i ordered volumes 6 and 7 of 'emma' with my birthday money and vol 7 has arrived but not vol 6! its now staring at me from my shelf willing me to just skip ahead and see what happens...but i shall be strong! on a side note vol 7 of emma is lovely and chunky! almost double the thickness of some of the other volumes! apparently there's also going to be a vol 8, which will include some short stories about some of the side characters. i'm quite excited about that, but its not even listed on amazon yet so i'm guessing its going to be a while before it comes out o.O;

recent manga musings...

i re-read and finished all of dramacon over the weekend! it certainly is dramatic, and i was pretty much glued to it until i finished all 3 volumes. however the drama is pretty much all of the 'will they won't they' college kids romance variety - given a bit of a twist as all of the events are set around an anime con ^_^

the creator goes on a bit about whether manga made in the US can be called manga, which i thought was a bit unnecessary as it did nothing for the actual plot or characters of the book, and i don't think within her own OEL series was the best place for the creator to vent her frustrations about the ongoing debate.

book 1 was definately the strongest, with the best character introductions and most balanced storytelling of the lot. however the other two volumes still kept me hooked and even tho there were a few bits i didn't think were overly necessary (like introducing a new character in book 2 and giving her much more interesting coverage than the main character) overall it was really enjoyable!

recently i've also read volumes 1-5 of emma and i adore it! just stating the premise doesn't do it justice at all. basically it's set in victorian england and its about a maid called emma and her growing relationship with a man of much higher social standing - will they ever make a relationship work, as they come from two different worlds? i'm sure a lot of stories with this premise have been written in novel and play form but this is the first time i've read one personally.

i'm tempted to say the story and artwork are gentle - the pace is relatively slow, there's certianly no big action sequences or melodrama - but somehow this series gripped me utterly, and as it goes on it becomes totally absorbing and heart-rending at the same time.

the creator has paced her art and storytelling very well together - the backgrounds and costumes are very well researched and drawn, and she's very good at picking up on the detail of the characters' activities (things like emma carefully taking off her glasses before going to bed) without making the comic boring in the slightest.

seriously, i can't wait to read 6 and 7 - in fact i think i'm going to re-read all of them again as i think i flew through them a bit fast on my first reading. i want to know what happens between emma and her man, but i'm not sure if it will be a happy ending, which is probably another reason why this series is so good - i have no expectations about what might happen next, which is a very rare thing with all the cliched stories around at the moment

---

and in other news my liking for spoonbard's art has been growing more lately - i hope i don't go all 'fan'-like over it o.O; i really liked this comic cover - the pose is cool and the character has got 'weight' to her (it feels like she's really there, not that she's fat XD )

aww...i would have embedded it but the option is turned off on this deviation...anyway it can be seen here on his DA --> http://spoonbard.deviantart.com/art/Anna-Mercury-Cover-II-85500642

Tags: art, manga
aroundabout now, i am: busy

copying files = tres annoying as it kind of locks up the computer (damn you essential bitmaps and photoshop files! >.< ) i really should clean the house or do some figure drawing practice or something o.O;

but instead i drew this little ditty in my tineh new momiji sketchbook



its only spring and i'm already too hot! bring on the cold and rain i say! >:-)

*awaits showers of random objects being hurled in my direction* XD

i'm going to hopefully fill my little sketchbook with a load of random chibi / cutesy sketches ^_^ ...strangely enough i've drawn chibi me sitting at our old art board even tho we took it down before christmas o.O;

Tags: art, momiji sketchbook, random
aroundabout now, i am: busy

here's a life study sketch i did i think on saturday - as usual its from a photo.  this one took quite a while and even tho its not very pretty i think it shows quite a lot of thinking. banemoo went over how to look at the negative space to get better proportions on the figure with me and helped me to correct it - it was really fun to do actually!

i've got quite into using my inktense watercolour pencils to add a quick bit of shadow to my life studies - i'll probably switch to bog standard watercolour pencils when these run out. its nice to actually be using some traditional media that are usually just laying around the house taking up space (most of my colouring and toning is digital nowadays...i've got whole paint boxes which are probably all dried up now o.O; )

today i had a load of errands to run this morning and i'm spending this afternoon copying files over onto my new hard drive. i really hope that'll be done by the end of the day as i'm very aware that each day i spend sorting my life out i'm not working on my 3D projects! >.<

since saturday i've been drawing more curvy girlies than guys, so i'll post some of them up in the next few days ^_^ 

its my 27th birthday on friday yay! i'm taking the whole day off to work on my neo comp entry *so can't wait* then we're popping to the pub for dinner when the guys get home from work (i've been trying to get them to come out the pub on a friday for weeks so this is my chance >:-)

my folks are visiting at the weekend which should be fun too! i think, apart from wishing i was better at art already, i'm quite happy to be nearly 27 ^_^ (i wonder if that will continue as the numbers get closer to 30 XD )

Tags: art, life drawing, random
aroundabout now, i am: busy

...maybe not in that order tho ^^

here are some more figure sketches from the last couple of days. trying to work on gesture with these so most of them are 1-2 min sketches. i'm trying to express the pose in just a short time, to practice studying the lines and angles of the body...



as usual some have worked better than others - i never seem to be able to tell whether a certain sketch will work or not until its done ^^;; i'm liking some of the curvy lines of the girls, none of the blokes have come out that well on these i don't think o.O;

---

today has been almost a perfect day! been practicing dance mat stuff - i'm liking the japanese tracks, somehow they work better with DDR than the western ones...altho our dance mat game comes with a ha's 'take on me' (plus video!) which is cool XD ...altho doing dance mat today along with gym, belting down half way to town to view a flat with wren and spending 40 mins failing to find the little tescos in our area yesterday means my legs are kinda painful now ^^;

wren also brought the soundtrack to rocky horror back from town with her so we had a good ol boogie round the room to that! XD i really wanna go see the show - we were planning what costumes we would wear :D (hehe...and trying to get banemoo going in either fishnets or tineh gold pants XD ...yeah never going to happen lol! )

banemoo n i sat down today and did some figure drawing together - i got some good pointers and have an image from it that i think really shows how i studied that figure...i'll post it up sometime when i'm not so tired -_-

also been working on more of our neo entry - man do i love this 5-pager! seriously i don't even care if it doesn't win, i just want this comic done for my portfolio! <3

---

and last but not least wren was watching a few lemon jelly vids today and i just had to post this one as its just beautiful! it must have been pretty hard to animate i think? i'm gonna watch it again now!

Tags: art, life drawing, music, random
aroundabout now, i am: inspired

some more figure drawing practice - i did loads yesterday! i'm just getting more and more into it i think... *tries to put down paper and pencils and get on with 3D...*



there's a mix of super-quick ones (1-2 mins) and slightly longer ones (5-10 mins) here - i'm not minding how some of the longer ones have come out (apart from the faces which i'm still having trouble with), but i'm not capturing the quick ones too well yet - i'm working on getting across the gesture of what the model is doing (e.g. i don't think the poses in the bottom 3 are very recognisable, let alone in proportion - i'm not looking for masterpieces in 1 min sketches, but i need to get better than this! XD ) luckily lee has been giving me some helpful tips about how to improve them, so i'm going to keep at it ^^

the top 3 are from parkour photos! tip: do a couple of quick sketches of simpler poses before trying to sketch people doing parkour - their bodies are in weird positions where some parts obscure others (e.g. the top right guy's entire torso is pretty much obscured by his legs) this makes them a bit more of a challenge to draw o.O; ...but their poses are just so great! XD

oh, and the one with the hands-behind-her-head, standing pose is a female body builder, which is why she looks so chunky o.O;

---

today is warm but rainy here - i like it actually, i'm inside all day and its nice to hear the rain outside ^^ i'm not looking forward to the summer heat tho - i'm turning into a real non-summer person, i hate being too hot! (i also hate the constant humming of fans >.< )

in other news, we watched the 3D movie version of beowulf the other day but found it really boring o.O; the 3D is good but they used some crazy camera angles that just weren't needed >.<

i'm really enjoying reading emma (the manga) at the moment tho! ...after finishing the american kung fu travel book in like 2 days o.O;

3D is coming along slowly but surely - solving problems on this project has taught me a lot more than i learnt doing the bathroom so i'm happy about that ^^

my body feels heavy today tho- not too fat, just like the gravity has been turned up a notch...wierd, i'm guessing its either lack of sleep or just my legs getting used to being knackered out at the gym 3 times a week XD



 

Tags: art, random
aroundabout now, i am: working

another day, another sketch dump! ^^ (plus i'm totally exhausted with normal mapping -_- )



the top 2 are today's - i thought i'd try out a different media so i used an inktense watercolour pencil. damn is it strong tho! (which is why the first one is super dark o.O; ...that's supposed to be a light shadow on the top side of her face, not total blackness! o.O; ) - these took a few mins each, maybe 5 mins...

the 2 sketchier guys are short poses - about 2 mins each

the guy with the stick i spent a little bit longer on (maybe 20-25 mins), i just got really into shading him! altho looking at it now his head's too small! doh XD

the sketch at the bottom right is a completely unreferenced fanart i did of mrs toothycat's 'looking for the sun' - my favourite pairing is saryth and jig at the moment (but set a few years after the end of the book so jig's grown up a bit). as the pic is totally unreferenced the anatomy is a bit off, altho i don't mind saryth too much (but he doesn't have a left leg lol! XD ) but i *hate* the faces! why can't i draw a decent face??!! *stomps off to determinedly practice more* >.<

Tags: art, fanart
aroundabout now, i am: determined

i've been planning loads of CLM strips lately (i'm up to 24 strips thumbnailed o.O; ) but i've realised that, to get to the end of the pirate arc will take at least 50 strips, and i just don't have time to draw them all before RSoM this summer. i wanted to find a good cliffhanger to stop on, but the best one is 24 strips away ^^; so i'm going to go to the second best one, which just so happens to be this week's strip!

so this sunday's strip is going to be the last CLM strip until after the summer (weird o.O; )

but never fear! as i said i've got the next 24 pirate strips thumbnailed already, and planned the story already for about the next 20 or so after that...actually come to think of it there's at least a year's more pirates to do before we get onto more normal stuff lol! XD

it *will* start up again at the end of the summer! (and hopefully i'll be able to get some fancy new character profiles etc. for the website done as well ^_^ )

once i finally get a job and can get my act together to sell some comics then i'm hoping to make a couple of cute CLM postcards too! (oo...and i dre an even more super deformed moomer last night that was just *so cute* ... *so tempted to give moomer a little brother* XD )

so my to-do list reads as follows now:

- 1 CLM strip for sunday (already thumbnailed)
- webcomic mole 5 (already planned out but not finished) plus future webcomic mole columns (number 6 is finished)
- RSoM comic (this is going to take a few months o.O; )
- (plan CLM katamari painting?...this is just on the list because i want to do it, i don't really need to! XD but imagineFX had some cool stuff about composition this month so i'm thinking i might plan my silly painting using loads of uber composition rules, just for a laugh! XD )
- daily life drawings (which i'm still keeping up with! go me! :D )

this isn't counting future projects like rapunzel, fleet, light etc. but i think its best to focus on as little as possible at one time ^^;;

Tags: art, clm, clm pirates, comics, rsom
aroundabout now, i am: creative

(sorry muse if i make you blush by posting about this XD )

wm_sketchpad (wandering muse on SD) has posted a preview for a comic which i think really exemplifies what i'd love to see more of in indie UK comics - the complete juxtaposition of western design / design history and a strong manga influence in art and storytelling - this is the direction i would really like to see comics going in, as it seems utterly original

http://www.drunkduck.com/Bee/index.php

there's just a preview cover page at the moment, but stop by and take a look at it - i could see that alongside any professional comics in borders couldn't you? anyway, i can't wait for this one! (but take you time muse i don't mean to rush you XD just enjoy making it as that's the main thing ^_^ )
 
i love to see people producing things like this off their own back for the joy of doing it - it's so inspirational!

Tags: art, comics
aroundabout now, i am: enthralled

i just found out that someone has used my repeating skull border in a website design (i made it available as stock on DA but asked people to let me know if they used it)

their website is here --> http://www.needtodestroy.com/buffy.html

its cool because this is about the time last year that i made it (for an exam as part of a job application) so its nice to see, after a year, that someone has still found a use for it ^^

Tags: art, random
aroundabout now, i am: contemplative

i won letraset's manga hoshi competition for march / april with my gothic lolita snow white pic! its really made my day! my entry plus loads of other entrants and winners can be seen here in their gallery (mine is number 126 ^_~ )

--> http://www.letraset.com/manga/shopcontent.asp?type=mangagalleryhoshi2

big thanks go out to kairi-moon over on DA for encouraging people to enter in her journal, i never would have entered otherwise! so any artists out there who'd like to win a set of pro-markers, why not enter? you never know what could happen! ^_^

---

thanks also go out to everyone who suggested questions for me to put to a UK webcomic creator for my webcomic mole column! the interview is all done now and went even better than i expected! it won't be uploaded for a little while as i hadn't expected to be done so quickly, but i'll be certain to post about it when it is ^_~

Tags: art, competition, webcomic mole investigates
aroundabout now, i am: accomplished