Wednesday, February 27, 2013

blocked

I have been unable to draw anything satisfactory for the past few weeks, which I must admit annoys me to no end. I have tried drawing everything to get out of my rut, but I don't like anything.

Well, this 20's Flapper Chinese style dragon turned out okay, but I don't know what I was thinking when I drew her. Honestly.

I have yet to decide a course of action on what to do-- I should probably get started on a large project so I'll feel compelled to finish it. What that large project may be, I have yet to decide.

For now I may just pick up a new hobby. Puzzles are fun. Hm.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Things I Love: Dovecote Crest

Dovecote Crest is a webcomic, and basically it is the most fun webcomic I have ever read.
(Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I don't exactly read a lot of webcomics... but it would definitely take a lot to trump this one.)

Why, you ask? Let me make a list...


1. the art. Obviously, these pictures are all pages from Dovecote Crest.... and you can probably tell at a glance that it evolves a lot over the course of the comic. In honesty, watching the art grow and become beautiful adds so much to reading it. But beyond that, the art is just so charming and enjoyable, right from the start. I hardly even noticed how much it changed.


2. the stories. They're engaging, well-told, and basically awesome. Enough said.

3. the setting. Dovecote Crest is set on a historic site, and the characters are Civil War reenactors. I especially love this, having been brought up hanging around places like Colonial Williamsburg (where there are Revolutionary War reenactments all over the place) and being a tour guide myself. I can especially connect with some of the museum-y tidbits lying around.


4. this is a major one; the characters. Basically I'm in love with all of them. Some characters only get one or two lines throughout the stories, and yet you (or at least me) still feel connected to them. I especially love the characters separate voices and unique speech patterns--Jeremy's is easily the most noticeable, but they all have small patterns that make it easy to tell who's talking, even without the handy speech bubbles.


Also one more thing before I go... I personally love looking at the art of this comic, because it is so beautiful, but its still very accessible. As I'm trying to plunder through art myself, I love being able to look at the art and see something that I could maybe learn to do someday. I love the colors and the way they work, and being able to see how the artist did them. Other comics, which don't use styles I'm familiar with, seem distant to me. A lot of webcomics use art styles that seem so perfect, like some MARVEL god came down from his cloud and handed over perfectly drawn art panels. This art doesn't feel like that. This feels very familiar, and I love it for that.

Also if you aren't convinced by all this that you should look at it, go look at it anyways. And start at the beginning. HERE.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Guard yourselves, my friends...

Who Is Zuri Sophilia?: The spork...clever utensil combination, or downfal...: What is wrong with the world today?  This question has been asked countless times, and the responses which have been given are as varied as...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day!

This year's Valentine's day drawing! It took nearly two days, much longer than the others. On the other hand, I've been in an art block for a while now and this really helped. So yay!

2012's Valentine's Day Picture

Aaand 2011's Valentine's Day Picture

Friday, February 08, 2013

Things I love: Figment Daily Themes

at Figment.com you can sign up to have a writing prompt sent to you every weekday, Monday-Friday. I love these things. I love them very much.


I don't often use them, but whenever I get into a writing rut I can just go through my email history and find something to dig me out. Plus, they're always interesting to read! :D

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

bored

And this is what I do when I'm bored!

In case you can't tell what that thing up there is, I build house plans. And yes, I am extremely bored.

On the other hand, this thing easily took four hours, because right after finishing it my little sister ran past and unplugged the computer. The computer is so old that when you unplug it, everything crashes. So I lost all of my work. It was highly depressing. I felt like I had to finish it again, so here it is. XD

Which reminds me of something I just read about Sharon Kay Penman's book the Sunne in Splendour. She wrote the first copy of the manuscript, five hundred pages worth of historical fiction, only to have her only copy stolen from her car. She was unable to write for six years after that, after which she rewrote the whole thing. I was almost physically sick when I heard that. Let it be a lesson to us all to back up everything we write a million times.

And since Ms. Penman's book is about King Richard III... here's an article about the recreation of his face! And guess what? He doesn't have a withered arm...