Dog House

The last few days have been pretty exciting on my end, as projects I’ve worked on throughout this year are finally in their final form and began distribution!

First off is the manga commission, which is now up on Graphicly for reading for $0.99! Written by Kenny Porter and illustrated by yours truly, crime/noir (my first time illustrating anything in that genre, so this was quite a ride for me)! This is my first time illustrating an indie comic that’s actually being distributed, so this is really exciting for me!

And then I found the Gaia:vim naturae charity artbook in the mail when I came home from my Tokyo trip two days ago! This is the first time I’ve participated in an art book project, so yet another first time accomplishment that I’m very excited about!

At the risk of coming off as a narcissist, a shot of my contribution in the book fffff. It was on page 12! :D You can still order the artbook from Lulu!

And pardon the crude snapshots, I just put the book on my lap haha…

And then a bit about something that just happened that’s not so hot but eventful nonetheless on my end. The server that my site is hosted on was down a few days ago, but got fixed within the day so I wasn’t too worried then. But then yesterday, as I was battling away my jet lag, I noticed it was down again. *insert annoyed moans and groans* A few hours later, it was up but the newest content was from November 18. Turns out it was moved to new hardware and the backups were about a month old, so that wasn’t really fun to deal with… :/ Though I guess I’m still fortunate compared to tons of other sites out there on the same server, I didn’t do any big updates so the fixes were pretty simple. I can’t imagine all the hassle bigger sites and businesses are facing right now. >.>

Inking and toning.

I don’t want to call this a tutorial since this is just the way I go about making a manga page these days, and I’m not really sharing any techniques or tips. But if anyone finds this useful at all in their endeavors, that would be awesome too! :]

(more…)

Actually went to look for my camera this time (was feeling too sick lazy to look for it in the last post with the sketch, so I used the laptop’s camera for that one fffffff). I forgot I left off SC right in the forest, which means LOTS OF TREES. From buildings (commission) to trees (SC)… oof. At least I can sorta make lots of BGs now? >.>

I sketch and ink on two separate pieces of paper. I do the pencil (messy) sketch on one, put a clean piece of paper over it, and put them over a light board to ink. I used to ink directly over the messy sketch and clean it up once I scanned it, but I began using the light board for the commission, so now I’m so used to this method (and since I have it, I really should make the best of it. I love it now! ) And yes, I use paperclips to keep the two pieces of paper together. I dunno what else to use. :/

Sketching the next SC page.
THIS IS FUUUUUN UHUHUHUHU.
And yeah I sketch super messy. :<

Drawing cars running normally was new and challenging enough, but then I finally came to the page where I decided I wanted to draw one with its underside exposed. I hope this looks convincing enough for readers in general; I’m sure car pros will tell me that the bottom of a car does not look like that. I feel like I keep posting so many previews, but everything I’m making in this project is so new and unfamiliar to me, I feel like I accomplished something huge each time I draw it out (when in fact, it’s really just a car… or a gun… or simple and silly things like that).

I finished up all of my other drawing obligations so I started giving this project my full drawing time, and I’m almost done! If all goes well, I should be done with all of the remaining pages around mid-October (hopefully before I go visit NYC and NYAF so I won’t have to let my worries spoil the fun over that weekend, and of course I crash hard after eventful weekends so that’s more potential work time lost). And after that, I can spend my manga drawing energy back on SC again!

I dunno what about my pictures and sample manga pages made the writer think I can draw guns and crime stuff, but I’m trying!!

Another panel from the manga commission. One of the rare instances I actually drew people hugging, even more rare is that they’re still in their undies. I think with this included, I’ve drawn 3 pictures of hugging characters: Lionel and Divanis (baby brother and big brother), Riedre and Eynne (guardian and prince), and these two. I think I’ve mentioned somewhere before that it’s great that commissions make me draw new things and learn from them, but I’m finding that it’s helping me learn about myself too. In this case, unfortunately, I learned that I’m not so fond of drawing romantic or sexually suggestive things… although I’m totally okay with drawing curvy/busty female characters, so it’s really more when it has to do with couplings or relationships I guess. And I know why I feel this way, but it’s personal and I don’t want to talk about it. So yeah, I guess that’s a bit unfortunate, since I can’t enjoy what I’m doing when I deal with this subject even if I’m being paid for it. On the plus side though, I was fine when I drew Riedre and Eynne, so I guess I feel fine when it’s like… a fairytale setting? (<3 u Disney movies) So if you ever feel like asking for couples pictures, make sure they’re wearing dresses and crowns and such. Not obligatory but just makes it easier for me I guess. Haha. :P

Despite the lack of blog posts with screencaps of drawings, I’ve been drawing A LOT lately. Like people in their underwear. ^ This one is part of a manga commission, which is challenging me with lots of new things to draw, which is a great thing for learning but kinda hurts every time I stumble. Like drawing semi naked people in their underwear. And cityscape and cars and guns and… yeah.

I actually have another drawing commission sketched out, but still waiting on the half payment before I continue working on it, so maybe I’ll post a wip of that some other time. Commissions got really busy since coming back from my trip, probably thanks to the DD I found when I came home (thank you so much for the constant support everyone! ) Busy busy is good, but it does make me miss my own characters… ;; I’m going to spend some quality time with my OCs for sure… when I’m done with this pile. orz

Lots of repetitive shots of the same monster cloud I took while out in Japan:

I actually had even more shots of the same cloud, but I think this is already repetitive enough for anyone else to enjoy but me. I was easily amused that zooming up to different areas of the same huge cloud changed the colors so much!