Happy New Year 2017-reflections, plans, & sketches

Happy New Year it is finally 2017. Goodbye 2016.

2016 was a crazy year, a hard year, but albeit a productive year for me.
So here are some highlights of 2016 (cuz I don't want to think of how many musicians and good actors/actresses died)

• I finally finished the Pixel Brains animated short for L4D2
• I launched my webcomic "Blue Fire"
• I finished my storyboard portfolio (which I kept holding off for a few years)
• Started making comics for a local newspaper
• Dusted out my youtube channel
• Actually took on commissions
• Set up a Patreon

Now for my resolutions:

• Create a concept art portfolio centered on game development
• Make Youtube an actual job as an artist/animator
• try to finish some animated short projects
• continue working on "Blue Fire" & upload it on Webtoons along side other platforms
• Be more patient & willing to trust God & stop trying to control every facet of my life, because the universe bows to no one & I'm a sinle speck of dust in this cosmic ocean
• If Youtube doesn't work out, look into enrolling into technical college to gain skills that will get me a normal job
• And if I'm unable to afford college, actually search for a job after the summer.

I'm happy to say that I found it pretty fun to work on commissions, no matter how small they were. Really thankful to some of the people who commissioned me. Here are samples:  

The last comic of 2016 for the "Korean Baptist Press of the USA" 침례신문

A piece of fanart for Riana Dorsey, cuz it was her birthday. If you can, check out her webcomic "Suihira." It's great ^^

And some art for Blue Fire

To spruce up my youtube page, I made myself a whole new channel art, which is now one of my wallpapers:

I'm now a fan of "Yuri!! On ice" anime. So good. And because of constantly listening to the song "On love: Agape," I sketched some of my characters as figure skaters. There's Ji-Hyun from that scrapped "Phantom of the Opera" fancomic. Her outfit is based on a Korean doll. Ethelmay from Eruti, her design is fairy-based. Creon is a simple one piece that shows off the markings on her skin (just didn't color them here since it was all charcoal). And Valentine in a stylized outfit based on a swallowtail tuxedo.

And that's about it. Happy new year, and best of luck to you all. God bless you all and take care.

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.

Image Optimization test and End of Beeswhacks

I'm looking at using an image optimizer, since I won't have Photoshop anymore (budget issues coming soon).
The one on the left is optimized with Photoshop's "save for web" feature. One on the right was optimized with a plug-in for Gimp.

So far, Gimp is doing its job. That's more than enough. Also, I've quit Beeswhacks.

Honestly I've cared very little for that comic and it eats away at whatever free time I have. It's become a chore that I don't look forward to. When I started uploading bits of Blue Fire on Tapastic, it gained almost half of the views Beeswhacks got in its entirety, in just a matter of a week. That says a lot. This is the current viewer count as of now:

That's nearly half of what Beeswhacks made in an entire year, and this has been nearly 2 weeks! So basically, I'm putting more energy into Blue Fire.

Also, still working on that Pixel Brains short. But sadly, I've run into a really bad technical block. A small portion of the short is going to look horrendous, due to Flash having a weird brush jitter, when you draw something at a tiny scale. In the old version, I've rarely had that problem. Now it's noticeable in the newest update.
Anyway, I'll see you all later.

Blue Fire officially on Tapastic

First off, really sorry for the lack of updates.
Second, I've finally decided to upload the comic "Blue Fire" on Tapastic.

I plan on uploading a page from Monday to Friday of this week. That means 5 pages will be up and loaded. And I'm going to see how my update schedule works. I still find myself at a painstaking snail pace when it comes to making comics. I'm aiming for every 2 weeks for now. Maybe I can urge myself to create a page every week, once I leave my job. Otherwise, the updates would be sporadic. And that's not what I want.

In the mean time, I haven't updated with a whole lot of sketches or drawings. Most of the time I find really little to draw. And when I do, it's mainly fanart.
So I'll go ahead and upload what I have so far.

At one point there was a massive nation-wide internet blackout for Charter customers. Us included. So for a solid hour, me and my brother were perplexed, until we found that we weren't the only ones. Lots of upset baseball fans were unable to file complaints, since Charter's phone line was non-responsive. Using our phone data, we amused ourselves by reading all tweets related to Charter's blackout. Someone commented that Charter forgot to feed their hamsters. And that's how this doodle manifested.

And then there was mother's day.

My attempt of practicing the drawing of very detailed objects. My brother suggested drawing a simple Dreadnaught.

A card for Father's day.

Until then, I will do my best to update Blue Fire as much as possible.
Also, I finished animating part 1 of the Pixel Brains animated short. Still need 2 more parts.

Nothing but thumbnails, and still working on that Pixel Brains short

My lack of updates is due to me making thumbnails for the first chapter of "Blue Fire," which I've finished ^_^
Whatever sketches and doodles I've done is purely fanart, which I'm not putting here. I'm trying to avoid that. I post all that on my tumblr.
In the meanwhile, I'm still working on Beeswhacks, they're still being updated twice a month (every other week), and I'm going to commit to that until I officially burn out of content to make fun of.

Now last month, I've uploaded a fan storyboard/animatic for the first time. Again, purely fan-based and only a test.

Speaking of uploading, still working on the Pixel Brains animated short, so I might as well post some wip screenshots.

Anyway, I hope to stay diligent with "Blue Fire" And try and updating this blog more.

Blue Fire: Cover Test 2

I'm quite confident that "Blue Fire" will STAY as "Blue Fire."

As promised from the last post, I made another spread of cover/logo tests.

This time I made designs that include Hangul (Korean) text. 

However, after seeing feedback on my deviantart, I had to ask "what's the point of having a Korean-based title logo?"

There seemed to be no use, since my main audience understands English, and my Korean is abominable. Unless there are Korean viewers who want to take a stab at reading an English Manhwa, to brush up on their English skills.

I was surprised with one design, and loved it. 

So here it is. Again, feedback is appreciated. You can leave it here, my deviantart, or my tumblr.

Blue FIre test page 3

And test page 3 is here.
This time I tested out my usual way of shading, and then tried with screentones on the right.
Now I remember why I don't like screentones.
They're meticulous.
So far, I think I'm fine for now. I'd really like to get thumbnails done, and at least figure out how to present this comic. I still haven't decided on the logo, and that needs to be done soon.
Not to mention, I have yet to finish thumbnailing the first chapter.

Blue Fire test page 2

Well, the one road block that got in my way, was the phantom's blue fiery eyes. I can't seem to draw fire well. Let alone in black and white. But my brother did offer good feedback on getting the flaming eye look by referring to the manga for "Black Rock Shooter." Really glad I looked at some references.

One thing's for sure, I definitely need to look up references for fight scenes, because the original crouching stance in the first panel was VERY unnatural. My brother couldn't pose that way for a reference picture. I couldn't keep that pose. So I ended up changing it. Now here, I've come up with 3 different tests. One is completely black and white, the middle emphasizes only blue fire, and the last is where the only color remaining is blue. Personally, I wonder if having one color out of the black and white is distracting.

What do you all think? I would love feedback.
You can send feedback on my deviantart or message me on tumblr
More test pages are coming, and I don't think the story needs too much tweaking.
I just need to get thumbnails out.

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.

Blue Fire Title Logo

I've been beating myself over getting the title look close to Korean calligraphy. Or even remotely like Asian calligraphy.
[EDIT/UPDATE]
I'm going to post new revisions on this post for the title.

Round 3 of new logo variations. [update 12/7]
This should be my last one

2nd batch of new logo variations

this was the first one.