Medieval drawing night

The theme for this week's drawing night was "Medieval" so I drew a more modern take on one of my favourite garments, the chaperon (a headdress with long swaths of fabric circling the neck or hanging from the headdress in a elaborate style).

Sorry about the lack of posting over here. I've been working on hats and my final pages for my comics class; the first two hats are on tumblr. I won't be posting them here until after Christmas as they're for my parents and they actually check this blog somewhat regularly. I'm also a bit hesitant to post here because I've been getting a lot of hits from spam/virus sites every time I post that are wrecking my stats.

Inktober

A thing called inktober (drawing with ink for the month of October) is happening over on tumblr so I've been doing a few ink/marker drawings. Enjoy.

More fancy punks

My drawing method is now officially 1. try to draw something, 2. have it turn into a bunch of sour-faced punks. I'm not typing out what it says behind them here because this is my "attempt at being professional blog".
The guys's hands are easily the best hands I've ever drawn; that is, however, outweighed by the fact that his boots are the worst boots I've ever designed.

More design challenge sketches

 Sketches for "leather" and "suits" challenges, both of which I'd like to return to. Still can't decide if the plant/deer man should have little breeches or not. I kind of like him all fuzzy.

Mini-illustration for "shorts". The original sketch was horrible so I redid her in photoshop with a new colouring style that I felt suited her design. Not something I'm totally comfortable with, but I'd like to work with it some more in the future.

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.

Modern Sweethearts WIP

I'm back, for the moment at least. I'm working on a series of illustrations based on a painting style I developed back when I first started using PS. Here's the first which still needs some love before its done. I also need to do a print test to see if it prints well.

Modern Sweetheart
Inspirations - a painting from a waiting room (colours) and victorian pendants
Today and yesterday, CS5

Have something happy

I had a bad week. So I drew something insanely peppy and happy. Basic colours blocked out and thats about it.  I've hit the wall so this is it for tonight.

Probably won't stick with these colours; I'm working in CMYK because I'm tired of how poorly everything always prints in RGB, but this version here is RGB, so there's some colour differences from the working file. Debating whether to put a cityscape in the background or some sort of natural setting. Possibly just a funky design. Gah. I hate backgrounds but I really need to get over that. Too tired to write anything more. Oodles of love to everyone else who has had a bad week.

Also, this is the 50th post. Thanks for following or simply stumbling upon my little art blog. <3