Peppering up an image

I think that it's pretty interesting how much color effects things, and how quickly you can take in techniques for it. Which helps, as there's a whole lot to think about when it comes to that. These two pictures use the same line-work. If anything has been changed, it's minute. My first huge burst of cards ended with this one, and one of the reasons I lost momentum is because this one was a little bland originally. Also it had less consistent light. Something facing downwards like that shield is shouldn't have a heavy highlight, for one. While the finished card is far from perfect, it's acceptable, and when you have a huge, self-imposed deadline, sometimes crossing that finish line is what really matters.

Many of these cards will likely be swapped out for designs that Caitlin did/does, but having 30 illustrations under my belt from recent feels good.

sprites_test

Luckily, Blogger is better at handling sprites than a lot of other places. I was considering doing 32x32, NES palate graphics, but I'm not so sure about that. While I like working within limitations, I feel like I could handle bigger sprites without freaking out too bad. I do like working at that size though. Every dot matters. If you mess one thing up, the whole thing looks off. The last two sprites on the second sheet are a good example of that. I don't think the gun is very clear on the second sprite, but reads a lot better on the first. That character is also a combination of two other characters on the other sheet, and that's my fault for not keeping up with these characters.

Sprite_tests

I kind of want to make a video game's worth of sprites. It's on my list of things that I won't be happy if I don't do at least once. Finish a graphic novel and make all the character sprites for a video game are two of the main things on that list, and I aim to finish at least one of those as soon as I can. I don't think I'm a fan of the dithered sprite. It's nice when other people do it, but I just don't think it works for me. Plus that character's hair is all wrong.

Captain_Scum_atst2n

While I was redesigning Lori for the comic, I started to draw them dressed in steam punk clothing, but once I start doing that I start severely toning down the ornateness of steampunk. This is all because I thought of the phrase SPRY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

100_notebooks

I went through more notebooks than my other three brothers combined in high school. Filled with drawings that I would sooner burn than show you. Also: an annoying thing about my tablet PC: since the pen is read pretty far from the screen, I'm constantly leaving hooks when I letter and ink by hand. I wish it weren't so.

SS08

So, I wanted to see the viability of modeling all the backgrounds of my comic in 3D, and then tracing it off and using it as a perspective guide. It seems like it'll work pretty well, so I'm cautiously optimistic. I have most of the zoo modeled in my student copy of Alias Maya 7.0. So yeah, I haven't stuck with 3D modeling that much. I kind of want to use Blender for the rest of it, but I get confounded by it's camera tools.

SS07

Princess/Princess Fanart. By the time this goes up, I'm sure this princess will have a name and I will have posted a better, more interesting fan art of it onto Tumblr. Still, I like Josh Lesnik, and I love his idea for this game. Having been a game designer for a little while, I can pretty safely say that he might be trying to make too big of a project for his first game, but I doubt he's going to do all the programming and art himself, so maybe it will work out for him. It's not like he's a novice story-teller or anything. I've also officially started skipping days to make up for all my layouts.