When Toasters Attack

As part of my conference poster, I wrote a one-page comic script, basically off the top of my head, which I used, in part, to illustrate what I was talking about and also used to show some results.  I also drew up some thumbnails and recently completed a relatively quickly done inked version:

As with the poster, this was drawn in photoshop using the Cintiq.  The actual layout for the page was generated from the algorithm I'm working on.

On the pencil-and-paper side, I did a bit more playing around with the design of marshmallow-girl.

The not entirely coherent "narrative" (such as it is) around the outside sort of just  happened.  The arrow shows the first face to be drawn (and it went clockwise from there).

And lastly, a moment with The Freak in the Cape.

That is all.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Tourists at the Gate

Yarr.  It be time for another post, ye surfers of the seven weebs.  Arrr!  Yarr.  Um...  Narf.

Marshmallow-girl is unimpressed.  Another view of a character seen a previous post who may or may not become important at some point, if anyone actually cares.  The marshmallow wand is probably mostly unrelated.

On a different note, this is a view of the field behind my parents' house, done partially as more draw-what-you-see practice and partially as scenery practice.  The railing on the deck is not actually that warped, I just wasn't being too concerned with drawing really straight lines.

And finally, a one-page comic:

This based on The Lord of the Rings and the punch-line, of course, refers to Boromir's line "One does not simply walk into Mordor" from the movie version of Fellowship.  The page was drawn over the course of three days, about an hour at a time.

And that is all for today.  Until next time,
Freak Out,
-TFitC

Poster Time

I have managed to get around to finishing off that poster for the conference that I'm attending in a little over a week's time.

This is the final version.  It was inked and lettered digitally in photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq 24HD, which is a fun toy to play with - I'm going to have to set aside some time to do more with it at some point.

Anyway, that's all for today.  Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC

Dropping Shoes

Back to another drawing post.  Starting off this one with another "draw what I see" exercise:

 

It's one of my running shoes (along with a pencil and eraser).  The perspective on the shoe might seem a little inconsistent as my viewing angle whilst drawing wasn't entirely consistent.  Something to work on, I suppose.

Now it's time for a CHIBI ATTACK!

Or maybe more like a chibi flail, whichever the case may be.

And lastly, just playing around with some character design and trying to vary my style a bit by drawing some random characters of no particular significance.

Though I do sort of like some of the character designs so mayhaps I shall reuse them somewhere.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Green Thumb

A non-drawing post today, but there is still a picture.

I started a balcony garden a little over a week ago.  It's something of an experiment as I've not tried to grow anything since, well, I have no idea, really.  It's going to be an edible garden with some vegetables, fruit and herbs, if all goes well.

So far, my tomatoes have started sprouting.  The first one to appear is on the left (though blurry) and on the right I am now up to four tomatoe seedlings, so things seem off to a good start.  I'm probably going to have to transplant the tomatoes into their own pots before long.  The first (and so far only) of my jalapenos is also starting to poke above the surface, but it's not particularly interesting to look at yet so no picture of it.  There's a few other things in the works, but they were planted a bit later than the tomatoes and jalapenos so nothing to show of them yet.

It's all kind of exciting, really, and I'm looking forward to having some home-grown stuff this summer.  If all the tomatoes turn out, then I think I may be making some salsa...

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Wax Museum

Forgive me as I'm going to wax nostalgic for a moment.  I recently arrived at the end of my sketchbook and decided to commemorate the occasion.  (There are a couple other pictures at the end of the post of one wants to skip over my rambling.)

(Note:  I am not left handed, I was just drawing in front of the mirror (as usual) so it just looks like I'm left handed.  Not that there's anything wrong with being left handed and, in fact, trying to draw left handed might make for an interesting drawing exercise someday.  Anyway...)

Normally I wouldn't do anything special just for reaching the end of a sketchbook, but I thought that this one was something of a special case.  As near as I can tell, I bought the sketchbook sometime in 2008, which means that it's taken around four years to fill it up.  The thing is, approximately two-thirds of the sketchbook has been filled since my resolution on Feb 19, 2012 to start drawing regularly (about two and a half months).  And about half of what came before that was drawn since starting my Word Smith project in late winter/early spring 2011.  I seem to have done very little drawing from 2008-2010 (well, not in my sketchbook, anyway, I still doodled in various notebooks from time to time).  There were only three drawings from 2010.  And much of the 2008-2010 stuff is in an unfinished state.

So for some reason, I basically stopped drawing much, outside of the occasional doodle.  I'm not really sure why.  I drew at least semi-regularly in various sketchbooks during my undergrad and masters years, but then, for reasons lost to the mists of time, essentially stopped.  I suppose work (and other distractions) may have had something to do with it - my first job after graduating was rather soul crushing, after all - though it's also at least partly due to me just not setting aside the time.

Anywho, I'm really glad I've decided to set aside the time to start drawing again.  It's one of those things that I don't think I realized that I missed until I started getting back into it with my comic projects last year.  It's also something that I've been finding to be both enjoyable and rewarding.  And all this is why I decided to do a special commemorative sketchbook entry - it represents a revival, of sorts, of a hobby that I let fall by the wayside.  It also represents the start of a long journey to improve my skills that I've embarked upon and I'm eager to see where it leads.

Well, this is getting all sorts of long winded, so lets move on.  I decided to do another colour drawing to start of my new sketchbook (pencil crayons again) and do something of a landscape, which is also something I don`t do a whole lot of.

It is Kyoujo looking out over her home town of Numor Port.  The idea for the picture was based on an older, simpler drawing I did for the Kyoujo RPG (one of my eternally unfinished projects) which shows a younger version of Kyoujo sitting and reading under a tree, shown below.

And that is the end of this rather long post.  The next one probably won`t be quite so wordy.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

A Quantum of Something or Other

So, for today, we start of with a little bit of character design for another potential project that I'm pondering pursuing (yes, yes, another one, I really should have learned by now).

This was actually the second piece of character design, but I didn't really like how the first one turned out so I'm not going to bother posting it.

Next up, I decided to do a title page design for the second episode of The Word Smith.

I've also been working on the inking for episode two of The Word Smith and it's almost done, though that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll actually be finished any time soon - whenever I get around to it, really.

And that's all for today.  Stay tuned next time which will be just as exciting!  Or, well, maybe not.  Your excitement levels may vary.  Much like an electron.  Check your orbitals now and be careful of incoming-

PHOTON!

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Food Stuffs

No internal (or external) monologues today so I'll just get straight to the point.

The goal with this drawing, besides more practice drawing what I see, was to practice some shading and shadows.  The knife is there mainly because I felt there needed to be something else in the scene and I was like "hey, I'll just grab a kitchen knife..." and is not a metaphor or anything like that (and I don't tend to be that deep anyway).  Although, if I'd made the jar a jar of peanut butter and put some bread in the background, it could have been a treatise on the perils of sandwich making or something.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Next up is a new set of thumbnails:

I suppose the common theme here is that both of today's pictures involve things that can be found in a kitchen.  The thumbnails are for the one-off thing I mentioned a few posts back in conjunction with some character design.  I think I'm going to try drawing this one digitally on the new cintiq that the lab got recently (which is very nice, by the way).

And that, as they say, is that, at least for today.
Freak Out,
-TFitC

A Bunch of Stuff

So I thought to myself "Hey, Freak!"

"Yeah?"

"You know, you've got a bunch of pencil crayons you never use."

"So?"

"Maybe you shoud, I dunno, use 'em, or something."

"Why?"

"I dunno.  'Cause they're there?  And it'd be fun?"

"Yeah, I guess."

(Note:  conversation may not have happened exactly as depicted.)

Anyway, for a bit of a change of pace I decided to do a drawing in colour:

And of course, I drew Gillin, probably my most-drawn FR character.  I used a set of Prismacolour pencil crayons (yeah, the brand name is spelled without the "u", but as a card-carrying Canadian, I'm physically incapable of spelling it anything other than "colour").  Not sure if I really like working with pencil crayons or not - it's a bit grainy and I'm not sure if that's the nature of pencil crayons, the texture of the paper I'm using or inexperience (or some combination thereof).  Maybe I'll try again at some point with different paper and see if it makes a difference.

Moving on... we come to another of my FR characters, but one that has not previously appeared in this blog.

This is Merv J. - I've never really decided on what the "J" stand for.  He's a merchant, part-time antique collector and fancies himself something of an adventurer (spoiler:  he's not, really).  The orb-like object he's shown holding is one of his prize antiques.

And lastly for today are some design-type sketches of The Word Smith:

The goals here, more than anything, was to try to establish a bit more of a consistent construction for the character so most of the construction lines have been left in.  Not sure how successful I was in that.  Also, a couple of random hands, just because.

That's all for today.  Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC

About Face

It occured to me that "composing" is one letter away from "composting".

Anyway, today's post is all about faces.  I love punny titles, don't you?  Of course you do.  Trust me.  You.  Do.

Be that as it may, I decided it was time to draw another of my FR characters in a semi-realistic style, this time, Kyoujo:

As with my previous effort in this regard, the hair was kind of interesting since manga-style hair tends to be rather gravity defying and Kyoujo has so much of it.  I probably should have toned down the ponytail for this version.

And for door number two, I also decided it was time to try my hand at another self-portrait attempt:

It seems to be a better approximation of me than my previous attempt, but there's still lots of room for improvement.  For this drawing, I took a picture of myself rather than looking in the mirror for reference and I think having a subject that wasn't constantly moving around helped.  It is also a totally random coincidence that I was wearing the same shirt when I took the picture that I used for the drawing as I was when I did my first self-portrait.

And that is all for the present.  Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC