well, hello, hello.

Well, as you can see above, I had a little bit of fun with my digicam. I mean, come on. And I figured out some cool exposure settings on Photoshop. : > I'm kinda happy I got to play this weekend a little more than usual. Anyways!

Since I finished my sketchbook, I figure it's time to go back and figure out what I didn't upload. This is a sketch of Aline that I'm not sure I uploaded, but I think it captures her attire and general expression and stuff pretty well. She's... carefree, to say the least. What a goofer. I can't wait to play her.

And here is something I've been talking about doing for... kind of a while. Getting down into the nitty-gritty of Ria's design is something I kinda gotta do if I wanna start doing her justice in my sketches, youknow?

Anyways.
Everyone needs to wish a WELCOME BACK to Wolfie, who had left us due to unprecedented reasons and stuffs for a very long time, and I'm sure we ALL MISSED HER. D<>

Too sleepy to write much more, but gotta finish my homework.

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

ich weiss- opencanvas aber photoshop?

I saved the Lilith lineart separately so I could experiment a little in OpenCanvas. I didn't bother finishing this because I got frustrated. :'D

What I don't like about oC1.1:

• The interface is... too simple, I suppose. There aren't enough tools and modifications for those tools for me to get done what I need to get done.
  
• Everything is in broken English or in Japanese. ; ;
• There are no normal layers- just multiply, add, and subtract. I want my normal layers back. ; ;
• The brush cursor does not expand when you increase the brush size! D: It's nearly impossible to fill in lineart when you don't know how big your brush is. D<

What I like about oC1.1:

• I'll admit that it works a lot faster than PS7. >_>
  
• The colors auto-blend!
  
• I'm in love with the watercolor brush.
  

What I learned about oC1.1:

• The colors I use need to be closer together on the palette for them to blend better. That means a lot more in-betweeners for dramatic shading. Yikes. Lazy meter going off!

So, I mean, yeah. Otherwise, guys, guess what? I might just be attending my first ever anime con in two months! Located in Philadelphia, PA, TAKII (the asian kareoke idol invitational) is a free-admission culture type thing with hall cosplays and lots of fun-seeming music events. Tori and I are not dressing up for this one due to the date, but for the two later ones that she picked out, we just might (that is, if we're able to go). I'm definitely going to be Howl for one of the later ones because it requires not much except my mom's sewing skills and a rigorous workout schedule. I have dark enough hair to just need to cut and straighten. :'D

Another idea that we're discussing as I type this is the possibility of doing a pairing.

tori: mm, lawl, let's do one from ouran xD

leyla : ... YES.

tori: which one suits us though?

leey la: i could be kyouya, but who goes with him?

tori: tamaki ://

tori: not happening

leey la: LAWWWLLL


- a bit of pondering later -

leyla: mm, i think ouran is ruled out for pairings :'D

leyla: we could be L and light

tori: mmm. i'd look like michael jackson with black hair

tori: &light scares me

- more pondering here -

tori: AHA, what if we really diddo sasunaru?!

tori: xD

leyla: i'd need to paint a frown on my face

leyla: but we could do ridiculous dances

leyla: and make ourselves look like idiots!

tori: yesm xD

leyla: the tell me* would come in handy :'D

- ideas ideas -

leyla: if i ever dress up as sasuke, i will sing the real suga baby. you know that song?

tori: YES

Our brainstorming process is lovely, no? Anyways, yeah. >_> We're plotting to attack cons. If you live near enough and plan on attending these, do tell! I might try to spot you and give a glomp. : D

• TAKII in Philadelphia, PA
• Ani-Aikousha-Con in Rochester, NY
• Tekkoshocon 2009 in Greentree, PA
  

Perfect opportunity for people to stalk me. >_>;; Whoops.
So yes, those are the plans. I think if we continue going to cons, as I improve my art skills, I might get a table with Tori. ;3

*tell me: The Tell Me dance by Wonder Girls. You can find it here.
**the real suga baby: The Real Suga Baby is a song by Stephanie Beard that I have memorized. :'D You can find it here.

Also, you should see Naruto leaning like a cholo.

was ist das?!

I HAVE FULLY COLORED ART FTW. This is my new Damekko Dobutsu-based character Lilith for an RP that Tori and I started on Gaia. Give us a visit and ponder joining, if you will!

Otherwise, I feel very shy about my German having befriended an actual German native via the world of Flyff. xDD My Deutsch titles are unworthy, oh no! Silly me. And speaking of Flyff, if anyone plays, I have characters in the Clockworks, Lawolf, and Aibatt servers (I'm almost always in Aibatt- the Clockworks was an accident and I'm in Lawolf to play with Kitty). Look me up as...

Aibatt:
Leyley (38), Detoxx(30), or Mohfo(2)
Lawolf:
Technotronic (16)
Clockworks:
Leyley (5) (I think)

I might make art of my friend Tori, Deniz (the German native I mentioned earlier) and myself. We had a conversation about name meanings, and we're Grace, Ocean, and Night respectively. :'D Flyff brings people together!

Hem.
I still can't get my scanner to go. I might be in need of a new one, and I have my eyes on this new Visioneer OneTouch 7400. Better than my bulky 7600. D: So, yeah. That's my unfortunate experience with artwork. xDD If I get anything in, it'll be from Tori's house. She has a working scanner. ; ;

... Or when Dad gets un-mad at me, I can ask him to toy around and install a scanner driver. :3

That's my news!

&& Remember that Vlad doodle from months ago? I've decided to redraw it completely. : D

ich kann ein bleistift nehmen nicht.

I haven't been able to draw anything in over a week.
I'm so deadbeat tired, it's not even funny.


But at least I finished my Drawing Day 2008 entry! I've been complimented on it a few times, so it means I'm progressing in the art world? : D Exciting, innit? But there's so much I wanna draw. ; ; So let's talk about what I wanna and/or have to draw, shall we? XD

• There's this song that I've been listening to nonstop for over a day, El Tango De Roxanne, and I keep thinking of a scene that will probably never happen in the RP between Jordyn and I, but it's interesting enough to think about it. Kinda like... Vlad's mental breakdown. I mean, he'll come back from a super!long absence thinking his wife is dead and with another woman, and then he'll get stuff thrown at him like the fact that he's the father of two, and that his wife is very much alive, very pissed off, and very ill with three months to live unless she starts taking her pills like a good girl. I can just see him plopping down on a couch and breaking down.
  
• Fuego is a great song too. It makes me wanna draw something rave-like of Alex, Andy, and Dan. 'Cause they don't get enough art love. Or maybe even Thatcher and Rosie. Or all five of them. Iduno, it could do for some cool pictures. : D
• Being the perverted youngin that I am, I kinda wanna draw something semi-sexy thanks to Supermassive Black Hole.
  
• Unintended (despite its shitty intro) calls for something sad and cute. D: I keep sounding like an obsessive dork, but I mean, it suits Vlad and Ria more than I'd like to go into. "You could be my unintended choice / to live my life extended, / You could be the one I'll always love." F'sho.
  

I'm gonna go OC with Jenna now. XD Sotired.

IDEASIDEAS.<3

So this isn't a picture post. Sorry. D:
Basically, it's almost midnight, but I have to get this idea down somewhere or I'm gonna explode. x:

So I have an idea to like, display all of my awesome experiment fighters (becausehonestly, I've never drawn all of them accurately. There's a pretty spiff sketch of Saturn in my notebook, though...) and I feel like they need it.
So I was thinking something in the style of this picture, except like three times as aggressive and with WEAPONS ftw! Like Ria's cannon prototype! And I might attempt Adderson's guns. >> 'Cause he's awesome.
Butyeah. I'll try to sketch that while I'm in Canada! (More info on the Canada trip later. :3)

Oh, and I lied.
Updated page layout for you. Enjoy Claudius and Mortimer goodness! Evie's namesake is coming in on the next page. :3 She's just a less awesome/younger version of this girl here.
Remind me to re-attempt the comic script. XD