91st day of 2016.
Still studying. I am indeed taking my own sweet time doing a lot of research. lol.
When talking about birds, the first thing that I regard as their most distinctive feature is their feathers. Their important tool of trade for flying.
There are plenty of different feather looks for the thousands of different bird species. It was a blast to browse through all the feathers.
90th day of 2016.
Failing to come out with a better name, Hit & Slide would be the name for the Pitched Percussion. Now to think about it, maybe it is a good idea to use the verb/playing method to categorize the instruments.
Many of the Pitched Percussion instruments are high pitched and clear. My favourite sounds. My only 'completed' ultra short 10 seconds tune, uses Vibraphone as the high pitched melody.
89th day of 2016.
Continuing the delicate bird art. I extended the concept of a flying fledgeling, went to study how bird lift off.
I found an awesome reference capturing each important stop frame of bird slow motion lifting off. I sketch down the 6 poses before the claw lift away from the ground.
Sequence 3 is very much alike to one of my Chick sketches. As for the fledgeling, maybe I will use Sequence 4 or 5.
88th day of 2016.
The proper name in MuseScore is Unpitched Percussion and Free Reed. I don't really like those names, so for my own purpose, I nicknamed them. Easier to relate and remember what the file is about.
I don't know how to play drums, but drums are the best instrument to depict tempo and beat. I always pay attention to the drums when I listen to songs.
87th day of 2016.
I attempted to 'compose' the guitar bass for my little tune, failed miserably again. Frustrated, I went on to create some instrument basic template. I figured it would be helpful to get to know the actual sound of each instruments, and complete my instrument sketches, which is now lacking the properties and characteristics.
I did learnt Piano and Violin before, so I started with them. Violin is much simple to play compare to Piano.
86th day of 2016.
I know I had said something about not shopping for a looooong time, but this is different. Very special occasion.
Despite having such hectic working days lately, I managed to force myself to wake up early this morning to visit an art shop, which is having a closing down sale. I had heard of the art shop before, but since it is not a convenient spot for me to go, I had never been there. This would be my first time in the shop and very possibly the last time.
To be honest, I don't have any emotional attachment to it, I am merely interested with the sale part. The news about the closing down sale had been going on since beginning of March, I already expected that I am already late in joining the sale. It is quite empty already, with very limited items on the racks.
85th day of 2016.
I had been trying to compose a short 5 seconds prelude type of tune. So far, I have got the melody, but I am stump with the harmony part. :/ I had this 'imagination' that this tune should be accompanied by guitar, alas, I never played guitar and it seemed to be rather difficult to reproduce a guitar chord in a music score? Either this or it is the limit of MuseScore for unable to play the guitar chord as I wanted?
The chords are now all stacked and struck at once, but I preferred the guitar chords that played each string with the split second of difference, just like how the finger take the split seconds to struck different strings.
84th day of 2016.
After a few initial sketch, it all ends up just like the ones in Annanix - Plan, horrible birds. I finally resort back into my good old ways, observe and study. I google searched keywords, 'sleeping chick'. lol. Those chicks are A.DO.RA.BLE. <3
Just rough sketches. The most important thing is to obtain its basic shapes. For chick, it is mainly just two ovals. The head ovals is 1/3 of the body oval. Proportion is important.
I was over confident, and thought I could handled Fledgeling stage... and as shown, I failed again. Oh well, no shame in learning the observation way.
83rd day of 2016.
Same old work getting in my way of my artistic freedom. It actually take a small toll as I am running out of ideas on emblem shapes to match the rest of the 6 countries. :/ A simple google search, I reference other people's shapes.
Currently, I am stuck with Astrophe in particular. I need to find more features for Astrophe so its emblem would translate well.
82nd day of 2016.
Eterledge surprisingly was a bit difficult to churn out its badge shape. I think Round would be the best shape to represent their philosophy.
Quoting from my post of Wheistadeur - Emblem 2 :
"Eterledge - The most 'Open' place. A relatively younger country compare to many other countries. I have not yet really decided on what the land was, it could be barren virgin land not claimed or it has multiple small countries merge into 1. The idea is that, Eterledge is a country of innovative new ideas that support knowledge and just about many modern philosophy. So their representing items would be books and scrolls."
Colour code for Eterledge is Parchment, Wood and White. I have added in the infinity symbol, which is one of the inspiration of how the name of the country is.
The highlights are not showing and I would need to make the papyrus bush tidier.
81st day of 2016.
Oh, I am very satisfied with what I can 'sneak' out during my working hours. lol. I am one step forward to complete my emblem designs. <33
As of my post from Wheistadeur - Emblem 3
"Luxror - The most 'Wealthy' place. By means of wealthy, it is more in the context of money and precious items that is not a necessity. Dangerously, this country could not survived itself without their neighbours' exchange of food and clothes. To counter such limited resources, Luxror survived by using their brains and trade around. Very smart and calculative to earn profit."
The colour code for Luxror is Gold, Silver with a splash of black, which are reflected in the flag. Generally I am happy with the shape of badge, but is thinking to change the silhouette of the flowy gold banner. The crown on top need more definition too. Other than that, all individual items are quite satisfactory.
Now I need to figure out the code to insert in the abacus. (Ya, I spelt that wrong. *head smack*)
80th day of 2016.
I have an art debt for over 2 years, I really need to get this done. This art debt is a quite new challenge for me in terms of the subject is a Phoenix. I seldom do animals, so this would be a good learning opportunity.
Phoenix is also my favorite fantasy animal, there are a few variations of phoenixes, Eastern and Western ones(mainly). They both shared the same rebirth theme. I had such a grand plan to create this piece of art accompany with a video time lapse going through 4 stages of Phoenix. Egg, Chick, Fledgling and Phoenix
I actually started the Egg stage last year, before my hard disk crash. The video capture and Artrage file destroyed. It was quite disheartened. Now I am not sure whether to use Krita or Artrage for this project. Whichever way, I am not expert in those 2, I would need to play around more before I do the proper art.
79th day of 2016.
Last few months, I had a sudden bright idea to hit a search on google using "free open source art programme". That is when I stumbled upon Krita. Browsing through the website, I am immediately hooked and downloaded it. However, I did not really have the time or motivation to dive into it.
I had been using mostly Adobe Photoshop for years, expecting that there would be some getting use to. First clicking through, made me a bit impatient. lol. First off, I was so used short cut keys, and many of them don't work on Krita. Many basic tools are available, but with different positions than I am used to.
Put aside those habitual negativity, I noticed there are fun extra things Krita had too. I would have to spend more time playing around it.
Links
Krita
78th day of 2016.
I finally completed the art in a span of roughly 2 weeks! YAY!
I am a bit worried that it may looked too dark on other monitors, depending on each monitor's brightness. However, I am glad that I completed my first proper challenge of colour pencil and dark paper.
77th day of 2016.
Referring again to the original reference (not the sketch), I realized that I left out the pair of green wings. lol. Quickly added the green wings in and continued on for the magic spark and started on background.
The comparison of the sketch and the more finish art is pretty satisfying.
76th day of 2016.
Oh yay~ the character is finished~
hmm, the dark portion of the lower gown looked alright in natural lighting, but in photo the bodice seemed to have more contrast than the gown. Need to check.
75th day of 2016.
The puffy dress time. Not much to say, other than lighter colours really do work well.
I have a trouble taking photos though, the colour pencil had been reflecting the light terribly and did not show the shadows properly. :<
Going on this rate, I could finish this art by this week~ yay!
After the dress, I still have background and special effects to go.
74th day of 2016.
Down to the bodice. It is a black bodice, and it is hard to balance the darkness of it against the dark paper. My brilliant cheap brand did not come with good brownish or grayish mid tones at all, so the jump between the shadow with the 'base' colour is tremendous. :/
Oh, my brilliant cheap brand also did not come with a white colour pencil... unable to withstand the odd creepy dark eyes, I went ahead and used Gelly Roll to put some highlights to it... I would have to say, the result is hilarious. lol.
73rd day of 2016.
Moving on, finally to the more interesting part, the dress.
The green turned out rather good, and I need to improve on the brown ribbon sleeves.
72nd day of 2016.
I have shaded in the face and eyes, tried my best to fix the skin...
it didn't really turn out well...
I have darken the outlines a bit... and it is too dark...
Now I have to think how to solve this...
71st day of 2016.
I had attempted more shading on the wand, apple, hair and hands. The lighter colour is much more clearer. I am glad with how the hair and apple turns out. I like how the thin colour pencil strokes makes it easier to show the stray strands of hair.
By shading the wand many times, it had grown into a rather thick wand, lol. Another more serious mistake is the colour I chose to shade the skin's shadow. I used the wrong dark red it seemed.
70th day of 2016.
I am exhausted from work. No time to really think of how to go about the colouring, thus I decide to just dive in and flat shade it in the lightest colour.
The more area I covered, the more I can see the paper texture. Not really sure whether it is a good thing yet, but the texture is... not what I was imagining. I was thinking of some other paper texture pattern. lol.
I hope I could still figure out the lines where each portion goes...
69th day of 2016.
I am overworked. So I think I have messed up this time. lol. I started to really sink in the fact that this is indeed the first time I tried colouring on dark paper. It REALLY is different than colouring on white paper. Sketching with white pen is fine, but somehow the colouring part is very different. That, or the colour pencils are too transparent.
First of all, I am used to start colouring by filling in the most medium colour, then shade the dark shadows finally highlights. But since I am now colouring on dark paper, it just feel different. Maybe because the darker colour pencils do not show up as well as the lighter pencils.
Now what happened was that I 'overshoot' the lighter colour into shadow portions. I may be able to layer it with darker colours again, but a bit worried that the texture is not enough to hold up. Hopefully it will work out well. x.x
68th day of 2016.
So, in a spur of the moment I decided to try colour pencil on dark blue paper. The colour pencil is a cheap brand I bought years ago, and the only color use was red, the rest were untouch. It would be such a waste if not used. Super glad when the colour pencil showed okay on dark paper, better than Col Erase for that matter. -_-;;
I have used the lightest green to sketch out the outline, and since it is not as erasable as Col Erase, it will be a challenge to forbid myself from any mistake or the challenge of covering up mistakes. lol.
It had been quite a while since I last draw without the 'construction' lines, and immediately, the hair and head is out of shape. Oh well. We will see.
67th day of 2016.
Today, my brain is totally blank on what artherapy I should do. There is only an hour left. I flip through my to do list, and picked up one of the art debt.
A very simple standing spell casting pose. It took me a few minutes to get the posture as I wanted it, so happy that I had not lose my touch on these things.
I am glad that this art debt has a lot of green. I am not a green fan and is a bit worried that I will not use up the green colors I have. I did a simple sketch, still thinking what medium to draw this with.
Colour pencil or pastel?
66th day of 2016.
T'Gaal Multi Sharpener has 5 different pencil point angle. I had tried many different sharpeners, from the cheapest circular children grade to the table top sharpener. All of them always sharpened to a point that resembled angle 4 to 5.
I intended to find a sharpener that could sharpen to a point like color pencils. Expose less of the core instead of the ultra sharp point.
This sharpener is even better for having the flexibility. Quite costly though, I hope the blade could last long.
65th day of 2016.
I attended a conference near my Kinokuniya. The conference was about Green Sustainability, my favourite topic. Of course, I would take this opportunity to visit Kinokuniya and they don't let me down! Although not a lot, but I managed to find some gem.
64th day of 2016.
Compare to Souffle, Glaze is surely more 'watery' than Souffle. For this sketch, it is blurrier than Souffle. The whiteness is paler than Souffle. Other than that, Glaze acted many ways the same with Souffle.
63rd day of 2016.
Souffle took a long time to really be visible, definitely not good for drawing. It is like drawing with a tablet that has such slow responsive strokes. Tends to have much thicker line weight, having more rounded edges. It is also hard to draw straight lines since my way of drawing a straight lines is speed! But all these Gelly Rolls need light and slow steady speed to have a nice flow.
91st day of 2016.
