Animation Source Forums

This probably isn't the first time this has been done, not that I know of anyway.

I've noticed my fanart gallery's been lacking on the quality side as of late, so I'll be deleting most of my old pictures. They just don't reflect much now. I'll save them for the future, yes, but they won't be in my gallery. This will be a gradual process and might not happen fully as my gallery has issues with deleting pictures. I've PMed a fan art mod about it, but haven't gotten a reply, so if there's any more that need deleting I'll have to try again.

It'll be mainly left for a few weeks as I'm currently working on things like better anatomy, better poses and backgrounds. Yes, soon I'll be sending in backgrounds with my drawings, as the majority of them haven't been there. I don't know how long this "rollover" will take, I'm gathering inspiration from many movies and different music. Hopefully when I've finished everything will be at a much higher quality level than it was before.

And yes, there'll be more Bunch of Misfits. School's returning which means more tomfoolery is about... I'll post sort of journal entries here for the ones interested how exactly one goes about this. So, today's entry!

3/02/08
I'm having to put up with cramps currently despite painkillers, but that I can withstand. I watched Fox and the Hound this morning, as well as Mulan last night, both great movies. I finally got the DVDs of those last night, as well as a rare American Tail / American Tail 2 DVD pack that I haven't seen before. I haven't seen either in stores at all, but that's beside the point.
Looked up a bit of Coldplay, which I usually do. Found some songs I haven't heard of, one of the main ones Bigger Stronger from their Safety EP, which inspired me to do two sketches of Hotstuff, that dog I adopted from Dustpaw so long ago and planned a story for. I worked on the start of that recently but all of my fanfics are gonna be a bit stalled with school coming up and my lack of muse on Suka's Tail. Anyways, there's one with him in a rather sad walk facing sideways, and the other a frontal look with him smiling. I'm not too happy with the second, but much so with the first, so that's a start. I made him have rather long legs without realizing, but he looks better with them, so those will stay. I also tried something different - a line between body and tail, like the one seen on Balto. It turned out really well, so I'll be keeping that change from now on. I've drawn only the black pupil instead of his blue irises and the eye shiny. I'll be coloring the sketch digitally of course, but I feel like grabbing some watercolour paints and using them for a background. That I haven't decided on, really. I'm going to try something different this time - using a blue-black gradient to give that really dull feel that you see in anime sometimes. I've yet to scan the sketch, so that comes next.

I also had a look at some of my very early art. The first thing I noticed was every character was rather scruffy and unkempt, which I don't want anymore, obviously. Noses, legs and tails were rather off, yet I still had a knack for designs, which I do want to keep. Simplistic, yet good.
Backgrounds were rare but one of the earlier ones - the Thalia poster - had a very nice aurora and cloudy morning effect. Those were by airbrushing in PhotoShop CS2, so there's no reason why I can't do better.

I can't wait for the 4th Coldplay album in March/June though. I know, this is rather off topic, but I need my music to inspire me. They always make good music, and apparently this will be "the album to remember them by". I didn't like X&Y, the dominance of the bass guitar was a bit much, and it was a bit too atmospheric for me. Their first album Parachutes did a better job of atmospheric, but that's off the point. If they return to their more rock-like A Rush Of Blood To The Head style, I'll be happy, but it's been stated this will be like "a brand new Coldplay". Um, ok. Some of the songs I'm interested in that have been named for consideration are Prospekt's March, Strawberry Swing, Poppy Fields and Violet Hill. All with very pretty names, although I'm interested in sketching a sort of Poppy Fields/Violet Hill setting. Other music that I've noted myself to take a listen to is Muse, Nightwish and The Cat Empire. Honestly I haven't heard of Nightwish before, shame on me for being so close-minded, and I haven't listened to The Cat Empire in ages. So, with that said, off I run!

Moved to "Other".

27-2-08
Bad news... my laptop drank coke a few weeks ago, and turned off within 3 seconds, unable to turn on... including all of my work. It probably can be fixed, although if it's in the $300 range to fix, I'll just get the HD taken out and kept. I'm borrowing a laptop from a friend, although unfortunately it's a very slow old Windows 2000. Total list of issues:

- I don't have PhotoShop CS2 on here, which I use to ink.
- My printer/scanner fails to install - the laptop restarts during installation
- My microphone doesn't work for reasons unknown
- I'm stuck with MSN 7.0 ... oh goody.
- MSN doesn't recognize my webcam
- Only versions of iTunes up to iTunes 7.3 are supported on Win2k. My iPod nano requires 7.4, so no new songs for me
- There is absolutely no Windows Movie Maker on this computer. This is very odd, as my old Win2K did have Movie Maker 1, which is supposedly only found on Windows ME. If anyone finds a legal way to install WMM on a 2000 or a similar alternative that supports it please PM me urgently. This be important, yarr

If anyone feels the need to try and PM me to fix these, I'd be grateful, but as for now I'll have to struggle on.

I remember my dad giving me a spare scanner, so I have to find that and the driver now and try to install that. I haven't got any of my old files back yet, or a quote on how much it would cost to repair the laptop... it's been a week.

In other news, next week I'll be having a Japanese student over here for 2 days, Rino. Apparently she speaks fair English, so I hope this goes okay... I'm really bad at Japanese, probably one of the lowest in my class carse this stupid memory. At least I might get some insight into the anime side of drawing.

Also, I have still been sketching. I managed to sketch a really neat wolf image that will probably be line art. But now I must go, my elder female parental is nagging the buggery out of me.

~Cobacious says: I am as wise as you are stupid.