SPARK!

Musing on Spark's design! I can't take a lot of credit for this, the only thing different from the design Evie has come up with is the zig-zags on the chest and thighs, and the maroon on the boots. The comments are mostly notes on things I already liked about her costume, plus a few added ideas.

What is it with this paper

...that makes me want to draw? Maybe it's because I'm not as stressed out about ruining a good piece of clean blank white printer paper as I am cheap yellow stenonotebook paper with my scribbles. And all I've really been in the mood to draw has been scribbles and notes for my project with Evie (which now has a name: "Loose Canon" --and no it's not misspelled I promise), so it's working well for me!

Right now Evie and I are trying to work on redesigning Spark's costume. Evie's got the final say in this, but she wanted some ideas so here are some things I played with.

Also I started entertaining the idea of an "Evil Spark" character called Ignite. These are some things I jotted down along with plot notes for Vahaadi's back story.

And yes, my default pose for character designs is bow-legged, slightly pigeon-toed, fist-clenched and boringly static.

More Doodles!

Having a desk job has its perks, you know? I did a lot of waiting today, so I did some more doodling and note-scratching for the shojo comic project. Even though she isn't my character, Sammy/Spark has really been monopolizing my muse...in the past week I've drawn her 19 times! They've all just been scribbles but, hey. My own characters NEVER get this much love. Anyhow, have more scribbles!

Doodles!

Today I was working in the phones room, so while I waited for calls I was able to doodle!

Featured are a badly drawn Mickey Mouse, Vahaadi, and Sammy--Spark's "normal girl" alter ego. Evie and I are working on a "shojo 'magical girl' anime/manga meets (kid-friendly) American-Superhero cartoon/comic" project featuring these two, and I'm so excited! Sammy finds Vahaadi's magic lamp and wishes to become a superhero, and much adventure ensues. In case you can't read my chicken scratch, the conversation in the right hand corner is:

Sammy: "I wish you could do my homework for me."
Vahaadi: "Hah! I wouldn't wish for that if I were you. I was never good in school."
Sammy: "You went to school!?" :D
Vahaadi: "No. So, I'd best not do your homework."

...oh and I also randomly felt the need to draw noses over Vahaadi's head on the left side of the paper.  SO I DID.

Writing to Life

Please click to view it in full! The preview is so blurry o.e

She is called the Butterfly; she is an original character and representation of one Aryn Chris. The style is an attempted emulation of Alphonse Mucha's "Art Nouveau." I experimented with many things while working on this piece (part of why it took so long) and completely went to to town on Photoshop's stroke effect, the stamp tool, gradients, opacity, and multiply settings. I also used stock resources to do the text on the book and butterflies and the texture for the frame:

Handwriting texture? by XlionheartX
Script Texture by CaptainRedd-Stock
old crackly parchment texture by Teeth-Man

I used a this spiffy Modern Mucha Dress-Up Game by Gasara to help me design the dress. I knew from AC's request that it was supposed to have three layers, but the horrible creation I came up with at first looked perfectly terrible. With the doll maker I constructed this dress to use as a reference and it helped tremendously.

 Edit: Incidentally some color changes were in order for want of contrast and balance. Changing the color on the stockings was actually a lot harder than it usually is for a photoshop piece...I still had a file with all of the separate layers but it required back-tracking through several adjustments and effects and touch ups which then had to be re-done before it looked like the finished product again. Then I fiddled with the background shades since the brown didn't look "striking" enough and came up with these two variations:

I like the one on the left; it reflects nicely the autumn-y mood I've been in this past week due to the cooler temperatures here in Florida, but ultimately it was deemed that the background/frame altogether didn't flow with the character, so after 3 hours of fighting with it in the wee hours of the morning AC asked for the frame to be discarded completely.

This is the final product! (also very blurry >.<)

Study for Took

An expression/angle/design study for Took. I'm not sure where I'm going with his look yet but I think the middle is the closest to what I'm trying to achieve. For as easy as he is to write, Took is actually really annoying to draw...

Smirk

I decided to try my hand at realism again.  I referenced this from a photo of my friend, Michael Ireland.

*dashes back to comfort zone*