Tablets Are Hard: Revitalize Week 22

I broke my rule.

Although, I guess I never really set rules for this thing. I’ve just been working under a set of undetermined, arbitrary guidelines because when only your mom and two friends (never the same two, mind you)* following a project you don’t really need to, like, transparently structure anything.

But I did what I didn’t think I would ever do, which is go backwards.

I assumed, when I started this, that once I finished a sketchbook I was done with it. Thus far, I haven’t moved on from a sketchbook because I’ve redrawn absolutely everything. More like, I no longer find any of the old drawings inspiring, so I move on to new things instead of forcing myself to draw something I’m not connecting with. Stupidly, I didn’t think what’s calling to me would change.

I was skimming through my files from Sketchbooks A & B, and, as true shocker to my naive self, was inspired to redraw a few of them. “But I can’t do that!!” I protested. “I finished Sketchbook A 2 years ago!!”

Well, of course I want to redraw different things now than I did. It’s been two years! Holy cow, it’s been two years…..

Anyways, so I was like, insistent that I couldn’t just go backwards in sketchbooks, that I was done with Sketchbook A and that was that. But if I make the rules, then why can’t I just…oh, I don’t know…change them? Or, just like…not follow them since I never really laid out rules to begin with.

The moral of the story is: I do what I want, and I make the rules. Or, lackthereof.

 

Knowing that the original is from Sketchbook A makes me far more impressed than I would be otherwise. This ain’t half bad. There’s perspective, some sense of proportion….detail in the kimono…all around a solid attempt. There’s no face, obviously….because faces are hard. It wasn’t me trying to make something scary. I just…probably didn’t know what her face should look like and liked the drawing enough as-is that I was worried about screwing it up (not much has changed).

The redraw is alright. I don’t know. I was inspired to redraw this one, but then actually did the redraw and was like ehhhhh. I really didn’t want to do the stereotypical woman-in-a-kimono drawing. You know what I’m talking about: draped off the shoulder, cherry blossoms floating all over the place, porcelain doll face, etc, etc, etc. Nah. Didn’t want to do that. So I drew a static pose instead. And it’s…not great. Her hand is a hot mess. I also didn’t get the stiffness of the fabric right, so her boob looks way too saggy.

So it was already Not Great, and then I tried to color it.

I don’t know why I thought that would be a good idea. I’m not particularly great with colored pencils in even the best of circumstances. I guess I hoped that I could combat the not-greatness of the drawing with pretty colors. So I tried to color it in. Except….where I had sketched her legs beneath the skirt, despite being erased, left ruts in the page. So the colored pencil was going everywhere EXCEPT in the ruts, so it looked like the skirt was see-through. Then I tried to use a sharpie. That worked, except it bled through the back of the page (which I assumed was going to happen; had I liked the drawing on the back of the page I wouldn’t have even tried).

So now it’s both ugly and a mess. And I could have posted it like that, but I didn’t want to. The only way to fix it without having to start from scratch? The tablet.

AGES ago, Sharkboy bought a Wacom tablet. I tried using it when he first got it and, despite knowing better, I gave up almost immediately because it was so hard. But this time I didn’t care about the drawing enough to care if it got ruined, so MIGHT AS WELL.

I struggled for the first bit. Then, it started getting easier. Obviously. We all knew that would be the case. I’m just chronically impatient. So now that I’ve gotten over the first hump of the struggle bus, I’m more willing to keep practicing. Although I may wait until I get a new computer; my current laptop has one foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave, so installing any kind of new software would be a very bad idea.

The clothes turned out poorly enough that I didn’t feel anywhere remotely confident to do the hand/arm/face so….pretend that black & white is an Intentional Artistic Choice. I also went overboard with the flowers. And used a very stereotypical cherry blossom petal brush. AND the obi/obiage is not shaded well at all. Whatever. It’s not worse than it was so there’s that. 

NOW it’s time for the Sketchbook C wrap-up. That’ll be coming this weekend. Hopefully. Lord only knows; I have no sense of a schedule for this thing anymore.

See y’all.

 
*To the two friends reading this today: Hello! Thanks for reading!

Also, yes, Sharkboy doesn’t even read this. Apparently the sanctity of engagement doesn’t require him to support my attempt to be internet famous.

At least my mom reads it though. So there’s that (hi mom.)

Bow Down, Witches: Revitalize Week 18

“Double, double, toil & trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
~Macbeth 4.1.10-11~

So I like witches. A lot. Example: the only season of American Horror Story I watched was Coven. Because I hate scary things but witches? Totally chill.

The Sims Makin’ Magic was always my favorite. No matter Sims 1, 2, 47, 394…the inevitable magic-themed expansion pack was always the best.

Harry Potter? Of course. Big Pumpkin? You betcha. Which Witch? Loved it. Sabrina? Watched both the animated and the live action AND read the comic. Kiki’s Delivery Service? Witches in anime, so obviously yes. W.I.T.C.H (debatably about fairies/guardians/undefined magical beings but whatever I’m counting it)? It’s Italian-made manga, I mean, c’mon. Buffy? Clearly. Halloweentown 1, 2, and 3 (the 4th one is irredeemable garbage don’t @ me)? Annual viewings are necessary. Stardust? Heck yes Tristan Thorn. Blair Witch Project? No. That shiz is horrifying. I’m only here for a good time.

Moral of the story: witches are freaking great and I want to be one. I have a black cat and my car’s name is Hecate, for goodness sakes, like…I mean…if anyone deserves to have some magic, it’s me. In an alternate universe where magic is real, I probably am one. I dream of being that woman in the creepy house on the corner with a wrought iron fence and lots of ivy and sprawling flowerbeds who all the kids think might be scary and mean and full of magic but who actually just likes her gardens to be a little overgrown, and who has a resting mean face despite her big heart, and who’s pies aren’t quite magical but might as well be, and who gives out the best Halloween candy just so she can compliment all the small children on their costumes and pretend they’re who they’re dressed up to be.

So I drew (still draw?) a lot of witches. Some of them were Harry Potter inspired, many were not. These two are the latter:

 

Eh. Not bad. Not great. At least, Tanya isn’t bad. Her hands have some perspective and her legs look more like legs than Dara’s do. Dara is a mess. Notice how the feet are in the same position for both? Yeah, for a while that was the only way I knew how to draw legs. Living my artistic life with the “if it ain’t broke” mentality (which seems very counter-intuitive for an artist??? Hence why I’m not one).

Clearly anime influence (and in more than just the eyes & features…Dara’s outfit is a generic anime school uniform). Tanya is vaguely relevant to 2018 in that I recently watched I, Tonya but that’s quite a stretch, honestly. Not even sure why I bothered mentioning it now that I’ve said it aloud and realized how goofy a connection that is.

OH wanna hear something hilarious? “Dara the Young Witch”??? Okay so these were Yu-Gi-Oh Card Character designs. I wish I was joking. I have pages upon pages of them. I’m pretty sure my vision for this card was a 3-card set that would “evolve” this character until her ultimate form, and you had to have all three life stages (child, teenager, and master) in order to unlock the ultimate sorceress. Yeah, I may or may not have play-acted in my basement me dueling and using this made-up card……

Anyways. A deeper thought: now that I’m reflecting on these original character designs (and especially these Yu-Gi-Oh cards), I’m realizing that they’re all women. And they’re all women because, like with most pop culture things, Yu-Gi-Oh didn’t have women in it. It had, like, one steady female character (among like 290204978029 men), and most of the cards (at least the ones always appearing in the show) were men: Dark Magician, Exodia, Obelisk, Jinzo…even the dragons always felt…male. Clearly, as a female viewer (not player. I couldn’t win a game of Yu-Gi-Oh if I played against a potato and a rock) I was missing…well…women. I wanted there to be people like me in the show.

Enough about Yu-Gi-Oh. BACK TO THE WITCHES.

 

Me & My Familiar (messy apartment intentionally cropped)

Crafting counts as art

I decided to do this particular 2-into-1 redraw after attending a Kentucky Derby-themed event in which I once again threw off the shackles of conformity and went full Coven Sorceress-of-the-South instead of Lilly Pulitzer’s next spokeswoman. Bravo should be knocking on my doorstep any day now with a contract in hand for Southern Charm. Cameron does love witchcraft.

Anyways. Long story long, I was in a witchy mood. Might as well have made an event out of it.

It’s Britney, Witch

“Does that look like Sarah? That totally looks like Sarah.” You betcha, my friend. Total self-insertion. But here’s the thing: my outfit for that event was darn good. And my hat–which I made–was great. All it took was a hot glue gun and an embarrassing amount of time and money wasted in Michael’s.

I didn’t want this supreme outfit (ha, see what I did there?) to be worn once and lost to the sands of time. No. This needed to be memorialized.

Used a pose reference, sort of. Like, I started off with it, but made some decent edits to it along the way just because it wasn’t looking like how I imagined. It’s still not quite there, but whatever I’m over it.

Sharkboy’s sharp eye had to help me catch an issue with the arm again this week. Don’t know what I’d do without him. Probably suck at drawing a whole lot more.

I sat down to add flowers to her hat, and ended up doing that for about 3 seconds before feeling compelled to fix her entire face. Definitely seeing the fruits of my drawing-practice labor in how I’m starting to shade/shape/work faces. And everywhere else for that matter. Proportions and perspective are still hard, but I can tell that I’m actually getting better and more confident in straying from the reference photo to do what I think looks best.

Cool. Well. That’s all. Stay spooky, my friends. See you next week.

Own It: Revitalize Week 16

You know, it’s a good thing I’m not internet-famous yet, because apparently keeping to a schedule is just not a thing I can do.

I’m not gonna even preface this original drawing because it’s a doozy.
I mean. I just. I don’t have words. No words for my younger self. Except to, maybe, not.

I’m really not that embarrassed by most of the drawings in these sketchbooks. Honestly. Like, they’re silly and a testament to who I was in all my weirdness, and yeah that’s a little embarrassing (especially since I’m so incredibly different now [still weird, just fyi, but a different kind of odd]), but like whatever. It’s the drawings that have writing on them that tend to just…..feel humiliating. Like this one.

I did a series of “wow I’m so deep look at me making deep phrases” drawings. This is one of them and maybe the least embarrassing? Which is saying something because Y I K E S.

What are the others, you ask? Are they really that bad, you wonder? I came her solely to see you embarrassed and so far you have not delivered enough humiliating blackmail-worthy content, you complain. Let us see you suffer, you demand!

I opened this can of worms, so I guess I need to own it.

Yep. There they are.

Trying to own it. Trying very, very hard to own it proudly. Or, at least, own it without melting into the earth from shame. Lisa Rinna, give me strength.

Originally, I did one drawing (I’m getting to it, don’t worry…enjoy the terrible originals for a little longer). Because I wasn’t thinking about showing all of the originals in this post. That spark of inspiration only just occurred. Now, since I decided to just show all the  Y I K E S drawings now literally as I was typing this post (rip the band-aid off, per say), I feel like I should redraw another. Aaaaaaand I’ve decided to do so. Just so we’re clear, though, I did in fact draw & write half a blog post for last weekend, but now I’ve decided mid-week to add another redraw, so it’s being published as a double-whammy for this weekend.

TL;DR I did one drawing on time and one drawing early so therefore no one can be mad at me. Including myself.  

I’m trying to not draw dead people (which is difficult given that Baby Sarah had A Thing for darkness & death), so that leaves only two possibilities.

Gonna be honest, I think these turned out pretty darn well. The one dress should have been all black but I was tired and it was so much work to shade and the post-its on the other side of the page were creating weird impressions in the shading soooooo…..

I used a pose reference for the right one, but did not for the left. I used to never use pose references, but now that I do it’s almost like training wheels. I know reference poses are not a sign of poor skill, because I know plenty of big-time fancy pants artists use them. But being able to draw without them feels like a hurdle to cross. And I’m not very good at hurdles.

Honestly, the only reason I didn’t use a reference is because I couldn’t find a good one. After combing through Google for ages, I just gave up and decided to take the plunge and try it on my own. Like taking the training wheels off a bike, the first go-round of planning it out was scary. But eventually I got there. Thank GOD she has a tail, because if I had to deal with legs…..it probably would not have ended well.

I gotta say, practicing figure drawing on the regular sure has helped. Like, “no duh”. I know. But really, being able to free-hand that mermaid and have it look THAT decent is an accomplishment. There were definitely some struggles; I had to pull in Sharkboy’s help a few times to be an extra set of eyes. I have no idea how people can possibly create art completely divorced from other humans. There are so many times I can tell something is wrong but can’t pinpoint what and he comes to the rescue.

The original sketch

The final

See the difference? I never would have figured out that her shoulder was too high. But once Sharkboy suggested it, I covered up the one half of her body, and then the other half. Sure enough, both sides looked good, but together looked like an awkward mash-up of two different poses. 

Her face isn’t detailed. I’m okay with it. I drew it real quick and it looked great and I was like “nope not touching it again” because I knew if I messed with it it would turn ugly because that’s what ALWAYS happens.

For the second drawing, I’m actually really impressed with how good her hands turned out. Like, even the foreshortened arm & hand look REAL good. I did use a reference because (as seen in the original, not using one is a disaster). Honestly, I was a bit salty she had to wear a dress because her legs and feet turned out nicely, too. “But Sarah you’re the creator you could’ve changed it,” yeah, okay, I know that. But I didn’t want to change it because I was aiming for a redraw instead of an “inspired by”. Let me live with my self-induced disappointments and complaints, tysm.

I didn’t redraw the dumb phrases and the bad typography. I’m fine with burying that 20-feet-under where it’ll never see the light of day again. Because….ugh….I’m an embarrassment.

With that lovely note, I’ll be back next weekend with something less hilariously terrible. Until then, enjoy a good laugh at my expense. I encourage it, even.

Sorority Squat: Revitalize Week 15

So I used a scanner instead of my phone to upload the image. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps.

My cat loves the printer/scanner. And by “loves” I mean she stares at it for hours after we print one document, trying to stick her paw into the machine while knocking everything off the desk because she is not-so-smol anymore and our printer was not placed catty-corner with the understanding that our kitten would want to play with it.

As I type this, she is sitting on my mouse, staring at the paper tray. The mere “beep” of the machine turning on is enough to intoxicate her. We didn’t even print anything. I was just scanning. Yet here she sits. On my mouse. Very much in the way.

Little Sarah is trying very very hard to make dynamic pictures. Two people, up-close (which is abnormal for her…we’re gonna get into the itty-bitty drawing phase very soon and you’ll see what I mean), doing more than just standing (I learned how to draw one pose and only drew that one pose for quite a while). I’m just still in the phase where all my arms are sticks and my heads are circles with pointy anime chins and the boobs are up way too high and my hands are………………well, honestly, the hands I draw nowadays aren’t much better. These have fingernails, though. Little Sarah is attending to details, even if her sense of human proportions is way outta wack.

The redraw:

I feel like I should clarify something about this project. Not like anyone has questioned me? But just in case they do. Technically, not every redraw is a redraw. In some cases, I do try to stay close to the original, only making small changes to the pose, clothing, etc. But the reality is most of these drawings are really, really bad. And there’s not a ton to work with in some of them (like the ones for today). Instead of trying to redraw these girls as-is, I took the pose and the emotion behind it and use that as inspiration: two girls having a good time. Done.

These are current OCs of mine for a secondary story idea marinating in my head. I’ve had this story idea for a long while now, probably since early college? I can’t exactly remember. But it’s on the backburner while I work on my primary series (which has also been floating around in my head for years…over a decade, even). It’s a female-focused sci-fi action story involving fighting and motorcycles and fun hair. These are 2 out of 3 main characters: Brynn (redhead) and Tieranny (rainbow hair). Mercury is….somewhere else. Honestly, they’re probably laughing about her. She’s easy to make fun of. It’s all out of love, though. These three girls are basically sisters; they tease each other all the time.  

Drawing people laughing/smiling/emoting in profile is freakin’ TOUGH, man. I struggled so hard. You can sorta see where I drew/erased/redrew/erased/redrew/erased/redrew/ erased/redrew…paused…erased/redrew/erased/erased/ERASED/redrew/screamed/erased/redrew Brynn’s mouth. I spent probably about an hour on just that little .5in section. Dear Lord.

No joke, when looking up poses for this I googled “sorority girls”, because “sisters” and “friends” brought up too many cheesy stock photos and I wanted something REAL. Hilariously the best reference photo I found was ZTA women (my sorority). #Meant2Be #Not4YearsBut4Life or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, aside from the pain-in-my-ass mouth situation this isn’t too shabby. While I have a vague sense of what Brynn/Tier/Merc will look like (I got their hairstyles figured out, at least), I don’t know refining details yet, which makes this drawing a little odd for me. I know what they don’t look like (aka this), but I don’t know what they do look like, y’know? So I can’t really draw what I don’t know.

I do have files on my computer filled with faces for them (like I have for most of my main characters in series). That sentence sounds really creepy now that I’m reading it back….but it’s true.

I’ll be back this weekend with another redraw! Tryna get back on some kind of schedule.

Revitalize: Week 12

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single image in possession of foreshortening must be a massive pain in the ass to draw.” –Jane Austen…..probably…….

So, on one hand, props to baby Sarah for attempting perspective of some kind. She tried; I respect that.

On the other hand, perspective is a PAIN and I wish my younger self had been less ambitious so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I struggled to redraw this. Granted I did change the pose and therefore made my life harder, so I guess I’m at fault but ALSO perspective and foreshortening suck a whole lot. The only good that came out of this was the opportunity to use the mini tripod I got for Christmas. Making my own pose references just got SO much easier with that contraption. I can wrap it around things, turn the camera every which way….so handy. BUT EVEN WITH A GOOD POSE REFERENCE perspective is the w o r s t.

At least in the redraw I put her thumb on the proper side. Glad to know I’ve learned on which side the thumb belongs…given that I have them and all. I tried to do the original hairstyle but like….what is that even. Half-ponytail Leia Buns with hair loopies? No. Too much. I tried it but it just looked so absurd. The hair loopies had to go.

The nonsensical hair was probably inspired by anime hairstyles, which are notorious for their absolute absurdity. You can pull off an insane, gravity-defying, hair-physics-defying ‘do if you’re drawing anime hair, but since I wasn’t drawing anime (neither in 2004 nor in 2018), I had to tone it down a bit a lot.

Outfit is meh. I put all the detail in the hair and the sleeves and then just left the rest as plain fabric (Project Runway Judges would be so disappointed in me). Redraw outfit is less meh but I gave up on the bottom half because 1) I sorely misjudged spacing and 2) I spent so long trying to get her hand/face/upper body presentable I just didn’t feel like dealing with the feet (which are half off the page anyways) or long skirt. Also, what shoes do you even wear with a renaissance aesthetic dress? Flats? Boots? Heels? Slippers? Crocs?

I was struggling with the folds & wrinkles of the clothes. Normally I handle folds pretty well, but not today. I couldn’t quite get how to fold the skirt around her bent leg along with reacting to the wind. So instead of doing either folds around the leg or folds in the wind, I accomplished neither. What a great compromise!

You know what’s surprisingly difficult to draw? Crescent moons. You know what’s not surprising but still stupidly difficult? Proportions in perspective: an artist’s nightmare combination. That being said, her hand/head proportion is off. I think the hand is too big. Or the head is too small. Is there a difference? I suppose so. But I can’t tell which is happening here. I tried shrinking the hand and I do think that helped a bit, but it’s still not great. At least her fingers look like fingers instead of deformed hot dogs. #Progress.

Normally, I don’t do shading because…well, there’s no real reason. I just don’t. But I tried to shade a teeny bit on this one (around the chin, the sleeves, the clothes, ex.) and I think it helped.

I don’t have much else to say this week. My cat once again tried to help with the drawing. To no one’s surprise she was once again approx. 0% helpful. But she’s real friggin’ cute soooooo I can’t even be that annoyed. I mean, look at her.

What a precious babe.

Anyways. I’m planning on posting each week, every Friday-ish. I say -ish because it may not always be Friday but it will be close to Friday. Example: today is Saturday.

So far, my plan to draw every day has been 98% successful thanks to Line of Action’s easy and accessible program. I haven’t drawn every single day, but I’ve drawn most days. And each sessions has been at least 30mins. I can’t necessarily say I’m seeing a difference just yet, but I’m hoping within the next month or so I’ll see small improvements thanks to the daily, consistent practice. I’ll be keeping my eye on it.

Thanks for reading!

Background noise: The Killer’s Wonderful Wonderful and Flesh & Bone.