Capt. Ido learns to steal thread ideas (and also draw)!

[Domochevsky]

Î see what you did there.

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by Capt. Ido Nos

Some days, you just gotta throw out all your ideas and say "screw it, I'm drawing a bird".

Day 28 - One of those days

Spoiler

Time: 1 hour
Tunes: Gotta Move That Gear Up
Treference: This here raven.

Somehow I made it look angry. This was... unintentional!

$&*@ me, he's a bird!

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Originally Posted by Domochevsky

Î see what you did there.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

$&*@ me, he's a bird!

^^;;

Hey look, today's a double feature! Trying to get that backup filled in.

Day 29 - A little Profiling

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Trying something a little different with the face drawing method. I've been pretty dissatisfied with how things have gotten with these lately (especially the jawline, and especially the nose. Seriously screw you, noses )

I'll probably try and do a whole page of faces this week, though they'll have to be faster and messier than these, these were like, Ido's primo face drawings at 10 minutes a pop >_> Speed AND quality is a thing that needs to be learned.

Day 30 - Totally paying attention during this meeting! :applejack:

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Nothing super fancy, though I tried to go for good form with these. That doesn't carry over to my photography abilities though, so heads up there. This is why I love my tablet so much, while I really like the pencil/paper combo, I can actually SHOW people my stuff digitally and not spend tonsa time cleaning and scanning it ^^;;

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Day 31 - Feeling a little Sketchy

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Trying something a bit different today. Let focus on polish, more focus on shape, and speed. Limited myself to 30 minutes, no erasing, left in my bottom prelim layer at 30% opacity for good measure. I wanted to try and get the pose, the proportions, and some rough detail in, like the shape of the arm, and some rough folds of the clothes (two things I excel at doing poorly).

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Day 32 is still a WiP right now, and I'd really prefer to post it when it's done, which due to a last minute schedule change that shot tomorrow up to heck, will actually be on Thursday. Just checking in and saying that stuff's getting done, even though it's not posted

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Day 32 is STILL WiP, but I've got a nice block of time to myself this weekend to take care of it (and also nurse this cold I'm afraid I'm coming down with )

In any case, here's day 33. It's Discord.

Day 33 - It's Discord

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Oh gosh why Ido, why do you do this to yourself.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

**Capt. Ido is sick and has lost all ability to hold a cohesive creative thought. Draw challenge is on hold until that gets better. Pardon our problems.**
feel free to look at my old stuff and comment in the meanwhile. I'm sure I've done SOMETHING wrong enough to merit a critique ^^;;

[Thanqol]

Get well soon, dood.

Day 33 is nice, intimidating and twisty, but I'm not sure about the "I dunno" hands. It's a nice touch intellectually, but it just seems at odds with the framing of the rest of the picture. When paired with the expression, it doesn't look like a shrug.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Originally Posted by Thanqol

Get well soon, dood.

Day 33 is nice, intimidating and twisty, but I'm not sure about the "I dunno" hands. It's a nice touch intellectually, but it just seems at odds with the framing of the rest of the picture. When paired with the expression, it doesn't look like a shrug.

Thanks! (:

I'm glad you liked everything except the arms! That was pretty much my opinion of them too. I just couldn't think of any other way to pose them and either not make them just hang there, look stupid, or both. Any idea on what I could have done? I think that's going to bother me the more I look at it

Hey everyone, I'm back! My cold's cleared up and my ability to look at a blank canvas and see a picture has returned! I did honestly try to make something while I was sick, but it was seriously like a switch had turned off in my brain, and all my creative juices were gone. I couldn't even minecraft properly! I just ended up leveling a large swatch of land and reorganized my SMP's entire storehouse >_>

Anyway! Now that nasty mess is out of the way, it's time for

Day 34 - Get Well Soon

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A little something different today, going for a little cutesy thing while actually paying attention to my line weight. I think I press down too hard with the stylus, all my lines are much fatter than if I just dragged it across the tablet. Does it look sort of like it worked?

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by Capt. Ido Nos

Thanks! (:

I'm glad you liked everything except the arms! That was pretty much my opinion of them too. I just couldn't think of any other way to pose them and either not make them just hang there, look stupid, or both. Any idea on what I could have done? I think that's going to bother me the more I look at it

I am absolutely convinced that one should be coming forwards to the foreground of the picture in a slash-grab gesture, showing off the perspective and the sharpness of the claws. Perhaps rubbing his chin, even. That done, the other would have been able to be put in a counterbalancy-position, meaning you wouldn't have to do much with it, or be holding something - possibly his cat-umbrella.

Problem is that because the hands are in the background, and they're roughly vertical in the background - try stretching your neck forwards as far as it'll go, and then raising your hands vertically like Discord's doing as far back as possible. It feels unnatural, right? If your head's going forwards your arms should be going forwards too.

Day 34 - Get Well Soon

Spoiler

A little something different today, going for a little cutesy thing while actually paying attention to my line weight. I think I press down too hard with the stylus, all my lines are much fatter than if I just dragged it across the tablet. Does it look sort of like it worked?

By and large, yeah. I think the top part of the hood could do with a bit of tweaking, but that's just 'cause I've been practising hoods a lot recently. Otherwise seems effective for the style.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Originally Posted by Thanqol

I am absolutely convinced that one should be coming forwards to the foreground of the picture in a slash-grab gesture, showing off the perspective and the sharpness of the claws. Perhaps rubbing his chin, even. That done, the other would have been able to be put in a counterbalancy-position, meaning you wouldn't have to do much with it, or be holding something - possibly his cat-umbrella.

Problem is that because the hands are in the background, and they're roughly vertical in the background - try stretching your neck forwards as far as it'll go, and then raising your hands vertically like Discord's doing as far back as possible. It feels unnatural, right? If your head's going forwards your arms should be going forwards too.

Yes, I'm liking that, that's MUCH better than what I have, haha. Definitely the clawed hand (not the pawed hand) doing a reach-towards-the-viewer gesture, and the pawed hand (not the clawed hand) in a readied stance.

You are right about the unnaturalness about the pose. Okay, this sounds weird, but that's *almost* what I was going for? Do you happen to read Gunnerkrigg Court, Thanq? Anyone? For those that do, Discord, to me, is nearly a dead ringer for Coyote, with more of an Evil slant to Coyote's Neutral. Tom (the author/artist) gives Coyote this wonderful fluid stance and form, where he practically flows where he wants to be, rather than a solid body of motion. Discord, I love him and all, but he actually felt rather stiff to me. He's got this long serpentine body, but he never uses it! I aim to fix that, says I. Definitely going to be coming back to this guy, he's too much fun.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

By and large, yeah. I think the top part of the hood could do with a bit of tweaking, but that's just 'cause I've been practising hoods a lot recently. Otherwise seems effective for the style.

Again, you're right! I came back in the morning, took one look at that hood, and wondered what I was thinking. That whole bit on the right probably shouldn't even be there, I'd go as far as saying. Hoods are fun to draw though =)


Day 35 - Good draw, best friend

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Today you all get corgi, because they are the best. I tried to do a bit of fur coloring using just a smidge of cross-hatching. Not sure if worked. I'm actually exhausted, this I think was the hardest day to actually put the pen to paper. BUT I DID IT BECAUSE IT IS GOOD FOR ME. Aw ye*passes out, face landing on submit reply*

[Trazoi]

Originally Posted by Capt. Ido Nos

I tried to do a bit of fur coloring using just a smidge of cross-hatching. Not sure if worked.

Looks like it worked to me.

[Domochevsky]

Posing this challenge to the three of you, so here's it for you.

Spoiler

Show me your moves!

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

Looks like it worked to me.

Awesome! Fur... yeah I have no real idea how to do fur, I think I've just gotten lucky each time I try it

Originally Posted by Domochevsky

Posing this challenge to the three of you, so here's it for you.

Spoiler

Show me your moves!

A draw challenge you say? With more distinct people than I've ever done before, several of which are in dynamic poses in addition to different distances from the viewer? Three of whom are girls? Show you my moves?! Why, Domo my good friend, challenge...

Day 36 - ACCEPTED!

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Spoiler

Hah! But not today, no no no no. This weekend, for sure hopefully. THIS IS NOW WHAT I'M WORKING ON!

[Capt. Ido Nos]

This is me checking in, saying that yes, I haven't posted the last few days but no, I actually have been drawing. The twofold trick is that ONE, I have been struck with le inspiration on this drawchallenge and have a very specific image I want to do, and it's taking some research/practice to get it right and TWO, my brother's home on break from uni, and I am sacrificing a fair bit of usual "draw time" for "having real life funtimes with my bro-thor". Rest assured, the next thing I post here will be the challenge itself, and whatever doodles and practice sketches it took to get me there.

And I promise it will be this week!

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by Capt. Ido Nos

"having real life funtimes with my bro-thor".

hurr hurr hurr

[Thanqol]

Ido, it's been a week between drawings. C'mon man, you can do better than that.

[Domochevsky]

Indeed. And you have yet to get into the latest challenge posed. You're slacking.

In fact, you're 13 updates behind! Go go go! o/

[Capt. Ido Nos]

I'm back, baby!

Sorry for the COMPLETE lack of posting in the last week. Internet as well as art went on hold as my brother was here on his fall break. I did get some practice in, that's going to be compiled just into a big post once I done with the drawchallenge. Anyway, now I'm super behind, but I only sort of regret it because hanging out with my family is kiiiind of a higher priority

In any case, here is the progress that I *have* made towards drawchallenge:

Day 38 - The Face of the Enemy

Spoiler

It's coming along... well? I would LOVE to get this done tomorrow, though I miiiight stretch it out, spending tomorrow finishing the major lineart, and then spending a day on details and fussing. That looks like a real attractive option to me right now. Actually, my bed looks like a real attractive option, so I'm thinking I'ma go to bed soon now.

Thanks so much for posting about my whereabouts, last week was crap for keeping this habit up, but knowing you guys were out for my head helped bring me back ^^;;

To Do: Finish rough of Gal 3, most of Gal 2. Final Lineart. Details. Clean and crop.

[Kindablue]

And there was much rejoicing! (Have I really never posted in this thread?)

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Originally Posted by Kindablue

And there was much rejoicing! (Have I really never posted in this thread?)

Hoorayyyy! Nope, it looks like you hadn't, but you've definitely remedied the problem

A bit on the picture, since it might explain a thing or two about some decisions that I've made. First off, I went with illustrating my current D&D party, with my longsuffering DM front and center. I haven't added ALL of the animals that we have running around (yet), but I've gotten at least all of the elf's. On the right we have a gnome, and what will be a female dwarf, I hope. I liked the original pose, and it totally works with the party dynamics, but I'm trying to make that work with the dimensions of our two shorter party members.

If anyone sees any obvious gamebreaker mistakes, I'm very much interested in hearing about them!

[Capt. Ido Nos]

A blast from the past, here we are with

Day 37 - sketchdump

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I'm not finished with you-know-what yet, in fact I'm totally redoing the right side because I have learned of a major problem in the direction I was going, so I have to fix that. I do though, have this whole page of practice sketches from research. It's mostly pseudodragon attempts, with a dash of Djinn!Gnome for good measure. Also I didn't draw everything mashed together on the page like this, there was a little marquee work going on behind the scenes to arrange them slightly more compact and at a few different resolutions. Guess I'm a bit weird like that...

[TheAmishPirate]

Ido? What's up? Am I going to have to get all up in your grill?

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by TheAmishPirate

Ido? What's up? Am I going to have to get all up in your grill?

WE, PONYTHREAD UP IN YO GRILL,
WE, PONYTHREAD DRESSED TO KILL,
WE, PONYTHREAD SHOWIN' OUR SKILL
YOU, FILLIES, GONNA GET A THRILL

Yo, this is Thanq the Mask,
On the scene with my Pirate brony,
We're here to diss down phoneys,
Talk 'bout ponies,
Haters can blow me

Now I'm a liar, but to you, the truth;
Update soon or I'ma cut loose,
With my technophobe brudda,
Got a sword that'll cutya
AmishXMask ONE TRUE PARTNA

Ido, what's haps?
-This delay is craps,
Make with the art, yo,
Or I'll bust out my caps.

Word. We out.

[SiuiS]

Hey Ido, how ya been?

My guess is ya been dead, because I haven't seen you anywhere, let alone your own drawthread. I'm somewhat worried.

Please come back to us, Ido. We miss you.

And bring art.

[Shadowy]

Originally Posted by SiuiS

Hey Ido, how ya been?

My guess is ya been dead, because I haven't seen you anywhere, let alone your own drawthread. I'm somewhat worried.

Please come back to us, Ido. We miss you.

And bring art.

What he said.

Except for the being dead part, I need your corpse to fuel my machine of SCIENCE!

*Cough*

Oh, and I've been watching this and am sad you've stopped it.

[Domochevsky]

You have failed us, Mr Ido... hand me your captains hat.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

I...

have...

FINISHED!

Day 39 -

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Sonuva! no wait that's not it that's a lame-flank batch of excuses and relapsing into old habits in image form. Let's try this again...

DAY 40 - Domo Draw Challenge
(warning, I didn't shrink this one, so it's at its full 2000x1000 pixel glory(?)

Spoiler

... WHELP. I'm done. Just going to start out and just say this outright: I've failed everyone by taking So Freaking Long to get this posted. Not even going to give reasons, I'm just going to give my deepest apologies, and resume posting daily here and elsewhere on the forums now that I am able to once again post. If it's any consolation, I think I've put somewhere in the range of 6-8 hours working on this since Day 38. Not much else to do but move forward, eh? Let's do this Leeroy Jenkins.

About Drawchallenge, even though I took too long, this was a LOT of fun to get going, and forced me to do a lot of things I wasn't used to. No lie, I haven't drawn a girl/woman/ladything in years, and had forgotten absolutely everything. Fortunately, I decided to draw my D&D party goofing around behind my longsuffering DM, which includes a female dwarf, which is pretty much as close to a halfway point as I think I'm going to get...

I added a few things to the challenge, Domo, I hope you didn't mind. It didn't feel right to draw the party without including every last critter friend we've made along the way. Also, our gnome is more apt to beating with the stick rather than directly punching

I want to thank EVERYONE who groused at me both on and offline. Every word weighed heavily on me more than you all know, and it hurt to begin drawing again and have it go badly again at first. Daily practice is key, and I can't go forgetting that, and you all make that absolutely possible. I don't want to let me down, but I definitely don't want to let any of my friends here down either.

Regular updates resume again, as a part of the greater Ido Improvement Projects currently underway. Please, I beg of you to keep bothering me, and please help tear down any hubris I might have by tearing down any flaws in my drawings that you come across. Thank you again everyone, now if you'll excuse me I have a ponythread to shamefully return to.

Edit: and for my own amusement, a brief rundown of the party:

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From left to right:
Uial, elf wizardess. Pictured with Spike (her pseudodragon familiar), Owloysius (owl wild cohort) and Trixie (her pony mount).
Aria, human ranger/fighter. Sort of okay at dual wielding, keeps changing her mind at what she wants out of it. Pictured with Nymeria (her wolf companion).
Front and center: our DM who can't believe he's letting this many animals exist at one time, let alone the other shenanigans he puts up with.
Ginorbol, gnome druid, who is also of a Djinn bloodline. Pictured with his masterwork quarterstaff he stole from a guy, and his leopard Winston. Not picture: him turning into a bear.
Lacona, dwarf rouge. She gets in fights and is mostly in this for the money. The rest of the party isn't completely sure about this, but she may have been, as it were, a lady of the night at her old job. It's hard to tell.

double edit: this captain hat is mine, MINE I say!

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Two for two, baby! *fistpumps*

Day 41 - One's a Crowd

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That's right Domo, I loved your draw challenge so much I did it twice and yet somehow didn't do it exactly to the letter both times!

Much less detail into this one, but I felt like seeing, after the drawchallenge proper took me nigh on 8 hours of work, how much I could do if I spent less time on the nitty gritty and just tried to do it. So, same poses, and went with my various selves, and bam, just over an hour and a half. It's rough around the edges, but much less so than I was expecting?

I may need to put out another formal request for requests and ideas. Actually, yes. I'm doing that now. If anyone has anything they wish to force me to draw, or at least ask politely, please feel free. I cannot have too many suggestions

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by Capt. Ido Nos

I may need to put out another formal request for requests and ideas. Actually, yes. I'm doing that now. If anyone has anything they wish to force me to draw, or at least ask politely, please feel free. I cannot have too many suggestions

Ooo, I'm doing some character design work right now and I need a whole lot of pictures and distinctive appearances. I'll drop a few challenges I'm working on myself and see how you go translating them into pictures. If you can translate any of these into visuals, I'd be grateful.

1: Apprentices

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Bycatch: Female Obrimos
Magical Tradition: Greenpeace
The Hero

Bycatch is a student protester completely devoted to the idea of ethics taking priority over political expedience. Saving the whales, freeing the refugees, banning nuclear power, outlawing fur, eating organic and ending inequality. Her political leanings are extremely towards the left; not quite communist, but definitely not capitalist. The duality in her personality is that despite her strong political beliefs and very strong emotional connections to her topics, she finds her magic in researching those beliefs. In this sense, she's championing more ideals than she can really hope to accomplish because it's the touching on and exploration of the ideals that enhances her personal power. If she picked one and put all her effort towards it, she might be able to make more real steps towards achieving it. Selfishness has crept up on Bycatch without her noticing.

Personality wise, Bycatch is loud, rebellious and impulsive, completely fine with breaking laws or taking things to extremes. She believes her own moral compass trumps the laws of society and is prepared to act to bring the two into closer alignment.


Tifa: Female Thyrsius
Magical Tradition: Martial Arts/Cosplay
The Lost

Tifa is a cosplayer - a serious, high quality cosplayer. Her costumes are works of art, and she maintains a respectable lifestyle selling outfits on the internet and in conventions. Despite this part of her life being the most important, it's on the decline - she's increasingly fascinated with traditional martial arts and styles and is slowly starting to withdraw from the world to spend ever more time practising. When Tifa goes into character, she goes deep into character - she thinks she does her best work when she forgets she's not the character she's trying to play.

And when this happens, it's kind of scary. Her magic can alter her appearance to make her look and sound uncannily like the character she's cosplaying. The process is where she finds her best magic and the most power, but what happens if she goes too deep to find her way back?

What if this has already happened?


Shintaro: Male Arcanthus
Magical Tradition: Shinto
The Servant

Shintaro is a junior assistant for the Mayor of Nara, and he seems completely fine with that position. He spends most of his time in the sanctum on the phone to the Mayor's office, sorting out paperwork or campaign trends, and generally focusing his attention on the job he was doing before he Awakened with only minimal concessions towards researching or preparing for Awakened life. He's happy in his job, loyal to the major and his party, and seemingly content just to use what little magic he possesses to make his life just a little easier.

2: The Suicide Pact

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The Suicide Pact:

Order: Free Council

The only thing these three people had in common was that they agreed that they were going out of the world together. They met online, chatted briefly, and made the decision. They sat in a circle and turned on the engine that began filling the room with carbon monoxide. One of them was a sixteen year old Japanese-American army brat who never knew her real father. One of them was a construction worker who's drinking habit caused his wife and child to leave him. One was a retired salaryman who gave all his years to a company who sacked him for being 'redundant'.

But when they woke up together in the realm of Stygia, the place where the dead went, they all knew one thing: This was not what they wanted.

When they emerged, coughing and spluttering, from that tiny room full of poison, they had changed, profoundly. They knew exactly what death was and wanted never to go back. And they wanted to help others avoid the same mistake they had nearly made. The Suicide Pact became a community support group, an anti-suicide hotline, and mystics who would help ghosts find their way. They've got hundreds of allies in the city, humans and ghosts who they helped, and they're determined to do more. The Suicide Pact is a strange take on the Moros path, following that path's associations with hope and life rather than morbidity and death.

As for actual, general, artistic challenge stuff:

- A waterfall (Challenge: Motion, scenery, water)
- A scene from WW1 (Challenge: Scale, dynamics, mood)
- Two people who utterly hate each other (Challenge: Expression, posture)