Chibify Me!

Okay, I'm no longer in a decadent pool of laziness. Which honestly is good. I can only sit around doing nothing all day for a short time before I'm bored. Unless I'm playing Don't Starve. I have lost days to Don't Starve when I was working for the Co-operators and I was on a weeklong vacation. 

The Don't Starve binge itself only lasted a day or so past the last post. I am still being a bit lazy though... I'm only working on about 3 hours a day right now, but I am cleaning and doing everything else, so I'm calling it a good start. 

Most of my office is finished. I have a desk-full of odds and ends to find homes for, some art supplies to get rid of, and a stupidly large amount of card decks to find homes for (I buy them for the pictures and because I like playing solitaire and other card games). Also, I haven't even been able to start on my closet yet. That said, its really coming along. 

I started writing again a few days ago and have finished 3 chapters in Noble's Choice so far. I remember where the plot is going, have reworked things that weren't working well in my original draft and streamlined the plot. Originally one of the characters was supposed to be a very important villain, for example, and now he's just a distracting sub-villain. The story is coming together though, which I love. I want my rough draft finished before the end of March. 

I have also talked to my editor. She is expecting that it will probably take a month to get Lord's Curse back to me, so I'll be spending Camp Nanowrimo (April) making one last round of changes before we can start on the final proofreading edits. 

The other update I have is in my art. I jokingly mentioned that I wanted to draw a Chibi-Me and a Koi playing Don't Starve Together. While I had a picture of a koi, I didn't really have a chibi of me lying around. So I drew this one. 

I'm not 100% happy with it yet. There is something about the shape of the eyes that seems off to me and I want to work on the hair more. That said, I am very pleased with it. Its the level of detail I want and she is adorable AF. I dressed her in my favourite outfit, a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt. You can't see it, but she is totally wearing a comfy tank top under the sweater. Also, I had to give her ears and a tail. Because I can. 

What do you think of her? Have any of you ever drawn your own Chibi-Me? 

Editing and Redraw from 2014

Healthy again, finally! 

At least enough to function. My nose is still stupidly stuffed up and I get really tired after only a small amount of work. But I have enough energy to go to the mailbox and cook dinner and not feel like collapsing. Sit down for two minutes between maybe, but no more than that. 

For full honesty, I will disclose that some of that is my allergies kicking in. I have an allergy to small furry animals. I may have had it as a kid and simply ignored it because I was stupidly healthy in every other way. But I first noticed it when I borrowed an angora sweater my mom had when I was 16 or so and I itched like hell all day. It got worse when I moved out and got fur babies of my own, of course, and then settled as my system became more used to them. One thing that my body simply won't put up with though is having my cats knead my bare flesh... Of course, that is the only place they ever want to knead. I make it easier for them by preferring to wear tank tops and shirts that leave my arms bare. 

At any rate, finally healthy. 

For my edit, I haven't gotten as much done as I had hoped... I've been lazy. But I did finish the chapter 3 rewrite and have edited it in. I've also finished the rough draft of chapter four which I'm in the process of doing now. After that, the editing should be faster for chapter five and then another wait for chapter six which is a new chapter from scratch. I'm finding that new chapters because they have to fit in the spot I'm dropping them perfectly, it's taking more time, to write from scratch and then fill in the extra holes with the information it needs and then going over it a few times for editing to make it as good as the rest. The other chapters are flowing and I'm able to do one or two chapters a day. Fortunately, after this chapter is done, I only have four more complete rewrites. 

So, what else have I been doing? Well, I got obsessed with my redraw from 2014. I finally finished her a few days ago, and I've got to admit, she looks amazing. I've gotten some criticism on her hands... but considering that they are very difficult to draw and I included them regardless, AND they actually look like hands, despite my errors, I'm considering it a win regardless.

The one on the right was done on my tablet of the time, a cheap-y Lenovo with a stylus. While the stylus cost $15-$20 and had some pressure sensitivity, it still wasn't good enough to actually get much detail with. The newer one on the left was done with my Surface and MS Stylus, which has a very good tip and pressure sensitivity that I can actually use. In addition, I've figured out how the body works as a whole. I figured out how to do hair a lot better, although the new hair is definitely something I still need to work on... the location of shine and shadow still isn't perfect The face is more realistic while still being animation. I think you can tell my anime beginnings from this, though I think I have grown out of some of the anime tropes... the eyes aren't anime large anymore, just slightly larger than normal. I had no shading on the old one, partially because I had no idea how to add shadow and highlights. I've picked up some of that now, though I still lean heavily on my references, which is something I would like to keep working on. 

I'll be honest though, a lot of that is just nitpicky. I really do love the way this turned out. I need to speed up a bit on my digital work though... this picture took me twelve to fifteen hours to finish still. I was going for an adequate "here is my current skill level" but I would like to figure out how to draw a bit faster... fortunately, that will come with just sketching and using it for more art, which is something that I will be doing. 

If you're interested, let me know if you want me to make copies of it available or even just the lineart, in case you want to play with coloring it in yourself. 

And I think that's where I'll end it today. It is definitely time for me to get editing if I want to finish those two chapters tonight. 

Bleh... Its that time of year again...

Sorry guys. I was hoping to have this out early for you guys with a full report of doings done and how much of my novel I finished. Instead, I came down sick on Sunday and its been kicking my ass since then. Writing after Sunday was impossible and even doing art was tough. Don't worry too much about me though. I've been taking care of myself and, despite still being tired, most of my symptoms are nearly gone now. I'll probably be back to writing today or tomorrow and adding in daily time for art after that.

All of this doesn't mean I was entirely unproductive, though. I edited the first two chapters before I got sick and got a little over 500 words done on a rough draft of a new chapter before the flu knocked me out. I'm loving where the story is going and I can't wait to work on it again.

Here's the art I've been working on!

 This is a sketch I started working on. As you can see, I haven't gone much further into it yet. I've seen a lot of people doing "my art from 10 years ago". Unfortunately, I couldn't find a picture of mine from 10 years ago, so I grabbed the one in the corner. It was my first digital art picture from 6 years ago. It was terrible and at the time, the tools I had were very substandard. Trying to use them was more frustrating than anything else and that was the best I could manage. This new picture is still just a sketch, but its already surpassing the old art. Heck I haven't even added in fingers to the hands yet, making her look like a lobster hybrid, though I suppose at least I have marked out where the hands will go eventually, so that's one major improvement. I'll post an updated picture once I finish working on it. but this is where I am so far. As you can tell, I tend to start with a very sketchy body, then add in the face and neck and start figuring out where the body actually goes. I tend to work from the head down, which is why she has a fully detailed necklace, but her hands are claws and her dress is nothing more than a few folds.

These two paintings are paint pours I was working on yesterday. I'm less fond of the way the black/silver one turned out. Not that it turned out badly, its just less to my style. I like the one above much more, though I should say that, once again, that silver just overtook the other colours. Still, I love the way the green turned out. I'll be trying both colour sets again, sometime soon.

This is one I did just this morning and it's still too wet to tell exactly what it will look like when its set. The colours are slightly messed up in this picture... on canvas, it looks mostly black with just a slight touch of subtle shading and shine, which I love. This one was a complete mess to work with though. I'm trying a new binder and my first test with it was that it was way too thin. After this dries, I'll try it again, with more paint, no water, and just the extender. Still, I really like the way it looks, so I don't consider it a failure.

What do you think of my work this week? Which one is your favourite?

Lord's Curse is Out of my Hands & a new Stylus is in!

First, I am sorry that this post is coming your way late. I was so eager to begin writing last night that I worked straight until midnight and then started writing. I only realized that it was Friday morning when I crawled into bed. On the other hand, I actually have updates for you! 

On Monday, I finally finished my draft of Lord's Curse. I sent it that morning to my editor, but I don't have an expected date back from her yet. As soon as I know more there you'll get an update as well. Either way, as soon as I have it back I will be working on it. At that point, Nano will become me working on Nanowrimo during the day and the edit of that book during my evenings. 

Still, I am amazingly excited to have finished it finally. 

The other bit of amazingness for me is that my husband picked up the stylus that I have been wanting for a year. Why is this cool, I can practically hear you asking. Styluses are a dime a dozen, essentially. And in most cases, you're entirely right. But this is the Windows Stylus, specifically geared towards use with their Surface Pro systems. Which is what I have. The stylus essentially makes it so that your Surface Pro can be used as a drawing tablet, with all the layers of sensitivity, pen tilt and functionality built right into most programs, you can now use your pen to, as they put it on their site, 'Think with Ink'. For me, it turns my Surface Pro5, which I've been using for my mobile needs into an actual drawing tablet for me. The last time I tried to draw on a tablet like this, it was with less than optimal tools and I got a much less than optimal result. 

This picture was my first attempt with subpar tools.
While it wasn't horrible, it was also very bad.
There was a lot that I couldn't figure out how to do,
and in the end I gave up entirely on shading since
everything was wrong with it and I just wanted to try
it again from the beginning.

This was my second with the subpar tools. And while it was a marked improvement, it still wasn't quite what I would have been able to accomplish on paper with more traditional tools.
Actually, I have an urge to redraw it using my new tools as an example of improvement to myself. Perhaps I'll add that to my list of tasks in December. 

I could have made it work obviously, but it wasn't anything like working on paper and I found it irritating. However, working with the new pen and the Concepts app, I have not only really enjoyed the results, but I have also enjoyed the process of making them. Also, I've never really liked the way most programs deal with their colours, and so to have the colours in it listed and matching the Copic colours, which I already use is great. It makes it easy for me to choose colours and decide exactly what I need to add. 

This was my first drawing attempt with the new stylus. Trying to figure out blending was killing me, but I loved the feel of drawing with it. Also, I clearly need to work on drawing hair more often. Those buns are hilariously bad. Still, as a first digital try, I really loved the potential.

This was my second drawing. While I still can't say that the bun is any better, I do like the shading in the hair and on the face and skin. I really found myself reaching for tools not available with the free program while playing with this; specifically the lasso and copy/move tools. Its why I'll be picking up the full copy when I have a job again.

And I think that will be it for this week. Let me know what you think of the drawings. Also, are you taking part in Nanowrimo? What is your word count so far? I've had a slow start. Day 1 gave me a migraine that wouldn't quit, which led to me only getting 1055 words for my first day.