Angsty painting

Well, it's been a while.

I hesitated about putting this one up, because I started it on a day when I was feeling somewhat down, and finished it today, while I'm feeling very down. And that definitely shows.

Sketched this entirely on the computer with very little actual inking (I haven't had the patience to do that lately). Couldn't find a reference image that fit the pose I wanted, so I came up with it out of my head...seems a bit stiff to me and the proportions are off I'm sure. Oh well.

Not much else I want to say about it right now.

Outfit Design #3

This is probably the last one of these that I will do - Gregory and Alex's formal guard uniform (for the banquet and other events). I tired myself out after the close-up view (took me all night X__X), so I didn't get around to the full-body view like the other two :/

I really wanted to show these two in sort of a "bro" moment, since they do have quite a strong friendship (didn't really think about how much time it would take to do them both, though!) 

Got to figure out a quicker way to shade faces! 

Outfit Design 2

Still don't much feel like doing art, but I forced myself to sit down and do _something_ today, just to keep up with it.

This is another outfit design for the autumn banquet, this time for Alisha to wear. While she is nobility, she doesn't like to acknowledge that side of herself and instead prefers practicality. Because of that, what she wears isn't as fancy as Raina's wardrobe. I think that part came across pretty well in this, though I don't think the colors fit as well here as they did in my head (I may have to do some tinkering with that).

The other thing that's been bothering me is how difficult I'm finding it to keep faces consistent, despite having made facial references to use. Practice, practice, practice, I suppose :/

Outfit design

This will be a somewhat short entry - it's late and I'm pretty tired, but I just finished this art so I wanted to get it up here.

This was an attempt at designing a gown for Raina to wear to the autumn banquet (an event that ends well for pretty much nobody XD). I will be the first to admit that I'm terrible at designing clothes, so for this outfit I referenced one that I found online a long time ago - I feel pretty good about the end result, actually. I have outfits in mind for the other characters as well, but we'll see how well I can get them down XD

Minor character

I haven't felt much like doing art lately, but I do have a couple more already-finished design pieces, so I'll put those up today.

This is a rare character in that she did not exist back when I first started drawing all the others. I created her more recently, in the course of trying to pull together a story, as sort of the anti-Raina - I'll explain a bit more about that down below.

Charlotte LaRose - somewhere in her late 20s. Her origins are similar to Raina's in that she grew up in a noble family, but instead of letting that lifestyle beat down her free spirit, she fought her hardest to defy those above her. She learned how to duel from a stable-hand (he used to be a highwayman but had turned away from that type of work), but when her parents learned of this, they had the man executed. This was the last straw for Charlotte, and she left home, to eventually start up a Robin Hood-type operation under the name Charlie (good intentions at first, but it degrades to just simple banditry). Charlie is extremely cruel and jaded when Raina meets her (at least 10 years after the events described above).

This is an attempt at outfit design for Charlie - I wanted her clothes to reflect her noble origins just a bit (perhaps to show how much that life is still a part of her, even if she has rejected it?)

On an artistic note...I think the proportions are really off, but years of drawing EQ elves have left me unable to draw regular humans without tons of reference XD Also....swords are really difficult to draw >_<

Random pic!

Random pic today!

This one was meant to be coloring, facial, and pose practice, and I think it turned out pretty well for the most part! It's sort of reminiscent of "Charlie's Angels" - maybe a bit intentionally? ;) I did try to make a forest-y type background for it, but that didn't turn out so well.

A few story-related notes about it - this would take place near the end of each character's story arc, so Alisha has her shorter hair and Raina has gone through training with a sword. But it isn't really a story moment, as it's very rare that Alex would present so visibly female (I honestly just wanted to highlight that they were all ladies), and Alisha is not really a fighter - she just carries two daggers on her at all times and is quite good at self-defense.

(Oh, also want to note that the pose references came from Sailor Sakky on deviantart - her stuff is invaluable!)

Character portraits 2

Continued from the last post...

An interesting thing that I neglected to mention about nearly all of the characters in this story is that they were originally named after online friends of mine (I had A LOT back in my high school days). Raina, as I mentioned before, was originally named Rina after an adorable Korean girl (she used to call me oba-san, or "auntie" in Japanese) that I talked to a lot. Alisha's name used to be spelled Alicia; her namesake was someone I sang with frequently for one of the e-myus I participated in (she had a WONDERFUL voice). They didn't have much to do with the characters they were named after, but as I said before, because these characters were so close to me, I guess I wanted to give them names that would mean something. In the past few years, as I've been trying to pull it all together into a viable story, some of those names have had to change for aesthetic reasons, but they all still pay some homage to the people they were named after. I get a bit nostalgic thinking about it, since most of these people I have fallen out of contact with.

(Um...for some reason the site is making my pictures darker when I upload them?? Have to look into this...)

Alex Sinclair (previously Alexandria DeLorre) - 19-20 years old at the start of the story. Alex was named after my friend Lex, who was sort of a mentor to me in terms of writing and, well, life things. The character's name changed to Alex after I had a few people tell me it sounded too modern and/or like the Superman villain, Lex Luthor XD I envisioned this character as having a face like a Roman statue - long nose, strong jaw and chin. She's also supposed to be extremely androgynous (it's hard for me to achieve the balance between feminine and masculine when I draw her - sometimes I achieve it, sometimes I don't). She's a soldier and has never been interested in traditionally feminine things. Ran away from home at age 14 because of an extremely complicated home situation (though her life may have become even MORE complicated after leaving...)

Gregory Lawrence - named after another singing buddy of mine, his name also stayed the same. He's the only male main character...probably because I dislike drawing men XD Gregory is average in looks, above average in size (I envisioned him at around 6'2"), and always seems to have facial stubble. He's Raina's age, and ever since the two met at around age 14, they've grown as close as siblings (he and Alisha are her two best friends). He's kind-hearted to a fault, but never set his mind towards marriage or courtship, instead throwing himself into a career as a guardsman. Lost his parents at a very young age and spent a year or two on the streets before being adopted by a blacksmith (tried an apprenticeship there, but the trade didn't interest him).

Those are the four main characters (with Raina being at the forefront), the ones who go through the most change in the story.

Character portraits

A preface, before I post a bit of art:

When I was in high school, I created a group of characters whose personalities and back stories, looking back on it now, were all sort of extensions of myself (seems a bit narcissistic, I suppose, but I think maybe it was just my way of working through things that bothered me?) Over the years, they've sort of stuck in my mind, evolving and fleshing out enough that I've tried to write down their story in various ways, both traditional writing and graphic story format. Haven't succeeded much at that yet, but I'm hoping this blog will help with it a bit.

Recently I started a series of more realistic-looking portraits to try to get a solid facial reference for the characters that I could use to keep them looking consistent in any subsequent art (and also to practice my digital painting). I'm posting the first two here.

This is the character I would consider the main heroine - Raina LaMontagne. She went through a lot of evolution since her creation - originally she was a lot more confident and free-spirited from the beginning (her name was actually Rina, but that sounded more Japanese to me...not the aesthetic I was going for).

In her current iteration, she's eighteen years old at the beginning of the story, and she's supposed to be more cute and awkward than traditionally pretty. She's a bit "beaten down" by the pressures of the life she was born into (daughter of a minor lord), and has forgotten or given up a lot of what made her happy as a child, though her naivete is intact for the most part. Two major things happen to her somewhere towards the beginning of the story - she learns that a high-ranked lord has asked for her hand in marriage, and soon after she is forced to go into exile when her father's manor comes under attack by another noble claiming he owns the lands by right.

(note...not sure why the background on this turned gray when I uploaded it? O.o)

This character is one that I think went through the most change, both physically and personality-wise. She used to be pale white-skinned and half-vampire (which is a supernatural element that I don't think fits with the story any longer).

Alisha LaMontagne (previously Alavar) - She's 22 years old when the story begins, and she's the adopted daughter of the LaMontagne family. Hot-headed and irritable almost to a fault with everyone except Raina and her adoptive parents. Her major conflict stems from her overprotectiveness of Raina, to the point where she cares about Raina more than herself and her own needs. She also has a lot of resentment towards the family that she came from.
EDITED: 8/15/16




And that's it for this post! (Actually surprised I was able to write this much!) Next time will be a couple other characters ^_^