Boxing Day Special!

Hey Everyone! Welcome back!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. If any of you have been following the TanraStudios blog, Nadia and I left a Christmas message there, which is mainly why this one is on Boxing Day. Well, that and I usually post on Mondays for this blog. lol. Either way, I hope you all had a good one, and we've still got the New Year coming up too.

I've been pretty busy with my day job over Christmas - its the time of year when everyone goes out to celebrate after all. But I did manage to finish the Christmas gift to Nadia on Christmas Eve and sent it to her. I'll show the image here, but I've found the resolution seems to be really off on the blog lately. Not sure why, so I will also leave a link to my DA account for anyone who might want to see it in its glory.

So, here was me finished Gift-Pic!

Though for the better quality version, click here

So, I really enjoyed doing the hair the most on this picture with the lowlights and highlights. Makes the hair seem as though it stands out more. With her clothing colour as it was, I thought it best to stick with the simple blue-and-snowflake pattern to help Rodessa stand out. As mentioned before, the previous blank space now has a Christmas greeting as well.

I sent it to Nadia, who was really happy, especially with the plushy character cameo as well. I'm just really happy that my rendition of her character came out so well! Its certainly good practice for once I'm the main artist for Pandora for a few chapters.

But, all in all, I had a lot of fun with this project. Maybe I can do something similar for Christmas next year, too :)

I hope everyone else has had as much fun this Christmas as I have. Stay safe for the rest of the holidays and I'll see you all in the New Year!

Until next time!

Tara

Christmas Countdown!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So its less than a week until Christmas day now! But no rest for the wicked, as they say - Not only will I have one of my busiest weeks at work with everyone having Christmas Parties and such, I also have a few presents to finish getting and a picture to finish - yeah, I'll admit that I've never been the best at being on top of Christmas shopping. But I usually get things done.

Speaking of the picture I'll be doing for Nadia, I should give an update there. Last time I showed my sketched concept for the image. This time, I have a lot more done.

Firstly, the line art was fun - after drawing images such as the one I drew for Nogitsune, specifically the hair, I'll admit that drawing Rodessa's hair was the most fun. She has a lot to work with after all! lol. I also made a few adjustments from her initial design on the dress, giving it some sleeves. I thought that it added a little more to the outfit. I also adjusted the perspective on the arm, as it was a bit off before.

Oh, I should probably point out the pushy that she is holding dressed as a reindeer. I do hope that Nadia will get the reference. Unfortunately, can't say who it is without spoiling, but you're welcome to guess!

I also did the flat colour:

Even having just the flat colour does tend to make the image stand out more, I think.  I made sure to follow the colour references that were made for Rodessa in the past, specifically for her hair, skin, eyes and lips. After all, I want to be sure I get Nadia's character as good as possible, since so far I haven't done much in way of art for Pandora yet, minus some base drawings and images of certain spoilerish characters that can't appear online yet. (Don't worry, they will appear eventually!). And I've been doing some practicing of Rodessa, to be sure that I can get her design correct once it comes to my turn.

As for the background, I just went for something simple this time. The image is essentially like a Christmas card, and the space left behind will have words as a season's greetings, so I didn't want a background that would clash with those words. Hence it was just a simplistic snowflake design. Admittedly, it reminded me of wrapping paper a little bit, but I did think that Rodessa's colour scheme would also stand out against the cooler blues and whites.

Now I have the main part of the image to complete - the shadings. While flat colour makes the image more obvious, adding the lights and shadow will help to make the image really stand out. This is the bit that always takes me the longest, since it does add the most detail to the characters. Should be fun! But hopefully my day job wont make it difficult for me, since I have less than a week left. So, cross your fingers for me! I'll let you know how it goes :)

Until then, have a Merry Christmas and I'll see you next time!

Tara

Christmas Project: Start!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, soon it'll be Christmas - only about two weeks away now! Man, time flies, doesn't it? I still have a lot to do before I'm fully ready for Christmas where presents are concerned for friends and family, but I still have time to do a little project.

You see, as you may or may not know, depending on how long you may have been following my blog for, I've been working two comic series. The first being Dreamwalkers, which I talk about here, and the other is a project done alongside a friend. Pandora's art is currently being handled by said friend, though the both of us are working on the story. Eventually, the art will pass to me and we will back and forth. With Nadia, our work all comes under the name of Tanrastudios.

Well, I wanted to make a Christmas present for my friend and fellow Tanra-lite! :)

This in mind, I was hoping to draw a season's greeting using one of the Pandora characters (well, two, if you look at what said character is holding, though that one would be more of a cameo than an actual character picture). Out of the characters we created for Pandora, one of the main characters, Rodessa, was originally created by Nadia (whereas the other main character, Mizuki, was made by myself), so I decided to draw a Christmas Rodessa. Currently, I only have the sketch work that I will probably need to do a few adjustments on to get absolutely anatomically correct, but this is the basics of what I have in mind:

Sorry about the photo quality of my sketchbook sketch. I'm afraid I'm no photographer. But this is the basic idea I had in mind, which I will hopefully have inked and coloured and presented to Nadia for Christmas. The space over her shoulder should also end up with a Christmas message as well :) I do hope to make it look a little more interesting at inking and colour stage though, as I know just a sketch isn't always that interesting. lol. But I have been having fun with the basic sketch, especially where her hair is concerned.

I'm hoping that Nadia will enjoy the gift to her, since she has been working pretty hard to help with Tanrastudios with me, and I want to let her know how much I've appreciated the help, as well as giving one of my close friends a big Merry Christmas as well.

I'll keep you all updated on how the project is going and, hopefully, how Nadia reacts to the gift as well.

But, until next time!

Tara

Oneiros Types: Morpheus Class

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

In our exploration of the types of forms the Oneiros, the enemies in my Dreamwalkers comic series, we've covered two of the three main classifications - the Icelos and the Phantasos classes. If you haven't read those parts yet, I suggest you check them out first, to gain a full understanding of exactly what those types entail by clicking on the names of the classes.

For now, however, we'll be covering the last of the main three classes - the Morpheus Class.

Lets see how far down the rabbit hole this takes us, shall we?

Garbled version of the quote from Matrix-version of Morphius aside, no, this class is not named after him. Rather, similarly to the other two class types, this type also takes its name from Greek mythology. Along with Icelos/Phobetor and Phantasos, (and thousands of other much lesser known siblings), Morpheus was said to be one of the many children of Hypnos (though some also believe that Hypnos was a brother instead and that they were all children of the goddess Nyx). It is said that Morpheus was capable of shapeshifting into any human form (though his 'true' form was said to appear as a winged daemon) and could appear in dreams. During the medieval period, Morpheus and Hypnos become somewhat synonymous with each other, as Morpheus was also known as the god of sleep and dreams, similar to his 'father'.

A little extra trivia as well, the drug morphine's name also came from Morpheus.

In Dreamwalkers, Oneiros that fall under this classification will take the form of a human within dreams. Unlike the other types, who are more instinctual, Morpheus class Oneiros are capable of planning far more complex stratagies to entice or trap their victims, sometimes taking the form of loved ones, or will attempt to seduce the enemy into lowering their guard, similar to a succubus or Inccubus. Sometimes, they are even capable of mimicking the effects of other Oneiros types to lead on the dreamwalkers into going after the wrong target, allowing them to fulfil their goals. For example, by leading the 'prey' into an area that a landslide could be triggered. Due to the fact they take a human form, they could also blend into crowds with dream created people, or pretend to be just a part of the dream in order to stalk their prey. Due to their shapeshifting, they could also switch up their appearance, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly which dream-manifested-human is just part of the dream and which is the true target.

Morpheus types are usually not as physically strong as the more monstrous Icelos and not quite able to have the pure nature manipulation as the Phantasos, but due to their more humanoid natures, they are the hardest to pinpoint and to take down in the long run due to pure tactics.

Well, I suppose some people do say that humans can be the biggest threats of all.

So yes, the Icelos, Phantasos and Morpheus classes are the main three classes that the Dreamwalkers cast is likely to run into. However, this doesn't cover all Oneiros as a whole, as their are always discrepancies, even in nature. For now, however, those are the ones to know about in the series. :)

Still, I may cover those rare types at a later date.

Until next time!

Tara