Oh My Goodness...

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Oh my god, I found some of the first sketches I did of both Somnus and Rem, back when I was first playing with the idea of Dreamwalkers. This was long before I was at Uni and the ideas were...probebly no more than a paragraph. It was only really after I started University doing the cartoon and comic degree that either characters really settled into forms that I would use. Honestly, I practically forgot about these as at one point I had up to thirty story ideas that I had written into notebooks.

Looking back on some ideas...well, they weren't particually detailed at the time, or were pretty...uh...bad. It was only really later that I had gathered the best ideas and began to come up with something a bit more detailed. With some of the less thought out ones that wouldn't have worked on their own but still had some promise with short plotlines or were too similar to other story ideas I had, I actually cannibalised into the more promising stories, where the better ideas would shine without just coming across as poorly written or with half baked characters that didn't do them justice.

Still, it was in those really old ideas that I found some pen sketched first draft version of the characters that would eventually evolve into two key figures in Dreamwalkers.

Just a warning, they're pretty bad. My art style's evolved a lot from when I came up with these. Mind you, at the time, my goal was more to write the stories in a novel form rather than a comic, buuuuut...they're still pretty bad

It's pretty funny how much Rem changed, honestly. His first, first version looks nothing like him, but it seems even the me of the past agreed as the sketch at the bottom  appeared a few pages later, when he started to resemble the self he becomes - couldn't miss the cow lick! lol Though his hair seemed to be more wavy back then. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking for Somnus. I did, of course, keep his wavy hair, but I think I made his face slightly less....uh...cat like? Not to mention his hair became longer...

Though the word itself is a bit overused...I was certainly cringing, looking back. At the same time its fascinating seeing how my characters have evolved from these little pen doodles. I may have mentioned it before, but seeing these makes me want to look through those old story ideas, find old sketches and do sketches of them in my current art style, just to see how they look. Who knows, I may even find some lost gems from my past. Not to mention pretty fun!

Until next time!

Tara

Hot Headed!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Welp, been a bit on the busy side at work this week. Since its coming up to time when Paid Holiday needs to be taken before the financial year ends, we've been working a bit short staffed. And then there was last minute calling in sick...(By last minute I mean half hour before I was finishing a shift and thus had to stay on for a few more hours to cover, then had some rearrangements to the rota for the rest of the week). Well, just ended up doing more hours than I thought I'd be doing at the Monday.

Still, at least I know I have some paid holiday to come soon, so I do have that to look forwards to. I'm beginning to make some plans for them, so should be fun :) Plus going somewhere a little different I might get some good reference material for my comics, at least in terms of realistic backgrounds. You can never have too much reference!

Speaking f reference, though less about backgrounds, I was having a play around with demonic features that could work for Damien (my devil dude I've drawn a few times) or, failing that, for another story idea I had that plays around with demons and the seven sins. I ended up with a head sketch front ad side view, though I think I could, if I worked on it digitally, have some fun with the effects I could make.

For example, the 'hair'. I was originally thinking flames, but considering this is a demon, I don't necessarily even need to go with orangey red ones (though it would still look pretty cool...uh, no pun intended), but I could try blue flames for a more supernatural feel, or I could drop flames all together and make it a black shadowy substance. Depending on just the colouring alone it could give this character a different feel to it, even give some hints about what the character is like. I could even follow a similar feel used in Disney's Hercules, how Hades' 'hair' changed colour with his emotions. So much to play with!

Beyond the hair, I exaggerated some of the features, such as the wide mouth and huge eyes. Sometimes simple human features that aren't 'quite right' can be quite freaky in and of themselves. Couple that with playing around with lighting effects and colour and it could come out pretty effective! 

If nothing else, playing around with this could help me to come up with some things that could even be used in the dreamscapes for Dreamwalkers. What do you guys think?

Until next time!

Tara

Take Two!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Firstly, I hope everyone had a great Easter and didn't get trolled too hard for April first. I know that it's been busy for me over the weekend, since plenty of people want to go out over Easter and when everyone else is off, bar workers tent to, well, work. lol. Not only that, my dad retired and my family and I had a party for him. It was pretty fun, nice to see some of the family again and dad seemed to have a good time too, so a success all in all :) We even had a cake that was modeled after him to make it seem like he was lounging on a beach. It was almost a shame to cut into it, to be honest.

All that aside, I'm not sure if you guys remembered a picture I did back in June of last year (the blog was called 'Two For One' if you need a refresh of what that blog entailed) which was a portrait of a character named Shinobu done in a somewhat different style to what I normally use. Said style mostly relied on making shapes of colour and blending in to create the image. Well, I decided I wanted to have a go at redoing the image, but in my usual style. This meant doing the line art and going from there.

No real reason for it, but I wanted to see how different she might look, or if she was still recognisable as Shinobu in my usual style.

Admittedly, its not finished - like I said, bit of a busy week - but I did do the line art and flat colour, so thought I might at least show what I got so far.

Admittedly, wasn't too happy with the line art and needs some lights and shadows, but she's still pretty recognisable despite being in a different style. It's always good to see if a character made can still be identified even when the art is a bit different. Though it's unfinished, anyone got thoughts on the two styles? Or even have a preference?

Not to say it can't be improved on, of course. I'm pretty sure I could do a lot better. Still, for being done while short on time, I'm not complaining too much. Goes to show I should try and have more time dedicated to digital art to get a bit better with my line art, though.

Anyone else feel like, if they've not done much in way of drawing for a bit, you need to refresh to get back into the skill you had? Or get off days where you suddenly wonder if you could draw at all? Yeah, pretty much the issue here, I think.

Welp! Just means I should get in some practice before  really get back into Dreamwalkers and stuff.

Speaking of that, I'm currently working on the script for it. I wasn't entirely impressed with the previous version, looking back, especially since the chapter is supposed to be introducing SOS, so time for 2.0! Wish me luck!

Until next time!

Tara

Devilish Sketch!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Do you remember that devil boy I did? I showed a few concepts for the comic idea where the characters were concerned and messed around with an idea including possible colours for him. Well, this time I actually have a poster idea for the guy!

Long story short, my devil dude is just kinda fun to draw. lol

But either way, a sketch became a poster idea (though the background for it is still a little up for debate) and thought hey, why not show him? I do hope to get it into full colour at some point as well, after all. So, here's what I got!

It's meant to be a kind of shot of him laying down, though since it only shows his top half and I haven't really put any indication in the background that he actually is lying down, such as creases like on the cloth under the sketchpad, so I suppose it currently looks like he just flung his arms behind his head. lol.

Its possible I put in a few too many straps on the body, too, so on the digital version I may need to play with that a bit too, along with the straps themselves. The current straps don't look particually belt like, but likewise they dont quite have the 'click into place' thing I was going for. Still, the joys of digital means I can experiment without ruining the paper or the base drawing.

I may have mentioned that a few times in other blogs, but hey, bares repeating!

For those of you who work purely with pen, you have my upmost awe to pull off such works of art without messing up, let me tell you! Course, I might just be a bit too heavy handed as well. Still, you people have skill!

Still, if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to let me know! It's always good to see if there's room for improvement (believe me, there is always room for it! I'm always happy to learn new skills!)

Until next time!

Tara

Dreamwalker Sketch!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Well, its been a while since I actually drew anything for Dreamwalkers, honestly, especially where one of the characters is concerned. The character in this case being the first of the female members of SOS, Ashling. Now, Ashling has been mentioned before and even one of her concepts has been shown. However, I never did a full body of her and, as with all the characters in Dreamwalkers, they are a bit more realistic in the fact they dont constantly wear the same outfits either. The outfit she wore on the initial picture is not the one she's wearing when she first shows up in the comic itself.

Today I'm showing the initial outfit, or at least its concept, in a full body sketch (though it doesn't have any facial detail as that wasn't the parts I was focusing on in the sketch. I was mainly working out her clothing).

This start outfit has gone through several versions, simple as it may seem at first glance. The reason for this was because in Ashling's debut, there were several scenes which would have been awkward had she been in, say, a skirt. For example, fighting scenes or dramatic angles might have resulted in unnecessary panty shots. I'll say this now that I usually very much dislike 'fanservice' just for the sake of it in very distracting parts when a scene is meant to be somewhat serious. I had then tried it with shorts underneath to match the dark top that is under her shirt, but the design made her seem more like a younger teen than a mid to older one. That or it looked a bit odd when also adding those boots to the equation. In the end, I wanted to go for a more 'tomboy' feel, and while her clothes could be school uniform-ish, it wouldn't be too difficult to make it more of a simple style rather than a uniform coloured oddly.

With this design, it ended up feeling more practical for action scenes that occur soon after her appearence, and allows her to have a bit more freedom of movement without needing to worry about accidentally flashing someone. Its not to say she'll never wear a skirt or dress, but at least for her first appearence I'd rather her at least get a awesome first showing rather than coming across as 'token girl who's only there for fanservice'.

Believe me, though, she is a fairly fun character to draw in action scenes and I'm really looking forwards to getting those full sized, detailed moments in production phase. But even at the thumbnail phase, she's fun if only because she gets to be sassy even without me adding words. lol!

On another note, I'm now on some sketched idea phase for the badges that TanraStudios hopes to implement. Twelve ideas in total, six being in the usual style, six being in Chibi form. I'm honestly looking forwards to it. All I'm waiting on at the moment is the dimensions to work towards so I know just what room I have to work in. Should be lots of fun to see what I end up coming up with. I've got a few ideas already that I hope will work. In the meantime, though, I'll be having a bit of practice on line weight and some interesting expressions for the characters. After all, I'll want to be sure to get the best sides on their faces if that's the main part of the drawing, right?

Until next time!

Tara

Where Will You Be?

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Do you know when you dig through some of your old things in order to get better organised and get rid of old junk and you end up digging up some interesting things? I dont mean stuff like rubbish that should have been thrown away or old clothing that no longer fits in this case, but rather old work or pictures that you drew when you were younger. The kind that you look at and think 'Did I really do that?' or 'God, what was I thinking?!'

Well, as you can probebly guess from where I started from here, I was, indeed, looking through older stuff. Most of it was because I was looking for specific storyboarding for Dreamwalkers at the time, old notes, plans for later, that kind of thing. While doing so I actually found something I drew a while ago (during University) that was essentially one of those 'Where do you see yourself in ten years' kind of thing. I've done similar things at school, as I recall, although most of those were written things or just a single picture we would have to draw. This one we had 9 panels to essentially draw a 'day in the life story' depicting where you want to be in ten years.

It was only a pencil sketch and pretty rough, but it ended up being me getting ready, working on comics that are part of Tanra Studios and doing the 'handover' to Nadia, my partner in crime. (For those of you unsure, the story of Pandora in its comic form rather than the mini tales and hints given in the blogs that give additional info about the general world of the story, is done between Nadia and I, with the first volume currently being drawn by Nadia and will eventually come to me for volume two, then back to Nadia and so forth). It somewhat amused me, so I thought, hey, why not show it here? Who knows, maybe in ten years I can look back on it and see if what I hoped for is a reality at that point.

Please excuse it as it is a bit crumpled. Apparently old me needed to invest in a better folder. lol

Here's hoping that it isn't too faint. 

To be honest, doing a 'day in a life' comic strip wouldn't be a bad idea. Well, it wouldn't be daily as, honestly, I'm fairly boring, but I do sometimes hear fully stuff at the pub I work at (The amount of stupid questions or overheard conversations is rediculous) and my dog can be funny (And always cute). I also get to see my young niece fairly often too, so who knows, I might do some quick sketches. Maybe one day I can make a compilation of just silly real life scenarios. If nothing else, if I ever ran out of other things to do, I would end up with plenty of material for a short series :) I recall I contemplated doing a kids comic for a uni project once that was likely to be based around my dog Oscar and my late cat Toby (I miss the little fluff....), though in the end, due to page limits I ended up doing a short story who's main character ended up being one of the forerunners (and eventual sibling) for Rem in Dreamwalkers.

Still! More stuff for me in the future :) Still, it is curious to think of where we might be in the future, if we have dreams and/or ambitions we want to achieve, or if we have any plans at all. Where do you all think we'll be then? Well, whatever it is, we'll have to do our best. The future is only what you make of it, as they say (whoever 'they' are. lol)

Anyway, until next time!

Tara

Feeling Moogle-d!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

This week I've been mostly focusing on a bit of self-research about social media. Despite having a bit of an online presence, admittedly it could be a hell of a lot better. I've just never been overly sure of what to write down on witter or Facebook that might be interesting other than maybe boring people to death chatting about what silly antics my pet dog has got up to or what I happened to eat that day.

Really, I'm not that interesting to be honest. Or at least I'm not good at on the spot tweeting because I second guess myself, since my blogs might not be interesting if I already mentioned everything before (Assuming I dont bore everyone to death with my rambling. lol)

Still, I do want to improve myself, and, if I look into it properly, it might also help out TanraStudios as well. Yay!

But either way, I admit I've not done too much this week in terms of my actual art because of that beyond a few silly doodles for badge ideas that really are in no state to be shown just yet.

On the other hand, I did find a doodle I did a little while ago. I remember that I was chatting with some friends on Discord and for whatever reason, we ended up discussing me as a Moogle (As in the little creatures from Final Fantasy games). Deciding to go a step further, I ended up doing a quick five minute sketch on the subject and ended up with this:

I have a bit of a habit of wearing things like hoodies and stuff, so I ended up just drawing the Moogle in the type of clothes I might wear, making its head 'fur' resemble my usual hairstyle (My hair is usually just pulled back like that because it really is a pain to deal with or takes hours to deal with. I honestly would rather be doing anything else than tame my hair. lol) and, if only to drive the point home in the sketch, I wrote the initials of my penname (Chosha Kurenai) on the ball on its head.

For a sketch that barely took a few minutes, I thought it came out pretty good. I might have to do a much more clean version at some point. lol. 

Admittedly, I've never really attempted to draw myself as an animal or something before, even if the Luphin is my mascot. Luphin, after all, is not me. But it is kind of interesting to think about what features you have that you can still transfer over to a non-human and have it still, if only slightly, resemble yourself. 

Of course, I doubt that, if I was an animal, I'd be a Moodle. I doubt I'd be one of my favourite animals either (Fox or Dragon, the latter if one is leaning into mythology). I'd probebly end up as a Sloth. Tara the sloth, what do you think? Might have to try drawing myself as animals at some point. Could be funny! Or a bit too literal? Who knows?

Until next time!

Tara