Girls: Recap

Well, here we are at the end of the month! I plan on taking a moment at the end of each topic to write down how I think it went so I can learn from the experience. Certain things worked really well this month, and certain things obviously didn't.

I enjoyed having a personal project that had nothing to do with work or school. It helped keep me inspired and actually made me really productive on all of my work because it was refreshing to work on something personal when I was getting frustrated with a design project. It's also very helpful for me to shift gears - if I've been designing all day and the last thing I want to do is kern or mess with point sizes, I can do something a lot more open and playful and without rules. It's inspiring.

However, I sort of took this too far. :) I focused so much on channeling all my illustration ideas into my sketches until they weren't really sketches anymore. Part of the issue I realized is that this is my only blog currently and though it's called "sketchmonth," I started combining it really early on with other personal projects of mine so I was determined to make everything perfect and flawless. I think I'll be starting another blog soon (I have the url, but it's not up yet) for my regular work so that this project can be what it was intended to be: sketches.

Along those same lines, I'm probably going to change the structure of this project a little. I'm going to give myself weekends. I have a tendency to overbook myself and to expect myself to work seven days a week. I've done this ever since high school and I haven't taken consistent weekends since I was a teenager. Though I still have enough projects that I'll still be working on the weekends, thank you two jobs and school, I'll be letting myself take weekends on this project. I don't want to burn out on it.

And finally, I'm not ever sure how much personal information to put into blogs (I generally err on the side of next to none), but this is a bit relevant, I guess, because it affects my productivity. I was late in posting my last couple of drawings due to some medical problems that like to reassert their ugly little heads every now and then. Since 2005-ish I've had varying levels of thyroid problems (originally I was hyperthyroid, now it appears to be going the other way) and chronic hives (daily for the last four months). The list of symptoms of this is long and whiny (including such lovely tidbits as chronic fatigue and hair loss), but suffice it to say it's debilitating. I get to go back to the doctor again Monday and have my levels re-checked and hopefully I can finally convince them to send me on to an endocrinologist. The internet seems to imply that synthetic thyroid hormones can also alleviate chronic urticaria, so that'd be great. Just don't let it be lupus. :P

Anyway, all whiny shit aside, I'm enjoying my little project here and I intend to keep it up, no matter what my stupid body tries to do to me. I'll be posting again on Monday (taking that much needed weekend) with my new theme: cars. :)

(By the way, I mentioned a picture of Josephine and Arlen a few posts back that I never uploaded. That is because, like a total dumbass, I spilled ink on it! Yay! And because the damned thing is 13x19ish, it was too big to redo quickly. I'll post it when I get a chance to completely retrace and reink it, because as you may have noted, I am a perfectionist and it's pissing me off.)

Girls: Day 24

Girls: Day 23

Girls: Day 22

Okay, so late again, but my final post for this theme will explain a bit why. I originally drew the first sketch back in 2009, but I wasn't happy with the inking job I did when I first attempted it. Also, since Josephine's character has shortened a bit, I wanted the drawing to be more accurate to my current style and design. But since I had always liked the composition and gesture, I decided to give it another go. I played around with tones and textures a lot and I'm not sure how much I like the final product, but it was fun to try.

Girls: Day 21

Okay, this is neither what I said I'd post or when I said I would post it, but spring break happened. Combining an annoying dental infection with the drowsiness-causing meds that I had to take for it for a week and the fact that I didn't have schoolwork made me spend most of the last six days sleeping. Working on these daily actually take a lot of my time, so I'll probably be changing up the structure of how sketchmonth works a bit for the next topic (including giving myself weekends, which I haven't had in a couple of years, and lessening the completion quality).

One of my upcoming projects will be creating a more professional blog for my more completed works, meaning that this one will be relegated to sketches, like the name implies. I'll post a link to it here when it's done...but that'll probably be sometime next month since I'm booked up for now.

edit: I decided to try adding some digital toning on this (not exactly tone - it's cgtextures). I'm not quite sure how I'll be "coloring" the final comic, so I'm playing with ideas because traditional screentones are obnoxious, don't like to stay put, and are tedious.

Girls: Day 20

...and we're caught up. Josephine again, but I guess I drew this one to prove that she isn't always emo. She's actually pretty outgoing and confident. She'll be making an appearance tomorrow with Arlen as well. Part of my delay in posting is due to the fact that I've been sketching ahead a lot and planning out what I'm going to draw. I know I probably shouldn't, but it's a great procrastination tool...

Girls: Day 19

I don't know what she's drawing, but I imagined it to be charcoal that she's working in.

Girls: Day 18

Okay, so again, posting late, but today is my last day before spring break officially starts (my classes close on Sundays or Mondays generally, not Fridays). I've been dealing with an annoying infected wisdom tooth though, but I'm not letting it get me down!

Girls: Day 17

I actually originally drew the red drawing while I was still in college for my first illustration degree. Crazy, huh? I recently went through every single piece of artwork I still have in order to scan them and then put the originals in storage and I came across a few things that I liked well enough to trace. This was one of them. This character's name is Cela and I had at one point written a short about her, but I scrapped it for a number of reasons. I may eventually do something with her, but we'll see.

A trivia point: every shape you've seen thus far has been drawn by hand. All those circles and squares were all done by hand in ink. This is the first time that you can see that break down - the circle around her is a bit bumpy. That's because it was huge (I used a plate to trace it) and it got a bit wobbly. Oh well, I can't always be a perfectionist I suppose.

Girls: Day 16

Girls: Day 15

You ever have one of those days when just nothing is getting done on time? That was this past Monday. Then my internet decided to go on the fritz, so here I am, posting very, very late. But I have all my sketches to show from Monday until today. Spring break can't get here fast enough!

Girls: Day 14

So long as I haven't yet gone to sleep, it still counts as the same day, right? Right, that's what I'm going with. The last couple of days have been extremely hectic with midterms (including having to do 240 thumbnails for one project - yeah you read that right, 240 full color, painted thumbnails) and comic-drawing. I think my hand's going to fall off.

Anyway, here's this girl again. I should really get to writing her story. For this comic, I'm simplifying forms a bit (notice her arms and neck and irises) and playing with shapes. She has a very weird shape, but it's a lot of fun to draw. So far, the character designs for it are coming out awesome - lots of cool shape variation, especially in body shape which is something I'm exploring currently a lot (though all of the work I've been posting is pretty much skinny girls, with the exception of Arlen of course, lol, but Josephine's shape versus this girl's shape is very different and mentally very different to draw). I'll post more interesting figures in a future topic, I'm sure.

Also, I obviously included some process images. Recognize some of the others on that page? Yep, I do that a lot. I draw a bunch of crap on one page and then trace off the pieces that work. Okay, now I need to sleep, because two nights in a row of staying up until 6 am and then waking up at 10 is lame and makes me kooky.

Girls: Day 13

A simple little one for today. Midterms are fast approaching and balancing school, work, and a comic are kicking my ass. I'm still going to post here though, I'm determined!

Girls: Day 12

Today's my birthday, so I'm just posting a little doodle instead of a full illustration-sketch. I'm 26...I feel so old!

Girls: Day 11

Yeah, it's Josephine again, oh well, you can deal. This is sort of related to a plot point it the comic, but the outfit will probably change. Ah well, playing around is fun. I do love my arches water color paper. Who knew it was the best inking paper out there? :P

Girls: Day 10

I had fun designing the clothes on this one. The circle I sort of imagined to be one of those halos you see on old paintings of saints for no real reason.

Girls: Day 9

And because it's technically already day 9 (since I got that last one in kind of late), here is day 9's image. Josephine again. I'm not too keen on the values, I think I'll end up making her socks black and her skirt gray.

Girls: Day 8

A sort of self-portrait. (I'll be getting my hair cut like this when I'm in San Francisco for spring break.) Now I just need to decide what glasses to get...because I need to be able to see.

Girls: Day 7

Almost didn't get this one in on time! Today's been a long day. This is the same character as my header image, but she's younger by a bit here. I'm currently writing a comic about her, so she doesn't have a name or much of a story yet.

Girls: Day 6

I suppose you could technically call this off category since it includes a guy, but too bad, I'm designing characters currently so I'm combining this project with another one! This is Josephine and Arlen, the two main characters of my comic.