Pachi Profiles 03

Hi everyone! I'm still alive, and I'm making an update that I promised months ago! It's the long-procrastinated third batch of character profiles! Only two of them in this set, sorry. I promise that more drawings are on the way, including one big one that's partly complete which will be a sort of precursor to this year's Nostalgia Week; which again, will be in October. I'm really excited to get this one done and rolled out to you! Anyway, if you would like to meet two more of my stable of personalities, click either of the two links below!

Profile #6: Wo Chun Fa
Profile #7: Wo Quan Li

Trapped in Nature Land or Summer Weather

Hey, guys! Sorry I've been away so long! There's been a lot of things going on, but I'm going to try and get semi-regular updates going again starting this week! But I'm back, and I now find myself........trapped in crazy summer weather.

A lot of people know summer as that time of the year when the temperature goes so high that you just want to lie back and do nothing. A time of rest and relaxation. Other people know summer as that time of the year when the elements go completely haywire on a regular basis. As a great cartoon teenager once said, "Summer rains, you can never predict them." And indeed it rains, it frequently rains. It can be hot and sunny in the morning and then overcast and rainy just a few hours later. Why do I bring this up?

Because the weather around here, in the eastern United States, was rather.....irritable a few weeks ago. For me, anyway. Every other day it seemed started out bright and sunny, but then devolved into violent overcast storms by late afternoon. I guess that's not really bad since we always need rain, especially in this time of year when it can get very dry, but the storms are what I don't like. I have a particular kind of weather I don't like, and that's thunder/lightning storms. Cliche as it is, I'm afraid of them. Part of it may be the thought that the lightning could be hitting somewhere, causing damage to something or someone. Part of it may be the fact that my sensitivities get shaken by those bright flashes and banging booms. I just don't find it calming in the slightest. I don't mind the rain.......just leave the theatrical additions behind, please.

Are there any types of weather you dislike or like for any particular reason?

NOTE: One quick thing - I've finally updated the Art & Sketches page of the site! So that's something.

I decided to make this image at the hate of my previously stated annoyance with all the thunderstorms we'd been having for awhile (at the time of preparing this post, the storms have actually been less frequent). I thought a fun idea would be to throw Sei headlong into a battle of clashing weather. Storms, wind, snow, heat, lighting, fire!! Okay, fire isn't a type of weather, but......it's hot! Designing Sei's outfit was fun - I wanted him to be too cold in some places but too warm in others. As you can see, he's not too happy about it. I don't know what the visor goggles are for. I just thought it'd be cool if he had some kinda headgear. Just pretend a big burning fireball of a sun is looming ahead of him.

Concerning Ghibli and Reviewers

Pre-post Note: I'm alive! Welcome back to the portrait, everyone! Actually, I'm still technically on hiatus. I have begun work on some new drawings that I hope to share with you all soon. Unfortunately, I still have yet to get a scanner in my new apartment - for now, the best I can do is use the one at my parents' home next time I visit them. I'm still adjusting to life in this apartment, but I've gotten into a pretty good groove, so I anticipate that I'll start settling into a regular drawing groove very soon! With that out of the way, I do have SOMETHING to show you; a small piece I put together with my tablet which was inspired from a very particular place:

What more can be said about Hayao Miyazaki and his animation company Studio Ghibli? They have created some of the most memorable and magical animated features in the world time and time again. The Ghibli films may not be what introduced me to anime, but they certainly helped me see how amazing anime can be. There's really no use for me to critique his films or go into depth about them - it's already been done countless times, and much better than I ever could! So I will leave you with this simple question - what are some of your personal favorite Ghibli films? For me, it would have to be My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, and after FINALLY seeing it recently, I can add Castle in the Sky to that list. What about you? :)

For those who don't know, "JesuOtaku" is an internet reviewer featured on the website "That Guy With the Glasses"; she specializes in anime reviews. As part of a (two)month long event, she has recently been releasing a series of videos in which she reviews/retrospects on every single Ghibli animated feature, even the ones not released stateside. Because I am a big fan of her anime reviews (and I've always wanted to try drawing Totoro), I drew the two together in this tribute image. If you want to hear some in-depth analysis of the Ghibli movies and an all-around talented individual, you should check out her videos here on blip.

The color scheme is designed to be just like the intro frame that precedes most Ghibli films; this one. Totoro was a lot of fun to draw, although I ended up making him a bit too small next to JesuOtaku. Granted, we usually only see Totoro in size comparison with very small children, so it's probably not that off.

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

The Companions or Clothing

When I'm drawing one of my characters, there is usually one thing on my mind: the face. The face is the part of a drawing that I MUST get right before I can feel happy moving on to something else - if the expression is wrong, or the eyes are positioned incorrectly, it can ruin an entire drawing for me. This is because when I see a drawing of a person, the first aspect I am drawn to is the face. The subject of an artwork, the primary character, creates a mood for me based on their expression, and I seek out that mood. That helps me form my initial reaction of whether I like or dislike a piece of art. The surrounding and aesthetics come after - for me, I like to go to the expressions first. Even if there is no "characters" in the work; I seek the expression in whatever the primary character of the work is.

But what am I rambling about? This post is about accessories in a drawing, not the face conveying emotion. My point is, I spend so much time obsessing over the emotion of the face in my art, I often neglect the extra bits. This isn't necessarily considered BAD. There are plenty of artists who don't feel comfortable drawing certain things, and they often stick to particular tropes in their work. I in particular have a penchant for drawing characters with simple clothing designs and minimal backgrounds, if any. It's what I tend to draw more than anything else. I still put a lot of attention to detail and care in my work, but most of it goes into making the character look good. Due largely in part to my inexperience with the other aspects.

Oh clothing, oh clothing, why do I have such difficulty with you? Forget about the post details like folds and texture (I could get into a completely different rant about my difficulty with that - one at a time now), I just have a hard time coming up types of clothing to draw that look interesting. I'm not including plain old shirts/jeans/whatever in this because they're run-of-the-mill and take little to no thought to come up with. Best case scenario would be drawings like Union on this Night where I research a particular type of clothing and create a design mixing my own style and whatever I happened upon. Worst case would be ones in which I just make up the design on the fly. I know I've said in a recent post that drawing the first thing that comes to your head can be a fun tactic when you're low on ideas (trust me, I do it all the time), but when you get down to nitty gritty details and accessory designs, you really should have SOME kind of plan for them. It doesn't take too much effort to make believable clothing, but it also doesn't take much more than that to make clothing look ridiculous. Unless ridiculous IS your style - there are exceptions for everything. :p

That's about it this time. I don't have any solid advice for you on clothing because I'm not very experienced with the topic myself. ^^; But if I'd say anything, it's this - unless it's clothing that's not being worn, the item should compliment the owner wearing it. No matter what type of situation it's in - a formal suit, school clothes, casual wear, a weird outfit the character in question would never wear - ANYTHING can work, no matter how ridiculous or straightforward. It's all a matter of finding the thin line that makes the clothing look like clothing. The easiest way to find this line, in my opinion, is to draw your clothing around the character last. Don't start drawing their clothing right where the collar begins - draw them as if they were naked first. (unless they're actually supposed to be, but in which case my tirade about clothing does not apply to you XD) Finalize the pose of the body before doing any accessories - then you'll be able to more firmly accentuate the clothing to the lines you've just defined, rather than trying to figure out the shape as you're creating the clothes. You're performing two steps at once that way, and if you can do it, more power to you. But if you find that makes things difficult or you're just not happy with how your clothed characters look, try it the way I said and see if that makes a difference. :)

I decided I hadn't drawn the siblings in awhile, so I'm letting Chung and Quan share the limelight today. The focus for this one was, of course, the clothing! I had an early vision of the two in Lord-of-the-Rings-esque outfits, or anything that could be considered LoTR-esque. I think I managed that okay with Quan, but Chung....she looks a little more like a gladiator. Or a well-clothed amazonian. Do you guys think so? Ah well. I was going for adventure/fantasy clothing, so both of them fit it well enough. I especially had fun designing their weapons and the shield - they get across the style I wanted more than the characters themselves. For this sketch I tried out the older style of nose these two used to have - I don't know if I like it. I'll probably go back to my more conventional nose style in the future.

A Pachi Break: New Update Venue

Hey guys - no drawing for you today, but I wanted to give you a quick update on a couple things. In the near future, I am going to be moving out of my parents' home and into an apartment with a friend. The preparation is pretty lax right now, but when the time comes closing in, I'm going to be busy and will probably have even less than usual in way of updates. I do have about three drawings on the back burner that should get on the site within the next couple weeks, but after that it'll probably be high and dry for awhile until my move is settled. Hope you all understand. I have some big plans for my work and this blog in the coming year, so I hope you will all stay tuned! =)

In other news, I just recently started a Twitter account! You can find my most recent tweets on the sidebar to the right and a link to follow me. It won't be strictly just about the blog - I'll be talking about pretty much anything there. So in case you were thinking this is a strictly-business twitter, it's not! It's also my personal twitter, so I may use language; fair warning. If my blog ever gets to a point where it's kind of successful I may separate it so I have one Twitter for the blog and one for myself, but for now that doesn't seem that necessary. Anyway, I'll be making notifications about future updates there from now on, so feel free to follow me if you'd like to find out about my drawings that way. I also still have a follow-by-email link if you'd prefer to get your updates via email. Or just stop by every now and then to see if there's anything new. The choice is yours!

Dance Out Blue or Character Dictation

When someone tells you they "can't dance", what they probably mean is they don't "like" dancing. If we were to get technical about it, generic dancing doesn't have any strict style or form - if you simply move your body in some kind of rhythm, you can consider that dancing. Declaring that one can't do the waltz, or the twist, or ballet, is on the other hand justifiable, since a specific type of dance requires skill and practice. Me personally, I'm not a huge fan of dancing. I LIKE it - I think it's fun to dance. But I'm very self-conscious and I get nervous when dancing around a lot of people. But not Sei. I decided as a joke that one of Sei's favorite hobbies would be "dancing at raves". Because really, you look at him, and he doesn't seem to be the type to be into an outing involving mass social interaction. But he goes gun-ho about it; he takes it quite seriously. This is a situation where the technique of "author insertion" probably gets the most use - using our characters to do things we cannot do but wish we could. I am really nervous about dancing for long periods of time, but Sei can do it nightly and with no fear. It really is quite interesting to see how a character will appear and act in a situation you wouldn't expect them to be in.

And on that note, I'll segue into what I really wanted to talk about today - something I call "character dictation". I'm not talking about a character narrating a story, no no no. This is in regards to the art. For many comic artists, work doesn't finish when the chapter/issue is done. Quite commonly, characters have to be drawn for promotional art or greeting cards or holiday images or anything imaginable - miscellaneous works. A lot of my drawings are done in the style of miscellaneous works because I am usually not showing you scenes from my stories - I'm just showing my characters doing "things". I'll use my Summer 2011 pool drawing as an example. The Gogyouo characters are relaxing pool-side. But why? Do they ever take a break at a pool in the story? You don't know. There is no context for the image - it's just them doing "things" that they might do. And thinking about this made me wonder if artists ever have difficulty figuring out WHAT their characters will do. I don't really mean difficulty in picking the theme/setting of the drawing, but difficulty in deciding what character is going to do what in that setting. Group drawings especially are affected by these decisions. For me, character interaction is an extremely important part of Gogyouo, and I make no exception for character interactions in my drawings.

I have one rule/tip alone that I follow in making these decisions, and I hope you may consider trying it out if you're having trouble making them as well. What I call "character dictation" basically means to let the characters themselves decide what they want to be doing. I know full well you can't ask them, but you can consider the character and their personality. Think about their past experiences, their disposition, how they normally react to certain things. To go back to the pool drawing; Sei has fallen into the water and gotten soaking wet. Why is Sei the one to fall in the water? Why not Masashi, or Mikioi? The answer is simple - because Sei would be the one most annoyed by that action. Being the one who created Sei, I know that he doesn't like swimming, because it ruins his hair. So out of all the characters in that drawing, I took these factors into account and picked him because he would be the most irritated AND he would have the most childish reaction because he would be upset about his hair. Basically I decided that Sei falling into the water would provide the funniest reaction. Likewise, why is Mikioi the one relaxing in the shade? Why not Suunuku? Well, because Mikioi is vain - he would much rather sit back and relax when on vacation. Suunuku is the one who would be jumpy and energetic and want to goof off - that's why she's running up with the beach ball.

I realize that to a lot of people, this may seem like a backwards way of thinking. Most artists probably come up with a thing for each character to do last rather than picking a "thing" and then assigning a character to it. Actually, that's how I do it to. But before I start drawing them, I go back and really think about the decisions I've made. Would the character really do this? If not, is there a justifiable reason that is causing the character to do this? One thing I hate to do is to "force" a character to appear in a certain way or doing a certain thing that unrealistically goes against that character - I like to connect everything by reason. Even my most abstract works have reasons behind them - take The Woven Girl for example. It may seem completely random that she is leaning herself against the grip of a giant axe, but it's not; her character has a strong affinity to "weapons", and Suunu's favorite weapon just happens to be the axe. To be fair, you don't know this. Indeed, this whole process is one that usually will go unnoticed by the viewer - all they will see is the final product created from your decisions. But it can make getting their a whole lot easier if you let the character make those decisions for you. You created them, so let them decide what you're going to do with them!

I seem to be doing a lot of drawings with more and more steps taking place in Photoshop lately. To be honest, I think I'm going to go back to strictly traditional for awhile after this one, but it's been fun experimenting with new techniques. For this one, I had originally planned to go full-on traditional. But in order to capture the feel of a night club, there needs to be a lot of darkness. Darkness on paper requires a lot of graphite and/or ink piling up in one place and ruining paper quality. So for this drawing I wanted to try only half-completing the drawing and doing the rest on my computer. The only thing I drew and inked all the way was Sei himself - the crowd I kept in pencil and went to work on it in PS. The eventual result is what you see. At first I was just using varying shades of grey to try and emulate what I could have done on paper on a computer. But then I decided it would be fun to give the image a light hint of color, to better give the impression that Sei was on a dance floor under colored lights; so I went with a kind of greyish-blue. The only thing I'm really not happy about with the image is the way the bottom of the crowd silhouettes blend with the floor - it's not very clean. But overall this was a fun experiment. Please don't ask why Sei has a large ring around his wrist. Glowsticks I get, but large rings? I'll never understand his rave-accessory sense.