A chibi I drew for some vote/shop links on the new CP layout! I’m thinking of making thank you cards with this drawing too to send with orders of my books. I had some from Christmas but I ran out and I wasn’t that happy with them, but a bunch of people replied with appreciative comments about the inclusion of the cards, and some pointed out that they used it as a bookmark as well, so I just might make some more to send with the books again (but in bookmark measurements this time, since the last one was an awkward business card size!)

And tonight I spent about half an hour on these little things, drawn from silhouettes. I’ve always wanted to try it but never did, and I found it to be nice! It made a lot of sense at least for these kinds of random concepts, and I saw a lot more ideas from staring at the shapes of the silhouettes than I would if I were to look at a naked figure and think about what I want to put on them. In all honestly I enjoy drawing skinny loli figures very much, I don’t know why I don’t try to give myself more chances to draw them in my story ]: OH THAT’S RIGHT I FORGOT I’M A MASOCHIST.

WALL OF TEXT BRAINSPILL REGARDING MY BB VELOCE pls feel free to disregard the rest of this post, I enjoy writing this kind of stuff out very much

I think aside from some colours, this will be the final design of this set of clothes for her. I had her silhouette pretty clearly in my mind when I first started this design; I mainly wanted a fluffy hood with short loose sleeves over a halter top as well as that belt she had in the drawing titled immortal. But when it came to the actual appearance or combination, I just couldn’t figure out how to put it down on paper because my knowledge reserve is way too small from not exposing myself to/practicing clothing design (or anything in general…) The previous jacket was shorter because I was trying to accommodate the thick rounds of the belts; it looked silly like the time period where everyone wore their pants super high… I was sure it wasn’t the shape I was looking for and I really didn’t want to leave it there. After drawing a couple of long torso’ed girls as randoms/practice I decided to try it on her, and I think it went ok! I’m not sure what I want to do with that green tie around her waist because what I had in mind was way too much hassle to draw in a manga (BUT HEY THE REST OF HER HAS SOME PRETTY STUPID DETAILS TOO SO THAT’S NOT EVEN A VALID ARGUMENT) but I think I will leave the rest be~ she looks a lot like Vocruen now though yay matching outfits!

On a different note, it pains me to read completed books of carciphona just because I can’t stand a lot of the art, but I do it from time to time, usually over gaps of like half a year or a year, after which I could forget a little bit, just enough that I think rereading it would be a good idea, and then proceed claw my eyes out. But after doing so I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of character inconsistency because of the time that has elapsed between the volumes (mostly or especially volume 1). The events in Arenscura were decided ages ago; I had long decided that there would be encounters with enfelids in Arenscura and that misunderstandings will lead them to eventually unite their efforts in solving the mysteries clouding their tribe. But a lot of the roles the characters take were drastically altered when I settled on where everyone sits in this situation, especially Veloce and Meron. It was long settled that Veloce lived with Meron, but it was a relatively recent decision that Veloce was actually nice to Meron. Before I illustrated the flashback in volume 2, the story went that Veloce had no interest in Meron’s well-being when they were young, and that Vocruen was the person who tutored Meron. But it was hard to bring her in connection to the main cast when she had none, and I thought that change would’ve made their reunion more dramatic, giving something strong and harsh between them. Everytime I sit down and revisit Veloce’s mentality before and after I started volume 2, I can’t look pass the fact that that Veloce had changed a lot because of this–or at least enough to be inconsistent with how she was in volume 1.

I’m not very good when it comes to making characters because I don’t meet a lot of people or personally get into a lot of different situations. I am kind of an onlooker type person, and while I get by fine in terms of life, It’s hard for me to really convincingly translate things into a human reaction. Being my oldest character and a very generic broody character to boot, Veloce started as a very crappy character. (so did keri but he just doesn’t get as much love from me Q_Q) In the beginning, there wasn’t really much reason for Veloce to be emo aside from the usual tragic life story, and apparently she just didn’t get over anything or made any mental progress at all over so many years of her life. This was all because I didn’t pay enough attention to her early years or what happened during those years; even if nothing happened, that still could have changed her because she may have considered that she should probably try to do something about her life. The story was incomplete, and even if a character’s background story will never be revealed in the main story ever, I still feel they should be written in such a way that anyone could become the main character of a story and be able to stand up to it, because this way I will know how they will act because of how they grew up. So after making the change in attitude from young Veloce to Meron, I suddenly started to flesh out other childhood stories/lapses that I had planned too. She grew into a more solid character in my mind and the actions I give to her now usually have some anchorage to who she is in my head and less improvised. However whoever she turned into turned out to be pretty different from how she was prior to all this planning that was done after volume 1 was finished.

Judging from volume 1, she had quite some turbulence in her mind (lol it’s like I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote it, and the sad part is I probably don’t after like 5 years). She was unsure about almost everything, she lived in hostility, she was baffled by nice treatment, and she was defensive like a little hurt animal because a concrete concept in her mind eroded away over time and she had lost trust over her original judgment. I can remember she was quite an angry character before I had started to write more of her childhood, and this was the biggest reason I want to redo volume 1; bad art and bad storytelling is forgivable for the inexperienced me, but inaccuracy and inconsistency don’t live that well with me.

I’m not sure what prompted me to develop Veloce into the way she is today or why I like to make inhuman characters that most people (including me) wouldn’t be able to relate to…She is immensely powerful so she is not concerned about most things that would concern people. Without ever having been weak to the point of being unable to fend for herself, even when she was sick, she doesn’t have much thought about the implications of her advantage over others. And although she lived an oppressed life, her sickness for much of her childhood drained her of most of her energy to think too much about what is going on. In the end she grew up nurturing her own attitude of acceptance of the way things were. She maybe critical, skeptical, and logical over situations she finds herself in as shown in many parts of the story because she is sharp, but what is not gotten across much is this almost unquestioning acceptance of things that happen to her. She doesn’t hold grudges and she doesn’t seek revenge–even through the act of betrayal which she perceived from Meron, she didn’t do anything until Meron repeatedly forced herself into Veloce’s attention. She rarely ever questions the problem of fairness, which is frequently not tipped to her side on the scale because of her strengths, and just saw it as divine will that she carries more weight simply because she could. This was clearly not the case when Blackbird tried to kill her for the first time, even if it was a life or death situation. It could be perceived as the effect of her fear for Blackbird that cascaded into a length of anomalies in her reaction, but that is really not fit to be the first presentation of this otherwise docile character.

I always imagine Veloce in my mind as still and often tired. She’s not helpless at all, yet she always gives off an old person’s vibe in my head (inb4 white hair), maybe because acceptance is the last stage of grief? Despite her power, she is a follower, not a leader; she follows the courses of time and the prompts given to her, whether by others, or by fate and logic. At first impression, she may appear strong, but this exterior strength is not a sign of determination, bravery or courage; it is just the natural result of her capabilities. Even Meron or Keri could be more heroic than she could, only because everything she should do, she probably could do without much hardship. Blackbird knew this from the beginning; Keri noticed this early and believed it, and it took Weirin a lot longer to believe that this is not a facade.

It’s kind of a wish and a goal of mine to one day redo volume 1, but I always learn to suppress that because unless I finish the series, I know I will feel that way about every passing volume (already true for book 2) and I’ll never get anywhere ]: I will just have to keep working and pray that my instincts are right!

SHHHH says (1:33 AM):
*maybe i should change it to original art before it’s too late
*/=D
Juby says (1:33 AM):
*LOL
SHHHH says (1:34 AM):
*this is why i can never do fanart
Juby says (1:34 AM):
*fanart u liek anyway
SHHHH says (1:34 AM):
*ya
Juby says (1:34 AM):
*”oh i liek this… *IT’S VELOCE*

rogue aka silvermoon from dfo~ she looked exactly like my blue herbs sinx haha, but fortunately her artist was still amazing when she was conceptualized so she had smokin hot character art unlike sinx… lol ):

I made a rogue because her skills in game are so magnificent and perfect to watch. I felt the same when I started playing dfo with rangers but apparently rangers suck without good gear and I’m too poor for good gear! I hope rogue isn’t like that too but even if she wasn’t, I still shouldn’t have started one because I play games SO BADLY I can rarely ever do the correct action for a certain situation. It doesn’t help that I main a weapon master who I think is similar to rogue to an extent, so I keep trying to use skills I don’t have and just stand there like an idiot getting beat up LOL. I’m probably more suited to play something like an elementalist or necro or mech but you know, eye candy wins the contest!

I bought Nuriko‘s parashi mini artbook and it got here today! a bunch of mini prints and a HANDSOME SKETCH spilled out of the book too when I wasn’t looking, SO HAPPY slkdflhgkl you guys should check it out over here!! :D :D :D

Also the poster of Sandara‘s art from DA is here as well. I’m waiting for it to unroll hahaha. I ordered it as a “fine art print” this time because I honestly do not know the difference between that and photo prints from DA. In fact I didn’t even know the fine art print version existed and had always ordered photo prints. It’s a little… different and I have no idea what stock they used to print it, but it’s a little dark (or maybe the dark parts are just not dark enough) overall, but still nice -u- If the base price wasn’t so expensive I would order a few of my own to bring to conventions to sell, too, since there’s no print shops which offer a reasonable price for these large posters lol ): gonna go to walmart and buy another 20×30 frame and put it up my wall some time soon :D

and I bought this at the supermarket… I think it’s a rather famous set of battle strategies from ancient china that they used to study, but in the case of this book it’s pretty much a bunch of cool stories relating to each strategy! the cashier laughed at me with my family tho asking me who I’m fighting lol lskdffl

Lastly one of the 3 or 4 pieces I finished this week! I’m on a roll with drawing and I’m really considering going for another artbook or a short storybook rather than volume 3 of CP now because I just want to keep doing illustrations. I’ve uploaded all the pieces I finished in thumbnail form to my art site just so I can keep track of their date and order! and I changed my gallery script so that these thumbnail teasers no longer open into a grand fullview of nothing, since a lot of people reported them as incorrect links/files even though they were intentionally kept as a thumbnail ):

and a random default berserker

I mean it’s nice that dfo makes me draw a DIFFERENT CHARACTER… or someone of a DIFFERENT GENDER… and body build… someone whose name is neither veloce nor blackbird

Drawing these make me tone at the speed of light, because I force myself to leave this at 3am so I tone like 4 pages a day, and shit this out in an hour since I have to sleep afterwards. While the resulting pictures are totally boring and one dimensional, it’s all for a good cause…right???

but yeah 30/38 pages toned!! :D

The original was smaller and had a ferris wheel on it, but the placement was weird and really cluttered the picture up, so I removed it. Then I decided the frame was too confining in general and made it bigger.

and bigger.

and bigger…

I just had to ruin the simplicity of the original and consider adding some stupid storm cloud for an ~*ominous*~ feeling lol… then after failing ot pull it off I decided the park was weird altogether and just ditched it for some generic city view. Now the entire picture is like some generic scene from a drama or movie, and I’m torn between going back to the park or setting the city on fire HAHA… I deserve it though because whoever wastes time drawing multiple similarly effective backgrounds for a simple drawing and then being unable to choose one just bring it on themselves LOL ):

It feels nice to not know wtf I’m doing for a picture though, I don’t scrutinize as much and I’m constantly thinking about the picture as a whole I guess… It’s just that I would rarely be able to find a “solution” to the picture. They just end up slowly morphing from one thing to another. Kind of like those people who do really fast lightbox sand art and change the scenery on the spot from one to the next.

Goal for this week is to tone another 20 pages~ I’m so behind in my schedule I think I can probably kiss my year-end volume 3 release good bye lol ): I could catch up but I won’t lie, painting feels so much better. I’ll probably aim for some sort of otherverse picture book, since I seem to be drawing a lot of modern stuff by comparison. idk I’ll just… see what I have when I have enough stuff and try to find the most obvious unifying theme and call it that, SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.

For some reason I went from drawing nothing to drawing a ton of things this week. Not that it’s a bad thing but I suppose it’s a lot easier to keep drawing once I’ve started? Whereas transitioning from drawing manga pages to illustrations somehow makes me feel very conscious about the quality of the work produce and I end up not drawing anything ):

I wasn’t going to jump into this picture so quickly but it was after like… one hour of livestream that I suddenly remembered I should probably get what I was working on approved before going any further, so I spent the rest of the livestream doing this. I’ve always liked the art of people who could pull off the rough painting texture without refining too much in order to save time and preserve dynamics, but I never really try to do it myself because it’s pretty much the complete opposite of what I feel like I should do, even though I understand its benefits. Sepia brought it up again recently and I didn’t feel like drawing lines for the entirety of that stream, so I tried it. In the end I just painted like how I normally would anyway and cleaned it up a lot LOL;; and because I wasn’t prepared for it to be painted yet I don’t like how it looks either. I will most likely rework the rough, do lineart and restart it later, and maybe continue this version when I feel like continuing my hopeless attempt Q__Q

Page 33 or 35 of chapter 7! I’ve “inked” up to 38 now, and I’ll run out of pages to post by next sunday so I’ll probably start toning again next week or the week after. and man I really learn slow LOL;; only took me so many years to see that my buildings need more levels and reliefs… but that’s where not having proper training gets you :’D

I finished 2 pages pretty quickly yesterday and today so I decided to waste some time on a drawing. drawing comics too much puts me at a loss as to what to do for colours because I just think in lines. I drew her leaning over some handrails at first, wanted to continue it but didn’t know what I wanted to do… It went from a random sunset to a scene of war to a park after hours of just… sitting here and staring at the picture thinking while doing nothing. the red/orange/magenta was also so awkward and weird to work with because I don’t think I ever draw anything bathed in red light so I spent a lot of time looking for colours too. I remember that one colour test I took of distinguishing colours and I missed like 4 in the magenta area LMAO. Colouring red stuff tires my eyes out really fast too augh BUT I LOVE RED

I just want to draw simple pictures of busts or waist ups these days q__q and I think they would be pretty effective amidst my ocean of elaborate drawings too if I print them for sale. It’s a good thing but god I always feel so guilty for some reason if I don’t go over the top with my paintings ): I’ve been trying really hard to save up drawings and try to get the next art book rolling, but so far all of the exclusive drawings are so simple compared to the stuff I post Q_Q I must be going through some phase that normal ppl go through when they’re in their teens

In other news, I’ve got some cool merchandise in the making!

www.artofwhere.com/designlab was kind enough to offer me a sample product of something new they’re trying. At first I turned them down because although I’d love to expand on my merchandise variety (which at the present sits at none), my paintings somehow really don’t look like they’d suit pillows much. I thought the heaven’s piece came closest in terms of something that looks nice on a pillow, and I was surprised at how good the quality was when it got here! The cover material is a little thick but it’s so that the printing can be high quality. I’m pretty amazed at how much detail that got preserved onto the actual cloth printing because per my understanding, that’s hard to achieve. I’m not sure if I could make these available through any reasonable means at the moment though but we’ll see!

And the second piece is actually a few months old:

I went forward to getting these during new year’s but the company went through some difficulties so these samples only arrived recently. I was going to make these as part of the release of book 2, since the book revolved around veloce’s necklace, and this is a much more practical and elegant design version of veloce’s necklace (because there is no realistic way for me to make that necklace due to all the crazy claws and glass and metal and gem combination that could only be conceived by a noob like me. ) But they won’t get made and get here in time so I’ll have to leave it for another time ): I’m really happy with the two I got though! It’s slim but sturdy, and it works well as both a phone charm and a necklace. I’m trying to find nice, classy silver chains and jewelry boxes for when they do get made (:

Ending with a detail shot of a picture I completed last week :D I’m learning how to stop over shading things that don’t need shading! and I love the result compared to the overkill I usually perform.

Onto life, applying to universities sucks so hard and is costing a fortune ): I really hope my cousin gets into at least one of them so that she wouldn’t have to go through this process again and spend even more money on everything… But in between the process something even worse came up within our family circle. I’m not a direct victim but it really made everyone stressed out, worried, feel guilty and just at a loss of what to do because there is nothing we can do about it except to pray for the best. The entire family atmosphere is tiring because everyone has to try to remain optimistic about it, but at the same time we feel bad for not worrying our asses off even though doing so changes nothing. I really wish people don’t put so much emphasis on how we’re supposed to react towards death and disease. Sure if somebody happen to be on their last days it would be nice of their friends to give them the best last days ever, but we can’t just constantly live in fear and guilt ourselves. we can die any minute since we were born, what the hell kind of life would we lead if we spend a lot of it working towards buying ourselves and others more time to live? isn’t that kind of stupid?

In a less depressing note, I did some scraps! I think our wireless got stolen last month because we went way over limit so I couldn’t stream some drawings when I wanted to ): I did manage to get all my carciphona 2 release stuff ready and can finally sell it after 3 months. I originally was trying to get a special pendant made for the occasion but the company I was working with suddenly became very sluggish because they said their systems broke down and had to spend a lot of time recovering. To this day I’m still waiting for the sample piece to arrive so I decided to just leave it for next time. To be honest I’m a little burned out working on the next book, doing stuff for family and just plain waiting for so long that I’m not as excited as I was with the book releases last year, and people can probably tell from the release notices since I’m pretty bad at pretending to give a crap when I don’t have any :1

one day I’ll get to them in the story, maybe… I was looking at this colour scheme generator that somebody linked and suddenly realized that the eyes of these three are pretty much a triad even though I didn’t think about it when I made them like…. 6 years ago? I ended up drawing them afterwards just for the traffic light eyes :v

and idk attempt to draw generic anime #35098405