#art log

[the-cloudy-dreamer]

it was pointed out to me today that ( for various reasons) this could all been seen as a sequence and I honestly didn’t plan for it to be that way but now I cannot unsee it! The mind works in mysterious ways ( specially with blorbo fanart).

The year is wrapping up and I’m feeling happy to all the progress I’ve made as an artist—so I thought hey let’s put this all together so I have a post to go back to and remind myself of happy tidings 🖤

[rikmonvee]

art log #0: twisted wonderland art [2022-2023]

back from the grave... maybe.

hello again!

I decided to close my nearly decade-year-old tumblr account due to personal decisions.

I don't know when I'll get back into drawing but I will one day...

[aspenous]

Vampire AU who's with me💣💣💣

CW: Blood

I got some vague ideas about how they'd meet/interact etc but for now I'll leave it as is.

HC Javier's ears give away if he's blushing or not <3

[doodlesdreaming]

Shin Megami Log 02

I am thriving at the wholesome content between the Protagonist and Aogami, yet at the same time I am mentally crying at the moments that is point-blank ripping my heart apart. This boy is going to need therapy and LOTS of hugs. T-T

Also, I forgot to mention last time, I named him Isui(thoughts/ideas of the meaning of water) Saito (wisteria).

[sage-basil]

An array of log horizon stuff. Half from this year, half from last

[idkaberdguysartportfolio]

One of the many unfinished pieces that I can actually find, a lot of them have been lost to tech issues.

Not so fun fact:

There’s a huge gap in my body of work due to a minor hardware error (a battery cable fell out) that occurred in my old chromebook, I had to send it in for repairs without being able to back anything up. This ended up being my downfall because apparently, policy is to completely wipe and reset the device when repairing it no matter how small the problem is.

I lost about a year and a half’s worth of work. It’s was a huge demotivater because that year I had decided that I wouldn’t leave unfinished pieces, so I had a lot of work that was all but done.

[lous-gallery]

Just finished a little study, this really helped with improving my skin rendering ngl

[its-raccinky]

Still unable to go back to digital art, so I'm abusing my sketchbook

[miyashportie]

Precure Art Log

[tempural]

I had a dream that I found one other person who properly tagged Top Scout and Bottom Spy on AO3. Inspired by that dream, I mirrored my ScoutSpy art from my site to AO3, using squidge image hosting. (Ironically this is SFW mostly, so no top or bottom tagging...)

Check it out :D

[the-cloudy-dreamer]

Art Log, Dreamling painting practice part 3✨

Because I’m incapable of doing things if there are not in a set of three—this could be seen as continuation of this last two posts

So I didn’t add my color swatches on this one because I got…quite lost doing this? I wanted to go for soft dusky colors but warm colors are so hard for me to do and adding the light source behind them didn’t help me 😅.

This will be a doozy to write down on my actual art log but oh well 😭

We are doing this to practice and learn folks so it’s okay! I quite like the pose and the overall vibe here! They are cozing up together because cold weather is upon us and I am inflicting this on my blorbos 🖤

[eophisxskies]

March Saint Seiya Log

[aspenous]

Physically unable to draw have some scrapped Yukimiya doodles yahoo

[doodlesdreaming]

Shin Megami Log 4(After Game Thoughts)

Finished SMT V during Christmas, and I have THOUGHTS.

I'm gonna put all that under the 'Read More' bit, so if any of you are interested in this game, then scroll past and no peeking.

Right then, final thoughts:

Brief history lesson first, I knew very little about the SMT series or the spin-offs like Persona. Of course, with how incredibly successful Persona 5 is, it's hard to miss any sort of info. But even then, my knowledge of the entire franchise was very limited. All I know is that it's basically the "Dark Souls" of RPGs with character driven stories that have of ingredients than a Final Fantasy title. At least, that was the vibe I was getting.

But even then, I never have been interested enough to want to give any of the games a try. I did get Persona Q2 back when I first heard of the 3DS dying out, but it mostly because I didn't want a Persona game with Joker's face on it to be forever lost. Weird I know, but that was my train of thought, at the time. But after clearing the first boss(and realizing that prior knowledge of Persona 5's story is an absolute must) I got bored and haven't touched the game since.

Fast forward a few years later, when Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne was announced with a HD port to current gen consoles. I was genuinely excited by the announcement. This meant that if I ever decided to give Nocturne a try, it'll be alot easier for me to do so now. Then after that came the biggest surprise of all; Shin Megami Tensei V.

Now this....this caught my attention. Though I can't really explain why. Was it the character designs? The gorgeous looking world? "D" all of the above? All I can say is that something 'clicked' and I was very interested. Even though it would take two years later until I actually got it.

And I'm so glad I did.

I was invested right from the start. From the silent "show don't tell" protagonist, all the way to Lufcier himself, the story, even with its swiss cheese holes in plot at some points, had me hooked from start to finish. The combat never got boring. I was constantly thinking of strategies and building up my demons that suited my needs and my playstyle. The world was incredibly fun to explore, even though the lighting choices, in some areas, made my eyes strain a bit. It would take me up til the big boss of the area for me to finally adjust.

And the bread and butter of it all, The Law and Chaos mechanics. A stable, I've come to understand, in the SMT series. Yet an important take away from all this is that nothing is as black and white as it seems on the surface. SMT is a franchise that makes you think. It makes you question yourselves and you inner most thoughts. And SMT V had me rolling in so many thoughts, that when I reached the 'alignment lock' of the game, I had to take a break because I was starting to get overwhelmed.

Of course, this could very well be a really weird quirk of mine. But when I get into a really good story, I REALLY get into it. And the choices I make would impact the ending I would get.

By all accounts, the Law ending would naturally mean the good ending, right? Well sure...if you can live with a Law that discriminates all other forms of thinking(a.e. free will), will not hesitate to punish they see as 'unfit' and the willingness to become corrupt yourself, just to prove a point. Sure. Law is the way to go.

The Chaos ending usually entails victory for the bad guys. And yet, there really isn't a clear "villain" in this case, other then the absolute obvious ones(f you Lamau). In Chaos, there is diversity, the freedom to choice your fate, to be yourself. And yet with so many possibilities, there will be disagreements, arguments of what is right and wrong, and power competing against power. No one really wins, and there is constant strife. But hope is just as abundant, with the capability that anything is possible.

The Neutral ending is well...the Neutral ending. You don't pick a side. You're that little kid that asks, "Why not both?" A balance of law and chaos. So understandably this would the best choice. Yes...except the neutral path follows a man who has been brought down low by both law and chaos. He lost everything precious to him, to the point where he belittles his fellow man if they show any sort of weakness. So the solution? Make humanity the leading power of the universe, but take away every viture and sin that exists in the heart and soul. And by extension, all the angels and demons in existence. Never to be even a story told by campfire light because it would never be allowed to cross through the mind. Humans would be free of woe and fear, and grow abundant in their everyday lives. But will it truly last?

You could probably guess which ending I ended up getting. And quite honestly, I'm satisfied with it. Plus it lines up perfectly with my ever growing headcanons of the Nahobino. So I'm taking it as a win.

I honestly can not recommend SMT V, especially if you're like me who enjoys a good rpg that I can sink my teeth into. It has it flaws, yes. But they feel so small that it doesn't really bother me. Some of them I can just 'fix' with good old imagination. And it's definitely inspired me to play Nocturne next, for sure. But first, I want to see if I can beat the Demi Fiend himself in combat....

There's so much more I'd like to talk about, but I think I rambled long enough.

The main takeaway? I LOVE THIS GAME. Definitely gonna be alot of fanart for sure. And I'm gonna get my hands on some merch when I can. It probably won't exceed my growing Darksiders collection, but it might come close in time, lol.

The other main takeaway from all this is that I get it now. I get the appeal and why this series is standing as strong as it is. HEE-HO!!!

[awakeagainstmywill]

Art Log - 06/2024

It's been about 3 months of using Procreate for me!

Would have never happened if it wasn't for my good friend who's an incredibly talented graphic designer. She let me test drive Procreate on her iPad. Back in the day we bonded over being weird artsy kids in school and now we're being weird artsy adults together 🤝 Best friendship dynamic.

According to tumblr, I posetd my first digital painting on April 4th (over on my other blog). I think I made a bit of progress since then, even though I didn't make a lot of paintings in the meantime.

For every single painting I'm still making a traditional pencil sketch, upload that to Procreate and then start coloring on top of it. Not sure if I'll ever get fully confident sketching directly in Procreate.

I started liking the process and the result more around the third painting when I started using a combination of soft and hard shading with some hatching for texture. So that's the 'technique' ended up using more deliberatly for this portrait of Aziraphale.

Gotta stop drawing side profiles, that's way too many side profiles 🙈

I'll post a more detailed making-of of that portrait to document my process a bit.

The trajectory of the stats is a little concerning: 1st painting (3hrs 50min, 16 layers), 2nd painting (5hrs, 21 layers), 3rd painting (9hrs, 23 layers), 4th painting (23 hrs, 62 layers). Yeah, probabaly not a sustainable trajectory. I need to learn how to make some quicker illustrations. I tried here, but did not like the result that much.

I will forever love traditional drawing and painting, but. Digital art ... it's nice! There's no extra space needed to store paints, no brushes to clean later, fixing mistakes is easy, trying out several different color variations not a problem.

It's a goal of mine to make more complex paintings some day. It will be hard for me, I just love portrait drawing too much, it's my happy place, you see? Right now I'm working on another portrait. And then I have another planned after that. So. I'm definetly not going anywhere fast with those plans, that's for sure 😅

[idkaberdguysartportfolio]

Old/Somewhat old art dump

(Ignore the inconsistent signatures, a few of these date back years)