Daily Draw February days 2-11

Days 3 and 6 were bust so they're not being posted here.
From top to bottom: day 2 - centaur, day 4 - naga, day 5 - mermaid, day 7 - plant, day 8 - zombie, day 9 - insect, day 10 - demon, day 11 - robots

Postcards

Liz from my webcomic for promotional postcards I'll be sending out over the next few weeks in hopes of getting some freelance illustration gigs.

One of my biggest pet peeves in any narrative including robots/androids/AIs is the whole SYNTHETIC LIFE WANTS ONLY TO DESTROY ORGANIC LIFE that is pretty much the biggest mainstay of the genre. Liz, as a result is pretty fond of plants and a large portion of her character arc is trying to connect to organic life and further her own consciousness via her continued interaction with others.

Another attempt at Samara

Samara's been on this blog before. She's one of my favourite Mass Effect characters - which is saying something because the series is one of my most beloved things in the entire world. But I have a lot of trouble with her character model; she's basically everything I've ever wanted in a badass lady, beauty, ferocity, determination that would make a Terminator blush. and untold wisdom of a thousand year life span. She had so much potential to be perfect but her model makes her look like a sexy strawberry and does absolutely nothing to convey her complexities. I wanted to try another redesign this time playing  around with the styles worn by Asari in game and made them more battle-monk-ish to suit her. I really wish she had have looked something more like this rather than blatant fanservice for the male segments of the audience.

Final assignment

My final assignment! I got some really great feed back, so I'll make those changes for when these pages are actually in proper use... which brings me to exciting news. I'll be starting up a weekly webcomic called Making of an Android in the new year. These pages take place near the end of the first chapter after lots of character development leading up to Liz's breakdown. I chose to do these for my assignment as I felt they worked best for what was asked, and frankly, it was lots of fun to get into the meat of the comic.

I'll post a link for anyone interested once the site is up and running with the first page.

Week 3 comics

I was sick for most of the week so this one was done mostly this afternoon over the course of ~3 hours. The assignment was create a biography of a character in a page or less using words and images. I gave up on trying to use thin lines for these comics. Thick, varied lines all the way!

More comics

My second assignment: the death of a character in 1 page/8 panels, no words, only pictures. It ended up as a joint death scene as the only way I could see Liz choosing to die (as a robot she's essentially immortal so long as she can keep herself in good repair) was if her partner, Sike, died.
I had more trouble with this one than the last since I haven't drawn these two in a long time and Sike got a gender swap since I last drew him/her (and she's old here; man I'm such a masochist). So both of them are horribly off model and I suck at fine line work. Whatevs.

Motoko

Rewatched Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for this first time since I was a teenager; naturally, I had to draw the Major once done.

Quorra

Quorra from Tron Legac, 2-2.5 hours
Had difficulty with her smile and a little bit with the colours but I really liked drawing her eyes. They're so expressive.

Dailies

Been doing daily costume/fashion drawings for an hour over on Tumblr. These were today's and I liked them so I thought I'd share them here.

Something old and something new

Returned to an old character from last year that I kind of forgot about. Been feeling that my style's been getting stagnant lately so I played around with colour and shapes on a sketch from last night for a bit. Liking it. More vibrant and eye catching. Now to just get over my fear of drawing clothes accurately in motion and perspective in digital.

Samara

Samara redesign - Mass Effect 2

I got the Mass Effect art book recently and was disappointed by the focus on the female character's sexuality in the little blurbs about the though processes behind the designs. Even in game I noticed a major shift in direction between ME1 and ME2; though ME2 had far better characterization I felt that some designs were disconnected from the character they were portraying. Samara, who's one of my favourite characters, was one of the worst in this respect. The emphasis in art book was definitely on her sex appeal and it shows.

Samara is sexy, yeah, but she's also an ascetic warrior who's almost a 1000 year old. I wanted to redesign her in a way that worked more with her character, especially her age. In game she looks younger than someone 1/10 her age just based on clothing. Gave her a simple bodysuit/light armour and a shawl for everyday wear. Shawls, to me, are the ultimate in high-class older women's wear (and Samara is the ultimate in high-class older ladies).

Future sketches

Doing a 30 day challenge over on my tumblr that focuses on costume/character design. I liked this sketch so I thought I'd post it here as well. This is from day 2.
Basically I wanted to create a simple, feasible design style which revolved around major environmental changes. Thus, breathing masks, heavy duty goggles, and almost completely covered bodies (skin-tight body suits with light layers over top).

Space suits - girl armour

Finally finished this fucker. I redesigned this about five times and completely redid the overall layout and most of the lines over the past few days. This is what I get for trying to draw something so complex when I'm out of it for several weeks. Oops.
Originally I intended to have her and her male counterpart (who may or may not be drawn later) as military-ish figures but she looks a lot more like a cop. I'll be doing a weapons study later. I wanted to do something different that the sci-fi gun standard and came up with a multipurpose energy weapon (katar-like blade, taser-punch, energy shooter, shield, and mass-damage ball and chain type weapon). Looking at it here it's way off scale.

Space suits -boy

I have very little to say about him other than he took a hell of a lot less time that the girl and that I really like his pants. I'm seriously considering making something like those in the future - the pattern would be really easy, it would just be sewing down the piping/ribbon/embroidering that would be a pain.
Clearly I need to learn a lesson from this and actually give a good amount of time to planning before jumping into an illustration. Time for the armoured suits!

Space suits - girl

New drawings! (i.e. ones that have been almost done for weeks and I only just finished because I hate doing line work and that was all that was left.)

Inspirations - patterns from Atlantis, swim suits, that hood of amazingness and wonder from Prometheus
Finally done. This is a continuation from the space armour sketch from a few weeks months ago. I'll also be doing a male counterpart as well as a proper illustration for their armour. I want to get a good, strong series of illustrations out of this for my portfolio to show design, character, and the ability to think through all the details.
Initially I was only going to do the armours but then I decided to get more involved in this. I imagine the base suit as a wear-all-day kind of thing made out of the magical fabric described by Edna Mode in The Incredibles. It would offer protection from the elements and from the armours; however, to allow for individuality the people in this setting wear easy to remove clothing over top their suits. That way if an alarm sounds they can get into their armours quickly and efficiently without having to completely change their clothing.

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.

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.

Always the best student

Anyone noticing a trend of posts on Tuesdays? I am. Three guesses why. Here's a hint, it starts with "My professor" and ends with "is really boring." There might be some other things in that mix. Anyways, I drew some more character designs (in class, in my sketchbook, and he didn't notice*)!
*I would feel really, really badly about this normally, but seriously, the class is like watching paint dry and the prof can be a tad bit offensive every so often.

Inspirations - Finder, again, European and East-Asian historical clothing (the exhibit on Qing clothing at the ROM and obis specifically)
Today, pencil, 10 minutes each?
More designs for Liz's world, her family! Sort of. They're her mother, father, and original self (flesh and blood vs. robot Liz). I think this will be the kind of look for the clothes (at least in her household) with a more natural look for the people outside. Her parents are essentially nobility/rich; I want them to look good, but also the kind of clothes that are both 1. well-made and 2. worn every day. Does the sci-fi fairytale thing come out? I'd really like to hear people's opinions/thoughts about this.

More concept work

Been busy this week. I haven't been drawing much (that I want on this blog, mostly Rowan pages); I've been slowly working on/thinking about an essay for my Environmental Ethics class. Lots of fun. I think it could very easily be turned into a thesis and I'm now seriously thinking about something in Environmental Studies for my grad work. Anyways, I've also been thinking about the next comic story I'd like to work on. Here's a new design.

Sike (working name) - Heart of the Self
Inspirations - Finder, punk styles
Today and yesterday
New addition to the Heart of the Self cast (I think this story needs a better name), Sike, an electronics expert and robot mechanic who Liz befriends later in the story. Liz finds it funny that when his hair is down they have almost the same hairstyle; Sike does not approve.
I'll be posting environment sketches/designs as they get worked on. The story is a retake on traditional fairytales; the princess is Liz, a robot girl trying to figure out who and what she is, and instead of being in a land of castles and medieval yore, it's set on a cliff-side where the buildings are part of the natural landscape. It's an environmentally-orineted sci-fi fairytale, I guess.

Almost done

Yup. More of her; I'm obsessed with her right now. She's almost done, just need detail work (so much pattern work and mehndi to do!), background, and a few other things now. I was originally going to fully render her, but I like the cell shading effect on her, especially the arms. Still adjusting a few things to make sure everything's perfect. Once done I'm hoping she can be a good portfolio piece for the upcoming horror that is graduation and job hunting. I promise that the next post containing her will be the last and that you'll see new things soon (well, as "soon" as soon can be for me).