Art: September practice #1

So, I found a site where someone has compiled pdfs of Andrew Loomis' books, they're pretty good for beginners as they go through all the basics of drawing the human figure.

As drawing heads/faces is one of the many things I am no good at I picked up the "Drawing the head & hands" book and went through it. In honesty it helped me quite a bit, so far I only got up to drawing the male head so I practiced with more masculine features. I should probably free study time for drawing each day but whenever I go out to do things like daily challenged they dwindle out pretty early on so I will not promise myself anything or make grand plans, I'll just doodle and more importantly - try to memorize and understand what I'm doing.

If anyone is interested: here is the link to the pdfs!

 

An assortment of rough sketches and two final practice drawings. Obviously I'm far from good and god knows when I'll be able to capture the likeness of a person (references used for last two drawings) but eh, I'll try. I think I need to do individual studies on eyes and noses, eyes especially. Eyes are really hard to draw because they have incredible detail but at the same time are a small speck in the general composition.

I suppose the biggest challenge will be memorizing all the fundamentals and then building a style upon that, my art style is a weird blend of stylized pseudo-realism with weird anime eyes. At least to me the eyes look like anime trying to be realistic. It's weird but maybe it is just me.

I have this issue when the drawing looks kinda ok when I do it and when I've finished it but when I scan it and post it everything looks bad.

Art: It me

A stylized self portrait, I'm not good at capturing the likeness of people so when it comes to real people I only draw myself. One is true - my default expression looks a bit sad.

Art: Gras

I have many ideas but little skill so here's the product of struggling with drawing programs. I haven't signed a drawing in a long time, not sure if this is worth it. Stopped signing artwork long ago.

I have ideas for a comic and a large scale group picture... but... drawing is hard.

GE: Fun With Friends

 Waiting in the BHG, Abakuks is terrorizing Enoby (Oli's and my Vincents). Dullie is standing tall. Included Milla's toons in the shot.

I once warped out of farm and was greeted with Letaniel, Oli's Kess. Then we posed around a bit. Cherlyn and Kess look pretty. Interpret this as you will

I'm pretty sure that is not a landscape... Well, she's a marksman, not an artist.

In other news I got up really early today and to some people that is a good thing but, eh, I had a bad headache which was not lifted with coffee. Maybe I should eat breakfast. I hope it's just a passing pain. My right foot is swollen and it has reached the stage where it's a bit hard to walk without a limp. For the past months the foot would randomly swell up, mostly it didn't bother me and didn't hurt so I ignored it. Now it swelled up a lot, problem is, I can't possibly sit all day on my ass, I have to move at least a little bit so I guess I am not resting it the right way. I also hate doctors so I'm just gonna pretend the problem will go away on its own volition.

At the same time I'm paranoid that maybe it's some sort of weird infection and it'll spread throughout my body, so the moment I get a headache I become wary. I googled what causes swelling, some things I could easily write off - pregnancy, excess weight (that would cause both limbs to swell most likely), but the scarier symptoms are lymphatic system infections or even kidney failure. Then again I'm not a doctor and google is not a medicine book so I hope it's nothing too serious. A headache could be a symptom of a brain tumor, so, there's that.

 I hate the doctors here, if I went to one they'd prolly give me a side eye and tell me to rest. I don't wanna rest! I already sit on my arse all day, I'm sad I can't work out properly because I'm scared on putting actual pressure on the foot. Maybe I can pray away the pain (sarcasm).

On a more positive note - I've finished collecting plants for my herbarium. I need identify some of them and sew the specimens onto paper and write proper labels. I hope I get a good mark, it is part of my field course grade and I got a stable 8 so far, if I get a good grade for the herbarium I have a chance of raising the grade to a 9, but then again I think my plants aren't super perfect. When you do something for the first time you're bound to make mistakes. Perhaps I shouldn't worry too much about grades, not sure if I can pretend for scholarship this semester. Far too many motivated and smart people in my course.

Gotta love how this post turned 50% game 50% life but I'm sure nobody minds.

Art: The elementalist

Doodle of my elementalist, Mysteria. I adore f!eles and their dresses, very nice. 

Mii and her family are probably my most well developed stock characters story wise. She has two older siblings - middle sister Nikol and eldest brother Victor. They're all nobility. Their mother is an elementalist but father -  a wizard. Mii's mother was a fiery and fierce woman but an arranged marriage turned her life dull. She learned to somehow love her husband but both generally have neutral feelings towards each other. There were some ups and downs, which are mirrored in how their children grew up.

The eldest son, who unlike his fiery mother possesses the element of ice is a direct result of a slowly growing tolerance towards an arranged marriage. Victor grew up pragmatic and quiet, it is hard to get a reaction out of him. He is quite open minded and takes everything with a grain of salt.

Their second child, Nikol, is a product of the father taking over childcare. She is aggressive and adheres to the noble lifestyle strictly, perhaps being a wizard is what put off her mother. Nikol gives Mii a lot of grief as she feels like she has to be a good role model.

Mysteria is the youngest of three and is much like her mother in looks and personality. Her mother became overprotective and this often created tension between her and Nikol who believed it was her duty to take care of Mii. The girl bonded with her brother as his very calm personality was a good match for her own impulsiveness. It was Mii who gained permission to travel to the New World, but under one condition - her siblings had to come with her. 

Victor took it easy, at the time he was betrothed to a woman who bored him more than life did. He silently hoped the ship would sway and he'd fall in the water, alas, the siblings arrived in Coimbra.

Nikol was terrified of the New World and all the things it could bring, but even more she dreaded the port city which was a den of street rats, thugs and prostitutes, among other things.

Mii was hopeful, she had very romantic thoughts about the New World. Her goal was to find new friends and maybe even love; she, much like her mother, wanted to make her own choices in life but with a strict sister on her neck it was more than difficult. The girl prevailed in the end and found many likeminded individuals, the New World was full of adventure loving girls with strong personalities. 

 

Love, however, is a different story...

Art: The Twins

Story time! Rena (Blue Flame Ludin) is the long lost twin sister of Rebbie (Lionel, who might be reborn as Cadet Lionel some day). 

Rebbie's original story was that there was a mashup - he was the 'real' Lionel Von Hanen but got mixed up as a baby. In fact, there were three families and his true family was left without a son, but with a daughter.

When Rena was old enough to travel on her own she set out to find her brother, armed with a notebook and a pair of birth certificates. She found Rebbie through Ralph. Now the two siblings are reunited and cause trouble all around - together they're much more unbearable than alone. They also loiter around at Ralph's house and call him 'uncle' and steal his food.

I changed Rebbie's design - he only has one fake leg now, it would make more sense in the game's setting. This story also makes sense in a way that both Blue Flame and regular Ludin can exist. The tiny Ludin is one of the mixed-up Lionel's sister. It's a huge mess out there.

Old man can't get rest.

Misc: Blast to the past

My PC has a lot of old drawings in it, which I had completely forgotten about until yesterday. I realized how much I like the old Granado Espada doodles so I'm gonna share a blast from the post through the years 2010 till 2013.

2010

 I believe this is Oli's Doon, hard to explain anything more. Angry cuddle with kittens.

 My first banner, when I called this blog 'Doll shelf' - a doll Cathy with a fairy Eduardo.

 Good ol' Grasi being a cooldude, he even has a trump gaiter, ain't that cute.

 The file name was 'Edu the hoe' which explains about everything.

My first favs in GE when I started playing - summoner Catherine, Eduardo and Gracielo (with his derpy iguana). I wonder how my life would have been if I had started playing when Cathy could become a real support character. I'd be the worst quester for sure.

2011

 Little Lorch, Hellena and Irawain. I have no idea why they're in one picture. I think Irawain and Hellena were gossipers of some sort and Lorch was the poor innocent baby finding love somewhere. The filename is 'Lorch found Rio'.

 A slightly more mature looking drawing, look at this nerd.

 "Bro" the iguana-turned-Baek is basically my greatest creation. He's saying "It's hard a person as incredible as me. I am a diva" and the word to the right pointing to him says "fat" (as in the tissue not him being fat).

 Cinderella hour with a Kurt drawn by Oli.

 Lorch and Rio, their relationship summarized in one picture. My Lorch had a turtle backpack so his theme was turtles, methinks.

 ION! Basically he was very sassy.

 Bro liked to eat legs, he was a cannibal but it was played for laughs.










Grasi riding an iguana.

 Special 'guest drawing' by Oli - it's Kurt and Lyndon. Though I think I drew the Lyndon and Oli added the Kurt.

 Sudden style and medium change! Raven! Not the first one I've did. What a cute picture.















Another Raven. By this time I settled on how to draw him.
















Raven and Ralph. This was a milestone of a new era. I think this is the first digital scribble of Ralph? Might be more doodles in the traditional folder but I'm not counting that in this review.

This is officially the very first Raven I drew.

2012

 Blogger decided this piece of art should be the first of 2012 so there it is, good since it's a redraw of an earlier 2012 piece. Basically 2012 was my height in art - I drew A LOT and tried a lot of things which actually shows in improvement. You can see the vast stylistic and quality difference in 2011 and 2012. I think 2012 was when my art style cemented itself, because when I do redraws now they don't change that much, which might be sad in others aspects but this is about reminiscing GE times not critiquing my artistic growth. So yeah.

 At one point in my long-ongoing RP with Oli we had three Lionels - Dullie, who was Oli's Lio, Rebbie or Rebel who was my washed up druggie and 'Ranch boy' who took the place of the in-game Lio who stands in front of the Viron building.

 At some point Ralph and Remi (Reckless Emily) became monster friends, whatever that means.

 A snippet from the Bristia saga. This picture tells a story that's too long for words.

 My type of humor, obviously. Ion being pretty and Lionel being a douche.

 Ralph babysitting Remily.

 Garcia in front of a horde of undead. I really like this one.

 Our RP sailed a ship - Tora and JD. There was also a rude, ship crazy dove who's name I've forgotten.

 Cruz and Calypso look so alike I decided they must be related. Their age gap looks a bit too big for siblings so I did some cray math to make it out that Cruz is her father. There was no lovey-dovey in that relationship so I sometimes drew them interacting like this for laughs.

 Ion is a beautiful princess.

 Montoro and a Fordoi. I think it's Choppi the famous super fat and adorable Great Fordoi, another result of our RP shenanigans.

 Hellena and Beatrice, at some point I just started pairing up everyone who looked like they could chill together.

 A doodlepainting of Raven.

 More of my incredible humor.

 A sketch of a painting I saved too late. My style has mutated in that tumblr stage where I color noses in and make everyone 'ugly' on purpose. Ok, I wasn't making him ugly, I was trying to give each character distinguishable features so they all don't look the same.

 And then there's this. Even Ralph, an all time favorite, wasn't safe from the 'gay humor'.

 A very fabulous Raven.

 I drew this once and thought it was funny. My humor is off the charts. That's Cruz, Lionel, Ralph and Raven getting off the charts high.

 A tiny leprechaun. Ralph has an ugly green costume so he's a leprechaun, obviously.

 The running joke was that Ion was stupidly naive and childish.

 Garcia with a zombie friend.

 TORA! Another era, look at this cute tsundere bumbum. Oli recently gave me 'back' the Tora I gave him so he could have two so I can stare at my own bby.

Adelina or Addy, the pirate mama who took care of Tora.

 I actually put effort in my drawings back then, I actually drew Hellena in the monstrosity that is Cattleya. I love the costume but drawing GE costumes is just tedious work. A nice sketch nonetheless.

Rebbie having illicit thoughts, typical humor. Though it was never meant as a bad thing, my characters simply had very ambiguous sexualities to begin with, mostly because of shipping purposes. Are they gonna end up with girls or boys? Nobody knows!

 2013

 A less productive year. This is Grandies, Rio (I think) and Veronif. I think I played them as a team for laughs? I have no idea why they're together.

 A Raven. I suddenly started drawing him all blonde and darkening his skintone so he actually looks tan. No clothes because I hate drawings clothes not because I am some sort of mystical pervert.

 This one is purely because I am a pervert. JD seducing Tora, incredible.

 I'm posting this because I cannot recall the reasoning behind making this. It looks a lot like Rio but why he has a Ralph (?) plushie is a mystery to me. What kind of bullshit story did I make up at that point is beyond me.

 Natalie! I like how she looks, she has that uglycute charm, her face is a bit weird but I just find her precious, probably because of the Japanese voiceovers that I use, she sounds like a worried girl. It's sweet, she's like the hardworking little sister.

Also I know whom she's referring in the picture and that is a product of my weird shipping and it's embarrassing!

 Incredible humor.

 Sexy Rascel, I don't even know how to comment that. Look at them buns.

 Rebbie's design changed, I switched from all eyes bruised to half a face. He's one of the characters I made up that I still adore very much.

 More Rebbie. He's a very bratty character, like a grown up Ludin so when I saw Cadet Lionel my first thought was - where were you when Rebbie was made? 'Cause the academy troublemaker fits Reb perfectly, plus the cute short hair. If only Lionel had a pink hair option...

 This is probably a product of 1AM weirdness but the timestamp says 7pm. Vincent being incredible. I think I watched Pewdiepie videos back then and I thought it was funny how in one video he yelled 'THE POWER OF SATAN COMPELS YOU" to a vampire.

I dunno why Cruz is in such a picture, he's not a mean person. Humor!

And that's it for a blast to the past. In 2014 I stopped drawing GE altogether as I turned to another fandom and now I'm back to where I started. Thinking of jumping right back into the GE craze and brushing up on all the stories because this game gave me a lot of inspiration, better than to force myself get by with original characters...