Character Concept!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

With my computer now back in working order again (here's hoping that nothing else will happen for a while, assuming I'm not jinxing myself), I thought I'd get around to showing you guys a couple of things I've been up to since you last heard from me. Though firstly, I'm considering doing a few Halloween based characters for this month. One idea I'm considering is my mascot in Halloween 'dress'. For whatever reason - likely due to other projects taking place at that time, I had never actually done one for Halloween. A good a time as any to rectify that, don't you think? Beyond that, this October I'm hoping to at least have a few within the theme. Whether or not I manage remains to be seen, of course.

But, since it is 'Inktober', so to speak, I think even if I don't manage the full 'Halloween' feel, at least I'll be doing my bit! :D

That in mind, admittedly those will be coming up in the following weeks. For now, though, I'll at least show you a few things I've been working on. Firstly, I've done a little more to that angel picture I was working on a while back. Admittedly, the wings of said picture aren't the final ones just yet. For the most part, I was experimenting with them to see how much I need to work on them, which is why they look a little on the rough size. Not to mention that I would need to consider the bends of the wings in comparison to where they would be on a human body. As it is, I'm not at the moment happy with those. Still, it was good to at least attempts, if only to see where I might have gone wrong. But it has been a while since I last showed you an update to that low priority project, so here it is:

Beyond the wings, as you can tell there is still much to do to prevent the blocky, segmented feel to it, but it is slowly starting to take some kind of form.

Beyond that, the concept that I was working on was for a character who uses their hair as a weapon. As such I've been getting a bit of practice in with drawing a character with.....uh.....very long hair. lol. Not Rapunzel levels, but long. At the moment this is only a standing character concept, however, so the hair has not yet been shown in an 'active' state. 

This is what I came up with in the smooth sketch that is being used as a base for the rest of the character:

I admit that I do enjoy drawing hair when I get into the idea of doing it, and have been trying to dive it a bit more in terms of the style around the bangs, since I tend to favour the type that would usually cover the forehead in some manner. My main concerns is that the hands might not be quite in proportion, however. Besides that, I think the sketch came out quite well and began to work on the rest of the image.

Admittedly, I usually would draw the line art, then add the colour. With this one, however, due to the hair, I ended up focusing on doing both at the same time so that I could concentrate on the hair in sections to be sure that it works in the final version. Admittedly, this isn't quite finished just yet (I have the inner sections of the hair to work on) but this is what I have so far!

Much like with images such as Nogitsune, who's hair is also fairly long, I was hoping to do the sections in a way to make them feel a little more natural in terms of hair, since there's no hair that is just straight one colour - there's always lower and higher lights in them. As such, I was hoping to do something similar here, minus the lighting that would be added when the toning process happens. It seems to be working so far to give it a little more depth, so I shall continue on that track for now.

There is still much to do, but at the very least, it seems I have made a good start.

Though this may be put a little on hold for the Halloween stuff I'm hoping to do this month, so we will come back to this another day :)

Until next time!

Tara

Attack on Tech 2!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

I've been having technical problems again for almost a week now (I'm beginning to think technology hates me and I somehow offended the matrix or some other computer based overlord somehow. So, you may (or may not) be wondering what my technological issues were this time around. Thankfully it wasn't quite the fiasco that was the so called IT help deleting important information, but it still has been a little on the annoying side.

Firstly, the main issue I've had (Which is why this is more of an update post than a 'What I've been up to' type) was with the internet Wi-Fi. Or rather with the broadband provider itself. Apparently, from what we discovered after sitting on hold for nearly an hour was that there was problems on the providers area, which was effecting the internet of everyone using that particular broadband type in the area. If it wasn't being ridiculously slow, it cut out, or it just stopped all together. Because of this I'm only able to use pictures already used in previous blog posts (hence me still having my logo on the top and bottom as usual) otherwise I'd either be sitting here for hours on end, have things time out or it just wont load at all.

Yay for typing this out on Word before posting it up here to lower my time on the page and hopefully have less of a posting issue)

Other tech problems came in the form of things running out, such as my antivirus, which was a pain to renew etc when there was the internet issues, making it take far longer than it needed to. Thankfully, I got it reinstalled (eventually) but that did eat up a lot of my time as well.

Lastly was having various programs run out and need renewing for me to continue using them. I must have had them all installed almost at the same time for everything to have started running out on me like that.

But long story short, having no internet for almost a week really does go to show how much we really do use it for many important things, honestly. Its a good job that it should be back to normal soon, though, and hopefully I can actually show you guys some interesting art in my next post, rather than trying to explain my technical issues.

Way first world problems, am I right?

On a slightly different note, if you've been keeping up to date with the TanraStudios blog, you'll see we have limited stock on the Pandora books if anyone is interested. I've retweeted the post onto my twitter as well, if anyone is interested (My twitter is @chosha_kurenai if anyone wants to check it out). On a similar note, chapter one of Dreamwalkers is also on a limited stock as well at £8/$12 plus additional P&P if anyone is interested in gabbing one of the last few copies! Just send me a tweet, reply to this blog or drop me a email on chosha_kurenai@yahoo.co.uk for more details. Even if my internet has been a little shoddy this past week, my phone, at least, lets me keep an eye on my social media, so there is no worries!

For now though, that's all from me,

Until next time!

Tara

Masamune! Attempt One!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, I've been working on another character idea and having a little experiment with a full body character that isn't just standing up in various poses. The character himself is one I've been thinking about for a while, but has no real set colour schemes just yet, so pretty much everything with the character is experimental. This is just the first choice in design.

So, the character - what is it?

Well, I like to sometimes get inspiration from legends and such - my work on Dreamwalkers and Susanoo probably being a bit of a clue there, not to mention previous character designs like Nogitsune. So this character is actually based off the Japanese legend of Tsukumogami. A Tsukumogami is an object that, after a long period of time (about 100 years) gains its own sentience, essentially becoming a type of spirit. The one for this character specifically, is if a sword had gained sentience and became a spirit - admittedly one with a human form.

The character himself, which I named Masamune, I had several ideas of in terms of appearance, as mentioned, the main differences in my ideas being the type of sword he is based on and his clothing. So there will possibly be other design ideas of him in the future, with the final version becoming the fully finished product, including shading work. This is a work in progress, so hopefully it won't be judged to harshly, at least not yet.

So, of course, I began with the sketch work:

So with this sketch, the man parts that I was considering were the parts that would link the character to a sword. This sketch was pretty rough in places - one of his feet in the next version gets adjusted so his leg doesn't look quite so broken, but the sword parts, of course, were the blade arm and the wrappings, which, when they have more detail, resemble the hilt of a Japanese sword. The blade itself...originally the idea was some form of katana, but with a much thicker blade - likely closer in idea to a thickened Zanbato - a type of blade from the Heian period in japan that was used against cavalry. I believe blades like the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy 7 were probably based around that sword type, if I were to guess. A thinner blade probably would sword, but for this design it might not have blended into the arm. Of course, that isn't to say I wont give it a try n one of the designed versions, of course.

I then made a slightly more refined sketch to add in the details a little more that I missed on this initial sketch:

Apologies on this one being a little on the faint side. This is mostly because it was used in the base sketch and I somehow accidentally made it only come out faint. I'm not sure how. Yay my technical difficulties! Lol. Either way, you might be able to see that I adjusted the foot position a little for the sake of perspective, and I also put some details into the hair and leg wrappings.

As for the flat colour version.....I'm a bit unsure about the colouring at the moment. Due to the location the character lived in, I originally gave the character sandy or earth coloured clothing, though it has made him a tad washed out. I'm already considering different colours for him, to go with the 'metal' idea, at least for hair and eyes. But considering I'm currently going through a design process with the character and I'm not yet at the final design for him, I'll show you what I have so far:

As you can tell, the sandy, ever so slight rose pinkish hair doesn't really work, making him look fairly washed out. There is also bits of green in there, as I was considering maybe a green colour for the clothing in one of my next tests, along with the idea for silvery coloured hair and eyes to go with the metallic feel.

So, anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm always happy to hear what people have to say :)

Until next time!

Tara

Sir Sketchalot

Hey Everyone! Welcome back!

So, I've been feeling in the mood to just do some good old sketching recently. Digital stuff is all well and good, but sometimes you just feel like having a bit of a doodle, so to speak. Admittedly, half the time I 'doodle' tends to be with a pen and hoping to god I don't make a mistake, because I'm a prat and forgot to go fetch my pencil. But I suppose it comes from my early days of doodles when they lived in the corner of school work books. But hey, if nothing else, it does help you to be very careful not to screw up as best as you can, because unless you have those special pens with ink specific erasers (I used to have one of those a long time ago, I'll admit), you can't get rid of a pen mistake.

Ah, digital art certainly spoils you when a simple back space can ensure no accidental ripped pages or smudge marks, huh?

So, considering I had been indulging in my Undertale-ness last time with my Sans pic, I decided to do a few Undertale sketches, two of which might even make for interesting little icon/avatars if I decided to digitalise them - a distinct possibility at some point.

So, this is what I ended up with!

Strangely, I think my version of Alphys ended up far more adorable than I was intending, but I'll admit that I did enjoy sketching these three. As you could probably guess, Napstablook was probably the easiest to draw - not exactly surprising since, despite his cuteness, his design is pretty simple. Meanwhile the most difficult was probably Toriel (and I realised I misspelt her name on the pic only after I wrote it because I'm a bit of an idiot *hides from Undertale fans*) because drawing her snout from the front view is a little more awkward than side view. Considering that was probably the first time I've ever actually drawn Alphys or Toriel, however, I was kinda proud, honestly.

Along with my Undertale sketches, I also started a base sketch, digitally, for a potential icon/avatar, or just a lose up pic of an Inkling from Splatoon as well. It's still pretty rough at the moment, since I'm trying to work out where the best splat layouts should be, and its still at the rough sketch phase, but if it all turns out well, it could make for an interesting picture when finished.

Depending on how it goes, the Inkling should be in the 'Agent' uniform, though it'll be interesting seeing if I can manage those interesting ear pieces when I actually get to the...Uh....literal inking phase. (It is so hard not to end up with a list of ink puns here. lol). I do get an 'inkling', however, that it should be fun to do :)

Until next time!

Tara

Here's a Skelepun for Lost Time!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So.....sorry for missing last week. I'll admit that I ended up being far more busy with my day job that I actually had very little time to actually work on images, coupled with doing some practice writing for personal projects further down the line. And the bits I did do I unfortunately can't show for the moment, at least until the projects are done and the clients happy with the final products. So, once again, a massive apology for missing a blog post!

This week, though, I have done a picture that I can show! It's unfinished, I thought you guys might be interested to see it anyway.

While, admittedly, not as right-here-right-now as some fan arty stuff is, I have to admit that Undertale is still one of my favourite games and, probably like much of the internet, Sans does happen to be one of my favourite characters. Most of it stemming from the fact we are both Punsters! I likely don't show it as much in my writing skills, but I do love puns myself, personally, and have often driven my friend Nadia nuts with them, be they accidental or because I was actually trying. But, of course, there are many other reasons as well.

And no, I do not want to bone the skeleton. lol

Draw him, on the other hand, that I am happy to do. :)

This time, rather than attempting to do it in my experimental style, however, I decided to see how my version of Sans would look in the way I usually draw.

I decided to do a pen sketch for this one, rather than on the computer. I will admit, it was a bit 'spur of the moment', but, as I mentioned before, it's always good to keep my hand in, so to speak. The sketch came out like this (also, sorry for the bad photograph. You could say I'm.....sans photography skill? lol):

As you can tell from the fact this was a lined pad (I had been writing notes at the time) it was definitely very spur of the moment. Still, I was pretty happy with how the sketch came out and I really wanted to give it a go digitally. The funny thing is, I also thought that, if I wanted to put a background in it, I could switch and change it, depending on how I feel as well. After all, Sans' expression, other than his eyes, doesn't really outwardly change that much. But that is another project to experiment with for another time.

Instead, for now, I decided to go with just making a digital version of his character. And so.....tada!

Unfortunately, no light and shadow just yet, but I'll admit, I'm liking how it is coming out so far. I'll admit that his coat amused me a little, because I had drawn Rem wearing something similar some time ago. I was also a little unsure with the slipper colours. Most people had drawn him wearing pink slippers before, likely to go with the whole 'Who cares' aspect of his character, but I've also seen them done in blue as well. But, when I did them in blue and grey, it made them look.....too flat? Or rather, the character seemed slightly off in this rendition, so pink he got. 

Other than maybe making his top a bit longer, I was actually fairly pleased in how he came out. What do you think? Pun-ny for your thoughts. lol

My bad attempts at written puns aside, I hope you like it. Also, do you all think it might be interesting for me to draw the full cast at some point in my style? I'm open for suggestions!

Until next time!

Tara

Of Banners and Icons

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So this past week, I've been working on a couple of projects. The first one I mentioned last time, which involves making a banner and icon for an Ebay shop, and a second one, which is to make an avatar/icon for a fanfiction profile.

So for the first one, the Ebay shop in question is a game shop that deals with retro games and is doing quite well, but wishes to become a little more professional looking, thus wishing for a banner and icon for the online store. Most of the banner so far has come down to researching in looking for fonts that might work with the store and what it sells. As such, I looked up various free-use fonts online for ideas and presented some of the to the client, so that he could see if any would interest him. So far, he has found four that could work, depending on how they look once in a banner form, though I'll also be trying out a few with modified fonts, and make an attempt to make my own font.

That last one will be the most tricky, as I only semi-created a font when I made the title for my Susanoo comic a few years ago. However, I'll certainly be doing my best. Time to brush up on my typography!

I have also worked out what colour scheme that the client wants as well, though I've not been informed which colours will be better where, so some of my differentiations will also be purely different variations of the colour as well.

Once the main banner is done, then the icon will be easier to work with, since I'll have a preferred font to work with and can come up with some interesting appearances for that. What I do need, however, is the dimensions of the banners and icons on Ebay. I personally don't use it often enough to have a clue, so my research crusades are not yet at an end!

On the note of icons, the next project is to create a few different icon/avatars for a new user on Archive of Our Own - for those unsure of what that is, its a fanfiction archiving site where you can right your own fics for various fandoms. The new user is currently awaiting the 'invite' to join, which can take a few weeks, so is preparing for once the invite arrives.

So the icon would be their avatar on the site.

The first one I'm working on was based on a character I drew and showed on here and on my Deviant Art page - the character Nagisa Nogitsune. They liked the design and was wondering if I could make an icon of it for them to potentially use, along with a few other designs and they will eventually take their pick.

So, while it isn't quite finished yet (Ah, the dreaded shading and lighting....) This is what I have so far:

This is a somewhat enlarged version, since the avatars are a bit smaller. However, this is what I have so far. I think the biggest part of this was the flame effects. Mainly, me recalling how I did my fire effects last time I worked on the blue flames. I think I have managed to replicate it, though....Hopefully. There is a few possible edits I may include, such as a hand with a finger near the lips, as if making a shush sound, though that might make the image a tad too cluttered. It is just something that I'll have to attempt on a different layer and see how it goes.

As for other icons....not certain how they will come out just yet, but I'll keep you all informed, along with what image, in the end, is chosen.

Should be fun either way!

Until next time!

Tara

Chibi Sketch!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So I've been doing little bits and pieces to the angel picture that I started last week. Its a little slow going, since I've been a tad busy, but the shape is beginning to form somewhat. Its likely that I'll be having to do small details and adjustments as I go along, however. I'm a little unsure about the wings of the angel at the moment, as a lot of details even smaller than the main part will be needed. I'll be giving a picture based update on that soon enough though, once I feel that some of its true appearance will come through. Or at least until I have a lot more of it finished, if only to give something a bit more interesting to look at.

On the other hand, considering I've been experimenting on styles a little with the angel piece, I thought I should maybe have a little experiment on another style that I don't tend to focus on much, but if pretty fun to do anyway. That is....chibi!

Admittedly, I don't think I have a real set style with this. It might be because even my somewhat overly cartoony seeming pictures, similar to the cartoony drawing of myself I did a while ago, it isn't exactly a 'chibi' style. So I thought I'd give it a go. I had started to add a little shadows on my pictures of Aster I mentioned a few posts ago, so I thought, hey, while I'm working on that, maybe I'll try out chibi with that character? If only to get my hand in before I try out other characters in that style, too.

While this is still part way between extremely rough and sort of rough in terms of sketch, this is what I have so far of Chibi Aster:

As you can see, there is still a lot to do, but it has been coming out pretty well so far. I'm currently working on the little details - I know the eyes are a tad off at the moment, and I'll need to put more details in things like the knife, as well as what I actually want to do with that other hand. I have a few ideas at the moment, but I'll be having a bit of a test with those. It will either stay as it is, have them holding another knife, or maybe showing off their powers a little bit. It'll be fun to see what works. If everything goes well with Aster here, I might try my hand at doing other characters, either my own, chibi versions of characters from fandoms I enjoy, or maybe even something done on request. Not entirely sure yet. We'll see how it goes!

One thing I know I'll be working on for a little bit is an actually requested item, though - a banner/logo for an ebay shop that has been doing well recently. That will certainly be something new for me, as it involves typography, rather than a character of some kind. As I'm not a graphic designer, it might be a challenge, but it is one I will do my best to rise up to! I'm unsure if I'll need to make a new font from scratch, or if I'll be able to find something that my client would like, but either way, I'll keep you all informed on my progress.

Of course, if anyone has any suggestions for me that might fit a game selling online store in terms of fonts, then that will be a great help. If not, well, it'll be fun coming up with combinations to present to him and see if any of them take his fancy. Considering I'm a big fan of games (RPG types, mainly) its pretty cool to be asked to do this, too.

Well, until next time!

Tara