Even though it's Halloween soon, I didn't succeed in making anything scary

Sunday

Caitlin and her artillery

You may see "Bethany" next to her, but trust me, I right now changed to her name to Caitlin. Even though her official title is a knight, Caitlin takes on the role of a thief or a spy (giving her the title of "Caitlin the thief"). Her weapons include a key which can pick any lock, assorted bombs, and bottled up various emotions (but most commonly happiness). On, and like an ice pick. You know, those things the mafia uses.
Oh, yeah, guess who's applied to university? (Not that cool.)

Monday

Try guessing who this is! You'll never get it without a hint.

Tuesday

3:34. That's all I'll say.

Wednesday

Ice queen

Alright, something to break the chain of the first two pictures! Like the caption says ice maiden/queen/girl/person as one of my favourite elements is ice/snow. Her hair's inspired by Subeta. She's standing in front of moonlight because I needed a filler and crosshatching is cool.

Thursday & Friday

Costumes

This picture was drawn with each head separate from one another, but the crosshatching of the background blended them into one pic so it'll be uploaded as one picture.
The first head pretty much is me having too much fun with shadows. Oh, and showing off the hairstyle of one of my bob wigs.
The second head is my last minute costume I threw together for school on Halloween. It includes: a black and pink striped ponytail wig, a long white dress shirt, a cross choker, and a belt decorated with a pattern of roses in red glitter made out of cheap costume material as I took it from an old costume.
Yes! Halloween!


Saturday

Happy Hallo's Eve

 "Hallo's Eve?" What the hell does that mean?
Well, this is my attempt at drawing something "scary" for the sake of Halloween. Quite clear, I didn't succeed because, for one, it's covered in a border of lace, and two... it just isn't scary. I think I was going for something like Masky. But that looks so much scarier than this piece of shit, haha.

Caring

"Caring means showing concern for the thoughts, feelings, and well-being of others."
I can't believe I'm still sharing the generic, run-of-the-mill, you'd-expect-to-find-in-a-self-help-book quotes from my agenda!


Drawn with pencil on agenda.

I just love Megurine Luka, don't I? (Not really, I just draw fanart of her a lot.)

Sunday

Taylor and her sight/hearing enhancer lens eyepiece thing.

I spelled the name in the picture, oh well.
Taylor is still in the works. I'm not satisfied with the design for her eyepiece (which is crucial for her design).

Monday

Black vine tattoo scratch marks.

Tuesday

Wednesday & Thursday

Just Be Friends?

Megurine Luka and her boyfriend in Just Be Friends by Yehuyuan Studios. If it wasn't for the balloon, the picture would've only took up the Wednesday section of my agenda, but no.

Friday & Saturday

"Don't feel loneliness/I'll be there with you."

Remember last post when I mentioned CompT's awesome song, I Miss Him? Well, here are the lyrics to it, as well as a picture of a head that has no relation to the song whatsoever. The head and hand looks awkward, so I'm not too crazy about this picture. Bleh.
That hand holding the flower (yes, that's what the big dark blog in the middle of the lyrics is) looks like ze crap, too.

Bravery

"Bravery: Bravery is having courage in the face of fear or extreme difficulty. When have you shown bravery?"


Drawn with pencil on agenda.

ArtRage: First Impressions

If you guys don't know already, I'm a huge art application junkie. To name a few I have/had:

• GIMP (this is the only one I no longer have, but as it's freeware anyways...)
• Photoshop and all the other Design Suite apps (I downgraded my CS3 to my current CS2 because the icons are prettier :D)
• openCanvas 1.1
• openCanvas 4 (tool of choice)
• Easy Paint Tool SAI
• MS Paint - of course

Now I've got another to add to my collection. After reading a few forum topics about art applications, this name kept coming up: ArtRage. (And openCanvas never came up.)
So here's my first ever "review" thingamajig.

So I got ArtRage Studio 3. My first impression was the interface - it looked really nice! They took the time to round out the corners, for one, and give everything a sort of cohesiveness.  Here's a screenshot of ArtRage compared to PS CS2 and SAI.

Easy Paint Tool SAI... sadly, I forgot to open a new file so you can see the canvas.

Photoshop CS2.

ArtRage Studio 3 - obviously the prettiest one of the bunch!

One of the first things I noticed were how the brushes were displayed and how it mirrored the colour wheel. I think almost everything is collapsable.

ArtRage is very simular to the concept of Corel Painter in the sense that it tries to imitate real artistic medias.

Test run:

I'm quite fond of the paint tube combined with the pallette knife, which is what I used to make that huge sploch of colour in the background. I drew the face in with a pencil and a pastel. The birds and the beads on the left are stickers.

The reasons why I chose Studio 3 was for the watercolours. It looked so enticing in the preview image as it really looked, well, real. The eye in the top right-hand corner was painted using watercolours, and I have to say, I love the brush. It really imitates the qualities of watercolours. It can create vibrant strokes of colours as well as mix together to create a beautiful gradient effect. Other tools I used for the eye was a pencil.

Other brushes I tested out:

• Brush: a oval brush which imitates something akin to acrylics or oils. Streaks are left on the paint as if the brush hairs were really sweeping into them. It's a harder brush compared to the others.
• Fineliner: a circular, opaque brush. It work well for fine lining if the sensitivity was increased. I'm not much of a fan of it because it's blocky colour is so jarring against gentleness of the imitated brushes.
• Palette Knife: it's also featured as one of the blending in tools in many graphic programs. So this is really just the "mixer".
• Paint Tube: can only be used effectively with the knife, or else it'd look like this funny tube of colour.
• Crayon: a scruffy, textured brush.
• Pastel: simular to the crayon except softer as has a chalk-like quality.
• Pencil: akin to the crayon except the chunks of colour are closer together as well as the brush being generally thinner. I personally don't see the pencil like quality of it.
• Glitter: the weirdest thing about this is that it can also be smudged by the palette knife. This can be used for some cool effects.

One of the special things about ArtRage are the stickers. It's akin to some of the decorated brushes in PS, especially if the brush was a picture. I really enjoy ArtRage's birds in flight stickers, though. It looks like a good way to cheat my way out of painting a proper background!
Also, you can adjust how metallic the brushes should be, which is a first of any program I've seen for sure! All it does is turn up the contrast - and at 100% it looks like an ugly filter has been put on top of the line. Kudos for the innovation, though.

Also, I'm not too crazy with the lag, but my computer seems to be lagging regardless nowadays so this point can hardly be valid. I don't know if it's ArtRage's exceptional GUI, but I think that could be one of them. Well, it's a big problem because this really hinders how often I will use the program.


All in all, ArtRage is a good solid program, especially if you're into simulating traditional mediums. I recommend it for people who just like doodling or people who are new to CG art and have trouble transitioning from traditional to computer. One day I'll get Corel Painter, but ArtRage seems like a good replacement for all the poor people!

I used to make characters my age because I thought it was a good number but now that I'm that old, it's not cool anymore

Hello, agenda. What do you have in store for us today?

Sunday & Monday

Yukiko's old

Did you know it was my birthday on October 10th? Yes, so that explains why it's a persona fest going on, and by persona, I mean Yukiko. Avelyn (renamed from Amaranth because it has no meaning), found below the face, is there because she was heavily inspired by your's truely (like any character of mine's isn't). The bottom Yukiko has lulzworthy anatomies because she became a midget. I wonder what's she holding onto? Who knows?

 I actually posted this picture before, but since I drew more stuff on it since then, I thought I'd re-upload.

Tuesday

Wednesday

"I cried all through the night... I miss him~"

Megurine Luka from the song I Miss Him by CompT. It's also the only Vocaloid song where the English lyrics are at least something akin to normal speaking English and isn't riddled with words such as "hope", "dream", "believe", "rainbow", etc. It's probably also the second  best English I've heard from a Vocaloid, which is sad because Luka's supposed to be Japanese.
Did I ever mention how weird the English Vocaloids sound when singing English? Is this how Japanese Vocaloids sound to the Japanese? But I do have to admit, the no. one best English song from a Vocaloid has to be from Big Al. (His voice is actually kinda sexy, HAHA.)

Thursday & Friday

Great poorly-aligned emo poem thar!

According to About.com,  "(d)rawings of eyes are practiced a great deal by artists, and may suggest a frustrated artistic talent. They are sometimes regarded as showing a wish to be desirable. A feeling of being watched might be shown by a staring eyes, or especially an eye through a keyhole - you feel your privacy is being invaded." Which is strange because I'm not any of these things, or at least, I'm not the latter. I must've been really frustrated as a kid, then.
How you like the included "poem"?


Saturday

"This is where it ends."

The lyrics of Hush by Automatic Love Letter. Even though there are far more words than Ashes in wine, it was able to all neatly fit into the Saturday section of my agenda. Which leads me to my next point: why is the space dedicated for Saturday so damn big when Sunday is half of that? Like who's going to write that much stuff on their agenda during the weekend?
I'm quite proud with the shaded head. :)

Boldness.

"Boldness: Boldness means being willing to trying new things or face adventure with a sense of confidence." Well, no shit.


Drawn with pencil on agenda.

Emotion Haul

Following my week of melancholy, more emotion shit!

I find it questionable how useful art is as a therapy means, but I do like drowning myself in depressing pictures to pass the time.

I won't struggle. Just shoot me through the chest.

...or,  judging from the picture, more like the neck! Amirite?

Not much to say besides it's pretty emo.

Strangling the b**** who ruined it all.

Caption explains all. Man, who needs me when you've got such a descriptive caption?

Huh, maybe I should change the title from "haul" to "double" or something. Not many pictures here, really.


Drawn with pencil on good ol' scrap printer paper.

Pink and Purple

As I write this, I just finished drawing this picture.

This picture is actually a teaser for my annual birthday picture of my dear persona, Yukiko.

Hide your eyes because there's bright pink.

So what I like:

• Focused on two colours I kind of just chose on a limb (no, really, I just airbrushed some pink and purple on the background because I felt like it).
• Instead of blue in her hair and white on her dress, it's really shades of pink and purple, gasp!
• Her face turned out quite vivid... before I messed up the background.
• Coloured in 1 layer.
• The guy's coloured in the same colours as the background so he's not super intrusive.
• Background first, people after.
• It didn't take me a long time
• Experimented with colours in ways I usually don't.

Now what I don't like:

• Did my drawing abilities deteriorate? The anatomy is lol as well as the face... and pretty much everything else about it.
• What the hell happened to the background? 
• What am I trying to accomplish with this? Huh?
• Her right hand. Period.
• The skin tone I chose is so lifeless and unnatural.
• I don't like it!
• etc etc etc

It also took me about 2 hours to finish this picture - a first! No wonder it looks so bad, huh?


Made in openCanvas

A week of meloncholy

All I will say is that it happened the Friday prior to the week I'm writing about, and obviously, it's not a happy thing. Bleh, it's pretty obvious what it is, too, from the pictures.

Despite the solemn undertone, I'm really happy about this weekly endeavor. I came out with some great pics I love looking at every time I flip through my agenda.

Note: The days of the week does not correspond to when I drew it, it's just what part of my agenda it is labeled as.


Sunday
The start:

Keep on falling.

Monday

How far will my voice reach?

Tuesday

Melt away.

Wednesday

Earth bound.

She's not an angel, just a girl with wing. The end. The image has been in my head for a while... and I did not capture it in paper. Shame.

Thursday

A stoic, moon-white face.

Friday

Sing you a song you won't hear.

Saturday
The end...?

Ashes and Wine

I've got to say that this is my favourite picture out of the bunch. I spent a while shading in the tones. The entire lyrics for the song Ashes and Wine is there. Now, you'll just need to read my handwriting.

Fly away...

Drawn with pencil.

Agenda: I be old

 

A head.

Katherine. Exploring her hair style and emblem.

And from the same stream of ideas, Nathan.

 

Another head!

Hands and gestures.

My persona, Yukiko, and "Ameila" (for now; I'm considering Amarath, but I'm not too much of  a fan of it). Drawn on the Oct 10th part which is also my birthday.

Drawn with mechanical pencil on agenda.

Animu Club Poster Pics

Did I ever mention that I'm in anime club? I'm actually an executive, which I'm extremely angry about because my friend and I were the ones who even suggested the revival of the club. Then these two girls just come up and announce themselves to be president and vice president. Pissed off.
Ah well. We decided to split the club up into separate sections this year. I guess so long as I'm in charge of the art section, I'll be alright.

But really. They failed last year. What makes you think they'll be okay this year?

Well, back on topic. In the first meeting ever, my friend and I are making the banner to promote the club on Club's Day this year.

The only picture I was supposed to draw. I was suggested to draw a shirtless guy, and to ward off gay vibes, make him hold a big sword. I left the nipples to be added in the PS stage if my friend wanted to.

Because the guy above frankly suxed, I quickly whipped up some super shinee mahou shoujo! Yay! I didn't finished, but my friend fixed it up quite nicely afterwards.... especially so with her PSing skills.

Heh, they're really not that good. The guy I had a heck of a time colouring because I'm so unused to Sai's (yes, I used Sai and I don't know why... I think it's for the smooth line art) tools. I decided to just cheaply Ren-Ai-cell-shade the other picture because, hell, the eyes are big enough to reel in people and have them not notice the incompleteness.

Man, if only I had saved the finished product! Too awesome and so cheap!


Made in Paint Tool SAI.

スパーアンガルハート！

Some stuff I did during art class.

Some sketch spam, a couple pictures of some OCs, and a girl committing suicide by having a third arm coming out of her chest shoot her in the face. Self explanatory, right?

Oasis juice box

I got bored after finishing my drawing of the zipper on my pencil case early. Since my friend was working on another sketch, I figured I'd do it too. This is the juice in my lunch bag.

Still life is pretty fun to do, but it's a pity that I don't do enough of it. Practice plz.

Okay, I think I might've hit jackpot here. I thought of the best idea ever, with Jenny, for an anime. Ready?

"Justice will be sweet!"

Okay, so pretty much, that little shoujo girl is the protag of this little story. She, of course, is a mahou shoujo, and is gifted with magical powers from that flying cat Teletubby thing, probably appearing to her in a dream or something. She uses the wand on the left to unleash a KO-ing mirage of pink energy with names containing references to love or strawberries. Did I mention that her super hero name is Sailor Strawberry? (And disregard those pictures on the bottom.)

Oh yeah, check out the other charries:

So, the really tall guy on the left is Strawberry's teacher. He's holding a ball because on top of being charming, and smart, and wooes all the girls, he's also very athletic. Of course, Strawberry is moved by his charm, and will eventually join him in a totally not pedo relationship despite their 10 year age difference. But, unbeknownst to her, he's actually the main bad guy, who happens to grow ears on his head! How is this discouvered? Well, one day, they were on the stairs, and somehow, his glasses came off, and OH MY GOD, IT'S YOU!
But don't worry, he will feel the power of love and restrain himself. She will purify him, and it'll all live happily ever after.

As for the group of girls on the bottom, well, they're Strawberry's magical girlfriend gang! From left to right, we have the book-smart, shy girl; the asshole, in-your-face rich girl; the tough, silent, sword-wielding girl; and the cute, loli, annoying girl who can't do anything for shit.

And it's called Angel Hearts. You better not steal our idea.


Drawn on paper with mechanical pencil.