I Quit

I have given up on this.

Hahaaaa, I wanted to just play with digital painting, but my bad anatomy was bothering me too much, and after having it pointed out I threw my arms up and was like "You know what Annie, go to bed."

Drew this a few days ago, during Chris Walsh's class. If anyone knows me very well, they'll know a few things. I'm loud and don't realize it, I'm impressionable, I scare easily, I love Sherlock Holmes, Tron, and Sarah recently got me obsessed with Star Trek and I love Data.

We watched first contact last week and I loved it very much.

Drew this while thinking about the movie; I wanted to play with things while colouring, but I have no idea what I'm doing so I stopped.

I'm so bad at drawing real people- On the other side of this sheet of paper I have a few doodles trying to map out Brent Spiners features. Like his massive nose, puffy eyes, huge forehead and defined chin. Plus I'm awful at drawing Data's particular haircut in any view but profile.

What a horrible week, I just want it to be over.

One more day, and then I'm plunged into my homework weekend of hell.

Annie

11:49

Wah Happen?

It has been about ten thousand years since I last drew something, so I figured I'd scan it!

I also wanted very badly to ink this at home, but there were a lot of fine details I was worried I'd screw up, so I took the safe route and scanned a nice high resolution copy I can ink digitally if I screw up royally on paper.

Suka and Eli aren't very cool- but I haven't had a chance to draw anything dynamic in a while, and I really wanted to.

I also really failed. If you look, I somehow unconsciously built this drawing in the shape of a perfect rectangle. My static imagery shocked me into silence.

Oh well! This is why I'm in school; to play and discover and learn.

I just gave myself a reiteration of the fisher price commercial.

What have you!

Some Suka, some Eli, some struggle. When I paint it Suka will have her appropriate illness, but in the sketch I didn't bother to colour it in. Hooray something to do!

8:00

Annie

And Then, Annie Remembers She Has to Get up at Seven.

Oh well.

I'm here to complain about my static artwork!

Complain I shall.

I've been having difficulties drawing lately, burning out of inspiration, I guess. I've been trying to get back into the swing of things, because Fan Expo is coming up in a month; and I've done nothing art related.

I got the inspiration a couple of days ago, when I was talking to one of my friends about a particular character of mine.

Eli is a special race of demon; one that I haven't bothered to name yet. Eli's race is special because there are no females of the race. They consist entirely of males, and the method of reproduction is incredibly unorthodox; It requires a flat cliff face, a lot of magic, a really crude C section and a blood sacrifice of the mother.

Lovely, hm?

Anyways, I'm just looking at it, and I'm immediately frustrated. Why? Because it's boring to look at. Something crude and shocking is HAPPENING, but I look at the picture and I'm like... falling asleep.

What should be different? Well, he (these characters are not characters in specific, just generic demon/woman) should be leaning forwards more. There should be more anger in the motion than I managed to actually draw. And she should be reeling back a lot more. She's getting her innards ripped out, but she's just.. standing there.

I fail.

But! I'm kinda gettin' back into the drawing swing again! Granted, it's through silhouettes... but still, better than nothing!

I have to wake up in a few hours for work.

Out

Annie

12:40

Celebration of February!

Lol, I should stop experimenting.

but, an experiment! I'm not thrilled with the results, so I'm glad I saved the PDF so I can go back and paint it the way I normally do.

I wanted to experiment with different ways of painting lighting, and this time, instead of using the additive method of colour I usually use, I wanted to try something else. Instead of painting shadows and highlights on top of flats, I wanted to try removing shadows to reveal the colours underneath. Subtractive painting, oooo.

So, that being the goal I had in mind.. I painted in the flat colours, duplicated the layer, locked the transparency and filled it completely with a dark blue colour. From there, using a pressure sensitive eraser, I picked where I wanted the light to be strongest, and picked away from those areas. Kinda like how you would use an eraser to pick out the highlights on a conte drawing.

After I picked out my highlights to my satisfaction, I lowered the opacity on the blue layer. I still didn't have all the depth I wanted, so I duplicated the blue layer and repeated the process, so I'd have two levels of shadows, instead of just the one.

I'm not really happy with the results on this particular piece, but I think if I were to use an image with a more direct lightsource (twilight = bad idea) and try it again with just a little more solid understanding of where all the light and dark would be, I'd be much happier with the result. Next time I'm going to aim for some stronger contrast. Perhaps an orange or yellow light, to match the remaining natural light.

So no, not totally happy, but confident enough with the process to give it another spin on a different picture.

Woo! Headed to business class in another twenty minutes or so, so I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to draw.

Funny story about my legal name... Today my phone rang, so I picked it up, assuming it would be my sister. Instead, the caller asked for 'Sarah' which threw me off. I responded that I was Annie, thinking in my head why someone looking for Sarah would have my cell phone number. I asked if she was looking for Sarah Davis, and was informed she was looking for either Sarah Davis or Sarah Hughes. At which point I abruptly remembered my legal name is Sarah and I gave my legal name to the dentist when I booked our appointments.

I'm so smart.

~Annie

2:13

Ten Million Fireflies

Yeah yeah, there's far from ten million.

This is something I painted up quick time this morning (I mean really quick, it took me less than four episodes of Criminal Minds to paint);

It's for a project in school. I need to design a book jacket, so here I am, designing a book jacket!

It's going to be a purple cover with some book flaps and some information on my writing and a funny picture of me, and then this, for a cover.

Oh, and a title, of course.

Anyways... It looks really rough and speedy, and uhm.. That's because it is.

I'm going to crop it and cut it down a bit.. It's not totally what I envisioned, but it's fairly close.

I want to rework the fireflies.. There's something about them I'm not happy with.

Groan, my head is so sore today. And yesterday. Just a bad weekend for headaches, I guess...

I need to spend tomorrow putting this into a book jacket. It's not going to be easy, I'm so so so rusty at InDesign, it's ridiculous. And I'm supposed to be passing on this knowledge to my tutee. Yeah, we're stumbling our way through these programs together. I felt so bad when I was trying to teach him Illustrator... I kept telling him to google this, and google that, and "I can't remember how I did this, so Google it," or "You'll have to find some tutorials, I can't remember how I did this on my map..."

Ha ha.. ha ha... God, I hope I can help him pass.

Yesterday was Chelsea's 19th birthday, so we took a day trip to Etobicoke to celebrate over pizza and soda. And hot chocolate.

I'm starting to feel that sugar is the cause of my headaches... and if that's the case, I'm super super bummed out. I've had a persistant headache for the past two days, yet I can't refuse brownies or rum balls or hot chocolate or.. Ugh, my head.

My parents dropped by today! To request I wrap a Christmas present for their friends young son. They also brought me ice cream (OH MY GOD, MORE SUGAR!!!!) and a Terry's Chocolate orange. Which is holy hell sweet. I think I'll just put the rest of that away for a few months.

I can't think straight.. Maybe I should go to bed.

Out

10:05

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

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.

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.

I hated today

I waste far too much time. Alright so, just some expressions I reworked, mostly for line variety, but these are better in terms of execution too.

I've been up too late, my eyes are stinging.

I must've drawn up four rotation sketches today, and I was getting so BLASTED frustrated, I wound up throwing them all out, and deciding I am going to use the wonderful invention of the lightbox, and just rework my old rotation as opposed to killing myself over a brand new one.

God, today was a waste =[ I knew I had work to do, but nothing was working, at all. Now I have to do even MORE tomorrow, and uh.. crud, my sisters coming home for a visit. Aaaaah she's going to haaate me

Oh well! School first!

A very sore day

Alrighty, drew.. I at least think I drew all of this today.

So I get to school, print off my essay, post to the RP, check out the school of aesthetics hours, and go to Andreas for tea. And I am pretty sure that is when I drew Dailan (No, I don't care how it LOOKS like it's pronounced, you know my intentions). decided to give him gloves to match the boots =P

I need to do some more writing. For my comic thing I mean..

Okay I did something today I haven't done in a very long long time. I fell off my stool in class.

Today just started off all wrong... Dave scared the living daylights out of me when class started, as I walked over to turn on the lights, clicked them on (still talking to my friends) turned around and Dave was there and went "Boo!" and uhm.. yeah, I screamed, again, and had to leave the classroom cause the door was RIGHT there, and I was all shaky. Oh yeah, I'm brave alright.

So then I was sitting in my stool, and I always sit way far back on my stool, and... I fell. I'm not even totally sure how I DID that, but somehow I was no longer on my stool and I was on the ground. Very smooth, yes I am. Not.

So later, in fantasy and fairytale.. Don't I wind up on my ass AGAIN. And I'm still aching over that one.. Anyways, sitting around all bored like, ten minute break finally comes around and I decide to exit the classroom the back way, as it is clearly a faster route to get to Tims than the front exit. Sarah and I leave and kinda hover around waiting for Chris, who is waiting for Paul, who comes racing out of the classroom, who somehow trips over me, which knocks me off balance, and I WOULD have caught myself had I not been unbalanced from my bag of textbooks. I hit the ground very hard, and even now I'm in pain over it ><

Sigh, today was just a "Fall-On-Ass" day

My eyes are killing me, so I'm not going to stay on much longer. Too much computer exposure from that all-nighter I pulled the night before last. I don't plan to do one of those again any time soon.

Oh yeah, I'm finally making that appointment with the optometrist that mom suggested I look into like.. in october. I wasn't going to go, because I can't afford glasses even if I do wind up needing them (which I probably won't, because as far as I can tell I see clearly), but Andrea said I should go just so if it IS because of my eyes, I'll at least have an answer for these stupid headaches. Leah also told me I should go anyways, cause it never hurts, if there's a problem I'll save myself a lot of pain in the long run. Also if something is wrong, and I don't get glasses, I'm not allowed to complain about my headaches anymore ><

Yay, all prepped up to go to the docs and be told "YOU'RE A-OKAY! now go away,"

Right, eyes, stinging, computer exposure, gotcha.

I'm out, I'm too tired to do anything anyway.

Computer Break Peoples! It's important!

IT'S SUKA AGAIN, OMG CREATIVITY FAIL

XD oh well, I'm pretty sure I said so, I am very fond of her, but reaaaaally, my sketchbook must be getting so sick of her x3

Pretty much i started doodling this when my dad hijacked E-Vain earlier to convert a bunch song files to an SD card. I redid my gaia avatar this morning because I wanted a Suka avatar FOREVER ago, and uh.. never got around to doing it. So here is what Suka looks like dressed up as my gaia avatar! The only hair on Gaia that is close enough to Suka's is way to pale :B

Anyways, WEEEEE. I'm still very happy with it, none the less, even if there isn't an ounce of creativity in drawing the same character over and over ><

And once I finish my tea, I'm going to have a shower, and them I'm going to.. Finish.. My fairytale essay I have been beating myself over the head with all day.

SO YAY SUKA AND CHASE

I miss Suka's broken English =P She hasn't had a reason to use it in God knows how many pages.