More Squirrel Arts

[mistformsquirrl]

Purely for kicks, I've decided to post a really, really, really old piece of my art. This is from 2006 -

I'm posting a DA link because it has the explanation of the piece beneath it and I don't want to retype it.

Suffice to say, it may be old and imperfect... but I can't lie, that piece has reminded me that I don't entirely suck. Clearly I have moments where I can do alright.

[TheCountAlucard]

Nice stuff, as usual.

[mistformsquirrl]

*edit* Thanks Alucard <^_^> dunno why I missed your post there earlier!

Something I"m fooling with for a Pathfinder character:

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[mistformsquirrl]

Another Pathfinder character of mine:



This is an unusual style for me, but I was experimenting and kinda liked it. Hardly perfect of course, but hopefully there'll be much more new art in the new year!

[mistformsquirrl]

It's been awhile everyone, hi!

Did a little more art today, it's still a work in progress at the moment:

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*edit*

Here's the shaded version:

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[mistformsquirrl]

<^_^> I have some work to show off from during the break! Well, really just one piece that's only been penciled thus far. But you know what? I'm happy with it so far. Really, really happy with it.

Here's the requisite DA link so you can see it up close if you're so inclined:

DA link!

And of course the spoilered Photobucket pic, if you're not interested in going to DA for one reason or another:

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As for what this image is all about:

These two characters, Ayanei (the girl with the ponytail), and Duros (the cyborg/robot), come from a story I wrote as a college sophomore during a Creative Writing class. Specifically it was written as a script for a play.* The professor liked it, I certainly enjoyed writing it - and since then I've on and off toyed with the idea of putting it together either as a traditional prose novel; or the graphic novel it was originally intended to be.

What really makes me happy here though isn't the history of this piece - though that's important for me.** Rather, it's the quality. It's far from perfect - but this is much better work than I can usually make. This is in all probability going to be my single best piece of art to date when it's finished.

There's two things I discovered in working on this:

1) I need to slow the frak down. Seriously, I used to try to cram out my art as fast as humanly possible, and not only did that cause a lot of mistakes - but it also left little opportunity for all the fun details.

2) I need to put a penciling stage between my sketching and my inking. Currently my sketching is extremely general - it's mostly just about getting basic shapes on the page. When I go directly to inking from that, I have to make up the details as I go. With this in-between pencil stage, I can feel out the details and such without having to worry about things like line technique or smoothness. Basically it's a stage where my lines can be a bit jaggedy and I can just shrug because that's kind of the point.

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For fun, here are a couple *very old* pieces, to give you a comparison of how these characters (and my art skills) have evolved:

Duros:

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Ayanei:

Multiple pics ahoy -

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As you can see, some of those pictures are super-super old. (Heck, most of these were from when I still drew on lined paper during class for the most part <'x'> Lol, and one even has hiragana in it from when I was learning Japanese later in college >,<)

Anyway, mostly just a trip down memory lane for me, plus the new pic.

*Yes a play - that was the assignment. Of course I was hardly the only person to note that a script for a play can easily become a script for a graphic novel.

**I wrote this when I was 19. I'm 30 now - so this story has a lot of history with me. In fact, now that I think about it, it might well be my oldest complete story concept. I've got characters who are older, who have eventually evolved their own stories around them as time has gone on... but this particular story is almost certainly the oldest for me. So yeah, lot of nostalgia working on this too.

[Eldest]

I like it. Afraid I don't have much else to add.

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks Eldest, I'm glad you like it <^,^> I've been really enjoying working on it.

[mistformsquirrl]

Moar arts!

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My character, Yumi, as she originally appeared in Dark Age of Camelot, the game in which I created her >_>/

For greater detail, read here.

[mistformsquirrl]

Update of the previous piece, this time with flat colors and some line improvements!

Mandatory DA Link

Equally mandatory image under spoiler:

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Very pleased with where this is going <^_^>

[TheCountAlucard]

Agreed, it looks great.

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks Alucard! <^_^> Hopefully when I finish the shades (something I'm going to be experimenting with significantly), this piece will really look good, at least compared to my usual work.

Trying to work on Huoshan is part of what prompted this particular series of drawings. Quite frankly, I was desperately unhappy with my work on him, to the point where despite putting about 8 hours into drawing him, I decided to just leave it lie, it's too embarrassing to post. My hope is that by practicing like crazy I can improve, then I can work on a portfolio and finally get back to college.* (Naturally the hope is that as I improve, I can also come back and do these requests to a much higher standard than I had been able to. I've been working on art since I was 5, and doing it seriously since I was 16 - you can imagine how depressing it is to only be at this level after all this time.)

*I had to drop out during the second half of my Junior year for a whoooooole laundry list of reasons. Ten years later, I am still quite bitter over that loss.

[mistformsquirrl]

Alrighty, I've been continuing to work on the same picture, and I've got a bit of an update.

Before I post it however, I need to post a big disclaimer:

This is not at all done - it's not even cleaned up - meaning you will see a fair bit of coloring outside the lines here. There are also a lot of sections that simply have not been shaded yet, and the studs in the armor have not yet been given the bronze treatment I intend to (they're at present the same color as the leather they're in).

In short: I'm posting this not because it's really ready to be seen as a work on it's own, but because I think it shows where this piece is headed; and that last part makes me excited for this.

Anyway - here you go. I highly recommend clicking through the picture and using the small magnifying glass twice in order to see the image full size.

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I'm not posting it to DA in this state since most people there don't look at the text and wouldn't really get the point of posting a piece in such an unfinished state.

Anyway that's where I'm at as of right now. The leather armor has taken *days* to figure out. The actual work on it didn't take so long, but figuring out how to get it to where it is was quite difficult. (I've never drawn leather that was shaded in this kind of style before.)

What I'm happy with:

Pretty much all the shading. The anatomy of the body below the neck. There are a few flaws, but they're not as glaring as some of my work and I suspect my next piece will give me a chance to eliminate those.

While neither the shading nor anatomy are perfect, I think they show significant improvement over my usual work.

What I'm not happy with: The size of the head and the length of the neck, also the face (particularly the eyes).

I've seen "realistic" anime style pictures enough times to know that it can be done... but I'm clearly not there yet, so the face is kind of derpy compared to what I want it to be. Eventually I'll hit the right note, it's just going to take more practice, and I couldn't seem to manage it for this particular piece.

The head size is also too large in general - originally I made it too small* - so I deliberately increased the size and the result isn't what I wanted it to be. (In black and white it seemed alright, but once I added color it started to be painfully obvious.)

Neck length is another issue - the head is just too far off the body - not by a huge margin, but by enough that it'd be freakish in real life. Again something I didn't really notice until I'd started adding colors.

That said, I think I can correct most of these issues in the next piece, so that'll be OK.

Next step will probably be to work on the beige cloth areas (arms, legs, skirt) or the bronze (studs and weapons). The boots I'm still debating a bit... I could do them in the same style as the armor, or I could take them in another direction. I'll probably do the former in the end, but I'm not ready to commit just yet.

*She is after all supposed to be about 13-14 in this picture, and thus would have a larger head-to-body ratio than an adult.

[mistformsquirrl]

Further work -

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Cleaned the picture up a bit, did the leggings, sleeves and skirt.

One thing that's starting to bother me though: The armor is more orange than I realized. May have to go back and tone it down after I get everything else done.

[Domochevsky]

Mh, the lighting is shaping up quite nicely, actually.

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks Domochevsky <^_^>b Hoping to get some more work in on it today

[mistformsquirrl]

Another update on the piece:

Mandatory DA Link


Photobucket under spoiler tag:

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Happy indeed with where this is going. I think in addition to what I said on the DA page, I'm also going to brighten the highlights on the leather armor in a couple small places, just to fit in with the rest. Still not totally thrilled how orange the armor turned out, but eh, it works.

[mistformsquirrl]

Dark Age of Camelot picture, complete!

Mandatory DA Link

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There we go, all done!

Info on the character (copied from the DA link):

Thus begins my humble project. For details on the overall project, please see here. For details about this particular incarnation of the character, please read on below!

So, this is the original version of Yumi - I created her shortly after Dark Age of Camelot's Trials of Atlantis expansion came out. I'd wanted to try a Valkyn Savage, one of the new races/classes respectively. I assumed it would be a throwaway character for an afternoon or two - little did I know the mayhem I was unleashing! This version of her is rather... odd frankly, as it bears little resemblance to her later incarnations in personality, fighting style or even visuals.

Anyway, this version of Yumi is 13 years old, rather a brat, and mostly spent her time as a sidekick for a big troll Berserker named Rillan. Despite the early installment weirdness going on here, I have an understandable soft spot for this version of the character.


MMORPG notes:

Dark Age of Camelot was the second MMO I ever played, and the first I genuinely fell in love with. I spent a lot of time with EQ1, but half the time I was pulling my hair out; and I never did find a character during that period that grabbed my attention for long.

At any rate, she's wearing a low level variant of Midgard's Studded Leather armor. I had to fudge a few details however: I couldn't find matching boots, so I went largely by memory on those, they're probably not identical. The bracers/wrist blades are entirely fictional - the hand-to-hand weapons I used in DAOC are very difficult to find a visual for online, so after spending an hour or so looking I gave up and went with my own design there. I don't like doing that, but for a game that old, I don't think that's too shocking really.

It should also be noted that Yumi in-game was a Valkyn, which while not dissimilar to what you see here, was definitely more bestial and walked in a hunched over hobble/limp. They also lacked tails. As noted in my journal, I'm fudging the races I've used for her in various games, as I almost always have to 'make due' rather than getting something close to what I want. Sadly it seems catgirls are not popular among MMO developers for some reason <;_;> *shrug* What'mIgonnado.

Artistic notes:

I'm fairly pleased with this piece. It's definitely my most refined bit of work to date. I wished I'd had the energy left to polish a few more areas up and integrate the background and foreground a bit better, but on the whole, I'm pleased.

My one dislike is the face, head and neck. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong there. I've seen wonderful anime/manga style paintings and drawings with eyes even larger than what I used here, so I don't think it's that. There's just something I'm not quite getting right there. We'll have to work on that as we go along. As for the head and neck - that was just bad proportion work early on. Initially the head was too small, and when I sized it up I had to expand the neck too... and that screwed everything up, but I didn't really notice it until I'd already gotten into coloring and by then I'd decided "Oh screw it." Hopefully the next piece will avoid that misstep. (Let me rephrase that - if I can at all manage, it WILL avoid that.)

Next up:

Final Fantasy XI - Mithra Samurai!

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So yeah, moving right along! <^_^>

[TheCountAlucard]

Movin' right along?

[mistformsquirrl]

I do so love the Muppets <,< Especially Fozzie's old line about a bear's natural habitat being a Studebaker >_>/ So yes, we'll go with that hehe >_<

Probably will be starting the next pic tonight after I wake up, I've been quite sick today so I need to make sure I'm in functioning condition before I jump in >_<

[robertsexton]

its good and liked by all..

http://iaf-ifa.org/

[mistformsquirrl]

So yeah, things haven't been going so great of late.

Sometimes it helps to put the feeling on paper, so I did.

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Deviantart link here: Picture

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On the upside, the weather seems to be in synch with my mood at the moment - it's storming. In a weird way that makes me feel better. *shrug*

[mistformsquirrl]

Woohoo! I think I'm making some progress here!

This is a very, very early stage piece at the moment, but I'm absolutely thrilled how it's coming out so far. Currently working on the Final Fantasy XI version of Yumi, as a sequel to the Dark Age of Camelot version upthread.

Here's the DA link right here

And here's the Photobucket:

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[TheCountAlucard]

Cool drawing, my squirrel friend.

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks Alucard! I'm hoping to clean it up and start shading/highlighting tonight.

[mistformsquirrl]

Two steps forward, one step back tonight.

I got the hair and face mostly done, but I made a serious error with the nose and mouth. Rather than explain it, I'll just show it to you.

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I was so darn focused on getting the shades right that I neglected worrying about the angle and position of the things I was shading.

So yeah, later tonight or tomorrow I'm going to have to redo those bits. That said, I'm pleased with the hair and the rest of the face, though they'll require further work once I've done everything else. That said, I think once I fix the positioning of the mouth and nose it'll actually look quite good. I still want to add more detail to the eyes yet as well, but I'm not sure what yet.

Here's what the piece currently looks like as a whole.

With Lines -

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Without Lines -

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Right now the version with lines still looks a lot better than the version without - partly because it covers up my face error, and partly because it adds detail that wasn't previously there.

That said, I think as I tighten things up, the unlined version will eventually overtake the lined version. If that doesn't work, I can always ink it after the fact.

[mistformsquirrl]

Did some slightly unusual Wildstar fanart today.

It all starts normal enough...


I drew my scanbot.

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DA Link

But... my scanbot is a hipster:

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DA Link

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All told, I'm quite happy with these. They were done *very* quickly, but they actually look fairly nice for the limited time put in. I kinda liked working with big, chunky, sketchy lines for a change, and simply not worrying about precision at all. Not a practical style for serious work; but for something like this? Perfect.

[TheCountAlucard]

D'aww.

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks Alucard <^,^> I take it you approve?

[Domochevsky]

I approve as well. The rough style really helps with doing art fast and at a decent quality, which is good for the constant artistic drive to accomplish.
(Plus, being silly with art is always good. )