my grades and education comes first, always. I can't just push everything aside to do lame cylinders that don't even come out right. If my art career doesn't launch, then at least I can say that I am smart...





I like getting photos of WW2 generals because the photos are already in black and white. No editing needed!

(Art): Painting. Is. Hard. I dunno how you guys do it. At this point, I'm trying to learn how to make things not look ugly for once. The entire image looks muddy in general. I hope I could master the art of digital painting soon...



*notices there is no more art on my computer*

(Art): WOah look, hands!!... Ain't that cool?


My Dream Art Job

Cartoon Network.

I hope there is no stigma for wanting to go to a place like that. I am not going to get dragged for something like this because I feel comfortable in my style of drawing, which I feel like it belongs in a studio like Cartoon Network. I've heard the workers there are passionate and nice and there are FREE FOOD DUDE (top priority)! 

I am going to fight to become a storyboard artist (or can I just be a character artist? That'll be sweet), so I am still going to focus on linework. But at the same time, I am going to make my work 3-dimensional by studying 3D models and roman sculptures. 

[AfricanVoodoo]

Hey!



(Art): I did look at 3D models and sculptures to get these eye studies. Now that I know I want to be more line-dependent, I started to focus on line weight here. This actually made me more aware of forms now and it is making me happy to see the progress that I am making.
... eyes are pretty easy to draw in my opinion.



(Art): I moved on to lips the next day. Also, I was doing some head studies. I wanted to know what the head looks like when you tilt the camera downwards and I learned so much about how the perspective is skewed on the face. (IBut I still do not know how to place the lips unto the face though...)

 

(Art): And some demons. I got bummed out by how simple and clean my lineart on digital looks like so I said fuck it I'm going to be messy today.

This whole week was just work at school. It's the end of the year which means teachers can suddenly give us reports and tests and deadlines all of a sudden, so I have to buckle down so I won't fail (which... I'm not. I got two A/B honor rolls this year, boi they THINK they're going to fail me).

 And I just got bummed out about my art in general. I am still exploring Photoshop to see if I can make some decent fucking lineart around here. Now I am thinking about making my brushes smaller, since I like 0.3 pencil lead and thin lines. I am not sure why I was doing thick line art if I don't even draw that way anyways. If I like my traditional shit more than my digital, it would be wise to make my digital work identical to my traditional. 

SCAD is pretty fucking expensive for me and I have not done anything to deserve an award or money to go to the damn place. Summer seminars are $1000, which to some is pretty cheap but ppppfffffftttttttt, no me hunnie. But I want to go so I can at least network with real artists for the first fucking time. I don't want to stay home and be a burden, I am getting that damn internship at Cartoon Network even if it will kill me. And if that don't work...

.... welp, time to start Youtube! Bye!

[AfricanVoodoo]

Yo yo yo!

School is almost over and it still sucks!




30 years later I have emerged to this website once more. Final exams and extra projects were eating up my time to draw!! How rude for them to do that.

(Art): I drew some piggies... I guess? It was actually because I wanted to do a character that was part-pig but I didn't know how to draw a pig so here I am doing this. I should of gotten into the muscular system of the pig since I have no idea what the hell I am drawing other than the surface level shit. (I have to stop doing that...)




(Art): I wanted to get away from drawing humans for a while because I was honestly getting a little irked by how I drew them. I should probably start taking some Portrait classes on Schoolism. Or the form class I was informed about earlier which seems more important.

 Anyways, while I was taking a break from humans I started to do some animal illustrations. I like the frogs but the lion... I could of improved on tremendously. I should of been drawn more muscle on the lion on its legs so it won't look so... roll- of- toilet- papery. And its balance was all wrong. Ugh, whatever, it was my first time drawing a feline such as this so I might redeem myself later in life.

Now I am going back to humans after a full week of doing these, but I am still going to try to do an animal illustration every week because it was refreshing to do other than wacky humans all day long.

So three things I am going to do more.
-- Start doing Draw A Box exercises in the mornings, even at school. I'll start at the beginning and then I will work my way up. 
-- Stop being lazy and look up more references for my designs, I rely too much on muscle memory and similar patterns (oh, and utilize PureRef more.)
--Stop being scared of doing Bridgeman proportion studies and fucking do them!!

Yup that's it. I drew a lot when I was gone but I didn't want to scan right now I'm tired and I wanna go to sleep.

[AfricanVoodoo]

Happy Sunday!



No more school in one more week but I am still going to work at my normal job and at my school (for free mind you) and I have to start getting myself out there. I literally have no idea how to do that but I am going to try very hard to get somebody to care. I might start up a character designing portfolio and Email some people who might be interesting in having their characters designed for them (I think I said this before and I still haven't done it). I feel like I can only access a small community with that, but fuck it, it's better than nothing.

Also, my art is not dazzling or realistic or tactful or anything. It's just there. That sounds so depressing but honestly, what did you expect from me nigga? in society, people prefer the realistically painted and rendered shit which is not something I'm interesting in but FUCK it looks like I need to buckle down and start painting some shit (which is what I also said but I still don't do a lot of that honestly...).  People tell me that my art is amazing and I have a lot of patience and shit but what about the industry's thoughts? What would they say about this? It is  more important about what they say than what someone barely in the art world has to say because they are the ones guaranteeing me a roof over my damn head. I like the compliments and the love, I appreciate it so much, but the anxiety and depression is still creeping up on me and I want to punch them in the face. Compliments don't help with that unfortunately.

I was always very anxious about my future and if I will ever become anything but holy shit it is going to get so much worse when my senior year comes about. BUT!! This summer is going to be my most active summer ever, art-wise and getting-my-shit-together-wise. More online interactivity from me, going to multiple colleges to check shit out, actually getting a job, probably making art prints in the future. After the summer, I'll join the Graphic Novel club at the school (which I WILL regret, but sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices), I'll make caricatures of my teachers as a gift for being not annoying... I'll do anything to make an opportunity come up for me.

 
(Art): More animal illustrations feat. koalas. I should start trying to get better at animals like lions because that lion illustration still got me fucked up. But this image was much better than the frog or the lion in my opinion.



Oh that's right, I think I found a perfect brush for my line art! Now I just need to control my line weights and there might be a slight chance I could be happy with my digital art for one fucking day! :)

(Art): Honestly, this is just line art practice for me. I call him "The Lifeguard".  But I am still not sure if I want a cell shaded look like BrotherBaston or a painterly style. Practice and studies will answer that question for me. I might make two versions and ask people's opinions on them.




(Art): Three sketches which I really liked. I have been studying portraiture and expressions lately and I feel like my angry expressions are getting better and better. All I need to do is go on Google and copy and study some things once in a while.

[Steeliebob]

Ow... You have some nice improvement here. I think the pigs are my favorite. ^^

[chubbycat]

Hey there, AfricanVoodoo!

I'm sorry that things aren't so great at the moment. I think the majority of us here understand what you're going through when you speak about industry professional thoughts vs. thoughts of family and friends. It's a hard thing to deal with, mainly also because people not in the art industry don't understand, a) what good actually looks like, and b) how hard and long it takes to actually land a job in the industry. It's difficult not to feel anything but anxiety for art as a career. The only way I can ground myself is looking back on 'famous' industry artist's sketchbooks and seeing that it's taken them many many many years to get where they are today.

I wish you all the best with your summer of art! Art is truly the thing that you get what you give - the more hours you put in, the better you will become.

For some resource recommendations, I highly suggest these things to do over the summer. You've probably heard of all of them before, but lately I've found going back to basics has helped me gain more confidence and ease that ever present feeling of incompetence.
- Proko's figure drawing and anatomy courses - always good to be learning anatomy and forms, no matter how much you think you already know
- Dorian Iten (his lighting course is amazing and he has a few good videos about drawing)
- Keep up with the 'sculpture reference' face studies. If you really want to nail down faces, try looking into Scott Eaton. He explains every part of the face and actually debunks why methods like the Loomis technique isn't ideal for helping us understand the face and it's construction.
- Ctrl Paint - practically anything from there is awesome, especially the lighting and perspective tutes.
- Start a Pinterest board for references... it's seriously the best place to find all kinds of refs and poses for your art.

I hope all this is helpful in some way. I mainly just wanted to say keep up everything and don't get discouraged too much. Things always have a way of working out in the end :)

P.S. The pigs are also my favorite ones.

[Fedodika]

baahahaha you drew me!! <3 I second all dat stuff Chubbycat said :)

[AfricanVoodoo]

Aww. Y'all are too kind!

Steeliebob: :O Thank you so much! I totally agree that I improved very much since my first post... very very much.
 
Oddly, I do not have this specific mindset where I get hyped up for drawing and getting better. I just pick up a pencil and start drawing shit. Not robotlike or some shit but I just feel the need to draw some shit. Pretty cool that our training regiments are literally just us sitting down and putting down lines. 

Chubby: So much love from me to you!! Thank you for the suggestions! I have heard of many of these people (but you did get me interested on Scott Eaton though), and I am very interested in doing the Ctrl + Paint exercises that he gives out because that might make me more comfortable with Photoshop as a program.

And thank you for giving me suggestions that helps me for my problems.

Fedodika: I took me a while to realize you were talking about the koala illustration. I actually thought you were referring to my angry characters.

Thank you for tuning in!



Summer... is.... now.

I really hope my brain doesn't fuck me up this summer and drags me back to this state of just doing nothing but watching Youtube videos like the past summers. This year, now that I have a clear vision of my future in my mind (and infinite "paper" on my very own computer), I should be able to just draw every single day on my computer or sketchbook without any problems. And I don't want to stop at just drawing.

I literally have so many things I could do this summer (projects, youth club activities, fun art contests, drawing and writing, .etc) and I do not want to waste it on... Steven Universe bingefests...

(Art): Deltoid from the back view studies... I forgot where the muscle inserted on the back so I did a quick warm-up in the morning to get a good refresher. Oh I started using hard edge square brushes because I like that better than very dirty line work sketches.





Speaking of projects, as I have said many times in this thread, my friend is writing a book right now called "Steam Soul". He wanted me to do illustrations that goes along with the text in his book (which means I need to buckle down on a lot more things other than anatomy and proportions). Considering that we are (now) Seniors in high school, this book will probably never fucking happen anytime soon but I am still here to encourage him to keep on going with his ideas.

In the meantime, I am currently designing his characters for him (which you will also see throughout the thread) which is a pain because the man doesn't have a clear idea of what his characters look like in the first place. Annoying? Yes indeed. But I carry on and design his characters for him anyways.

(Art): Three of the main characters in his book lined up together in a row. (Say hello, to my first (potential) character designing portfolio piece)

Garius (pronounced, "gar - ree - es"), the white mage and an earthbender.
Sorn, sword-wielding *almost* anime protagonist that has a constant bitch face according to all of my drawings of him.
Arron (pronounced, "(strong) R - ren"), the powerhouse and a genius that has a robot mech suit in his backpack.

 I like the juxtaposition of the characters greyscale aesthetic and the colorful box behind them. I also like how I made it look clean but it is still obvious that it's a sketch. I like that style for some reason (You can also see that style in the animal illustrations too).

  Now I do not like how they are all such pretty boys though, my friend specifically said that the characters are just normal people that decides to save the world from some crazy dictator person. So the pretty faces are not exactly necessary. When people skim over my sketchbook and see these characters, they always comment on how good-looking or how handsome they look. It's flattering that I can draw handsome looking men but that is not what the author intended. 

Like... Sorn has an eye that is slightly elongated than the other, his eyes do not have as much shine to them as much as Garius and Arron do (they look dead almost), his hair is originally suppose to be messy because he doesn't comb it in the morning (but I made his hair clean for no reason), and he is always frowning but people still find an attractiveness to him. 

Arron's eyes are very close together, has an abnormally large nose (only because he is suppose to resemble Caribbean people), bushy eyebrows and a giant Elmo mouth. But he garnered similar reactions to Sorn, people saying he looks handsome (which didn't faze me as much as the reactions with Sorn because Arron comes from a rich family and I originally saw him as a good-looking dude before designing him)

And Garius just looks like a cinnamon roll... too anime like for me really. 

  To alleviate this problem, I should go on this website Fedodika linked to on his thread called Earthsworld and it is a website that literally posts pictures of anybody. The best part is that a few of them are good-looking, a lot of them are really gross to look at but I need to start getting into facial diversity anyways so I should do some for fun. Then I can come back and see what I can do for these guys.[url=http://www.earthsworld.com/][/url]

Trust me, I like that I can make handsome/cute faces, but I don't like the "oh im a protagonist i should bee pretty nice looking right??" mindset that some fictional works do when it is not necessary at all. 




(Even the Fire Emblem community made fun of that stupid trope...)



(Art): Sorn and Garius as 19th century citizens, I suppose? I dunno what made me want to do this but I did it I suppose. I am still not satisfied at my current skill at doing character illustrations but I am certainly improving with it.

I was going to type some more but holy shit I'll do it tomorrow bye.

[AfricanVoodoo]

(I forgot to say thank you guys for liking my pig sketches. Thank you! ;)
Yo yo yo



You know, I should clarify something that I mentioned last post about compliments. I appreciate compliments so much and I do not want to antagonize or devalue the act of complimenting someone. I don't want anyone to just keep a straight face or, god forbid, tell themselves that people are lying when they walk by and verbally say that you are doing a good job.

(Art): I did go on that website, Earthsworld, and did some warm-up sketches. I should choose more interesting faces next time. Still bad portraits though, even if it is in my style. I did notice that my eyes are way too close to each other (in general). And female faces are still an enigma to me...



(Art): I finally did study of ears! I told myself that I should do that but I was lazy. Now that I have done it, let... me... tell... you .... something!!!

This shit was easy. Like... yeah, an ear looks complicated but I found a pattern very quickly in all ears, which is uncharacteristic of me honestly. The only problem I have is the hole on the bottom part of the ear (earwax hole?). I am not sure where to accurately place that hole but other than that shit, the ear was pretty simple for me. Next time, I'll study the ear when the face is facing us and away from us.



(Art): More from that website. Stttiiiiiiillllllll not happy, I just need to do a thousand more and see if my brain can stop being a shithead and make some good faces now.



Oh... and I did an illustration.

(Art): That's correct, me. I did an illustration for a Youtuber named Arlo for his T-shirt design contest (I only did it for the publicity). To describe Arlo, he is a game reviewer who is a puppet. A literal puppet, and the puppetmaster is frighteningly good at the lip syncing. It was to the point where everyone forgot that Arlo was just a puppet, he felt so real. Oh and he's funny.

This piece was mimicking the European box art for Resident Evil 4, a game he played on his Let's Play channel. It was an interesting experience not going to lie! During the process of this piece, I think I finally told myself to make a "flip canvas horizontally" shortcut which really does help with finding mistakes!! I'm glad I started using this (although I forget to do this often...).

(EDIT): This image was originally squished for some reason. I fixed it though!!

(Art): A very rough turnaround of Arron from my last post. There will be one more on the far right, which will be the very back of the head. Ever since January, some of you guys told me that I need to start doing turnarounds because I will never grasp 3D space if I only draw one view of a character. Also, if I was going to be a character designer, I was going to do this sort of stuff anyways for animation or 3D modeling. It's essential!! Well, bam, I am now starting this...

And it's fucking easyhardkindasortamediumlevel.

With Photoshop, it is 100x times easier to make turnarounds, like I am not fucking joking I cannot believe I tried to do this shit traditionally. BUT, that does not mean that this shit is not difficult cause I still have to think about the facial proportions and I want them to be ultra precise. I like the side and 3/4 view but the front is killing me. I dunno, I am divided between normal American eye shape or an almost Asiatic looking eye so he can look more native in the book. I mean, the Asiatic eye looks good on the other views so.... UGH, it's 10:30 over here and I am not in the mood right now to think about this shit.

But somethings I might change/ notice with the design:

• Despite the author approving the design, specifically his hair and facial features, I might just lower the hair size. I'll keep the thick quiff (yeah, that's what they are called apparently), but Imma just shrink that a little bit so I can be certain that he is truly has short hair. 
  
• I noticed why he looked so handsome to some people. It has to be his hair style. Google "quiff men" and you will see what I mean. Quiffs are very popular among Americans and are associated with true male beauty (according to the (American) media). (It also could be his jaw shape, it's square shaped and that makes him stand closer to the beauty standard. Not in my watch, buster.)
  
• The hair line on the back view is off... I should fix that.
  
• In the final line art, I am going to lower the jawline action going on here. Once again, a normal human with normal fat on his normal good-looking dumb face.
  
• Also, this guy is a genius mechanic who is always in a garage building his mech suit. He is going to be covered in soot and oil and he should be dirty. They are also in a steampunk setting so... I have to make his hair look semi-decent instead of model perfect.
  

Impatience

  Alright. I mentioned this in my Introduction thread from eons ago, but I started drawing when I was in the 8th grade. Stick figures and simple comics honestly. Back then, I wanted to become a chef because I simply loved food. When I hit my 10th grade, I started to notice that I barely cook anything but I love to draw and to watch people drawing on Youtube like Sycra does. That was when I started to begin my art journey.

  Welp... it's been a year since I have started this journey but my lust for improvement is pretty extraneous. I get so anxious when my skills are not as good as I would like it to be. Like the art industry is a tornado coming to strike me at high speeds and I wasn't prepared. I know some youngsters like me go through this, but holy shit I really do expect to be 3/4 decent when I did not even draw for that long. That tornado is literally going to arrive in 2 - 3 years for me. When I found out this revelation, it was honestly a relief because I can finally stop thinking that I need to rush my studies and practice. In general, I always think my life is just a huge set of time limits and that is dumb and depressing at times so I need to quit doing that shit.  

Some artists can relate when they enter late in the art industry, they feel like they have little to no time to just slack off, they have to study and draw full time for 18 hours or something. I genuinely give out my condolences to these people, because they are forever stuck in the business side of art. They will forever see art as just a grueling training regiment where you are just on the edge of no-money-ville and unemployment. Well I mean, the unemployment part is something every artist has to go through but I digress. It's not even their own fault too (well, it depends on person to person), it just happens and they are just trying to make things work.

  So I should just try to appreciate the amount of time I put into drawing anyways and keep on going. I should keep on loving my sense of curiosity in different styles of drawing and illustration. I should keep on loving all the resources that I have in front of me. And I should keep on loving the amount of time I put into my work, because that is the only thing that is truly going to push me into doing better and better.

[AfricanVoodoo]

Hi there!






I totally forgot that I bought two packets of cardstock the other day so I decided to use them as drawing paper. These types of paper are very nice for sketchbooks actually. I should look up some tutorials on some DIY sketchbooks.

(Art): I want to do fifty (mostly) female figure drawings on the cardstock. This was an experience because I only do small thumbnail sized sketches of figures and faces all the time.... crits please? :} 
   I need to start doing female poses from imagination because I can never do that without reference.


(Art): Welp, I finished the turnaround. I'm going to keep it loose like this because I want to get away from looking at this until a few weeks. After that, I will begin the final lines and colors... crits please :]

[alexsieu]

if you still have one year left in high school to go you're way too young to be worrying about industry stuff to be honest with you; just keep grinding it out

your animal sketches have a very nice disney like feel to it which I enjoyed

did you go to somewhere to draw those figures from life? if not i've heard it preached to go draw the figure from life rather than from photograph, as you can move around the figure and feel the figure more

from a less vague and more personal point of view, every single time you hit up a life drawing class you know you're gonna be drawing nonstop doing hard work that you need to do for 2-3 hours straight, and it gives you a new pool of people to compete against if you're the best within your peers from your high school

your stuff looks great for high school; i'm sure you'll get into the art school of your choosing from my layman opinion

[Fedodika]

haha you're in high school and you're this far along?? Lucky!

[AfricanVoodoo]

Alex: Thank you so much! Your thoughts are very kind!
  I honestly have to remember that 3 years is a very long time, I just need to have faith in myself and just chill out. 
I got the reference from Croquis Cafe Photo Gallery so to answer your question, no, those were not from live sessions. The only live session place I know of is in Orlando, FL. Which I can definitely go now since it is the summer and I have lots of free time now. And I need to enhance my speed of doing gesture drawings anyways and I feel like the time limit will help.

Fedodika: Thank you! You guys are making me blush too much!!

Thank you guys again! :D




13 days? Okay, I know I take at least 3-5 days to update my thread but this was a very long period of time.

 There are two reasons why I haven't posted. Reason uno of why I was gone was because I moved into a new house and I needed to focus on moving.  Reason dos is that I was also focusing on the things that made me enjoy entertainment in the first place. Let's just say I got burned out of all the drawing and bullshit and I never gave myself anytime to just chill and be a teenager y'know? I watched my childhood anime, Naruto, again and I didn't notice how exciting the action sequences are in that show. I read some Sailor Moon comic books that I didn't read in a year. I kept on drawing, just not a whole lot. (Also I am finding a job while working with my family members and I have virtual school so...)

(Art): Just a whole bunch of circles for a warm up. I was ultimately trying to remind myself to use my shoulders when handling with medium to long strokes like these. 

I was looking through Hampton's anatomy book and he suggested some warm-up exercises that you can do everywhere. I did that "Varying Spheres" one, where you have to create a circle in one stroke. I should go ahead and do more complicated exercises since I always rely on the easy ones.









(I apologize that these lines are so light, I had to use my scanner with no contrast adjustment options on its software. Ugh...)

(Art): More on the naked girls series that I am doing. I honestly do not like any of these except #7. On the last one, I noticed I got too fatigued at this point and started to quickly sketch unconsciously. I might redo #12 because this was honestly not something that screams "Me!". Also my faces look like they are trying too hard to look like faces and the proportions just look weird on some of them... I am not stressing though, first time I did this kind of stuff.






After reading Hampton's notes on gesture, I tried to incorporate his wisdom it into my gestures. He said that likeness and proportions were not exactly the focus when doing gesture. When I read this, I suddenly felt heavy weight coming off of my shoulders because when I do gestures I alternate from the figure to the back at the paper to make sure every single angle of that specific pose to correct. I always knew how tiring and straining that is but I always thought that was the process. I look at Hampton's gesture sketches and they are so loose and free. (Something I STILL have trouble doing.)  Even though I do not know what the reference is on his end, he still manages to tell a story in the figure and he is not afraid to just use whatever curves he needs in order to make the rhythm read well. Notice how he sketches the lower leg sometimes? Literally just two excessively concave lines and that appeals to me so much.

I also studied how he constructs the human form when doing quick gestures. All he does is draw two circles for the rib cage and pelvis and connect them to create a cylinder (For me, I try to imitate the hourglass shape for females and the cylinder for males). He then lets the gesture line and rhythmic lines do all the talking from here on out.

He also stresses to exaggerate the figure to avoid overly stiff figures. There are some figures where I overdo the exaggerated pose but I feel like a lot of people have this problem as well.

And I use too many lines. Although I do not worry about how many lines I use most of the time, when I have to do 10 second or 30 second gestures in the future, I do have to understand the concept of catching rhythm and gesture in a quick amount of time. Unfortunately with male models, I am more distracted on how the anatomy affects the figures (since that is what is mostly prominent in male models most of the time) rather than their movement and flow which causes me to add more lines. Not only do I need to focus on the movement and story on the figure, I need to start timing myself to force myself to hurry the fuck up. (Oh yeah, I wasn't timing myself with these.)





So I wanted to do a character sketch, right? It was a tribal man with a tiger, the man looked okay but then I drew the tiger and I couldn't stand how dumb it looked so I did some studies on kitties!

(Art): Just tiger sketches. I actually went on Youtube and looked for videos on tigers. I slowed down the video by 0.25 so I can VERY carefully study their movements and how their limbs work (I was somewhat proud of myself for doing that. I feel like an animator now). What I learned was that tigers look very chubby, they have a lot of flab on their legs but I never capture that consistently for some reason. Their front legs bend forwards like an actual human being's arm would. I thought that was more common sense than anything because tigers aren't flamingos. They are very long kitties, I catch myself making them too short sometimes. If a feline is walking, I have to vary their leg's poses to not make them look like they're doing the two step dougie but at the same time I have to make them look like they are walking for real.






(Art): At the top, I was figuring out where he wanted his characters. He describes the cover as the three main characters walking off with their backs turned. All of them aligned on the midline of the canvas while taking up the majority of the horizontal space. They will also be in a white silhouette against a black background (I genuinely did not like that choice but it is his book...). It was kind of boring to just draw them walking off normally so I tried to add some variety among them. 

The big figure with the wire frames up there is suppose to be Sorn, a machete-wielding mercenary who obtains pyromancy later in the story.  He will just rest his blade on his shoulder as he conjures up flames with his other hand.

The other two are at the bottom. Garius has the power to control earth, so he is just chillin' on his rock. He is also very short so I see him riding around on a floating rock all the time like Goku with his cloud or Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Arron has a giant bookbag that contains his most prized possession, his homemade mecha suit. Maybe I should draw him slouching or his back can be almost 90 degrees because he is holding all of that weight. I feel like that would add more personality to his stance in the cover and his character design in general.

So... the characters are actually searching for a blimp that contains this dictator evil bad dude who is making the land shitty and stuff and they want to kill him. So what I wanted to do was to put the blimp on the upper horizontal third part of the cover in front of the characters (they will be in the middle third while the title will be on the bottom). Without the blimp, the cover suggests that the characters are just a group of journeymen that are going on a journey. Nooo, they actually have a goal! But at the same time, the story is very character-centric (despite the writer being a total novice on character writing) so having them in the spotlight is not that bad of an idea either.

Maybe I can still put in the blimp, but because of atmospheric perspective it will be darker and therefore not the main focus. Meanwhile, the characters will be in full white and they will not suggest that there will be a blimp anywhere because this is their story!

... Yup.




(Art): Anyways, I am now designing a new character for him now. This is Morgan, a half-human half-bird who has an impressive adeptness in this world's magic. She is basically the mage of this group. She is proud, assertive and a little aloof and unforgiving. 

On the first page was my first take at her design (and another kittie!!!), which he approved except the beak was not to his liking. It was suppose to be wider and bigger and now that I look at it, I don't like the small beak either. I referenced an eagle and I used that for her beak. The one yelling on the second page is honestly the best expressive face I have done in months.



(Art): And I drew her in a cute dress that I just made up on a Friday night. I dunno why I did it though... just felt like it I guess. Exploring more expressions too.




(Art): While I was doing other things, I did these two tiny sketches. On the top is Sailor Moon, the baddest bitch in town! And the bottom is my character Darius, who will be in a comic I want to do very badly (and no, he doesn't wear a T-shirt, the story takes place during the medieval times. Unless there are t-shirts in medieval times.) (Actually, now that I mentioned him. Remember when I said I was doing a character that was a tribesman and a tiger? You're looking at the tribesman.) 




(Art): So... remember when I showed off the pig sketches? This was the character design that I wanted to complete, and drawing a pig's head was killing me so that's why I sketched out those pigs. I LONG forgotten about this... but it's cute.




(Art): Some dude I drew while watching a stream. I liked the sketch very much so I tried to add color. Honestly, if I kept on going it would look pretty cool. But at the time, I was not pleased by this painting style so I left it alone. I don't think I should of done that... (is it me or is the head pretty small...)



(Art): And... A quick sketch of Garius. His eyes are considerably smaller than the last time I drew him...

Okay. I am done. That was all the things I have done while I was gone. Bye now!

[AfricanVoodoo]

Aiyo!!










Got my new scanner back. I should leave the contrast bar alone this time. I actually like the gray and obviously pencil marks from my last post. This is too dark for me... and I need to clean it. I see crumbs on it eww.

(Art): Boring shit. 

Okay. The funny thing with the circles was that I was only going to do one page of them for a warm-up right. But then I saw a video of Anthony Jones recommending an exercise that involves drawing circles in one stroke, just like the one I was doing above. I immediately made it a routine to start doing 1-2 pages of just circles. I got better at it at a frighteningly fast pace. But they aren't good enough to me honestly. Gotta keep on chugging it along.

I was honestly pleased with myself that I actually took the time to get up and do some boxes and cylinders for once. At 12:00 AM I just randomly decided to do a whole page of 25 boxes. So I told myself to do more things like these until I reach 200 boxes (which is 8 of those). They look... okay. Nah, they look below average but I could do worse, not going to lie. I should do that thing Draw A Box do and get a colored pencil and check my work with the boxes. Even though I didn't do that, I still see MAJOR fuck-ups in there (still accepting advice and critiques though)

Two-point perspective is also fucking me up though. I understand what happens if the box is in between of the two vanishing points but what happens to the box if it is not in the middle? What if it is far on the left or right? Do I just make up an imaginary vanishing point so it can look like it is in the middle? "Fuck it", I said while I doing this shit.

 

(Art): Very quick and loose figure sketches. Still thinking about Hampton's balance between story, structure, and exaggeration in the poses. Which I do not think I did awfully here but I am still finding that perfect balance. I was also trying to use less lines too.  





(Art): More figure drawing but I was focusing a little bit more on the upper body and structure in general. I still do not have this feeling that what I am creating looks stable . Like, a figure with actual form and stability is not my strong suit even though I have been doing figures since the Bronze Age.


 


(Art): Did some studies on the abdominal muscles. I learned that abs are sneaky bitches and can hide behind fat to confuse artists like... what bunch of assholes. Also, I ultimately need to visualize lean abs ass just two simple cylinders, aka the "Twinkie Bar" abs. And some figures from imagination, which looks okay but the proportions look wrong. Will I ever be satisfied?



So... in the story that I want to do, there were ninja clans that go around conquering, overthrowing and espionage and normal ninja shit that they do (Ninja clans and ninjas in general are not as common as they were before the beginning of the story). I wanted there to be a class system where when you rank up, the clothing will change and become slightly more complicated than the previous costume that they had. So, I did some sketches to see where it will lead me.

My goal is to sketch so much ideas on paper that I can just pick out the ideas that I like and just create actual designs.



(Art): I added a background to a (now) cleaned up sketch of Morgan in Photoshop. Nothing to say here I 'm fucking tired right now...

[AfricanVoodoo]

Hello!
 







Ugh, I should be doing these daily but I always prioritize other things than this. This entire set was after one hour, so I should just dedicate one hour to doing at least 5-6 drawings daily. 

(Art): I ultimately prioritized the gesture of the poses but I am still thinking about form and the fat on the figure. I don't like the first one AT ALL because that was pretty much the first thing I drew after doing my warm ups (oh, speaking of, I am still doing circles but in pen and I am doing the connect the dots exercise more too.) and it looks ultra super stiff. I actually winced looking at it when I scanning it. Other than that... I guess these look okay? I dunno, whatever.







Hmm... I remember when I did figure sketches and they were all super clumped up and some drawings fell out of the page because it was too big. Now, I actually (sometimes) think about where to place the figure before drawing it. Like if the figure has their leg stretched to the left, I will plan to draw the figure on the far right of the page. I dunno how I developed this, but I am glad I did because I hated when that happens.

(Art): Some warm-up figure sketches that I did the other day. I am certain that the first two pages are from reference while the last ones is from memory. The third one is probably a mix of the two. These are the warm ups I should do before the actual figure drawings. I think that'll get me fired up to draw some ladies.




(Art): I dunno why, I just picked up a fine tipped Sharpie and started sketching heads with very little construction. If I was going to do that, I should start exploring shapes and ways to construct the head with said shapes. Oh, and I watched Sinix's video on cleaning up your sketches and making them presentable so that inspired the second image. Remind me to not put tiny drawings in the edit anymore because I hate how I did it here. I should of just put in some tiny sketches but leave them out of the sharpie area, Save the space for bigger head drawings. Well, this was my first time doing shit like this so...






(Art): Some character sketches and exploration plus another edit that I tried to do on Photoshop. Looks better than the first one but only because there are no tiny sketches. I also dabbled in expressions to see if I am still shit at it. Ehhhh, I see a little progress but I STILL don't like my expressions. They are just not good enough for me honestly. With this image, I overdid the exaggeration part while shoving the form of the head away. Ugghh, gotta keep on going...



(Art): A thumbnail I did while I was doing the character sketches... I thought it was cute.

Overall, this was a shitty week because I was so unproductive and I only did dumb sketches all week long. I was also designing Arron's backpack that he carries around during the story of Steam Soul and it SHOULD NOT be taking so long to design but because I am still looking for a job and just pure laziness overtaking me,  I did not get anything done and I am so mad about that. Time to not be a shithead.


Clip Studio Paint

 I got Clip Studio Paint because I luckily went on their website while a sale was going on! I got this shit for 25 dollars (apparently others got it for $15, lucky) and it is AMAZING! There is a pencil brush that astonishingly look like an actual pencil and it looks so natural. When you crop the canvas, it actually shows a preview of what parts is going to be kept/added/removed and I gasped so loudly. When you want to make a straight line with the Shift button, it also shows a preview of where that line is going to go and it makes it so much easier to just draw on that program. 

   If I find more things that are amazing with this program, I might have to just kick Photoshop off the curb because linework and line-dependent art is the way to go for me. Alright, maybe not kick off the curb because I still use it for a lot of things but it is tempting because that subscription shit is getting on my nerves.

Here are some of the things I did:



(Ew, this one is so blurry.)


I didn't do major shit but I am trying to get used to the software. I give it two thumbs up!

[AfricanVoodoo]

Perfectionism

 Fuck I am a perfectionist. 

I never saw myself as someone who wants things to be perfect all the time but after thinking about it, I do have this problem about wanting certain things to be impeccable on the first try. If I don't get a sketch to look like what I want it to be, I won't experiment, I won't persevere, I would not even take a breather and think about it. If this or that is not what I want it to be right now, I'll pretty much just give up on it. It sucks and I tell myself to not give up but I am already in my bed sleeping so... fuck. (This applies to digital art, not so much to my traditional for some reason.)

And this is such a terrible trait to have when you need to do art professionally. My digital art is not getting any better because I always give up after realizing that this brush is not to my liking so I just go into my room and draw traditionally. I can't do that because drawing traditionally is pretty much my escape from this. And I can't escape from digital art, not right now. I have too much to learn about resolution, lineart techniques, etc. and to just give up after realizing that my fucking thumbnail phase isn't "good enough"... ugh. 

What gets to me is that I am not like a normal perfectionist where they keep on chugging and chugging into a piece/sketch to the point where it is unhealthy. I am a lazy perfectionist. Like I said above, I literally go into my bed if something doesn't go my way and I am not sure if other people have this problem as well. I tell myself that I am going to go back to it later, but I don't... I am not passionate enough about the things I do apparently...

This happened to me when I was doing Sorn and Arron's design way long ago (I think they are in this thread somewhere). I was doing my thing, just drawing normally and stuff. Then, I take a step back and see that this doesn't look like "so-so's" linework and it doesn't look crisp enough. I then get discouraged to even get back to drawing and I stopped working on it indefinitely... Such a harmful way of thinking...

Being a perfectionist sucks...

---

Anyways, how are y'all doing?


















I need to start listening to music more and more now because I realize that listening to video game streams and podcasts are making me slightly less productive than when I draw. When I listen to that good ass jazz, I feel a jolt of energy that I do not get when I am just listening to people talk all day. That, and I pay too much attention to the people talking and not drawing. I need to focus dammit.

(Art): Ha! And I thought I wouldn't do 5-6 drawings a day!! Look at all of this work in just half a week! I finally reached the halfway point! I understand that these barely look finished at all and will be forever considered glorified sketches but I am more proud of the fact that I actually woke up in the morning to do these. I am proud of the fact that I realized that I set this goal for myself, temporarily forgotten about it, then told myself that this is what I need to achieve, then actually started doing it. I am proud that I finally took the time to draw some ladies because that was my weak point when it came to humans. Women. I can't wait until I finish this. I might do a second set actually, I have time now.

Still putting gesture in front because I honestly do not want to subscribe to stiff yet ultra structural looking stuff. Some of these are major duds but I feel content with the experience. Here is what I learned so far:

 - Starting very very very loose and light with the gesture then pressing harder with the final lines are good for achieving a clean look on the page

 - Establishing a floor is important. I tried to imagine a floor for the longest time but I am still not getting the feet to be at the same level at times and that was getting annoying.

- Make the heads bigger, jesus christ.

- Taking a step back from my drawing to see the full drawing is useful. This way I know if the head should be bigger or not.






(Art): Before doing my challenge, I do my warm-ups first so I wouldn't have to deal with stiff figures. These are the warm-ups I will typically do every single day. (There are a WHOLE lot more of those "perfect circles" pages)





So... I decided to redesign Garius because the last time I drew him in a full costume, he looked like a hot mess so I wanted to get something official for once. My writer friend asked for an overalls-harness hybrid type of thing. That sounds really dumb but honestly I wanted to do it because it was so weird but fitting for the setting in his book. 

(Art): I did some sketches of harnesses while looking up videos on how to put on a harness and how it works. I am sloppy when I try to do visual library stuff, sorry!




(Art): The original scanned sketches of my concepts for his primary costume and then my edited "wow so profesh!!" version that took me 4-5 hours to do which was really extraneous but I really wanted the sketches to be as clean as possible and I was looking up character concept work to get an idea of the background.

In hindsight, that drop shadow on the left are really ugly looking. I should of keep them as flat ellipses... Actually, removing them completely is a better thing to do. I also see a tangent on the very right side of the far right figure and the box. Ugh... I'll edit these later, but I will keep this version on the internet to remind myself that I still do not know shit about these types of things. I'll owe up to my mistakes!!

just kidding i'm a bitch



(Omitted the dark circles, rearranged the tiny bottom left thumbnail to not create a terrible tangent, and the right box is smaller and has a clear border.) 

The text is really nice in my opinion, It gives it that nice touch. 

Please, if you have any, give me some tips on composition and doing character concepts like these. I should look and examine other people's work to see if I find any patterns.
(I would show more art but I accidentally pressed the post button, so until next time. Bye now!)

[AfricanVoodoo]

Practicality vs. Coolness in Character Design

   Practicality vs. Coolness was a debate that I was reading during one of Istebrak's critique sessions that she was having on her Youtube channel (it was was the one about a group of travelers or whatever and her students were trying to illustrate them i dunno) and the comment section was having a tiny debate about whether or not practicality was necessary in character design. The "Coolness" side of the argument was saying that it doesn't really matter if this knight's armor is way too fucking huge or that it is not suit for travel. It doesn't matter if this character has so much shit on his/her body that it looks almost impossible to put on every morning.  As long as it looks cool, the public will like it. This was pretty much Blizzard's way of thinking apparently.

   Honestly, I agree about the point that the public will pretty much eat it up and won't pay attention. Sometimes, the design will look too ridiculous that it'll take someone out of the game but that is not a terribly bad thing for the game itself. 


This is the Barbarian class in Diablo III. It looks amazing and the design looks ultra cool! It makes the character truly feel like a badass who is ready to take on a bunch of warriors and ogres and that giant fucking spider in the game who scared me while I was playing it (which was ironic because I was the Witch Doctor and my main attack was the spider jars). The armor design is very detailed and the silhouette truly makes the character feel threatening but in a hero type of way.

The problem is with the armor itself. That isn't silk, leather, or even normal iron armor commonly worn by archers who need that agility to move around and away from their opponent. This is most likely heavy armor shit that he is wearing right here and he needs to move around in this, this is incredibly straining even on Mr. Macho Husky Dude here. It is not practical to be wearing so much heavy armor during travel.

BUT, it looks cool right? Honestly, who actually had such a hiccup about this dude wearing so much superfluous armor in the first place? Nobody (who was in of importance) really wanted to boycott or stop playing the game because "its not realistic enough". And the fact that the game literally has fantasy elements like spider jars, monsters, magic spells and buff 600-pound-armor-wearing men around, I think it's time to just have fun playing the game.



   The characters of Last Of Us are pretty much on the opposite spectrum as the Diablo designs. They fall directly into the practical spectrum. Even though the story includes these weird sounding zombies, this is still a survival game and it is very realistic in terms of their costume design and the emotional aspects. The people who have to survive have to consider limited space for items, the amount of weight they put on their body, how heavy their weapon is, etc. They can't go around in a snowstorm half-naked like fantasy type shit would do, they need these odd contraptions called a coat. It makes them warm I guess.

   But, once again, nobody complains that it isn't "cool enough". The public respect the fact that being "cool" was not really the focus in a survival horror game.  So... does it really all depend on the genre of a game to determine whether the designs should be on the "cool" or "practical" side of the spectrum? Or maybe it shouldn't HAVE to affect it, maybe that is what the designers want in their game. Maybe the client just wants the characters to be decked out in heavy armor head-to-toe and artist was having a little fun with it. Maybe...

Oh, I never told y'all where I fall on this spectrum. I like to make cool looking stuff but at the same time if I am going to make a character, I am going to have to think about if this design works with their current situation, occupation, class, etc. For example, if I were to draw a warrior who travels alone with no home. I would draw him with scars and bandaging with some iron and leather armor. Light enough for a random ambush and for walking across the country at the same time. His main weapon would be two dirks, one on each side of his hip.  He carries a medium-sized travel bag over his back filled with food, water, medical supplies, sleeping bags, essential shit to live in the wilderness in. He wears a hood over his head because of the heat and just in case it rains and he needs a little cover. His hair is short since having long hair can make your opponent to grab it and trap you in for an attack. 

Okay, I'm gonna stop there but do you know what I am saying? I like everything to make sense for the world and the characters even if it doesn't look ultra cool looking. Understanding my subject and making those subjects understood for the rest of the world is my favorite way of designing something. In my opinion, it requires more thinking when you want things to make sense in the world you are creating because you have to consider so much shit but it is also fun to discuss with friends and external sources.

---

Anyways, hola!!










See... even I am a perfectionist when I come unto this site. I wanted to post this on Monday, but then I noticed I have little art (that I liked) of the ladies so I postponed the entire post until I can do more figure studies.  I just don't like posting little art on here especially if I don't post for almost a week.

(Art): Almost to fifty! This was a terrible batch in my opinion but it doesn't really affect me an awful lot. I was trying to draw more girls with a little bit more chub and it is way harder than I thought it would be. I tried to draw them as if they were skinny, then add the extra round forms next. I am still trying to make this work, if it doesn't work then I'll just try another way.

Oh and it's pretty much my hobby to fuck the proportions up now. I just do it so effortlessly.




(Art): Warm-up figures... yup. 



(Art): Two half pages that I put together. The left side is me trying to construct a female face... which isn't going too well. And a bunch of whatevs on the right.



I am noticing that I am focusing a bunch on my figures and anatomy but I never do any doodles or my own character work to complement those studies. I really don't know why but when I am on break I just like to focus more on longer projects than just randomly doodling some things in my sketchbook. Speaking of, I never drew in my sketchbook since school ended. I just picked up some cardstock and used that for the majority of this summer.

(Art): I drew this elf girl at like... 2 AM. Then I painted this digitally in the morning for Instagram. I should of colored her tunic green, it looks so incomplete without the shirt color in retrospect. 







(Art): Once again, I was up at 2AM in the morning and I decided to draw something. This is Sorn... just sitting on a beach chair.  I scanned the image, warped and rearranged some things in Photoshop, transfered it to Manga Studio and then I did the rest.

The lineart took at least 10 hours to do and it was an experience for sure. I like it but it looks like he isn't sitting on the chair which... sigh. I drew him before I drew the chair, I should know that pretty much ruins the picture, oh well. I like the way I handled the line weight though.

I have never done lineart ever since VERY early 2017, I was afraid to go back to it because fuck Photoshop I wasn't very confident in my line work so I just stopped. I noticed that is not a great mindset to have so I want to do more things like this so I can get better at the way that I draw and line art... Yup.



(Art): I did more concepts for this man's book... the character from the last post is also wearing a satchel were he carries all of his shit. I did some designs that are c u t e and then we moved on from there fuck im tired

[AfricanVoodoo]

Oh! *winks unsuccessfully* Hello there. 










(Art): Yay i did it!




I went from this...

To the images you see above and it honestly shouldn't of taken me so long to do it but here I am, y 'know? I was a little more structural at the beginning (I low-key like the first drawing I did) but then I said fuck it and started practicing the art of storytelling in a figure. I pretty much had Hampton's thought process in mind while doing this. 

As I went along with this project, I shifted my goal flag from "draw women more" to a "think more about proportions and placement" which is what I really suck at right now.

I mean, I still want to draw more ladies, I didn't abandon that goal because I really don't draw girls a lot. People actually like girls and girls are cool so fuck I need to start getting comfortable drawing them y'know? I'm inching closer and closer to just getting girls to look right, so... progress is nice. 

 I hated that my heads looked too small or too really small big on their bodies (and that was always an avoidable mistake) yet I didn't think about how to fix that. I thought I could just wing it and see if I can get it on the next figure. Obviously not bitch. In the future set of 50, I gotta do some quick measurements during the rough sketch phase so the head wouldn't look so dumb. 

Obviously, there are takeaways from doing this. I actually got more comfortable drawing women for my character designs. That elf girl a post ago? I was surprised to see myself finally incorporate a woman in my fantasy and medieval type shit because I always wanted to do that. I just didn't want to fuck it up. 

Also, my idea on human proportions were heavily adjusted because of this project. I looked at my older sketches that I did during my junior year and I IMMEDIATELY noticed that the bodies look fucking squashed. What I mean is, their ribcage and pelvic region is incredibly close to each other. To make it worse, I put long legs on them so now they just look dumb (which I seem to do on every... single... character that I draw. Even dwarves. I draw tall dwarves yes indeed...)

In retrospect, the fact that I noticed something like this without actually looking at reference at the time makes me happy.





(Art): A bunch of doodles and the beginning of some exploration on Garius's face (more on this later). I kind of let loose on the shapes this time, which is pretty therapeutic. I like the blob face exercises that you see on Youtube, I used to do those. I should get back to it.




So, my writer friend is into DnD (god help me) and he literally drags me and his other friends into doing a session whenever he can which is very funny because the majority of his friends get really fucking bored of the game. I'm pretty neutral about it, but it does make me wonder why he conveniently have so many friends who doesn't even enjoy the game. 

He dragged me into playing this last year.

(Art): So the first (and only) character I have is a Dwarf Cleric named Baern who is Neutral Good (? i dunno remember). My character's abilities consist of missing a fucking lot, always rolling 1s at the beginning of fights, never talks and only there to heal, and spamming Sacred Flame cause it never misses.

So this is my interpretation of him. None of this stuff is final, but it was a fun exercise to do.
(Oh shit, this was the "tall dwarf" i was talking about gasp)





(Art): Oh that demon looks cool.



(Art): Another wierd line-less illustration on Manga Studio. I have no idea why I like doing these but I lost interest in this one unlike the red dude. So that is why her hair is kind of... not on her head. I would like to do a blue dude sometime.



(Art): Bunch of sketches of the same character in the same position. I did these because it genuinely bothers me when I draw a character, then I try to draw them again and it looks slightly different. This was just an exercise to see if I can analyze and draw this boy's face right every time. My favorite face is the second face on the top row from the left, so I used that as reference. 

I never believed the whole "as long as it looks like the character, it's on-model". Yes, all of these sketches do look like Garius, but it's going to bother me if I can't make him look nearly identical every time y'know?






Watching that Sinix video on how to present your sketches was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he introduced me to just scanning black pieces of paper so you add texture to the sketches in Photoshop so nobody has to just see a blank page with drawings on it.

And it's a curse because now I am going to spend hours just editing and arranging stupid sketches just for Instagram. You could say that I don't have to do all of that but here is the thing...

no

(Art): One thing that I am doing now is actually coloring the sketches, and then using pure white lines for highlights (well... not in these since the Multiply layer fucked up the white lines and all it did was erase the color) so the sketches will pop out more and it will give the image a more traditional look (kind of). This way of doing lighting reminds me of actually good drawings on Toned Tan sketchbooks.

ok im done bye

[AfricanVoodoo]

(Once again, I am delaying posts for one thing that'll never be done so fuck...)
:D



So... after the 50 Women Challenge ended, I was just sitting here thinking "Now what?" I shifted through some sketchbooks on here and I stumbled on one that showed them doing the "Robo Bean" exercise from Proko. And that reminded me of something...

All of those recommendations that you guys give me in this sketchbook. You of them was Proko and for the longest time I was just like "heh yeah, i am already a devout follower of him." but then, right up until now, I realized that I never actually did any of his assignments... I just kind of watched his anatomy videos. 

I then told myself that that was unacceptable and I started some Robo Bean exercises.

(Art): Boxes suck. I definitely have to watch where I put my lines because I am still making skewed boxes. And no more chicken scratch lines. 



(Art): More of my warm-ups. I need to seriously reconsider what a "warm-up" is because I see people doing hands and feet and actual studies for warm-ups and I'm over here thinking it's just draw circles all morning. I'm also drawing boxes out of my imagination now.






Notes: Oooo, I finally did something like this. This was so fun to do, just observing and noticing things to help me draw better. This topic was for me to know more about the female head and what traits differ from men.




(Art): Out of my imagination type of sketches. I want to start doing more figures out of my imagination because honestly, just doing studies from reference is not going to help me as much.





(Art): Digital paints of sketches that I honestly believe I spend too much fucking time on. I also found out how to cel shade now... I suppose? It was a pretty big discovery on my part and I am starting to like how I color things now.



(Art): I made an addition to a previous piece that I did with a new character that I designed a while ago. I also altered and corrected some things with the boys faces. Sorn had a pretty big fucking nose and a crooked mouth so I tried to remedy that problem. Arron's mouth has also shortened. And I replaced my handwriting version of their names with an actual text font. I'm pretty content with the changes. 

Yup... 9 days and I couldn't share much...

[AfricanVoodoo]

*gasp* It's you.





School is coming back for me but I am finally a senior!! I can't wait to be condescending as shit, have layers of depression and stress, and for the Senior Skip Days that we do over at our school. And I'm taking some classes that will absolutely cripple me mentally so I am excited!!!

(Art): Anyways... for art I specifically focused on designing and doodling this set. I did a few hand studies here and there while as trying to figure out how spirals and horns and fingers work in 3D space. And I was low-key learning how to draw dragons. Ultimately, I just let loose and drew something on paper which was cool.





I was on a character designing high this set, expect things like this for a while because while studying is important, I also have to remember to apply what I learned (which I don't do well).

(Art): A witch with very vibrant clothes but a fucking gas mask i dunno what the fuck I was doing...



(Art): A heavily altered version of a sketch of Garius. A lineart is in progress but god knows when I am not going to hate my lineart so I'm probably not going to finish it whoops.





(Art): An original scan (which ominously looks cleaner than I thought), a cleaned-up version, and a WIP on some "Bullfrog" piece I am doing. I like it but I feel like some colors has to be changed like the really orange pants. I might make it a red-orange... I dunno I'll see when I get back to the coloring.




(Art): Cutesy shit.

(EDIT): Fuck, I prematurely released a post again. I was suppose to talk about my first commission that I got a few days ago. Yeah, I went up to a Youtube channel via social media and asked them if I could draw thumbnails and their banner. I showed him my """"(((portfolio)))"""" and he and other bystanders were impressed so he hired me. I asked for $28 on the banner, not a huge bill but I freaked the fuck out when he actually payed me. Welp... time to get to that banner. Can't let him down.