Wanted to sketch out a full-blown scene this time, as I'm not that great with backgrounds.

Mostly though, I just wanted to color something again.

 

 

I give you...

 

ALIEN!

 

 

I think it looks alright. The rock he's on is a bit blotchy, but I still need to learn how to texture and stuff.

That'll be later though.

I can do simple metallic objects quite well now. I learned the basics back when I used to dabble in pixel art sort of stuff.

Makes me wonder about how much I could take back to pixel art now that I've learned so much in regular drawing. Probably won't bother though. I find this much more amusing.

 

Let's come up with some backstory...

So Earth becomes quite big on the whole space thing. They're out and about in the galaxy, meeting with other civilizations. Many years later, immigration begins, and thus, crossbreeding.

This guy was born of an alien species and human.

Earth is unfortunately obliterated by an unseen force. Probably terrorists. ALIEN terrorists.

 

In any case, this guy was visiting his alien homeworld. Upon returning to Earth, he finds nothing but floating rubble.

So he sets up camp and grimaces at the stars for awhile.

 

I... guess these aliens can breathe.. space?

I don't care. I'm too tired to come up with anything better. Or anything more for that matter.

 

 

Go to bed.

Okay, see you tomorrow, Gau.

Yeah, see you later.

 

 

 

 

That guy's a dick.

 

 

Yeah, I know.

Looks like we've got us another girlie to gawk at. C'mere, you!

 

 

Awp, my nose. Faaaack!

 

 

Well, you know the drill by now.

I drew me up another chick.

She's a scrapper!

 

 

 

 

And thar be the color!

 

Lovely. Note that I got in a few actual shadows this time, rather than just plain ol' shading.

There's a difference you see.

Though I realize the only reason there would be a difference in my case is my skill level.

Eventually everything will flow together much nicer. But for now, she is as is.

 

I pictured her on a pirate ship of some kind. She is outed as a female and must now wrestle the entire crew in order to establish her ability as a fighter and sailor.

Or you know, maybe nobody cared a chick came on board, and she's instead fighting the first mate for the last bottle of alcohol; he cheats and stabs her in the arm with a dirty knife. The doctor, who, due to the length of the voyage, has become the manager of the entire ship so as to prevent any losses before they arrive at their destination, demands he use the alcohol to treat the wound.

Ah, yes. And the first mate's buddies drag him to the hold and force-feed him rat droppings for that one.

 

A day in the life of a bunch of pirates, eh?

Or not. Whatever.

 

So, I'm doing this massive project on GamingSteve. I'm taking many of the prominent member's avatars and redrawing them in this huge sort of group shot.

There's almost 100 people involved. Anyone I missed that wants in gets added as soon as I can.

I'm coming up with all kinds of interactions and stuff between the characters.

 

Here are some examples of what I have in there already --

Sephiroth

A beheaded dragon

Will Wright

A robot

The moon from Majora's Mask

Skull Kid

Slartibartfast

Robot Santa

An alien

 

And many more. And more to be added, even.

 

What does that all have to do with a punk chick? Well...

See, after stopping those painting studies I did, I slowly lost confidence in my ability to color/paint digitally. I hadn't done it in a long time.

During April Fool's day, I temporarily became Hank Hill. But afterward, I decided I wanted a fresh avatar.

So I colored the face of my avatar from the project I've been doing.

 

I didn't like the coloring job I did, but it looked... alright. I guess.

 

I was about to get back to work on sketching for the project, but I decided I wanted an actual painting exercise. To warm myself up for the work I've got ahead of me.

After I do the cleanup and inking on the sketches, I've gotta color them.

So what the hell.

 

 

I wanted to paint. That was all well and good, but I needed a picture.

I'd been drawing a lot of female types lately 'cause I normally suck at them. So I went ahead and drew me up a hottie.

 

 

Okay then. Now I needs me some flat colors, something to base the shading from later.

 

 

 

 

And now comes the hard part.

Actually, I already did it. There is no now. There is only --

 

 

 

I still say it's not that amazing, but it's certainly a hell of a lot better than I did before I did them painting studies.

 

 

The third study has been revealed!

The following took place during sometime on December 17, 2007.

 

 

If you do not know who this man is, kindly go to another restaurant. I don't want your business.

 

I started to work on this guy. As you know, I'd start with basic color shape blobs and define from there.

I got going on the definitions. All those leather creases and stuff... pretty challenging.

It began to look something like this.

 

 

So I gave up for a day, for obvious reasons. I'd become frustrated in my failure to grasp what seemed so simple.

I didn't bother myself to continue the day after.

Or the day after that.

But then the day after that, probably, I picked it up again. Ended up pausing (stopping) around this point --

 

And yeah. It took a long time to do this stuff, as I'm really damn slow.

That last one there was a huge improvement as I slowly came to understand how the creases and lighting worked. It's still a little rough, but if it were complete, you could swear it was the real thing. And you'd all be bowing before me, offering me various forms of pleasure.

 

However, that was not to be. I did not complete it.

I know, I know. But dry your tears! It wasn't a complete failure. As I've already stated in the past, you learn a lot doing these things whether you realize it or not.

 

 

I'll be sure to try something again soon.

Perhaps I'll attempt a vehicle. I can say quite comfortably that I've never successfully drawn a car.

Maybe.

Or maybe I'll do a self portrait. Sure, they're self-centered, but what part of a human's life isn't at all? And besides that, I'll do as I please. Screw you.

 

Get the hell out of here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I shouldn't have to tell you how this came about.

No, it wasn't another fixer upper. This time, it was all me, baby.

 

But to the point, hair is very serious business. Did you know there are people out there like me who are running short on shampoo and don't have the time to get it?

It's terrible! I will certainly come upon hard times soon.

If I wasn't doing this webcomic stuff around the clock, I estimate I would have about six tons of shampoo available. You know you folks run me pretty ragged... but I don't mind making some sacrifices.

 

So I say to those of you out there who are perfectly able to take good care of your hair:

 

It is the most important part of living a good life. You have good hair, you are good person.

Bad hair day? You're a bad person for the whole day! If you don't believe me, just keep an eye on what you're doing throughout the day, take notes on your activities. When you next have a good hair day, read the list. That is way too many dead puppies for anyone's liking, among other atrocities.

 

But I'm telling you now! Avoid being a bad person altogether, and just take good care of your hair!

 

 

I do not look forward to the future.

It frightens me so.

 

 

:(

 

 

Yeah, been doing a bit of drawing for Gaming Steve forums again out of boredom and all.

Made it quite clear to them that they owe me money for these works. They laughed and said, "Good old Gauphastus. Always with the money."

 

Actually, I realize I'd forgotten something. I remember that what I just mentioned was just a dream.

The monetary demands and the forum members laughing and saying, "Good old Gauphastus. Always with the money." I mean.

 

 

But more to the point, we're currently doing a sort of game. Some monster on opium came into the thread and vomited some sort of visual diarrhea on my screen.

I made sure to quickly redraw it. Polishing a turd, so to speak.

Another member came in shortly after and suggested the artists on the site partake in a little game of We'll Upgrade Your Lousy Drawing You Trash.

It's like Eat Poop You Cat, only a lot less funny.

 

Here's what I did today.

 

 

 

I make a habit of naming every character I draw. Even if he is based on another man's diarrhea, the revisioning is completely mine.

Not sure if that will hold up in court when the time comes, but it's a good line for the time being. The more I type, the more it looks like I actually cared enough to write up a decent article for the page. Nobody reads this stuff anyway, so I can just say whatever I want. Your mother is so fat that when she redraws an old guy, she eats the paint instead and cannot finish the drawing; she undoubtedly feels bad, and can't go to work due to depression. They fire her, and she can no longer support you.

So you get kicked out because your mom is fat.

 

Also, his name is Edward Cereal. He is a retired inventor having a surprise birthday party -- and as with all my images, hover over for alt text.

An inventor, yes. Guess what he invented?

 

Yes, you are surely correct.

 

Thumb tacks.

 

Though history would later be rewritten to have some other jackhole named as the creator of the thumbtack, the true credit goes to Edward Cereal.

What a great man.

A miserable little prick who didn't like our surprise party, but a brilliant man nonetheless.

 

 

 

Tune in next week when I update with an update of sorts. Coming up next: something!

 

 

This one is turning out quite well.

There's a problem though -- after sitting here in this chair for so many hours at a time, even with all these one-day breaks in between each study session, I have unfortunately hurt the whole right side of my back.

It's this goddamned chair. I remember when I got it and thought it was so comfortable.

"Yay, leather chair! Totally worth 200 bucks!"

 

But no, it just doesn't work with the shape of my desk or the position of my monitor and tablet.

I'm often reclining to the extreme in this thing, putting my feet all the way up onto the window sill. I guess I just wish I could draw while laying down.

Someday I'll have a very large flatscreen monitor. Or perhaps a Cintiq.

But for now, I develop back pain from the way I sit. Glory to me!

 

Bleh.

 

 

Whatever though. I'll continue study three when my back stops being a whiny pussy.

Alright, so I've got another.

Would have had it done yesterday, but I lost my internet connection for several hours; didn't even think I'd be able to post it.

Still, I could have done it anyway. I guess I didn't feel like doing it.

When you're as slow and inefficient as I am with artwork related things, it takes a lot more effort to get it done. Hell, even small parts take me forever.

 

 

Well, enough about that.

Let's see what we got today.

 

I did a bikini model, something about Victoria's Secret. The source page I got it from was Russian or sometink.

Anyways, here you have it.

 

 

Now your eyes might be drawn to some problem areas. Perhaps that flat and dull looking gut, or.. I don't know.. the FACE.

For your information, I did not do the face because that would take me forever. I'd have to do the mouth and eyes and all that.

Also, the head is a bit too big and I didn't care to fix it.

Not this time, gents.

 

As for the gut, I had several problems there. It's funny what I notice now that I'm doing this --

Like a single misplaced stroke on the stomach makes it look like something's about to burst out from it.

So after very lightly shading it (flat), I kind of just moved on.

 

 

Yeah, yeah. I know there are many problems. No doubt I can note them all.

But you know, even with all the uncorrected mistakes, I still take a lot from this exercise. I even used a few ( small) things I learned from the previous study intuitively.

 

... I think...

 

And again, keep in mind that these are just exercises. I'm not aiming for complete accuracy.

I'm not doing this so I can paint still life or whatever -- so just never you mind.

 

 

Let' see. I started by attempting the shading under the left arm there.

Just couldn't get it at first. It looked horrid.

So I erased it and moved to the right arm. It took me a while, but eventually I figured out how to get it to look at least partly right.

I then went over to the left arm. Please note the difference in color between the arms; at this point I decided to add just a pinch more red.

It really shows, to me anyway.

Did the legs, then the stomach, the chest, returned to the underarm area, and half-assed the face.

There you have it.

 

Oh, right. I didn't want to do the bikini either. Minor details I'm not really wanting to do just yet.

 

 

I had fun with this one.

Now it's time to scour the net for my next study.

 

 

Now please leave before you have an 'accident'.

 

Following some advice given by several different tutorials now, I've begun to do "studies" wherein I take a photo of something or someone on the internet and digitally paint or sketch it.

The point is to help the student come to an understanding of how lighting and shapes work.

And looking at my comics there and the crap I've drawn in the past (not posted here or anywhere), I definitely need this particular kind of training.

 

I already feel as though I've learned a little.

I guess.

 

In any case, I've decided that every time I complete a study (that is, call it quits because the goddamned things take like six hours plus) I will post it here.

Regardless of whether or not it is complete, embarassingly bad (or good...), or whatever.

 

Note that for the purpose of gaining any skill at all, I will not trace or sample colors from the source image. This forces me to eyeball it and fine tune my sense of shape and color.

 

 

I will post the source image and then my completed study.

Enjoy these first few weeks of utter failure until I "get it". :D

 

 

..Christ, I hope it doesn't take years like it does for some people...

 

 

 

I still don't quite understand a few things, but I'll get them someday.

 

Didn't wanna do the shirt. Even if I were to ignore all the stripes, the folds are really kinda hard to see.

And yes, CocaCo is all I could fit on the damn bottle. I tried to fix it about five times before giving up and moving on to something important.

Next time, I won't waste time on small crap like that.

Eh, but this one was mostly for fun anyway.

Tomorrow, I'll probably do one of some chick in a bikini or some crap.

 

Or maybe I'll find out who this guy is and get him to wear one.

I BET YOU GUYS WOULD JUST LOVE THAT, HEY??

 

 

If you'll excuse me (but even if you won't, eat my ass), I'm gonna go have a nice tall glass of CocaCo.

Kindly escort yourselves out of my blog.

 

 

 

Helpful goddamn site, run by a professional  --  http://itchstudios.com/psg/

I imagine this will come in handy too --  http://www.portrait-artist.org/

 

It has been awhile, hasn't it?

 

I was participating in this funny thing called a thread back on GamingSteve.com. In this one thread I was in, we were to draw (get this) artwork based on video games.

They call it "fanart". Isn't that just the cat's balls?

By balls, I mean tits.

Knees that is.

Or rather I should say, isn't that the cat's pajamas? I'm getting a few different phrasings mixed here. What a horrible predicament.

 

 

Moving on, I drew something.

or

 

Holy hell. Megaman and XJ-9 versus Inspector Gadget?

In Brawl?

For real?

 

Nope.

Just in my head.

You see, fanart allows you to combine the use of your imagination and $400 Wacom Intuos3 tablet to create things that do not currently exist in the world.

It's like playing pretend, except you're old enough to know better. Ain't it great?

 

Like a delicious cake in the distance, my drawing teases you with the prospect of one day eating these characters.

Except not quite. That's not what I meant at all.

You guys just don't GET IT, do you??

 

I think we're through here. I've got work to do.

I had all this time to complete this drawing, and here I am making a post about it. I should be off in the distance with the cake, teasing you with the prospect of one day eating my ass.

 

I'm working on a comic.

That is, I haven't even started working on it. I mean I'm working on getting around to working on a comic.

So enjoy the anticipation.

 

It will be your last.

Unless I have anything to say about it.