It’s almost done!! I’ve done the layout for all pages, and all that’s left is to finalize printing info (trying out a new printer!) and finish as many images as I can before September to add to the book! It doesn’t help that I still have cons to go to though lol ): I’ll finish Duel and the kanzeon pictures at the very least. I would like to do more but I don’t think I have enough time to and I don’t have any easy but effective compositions in mind. What I have is shit like this:
this picture will have to wait until the next artbook LOL OH WELL. I sketched up the composition at otakon and did this today. This is similar to another scrap I did a while back where blackbird was carrying veloce away while fighting some amorphous blobs on their tail, but I like this one a lot better than that shit LOL. The original inspiration for this pic was a story I remembered from elementary school literature class from the revolution in China. The army was journeying through the mountains but the enemy was catching up; a squad of men volunteered and lured the enemy off a different route up to a dead end at a cliff over the mountains. 5 of them fought there against the full enemy force to distract them and buy time for their main troops to get away, and when they finally exhausted all their ammunition, they destroyed their weapons and jumped off the cliff. Then I remembered Chris showed me a gorgeous piano piece of some socialist song called “the people united will never be defeated” and I was like oh my god THIS IS PERFECT… now blackbird/veloce is commie
And here’s what I have so far for duel! I was really frustrated with the image last time I posted a wip of it, but I realized it was because of my livestream mentality of getting things done rather than making things good that I was having trouble getting it to look the say I wanted. I livestream really only because I thought it might be beneficial to some people, to get a recording to post on youtube, and to have fun chatting sometimes while working. I didn’t do it to force myself to draw faster but it looked like I did it subconsciously out of awareness that the people watching would become impatient. It had a negative effect on some of my pieces, especially one like this one where I’m going out of my comfort zone. So I decided to just not care about the recording for this image and take as long as I need to fuss over everything like I used to, and redraw entire parts if I need to like I used to. Sometimes when I compare my drawing process with someone else’s, this stuff I do feels redundant, a waste of time and seems like a bad habit that I should correct, but it’s obvious to me now that this kind of neurotic method is what people like the most about my art when it reflects on the final product. Although I only got very little progress into the picture since last time, I’m a lot less discontent about it now because at least it’s going the way I want it to go.
{ kiwi }
Somehow Toccata reminds of "soh cah toa", a thing to remember trigonometry. :p
{ Sanatio }
Hehe already ordered the manga Carciphonia, and waiting for the artbook with glee :)
Don't get stessed up because of Livestream, it's because you spend time on your pictures that they are beautiful (but I do love your sketches too). And again, thank you so much for putting your videos on youtube too, since with Livestream, internet is beeing a bitch sometimes.
I started trying the painterly style because of you, and I feel it's an improvement compared to the CG style I used before. But I'm really far to master that technique like you do, and I feel traditionnal oils are way more easier to use than photoshop XD
Can't wait for Toccata, consider me as a buyer already ^^
{ Shilin }
my friend prefer traditional media (especially oils and crayons I think) over digital art too, it's just what we're used to XD
{ Gaia }
Can I preorder one of your artbooks for me already? =< ~wants so badly~ and I really don't care about the price you're coming up with. I will spend it gladly.
{ Shilin }
omg thank you sooo much I'm so flattered to hear something like that ;v; I'LL DO MY BEST TO FINISH IT SOON
{ Juhua }
Hey, do you have any idea of the artbook's final price? I need to put some money ont he side to buy it ;D
{ Shilin }
20-25+ shipping (: