Friday, March 30, 2012

Organization vs. Creation: My On-Going Dillema

Lately, since my husband and I bought laptops, its been a race for me to organize my creative tools for optimum workflow. Yet it never seems to end. Anyone else have this problem? It's like every time I sit down to actually work on something, there's a zillion things vying for my attention at that moment. Somethings are at least related while somethings are completely not, like playing Green Farm. Seriously, why did I do this to myself?

The organization things are good, just not what I want to achieve. I have at least one cosplay costume to design and start making (which I'm terrified of since I've never made one from the ground up before.  I've always had pre-existing clothing items as a base). I have JAFAX images to work on even though I'm not sure if its filled up by now. Gotta' check with my friend who was doing the registration. -bangs head on wall- Not to mention I'm trying to lose weight, but there's the annoying little voice that keeps telling me 12 minutes is too long, which is stupid so it tries to justify its stupidity by say I could be working on creative endeavors instead.

Since I have no work to show you, here's something funny from Cracked.com
CommanderKruge's submission to the 23 Tiny Changes the Would've Changed Good Ideads into Disaster Slideshow
Kind of terrifying.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Shuto Con Ears and Corned Beef

One day before Shuto Con and I haven't done a thing for my semi-costume, a set of ears based on my original character, Lithium Shadow (though she does have other names when she shows in up fanfiction). Here's an in-progress shot of a print for JAFAX featuring Lith in her Zombie Wambat Hunter shirt (that I hope to make and sell some day).

Fear the adorable ears! Fear them!
At the moment though, I am making other Shuto Con preparations and babysitting nearly ten pounds of boiling corned beef. We are doing St. Patrick's Day stuff a little early since the con is taking up the actual holiday. But seriously, nearly ten pounds of the stuff. It was all I could do to get the darn briskets into the already over-sized Dutch oven (laugh all you want, its a legitimate cooking device).

On a happy note, spring doesn't seem to be as epic a procrastinator as I am. The birds are going nuts out there and its a welcome racket if you ask me. Hopefully they aren't singing in vain and we're done with the snow.

Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of the Lithium ears when they are done. I hope to cosplay as her someday but I am a little nervous about painting myself gray and white!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Frustrations Abound!

Today I discovered that my tablet wasn't loading correctly or whatever it is that it does to do its job and that's why I've been having such a hassle with SmoothDraw. I thought I was losing my mind because it wasn't registering ANY pressure sensitivity. Until today and I nearly cried. It's frustrating since Bram from the previous post would have turned out sooooo much better than he did if that had been working. And now I can sketch like a normal person with good software than a derp with Paint and a mouse. HUZZAH!

Funny, I once read a book that included how to start a good blog in connection with an Esty account. I seem to be breaking most of this guy's rules. Oh well, this my blog, not his. So meh! I do hope I get a comment soon. Of course it would help if I'd actually remember to add labels to my posts. Derp to me.

On a better note, I'm working on very late Christmas gifts for two of my friends. They are going to Onigiri versions of a couple of their Muses. It's taken this long for me to recover from making stuffed critters for a bunch of my family for Christmas. Just so you know, if you add stripes to a bee plushy, use stabilizer or else they will slip and you will want to shoot yourself as you undo everything.

And for more fun, here's a peek at something I hope to sell at JAFAX this year.
Hi I'm Keiko and I'm a Kitsune. Rawr!

I'm hoping Keiko here ends up at the very least at sticker. I'm so very nervous to start selling things. I have this huge fear that my style won't attract any buyers and I'll have a crap ton of product just sitting at home taking up space. Aw heck, at least she's cute so I wouldn't mind having leftovers. But I would like to sell at least some of it. I've got to be more confident about this. There's got to be someone who'd like to take a Keiko sticker home. Hopefully, that person (and maybe more) goes to JAFAX.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Attempts at Being Disciplined

Discipline is one of those things most people wish they had more of in their lives. I'd get so much more done if I could just get moving. So like so many before me, I am attempting to get things going with a little planning. So far I've got one thing to show for it. This:
AGH THE MANTHINGS!
This was me trying to combine several things I don't do fantastically together. I don't draw men as well as I'd like, I'm trying to get the hang of my new computer, and relearn my old tablet. On top of that, I'm trying to learn how to use SmoothDraw which is free in place of Corel Painter which I miss terribly. And for some reason I couldn't get Bram to not look sympathetically amused. BAHHH! Oh well, at least I did it which is more than can be said for Monday's painting practice or Wednesday's perspective practice. I guess its on to object rendering then.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Something to Throw Out There

One of my greatest struggles as an artist is believable anatomy and dynamic figures. Since humans can take on insane poses, even ones that aren't contortionists, I look for references like mad. So as I had quite the time looking for them, I'll share what I have so that you don't have to look all over God's green Earth for them.

Here's one to start off.

posemanics.com is a friendly little sight that provides you with many poses to work with, free of charge. All the pose people are skinless, which can be a little unnerving, but that makes them less bothersome to work with in public. Artists already get enough weird looks simply because they are, we don't need anymore reasons for people to think we are weird by flaunting naked people on the computer screen. The "models" come in female, male, male bodybuilder and child.

The only draw back I see is that at times the models can be stiff as they are renderings rather than real people (which is why they can be skinless...). The fact that each pose can be rotated 360 degrees makes up for this in my opinion and often when I've used these as reference my hand loosens them up as I draw so its not too big a deal. There is also an iphone app that allows you to view the poses on the go, but since I have no iphone, its sadly useless to me. I wish it was for other phones as well. All in all though, its a nice site to have on hand.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Been Much Too Long

Well, once again, I drop the ball on posting. But it should be far easier now that I have my own computer and internet access all the time. Yay!

At the moment I don't have a lot in the project category. I'm still trying to organize things since my husband and I moved. I'm also trying to get what I have of some comic scripts typed up and edited. That's turning into one seriously slow process. It would be faster if I wasn't trying to set up my gallery on the new deviantArt account, figuring out if I can raise chickens and working on the art for another story that hasn't gone to script yet.

Happier news though is that my husband and I will be able to make it to Shuto Con this year. I was a little concerned but our tickets are already purchased! Yay again!

 Also, I'm currently editing/color some of my artwork to sell at this year's JAFAX. This is the first time I've ever seriously tried to sell my work and I'm all kinds of nervous about it. My biggest fear is that my work isn't sell-able yet, leaving me with a bunch of prints and stickers that will sit around collecting dust.

To see the new gallery, go to http://lunamusings.deviantart.com/