The Reluctant Spy or On the Move

Ever feel like you just gotta get going? Ever feel like the opportunity is out there and it's up to you to reach out and grab it? Or, do you have to get going because of a sense of urgency? You don't have any other choice? An external force has given you no option but to move? Whatever the reason, I have that feeling right now. And the reason is that I am finally leaving my parents' home (I've been living with my folks since college, by the way) and moving into an apartment on my own (with a friend). The build-up to this time has been consuming, it has been hectic, it has been worrisome, but of all the things it could be - it is exciting. Changes are manifesting at this very moment and I'm not entirely sure what they are going to bring - all I can do is charge forward and see what's on the other side. I hope to continue to receive your support from my new location, coming soon!

Will this be effecting updates? Erm.......maybe? I don't mind saying that I have the 3rd installment of Pachi Profiles planned to go up before the end of the month, but those aren't as difficult to plan as a normal sketch. Your safest bet would be to assume that updates will come at about the speed they always have, with only possible delay within the next couple weeks. Please bear with me until then - I want to show you as much of my art as I can, and I promise you many more will be coming after I'm settled down in my new home. Look forward to it! :)

This drawing began as one idea, then it became another! I drew this random young man (let's just call him Spy) and then a long, disjointed corridor behind him. I was envisioning a man running through the hallways of an abstract mind, with weird visuals and sites surrounding him. But then I was staring at the far end, and I thought it would look really cool if he was running from a billowing smoke cloud at the onset of an explosion. So he turned into a spy, stealing important documents and fleeing from an unexplained action set piece. I think the smoke came out a little better here than in the Rising out of Dreams image - probably because it's not as overblown as in that one. This image made me realize that when I draw males, I tend to draw very young adult males and little else. I want to alleviate that, so I gave Spy a small goatee; just to give him some character and not make him look so "teenager".

BONUS: Speaking of changes, I have something to announce concerning the future of drawings that will appear on this blog. Thanks to my dear mother, I received for my birthday a new Intuos4 drawing tablet from Wacom, specifically for the purpose of drawing art digitally! I hold traditional techniques dear to my heart and I'm not going to stop drawing that way, so don't worry if that's what you prefer. However, there are many pros to digital art that appeal to me, and my dabbling in advanced photoshop techniques the last few months made me want to experiment with enhancing the drawing step itself instead of just the after-effects. Again, I'm not going to exclusively switch over to drawing with the tablet, but I am going to experiment with it and see how it goes. In fact, I have a few sketches I did while testing out the tablet that I'd like to show you. These are just very quick, untouched digital doodles, but I wanted to let you see as I learn to use this new tool. These were done in Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, on an Intuos4 Large tablet:

Even though these were aimless sketches, I have to say I was quite impressed with the crazy Simpsons-lipped girl in the upper-right corner. Between her an Chung, I must have a thing for drawing crazy girls. XD