Lollipop lollipop oh lolli lolli lolli lollipop… stfu!

...another work in progress

Another work in progress. I had every intention of finishing this weeks ago but my PC very recently died. I have a more up to date version on my hard drive but I can’t get to it. The only reason that I’m able to show it at these stages is because I uploaded these to show a friend and ask for some criticism. I used reference that I found on google image search. I intended to paint a girl with a lollipop so if you want find the reference image try using search terms to do with girls with lollipops.

The image was supposed to be a long overdue response to a sketch exchange with a friend of mine on the other side of the world. It’s probably close to a year overdue so I decided to spend sometime on it to make up for it. I’d normally spend way less time on a picture for a sketch exchange.

Since the stage of completion I have here I’ve worked a lot more on defining the hand. I haven’t really worked on her vest top at all yet and that space is still just blobbed palette type space. I think I’ve spent about 4 hours total on it now but at the stage to the left it’s about 3 hours.

an earlier stage

If you compare the two images I’ve posted here you will see a big part of my working process. It’s why I love digital. I’m quite lazy when I first start an image and as a result I often don’t place the elements correctly or in the right proportions. As a result, at some point during my process, I have to take a step back with a critical eye and then cut and move and re-size as necessary. I should really get used to checking my proportions and positioning earlier than I do.

Now my PC is broken I guess I’ll be working traditionally more now. Which I guess will force me to be more careful at the earlier stages. Traditional materials aren’t as forgiving as digital.

I recently bought a tattoo kit. I’ve been practicing on my leg. I guess that’s one way make sure I get things right at the beginning. It’s a hell of a lot more difficult to fix a tattoo than it is to fix digital or even most traditional methods.

Face it.

Work in progress. I'm having fun with this one.

I think I’m starting to get a little bit more comfortable with my artistic abilities. I’m more proud of this than a lot of things I do.

I’ve noticed that if you want something to come out nice then you have to put in the hours. I think I noticed that it takes time to do really nice work back when I was doing the booby picture, which I still haven’t gone back to to finish.

So far I think I’ve spent close to 3 and a half hours on this. That’s probably too long considering it’s just a head but I have tweaked it several times and I was chatting to a few friends on MSN Messenger at the same time. I think it was the fact that I Was chatting to them that has allowed me to swallow my lack of self confidence and post this. I figured that since hardly anyone checks this out that not many people will see it anyway, and since I’ve already shown it to several friends for constructive criticism and their input there’s not much point in hiding it away from the world.

Progress shots.

Maybe I should have done a crop before posting it but I am still working on this, even though I’ve left it for a few days now, and that’s how my page is right now.

I’ve also uploaded a sheet of progress shots for anyone that’s interested. Including the most recent shot, shown above, this should make 9 out of the 10 progress shots I’ve saved. Shot number 9 is the only one missing, it contains some feature placement adjustments prior to blending. You’ll notice that in the progress shots that she has a very narrow lower face, her mouth is pretty low and slightly off centre and the eye on the right side of the page could do with bringing in towards her nose. These are issues I fixed at stage 9.

I think I’m trying to fix the shadows just by her mouth next and maybe sort out the chin area a little. I’m also considering more contrast on her face.

Input and advice is welcome.

On a different note, I think I need to rethink the gallery page. Right now it just has old stuff on it and I should come up with a way of making it easier for myself to add new things to it. I may temporarily remove it completely while I consider my options.

edit – After some thought, I think I’m going to try and focus on working on and posting at least one image a month. I’ll delete the existing gallery page within the next few weeks, and start a new one archiving the images I produce each month at their closest to complete stage.

[nsfw]… Abandoned but not forgotten.

Work In Progress (potentially abandoned)

I’m starting to really mess up university I think. I’m really behind right now and don’t have much to show.

Here is an image that I was working on around Christmas that I’ve given up on. I just lost interest in it after the Christmas break, I did plan on doing the head and adding a forearm and hand into the image. The breasts also still need fixing.

I’ll try and get more done and show it to you guys but I’m very disorganized right now and have very little motivation. My life isn’t really going well. I’ll survive I guess.

Delving into my memories I uncovered a few videos I’d edited quite a while back. Me and a friend were very into AMVs (anime music videos) and the creation process. We weren’t very good but we were proud of ourselves at the time. I’ve uploaded two onto youtube, one that I created and one that we created together. Unsurprisingly the really ecchi one we did together for fun has way more hits than the ‘better’ one.

The first one I uploaded is made up of parts from the series Full Metal Panic! and the song Untouchable by Garbage.

The second is the ecchi one made up from parts of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, mostly from one single episode, and the song My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne.

I hope you enjoy these. I certainly got a laugh out of how bad they were when I rediscovered them.

The Western Front.

Northern Cardinal Speedpaint

Things are a little too quiet around here.

I promised myself I’d update this thing regularly but it’s not happening. I decided that I’d post my work as and when I was doing it so I’ve always got something to show off, but for the last few weeks it feel like most of what I’ve been doing hasn’t met my own standards for showing off or has been research.

I’ve taken plenty of photos but I’m not a photographer and doubt anything I’ve snapped would be of much interest to the rest of the world. Maybe I should just pull my finger out and get some more hobby painting done? I just need to find time for it I guess.

edit – I’ve thrown in a nice little birdy to add a splash of colour to this dull post.

Jumping in at the deep end.

Diver Speedpaint

Welcome one and all to my new place for putting my art and other things.

My old blog was hosted on blogger (link) but I’ve gotten sick of some of the features, or should I say lack of? don’t get me wrong blogger has a lot of cool stuff but since it changed the way it worked I’ve messed up.

When it first changed to the new blogger there wasn’t any reason at all for me to want to leave the old way behind. The new way was restrictive with few features and the old allowed me to completely mess with the theme through the HTML and CSS so I went with the old style. As it turns out you can downgrade your blog to the old style but can’t upgrade it to the new unless you make a new blog and copy all your posts over. And now it would seem that blogger are forgetting the old style completely since it’s functionality has started to get a little odd.

I figured if I’m going to start the blog over I may as well try moving to another field where the grass looks a little greener. So far I’m enjoying myself.

I’ve added two pages in addition to the main page. One contains a gallery of some of my older work such as the diver picture here. The other has a little bio section for those of you that may be interested in me.

I hope you enjoy having a look around and come back soon.