And an experiment

I got this idea today after I bounced my head off some amount of duct work or not that I was supposed to be cleaning at work. I do this quite often in a day, and have multiple bruises I can not explain!

So anyhow, this is the idea I got, more or less, only I originally planned to have the background one colour. When I got home, I was very sad to find my plan wasn't.. working on the computer the way it had in my mind.

I gave up and passed it off as a failure, made a display Icon from it, and buried it away. I told my friend Leah about my experiment, and she asked to see the results. They weren't what I wanted, but I explained the idea I had in my mind and shared the final product, at which she had some suggestions for me to try.. and it fixed my fail! This is the final of a series of three or so test runs, most with varying lines left in, varying lines taken out, but this one here was the closest I had to my original vision. Thanks a bajillion to Leah, who saved it x3

Obviously this isn't DA worthy, i wanted to try making something very flat and simple. I wanted to try making something 'pretty' with a bit of a design flair added to it. My OC Suka (RP healed version), just... looking pretty. =3

Brand new ID!

I really make far, far too many of these x3 But as my moods change, inspirations hit, or I just learn new stuff, try different things.. I wind up making a new one.

I love painting x3 It's so much fun XD

So, blue lines, inked directly over, scanned into photoshop and painted with a bunch of layers.

I'm back into my loving of colour again, with lots of purples and greens and all that fun stuff. I really don't have a lot to say tonight x3

Was torn between "Your reasoning escapes me" and "I fail to understand your logic" 8D

I went to Whitby to visit Jason with Stephie, and we played Mini Golf! I missed the "mini" portion, and just had fun whacking that stupid glowing ball all over the place.

I should go to bed, I have to get up bright and early again, boo.

Haha! No, I don't feel any different.

Wow what a busy week!! I finally got something finished x3 Actually, I got quite a few things finished...

I've already informed everyone about my job, and this is what I do on my lunch breaks! I doodle. I work with a girl named Alysia (pronounced Alicia) and every day, weather permitting, we go outside for lunch. I draw, and she reads a book, and we don't.. really talk to each other at all XD because we're social like that.

Anyhow, the results of my week came up with these doodles, numbered in the order I drew them. I spent all of friday night and today working on colouring them, so I could put them up here 8D

I named them all, but yeah...

1. Suka. Because while I was talking to Alysia, she asked me if there was a character I drew the MOST, and I was like... Oh yeah! However, opening my sketchbook and flipping through, there were.. no pictures of Suka. which surprised me. Well there was one, but it was RP related, and after she got healed, which doesn't happen in her original story. So I spent the lunch doodling up a Suka that didn't come from the RP.

2. Ninja. You know, I've NEVER drawn a picture of this girl that I've liked =/ I'm not even that keen on this one, but at least I've finally designed her an outfit I'm okay with. Painted this to be a profile picture for a new RP I'm stepping into =] Ninja hasn't changed much from her original design, probably because I never settled on a design I liked. She always had short red hair, she always wore the ninja headband thing, and I never settled on anything for her. Except, she's always been insanely hyper and happy and treats EVERYTHING in life like a game. Leads to some tense situations, but whatever she can't take care of (she's very capable) Rebel can handle. Normally.

3. Rebel. I cringe whenever I say these names XD But there's no way I'm changing them because they were created around their names, and as lame as they are.. *Shrug* I'm still okay with them. Rebel has gone through three redesigns, this being the third. His first design was TERRIBLE. He had short short hair that stuck up everywhere, and looked like he was twelve years old. He also looked like a generic anime character. His second design was very good (at the time), however I was unable to ever, ever replicate it. He had red hair then, and orange eyes. Ah, and yes, he was human at that point. When I stumbled across an unfinished picture of Ninja in my file, I knew right away I wanted to use these two for the RP. Rebel has always been a deserter for the sake of his little sister, and the pair has always been parentless, but turning him into an elf made for a more interesting back story. It also let me change his hair colour and make him a lot older than he looks (I'm thinking he's 50-60 years old). And I'm very fond of his hair XD That I didn't change from his second redesign, even though that design was heavily anime influenced. Same style, different colour. Kept his clothes practically the same from his second design, though I scraped the short little cloak and I gave him longer sleeves and more practical gloves x3

4. Dailan. Another design I struggle with.. I don't know why, but I never feel compelled to finish anything I start with him. Hence the flats! I guess I just don't know him well enough yet. His design will probably change a few times before I get around to actually using him in my story XD

5. Kara and Ainmire! I wasn't going to move past the flats on these two... but I really really wanted to colour Kara! She's new, as I posted a few back, another design I salvaged from my file. Ain is Ain, not much to say there, except I can bet he's willing to do near anything to get Kara to focus on someone other than himself. These two were coloured really quickly, seeing how fast I could speed up the process without making it look like a slop. I.E. I was being lazy and I'm trying to make it sound good XD

6. RP Suka! It's nice to be able to draw her full face every now and then. Yeah, character with half a face.. is DAMN hard to express emotions with. So technically the pose she's in isn't really possible, but I liked the way it looked and decided to play the perspective card and not touch it! I enjoyed colouring this one a lot, and also made it my new Gaia signature. I don't know why I bothered XD I hardly post on Gaia anymore. I drew this after my previous drawing turned into a horribly messy scribble and I reverted to drawing something I was more comfortable with!

I like number three and six the most of this batch =] Probably going to start making this a habit, drawing all week then colouring them and posting them on the weekend. It's funny that I've drawn more during work than I did during that one week off I had at the start of summer. Every day when Alysia and I sit down for lunch she asks me, "So what are you drawing today?" which leads to a new doodle. I had three others I did't put up, because I wasn't feeling it. I'll give them a run again next week!

I started inking about two weeks ago when someone told me she'd love to see me colour something inked, just because. Well I tried it.. and I realized it saved a bloody shit load of time to just ink things right away. It also preserved the integrity of my drawings, not reducing them to awful smudgy messes, and even with my terrible scanner, they were that much easier to colour. I don't pencil things much anymore, skipping right ahead to my marker, still working on my line weights and such (though I'd probably have more variety if I used a larger marker, .3 is just too much ><) and have found a system that works very well for removing my blue lines. My next target is to actually learn how to use the non-photo blue pencil Xd but it's so hard to SEE, I forget where all my lines are!! XP. I'll work on that.

Saving up for new equipment!!

Also over the course of the last week, I turned 19 =] Nothing special, hell, I didn't even tell anyone it was coming because I kept forgetting, but when it finally came about it didn't end. On the day of my birthday, I got 18 posts on my facebook wishing me birthday wishes, Chris, Corrin, and Jason texted me, Alysia remembered it was my birthday from when she'd asked last week, and I came home and got cake and presents. The day after, I got belated birthday wishes from a few friends, and came home to a present mailed to me from my friend living in Sudbury =]. The following day, my grandparents stopped by to give me some money (and a candy bar, because Nanny thinks i'm getting too skinny) and we went out for dinner, all together. And yesterday, my dad bought me a bottle of mint chocolate baileys to mix with my hot chocolate. It's supposedly very tasty!

It was an awesome birthday, even if I spent it working and sitting at home on my computer.

Thanks to everyone who remembered <3 It meant a lot to the person who forgot it was around the bend =]

Journaled out

Wow, it looks awesome all miniaturized like that..

I'm totally journaled out! Don't want to type anymore x3 shockingly.

So here's a picture I made as a special request for my friend Stephie, who insisted on paying for it even though I insisted she shouldn't.

I realized somethin.. Jason only has one leg 8D Harharharharharharidon'tcare.

Results aren't the best, but I'm okay with them. Starting to get a feel for painting, which is awesome and a very good thing as far as I'm concerned. Photoshop decided it hated me when I got to painting the socks, so I threw my arms in the air and decided to screw it.

Jason and Stephie, bf&gf playing the (wireless!!!) ps3.

I hate the way I drew Jason.

The icecream I decided to eat earlier is deciding to get mad at me now XD it's two in the morning anyways, I think it's bedtime.

About Me

Hello Everyone!

I'm Annie Hughes, welcome to my blog! I'm an artist, animator, painter, doodler, drawer, writer, reader, rambler.

I live in the GTA and I am a proud Canadian.

I love corny TV, sweets, tea, and farm animals.

I'm an artist by trade, and I love experimenting and trying new things. I like to push myself, and I love doing research that I can apply to my art.

I'm inspired by dozens of classical artists, a number of contemporary artists, and thousands of comic book artists and illustrators. I owe everything I am to my family and my friends, and don't ever plan to stop drawing or telling stories.

My online persona is Suka Strife; Look me up!

Rebel and Ninja!

Tada! Something I drew up really quick time (hence why it's so ugly). Planning to step into a new RP, and had to come up with some characters I wanted to use, so out came the old file folder!

Alright, so these characters are Rebel, and Ninja (I bet you can't guess what they do for a living!)

Remembering the creation of these two brought back some memories actually.. I was talking to my friend Julian, who was telling me about his dog Rebel who had passed, and his dad refused to give him the ashes. He continued to tell me how now all he had to distract him, was his cat Ninja.

I was talking to him, and my mind just ran off in this completely opposite direction and I created Rebel and Ninja, people forms.

Name: Rebel
Race: Elf
Gender: Male
Age: appears 25
Job: Mercenary
Height: 6' (HA, he's short x3)
Personality: Fiercely protective, though perfectly content to let Ninja learn things the hard way.

Name: Ninja
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Job: Ninja
Height: 5'1"
Personality: Very energetic and rambunctious. Has a terrible sense of direction, but she pulls off being a ninja quite well despite her bubbly personality. Gets frustrated easily when not working.

Right, so Rebel used to be part of the Imperial Guard (or whatever the equivalent of that would be for the current rp) and is branded as such (left shoulder). However, when things at home got a bit.. difficult (his mother took in a human child) he had to leave and go into hiding to protect his little sister. Desertion is frowned on, and he's in a bit of a legal spit because of it. However, he doesn't regret it in the least and cares about Ninja more than anything else, and will do anything for her. He's a great cook (as far as survival cooking goes) and they make money a job at a time, doing their best to keep on the move and under the radar.

Ninja was abandoned in a bush (:B) where she was picked up by her elf foster mother, Alleiah. Of course, such a move would not be accepted by society, so she had to confide in her son, who took Ninja and fled. She doesn't know anybody better than she knows Rebel, and regardless of making his life much more difficult than it needs to be, loves him to bits.

I'm tired

This is Kara :B

As soon as I closed the file, all of my exhaustion came back in one heavy hit and I'm tired again.

Anyways, I made it a goal to get better at inking things, and then.. never inked anything. Way to get better thar Annie *thumbs up* Also discovered that inking and scanning has just about as many benefits as just penciling and scanning x3 I really need some better way to scan my stuff than importing from paint...

Anywho, like I said, this character is Kara. I decided to include her in my story, because I forgot she existed and I need some more females other than the lead x3

Kara is from a really old picture I drew way back in July of 07. I drew this picture when I first created Ain, and just assumed he was a total playboy. He seemed the type, but it turns out I was very very wrong. I took her outfit from another character design from a story I did nothing with, and decided the lead for that story was undeserving of the nifty outfit I gave her.

Kara was nobody important, just a hanger on, a floozy, a blonde, and a slut. She didn't even have a name.

THIS Kara is much much better, she's high energy, very in your face, laughs at just about anything remotely funny, and spends endless hours teasing Ainmire for whatever she can come up with to tease him about. She loves Ain, Ain doesn't reciprocate, but that doesn't stop her from constantly expressing her feelings anyways. She's got a big heart and Ain's rejection doesn't get her down, because she knows that deep down he DOES care about her.

In his own special way :B

Oh, and she's got a spitfire temper. Ain's the level headed one in the relationship here >...>

Happy Bday Dad!

Lookit all the freaking brown!!! Muahahaha XD

A picture I drew oodles and ages ago with the intention of making a new ID picture for myself, but I never got around to finishing it.

I wanted to paint something, but I didn't feel like sketching something, soooo I opened my old line art and got cracking. Actually did some line colouration this time around, though most of the fun was in the shirt and the green curtain cloth in the background. And the hair, I quite enjoyed working on the hair..

Looking back, I don't know where I started doing things differently. Let's pull something from the archives, shall I? *Moseys off*
Okay so other than the absolute horrific anatomy (I think that closer leg there is just.. broken...) The colour damn well BLINDS argh.

I think where I mostly started to do things different... Is when I started to experiment with cell shading and the overlapping of a darker colour, like purple, and just changing the opacity to add shadows I wanted. So after cell shading for a while, and switching to a more painterly practicing (for me at least, heh, my brush strokes are obvious even digitally) with Yukio, I carried that over, and started the whole.. "Mixing of an opposite colour" to darken, which I never really believed in.

And purple, use a lot of that.

So unlike my "White Rabbit" chick here, where I'd try to just use a darker of the original colour to make tints, and a lighter of the original colour to make shades... everything looked plastic, Bright, and blinding, like I always HATED about my paintings. It's actually the reason I just.. stopped painting almost a year or so ago.

Wow, I'm seeing changes x3 And it makes me happy to see that yeaaah, I'm actually making PROGRESS, ha ha ha!!

Anyways.. Fun story of the day >< So I went to orientation for my new job today. I'm excited about this job, it's manual labour (I'm a glorified janitor), brainless physical work, full time hours, plenty of overtime to clock in come july/august, and hey.. Lots of money x3. I have to apply for OSAP tomorrow :B can't forget about that.

So anyways, I'm not as excited about two of the guys I'm going to be working with (they're the stupid jock types) and all the ones I did connect with-- are art students, and they'll be working at the Trafalgar campus =[ I.E. different school entirely. Yeah, Stupid jock types, the guy introduced himself as.. Nes. As in like... Nintendo. I asked if I could call him as such, but apparently the guy who wears socks, sandals, track pants and bright blue boxers (wears pants at his knees. So not attractive), doesn't have a sense of humour and told me flat out I was not to call him that.

Well I'm going to call him that anyways.

When he's not within earshot.

Kay, I'm tired, think it's time for me to crash x3 Been painting for a while now.