Garden Encounters

Picket meets Laurent for the first time. He forever wishes he’d just stayed inside and endured his wife’s nagging.

Prince Laurent

Laurent is one of my favourite characters to draw, because outwardly he appears suave and handsome, when in fact he is a loud, spoiled, cowardly, entitled jerk under the delusion that he is not only the perfect male specimen, but also irresistible to women.

You keep at it, Laurent.

It Begins (Continues)...

PORTFOLIO-ING CONTINUES.

Fell quite a bit behind, unfortunately. We had been expecting it to happen for a while, but my grandma passed away on the 30th, and art has been the furthest thing from my mind. I am forcing myself to really jump back into it this weekend, however, and so far so good. The creativity is coming back to me, so I'm exploiting it as much as possible.

I have a few big pieces in the works, but I managed to finish this smaller one tonight. I'm trying the 100 Themes Challenge at long last, and this was for #1. Introduction.

Little kid Chase and Sue! Pretty sure it was all downhill from there.

Oh hi!

I never really know what to post when a lot of time has passed since my last update, because of course I've been drawing every day since my last update and now there's just so very much to get caught up on.

Second year of animation came to an end, and I again worked full-time over the summer at Sheridan for facilities management, cleaning and painting and making the school all sparkly and majestic for the next year. This success is of course foiled within the first day, when students smear their conte-laden fingers across the wall, doodle genitalia over every available surface in the most permanent of inks, and cover everything else with masking tape and stickers.

But I digress. Here have some art!

A bunch of stuff from my sketchbook drawn over the summer.

And with the third year of animation comes the infamous.... GROUP FILM! I was lucky enough to end up with an incredible batch of talented individuals, and I think we've got a pretty spiffy story with a lot of potential for some exciting art, effects, and animation. In short, this year is all about improving my skills, expanding my portfolio, and pushing myself to try new things.

Here's a little of the art I've done so far, for our as yet untitled project.

And finally, some random art I've drawn recently of mine and my friends' original characters (Shaari from the first image belongs to Jessica Channer, and Tinette is of course property of no one, but is imagined with caution by Annie Hughes)...

School + The Awakened = ??? (Profit?)

And the race to catch up on missed posts continues.

Today, more "Floating Head Syndrome" sketches. This time of Asher and Montague. Both of them benefited from a nose job, and I would apparently make a rather shoddy plastic surgeon, because crooked hooks and gigantism abound.

I've heard a bit of feedback on both of these re-designs already, and I had to laugh at how many people thought I'd made Asher "ugly". It made me smile for the fact that Asher was *always* supposed to be a very ugly, ugly man. He's one of those so-ugly-he's-charming characters. So if anything, this update has taught me that I really have learned something about character variation. If the old Asher appeared "hot" to people, then I fell far short of my goal. So, as Asher is properly ugly now, I am quite pleased!

Received a mostly positive response for Monty, except maybe a little dislike for his new nose, but we can't all have beautiful, identical noses, people!


Aaaaaand in the world of school, I have... more Awakened stuff!

The assignment was a walk and run. We had to use contrasting characters, so I chose to animate Plague and Famine. I was juggling a fair number of projects alongside this one, so it's not as elaborate as I would have liked (particularly the interaction), but it did give me a chance to update their character designs a little.

(Apologies for the awful white BLOB in the corner. For whatever reason, whenever I put this clip online, the compression murders everything. If you squint, you might have some vague idea of what's happening.)

Definitely enjoying the chance to bring my established characters to life (though I can't do it for each assignment... as, well, the idea is to create new characters).

Roleplay Arts

First off, yup, I re-did my blog layout again. And I think this one will stick around for a while, as Blogger finally added a proper Template Designer, allowing me to let go of the free-downloadable-template life preserver. Now it's miiiine, all miiiine! Right. And to the post...

Laurent and Ninja
from "The Nine Dog Tree"

Those who know me well know that I really love to forum roleplay. It's an excellent creative writing exercise, and it's helped me to get to know my characters more thoroughly and more quickly than by simply filling out character sheets and charts and poking at my brain with a sharpened stick (it tickles! But on the whole, unhelpful). I only RP with friends, and only in well-structured environments with stable storylines and a lot of behind-the-scenes plotting and discussion, but even then we've got five or six active stories in progress.


And why does all of this matter?

It doesn't! Well, see ya, that was a fun post--Oh no wait, I drew a bunch of RP artwork.

Our most recent story is "The Rift", started by Annie, Chelsea, Corrin, and myself. It's a sci-fi, space-exploration theme, and I'm using Chase as a physicist (for the utter durhurhurhur factor), Fray as a mechanic (an excuse for him to hit metal stuff with other metal stuff), and my Dr. Foss as exactly what he always is.

In preparation, I drew some character profiles. Had particular fun with Fray's if that isn't completely obvious.


I definitely highly suggest any writer struggling with character development to consider roleplaying with some writing friends. Knowing exactly how your characters would react in any number of situations, really becoming them, is incredibly helpful and necessary for constructing believable, unique characters.