i've been trying to get back to the center.

So, in procrastinating finishing my summer project/cleaning my room/practicing my audition piece/e-mailing my choir director/paying the other half of tuition for choir/getting a supply sheet/getting a field hockey schedule, I decided to start working on faces in my "style". I've heard one of my BFFLs, Tori, that she totally loves my proportions and body skills, but she's "just not a big fan of your [my] faces."
I sort of took that to heart, and I"m trying to play around with a few things to sort of... push some realism onto my characters. I'm still having terrible trouble with lips and noses in front view, but I'm getting there.

This was actually my second expression sheet. I was playing around with some things, disregarding anatomy and that kinda stuff. I sketched this -entirely- in pen to see where I mess up the most. Obviously, -someone- doesn't like drawing female side profiles.

Firefox, why are you telling me I spelled "doesn't" wrong?
This was technically the sheet drawn first. I made a little box in the corner to show myself that yes, I have improved (in four years). I'm rather fond of the giant eye on that page. >_> And the little expression by the too-long nose that goes with it. x3

Trying get away from the anime sideways checkmark is a little hard at this point in time, but I think I'm doing okay. : D I think my inspiration to do noses differently came from Wolf's Rain. They just made it look good. You can't blame me! D: I was on an addiction. T_T

Oh!
About my new titles.
I've decided that every month, I'm gonna pick a new song and use the lines from there as my title. I wanna know if anyone can guess them. :'DD

if you remember, remember.

LEYLA CAN HAS NEW SCANNER OH GOD THANK YOU FATHER I LOVE YOU FOR SPOILING ME. My new Brother MFC-240C All-In-One scanner/printer/copier/fax machine is made of ultimate win and beast. It scans at like, 2400dpi if it wants to (I keep it at 600) and the images turn out huge and gorgeous. o_o SO ANYWAYS. Sketch dump for you? ;D

Let's start out by introducing my new OC, Arthur Bedegraine! He's my favorite dork-glasses gay boy, and he runs a magical flowershop with his BF(FL), Zeke! 8) More on him later, he too sexy for his shirt.


Next up, Tales!Ley! From the Tales of the Rising Shadow and the Crimson Adventurous Tears of the Dusk in the Moonlight, otherwise known simply as Tales. She has a pet duck. Fear it.

Joe says:
So, basically, TTOTRSATCATOTDINTM
Osi says:
*snort* In short?
Osi says:
XD
Joe says:
Abbreviated ^^



THIS IS NYE. NYE IS SEXY. ... Well anyways, this is Nye's demon form that I doodled while babysitting. His tattoos make me glee with joy, and I'm pretty happy with the overall turn out. o_o He's too pretty.

This is the result of playing way too many MMOs. I doodled Tori (left) and myself (right) as MMO characters. It's... a work in progress. >_> Tori looks like she's drunk, for God's sake.


And finally, what you've all been waiting for, the it's-all-in-the-swish boy that EVERYONE loves and wants for their own- JAYE! This loverboy belongs to none other than Jenna, and simply put, he's my faaavorite. x33 So I drew him. >_>


These two pieces are just two doodles I was playing around with a little. They're obviously unfinished (and it kinda tells you about my sketching process), but I was listening to Hoppipolla and I wanted to draw mush ('cause I never do). So here's some unproportional Vlad/Ria crap for you! ;D


Remember my animation project? SAY HELLO TO FRAME ONE. <3


Ria/Ivirie and Asher in the corner. >_> Citadel doodles. Associated with drabbles. I loff it, sorta.

Ria's dad! Well, a doodle of him, anyways. >_> I was bored at six in the morning, therefore propotions are way out of whack. Leave me alone. D:



This piece is clustered with the following, but I think it deserves its own description. Athie and Vlad. And a lanky Ria doodle. Gods. I'm gonna cry when we have to write that out. She looks up to him too much.


And of course, an Athie reference sheet for story five. She's just made of too much win. <3

So I had chores today.

You know, whatever. xD Wash the dishes, take the laundry downstairs, et cetera, and one of them was to watch my (generally bratty) little brother of two years old. So whatev, I woke up late, and I come out with my laundry hamper and my kid brother's with my dad, so I'm like, "Eyh! Tony! Lessgo play downstairs!"

So the kid -runs- downstairs, takes the -long- way around our floor plan, and then -jumps- on the couch. I lol'd a little before turning the TV on. >_>

I felt like sharing.

the hush sound is phenomenal, end of story.

MAJOR EDIT AT THE BOTTOM!

I was too tired to blog about this last night, but now I'm awake and listening to some new music I acquired. From what band, you ask?
I'm getting there.

So, last night I had the pleasure of taking (read: forcefully dragging) Josh to a Hush Sound concert with opening bands that I've heard of before, but never really took the time to listen to. Here are the links to their pages because, quite frankly, they were all rather good in my eyes (and ears).

The Morning Light
The Steel Train
The Cab
The Hush Sound

In order of how they played, to my memory.

Anyways.
It was a small gig at a skate park during the Hush Sound's "Dance Across The Country" tour in a kinda crappy part of my small, generally safe city. Getting in was a little nerve-wrecking for me, because I can't get adjusted to crowds after being practically isolated for two months of my life, and because I had ordered my ticket and needed to show them my ID to get it (I selected the "Will Call" thing on tickets.com, so I had to pick mine up at the venue), and Josh needed to buy his at the door. Still, we got in (and not without a few kind of embarrassing moments along the way). The first thing I did was buy a Hush Sound tour tee, which fits really loosely, is of good quality, and looking awesome. :3 Tenacious D's 'Tribute'. I swear, I was like one of the maybe five or ten people in the audience who knew what the hell he was doing and singing along to the parts I knew. Alex came on stage and started talking about how they called Ian "Goldfish" because he couldn't keep his attention on one thing at a time, ever, but after they do that song he's focused for like, the entire day. :'D It was too bad Shauna wasn't there, since she wanted to see them live.

The Hush Sound came on next. Dear sweet Jesus. I somehow progressed to the front row about three inches for the MASSIVE SPEAKER TOWER OF BASS DOOM during the whole show, and oh my god. They were phenomenal, coming out with Intro and going STRAIGHT into another song ("Not Your Concern," I think). They were so amazing it almost made me cry, and I sang along to almost every song (I think the girl next to me -heard- me even though I couldn't hear -myself-, and got slightly annoyed. Sorry random girl!) and and oh god. Their last song was something where people from all the bands came out and helped them out on, with Ian on the harmonica and they even did a rap bit in there with one of the drummers. And then the audience demanded an encore after they left the stage, sooo...
The Hush Sound returned and performed Honey for us! :'D Brilliant.

Since it was a super small venue, the people were all kinda chill and I got to meet a bunch of the performers (read: High-fived them for a "beast performance" and said hi and stuff).

Harrison and Bobby from The Morning Light.
Alex from The Cab.
Greta from The Hush Sound.

(I think meeting Greta was the most awkward out of all of them, since I had to wait for her to finish talking to a few more people before talking to me, and I was overwhelmed and my throat was dry so I sounded like an idiot. She did say I had a pretty name, though! xDD)

So, all in all, I'm phenomenally satisfied with the whole thing, and it was -so -worth the 18$ I paid for the tickets, taxes, processing fees and all. <3

I FOUND SOME VIDEOS~

Ian covering Tenacious D's Tribute
The Hush Sound believes in Barrack Obama. :'D
Alex doing Vegas Skies with Rattlesnake on stage.
Alex and Ian doing some acoustic stuff.
The Hush Sound - We Intertwined
The Hush Sound - Molasses

more color to sketches.

Two posts in one day?! What is -this-?!

First up on the menu is a chibi of Ria and Vlad that I submitted to dA. There's so many flaws in it, it's not even funny.
BUT I LIKE IT.
Playing around with colors again.


I NEED TO SLEEP HOLY SHIT.

Pointless things I wanted to write about today.

I'm always walking around and I get these random ideas for short stories, and I'm just curious if anyone thinks they're any weirder than I do. >_>
(That sentence sounded good in my head, I swear.)

- A sort of I-take-what-I-get-and-don't-ask-questions type of girl goes to get ice cream with her polar-opposite mother. The mother gets the wrong order and makes the girl re-order. She apologizes incessantly to her server, a boy from her school, and he tells her that it's alright.
Onward from there, cheesy high school bullshit, blah blah blah.

- Satan gets offended about Halloween.
"What? Kids dressing up as me? Kukuku-- AH! WHAT? I'm not -cute-! I don't -ask- for candy! If I wanted some fucking candy, I'd kill the mother fucker who has it and -take- it -myself-!"

- I feel like writing some character development bullshit with Ria and her dad going to meet all the lab kids. 'S prolly what I'll do.

- A backstory to Ziegte. Teehee. It'd be so terribly violent.

...
I need to stop staying up late with cran-raspberry juice and the Eels.
Wastin' space at this point. xDD

/scuttles off to work on Eric's history and Thatcher/Rosie's profiles.

equipment situation update.

So, we all know that I'm a little flawed in the equipment department at the moment.

Last night I called my mom up to tell her that I'm in a rut because a) I screwed up on installing our new Canon SD790 on my computer and b) If I were to sell my scanner on eBay, it'd be worth less that 10$. (That's how ancient my scanner is.)

Anyways.
I had told her about getting a tablet before (I've always been a bit scared of doing so because the Wacoms I want are so -damn- expensive), but I've never actually like, asked for one. Yesterday I got pestered about it, explained the concept to my dad, and pulled the page up for him for a Wacom Inutos3 8x6, costing a handy 329$. Ouch, right?

So Dad pulled me over today and told me to (put one of our bills in the mail box, but that's besides the point). He said that since I take art pretty seriously and I'm so interested in learning it, he'd love to buy me a Wacom, just not right at this moment. I'm supposed to be getting some absurd amount of school clothes for this year, and Field Hockey equipment, and then my actual school supplies (which are weighed down by my TI-83 graphing calculator, weighing in at some absurd 100$).

Quite basically, this is -lame-. I hate spending tons of money on school, and we have a trip coming up this year, oi. ._. I so wanna go, but I'm not sure if I can pay for it by fundraising alone (job time, ahoy!).

Dad and I agreed that he'd probably get me the Wacom as a Christmas present. I kinda feel bad, since this year I've been leeching -tons- of money from my parents. I appreciate it tons, too. ._.;; I feel so baaad.

ANYWAYS.
Basically, any art from me is gonna be in few and far-between sketch dumps because I don't have the equipment to do stuff. My available outlets are the new Canon (via Dad's computer, again), Tori's scanner (which is noisy and slow and does crappy scanning and takes a lot of effort to use, so I'd rather not bother her about that), Sarah's scanner (also noisy and we have to be very careful when scanning stuff, so I might pass stuff along to her for transfer), or Sarah's tablet (which I don't wanna ask her to use too often, because I've only been to her house once before).

I'll probably have a few things around Sunday, since I'm going to Sarah's house and from there we'll be going to the Hush Sound show (maybe with Shauna).
Alalala.
That would be it. ;D

animation project?

You heard me.

So, a while ago Jordyn and I were discussing animating Vlad (more accurate reference on the left) singing Jordan Knight's Give It To You (I think that's the most hyperlinking I've ever put in a single sentence), and I told her that I actually have all the necessary equipment to make an animation of my own. Which, I do. My trusty LightTracer II and I are the perfect simple animation team!

Now, Jordyn's promised to animate Vlad for me (I'll have to find some denying song to do Ria with xD), but since I have lots of time and no imaging software, I deceided on trying something short. Back when I was a wee little toddlekin, I watched a special about one of my favorite cartoons, and they said that in traditional animation, it takes 24 drawings per second to make the thing flow right. Jordyn and I did some calculations, and to animate something like Nara (which is about five minutes long), about seven thousand sketches are involved. A feature length Disney movie, say about two hours long? Something around 170,000 individual pictures.

No way am I doing something like that on my own, kay? ;D

So instead, I planned out a little 50-55 sketch animation of how regular peppy-o Ria goes into full-on Ziegte mode. It'd be a decently large file animated by hand, edited in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and animated in Adobe ImageReady. A lengthy project, but if I do a little at a time, I ought to get it done.

(If I ever felt up to it, I'd complete it. But I'm estimating it'd be... 35-40 seconds long, meaning like 840-960 sketches.)

Yes, it'd be tons easier in Flash 'cause every line's a vector.
Yes, I'm set on doing it traditionally.
(It's just more dramatic the way I have it planned.)

INOTHERNEWS~
I'm gonna try to use our old Kodak cam to take pictures of my drawings and upload 'em that way. :3 I wonder if it'll work ~

Oh.
And as for background music, I'm thinking of composing my own. xD

Edit:
A quick, mouse-drawn plan of what this thing is gonna look like. Don't click if you don't want spoilers (if you can count this as spoiling anything...). I'm in the middle of doing the math to figure out just how much I'm gonna need. (I'm calculating over 100 drawings because of the short sequences at the beginning and at the end). Split into two parts 'cause Blogger hates big files. xD

Edit II:

So, I did the math, and came up with the scary-as-all-hell number of 734-753 frames. There's a cheap trick I can use to eliminate about 336 of them, so I think I'll do that instead and end up with 398-417 frames. It's prolly even less than that, now that I think about it. Mid to upper 300s, definitely.
It's gonna take a while, but I'm looking forward to it. : D

coloring practice!

It seems I'm beginning to ditch my German titles. ; ; Poop.

ANYWAYS.
I got bored and decided to color something. xDIt's obviously a scan of the Chapter 39 manga cover for Ouran Host Club, so I don't really own the image. xDD I just got bored and decided to practice a little bit, because the intricate hair just called to me. o_o
Happy 35th post!
I might actually have some arts on the 24th. xDD
(And pictures. Ohgod you won't ever stop seeing pictures, since I'll have gone to the Hush Sound concert with Sarahphay.) There's also this lovely lineart I found on deviantART.
I just had to color it. :'D Credit to PrincessElemmiriel for the lines, and I did the colors for practice. xD
Leave feedback if you're up to it. I'm off to bed. ; ; Annie's moving tomorrow.

Tell, not show.

SJKHJfkhsdkhdsjkfhsdjkfhsdfsjdahfs!
D:
THAT'S JUST ABOUT HOW FULL OF ART JUICE I AM RIGHT NOW.
So, not only did I find a new manga series to follow (Elemental Gelade), but listening to Hoppipolla (song in this video) inspired me to draw -- *GASP* CUTE THINGS. D:

Solike, in front of me is this thing of sketcherdoodles of early story five concepts. I mean, I think one of the more touching parts of Vlad's return would be the fact that almost everyone would be mad at him, but then out of like, the entire lab crowd, you'd just see Athie just RUN at him and hug him for all she's worth. She wouldn't give three flying fucks about any other woman he'd be with. Athie's like... the innocent little sister. :'D &She'd be all grown up and teenager-like and pretty and just... come running and crying like, "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DID OR WHO YOU'RE WITH, I'M JUST SO GLAD YOU'RE BACK! D:"

And then Ria would come out with her hairdryer.
"Get the fuck out of my house, you cheating, lying, unfaithful bastard!"
And then she'd like, fall over.
What an interesting birthday that'll be~ : D

I'm also drawing 48573574 concept sketches of s5 Ria, becauseee... I can't seem to be able to draw underweight sick people? D: Fufufufu.

tessa's art exchange!

So, I inconveniently signed up for Tessa's Art Exchange when my scanner decided to inconveniently DIE. So, basically, I had to do the exchange piece in Photoshop entirely, by mouse. =3= Here are some progress shots fo you!


So then, I fiddled with a background color and some [lame] gradient effects to get...
I really need to do more decent drawings for people. ; ;

ich denke das sehr ... shitfuck, what's the word for sad? D:

Lalala, I got bored today && decided that I wanted to color stuff from my massive sketchdump because that many of my characters don't have color refs. Lalala. Here be a colored Tessa fo you, complete with crappy monologue on the deviantART submission.
" Remember this, she may look like her mother, but the recklessness, the disregard for the rules, her power to pour so much of her love and attention to one person, and most importantly, her eyes, those come from our side of the family. The eyes, Vladimir, those are the most important feature of a true Davidson. Know the eyes, and you can read her like a book. Stop her before she becomes a martyr, and know when she's willing to risk it all."
Lalala. Excuse the crappiness. Let's continue.Up next is a WIP of the colored Ziegte!Ria piece. :3 I felt like dual tone paintings, so here you are. The finished version below. Took a lot of gradient work. @@;; And... dodge tool rape. BUT IT'S DONE FUFUFUFU. Prolly gonna color one more before the end of the night, though. :'D I'm having fun. And voila! Last (unfinished) piece. :3 I wanted to try setting like... a mood or something. xD A feel for the picture. It's not done, so don't say a word. o_o EDIT!
LALALA! After listening to Nara by ES Posthumus about 290389038 times, I HAVE DECIDED TO DRAW DRAMATIC THINGS, fufufu. So, since I don't have a scanner OR a tablet OR a camera, I'mma tell you about this. :3
Basically, Jordyn and I have discussed the details of the end of the... major fighting parts of our RP in decent detail, and we said Ria would -almost- die. So I drew that. With Vlad holding her and shizzles and he looks all sad and stuff because his wife's bleeding and slowly de-transformnig from Ziegte mode as she's slowly a-slippin' away. And in the corner I drew a dying/happyish Ria face, and her caption says, "I believe in you, now finish this. I promised you forever, didn't I?"
LAWL @ CHEESY CORNY SOB-STORY CAPTION OH LAWD.

EDIT TWO!
I finished the Ria piece!

two words: sketch flood.

Lalala. Welcome to Ley's sketch flood of massive incomplete crap-tastic awesome! Please don't feel obliged to even glance at this entry because, let's face it, it's fookin hooge. D: So lalala, again, enjoy if you please. :'D

DOODLES

For the first time (in a long time?) ever, say hello to Alex! I drew Andy too, but his hair I can never get right. :'D So here's Alex, Ria's trusty trouble-making cousin who's swept many a lady off her feet. He's such a player. I love him dearly.
This is from the good old days of my .hack//GU obsession! In order, there's Atoli, Kuhn, Pi, X-Form Haseo, and Endrance(lawl). Please excuse the crappiness.
Only for Sarah do I do this: THE BUTT PAGE. Hello, a page of Ria's ass. :'D There is actually a reason for this page! D: I wanted to do this DRAMATIC 4-page comic of Ziegte!Ria vs Sygro, and... well, I needed her ass for the first panel. :'D BECAUSE IT'S DRAMATIC, OKAY?

(POSSIBLY) TO BE REWORKED

There was a caption to this before I cut it to fit in a massive scan on Sarah's beloved scanner. It read, "Love, you are foolish, you're tired. Your sleeplessness makes you a liar," and said caption is from a Hush Sound song. Lighthouse, I believe. And, well, Eric just happens to be tired. Leave him 'lone, he's my favorite man child. D< Ziegte!Ria. That's all. She's definitely my favorite psycho, ever. I love her. End of story.
:'D Vlad and Ria. As demented chibis. Vlad had an "*eyebrow waggle*" thing next to him, but it got cut out. &&So that's why Ria's all, "No."
Beach!Ria. With a picnic basket. Isn't she lovely and disproportional and just LOVELY?
Lolololol Seamus. I wanted to draw him, so I did. End of story.

A group picture that I was working on before I just said, "CRAP THIS LOOKS HORRIBLE," and dumped it. Ria, Athie, and Eric. There's like, a shadow of Vlad somewhere in there, maybe. Ria and Vlad. It looks so bad, but I like it. And Vlad's hair looks like a dead rat mob and it's bothering the shit out of me, but it looked worse before. Chibi captions say, "Stop undressing me with your mind," "Ass," and "Suddenly naked? Wtf! xD."

CONCEPT SKETCHES

I decided that if there was ever a shoujo of our little Darkheart thing, Ria would look like so. & I 'm making fun of Kagome in the chibi on the lower right, because... Ria's doing the "dramatic" name-calling thing that Kagome does AT LEAST THREE TIMES PER EPISODE. No wonder I stopped watching that show. Chibi Eric with his axe. Isn't he cuuuute?
This is Ziegte! The personified virus that split itself into like, 29493483 pieces and infected random expeiments. It is an it, beause it has no gender. Is it androgynous enough?
A psuedo GU character that has no name yet! But I like her&&her swords enough, soo... she's getting posted. Stfu.
RIA'S DAD AND HER MOM IN THE LOWER LEFT FUFUFU. It's a concept through and through! I did something better of him, but I looost it.
La di da, I like drawing Ziegte!Ria too much. Such a creeper, eee.
I told you I like drawing her too much.
I was trying to do a redesign of story 1 Ria. I think it's a little better than the mop she had before. xD
Basically, normal Ria, and what-if Ria. There used to be this whole spiel on how if she wasn't a hero, she'd be this eccentric music teacher, but she likes being a hero better because of Vladdy and travel at the cost of a limb and her life. :'D But her music teacher self would be taller, fufufu.
TESSA. I have been hiding this since like, story two, but Tessa used to be a maaaageee oh she so lovely. Lookither! WHAT AN AUNT. Ria's a luckylucky girl. :'D Alex and Andy don't even know. I've been good about keeping this a secret.