Kidnapped by Life! (Or Something)

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Soooo.....sorry I've not been particularly good on delivering on blogs recently. I have to admit that I had been pretty much kidnapped by life. While I'm working on commissions that I can't really show until Christmas - after all, they are presents and I wouldn't want to spoil anything - I also had hours to cover at my day job and even had to have an emergency dentist appointment. It wasn't fun. But hey, if a filling falls out, what can you do if you don't want it to end up hurting or getting worse? And lastly, of course, my ongoing battle with technology - though thankfully the Wi-Fi should be sorted by the end of the month (I hope).

Either way, so I wanted to give my apologies first to those who follow my rambling that I've not been up to much here.

Still, I do have things to show you all today! Admittedly, these are from one of my commissions when I was actually practicing/testing out slightly different manga-like styles for a person. While these are all front view, the actual commission ended up rather different. These, therefore, ended up as good practice for turning a photo into an manga sketch.

As mentioned, its the same person, just with different manga styles, seeing what I would end up with in the end. These below were what I ended up with for each sketch:

All of these were based on the same photo and took....about five minutes to sketch, though it was certainly interesting to try slight differences in style. Admittedly the first and last aren't quite as different as, say, the second one, but it was still interesting even with subtle changes. I'm also not entirely used to drawing characters without fringes (which is kinda funny, if you consider I also don't have a fringe, so drawing myself is often awkward) so getting to try a hair style which doesn't involve lots of hair getting in the way was certainly interesting. Who knows, maybe someone similar (but not exactly the same - at least the hair, anyway) might show up on a character in the future.

If nothing else, it was nice to have the practice a little outside my comfort zone.

I do hope that life will not make a second attempt on my person so I can focus on what I'm doing, though. I want to be able to show you guys some interesting things,. after all, whether they be practice sketches or projects. I do hope that you have liked nosing at these, however.

Until next time!

Tara

More Updates!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Soooooo, I'm still on commissions that I can't yet show anyone just yet. Sucks somewhat that I can't show you my main projects right now, but I thought I would just give everyone a heads up on what's currently going on. The current project that I'm working on is entering the last hurdle and will likely be done by the end of the week, minus any tweaking time. If I had to give an estimate, I would say I've entered the last quarter of the work, just half the shadow and lightning effects to go! It's certainly been interesting working on it so far, let me tell you, especially since the background effects aren't ones I've commonly used before. But it looks like its pretty good so far, so I'm hoping that the last part will go as smoothly.

My day job has been a little odd recently, with last minute changes, so that's the main reason why I've not managed to complete it just yet, but considering I was expecting the project to last until the end of the month, I still have a lot of good timing left, including time for any last minute edits, if editing is needed. Better to overestimate how long I have than underestimate, am I right?

In other news, I have been considering what to work on next once the project I'm working on is finished (minus any more commissions, of course) and I'll admit I've been kind of interested in Persona 5 recently, so thinking of something based around that. Alternatively, there are a few character concepts that I've come up with recently, but have yet to really explore, so I'm looking to focus on those as well.

I've also been recently going through a lot of old story concepts, sketches and such and I'm actually rather interested in seeing what some of the things I came up with as a child were. So I've considered showing a compilation of old sketches and the like, if only to see how much my art style had developed since I was young. There are also times when people redraw things that they drew years ago, to see what they would look like now as well. That's also something that interests me, and could even be quite fun. I know some of my old story ideas were a bit.....meh, but I do recall that I've managed to rewrite and even salvage old ideas into something new, so, who knows, maybe some of those old characters might get to show up elsewhere as well.

Pretty much, I've decided that once my current project is over, I'll certainly have lots of things to show and tell, so to speak. If nothing else, we could all have a laugh at my old kiddy doodles! lol I might even talk about the story ideas they've come from as well, if I find the corresponding notes - I have a looooooot of note books lying around, let me tell you!

Either way, sorry for being somewhat boring for a second post, but I'm at least hoping you'll look forwards to some of the things I have planned. Wish me luck!

Until next time!

Tara

Updates!!!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, not so much in way of pictures today, but this week is mostly a catch up on some interesting things I have going for me this week and to let you know pretty much why I don't have much to really show this week without being lazy and saying 'blog is a no go today kay bye!' - because honestly, the reasons are pretty related to my art work after all.

So, what do I have to update you guys on?

Well, firstly I should mention why no pictures etc this week. Basically, I'm currently hired to do a commission for someone, the art itself being a Christmas gift from the person commissioning me, so I didn't particularly want to spoil any surprise for the person the gift is going to before they have had a chance to receive it. I will do a full update on my project when the time comes to show you what, exactly, has had my attention, but for now, I couldn't really show you except for perhaps a few of my warm up sketches at some point. I'll get around to showing those as well later, but even those could be considered spoilers right now, so....yes, please bare with me, there.

The second update is that I am being presented the opportunity on getting a new Wacom tablet. Yay! At the moment I'm using a fairly standard intuos, which is great for travel due to its sizing, but not particularly overly professional. However, if all goes to plan, I may soon have a Wacom Pro, which is something I'm looking forwards to. A bit more expensive than my intuos was, but at the same time, it should help having better, more professional equipment.

I mean I'd love one of those cintiqs, but I'm not quite at the level I could afford one and not also think 'I have a perfectly serviceable tablet here that I didn't sell my soul to get.

Ah, the life of a poor artist....Oh well, I'm still looking forwards to the Pro.

So perhaps for once I'm not having an attack on tech? Here's hoping that all goes to plan! *fingers crossed*

So yes, I really do apologise for the lack of images today. Hope that you guys weren't bored of me being a waffle iron and waffling on *avoids rotten fruit* and I hope that I can give you more updates and maybe even some fun pics for you next week!

Until next time!

Tara

Little Straight-Jacket Devil

Hey Everyone! Welcome back!

Well, I'll admit that this week, rather than working on much of my own plans, or doing freelance work, my body decided to instead be mean to me and I've spent most of this week battling with flu. Yay me! While I'm used to getting colds now and then, flu was definitely a different kettle of fish, let me tell you. While I'm recovering somewhat now, I've still been tiring very quickly. It's my hope that I'm over the worst anyway, because believe me, I'm getting sick and tired of being....well, sick and tired. lol.

Perhaps, rather than looking at my art work, I should do a post purely dedicated to cold and flu symptom treatments since that's literally all that got me through this week. But I digress.

I did manage to do a bit of work towards the sketch that I showed last time, though I am currently working on deciding what colours might work for the character. My first colour attempts made the character very grey scale. On the one hand, this could work for me if I wanted to go for that kind of feeling to it (and there are times when grey scale really does work with art styles!) but it did also make the character a little washed out. It could, however, work if I go back to the slightly different art style I had for the character (I'll go through my various designs for him next time)

For this time, however, I wanted to see if I could add at least a little colour to him. So far, this is one that made him the least washed out without taking away from the straight-jacket theme, though I will show a few other versions another time if I move away from a white coloured jacket to something more 'tan'.

The little 'wing' thing was mostly just me playing around rather than an actual 'wing' for the character. (He does actually have wings, just less cartoony. I'm still partly deciding if I wanted to go for feathers or bat like for him as both could work in terms of story and aesthetically. Originally he was also going to be paler skinned, but it made him look somewhat washed out.

Another colour idea I'm toying with is to reverse the colours somewhat, giving him a dark coloured outfit with pale belts and straps, which could also work, though it might take away from the straight jacket feel to the outfit. It is a thought, however. If that was the case it might give me a little more room to play, colour wise.

Of course, if anyone has any suggestions, I'll be happy to hear them!

I'm sorry that this isn't a particularly long one this time. I'll be doing my best to get back to good health again! Hopefully if I do, I'll be able to actually do some better quality art for you all. For now, back to dosing myself up with cold and flu medicines and drinking lots of water and herbal teas!

Until next time!

Tara

Hey, Hello, Hi!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So I've been a bit on the busy side lately. I mentioned it on my twitter, but in case anyone missed it, I had been doing some freelance work for the past couple of weeks and so I wasn't really able to focus on my own personal projects. Because of this I thought the very small blog post I would have given would have been a little on the boring side and as such decided to save it until I was finished.

As it is, I'm currently back from the freelance job and as such I should be capable of bringing you guys some more art once again now I have the time to focus on my own personal projects once again. Despite this, I want to say sorry for leaving you all hanging and thank you for being patient with me! :)

While I didn't really get much of anything done, I have at least done a sketch of something I'm going to be working on, however, so if nothing else, I'll at least give you a peak at what I'll be doing. :)

If nothing else, the buckles will likely kill me. lol. But anyway, this is a character from one of my story ideas which I came up with around the time I had to pick 6 ideas to base one of my comics on. Since it's pretty close to Halloween, it seemed fitting to do a few doodles if nothing else. This character is from the same story that the hex doll picture is from, though currently in a less threatening form. His outfit was based somewhat on a straight jacket, hence the large amounts of buckles and 'restraints'. As for the character himself....well, essentially he is from a story I call 'Devil Contract'. As such it might be fairly easy to consider what this character might be when he is looking slightly less human.

I'll admit, buckles aside, I do like to draw this character quite a bit, to be honest, alongside the hex doll, so I might draw up a few concepts to share with everyone as well. I'd be nice to draw him a bit and maybe look at earlier concepts of him as well.

Sorry for this being a bit of a short one. I hope to give you guys a lot more progress in the next one!

Until next time!

Tara

Return of the Mascot!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, since it is 'Inktober', I decided that this month I would be making vaguely 'halloweeny'. So, to start off all of that (since I started this whole thing a little late, admittedly) I decided the first of my Halloween images should be that of my mascot, Luphin. As you may or may not have seen in the past, I have drawn Luphin in various holiday images, such as for Valentines Day, Easter and Christmas, but for some reason, I had never actually done one for Halloween. Seemed like as good a time as any to finally rectify that! :)

For those who might not have been there during Luphin's conception, you may be wondering what on earth I'm talking about. Well, Luphin originally came into being as a bit of an in joke between myself and a friend. It mainly involved a toy I bought at a convention - a mochi cat. Now, I'm not sure if that was the actual name of the item, but it kinda reminds me of mochi with cat expression, ears, tail and tiny stubby feet. It was after the convention that I was joking about how on earth it would move, if a real living one existed, and joked that it couldn't possibly walk on the stubby legs and would have to roll everywhere. To illustrate the point I rolled the toy off the hotel bed saying 'La la la'.

Eh, we had a long day. Anything could seem funny.

But either way, that in and of itself was what lead to the eventual creation of Luphin, little fuzzy creatures that only speak in 'La' sounds and were essentially accidental creations. What Luphin look like....well, you've seen them a lot - my avatar image with my user name shows one of them! Although admittedly the original versions were pink. (These days they could be any pastel colouring).

As for the name....we were also joking about why it was made in the first place and I mentioned it was likely for cleaning purposes with the odd tail it has, which in original concepts resembled a luffa. The name Luphin derived from that.

...For an in joke, I think I overthought it a bit. lol!

Backstory out of the way, here we go! The Halloween Luphin!

It has been a while since I last drawn my mascot, so I'm very happy to see a Luphin once again. Considering how Luphin look - mainly just....kinda cute...I was trying to think how to make it 'Halloweeny' and so I thought, well, why not add a few Halloween props instead. As such, an iconic pumpkin and a witch's hat. Admittedly the hat went through a few colour changes as one of them was originally a type of green colour. Since that looked far too much like some kind of deformed Leprechaun hat instead, it's colour changed. No offense to Leprechauns (or people who like that horror movie series) but it didn't quite fit the feel of Halloween. Not to mention that the blue-purple colour fits the pinkish fur a bit more.
I might work on it a bit more to maybe give a bit of extra shine to it at some point, either surface stuff or maybe to have the pumpkin itself lit up, but for now, I was happy with how it came out.

Hey, if you guys think I should try any other holiday with Luphin, throw me a suggestion and I'll see how it goes!

This coming week I have a project that I'll be working on, but I'll do my best to work on another personal project as well for Inktober. Wish me luck!

Until next time!

Tara

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