Concept Art For June And Jove, Characters For A Sci-fi Comic. Same Setting As James, But Different Storyline.

I got an early Christmas present... a set of charcoal pencils and sticks, and a pad of paper suitable for them. Lucked out really: charcoal was the last thing on my list of things to play around with that I hadn't yet acquired the materials for. Pretty well the only thing missing was a tortillion, of which I already had a few.

I spent an afternoon playing around, getting a feel for them, but this is the first drawing I've taken the time to sit down and put some effort into.

The process was pretty straight forward: I sketched the figure with an HB charcoal pencil, then darkened the lines and filled in the shade with a 4B. After that, it was a steady cycle of blending with a tortillion, lightening patches with a light application of 4mm eraser stick or kneaded eraser, laying down more charcoal where needed, and back to blending again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Man, I love this stuff! It's much better for heavy shade than graphite, and it doesn't make as much of a mess as I thought it would. Charcoal doesn't compare to india ink for pure, solid black, I don't think anything could, but the charcoal is so much more workable. I don't mind the time and effort it takes to build up a ton of hatching with a nib pen, but all you can do is build up. Being able to lay down, blend, and erase charcoal was an utter delight. 

I might do a few more pages of that steampunk comic I worked on a while back, just for something to do in charcoal.

*’m L*lling at this harder than * really should be.

*IoI. X3

if you c*nsor anything in a post you are l*gally required to put all of the omitted v*wels at the end as a footn*te

*eeoo

Not my art, but.. guess what I got in the mail? A while ago, in fact, but I’m only getting around to posting about it now because I’ve given up on finding my digital camera to take pictures. Let me just say:  this thing... is gorgeous. The pictures do not do it justice. For one, some of the edges of the cuts here and there look a bit rough in the image, and the surface seems a little scruffy (this is the wip version, though). The final piece is nicely polished, and it is very shiny indeed, top to bottom. Also: it’s double sided, which I was not expecting, so there’s a face on both sides with a sheet of aluminum sandwiched between them... (both sides use the same design) Accordingly, I have dubbed the pendant “Orthrus,” after Cerberus’ two headed sibling. I wasn’t quite sure about the actual size when I ordered it, It looks larger in the picture... my best estimate from the image was around two, maybe three inches across, possibly more, and I was worried it might look ostentatious, but the actual pendant is slightly more an inch across: the little details are extremely fine, and overall it looks as elegant as it does fierce. Well worth every last penny.

The cord is a little short, almost but not quite long enough to actually fit over my head, but that’s hardly a consideration. The “lobster claw” style clasp handles easily enough, and I like the height it hangs at, so I hesitate to even complain about it.

I’m a rather sentimental fellow, to be honest: I wear three items around my neck, every day, without fail: “fin,” a small, steel dolphin pendant, (a keepsake from the estate of a dearly cherished aunt who passed away some years ago), as well as a pewter medallion of a stylized foxes face, dubbed “Ren,” (after ‘renard’, the french word for fox), who was a gift to me from the fellow who taught me a thing or two about metalworking back in the day. I’m happy to have these two items joined by Orthrus* here, as I’ve dubbed the new pendant... I’ve been following Saucy’s development as an artist for some time, even before he got into metalwork, and I consider him a good friend, so I’m very pleased to add this piece to my assortment of accoutrements. Doesn’t hurt that I’m rather fond of small metal shiny things in general, and this pendant is very shiny.

I have a personal policy about money: when the occasional windfall comes my way, I make sure to spend some of it on something that will last, instead of just buying crates of jujubes and chocolate milk to gorge myself on for a week or so. Previous acquisitions include my 42 inch monitor, and before that was an intuos4 medium Waccom tablet. Things that have served me quite well for many years, and continue to do so even now. When my most recent windfall came through, I knew exactly what I wanted, and picked up one of these pendants. I have no doubt that I shall cherish it for years to come.

I’ve made a number of suggestions for LeakyCrucibleFoundry designs since the venture started up, so it was about time I got around to procuring one of their products myself. I’ll probably pick up a few more, in due time.

*I considered naming the pendant Syzygy, after the wolf character from my comic project, but elected not to since I didn’t want people to get confused about which of the two I was talking about in conversation.

At any rate: I’m rambling now. tl;dr, I love this pendant, excellent quality... 9.5/10, would wolf again. X3

One of our signature wolf pendants, ready to send off.

Portrait I drew this afternoon. It started out as a warmup, but turned into a little exercise. When I draw, I'm usually very sketchy. When I want to do something with a little more finish, I do a moderately-sketchy drawing, and ink it as neatly as I'm able. It's a bad habit, and one I've been trying to correct for... well, years now. So I tried to get things as neat as I could reasonably manage.

Came out okay... better than my usual, at least. If I'd been sensible, I would have used something softer than an H2. 

This is Caleb, pilot of an interplanetary courier shuttle. It's a bit of a hotrod: all engines and reactor, minimal cargo and passenger capacity. His parents operate a large mining operation in an asteroid field but he wants to prove his competence before taking over the family business, so he's taking some time to make it on his own and earn a reputation. Fielders are big on that sort of thing.

I freakin' love Huskies. 

I just noticed that I forgot to add some black around his right eye. Blorg.

Livestream is Streaming Lively

WhiteFox Art Studio: Come on in, everyone's welcome.

Chat rules:

Be polite, be civil.

If there's a problem in the chat, bring it up with me or a mod.

Posting of links is allowed, as long as they're personal (ie: your tumblr, dA, or FimFic page), or relevant to the conversation.

Stream is mostly SFW: no R#34, no graphic violence. Other than that, I don't object to people discussing mature subjects, there may be some blood or nudity in the art I work on, and I'll be very surprised if I go the whole night without saying a few bad words.

Discussion is encouraged, arguing is not. If you want to share your opinions, by all means do so... do not rant endlessly, shout down others, or get your panties in a bunch. Listen as much as you talk.

Roleplaying is fine, as long as you aren't obnoxious about it. Chatting in-character is okay: inane slap-fights, zaney madcap antics, and inappropriate displays of affection can get annoying if they're taken too far.

This list of rules is not comprehensive. If I say something is not allowed, it's not allowed.

What's on the schedule?

Purely digital painting and drawing. Which I've never done very much of, so it should be hilarious watching my epic flails. Bluey suggested doing some urban scenery, so I'll probably be trying some of that.

Perceptionality character art.

Scanning, editing, and colouring of an Unplanned Adventure Comic page.

I might be taking a few requests, on an "if I feel like doing it" basis. If I can get my web cam set up with a minimum of fuss, I'll stream the traditional media part. Or something

Art critique and commentary: if you have work you'd like feedback on, or there's a particular subject you wanna hear me talk about, go ahead and ask. I'll see what I can say about it.

During breaks, I may be putting on a movie or something. Probably R.E.D., we'll see.

I may sing a little bit.

Well! I think that's everything, so let's get this trainwreck started!

Last one, I swear: Watusi Cattle. I swear, these guys look like a cartoon rabbit snuck up behind them with a bicycle pump and inflated their horns.

Up here in Canada, despite being more influenced by european standards than US, (French bilingual, the metric system, english spelling in most cases, etc), the V for victory gesture is not considered rude (with either the back of the hand or the palm front). We use index and middle finger when gesturing “two,” Though gesturing with the middle finger is still considered quite rude.

Bilingual mishaps are always fun:

I was at a restaurant once, and a patron was asking a waitress about “more de-sheys...” The english speaking waitress thought she was asking about menu options, dishes, but in French, “des chaise” means “the chairs,” ...she was asking for more seats, because there were going to be more people showing up, and “more” was the only english word in the phrase that she knew.

As for pleasantries: a brief “hello” is usually standard when addressing a cashier, and if it isn’t busy, I’ll trade some brief small talk too.

On a similar vein, Canadians definitely will apologize when someone bumps into them, rather than the other way around. The reason being, if someone bumps into me, I must have been in their way.

Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????

Suggestions for Art to Livestream?

After two months of going without, I'm finally getting set up with internet service at home (no more mooching off of various fast-food establishments and public libraries with free wi-fi!).

First thing I plan to doing is Livestreams of art stuff. However, Perceptionality is a B/W, traditional-media comic, and the only digital work required is clean-up, typesetting, and graphic design elements. Not particularly fun to watch, I wouldn't think.

So: If anyone has suggestions or requests, let me hear 'em! I'll draw whichever ones seem like the most fun or interesting. Once I'm set up for the livestreamin's (hopefully not more than a couple of days from now), y'all can watch me clean and colour the stuff. And listen to me ramble about stuff non-stop. There will probably be music too. I guess.

I won't be drawing extreme violence or porn (though I will draw tasteful nudity) but aside from that, anything goes. I'm not kidding. Fan art, OC's, art styles ranging from anime to realistic to pre-raphaelite, sci-fi or fantasy or modern day, scenery and backgrounds are cool, whatever you can think of.

(This is gonna be a catastrophe, I just know it.)

(...I'm okay with that: should be fun)

Deregulation strikes again.

“Free market” capitalism does NOT care about raging forest fires, it does not care about endangering firefighters, it does not care about people dying due to lack of healthcare insurance. Unregulated capatilism cares only about making profits, apparently at any and all costs.

This is one of my favourite poems. ^_^

Happy Hallow' indeed!

Happy Halloween, folks!