Mischief: First Impressions, Creative Process, And Gods, I've Taken a Load of Cute Animal Pictures Lately.

I've been telling the story recently of how my site's URL came to pass. In my supposed infinite wisdom upon looking towards college I decided to take all of my gen. ed studies in my first few years of school to get them out of the way at a Junior College. And because of that infinite wisdom my senior ass got stuck with two big-project courses in the same semester as a sound design and statistics course. Translation: on average, I had three hours of sleep at most each night. And when at least two of these days have me doing twelve hours of projects and courses (and attending course lectures) I spent the mornings shuffling into class with a red bull in one hand, Starbucks in the other. By all rights, I probably should've hard a heart attack of some kind by this point. I have curbed my intake since then. I also probably sleep twice as much.

The second reason I feel like the zombie part of my moniker is relevant is it seems that when the seasons change, I turn into a shuffling mass of illness. I had planned on fully plugging through the software I mentioned last time, Mischief, but only managed to get into roughly two days worth of working on different projects in the software itself. I will say that based on my short time in the product I'll probably try to purchase it in the future.

The first picture I tried to work with in it was just a simple sketch and linework study. While it's definitely a great tool there are some things to get used to. Lassoing and resizing parts of the picture is not impossible, just not as intuitive. And I would like a hexidecimal input for colors just because it's how I've learned to keep track of my own colors when I'm working. But I realize I'm not everyone.

I will warn you though - the lineart in this picture was done with their 6.5 brush. All of the lines. It really makes a difference on brush width when you're zooming into what you're working on. 

The second day I worked for a while doing gesture sketches in the software. While I really wish I would've been able to do a full piece (color, et all, blending too) I believe I'd love this software as a sketching tool then importing it into other software as a flat image. Because of the infinite canvas capabilities alone (not to mention the brushes) I would love this software as a way to sketch out future pages and thumbnail projects.

This is the year of changing software - I made the decision to work in the Manga Studio program for the graphic novel I'm working on, and it's made a difference in my layout and drawing style. I started picking up Frenden's signature brush packs for both Photoshop and the MS software - brushes that mimic traditional pen nibs and the like.

Yes, when I can't think of anything, and my brain is still loopy from sickness, I apparently draw my mascot self. One of these days I'll figure out a version of them I'll stick with. 

 I'll be posting some of the panels I had to cut out of the graphic novel when it gets closer to launch.

My personal FB has turned into an explosion of Puppy Pictures. We finally got to hold our Puppy last weekend, and he is incredibly adorable. Between that and the bf's mom's new puppy, I've suddenly made minor popularity as a cute animal photog. Almost reminds me of the ducklings caught in the sewer drain that happened this summer.  I may get the DSLR back out when we get Puck home with us for good and take a few photos of the rascal. Hopefully my eye for composition has gotten better and the pictures will turn out halfway decent.

I mean, this still isn't too bad and all as far as photos go but it is a cell phone picture. (boo. hiss.) 

That's enough out of me for tonight. I've got to sleep still.