Pedes' cave of something

I have a couple of WIP paintings in which I dabble when I have...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:34:38 -0400

I have a couple of WIP paintings in which I dabble when I have time.

Today I looked at one of older paintings I started long ago for some challenge and decided to rework it a bit and add it to the WIP pile.

The title of the challenge was “newborn” and the idea was different (a person helping the beings/fairies(?) safely get out of the cocoon) and the composition was more dynamic but the picture was somewhat boring.

The idea now is to have it more static but with added tension. Along with a color scheme I am not used to it is an interesting challenge.

The composition here is a bit too similar now to another picture I’m painting but that’s OK because I wanted to change the composition in the other one anyway :)

Sailor Stars Shingeki no Kyojin or alternative music for the...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:01:45 -0400

Sailor Stars Shingeki no Kyojin or alternative music for the opening.

I was always really bad at participating in fandoms but I think now I found a way of actually making enemy out of one (two?).

Just in case you thought this is a COOL tumblr, last 10 minutes...

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:28:04 -0400

Just in case you thought this is a COOL tumblr, last 10 minutes of today’s and yesterday’s shift at work.

Two upper ones are musings on the style I want to draw Empty Chocolate Wrappers in. Idk

Compilation of background elements for Ludum Dare #26 (theme...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:20:00 -0400

Compilation of background elements for Ludum Dare #26 (theme Minimalsm).

I am a part of a three-person team and my job was to make backgrounds. But since the theme is minimalism we decided on almost empty background on which you can see just a single element at a time. As of now our Team Leader and programmer is working on the mechanics for the game. You can see the status here. When it’s finished I will update descriptions with a link.

This is the second time I’m working on game elements for a challenge with Sheep. First was for Seven-Day Roguelike earlier this year when I made background music.

Note: those images are not free to use. If you want to use any of those please contact me.

Michaela and Hanna (gender-bent Michael and Howard from my...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:38:00 -0400

Michaela and Hanna (gender-bent Michael and Howard from my webcomic >Hunch)

Me: I have genderbent Michael and Howard
Me: so Michaela and How… Ho… Hanna XD (…)
n: how about figuring out the next page?
Me: well I drew them because I seemed to have lost the ability to draw them
Me: so I was practicing
n: now you’ve gained the ability to draw them genderbent. makes perfect sense.
Me: yup :D

Actually I doubt Michaela would wear corsets every day - rather for special occasions but I was looking at the internet shop with corsets (and they’re sold out AGAIN) so I felt like drawing one.

Hanna would wear sport bras under shirts unless for some more formal occasions because if I translate Howards body type + lever of training we’d get a muscly but quite curvy gal and it’s not so easy to find female shirts for that level of boobage covered in non-flatting bra (the shirt we meet Howard in is also a type of undershirt for him; though Michael would be able to wear it as a loose T-shirt XD)

A fanart of Knights Errant webcomic’s main character -...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:41:00 -0400

A fanart of Knights Errant webcomic’s main character - Oswald Dytel.

Although I qualify it as speedpainting it wasn’t painted in one go; I started it long ago and thought I’d make a proper painting out of it sometime later. When I looked at it now I decided I like it slightly rough so I just fixed some details.

I like freckles. I had really exhausting two weeks, physically...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:52:27 -0400

I like freckles.

I had really exhausting two weeks, physically and emotionally and I’m trying to get back the hang on how this draw thing works….

Howard: 20, 27, 33, 46, 49.

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:15:00 -0400

20: Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

He didn’t have any grave illness but he tended to get a lot of frequent health problems - colds, flu, throat infections etc. He was also a bit if a plumpish kid, even when he started doing martial arts in his early teens. During puberty he shot up and his body got stronger and he barely gets sick now; but deep inside he still understand how fragile body can be (this might be one of the reasons he pays attention to his diet and lifestyle - apart from smoking).

27: What is their biggest regret?

This is quite spoilerish…. Hmm, being the one who survived.

33: Concept of home and family?

His grandfather was a policeman and Howard is looking up to him very much.

He knows his family is able to go through difficult times so it feels like a safe place for him and he draws a lot of strength from them. He’s not very dependent on them; rather it’s like a safe island he knows is waiting for him if the ocean of life becomes overbearing.

46: If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal?

He thinks his ideal would be a very practical-thinking strong woman, not too small or too skinny (not that he haven’t slept with tiny women ;P), one that could manage both in physical fight and discussion.

He’s wrong.

49: Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not?

He used to be afraid of dying until PLOT happened. He is definitely far from being keen on it now but accepts this is something that can happen much too soon in his line of work; maybe because somewhere deep he feels a bit that he unfairly survived and it will catch up with him at some point.

So Yuugi mentioned how she’d love if if someone was...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:02:00 -0400

So Yuugi mentioned how she’d love if if someone was inspired to create music by her comic

Well… I tried to write something following the history of Lawrence’s change - going out from his family home, being followed by Julien, dying and awaking as a vampire… The part when he’s coming home is not here (I might add it later). It’s pretty fun trying to show it in music playing with various instruments, harmony and slight dissonances; not sure if it works haha. I might switch Human!Lawrence parts to violin or viola (it’s cello now) but I need to find a nice soundfont for that - the violin I have sounds terrible.

I’m still learning to use the software (LMMS) so it’s pretty rough round the edges but I don’t know when I’ll be back to working on this (getting back to working on my webcomic from tomorrow) so I decided to post this version for now.

Test sketch when trying out new Monoprice tablet. There are some...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:40:14 -0400

Test sketch when trying out new Monoprice tablet.

There are some strange things here which are results of the tablets problems. Not to spam you with text here I’ve put a small test review on my reblog blog

Fanart of Rayflo from Vassalord. When I was drawing it I got...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:20:00 -0400

Fanart of Rayflo from Vassalord. When I was drawing it I got painfully aware how close his design (or at least my interpretation of it) is to Michael from >Hunch (there are some key differences but the general type is similar)… make of it what you may.

Vassalord is one of the most self-indulgent comics ever published. It’s… a slightly BDSM vampire gay love story which would scare Twilight and 50 shades of gray readers. I know a couple of vampire haters who love it. And while it “looks like porn but it isn’t porn*” it feels more dirty than actual hardcore porn that has porn in it (point in the matter: I wasn’t really vocal about liking it until I found other people who loved it). There are gays. And lesbians. And an android vampire hunter who is also a vampire. And a robotic dog. And a cat maid. And grumpy policemen, mafia, demons, crazy junkie mediums, fights, painful past, explosions, jumping from the plane with no parachute… Do I seem like I’m advertising it? (hint: I am. Join m,e Luke…)

Basically it’s a story where the author draw whatever caught her fancy and they somehow published it.

(*mostly)

(pen and brushpen)

A little fanart for That Which Wills, a story I am a fan of...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:53:00 -0400

A little fanart for That Which Wills, a story I am a fan of which is a collaboration of a couple of people I am a fan of.

I’d write more but since they just started a preorder for the first book (which I already ordered)I think their own post for it will be both more informative and eloquent and also you should order it because it is well dam worth all the money.

I didn’t plan on drawing it. I was so elated that it’s finally happening that my warm-up doodle happened to be Liam (with bedroom eyes and a bed head. You do the math).

(pen, brushpen and photoshop tone in case anybody cares)

My friend and roommate Sheep was taking part in Seven Day...

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:49:00 -0400

My friend and roommate Sheep was taking part in Seven Day Roguelike Challenge. He borrowed a MIDI keyboard. Since I like thinking up pieces of music but always let myself be hindered by my inability to write the score with no instrument to back me up (and doing it on guitar is a pain) I jumped at the change and borrowed it. He said “how about you make me the music for the game?” So I found a synthetizer program,made this and he liked it :D It is now included in his game you can find here: https://bitbucket.org/thesheep/fhrl/overview

This was supposed to be a simple slightly arrhythmic background music and I think I’m 90% happy with it. It’s sufficiently eerie and loops well (I left it on repeat to check). I was never a great pianist but I think that if I practice a bit I should be able to play again (I haven’t played for… a long. long. time).

I’ll probably be playing with music a little bit more in the future (also with my mike) though I won’t force anyone to listen, haha. (Also it seems you can use midi keyboard to put in notes into musescore which would speed it up greatly because this program is so @)$#%^(#@ uncooperative I never ended up writing more than a single phrase…

Square avatar bandwagon!~ Me and characters from my webcomic...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:10:19 -0400

Square avatar bandwagon!~

Me and characters from my webcomic More Than a Hunch: Michael, Howard, Ethan, Sylvia, a girl whose name I always forget and two spoiler characters. This is so fun~! (But work breaks are so short :[ )

You have just been stationed on the Sleipnir. What is your task name, position and rank?

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:58:50 -0500

Oh wow, a hard question…

I’d probably be a tiny navigator who either is best buddies or bickers with his fighter all the time (depending on the fighter - possibly both XD) I’d probably be a corporal or something (sorry, I am not too well versed with military ranks. Something above private but not too high).

As for code name… I am not 100% sure how the code names in Starfighter are assigned. Pedes sounds well though maybe it has to have more relevance ;p

So I was testing Mangastudio 5 for painting and uhm, I’m...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:45:24 -0500

So I was testing Mangastudio 5 for painting and uhm, I’m not too impressed. (In the end I did some adjustments in Photoshop but blah, can’t look at it anymore so it looks the way it does).

Let’s start with pros. MS5 is EXTREMLY senstive for linewight and I quite like the pen and pencil. BUT I have a tiny A6 Bamboo and somehow drawing with it in MS is a nuisance (it was a bit of a problem with MS4 but only for long,bolder strokes. Here I feel like I BREATHE and the line goes other way - even though I’m used to sketching tiny it didn’t feel good). While MS5 might be the best digital sketching program I have I still don’t feel comfortable with the tablet. Unless I borrow my roomies’ Cintiq or get a bigger tablet I don’t think it will my go-to option; still staying with pencil and paper.

The painting brushes… I haven’t installed all the materials and stuff yet but I don’t think there are any more brushes in them. When I first opened the program my reaction was “cool, blending brushes”. The problem is that…. Everything Blends. With everything.

See the thing is, I don’t need much when painting. In Photoshop I mostly use three brushes: default flat and two sparkled I made myself for blending and texturing. I start with high flow and opacity and gradually go down, lots with flow an a bit in opacity.

In MS5 there are different brushes and they have different options. The options are… confusing. I tried playing with them and I managed to somehow guess which influence the blending and blurring; yet it didn’t get rid of it completely. The brushes are also confusing. I have no idea what “opacity watercolor” does. “paint & apply” blurs EVEYRTHING even with blur turned off. I could either blur stuff together, smudge it together or use slightly harder brush (which with density turned down was still blurring everything together). I find the settings even more confusing than Painter (where I quite fast I managed to find a couple of brushes that worked well together for me) and that is saying LOTS.

Moreover, despite the fact that the size of the brush was really sensitive to tablet pressure I could not really notice big reactions for any other of the brush settings. I found myself straining my hand (something I never do on tablet as I have a special method of holding it that doesn’t require force) because I wanted ANY effect.

(I’d like to note here that I checked my tablet settings and in Photoshop afterwards everything was working as usual so this is definitely something between the tablet and the program.)

If you’re using more soft, blurred way of painting this program might be great for you but I need some harder edges and texture I can actually control and I wasn’t able to find the easy way to do this here.

It is possible that there are some settings I’m yet to find (the UI is completely different than previous Mangastudios and I know there are many many options there.. somewhere) but for now the only way I see MS5 in my painting process would be initial blending of the rough colors (which is a pain in PS).

As Mangastudio5 has many other things to offer I am pretty sure I won’t regret getting it but for painting tool, for me personally, it’s disappointing.

Arcon, my pretty pretty character from a story I’m writing...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 08:37:00 -0500

Arcon, my pretty pretty character from a story I’m writing with n-th-green
Here he is slightly younger than in our story and not bearing his cursed scar yet.

I didn’t catch his looks 100% :/ (partly because I was sketching on crappy paper and started inking form the face and it turned out this paper REALLY hates all my inking tools *sigh*)

More than a Hunch has updated! Go here to read the newest page...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 15:29:19 -0500

More than a Hunch has updated!

Go here to read the newest page or to the main site

astrejlau: If anyone is open for comic work let me know and i’ll put you on a list of contacts I’ll...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:45:58 -0500

astrejlau:

If anyone is open for comic work let me know and i’ll put you on a list of contacts I’ll give to writers who ask me to work with them who seem like good people with a legitimate project. I can’t take on any more work but there’s no reason I can’t help you guys if I’m able~<3

Wow, this is a cool thing to do.

I’d be up for paid work :)

Reblogging as there are some awesome peeps who this might help.

Ultimate Guide To Comic Artist Body Language! (Yes, this person...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:55:01 -0500

Ultimate Guide To Comic Artist Body Language!

(Yes, this person is a shapeless blob. Also, this is what I look like so mind your words.)