Shining Beam Syndication Feed

Chronus and Chronos weren't the same guy anyway

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:17:00 -0700

Simeon is playing Saturn, Ananke's husband, who works for the goddess of Time, who is dying. (Oh, Shadowtext, you cut up, that's not what he meant by time passing) She has heard that her servant Saturn's wife is pregnant, and has convinced him to let her pass her powers on to his unborn child. Saturn's nervous about the whole thing, but who doesn't want his child to be a god?

Basically, Simeon a little cleaned up and with a more professional outfit.

Homework?

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:13:00 -0700

The assignment I'm currently working on for my art class is to show time passing. I'm doing a comic....the medium's just inherently suited to it.

But I'm low on time, so I decided that instead of using original characters, I would just let Simeon and Alyson (and one other person, who I haven't decided on yet....might end up being Will) "play the parts" as though they're acting in a play.

It worked for Osamu Tezuka

Ananke is the lead in this little play, played by a very pregnant Alyson. Her daughter (pictured....kinda) is the primary plot device. This is my first time drawing a character pregnant, so I'm hoping I'm not off on how she should look. And I don't have a lot of experience with maternity clothing, either.

Just another word for "Nothin' left to lose."

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:12:00 -0700

I've switched from DM to PC in the D&D game I've been playing the last few months. I just rolled up my character this week, and I decided to draw her out.

Freedom Akta, a Tiefling Warlord. She fights using charisma and bold gambits to lead her team to victory. In theory.

I decided not to draw the individual links in the chainmail because it was already taking too long to make this picture. It's laziness, yes, but laziness I'm willing to deal with because it means I can do other things than drawing 55.3 million chain-links.

First Post in Etc., Part Two

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:40:00 -0700

I did Halloran, the goblin merchant at the same time. At the time the story starts, Halloran has been living under a bridge and neither eating or drinking anything, other than scotch made from old socks and dead rats. (Goblin ingenuity knows no bounds)

Before his recent troubles he was a respected businessman, known for his skill at keeping inventories and knowing what his customers would want. He resents the Merchants' Guild and blames them for his recent troubles. When Will offers him a job at Anything Under the Sky, he jumps at it after finding out they're not members of the Guild.

First update in like forever

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:34:00 -0700

So I guess I took the summer off or something. I dunno, just haven't really been doing much that I felt like posting. School's starting back soon, and I'm getting back into the groove....I'm going to try to pull off my Directed Study project this turn if I can, and I'm getting geared up.

I'm not sure if I'll do Hurricane Simeon, because I'm seriously considering doing Anything Under the Sky instead. To that end: some character designs. First up, Anders the Dryad.

Anders is one of the clerks for the store that Will scouts out. She's noted for being charming, but can't really branch out (pun....oh, who am I kidding, totally intended) because she's magically tied to her tree.

Hey, stranger

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:50:00 -0700

It's been a long time since I've updated. It's been a busy couple of months, between work, school, and various video games.

Hurricane Simeon's probably not starting anytime real soon. No one ever accused me of NOT-flakiness.

Meanwhile I'm working on something else that shouldn't take as much of my free time or be as draining. Still some graphical work but not the all-consuming work that keeping to a schedule on a comic would take.

I'm going to try to work on a short, small video game (potentially episodic but for right now it's just a single standalone concept) tentatively called Henshin! I'll only work on it about an hour a day, so it shouldn't take up too much of my time to make it....who knows how long it'll take, but since it's a fairly small project, hopefully it won't take as long as, for example, Taret Blade has.

Henshin! is an affectionate parody of the magical girl genre and anime conventions in general--hopefully it'll end up being like a shojo Gurren Lagann.

It's giving me a chance to resurrect the trio of Kaori, Shiori and Midori, though their roles and backstories will be changed to something less dumb than it was before.

So that's the status dealie at the moment.

I have no idea, really

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:05:00 -0800

I guess it's a nature spirit of some sort? I don't know. Not a Dryad, but probably related, I guess.

I'm not totally certain about the inspiration or the use of this design.

Yet more redesigns

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:55:00 -0800

Not Simeon-related, but I'm still thinking of and working on Simeon. Gotta expect some side-tracking from the ADD, though!

This time I'm playing up the scientist angle rather than the blacksmith angle. I considered keeping the goggles, but they're pretty common (if useless) adornments these days.

I tried to base her face on Kaylee (that's Jewel Staite for you non-Browncoats), but went with a haircut I found by browsing a website dedicated to, of all things, haircuts.

I definitely want a steampunk sort of feeling, but I wonder if she looks more punk-punk than steampunk.

She does look adorable as hell, though. So I might stick with it anyway. I think

I do wonder if she looks too boyish like this, though. Maybe I need to soften her chin and jawline.

There's someone in my head, but it's not me

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:10:00 -0800

Maria, who shares a body with Alyson, has an entirely different attitude towards life from her host. As such, she's also got a different personal style.

This is the design for how Alyson/Maria looks when Maria is in control when they're getting dressed or whatever.

Maria carries over a lot of Alyson's imagery, but she's supposed to be more open and happy. The glasses I'm not sure about. They make the change over when Maria's in charge more obvious, and my logic behind it is that Alyson wears contacts but that Maria finds them irritating. On the other hand it might be too distracting.

Finding Alyson

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:12:00 -0800

Following up on the Simeon design from earlier, here's Alyson.

Alyson's always been sort of a problem for me. While I've had Simeon's look down for quite a while (minus a few tweaks here and there), Alyson keeps changing. Mostly because I've never found a look that really captured her well.

This one actually feels a lot better to me. I think I've finally found Alyson's look.

Where I used birds for Simeon, I used fish for Alyson. Especially bettas. Her hair is supposed to invoke the fluttery tail of some bettas, and the way her skirt hangs is supposed to be fin-like as well. Her overall shape is supposed to be fishlike, emphasizing hips and de-emphasizing bust.Under suggestion, I gave her near-permenant dark circles under her eyes.

With Maria, I can see her wearing a barette to keep her bangs out of her face, and her eyes would probably change entirely.

I thought the necklace was a nice touch. It's the kanji for "(o)taku." You can take a guess about its meaning.

Modellin'

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:06:00 -0800

I just realized today--I've only got like two months before I'm planning to start the big Hurricane Simeon comic/storyboard-y dealie, and I haven't really finalized my character designs.

I don't know if this really counts as a modelsheet since it's just the character, including construction lines and a the character with his usual clothing next to each other.

I tried to use bird imagery for Simeon here. Most specifically, I used an egret. I tried to emphasize how much his hair is like birdwings and I made his face and his body longer and skinnier.

Mulligan

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:29:00 -0700

I'm throwing out so much of what I've presently got regarding Hurricane Simeon....and in about a week I've got to have a pretty big chunk of writing done on it. I don't know exactly how I'm going to manage it.

Still, it's a labor of love. Also a labor of getting passing grades, but mostly of love. Maybe I'll pull through. I must succeed, after all!

This is more of a tweak than a redesign, but I think it looks a lot better all around.

Followup

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:54:00 -0700

And here's the finished version of that one from yesterday.

One more day until Avatar. Can I make it?!

The only real problem I have with how this turned out is that it looks less like she's ready to fight and more like she's giving the "V!" sign.

In which I feel better about my progress

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:46:00 -0700

I'm giving another go at an old piece of fanart of Ty Lee from Avatar. I've learned things since....what was this, February? Wow.

I put her in her Season 3 gear, or at least the best I could make out of it from the blurry concept art that's been making the rounds.

Season 3 starts back Friday. I'm bursting with excitement. I'm thinking of doing another piece in time for the premiere to make into my new avatar for messageboards and whatnot. I'm thinking Sokka.

Things like this are one of the reasons this picture diary/portfolio thing is pretty cool. Not to be immodest, but the difference between that picture and this one is pretty immense to my eyes. I'm not saying "Wow, what a great artist I am!" but I feel safe in saying "Wow, I'm a much better artist now!"

Willful

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:45:00 -0700

Here's another redesign on Feet, whose name is now apparently Will, which might be short for Willow.

It's been a while since I posted, I know. Sorry about that. A lot's been on my plate with work and all, and I just haven't been doing any drawings that I felt like posting. There's been some AUtS stuff, but I don't think that everything I make for AUtS really ought to show up on this blog. The character designs are fine, but scenery?

I did the sketch of her incognito design at the same time, but I haven't inked and colored that one yet. I'll probably upload it tomorrow, unless I get distracted or feel tired after work.

She looks a little less young in this version, but maybe a bit less endearing, too. It might be the eyes. I've been trying to keep all my characters' eyes different lately, and it's somewhat challenging to figure out what sorts of eyes match peoples' personalities.

Aside from the sketch, I did this entire thing in Illustrator, by the way. It's an interesting way to do things, but I like the smoothness of the shading this way. And I don't have to sit and wait for each of the different programs I use to load this way, either.

Finalizing

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:46:00 -0700

I'm getting just about ready for my next big thing. I've got outlines ready and some notes on final character designs for the major characters. Here's the first of one of my attempts to get something final.

I think I like these designs. Alyson no longer looks like she's evil (she's supposed to be more introverted than mean in the newest incarnation. I hope that came out right in the sketch). I'm not sure if Simeon's face shape is quite right, but this might be a good starting point.

Bark at the Moon

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:14:00 -0700

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today. I'll spare you the spoilers, but I'm fairly pleased with it, but I read through it way too fast in my eagerness. I think I missed a lot.

More from that new project I mentioned a bit ago today. What do wolves have to do with anything, though? Things might start to come together more next time, but even then only a little.

A study of wolves. It basically reads left to right as I tried to get a better feel for how wolves should look, especially ones ever so slightly anthropomorphized. And no, before you ask, I don't mean that they're humanoid wolves, I just mean that I tried to give the face a bit of a human quality for the sake of easier expressions. It's also useful for making it a bit closer to the legends....but perhaps I've said too much.

Quatro de Julia

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:19:00 -0700

To Freedom! To Jefferson! To Independence!

Here's the linework on that Earthbound envelope thingy I'm doing. I still don't know whether to do it as screentones or colors, though.

It didn't actually take me all this time to do this, by the way--I just got sidetracked. It did take a while, though, to get the masking right on the various layers so that I could have those dynamic borders. The effect is great, though, I say.

Ultimately, I think I'm liking it.

Siege Engine

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:48:00 -0700

I'm going to take part in the EB Siege. I mean it may not have much of a chance of succeeding, but it's better than nothing, and who knows? Maybe it will make a difference.

This image is intended to be a bit of an homage to a scene from FLCL episode 4, "Full Swing." I'm going to ink it and put in panels to make the comic-ality of it more obvious....I don't know if I'll do color or go for a "screentone" look, though.

Objection!

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:26:00 -0700

I thought in the time it took me to type that, I would come up with something to post. I did not.

Speaks for itself, I think.

Less Gentlemanly

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:19:00 -0700

A quick redesign on Feet's "Gentleman Thief" mode. Less gentleman, more urchin in this incarnation.

I like this one better, and I think the decision to have her hair out but tied in a rat tail works. She's believable as a boy, though she probably wouldn't pass for a man.

Imagine the same color palette as before.

Quick Sketch

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:16:00 -0700

I'm planning on starting something up pretty soon. I won't give any details just now, but today's sketch is a big clue.

A quick sketch of a few of the characters from Hurricane Simeon. Simeon's got his scarf off for the pic. Part of the point here was to do this pretty quickly, and this only took an hour or two. And considering that's with two characters plus a series of fireflies, I feel like that's not too bad.

Shoes in your Feet Pt. 2

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:45:00 -0700

Character design. I've been doing mostly fanart on the blog lately, but I'm working on a project that requires some character design so that's what's getting posted today.

This is a preliminary design of Feet (not her real name), the main character from Anything Under the Sky. We're planning to have her in multiple outfits, one of which is her disguise as a Gentleman Thief.

I really don't like the pose, but it does what it's supposed to, which is show the various parts of the character. I don't like the "Gentleman Theif" look anywhere near as much as her EGL-inspired civvies. I think it's the hair. I think I need to do something different with it.

Tree Rats

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sat, 26 May 2007 19:24:00 -0700

So as a follow up to my Raven Variation before, I'm doing a variation on Squirrel Girl as she might appear if she were to join the cast of X-Men Evolution. In this hypothetical situation, she would be a member of the X-Men, I assume, since I don't recall the Great Lakes Whatever existing in that universe.

I tried to give her a suit with the "colors on shiny black" look of that show, while still paying homage to her old costume.

I'll probably do one of Squirrel Girl in her civvies next. Then I'll have to figure out my next redesign. I wonder if I can think of one that isn't a comic-to-cartoon situation?

I think the thing that came out best was her tail. And I'm not sure about the coloring job or anything, but I like how the lineart turned out. So whatever. Semi-victory?

Character Design Practice

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Thu, 24 May 2007 19:39:00 -0700

I was thinking about, as a character design exercise, trying to do up some variations on character design seen in professional shows.

In today's case, I'm starting small--a minor variation on Raven from Teen Titans. I tried to recreate in Murakami's style Raven from the DCU Teen Titans comics. Mostly because I saw a picture of her on the web and thought her hair was freakin' adorable. So I figured I'd have a go at that, and that made me think that there were other, similar drawings I could do later in the same sort of mindset.

For example, next I'm thinking of trying to draw Squirrel Girl in the style of X-Men Evolution. We'll see if I get anywhere on that.

I think the drawing turned out pretty good, but I'm not sure if her body is on model for the cartoon. The drawing came out more like something in between the comic and the cartoon. Still, I think it looks nice.

Mother's Day '07

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sat, 12 May 2007 23:48:00 -0700

So as usual, I've done my mom up a picture for Mother's Day. This time, it's a picture of Amanda (née Janet) Carter of Ballad. It didn't start out that way....it didn't really start out as anything. I sort of let my pencil (or rather, stylus) do what it wanted, and what came out was a girl who looked a bit like Amanda, only with a design I liked a lot more than her old one.

Got some more use out of my Magic Circles, too. That's always fun.

I renamed Amanda because her two friends, Hollyanne and Magdalene, are named for women in songs by Boston. But "Janet" was not. So I decided to take the motif further.

I suppose as long as I'm posting, I'll mention that I've gotten a job recently. I'm doing some tech work for mom's firm. In theory. Mostly it's been organization of tech-related stuff so far, but I don't really mind that. It needs to be done, and something about doing it for someone else (and for pay, I suppose) makes organizing computing paraphernalia much less torturous an activity than it would be at home.

I think this turned out quite well. The linework is fairly clean and dynamic, the composition is better than I usually do, and the coloring turned out great. I still need to learn how to make better palettes, though. And backgrounds.

I've used Zooey Deschanel for a hair model again. You may remember I did so for that picture of Alea I did a while back. What can I say? I'm a fan.

Drawing Class Art Dump

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:17:00 -0700

Today I'm adding my favorites among the drawings I've done in my figure drawing class over the semester. When I was talking about my upcoming critique, a friend said he wanted to see the pictures, so I figured "why not?" Anyway, these things are way too big for my tiny scanner, so I've had to use a digital camera....you'll have to forgive the crummy lighting and resolution. I did not post directly here, because this blog is mostly used for my illustration/cartoon-y drawings, plus I'm not one hundred percent sure what Dreamhost's ToS says about artistic nudes. So instead I've got links for anyone who cares to see them. Except for the picture of Tiffany, a girl from class that I'm told is the best of the drawings I've done, all of them are nudes. So fair warning--if you don't want to see naughty bits, don't click the other links. None of them is a very naughty drawing, though.

Conforming

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:45:00 -0700

I never do this, but I'm participating in one fo those Intertube Memes that break out every now and again because it seemed fun. The meme in question is the Draw Supergirl meme started by Dean Trippe. I'm coming to it a bit late, but it still seems to be going strong so I figured "What the heck?"

Of course, the five people who follow my blog probably already know that I prefer Magical Girls to superheroes, so I tried to add a bit of mahoushoujo goodness to the mix. It didn't turn out very magical, instead looking more like a more conservative version of her regular (at least, regular for the DCAU, my preferred version of most DC characters) costume with a frillier skirt, knee socks, and mary janes. I still like my version, though.

Her pose is a bit weird, especially the left arm, which might be a little long and is sort of "blah."

That said, I think the colors are a lot better than my Allerion piece, and I still like my new way of doing lineart. I'd count this as a victory.

Busy Spring Break

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:35:00 -0700

I really hope to actually get a lot done this week. As the title suggests, Spring Break starts tomorrow (or depending how you look at it, it started Friday afternoon), and I'm using it as an excuse to advance some of my personal projects.

Unless I end up spending all my time playing Wii. Which is a very real danger. Damn you, Nintendo, keeping me entertained and distracted!

I like this newest redesign of Allerion, but a large part of it might be the lineart, which I think turned out really nice.

Lies to Children

shadowtext@shiningbeam.net (Shadowtext) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:25:00 -0800

I think the hardest part of learning art isn't the learning of techniques, it's the unlearning of habits. Especially since a lot of them were taught to help in learning the craft.

Terry Pratchett presented the concept in Science of Discworld of "Lies to Children." That is to say, lies that aren't told to mislead, but to help someone who isn't ready for the full truth to understand part of it. Things like "Gravity is when weighty things pull other things to them" instead of that "truth" malarky about mass causing spacetime to warp. Lies to Children are good, because they help children to get closer to understanding something even though they're not really true.

Anyway, here I'm talking about Lies to Children as they apply to art. The biggest problem with these sorts of Lies to Children is that they seem harder to unlearn, at least for me. The one I'm currently trying to unlearn is about telling the truth with lines.

I'm more and more under the impression that the trick to making really memorable, really good looking illustrations is learning how to lie impressively with your pencil. And I don't mean getting it wrong, because that's clearly still a bad thing. I mean learning to take what you've got right, and intentionally change it for effect. The result being exagerrated bodies and faces that stand out in people's memories....but these lies go against all the stuff I've learned about capturing certain situations.

Of course I realize that I still need to get better at capturing the truth, too. That's what Life Drawing classes are for, though. In my illustrations (i.e. the stuff that shows up here) I think I'm going to try to lie more.

Today's picture is of Ty Lee from Avatar, who you've seen me draw before if you've been following my work. I like her, but the more I draw her the less I like her outfit. I hope Season 3 sees her in something different. I've heard a rumor that Season 3 might start in March....I'm not getting my hopes up yet because I'd expect to see commercials on Nick by now if that were true, but a boy can dream!

I tried to exaggerate things more in today's piece. I threw curves on all the "straight" limbs, I made the angles more extreme and tried to up the motion a bit.

The pose itself is a little lackluster, though, I think. Still, the execution feels a lot stronger than a lot of the stuff I've done in the past, I think, so in that area I think my whole "lies with lines" thing might be the right path to follow for a bit.