A Little Bit Buggy!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Long time no see, everyone! I apologise for the lack of posts for a little while. I've been having the odd technical issue and been rather busy, which left me with either not much time (or lack of an ability) to upload anything. However, I seem to have everything fixed (Fingers crossed everyone!) so my posts should be back to normal from now on. Thanks for being patient with me!

So, I have been working on a character based on the idea of a centipede. Now, the character themselves doesn't have multiple legs, nor is it based off creepy horror movies that involve human centipedes either, but rather the character themselves would have similar strengths and weaknesses, along with a connection to the creature itself.

So far, its mostly in the planning stage, so the character itself isn't yet set in an appearence. The sketch is currently a 'pilot', if you will, of what it could end up becoming later. It's also a bit younger than what the character likely will be aged in his final design. However, there are aspects to the sketch that will likely be following on to its final design.

So, the first sketch of the character is this:

So, the character is actually human, no matter how it currently looks. The main idea for his face was to try and pick aspects or ideas about a centipedes appearence that might fit onto a human. The face, therefore, consists of a mouth guard/cover, called a 'hanbo' - an armoured face mask that tends to cover the nose and mouth. Some of these are patterned, usually with snarls and demonic mouths, etc, but I thought it might be fitting to mimic an insects mandibles. His eyes are hidden behind goggles - Centipedes are sensitive to light, so having shaded goggles seems fitting - which gives the bug-like appearence. I was trying to get the hair to mimic antenna, though I didn't think I wanted them to stand up on top of his head. Centipede antenna seem to lay close to the body, so having the long bangs laying either side of his face seemed a bit more fitting (and the character themselves is likely not the type to stand in front of a mirror trying to wax hair into spikes.

I had considered that, because of how armoured centipedes are, that under his clothing he would likely have some form of plate armour. It was something of a last minute addition there, since I was mostly working on the face, but the hand and arms do have armguards to mimic the segments of a centipede.

This, of course, is a rough sketch idea and certainly not a final idea. But it had given me a few ideas to move forwards. That in mind, I will be working on something a little closer to the final idea for a character based on a centipede, along with a few other ideas to go with it. We'll have to see just how it turns out. I hope you'll all enjoy seeing the later designs.

Don't worry, I'll also still be working on that name plate idea I had last time. Certainly helps that I can now access my computer again :)

Until next time!

Tara

Door (Sign) To Childhood!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So as a little bit of a break from drawing characters, I was coming up with an idea for a design for a child's bedroom door. You know, signs that say who's room the tag belongs to. I guess I was somewhat inspired, since I have been doing various designs for images that would go in a child's room.

While I had previously been focusing on Alice in Wonderland, I had been shown alternate ideas for the room images and thought I might give those a try as well. The one I favoured the most in my sketches ended up being a room tag, with the child's name on it in a nature theme, while involved branches, leaves and animals. While only really a first sketch and something that could be worked on into more depth, what I ended up with was this:

Apologies for the quality of the image - as usual, my photography skills leave much to be desired. Still! The idea was for a young child, using cute but simplistic designs for the animals - which, if I wanted to, could easilly be replaced by different ones like bunnies, mice, other birds, dogs, cats etc, depending on the preference. The surrounding area, which is admittedly rough at the moment, and the name would be like wood or vine-like plants. True, this one has the name Tabitha on it for now, but it does show that longer names can fit in it without a problem - if I'd used a short one like my own name for it, then it would be awkward to adjust if a longer name was required

So, when I'm not experimenting with my art style, I was considering making a full colour version of something like this and see what people think. Would anyone be interested in seeing a full version of this or even a range of kids door nameplates? I am interested in what you all think.

Until next time!

Tara

Sketchy Raccoons!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Sorry for the delay on this post. I  have mentioned in the past that I occasionally have difficulties with my wrists - mainly reoccurring tendonitis - so I didn't particually have anything to really show off just yet. Well, other than my finished commission, but as I'm waiting on payment for that it doesn't feel right to show it off before the client can have it, you know?

While they're still a tad achy, I at least dont need them strapped up, so I did some sketches, mostly just to get my hand back in and give my wrists a bit of gentle exercise. Since I had been drawing Milo recently, I thought I'd stay on a similar vein and draw some more Milo things.

Milo was created mainly as a Zootopia/Zootropolis based Kingdom Hearts character, so I decided to have a go at drawing him with a keyblade. Note that the keyblade in the current sketches is only one idea for what it actually could be, since I'm still a little unsure as to the design of the blade itself. I'll likely be doing some pure keyblade ideas at some point and figure out what fits best on blade design alone, but for now, these were just sketches of Milo as a keyblade wielder.

So the first sketch was just an idea of him in his normal outfit with (a version of) his keyblade:

As you can tell, the keyblade itself is exceptionally sketchy. The basics of it is that it is a night stick with a stylised paw print as the key's teeth and the guard is horns arching downward. Between the blade and hilt is a ZPD badge. As Milo is a detective, it seemed fitting to mix animalistic features into police-type ones. 

With Milo being so small - Zootopia sizes of the characters match their real animal counterparts if they stood on hind legs) - the keyblade itself is able to shoot energy bullets, but my friends and I have jokingly considered his fighting style with it might resemble the kind you expect from Star Wars' Yoda, allowing the small character to fight much larger opponents.

The second sketch of him I decided to do, not in his casual clothing, but the suit he, as a private investigator, would likely wear on the job.

Bit unsure if in a final image he would have the shirt tucked in like this or loose as his casual shirt tends to be. However, this is the first time I've actually drawn him in his work's clothing, so this might end up changing later down the road. 

Oh, my sketches aside, I'm considering trying to do the Milo drawing I did last time into an image using that experimental art style I sometimes try which is different from my usual art style. Since all I've done to it so far is a base sketch and a colour test on it, its the perfect base for me to give it a try. Plus, since Zootopia itself is a 3D animation, rather than a 2D, it seemed a fitting image to attempt. 

So, the plan going forward is to show various ideas for the keyblade that Milo could end up with going forward, and the image of Milo using my experimental style to see if this would made for an interesting image of Milo, maybe even closer to the canon style than 2D. So expect the beginnings of one or the other, or maybe both coming up!

Once again, sorry for the delay on this, but thanks for sticking with me, everyone! You're all awesome! :)

Until Next Time!

Tara

Cartoon Raccoon!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Some of you may remember that late last year I drew an image of a character that was an anthropomorphic raccoon that would have fit into Disney's Zootopia world for a Kingdom Hearts RP. That image was just a pen sketch and one during a time when I hadn't really drawn many animal characters.

For reference as to the image I'm talking about, I covered it here

Well, I've been having another go at it and I've sketched Milo Forager the Raccoon once again, this time having a bit more of an idea of how to draw it, with some studying of actual raccoons to help me get a better idea for its features.

So, I began with a sketch, which ended up coming out like this:

I feel like the proportions on this version fit the character much better than that initial sketch, such as in his body shape. The characters in Zootopia did tend to still have the proportions of their real counterparts. This includes the slim paws that, ironically, look somewhat like hands anyway, a wide body, especially near the back end and the head shape is closer to a racoon than the original version, though its a little difficult to show the exact shape of the muzzle from that angle.

Admittedly, I was initially a little unsure about this version purely on the sketch, as it doesn't show a lot of details where colours and shading is concerned.  A lot of the colour would bring out details in the character, which looks a little awkward without it. As such, I decided to do a test run with colour rather than going straight for a neat line art. Now, this isn't meant to be detailed or even neat, but rather I wanted to be certain that it wasn't the fact it lacked colour that made it a tad awkward.

So, this in mind, I tested colour on the sketch:

As you can see, veeeeeeerry rough colouring, since it was litterally just selecting areas and filling them. This would be far neater once the line art is clean and I get to the actual colour stage. But even with that in mind, just adding the colour to it does actually seem to make him stand out far more, and the slight awkwardness that bothered me isn't there any longer, especially around the face where the different fur shades stand out rather than looking a little out of place.

Still, I am much happier with this version of Milo than the original sketch I made all that time ago, so I may draw more of him in the future, once I've got a fully designed Keyblade for him to be able to show him as he is in the Kingdom Hearts Roleplay.

Plus it is pretty interesting designing keyblades, especially after having drawn Chidori for the commission (which I'll be covering next week after it's been handed over).

Still, as usual, happy to hear what anyone thinks :)

Until next time!

Tara

Mission Commission: Phase Two!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So I am almost finished with the commission that I'm working on - As I'm currently working on some tiny details. However, can at least show a little bit more of what I've done. (The next time I post anything about it will be the full version).

So for those that have missed the post about it before, I'm working on a commissioned full body image of a character that was adapted from a game into a Kingdom Hearts character. In a previous post, I showed the two base sketches that I made of the character, one in a battle pose, the other in a more relaxed state. The relaxed state was chosen by the client, and so I've been working on it.

This time, I'll be showing the flat colour of the commission and talk about what I'm currently working on involving the character in question.

So first, the flat colour:

 I apologise for any blurring - for some reason, uploading pictures on here seems to lower the quality. However, at least you get the gist of it and the final versions will end up uploaded on my DA page once it's been handed over to the client. Anyway, this was the first version of the flat colour using the screen shots of their created character as a basis. Unfortunately, the lightning on the character had been indoors and in a yellowish flame lamp, so I misjudged the colour, making what should have been a pale creamy white ended up being more beige in colour. As such, I adjusted the colour into something a bit closer to the desired effect, which came out like this:

This was agreed to match the desired colour. The crystals are at the moment just a blue colour, but the plan for them are to not only have them (and the halo) glow, but to not be a single shade of blue. Like some actual real life crystals, they aren't always a single colour and do sometimes show faults in them.

With colour added to her, she is beginning to take shape. However, the next steps here are to add lights, shadows and effects to it in order to make her pop. Lastly, the keychain to the keyblade needs to be added, as I have recently been given the design idea for that based off a structure within the final fantasy game that she's based in. This would be joined to the keyblade by a chain from the smallest crystal on the hilt of the keyblade.

Again, sorry if the images are so low quality. I'm not entirely sure why but it does seem that Blogger has really reduced the resolution on uploads recently. Has anyone else noticed that too? If there is any way of changing this, please let me know, as the images I tried to upload were of much higher quality than this (600dpi even), so I am a bit confused.

Until next time!

Tara

Updates and Portraits!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, I have been working on the commission that I mentioned about last time, but as it's currently unfinished, I can't show everything just yet. What I can show, however, is the line art, both for that and a side thing I've been working on in-between.

So first is line art for the commissioned character of Chidori. As shown last time, I had made two sketches - one that was a 'battle stance' showing Chidori with her Keyblade. The other was more of a way to showcase her personality as well as to show her holding her keyblade, which can be used as a blade or a staff (since she is a final fantasy-based white mage, at least in the outfit that had been chosen for her. The sketch of the two that had been chosen had been the one that showed a bit of her personality, rather than a battle stance.

Line art wise, this is the basic one I'm currently working with:

Unlike the sketches from before, I have added extra details, such as the areas that are scaled on her skin, the details on her clothing and I also included the halo, which previously I had left out. The current Halo is more a placeholder than the final thing, however, as that will end up as a more 'energy' appearence than something actually solid. A lot more detail will be added in the colour phase, such as smaller details on the lining of the clothing, etc. I m currently working on the colour phase now, including shading, lights and effects, but I will have to wait until it's been handed over to the client to give more updates there :)

In the meantime, I do have something else I was working on, more in line with a portrait than the full body line art that Chidori is. This is a character going by the name of Riku Koishi.

First, I began with a basic sketch:

I wanted Riku to come across as being androgynous as a character, partly due to his age, and partly due to a situation that we came up with when the character was in a creation phase of his being dressed up as a magical girl thanks to another character and not only not minding but looking good at it. His jumper has a symbol on the chest meant to be a make, but for this one, I actually used the initials of my pen name - Chosha Kurenai - in a stylized manner. After all, this character is made by me, so why not? lol. Maybe I'll use the CK as a kind of watermark, maybe? Assuming I dont end up using a Luphin. lol

Line art wise, this is what I came up with:

In the line art, he doesn't look quite as effeminate as in the sketch, but still has some level of androgynous appearence. His hand looks a bit better as well, covering the stone of the necklace that he is wearing - the actual necklace has a carved stone at the end. He can see through any stone material as long as he has a stone close by. I think the initials on the hoody came out decently as well, though a bit shaky, since the material of the hoody is a bit baggy, so a more flat version still needs to be made. lol. There are a few things that need tweaking, but for the most part, it came cout pretty well. I kinda like his eyes the best :)

Of course, this is just a side thing, so it might not be finished any time soon, but it was nice to at least get an idea for what he looked like.

Sorry for the delay on this blog, by the way! Next Monday I should be posting on Mondays as usual, rather than have a missed week. 

Until next time!

Tara

Mission Commission: Phase One!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

As you guys are likely aware at this point, Kingdom Hearts 3 has finally been released, much to the joy of many a fan of the series. It has been a rather long time in coming - over a decade at this point! Still, our patience has been rewarded.

So what has this got to do with the title, you may ask.

Well, true, the fact that the game has come out doesn't really have much to do with today, but the subject of Kingdom Hearts is part of what I'm going to be talking about. Rather, roleplays based within the Kingdom Hearts universe. I have been asked to do a commission of a character that is being used in one of these Roleplays. The character itself is actually a custom character in a Final Fantasy game that was brought into the RP - which makes sense, since Kingdom Hearts does involve Square Enix characters - and had designed a keyblade for them, and asked if I could do a full body image of the character with the keyblade.

I was given a selection of the characters outfits and some reference for certain features that are part of her race (as she is humanoid, but not human, featuring patches of scales, horn-like appendages instead of ears and a dragon-like tail) - Au Ra, as it's called - and the accessory that gives her what appears to be a halo and asked me to do some sketched poses to pick from.

Firstly, I sketched her face, if only to get the feel for the character:

While the head accessory was as simplistic as possible - mostly a placeholder so I knew where it would be, I wanted to be sure I could pull off her hairstyle and those horns. 

Once I was sure I could draw her face, I picked one of the White Mage outfits - partly because I liked the keyblade design that had been made to go with it, and made two poses for her. The first pose being more preparing for battle, while the other showcased her more relaxed, carefree personality.

Admittedly, I did like the first a tad more, if only because I liked the face, and it doesn't look like I'm just attempting to hide her hands. lol. However, the keyblade was a bit shorter than it should have been (It being modeled after a white mage staff and could be used like a staff as well as a blade) and it didn't particually do the character's personality justice. As such, design number two will be going the fully detailed line art and colour route, and will also have the halo added to it as well - something that I didn't add in any of the sketches since it's more 'energy' than anything physical.

I'm still working with the client right now to make sure that the finished image will be up to standard, and I likely wont show the final thing until it is done and in the client's hands, but I will let you know how the job goes once it's done. :) Who knows, I might just finish off the first one for fun!

Until next time!

Tara