I’m sad to say this is probably not what the final image will look like. Aside from the fact that it’s not done (obviously…) I also cheated the shit out of this jpg. I’m still debating whether or not I really want to bastardize my final image this way, and right now I’m leaning towards yes, because I would like the image to look attractive, and it’s a book cover. I’ll leave artistic integrity for another day! I probably should leave my artistic integrity forever if I consider myself a digital artist… I mean should I drive with handbrakes on because I feel guilty that I’m not biking instead?

I colourized the b/w scrap because I’ve wanted to try this for a while. I spent very little time on it and didn’t really think much about the colours, or make use of any layer modes other than colour, so it looks noob. I like the effect/control this method provides but I don’t think using this as the basis of my colouring method suits me. I’ll keep the effect in mind for the future though.

sooo much canon clothing it hurtsss

Product of yesterday’s 9+ hour stream. I was hoping to finish it but I guess I forgot I’m colouring 2 character ): sadly the remaining business will have to wait til next week. I hate blackbird’s -3- face LOL IT’S SO WEIRD TO DRAW AND IT LOOKS SO DUMB

I was going to complete the designs of the 2 main characters in the next part of Blackbird today, but so far the only thing I finalized is Rae’s hair… (which btw is just a mess of curls because that’s how I roll) I forgot how limited my costume design vocabulary is and I can’t come up with any catchy looking oriental clothing ): This next arc has soooo many kind of important but not quite charaters that I have to put effort into designing… I guess it will be a good character design exercise lol, I can’t even remember when the last time I designed a new character was.

Rae is a very Blackbird-like character, minus the killing people part. He is in his early 40s, but his personality and attitude saved him from looking the part. He is unmarried and has no romantic interest, mostly due to lack of time and and attention in this area because of his position as the lord of Arenscura. Arenscura is a pretty chill country overall, but at the same time it is plagued by a lot of trivial problems, enough to keep him occupied almost to no end. He takes it as a blessing that it’s not disasters and catastrophes that he has to deal with, and generally does a good job ruling his country. His people love his charisma, EVERYTHING IS SUPER HAPPY DESU

I haven’t drawn lineart in ages and I hate it even more now that I’m painted without lineart. I wasted so much time today free transforming body parts because the sketch was so bogus, like I have done in the past. Totally not doing this next time ):

Oh wait… I kind of do have to draw lineart for bookcovers…

… and 2 character profiles that I have to do…

But at least I have SAI this time which took so much hell out of the process because the pen brush is so solid and smooth and doesn’t make me look like I’m high on coffee . I don’t understand why it’s so hard to implement this kind of brush on Photoshop (unless there already is one, I am still using CS lmfao) because I mean while precision is good, I think most people would ZOOM IN when they need that kind of microsensitivity ):

In other news I took another 1 hr and wrote down the other half of the song today. I’ve worked with choral music too much obviously, because it sounds just like lame choral music right now… I was going to post the lyrics but then I remembered how hopelessly SAPPY it is so I decided not to LMFAO. I wish I have more time to finish thissss

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We had our first real winter storm last week. The next day had some pretty nice skies and stuff so I took some pics throughout the day. What I realized from this was how much my new camera ROCKS compared to the old one. The light capturing is fucking amazing and aside from special situations like nighttime shooting (which I’m sure I just haven’t figured out how to handle yet, not because of the camera’s incompetence) what I shoot is basically what I see.

God look at all the different whites and grays… LOL OK I’M EASILY IMPRESSED SHOOT ME

The sky cleared up in the evening!

And a fail pic because I don’t know how to make it focus at night LMFAO

a 7am shot on sunday because my mom was trying really hard to wish my grandpa happy birthday over the phone and woke me up… I slept at like 4 ):

I was drawing zoomlines manually on this page and I was so scared I would mess up, because I use a relatively soft cardstock and I draw really hard, so mistakes would bruise the cardstock and be really hard to erase. So I scanned it in first and took a picture before I continued LOL… LIKE IT’S GOING TO LIGHT ON FIRE AT ANY MOMENT

This is what it looked like when I finished it on paper. I filled in the rest of the blacks on photoshop and basically blacked out most of the zoomlines I did on the bottom half because it looked better that way ): Now that I think back I probably should’ve just used a pen for that part instead; I wasted sooooo much lead on this page and I bet in like 2 years or something it’s going to smudge like crazy even though it’s in sheet protectors…and I’m going to cry ):

I also marked all the areas that I will fill in with black digitally just so I don’t get confused. I think usually comic artists use x’s, but I thought if I magic wand with x’s all over, I’m going to get little unselected corners that would be a pain in the ass to clean up. So I used c’s instead, and Meron’s cloak ended up looking like it toad skin HAHAHAH

Just the WIP of a song I wrote~ I was writing a song for my friend last year (2009 lol), but I couldn’t for the life of me find the CDs for the music programs I once had so I never got around to it… I thought all hope was lost, but today Chris helped me find it again. I was going to get a lot of Blackbird toning done today but I wasted most of the day away playing with the program because I was SO OVERJOYED AND FILLED WITH HAPPINESS BY OUR REUNION. Sadly I never got past the noob level with the program so I was soon disappointed by myself because everything sounds like shit. I don’t have a keyboard either so it’s like I’m trying to paint on photoshop with a mouse… I spent most of the time trying to figure out the pedaling and dynamics to make it sound nice LOL BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE BILLIONS OF KNOBS AND OPTIONS ON THE SCREEN DO… But after some hours everything still sounds muddied and there’s no tempo/dynamics variation because I couldn’t figure them out ROFL. Some part of me still wish I could just play and record this song instead of trying to teach a computer how to play it, but I have no vocalist to sing the song, so mr robot clarinet it is

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