Photoshoppin' again

Haven't had the attention span lately to open up photoshop (much to the dismay of my entire self). I started tonight drawing in a different way than normal to get myself back into the groove and to get my head working. I find drawing jolts me into a good place when my head's foggy.

Inspirations - The Art of Tron: Legacy, Evangelion
There are actually three working versions and I'm kind of torn between which one I like best (I'm not as keen on the third/can't figure out how to continue with it). It's all on one layer so I'm trying to make sure I can go back if I fuck something up. Everything's done with the lasso tool. I really enjoy using it but often forget of its existence.
I've been trying to get out of my tendency towards fashion/couture/historical costume and more towards a streamlined look to get out of my comfort zone a bit more. I don't know if this counts as a success; I think I found a midway point with sci-fi couture instead of straight up different, haha.
I'm going to stop rambling now.

Correction

This is also part of my productivity levels yesterday. Right after posting last night and snuggling up for bed this decided to swim into my head. I guess when the only thing you can do in a day is sit and fester in your own head you come up with something eventually, even if it's not what you want (in this case, material for my Habibi paper).

Inspirations - the hipster's hood from Prometheus, Eureka seveN
The drape of the sleeves is really off, but it was 1am and I don't care.
On a side note, I loved the costumes in Prometheus. A lot of people seem to feel that they're too modern/too entrenched in modern styles, but I thought that was very appropriate considering the trend in minimal clothing changes over the course of the last few decades. I thought they were just that one step forward enough to work. The hood (cylindrical instead of a typical hood) was brilliant - a simple, radical change to something that is so common in everyday clothing. I'm smitten with it and it'll probably show up in my work a lot now (along with Mongolian-stlye boots and massive pants).

Only productive thing I did today

Today was one of my not so great days. I've been rewatching an anime I really liked as a teenager (Eureka seveN) to pass the time on such days. Back when I was in my teen years it really influenced my design style - which was a good thing in my mind and still is. Even though the animation is shoddy the production design and attention to detail is top-notch. It's still home to some of my favourite designs even after all these years.
I realized the other day that my costume history and construction background, in odd ways, hinders my ability to design. My designs always feel so confined to the realms of reality and what I know could be created instead of just being a product of imagination. I'm really trying to get away from that. It's one of the reasons why I'm trying to revisit old influences and finding new ones lately.

Anyways, enough angsting. This is really the only thing I did with my day aside from a small amount of reading. Unfortunately it was sketched in non-erasable pencil crayon so I couldn't fix things I didn't like. I'm definitely going to continue with this style for the series so I'll fix those things then.

Inspirations - Eureka seveN, Medieval lappets, military coats, men's doublets (mid 17th century), bugs
Couldn't figure out what to do with the boots. I'll figure that one out later. I'd like to fix the lower portion of the coat so that it has a more complex hem. I think I'll have this (when finished) done in multiple layers of clothing (with and without the coat, specifically so I can show the waistline of the pants at the back). The guy counterpart should be easy. I like this style. It's really easy for me to work with, but feels more outside my normal boundaries.

More sketches

Hello, all. Sorry about the lack of posting. Here's hoping that weekly meet ups with my classy lady artist friends gets me back on a somewhat normal drawing schedule. Unfortunately for the next month I'll be working on some papers from last term so drawing will be limited. However, during July and August expect a flood of drawings. I'll be working on several series to get some good portfolio work and be learning programs like Mudbox and Sketchbook Pro, which if you're a digital artist I highly recommend! It works like traditional drawing mediums so it's great for sketching and lines. Here's hoping it helps my atrocious digital line work.

Anyways, here are some early sketches of the series I'll be working on. I'm planning on doing a guy and girl in various styles of clothing to show my range.

 Inspirations - Prometheus and Mass Effect, skeletons
Space suits which will probably get full colours in the final designs. Girl front and guy back; very similar designs but blockier for the guy suit.
I might also do environment sketches for this pair as well. I find it funny that in every SPACE! series it's all metal and there's no natural environments. It's like everyone assumes that in order to have excursions in space humans had to have killed the planet prior to the beginning of the series. Silly.

 Inspirations - the Equalists in Korra and Iron Man's hand blaster, Mongolian boots (my love and joy), the hoods from Assassins Creed
Nothing to say. Trying to figure out a boy counterpart that's substantially different. This one feels pretty comfortable for me. I'm going to be trying to get away from this kind of design with the others.

 Inspirations - hairstyles of various Native American tribes and the hair of Amy Dorrit's sister in BBC's Little Dorrit
I think the clothes will end up a lot more Japanese even though these started out based on Native hair styles.

My good friend, Kat, just finished her fourth year and her thesis film. I finally got to see it properly on Saturday at the Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival. I decided to do a quick sketch of the film's main character, Maki. I assure you Maki's a very lovely young lady, I just really like her as a pissed off snake. This is, for the record, about as cartoonish as I go.