Nezumi's Art Journal

So here I am

2009-05-11T15:48:48Z

And here I am not. Which is to say, it's bloody obvious I sorta drifted away from LJ in the end. So if you actually want to know where to find me, I'm at:

deviantART

Fur Affinity

My online portfolio

My art blog

I just completed the Pre-Animation course at Algonquin, and I've been accepted to the Animation program this fall, so that's the next two or three years taken care of. I've decided to not continue with Xeno's Paradise for the foreseeable future, but maybe I'll eventually come back to it. For now I'm working on a comic project with a friend from school, so hopefully that'll be released by the end of the summer. We'll see.

I doubt I'll be around LJ much to speak of, other than a quick update like this. You can find me at any of the other places, though.

Holy crap

2008-09-23T02:28:10Z

Well, they said they'd work us in this course. Just passed in my second Character Design assignment, and got handed my next one. It's a doozy.

Five body types, male and female of each, and front and back poses. Then two poses for male and two for female for each of the types. Then six variants on one of the poses. Finally, ten ball-and-plane heads with properly spaced eyes, and for an encore a cut-and-paste lineup of one pose for each of the male and female body types.

Grand total, 57 drawings. Due two weeks from today. Oh, and I have to have 30 of those done in a week, for mid-eval. Yaaaaay!

The plus side is, I'm starting to learn something, even if it has to be beat into me.

Robot

2008-09-15T18:54:52Z

So I actually did something worth posting today, if only barely. It's an in-class assignment to design a robot, something I've never done before.

The method was pretty cool, draw a tonne of little 1-inch or so thumbnail sillhouettes with a marker, then pick the favourite and do a quick design based on it. You can see the original thumb in the corner.

I think he's pissed off mostly because he's got a stupid name. I'd be pissed too.

Polish movie posters

2008-09-12T22:05:36Z

Hopefully I'll get some of what I'm working on posted by the end of the weekend (foot sketches at the moment), but in the meantime I thought I'd share this link of old Polish movie posters from the 70's and 80's. They might clash a bit with modern tastes, accustomed to Photoshop and the usual "bunch of faces" style of movie posters today, but it's interesting to see what the state of the art was in a place like that, still under Soviet control.

Reading the comments on it, it seems there were a couple of things at play, namely issues with copyright (so they couldn't use official posters) and with the opportunity to slip political messages into the art, which wasn't censored as most other communication was. Fascinating glimpse into a bit of history, really.

As promised

2008-09-07T19:41:20Z

Here's the sheet of poses, as promised. I just submitted it for tomorrow's class, as my first successful bit of homework so far this year. It's a start.

Can't wait for class tomorrow, though. I love character design already.

So it begins

2008-09-07T04:26:14Z

Well, I've had a week of school already, and other than getting my butt kicked by drafting work (grid rooms suck), it went pretty well. Homework is relatively light so far, but it's a good chance to start building some confidence, I'll need it later on.

So what's below the cut is practice for my first Character Design assignment, which is to do a bunch of action poses of this cute little character with the big head and the teardrop body. We're supposed to stay on model, so it makes sense to do a lot of practice poses. I've got a couple more pages but they're in blue pencil that doesn't really scan, so this is what you get.

I'll post the actual page of poses once I get it done tomorrow.

What I'm like

2008-09-06T17:04:58Z

I'm probably the only one reading this who thinks this is utterly awesome.

Don't do it

2008-09-04T00:23:07Z

Someone really should tell CPI about this public health hazard. She's probably in danger.

Yes, I'm doing my homework.

Shut up.

Xeno News

2008-08-31T14:28:14Z

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but the news on Xeno is...no Xeno. Not for a while, anyway.

My original plan was to work on the strip over the summer, then re-start the strip from square one at the beginning of September. In fact, I was aiming for this weekend. But plans have changed for what really should have been obvious reasons.

First of all, since I'm starting school in two days (TWO FREAKIN' DAYS!), I'm going to be pretty busy, especially getting used to the increased workload, changing my habits and so forth. That's gonna prevent a lot of work in the first few weeks in any case.

Second, and more importantly, what the heck am I going to school ''for'', anyway? To work on comics, of course! So what's the freakin' point of starting the comic ''before'' I learn all the stuff that I plan to apply to it? That's bass ackwards at best.

So because of both of those, I'm putting off re-starting Xeno's Paradise until probably the Xmas holidays sometime. I'll keep posting sketches and design stuff I do through the year on the site, but aside from that don't expect any real strips or story until that point. I'm also hoping to re-design the site, maybe steal the comments system from Umlaut House 2 or something.

Hope I'm not disappointing anyone, but the strip'll be stronger for it when it happens.

Shout

2008-08-27T04:22:31Z

Here's some inking practice for you. I've seriously got a long way to go, ugh.

Another figure study

2008-08-26T04:25:15Z

Nothing really new, just getting back in the swing of art after a relatively busy week with college-related stuff. Classes start next Tuesday, so I'm starting to get geared up. Given that I'd planned to do way more than this today, it's sort of shameful that this is all I have to post.

Bought a lovely all-wood drafting table yesterday, spent the whole afternoon getting a place in the room for it. It looks great, and all for only $20. As Roomie said, the wood alone is worth more than that, so it was a steal. A pleasure to work on, too.

In any case, here's today's figure. I'm hoping to start posting much more frequently, and I hope to have some news about Xeno's Paradise in the next day or two, so stay tuned.

The silky spectre of temptation

2008-08-15T03:06:46Z

Rrrrrgh!!! Here I am, on the verge of totally changing the direction of my life (yet again), and I end up faced with TEMPTATION!! Bad enough I'm going to be voluntarily tossing myself back in debt for this year's school, when this gem shows up.

Seriously, I am majorly tempted to turn this one-year certificate in illustration into a one-two punch, with this as the knockout. Now the course requirements are kinda high, requiring two years study or education plus work, and a portfolio as well, but I think I can manage that, especially if I can get the backing of my current profs. If it works, the course would be very practical, and useful for getting my art career going strong.

I got a few months to think about it in any case. What I really should be doing is concentrating on the excitement of going to school in the first place.

Too long

2008-08-14T03:15:48Z

Gad, has it been that long since I updated? Here's what I did in life drawing tonight, I think it's okay.

Classes start in less than three weeks, yikes! I go in to the college on Monday to get my loan money, get my semester pass, explore the campus, etc., which should be fun. There's a welcome event on the 28th, too. I usually don't bother with those, but when I looked at the official invitation (as opposed to the email), I realized that it includes meeting the teachers, and the Illo students can pick up their supply kits, so it's a really good idea to go. Besides, I get free lunch.

Only dark spot really is a trip to the dentist next Thursday, but that's good in a way too. I can live with it, either way.

Coyote story

2008-08-04T00:20:36Z

Some of you might find this little story interesting, for any number of reasons. If nothing else, it's cute.

I like the bit about how he does nice things, you just have to trick him into it.

Whew, school stuffs

2008-08-02T14:36:07Z

So it looks like college is inevitable now. I've got the loan arranged, the college has accepted my application, and the class schedule was sent out yesterday online, although it took me hours to correctly decipher what building each of the room numbers were in. Yah, might have been a little clearer.

Still trying to figure out the backgrounds of most of my professors, unfortunately. My Layout Design prof seems to be this guy, which is pretty good by a quick scan of his work, I think that this is my digital photography prof, and this here looks like the guy who's gonna be teaching me Character Design. Guess that means this is who'll be running the Life Drawing class. Not bad, really. I think I can learn a lot, especially from the first and last ones.

(x-posted from my deviantART journal)

They say the egg is a perfect form

2008-07-30T00:52:46Z

But it's a failure unless it changes.

How strange

2008-07-30T00:51:44Z

Mysteriously, at some point, I realized my life had become entirely centred around art.

Thinking back, it always was.

You'd think someone might have mentioned it to me at some point.

Wiggly, wiggly worms

2008-07-08T23:23:01Z

Over at Xeno's Paradise, there's a new page of sketches featuring Tik-Tak! Aren't you thrilled?

Calling all blockheads!

2008-07-04T00:47:31Z

New sketches up at Xeno's Paradise! Go see!

Life Drawing

2008-07-03T03:19:24Z

Yeah, I'd really like to see that movie again. Probably means I miss Halifax a bit, but I'm hardly in a position to see it in person right now.

More relevant, I managed to get to a new life drawing group, the one I tried out a few weeks ago. Since the life drawing course I was taking at the Ottawa School of Art finished up, I figured I really need to keep at it until school starts, at the very least. So I'm going to this one for 2 1/2 hours a week, and it's pretty nice. Much more chatty, friendly atmosphere than the course, which was a bit standoffish.

Here are the four pieces I did tonight. Some big weaknesses in all of them, but there are areas of all of them that I'm really proud of. I can honestly say I'm making progress, although it really shows how much I still need to make.

Hey, Xeno!

2008-06-25T04:11:06Z

Just to keep y'all up to date, it looks like Xeno's Paradise is coming back! Probably not until the end of the summer at least, and there's going to be a lot of changes. But it is coming back.

I'll be posting random sketches whenever I feel like over the next couple of months as I really get into the planning process, so look forward to lots of good content between now and then. There's a lot I need to figure out before I'll be ready to re-start the series, but keep checking in (and clicking my top sites link) daily, there's sure to be something new pretty often.

Koopa Troopa beams are gonna blind me

2008-06-14T02:30:57Z

It's-a me, Nezumi!

Daily art dump

2008-05-29T03:43:53Z

A very productive day, although I'm a little out of it so few words.

First is the usual 30 minute study, best so far this week. Next are some fabric studies that turned out very well indeed. Last two, you'll have to forgive the crappy photos which wash out some of the shading. I tried out a different life drawing group tonight and enjoyed it a lot. The results are good, too. Once my regular course finished at the end of next month, I'll just switch over to this one, and get weekly life drawing for the rest of the summer. That'll be good ground work for my course this fall.

Improvements

2008-05-28T00:00:40Z

Apparently taking the weekend off from figure studies (although still doing the contour and gesture stuff) didn't do me any favours. My fourth sketch really didn't work out so well, and the fifth is better, but there's still a lot of work to go. Misjudged size in both pieces, having trouble keeping it all on the same piece of paper. Got to work a lot harder at that.

The other piece is a fabric study I'm pretty happy with. I was getting a bit sick of doing anatomy, so I figured I needed to learn this stuff sooner or later, so might as well get to it. Reasonably successful for the first real attempt.

The daily grind

2008-05-24T19:56:41Z

For those one of you who have been wondering how I've been spending my days now that I'm unemployed (one week and counting!), I thought I'd share the schedule I've managed to fall into. Now that I'm getting serious about my art, I want to start doing more and more work in order to get myself used to the routine I'll need to keep up once I get to school this fall, and afterwards as I start doing it for a living.

First off is gesture drawing. I try to do 10 30-second fast sketches via the timed viewer at Posemaniacs, which is an amazing site. However, I generally lose count, so it's normally anywhere from 12-15. This helps in a number of ways, first of all as a good warmup to get the creative blood flowing. Aside from that, it's a great way to learn to recognize and reproduce the large shapes of the body in a very short time, and to work decisively. After not even a week of doing this, I've already given myself a much better grasp of how the torso fits together and how the legs join to the body at a number of different angles. With those in mind, I'm starting to turn my eye towards the shoulders and how the arm fits to the body, which has been something I've been trying to conceptualize.

Next comes my daily blind contour drawing. This is more difficult work, and I time myself at 20 minutes a day. The idea is that without looking at the paper, my hand reproduces what my hand sees, moving along the contours of a form. In this case, my hand. Not to say outline, that's a different concept, but following the lines of the hand as well as the outline, and there are loads of places where you follow the outer edge of a line that turns naturally inward into a form. This teaches a lot about hand-eye co-ordination and the shapes and depth of forms. It's good foundation work. My life drawing instructor basically set the class to do this for 20 minutes a day for one month, and see what effect it's had on their drawing and how much their contour drawings have improved. So far it's been 11 days, and things are still rough, but I'm getting a lot of the concepts internalized, which is the point. Not that I intend to stop at the end of 30 days, but that's a good point to self-assess.

After that, it's another session of gesture drawing, followed by sketching concepts and anatomy studies in a more or less free fashion for the rest of the day. Right at the moment I'm working out of the amazing anatomy text by Gottfriend Bammes. Pity it's entirely in German, but copying from his plates and following some of the concepts he lays down in illustrations is quite informative.

Lastly comes the 30-minute timed sketch, often preceded by another session of 30-second drawings. These are the ones I've been showing here, and to me they're a snapshot of where my ability stands. Once again, these take me back to the Posemaniacs site, and their random pose viewer. I don't know what I'm going to get, and I generally pick the first pose that comes up, unless it's not very suitable for drawing (too much obscured, mostly). After that, if I feel like doing more I'm free to, but that's largely my day.

I made the decision this morning that I'm only going to do the gesture and blind contour drawings on weekends, and I'll set those aside to have a little fun with what I'm doing. Like going out if it's nice and drawing what I find, or working on projects in a more leisurely fashion. That may change, but it seems like a good balance.

So that's about it. Give me a month, we'll see how effective it all is.