v^ Recognize. ^v

lf logos

2008-07-24T10:30:21Z

Okay, friends, another question for you. Another with an obvious answer, but still.

Which one? For the top one, I find that I like the more starkness, despite its being less readable (lovetaste? loveteat?). Of course the bottom one is better in that regard.

Except in special occasions, the parts of the letters that extend beyond the smear would be visible against all other backgrounds, meaning the font itself is relatively normal like here. (Those special occasions would be when I make the letters transparent just to be weird.)

I used brushes/stock from a few sources...need to backtrack.

It looks good...right?

I think I need a better cover concept than this. I'm starting to not like it. How time refines the eye~

chains and the awfully foreshortened arm

2008-07-23T09:14:01Z

They may both have the same skin and hair tone and be main characters, but Chains and Ronou are nothing alike.
I drew in five minutes a better picture of Ronou than I've drawn in five years. Seriously. This is SO him. A little young maybe, but yes.

With this, I've learned that I'm never going to have LF look like I want it to if I keep drawing it by pencil. I SHOULD be able to, but with my messy pencil sketches I keep wanting to make too-precise lineart. I don't like that. So, all-digital pages are go! (Maybe eventually with Millennium, too... I'm running out of room for comic pages/sketch paper in general.)

For Gaia. A close 50% WIP-shot of eyes that are apparently not looking forward. Yes.
I like how they look, but they're just not right. The entire picture is overall very wonky. Trying new things, mm-hmm.

:bidoof:

2008-07-21T04:15:34Z

A request
lol
(not done)

Site design, revisited

2008-07-18T21:01:28Z

So, I decided to make mockups of my two now-favorite ideas for the Ai site redesign. I really like one of these more than the other now, but I still want input.

#1 - The Moon

Since this is a mock-up, it isn't nearly as refined as the real thing would be, note. There would be very soft, subtle texture creating color shifts in the BG, actual stars (maybe more cartoony, though I might want more realism for the BG) and Senshuu sitting on the moon on the front page.

On sub-pages (any page that isn't the front), Zanoi would be there instead.

And on all the art pages is Eyefel, of whom I haven't drawn a decent picture yet.

This is the one that I'm going to do, unless people really love the next one.

#2 - STOP!

Whoa, stock photography! the main content areas would be based off those long white signs, though I'm not sure if I should draw it or use a photo for that, too. The Art/Site/Misc sections would be the lights, and of course light up when you go over them.

All the non-main pages would look like this. Pretty simple this time around. Here the section you're in would have its corresponding light already lit, with the section titles appearing when you go over them. I'm starting to think this'd be simpler for me to do in Flash (and more interesting too...animation!)

Then I was thinking, "why does this have to be so stark?" The in-thing this decade is messy! So I made a version that I think I like more:

This made me like the design more, but I still like the Moon thing.

What do you think?

And yes, I do use Weird Al's "Albuquerque" for all my mock-up text.

Knowing my mind, I'll be trying not to think of all this during The Dark Knight tonight.

fwooshy hair

2008-07-17T19:29:42Z

for khangaki
Fast sketch is fast

I THINK I drew this in December. Sundae, for Rainbow Carousel. Was gonna color this but then disliked it too much to. You can see why.

In other news, I got ring_bureau off the ground. I like it so far. I'm also finding new ways to draw people, because everyone's starting to look the same. :(

new ways of lineart lead to this

2008-07-06T08:08:02Z

Seriously dudes, I need some help with them layouts.

Things for more things.

layouts

2008-06-30T09:30:46Z

Of all things I could post right now, I will post this:

...Thumbnails for a new layout of the casual-portfolio-artsite-thing. I'm really not sure what to do. I'm fond of the stoplights idea I starred, however, as it incorporates photography against a simple background.

It's hard to explain what I was going for in each, but safe to say I don't really like 3, or want to do 5 anymore. 4 and 6 is where it's at... Any suggestions? Questions? Be specific and I may be able to enlighten you!

I'm currently incorporating Lightbox into the site, because it makes everything that much easier. No more managing all those separate files I wasted time on...ugh.

I just started messing with my site and a lot of things are going to be broken, so I need to decide on this pretty soon. Hmm... (I'm starting to like #6 a lot more...)

The Fool, reprise

2008-06-23T20:23:51Z

The Fool by ~senshuu on deviant ART

I had a weird experience doing this basically all in one day.

fooling you

2008-06-21T14:23:29Z

For a Fool tarot that may or may not be done within the next 3 days.

And now all I can think of is Death...
Imagine this against a stark red background.

(I know I said I wouldn't post any more LF pics here, but I haven't set up ring_bureau yet.)

Gentlemen, I love Ronou.

2008-06-20T12:54:20Z

So this is basically how Ronou will look. For reals. FINALLY, I'm happy.
Ronou's design wasn't based on anything back then. Now I've seen things. Now I know...<3

His legs are way too wide there, but I kinda like it. I think I tend to draw them too small, or at least taper 'em too much. Legs are as wide as your body, after all.

YES HE HAS A MOLE NOW, like Eustace. But Yu has a lipmole. Ronou has an eyemole.

I also made this the same time I drew that, which was sometime last month. Cut off bottom half because it went wrong, but I'm redrawing it because Mune's clothing design changed again. A few more tweaks, but I think she needs her really...not-revealing designs for a transition later on. I finally like Mune; she's a beautiful little lady. And I can actually draw her and show you what she's like now.

She doesn't have moles, by the way. She just has markings.

From now on I'll be posting Millennium-related art in ronous_log and LOVEFEAST-related art in ring_bureau, just so you know.

Happy plants

2008-06-15T10:11:29Z

I decided to see if I can actually sprite today. Why? You'll soon know.

Not bad, if I say so myself. Not bad, for how quickly they were done.

I used to dabble in spiriting a very long time ago. I want to be semi-serious about it again. Not that I ever was serious, but I tried, spent a lot of time sprite-editing and whatnot. I used to be brave. I wonder what ever happened to that facet of my creativity?

I could get really anal with spriting. Like coding, it's the kind of precise-detail thing that you can be really anal with and still end up liking to do.

whoa, cover mockup designs

2008-05-30T16:25:42Z

I'm trying to decide which of Obigami's Emblems look coolest for LF's cover template. I think I'm leaning more towards the stylized one, but it needs something, too.

Those little side areas are always going to have two characters and/or part of a scene in them. The logo goes near the bottom.

into the gold

2008-05-29T22:25:11Z

I'm not sure what to do with this...:B (Well, I'm definitely ridding of the cloud outlines)

I'm totally on a koala kick.
Base sketch for a Mother's Day card.

sand dollar dreams

2008-05-18T11:51:13Z

It'd sure be nice to know which version of this is better. Hmm... (The crab and little angel-wing things are both gonna be in the final version.)

EDIT: Looks like it's gonna be the second one (with the first one's much cuter face, the way it's supposed to be). We'll see how it turns out.

Was gonna be a future LF chara and turned into nothing. I was getting tired. Funny thing though, I drew that Yoko picture right after this.

Something old I found. Was actually a lot more muted, but then I saturated it just 'cause. Obviously, over a year ago I didn't know how to make pictures interesting. (Actually, this was supposed to be combined with a pic of Shimade standing behind her with his arms and legs and weapons out, but it wasn't working the right way. Poo. It was a cool idea.)

you won't see me coming

2008-05-17T17:19:33Z

My comment-to-post ratio is quite low. Which is odd, considering that I don't post much these days.

To remedy this, some art that is not crap - and that is, in fact, fanart.

The Count.

Texture and lighting practice ahoy!

Yoko.

Out of nowhere, I can draw frontal facial shots and female anatomy. (Well, female anatomy was always easier to me.)

I went through a ton of art from around '97-'01 this week. I'm going to post some later this week, 'cause it's funny.

I should do a lot of things, actually. My icon journal senicons needs content. I find myself not having enough time to do what I want to do somehow, and yet get bored a lot. Gotta work up my own motivation! I guess the quickest way to show old art would be to photograph them. A FEW things are worth scanning, simply because I found a few purely-BG pictures (whoa, haven't drawn those in...10 years) that I'd actually like to recreate.

It's interesting, because my way of drawing became a lot more rushed and shallow when I started getting into anime. It's really sad, too, because I got worse at a lot of things I could have done better once I got into anime, like backgrounds and clothing details. Of course, that's also when I got out of free-time homeschool and into boring-time high school. I also kept drawing certain characters (my Megaman X fancharacters, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Pokémon, etc. etc.) over and over. Doesn't help.

kya

2008-05-12T23:45:03Z

I will never have a "hot" style. Everything will always look sort of "cute."
I guess I'm okay with that. I can make it work.
I just have to come to terms with that fact, lol.

For the record, I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Only one with honors in my department, too. That was neat. (There were only 4 of us, lol.)

I'm having a bully day!

2008-05-07T07:12:05Z

GRADUATION IS IN SIGHT.

I'm thinking of having Hooly hold some ice cream.

I messed around with designs for nove_arghpoots's PLANET THING :O I have fun coming up with random characters :D And this? Very random. Meet Venus. It's possible she's blind in her "normal" eyes.

Meet Venus's regular clap-trap violin, Callisto! They communicate via bluetooth. I'm gonna make this a finished picture.

Remember Azki and Nasiyas (from postponed idea Lost Dream, Last Kiss)? I wanted to make a simple picture with them. I'll finish this soon.

One half of a picture. Maybe. I need to see if I can make a better one of him reclining. I like this anyway...a lot. I just need to make his wings bow out around him more naturally, yes.

Portfolio! 2008!

2008-04-25T03:15:29Z

http://jessicacantlope.com

http://omore2008.com

As perfect as they'll ever be :D
(Jason designed the Senior site)

What's going on here?

2008-04-13T10:26:27Z

It's nice to know I can still draw in the style I came up with a year ago.
I want to do more stuff in this style. Maybe Landaluf.

Also, hey, look, flat-colored Zanoi for the portfolio layout.
Also, http://jessicacantlope.com.

yearghhh ah stab yew with mah bird stick

2008-04-08T01:26:21Z

I'll be honest, I love how this turned out. Also how my super-fixed-up Tigress turned out (I'll show you when it's finished).

Also for portfolio.

Namely, my new portfolio design.

A mock-up. Zanoi returns! Someone said keeping the sketchy style would be interesting, so I'm doing two versions (and/or combining them into one).

Hey look, I put my thingy on Youtube.

2008-04-04T23:30:23Z

I wish I had more youtubable animation.

this 'n' that

2008-04-02T22:35:42Z

You know what sucks?

When you work on the same thing day after day, only for it not to seem to be moving any nearer towards completion.

That sucks.

Case in point: Snaga's commission, and my portfolio stuff. Portfolio moreso. Sorry, Snaga, so sorry.

Two things you could help me with, and I'll love you forever:

(1) Scrolling content areas in Flash (that resemble iframes but, of course, aren't)
(2) Pop-up image code where the background dims to dark grey, as is on Smash Bros. DOJO!! and Concept Art.org

Those would help me a whole lot.

Thank you.

In other news, I recently realized that both my computer monitors (the Powerbook and the Compaq desktop) are ass. I always knew this about my Powerbook and am not sure how to fix it (as macs naturally wash colors the hell out) since I already calibrated it so much, but my PC shouldn't be as bad as it is. I think the blue theme might be throwing everything off, too. But I don't want everything to be 50% grey soooo... hmm.

hraaaaaaa

2008-03-31T20:07:13Z

Yet another thing for Portfolio. Will probably end up looking very different in the end.

lol watch me salvage my sanity by integrating anything with everything.

snowblind

2008-03-20T14:46:10Z

Right now I'm catching up on portfolio and totally not playing Brawl for 5 hours per day average.

Yet the following has nothing to do with Portfolio. (Mostly.)

I'm having troubles deciding on colors for this. Namely Yu's jacket. I thought it'd be green originally (his favorite color, most of what he wears is green), but then I tried purple 'cause I thought green wouldn't work. Hmm. The BG is going to be this cloudy snowy sort of thing that fades up in the corner. (I did lighten the flat base a little on the second one.) For the jacket, I'm also thinking grey, spring green, and sky blue could work, but blue is too much blue and grey is for my other pic.

My other pic.

Oh yeah, Yu has a mole now. Because none of my characters have moles...until now. Gotta go back and fix a few pictures/pages.

I'm trying to come up with an LF logo that isn't just the font, but honestly I'm thinking of just going straight font since it's so distinct. Oh! I need to come up with an icon, too. Yes, that, instead of messing with the type. I have ideas.

I'm not going further with the logo after this, but I'm still stuck on what to do...hmm...
It's a real conundrum, 'cause I'm working on a new wallpaper for Mil and the logo needs to go on it! Among other things (the layout).
Sadness: it comes over real light from my mac laptop. I hate that it makes everything so...light!

Remember the old KUSARI logo I posted? Well, it's crap in comparison to this font I found--a real diamond in the rough, if you ask me.
Still rough--gotta play with the stroke.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, I posted a big fat animation post a while back that goes commentless still. I find that odd, 'cause we were on a good commenting streak. But don't worry, I still love you.

EDIT:
<--??? zomg can't decide.

All caught up on being behind.

2008-03-01T03:56:00Z

The animation I made in class. Click to watch!

The story:
I'll copy what I wrote about it later.

Around the time I was modifying all the frames in Photoshop--the process that took me from 35 storyboards to 180+ frames--and got to about frame 90, I was thinking, "aaaahhh, why the crap am I doing all this!?" A lot less was required for this project (originally it was "create a story with a Knight" because knights are easy to draw, but I have a better time with leaves and dragons), and I'm really surprised I carried it all the way through to the end, but I like the results--and the ending is what kept me going.

What I would have done differently: well, I screwed up the girl's patting hands near the end, lol. I can fix that though. I would have done two full walk cycles with the Dragon and have the camera pan along with him like it did in my mind, but I like how this came out anyway (except that part is way too fast, and the Wood Sprite's movement not congruent with the movement, for reasons I know--try tabbing through those frames though, lol).

This is slightly different than the version I'll probably put in my portfolio, 'cause I've already adjusted some timing and added some sounds (gentle wind) since this file.

One day I'm just going to do a really detailed animation of a quadraped walking, because it is so fun to see it in motion. (One of our next projects is a walk cycle in Maya... I can't wait to start lol.) Maybe gliding, too.

I need to ask someone what's a non-confusing way to label breakdowns and in-betweens. And then organize them.

With that, I have two Maya projects to work on from scratch, due within a week. (My whole class is horribly behind, lol.)

For you guys whose web I was considering, this:

Klobber: a Penguinia map, or one of his world's many "cozy" islands, in the style of Yoshi's Island's first main screen. Not practical for my portfolio but definitely fun to help with.
Nove: Made before you told me anything. Some...thing...with one of your characters, and a moon-based layout?
Izzy: Sleek ghosted models in a sleek pastel layout! Or if pastels aren't your thing, something darker with a play on lights and microphones...

...First things that came to mind!

Also, these things:

Yet another reptilian mascot for one of my portfolio projects that somehow turned out better than Dil, in less time. My better work seems to come with less time lately.

No idea what this is.

I didn't enter that contest I mentioned a while back for Gryphon Webzine. Nooo time. Maybe again later.

Fun fact: I did enter the Student Addys. Despite last year, when our college won eight (or was it six?), this time only one of us won. It was the guy I used to envy for some reason, too, back when I started college and knew nothing about anything, lol. All the seniors and juniors and some sophomores entered some really impressive stuff this time, so we're baffled. I didn't go to the awards myself (after hearing about them yesterday I kind of regret it), but I hear it was 50/50...really great, impassioned work, with stuff that's really pointless or low execution.

Evidently, on top of concept, our school pushes actual use in the working world. I like having that kind of mindset since most people in visual communications have nooo idea what to do once they're out there and graduated. I still kind of wish I had at least one impractical but beautiful picture in my portfolio, though. Or at least a piece of concept art in and of itself--not attached to anything else like a package. Evidently all the great illustrators at the Addys had no concept but great skills in illustrating. That kind of work feels empty to me...

I don't feel bad about not winning, but I do feel bad I didn't go Tuesday because you can't view the winners' work anywhere else. Not fair! If I won, I'd like it displayed on a website or something...even in a 200x200 thumbnail size.

There was a big debate amongst us on the balance of practicality and creativity... We'll be forging our paths!

Other cool things:

http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/ <--Interactivity, yay! Took this from iza_7.
http://www.hairfinder.com/menshair.htm <--I needed this. O_O Men's hairstyles elude me! 'Til now! >D

In other news, LF updated. Go Leap Day updates!