Some Sketches after Florida

Actually, one of them is really old, but I just didn't feel like putting it up.
I made a few sketches when me and my family were in Florida, and finished them. Honestly I haven't done many sketching, which I kind of miss. It's not easy with me still concentrating on "Blue Fire" as well as animating the Pixel Brains short during my livestreams. I'm hoping to open up art commissions next month. Hopefully I can rely on paying off bills with art, rather than job-hunting. I can't rely on opening a Patreon. It's too soon and my following is not even that big. So it would be shooting myself in the foot.

But enough of that. Here's the part where I describe each sketch.

I think I finished this last month, or maybe 2 weeks ago. I hadn't drawn these 2 in such a long time, so I decided to practice drawing in the new style I had discovered. It kind of meshes with anime, Butch Hartman's cartoon style, and Genndy Tartakovsky's style. At first I wanted to draw just Eth alone playing with these weird bee creatures, mainly the woolybugs from "The Ancient Magus Bride." 
Then I started adding some Salamander creature, but Eth still looked alone. I went ahead and added Shadow, and Asmod. Couldn't leave Asmod out.

Now the bottom 2 sketches are an idea that deviated from fan characters and a fanfic that developed after watching season 1 of "Star Vs The Forces of Evil."

Then there was also a lizard-man named "Toffee," one of the villains in the cartoon. And somehow I ended up making some crack head-cannon story around this lizard-man.

When I got too deep into the lore, I realized that this could be a stand-alone story.

 The first one, I always wanted to draw Eli riding a dear/elk. Well she's not riding, but it's close. Some day I want to make proper illustrations for Eli and Rokka (his name is pending). I unintentionally made her look younger than she's supposed to be (24-27?). That's mostly the result from deviating from the SVTFOE cartoon style, and trying to redraw her in my own style. For the record, Roca is trying not show blatant jealousy of the "walking meat with horns" getting most of Eli's attention.

Next is the lizard warrior himself. I got the name Roca when I found out about the anime "Rokka no Yuusha". The name "Rokka" sounded good, but I wasn't sure if it was made up, or had a meaning. Later, I found that "Roca" sounded simila, and it also meant "rock" in Spanish. It felt perfect for this guy, since almost half of his personality is steadfast, firm, strong, and persistent. I clearly need to draw more reptiles, lizards, and dinosaurs to make his design a bit more believable. Or at least make it easier on myself. I played around with some silhouette poses, to get a feel for how he'd run, crouch, and sit. I'm also referencing his body type based on Geoffrey Thomas's character; Hal Adhil from his book "The Wayward Astronomer." Really love how David Lillie drew this guy. It's like the perfect anthro version of a velociraptor.

Well that's it. I'm still working on the Pixel Brains short. Hopefully I don't run out of steam while animating it. I'd like to say that I'm nearly halfway done with animation. Until then, see you all later.

Here's to a productive 2016

Happy New Year's everyone.
And sorry about the lack of posts lately. December has not been fun, that I just didn't feel like updating due to the busy Holiday rush at work.
Now looking through 2015, I have to say...not too much has happened other than working retail. Oh wait! There is some.

• I finished Sugar Dominion, the short one-shot manga
• I opened my first webcomic Beeswhacks.
• My right hand recovered from strain, and now those pains and weird clicking symptoms are back, so that I have to check up on.
• Got a lot of progress on the fully animated short for Pixel Brains
• Did my first internet drawing challenge: Drawlloween ^^
• Made a few fanart and original pieces.
• And have made lots of writing progress on my new comic, "Blue Fire" (title might be changed")

Now, there's a downside. I've definitely NOT accomplished 2015 new years' resolutions. But I do know this, I WILL make "Blue Fire" come to fruition. Eruti is still heavily on the backburner, due to how much I flip-flop with the direction of the plot, story, and theme. It's been difficult for me to grasp what my limits are, and what I'm more comfortable with. I've been slowly decaying spiritually. I think I've gotten too detached from God, that I've just stopped thinking He existed in my life. 

But enough of that, my hopes for the year of the monkey is DEFINITELY make "Blue Fire" a reality. This is one short story that I can make into a comic. Beeswhacks was a start, but now I'd rather start with something more short and simple. And hopefully I can finish animating that short for Pixel Brains. In other words, I want it to be a productive year. One that marks consistent progress. Who knows, I might have a patreon set up as well. That would be great. Also, I definitely want to be more faithful to God, and try to cast off my "religious" mask. That's all I've been, and I want to change that.

Now here's a taste of what Blue Fire is like. This is a test page, and I'm working on a 2nd one as well.

Ah and some sketches that I meant to upload

Blue Fire: YeoungHy Character Color Test

This is probably the last character color test I'm going to do.
I really need to make thumbnails and start on pages, since the writing is done.


But it was still good to get an idea of what I wanted for the 2 main characters. Though I feel that the other characters need some more thought.
Now as I started working on YeoungHy, I came to this problem about her design; how do I draw slightly malnourished, yet strong females?
When it came time to sketch the body base for costumes, I decided that I wanted to give her a build close to MMA fighters, or the Korra build. While looking around the internet for perfectly athletic Asian women, I found that the Korra build may not work for YeoungHy.
so rather than the Korra build or the Ronda Rousey look

I went with this look. It looks sickly or meh, but I feel it's better for YeoungHy in her case. Well...actually I think I can combine a bit from both.
YeoungHy's family is not well off, so she probably doesn't eat as much. Even if she started to hunt to help feed her family, she still wouldn't be eating much.
YeoungHy is not only helping her family, but she's practically helping others. She's always active and moving, so she'd have muscles, but I feel she'd look more sickly, than healthy.
I just don't want to draw her with a slim figure.That's something I've always drawn. I want to challenge myself to draw a girl with some muscle on her.

Also, some of the costumes don't look much like traditional hanbok. I got inspired by some of the costumes from "Jung Yi, Goddess of fire." Considering that most lower class civilians can barely afford to have colors. Most of them would wear only white or faded colors or earthy colors. So I was surprised that some costumes were colorful for peasants. Oh well. The great things about comics, I can bend a few rules.

Finished breaking down Blue Fire, and first character color test

Huzzah for productivity ^^
I've broken down chapters to pages, or estimated. I've got about 12 chapters to work with. Not bad. Few of them will be longer than the rest.
And I made my first color test, though I think I did it wrong.

Initially I'm used to drawing people or characters that are pleasing to look at. Well it was a challenge to remember that this character had a long shaggy beard, and looks like he's indifferent to his appearance. I'm glad I did a color test. Other wise he would have looked like an old, giant smurf.

My dad was intrigued with the fact that I was taking a Korean folk-tale and making it a manhwa comic. Sadly, even he had never heard of "The Logger's daughter and the Blue-eyed phantom." Not sure if this would be an authentic folk-tale. But that's okay. It gives me some freedom to make this "phantom" my own character on its own. And I'm really happy with where I'm going with the characters.

I'm planning on getting thumbnails, and doing a color test for YeoungHy, the logger's daughter.