I’m totally Hulking out over here

Tags

Art, design, Sketches, work, wow

So I know I promised art “tomorrow” and that was what, like, last Friday or something? Anyway, yeah. I have an excuse, I swear.

I have been drawing a shoe. Over. And over. And over. And over again. This shoe:

Yeah. All those little swirlies? Done by hand. This is at least the third incarnation of this shoe. This is for a logo design I’ve been working on for work, but it kind of seeped over into my personal life, sooooo yeah. It’s taken quite a while. Aaaaand now I’ve been told that they want a different shoe, so back to the drawing board. That’s the only time I’ve ever gotten to use that phrase literally! Neat!

Anyway, not so solid an excuse, I know I’ve also been working on commissions. The sketches I promised are nowhere NEAR being presentable (I’m nitpicky, sue me), but I did add a couple of images to the gallery on the sly:

A commission piece for the amazingly talented Tami Moore! Her Draenei priest, Vonya, reading her spellbook and possibly daydreaming about bubbles <3 Guys, I kind of NEED a moonkin plush now.

Another for Tami! Vonya and her tanky buddy, Noq, after some great adventures These girls were way too fun to draw <3 Draenei feets!

Here’s where I get a little too talky about WoW

I kind of started playing WoW a lot again. Bad Courtney. Zach hasn’t played in about a month, and was at the point where he was rolling his eyes and snorting at all my WoW-talk. I was running around leveling alt after alt after alt until my home server was full D: Anyway, he eventually reactivated his account and we’ve raided together a couple of times since then. It’s been nice, especially since I haven’t actually raided since he quit playing, except for the occasional VoA or weekly boss.

I’m pretty surprised at how much less stressful raiding has been since we quit our old guild, and how fresh and drama-free the server feels since our old GM and his cronies transferred. I feel like I can log onto my main and not be harassed, which is lovely

Also, I’m sucking it up and working on my DK. I know they’re supposed to be easy and blah blah blah, but I just can’t get behind playing a class that I haven’t leveled since 1. Luckily, Zach plays the most amazing DK I know, so he’s been helping me a lot. I’m actually really enjoying leveling through Outlands again

But yeah! I’m working on some really cool commissions for a couple of people. I’m all antsy to post things but I’m just not satisfied with anything I’ve drawn! Woe! Lament!

And there’s your update! I promise I’ll have some sketches soon…I’ve got some that I really like but I’ve been too distracted to really get down and work on them

Artistic To-Do List

It turns out that my boss is just as big a fan of not coming in to work as me, so I’m off tomorrow! I have a ton of stuff to do, including uploading some new sketches and art, getting this place ready for possible commission traffic, and maybe even opening commissions! Yessss!

I have this huge list in my head of things that I want to work on and improve during the commission process. I think that this will help keep me in the mood to do these and will drive me forward if I start to lose inspiration. I guess now is as good a time as any to actually put the list somewhere so I can refer to it.

Here goes:

1. Dudes. I personally don’t have any male characters, so this one has been a challenge. I don’t get much practice with males, and I have a lot of trouble doodling characters I don’t “know.” Luckily, I have a wonderful boyfriend who has a ton of male characters that I can play around with and “feel out.” Also, he’s a total babe and has told me that he only trusts me to draw them for him <3
2. Hordies. Again, this isn’t for lack of trying, and it’s not that I don’t like the Horde or anything, although it’s pretty clear where my allegiances lie >_> HOWEVER, I know that I’m probably going to end up having to draw Horde characters, because just about everyone I know inevitably goes Horde. I have a couple of Horde ladies that I can doodle, but there are no dudes, so this problem ties in with #1 as well :\ Need to draw some Horde mens.
3. Full Pieces. I desperately need to get some full, finished WoW pieces going. I’m terribad with backgrounds, and I have a lot of work to do with coloring, so the practice will be invaluable.
4. Interesting Poses. This is a big one. I need to slow down and work out posing. I need to start looking up models or modeling for myself to get them right. I need to stop approximating and doodling and guessing. These are terrible habits and I need to break myself into some new ones.
5. Character Interaction. I’ve always had trouble with this. I’m trying to work more with multiple characters interacting, even if they aren’t really touching each other. I need the characters to feel like they’re in the same environment, reacting to the same things, or just reacting to each other. This one is going to take some work. Also, I need more characters interacting with objects and their environment.
6. Expression. This is one that I feel like I’m getting better at, but I still haven’t quite got the full range of expression and emotion in my characters. I usually draw my own characters as happy/quirky/confident/psychotic but there are something like a bajillion different emotions and moods that can be represented, and I feel like I’m only scratching at the surface.
7. Chibis. I desperately want to find a solid style to do these in so that I can actually finish a few. I want them to be consistent, adorable, and comparatively quick to turn out.
8. Linework. Until now, I’ve been pretty satisfied with my linework, but I think it might be about time for an overhaul. I want my lines to be less distracting. I think I can thin them down to get that effect, but the way I do linework causes my lines to be pretty chunky, so I’ll probably have to step back and find another method.
9. Slow the eff down. Good art isn’t made in a day, although many of us probably really wish it was. My problem is having a good idea, and wanting to see it finished right now, and it’s just not going to happen that way. I tend to get bored with things before I even get off to a good start, so I have a ton of unfinished and half-finished projects wasting away on my computer.
10. Get in the zone. I don’t know how to accomplish this just yet, but it’s a big one. I need to learn to just sit at my desk and do art. For a while. I need music for drawing, I need fewer distractions. This is kind of a problem because when I get home, I want to spend time with Zach, and that time usually ends up being all night (which I’m totally okay with!).

There are about a million more things, but they’re more humdrum kind of things that I’m working on “behind-the-scenes” so to speak. Hands is one of them. You get the idea.

Anyway, tomorrow: Sketches!

Issues

I fiddled with the gallery feature all night last night, and it turns out that it’s completely not what I wanted or what I thought it would be, so I’m going to do some more fiddling tonight and see if I can’t figure something out.

I think the best way to go about updating art and stuff here is going to be by uploading it to my gallery page, and then I guess making an actual blog post to alert readers? I don’t know, it’s not like I’m going to have a stupid amount of people reading this thing I guess. I’ll have to remember to make an announcement on my defunct deviantART account as well

Also, commission prices are up. I’m going to wait until I have a few more examples of each type of commission style before I actually try to advertise just so people know EXACTLY what they’re getting into. I can’t decide if the prices need adjusting, though. I charged slightly less before when I was doing furry things, but it takes me a lot more time and effort to do humanoids, so I think it’s fair?

OH! Since I posted new art to the gallery, here is the new art that I posted! Lookie:

My paladin, Caelynn, and my hunter, Alunde, have a chat about…I dunno, hunting or something. Alunde is doing all the talking, and all she ever talks about is her stupid cat. Actually, after having sketched this up, I realized how appropriate it really is. Even though Alunde is technically “older” than Cae, she’s still running around in rags Aw man, now I kind of miss my huntard bb <3

Here’s my baby shaman, Rhynne, grumping around or something. I love this girl so much. Also, draenei are the most fun race to draw due to HOOVES. LOVE. Tauren only sort of count.

And here’s the character I’ll never finish, my tauren druid, Ikkuma. Poor girl. She’s level 26 and I want to gouge my eyeballs out every time I play her, because tanking through the LFD tool has brought me nothing but agony so far. Also, she’s definitely going to be either a troll or worgen druid when Cataclysm comes out <3

So yeah, the kids thing is what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. I have a really cute orc boy with his pet piggy, Petunia, a little troll girl, and a night elf boy all ready to be inked. I also have a buttload of adorable chibis and some actual character portraits I need to finish up. Excitement!

<3 Courtney

Oh hey so guess what

Go on, guess.

***********

I’m back! On this site! Kooky, I know.

So anyway, I just graduated college, y’all! And now, since I’m not pursuing my master’s degree, I don’t have much to do but work. So I thought, “hey I bet that old blog that I made and never did anything with could use some lovin’!”

And look at this place. It totally could use some lovin’, I was absolutely right. I revamped my “About” page, and I have a whole buttload of drawings and stuff to start putting up tonight! Go me!

Also, I’m going to type up a brand new commissions page and see if I can’t pimp myself out to some people for WoW art, since I need practice on characters that don’t belong to me.

If you’ve been watching this blog for updates, I’m incredibly sorry. I really thought that I would be using it more, but uh…well, I just got lazy, ok? Now, maybe my boredom will prompt me to draw and drop by more. I’m all excited!

Anyway, there went my obligatory “IT’S ALIIIIIVE” post! Yep!