Wicked Awesome Sculpting Tutorial

I've never been a real good sculptor, but my last art teacher did mostly abstract art, and didn't spend too long on teaching us how to sculpt. He didn't show us how to make maquettes or anything, and plus, I wasn't really inspired at that time. But oh my debbie, I would love to take a real sculpting class. :O I might take a crack at it sometime this summer when I'm back from the motherland.

Smellybug has two really awesome tutorials on sculpting. As far as I can tell, he's a proffessional. I have a few ideas, since there are several 'species' of undead in Eden Under, my novel of 6.. 7 months. I may try to do one of those. :O

Yeah. It's really awesome to see how that works. :D

-Flip

My Process - Cougar

I decided to post a quick cap-by-cap of my process for most of my images. :P The subject for this one is a cougar. Biggest cat of the southwest, I beleive.



The sketch. I usually sketched in red, but sometimes I switch around and use cyan or some other color. This time it was pink. I usually sketch really rough and refine as I go, so there is no definate rough or refined sketch. It's just a sketch.



Here's the ink layer on top of it. I duplicated it once since the lines didn't come out as strong as I had hoped.



Flats. I layed in the markings with a soft brush.



Shadows



Highlights



And finally, some post-processing and it's done. This one only took me about an hour, but sometimes it takes me 3-4. I don't usually spend too much time on stuff, since I get impatient and bored. But there you go. :D

-Flip

Glad to be Average

Ugly Teens more Likely to Commit Crimes

Why did this not suprise me? I'm not sure why...

via boingboing

-Flip

Hagaren no Renkinjutsu - The Manga

Grin

An anime series, as a rule, will always have a Manga before it. The series will be made depending on how well the manga does. I think the only exceptions may have been Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and all those other fake anime that they aire here in America. (Fullmetal Alchemist was first aired in english in Canada, I beleive.)

In any case. I think we all already know how geeky I get about my Hagaren stuff. (Hagaren = Fullmetal. Renkinjutsu = Alchemy/Alchemist. I've begun to use them synonomously.) They have issues 1-5 in of the manga in english at Borders last time I checked, and I even read the first one myself. I decided not to, since I have the series (Admittedly, not in english. It's a japanese rip with subs.) and I know Tyler's going to work on getting the whole series in english on DVD soon. (He owes me, so I should be allowed to borrow them when I need them. And he has my first DVD anway.)

Read Manga.com has an extensive collection of other manga, but by far the most popular is Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm proud.

This is not an official translation, but I've found that fan-translated items are more reliable than ones translated by someone who couldn't give a crap. (Referring to my review of the DVD for Conquerer of Shambala.) But, it's only off by a few small words as far as I can tell. And even then, I know the storyline for the most part. (Things got moved and changed and such when they changed it to an Anime.)

None the less.

The manga contains some course language, but nothing horribly dirty. (The f-word like... 3 times. :P) Again, it deals with intense internal conflicts. It's a wonderful story. Just make sure that if you are under 14, get your parent's permission first.

Hontou arigatou gozaimasu. *Bows*
(Since I don't speak a lick of Korean anyway.)
-Flip

Katamari Damacy Flash Game

I can see where this would be addicting.

Suprisingly enough, I haven't yet played this game. (Yet my mom knew what it was! This must be a sign that I am behind. ;) ) It looks really fun, and I'd like to play the console version.

Oh, and I'd like to play that Chibi-Robo game too. :P (Caution, link leads to the official, yet annoying flash homepage.)
-Flip

Female Bulldogs

So cute

So today, I changed TOG a little bit. I also dabbled around in vector-styled cartoons, but decided that I didn't want to mess with the pen tool in Photoshop. So this is basically the same thing as I normally draw, only without the black outlines.

She's(?) cute. In the sketch though, she had those really big studio headphones with the antennae sticking out of each earphone. I wanted to include those in the final, but they just wouldn't work. :P I dig her shoes though. And I would love to have a shirt like that. :)

-Flip

As a Belated

(heart)

Yesterday wasn't exactly the busiest day of my life. It consisted of playing football, beating up my coach, coming home, and working. I got my phone call, as usual. Stole 2 peices of valentine's chocolates from Fletcher's grab bag from school, and in general just farted around doing absoluetly nothing.

I'm trying to get it into my system of being more organized. But it seems the more organized I try to be, the more clutter I end up accumulating on my computer and around my house. Planners, calenders, word documents, (I prefer text edit myself.) But at least I'm in the habit of deleting files that download onto my computer once or twice a day, and putting pictures and documents where they belong.

I'm not going to go into my philosophy of valentine's day, but I will put it shortly: You shouldn't need a corporate holiday to give gifts. I'd rather get a rose and a bunch of chocolates on a monday or a wednesday, instead of a giant teddybear that cost 30 bucks on a holiday that only happens once a year. (I got a shirt from Tyler on sunday though, so s'all good.)

BUT. In any case. There is a valentine for you all. It's late, but... so what.

And, congrats to Twinks and Artlad for getting into the Best of Blogs book! :D *Dances for you both*

-Flip

Spidergirl ... I think?

I Need a Break

I love comics, I just don't have the funds all the time to buy them and keep up with them. My favorites happen to be Spiderman, and Batman. And while I would love to be able to perform amazing acrobatics and have a wonderfully toned body, there still exists my atrocious fear of falling. Not heights, falling. It is because of this that all radioactive spiders avoid me like the plague, because I would put the wonderful webslinging curse to waste, by never trusting faith and leaping off one of the casinos around here and trusting my powers to myself or something. I'm rambling...

In any case. I'm tired. Physically at the moment, and mentally too. I dearly need a break. I'm caught up in all my classes. And I'm really hoping I can see Tyler tomorrow, so I can read his copies of "Ultimate Spiderman". Because he has my sole copy of "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" and has held it hostage for as long as I've known him. And also because I haven't seen anybody that I really like in two weeks. I hate my peers from school. They ask me for weed and call me many politically incorrect derivitives for "Illegal mexican immigrant." Which doesn't even make sense, as I am not of hispanic persuasion. I'm dutch-irish. [/rev.vs.blue quote]

In any case, there's a drawing for you. :P
-Flip

Fox and Dino

Foxdragon

While trying to get more cute sketches done for today, I had it planted in my head that the idea of raptors with protofeathers are the absolute cutest thing you could ever come across in the prehistoric world. While my anatomical knowledge of dinosaurs isn't much different from what I assumed it was in gradeschool, I can at least be comforted by the fact that hey, if I throw some downy feathers on it, I don't have to painstakingly draw each individual scale as I am so tempted to do any time I draw dinosaurs of the bipedal nature. I'd like to get a few more done, see how much personality I can throw into illustrations of cutesy little lizards.

Suprisingly enough, the dinosaur came after the fox. But the fox had such a wonderful expression, I wanted him to have something of a reason to be thinking along the lines of "WTF."

More soon, hopefully. I got a few tests to do now, so I'll get those done.

-Flip

Concerning the Conquerer

I'm taking another quick break from schoolwork. (I'm feeling a bit stressed out for numerous reasons.) So today I'm consulting the issue with my new Fullmetal Alchemist: Conquest of Shambala DVD.

I ordered it a few days ago from Animearigato.com, and it got here last night. I've never gotten so worked up over anything like this, which goes to show how much of the Otaku Gene I really have, because I got all teary eyed when I saw the box that said "USPS" in my Dad's hands.

The reason being, is that I absolutely adore this story. The characters are ones that you really get attached to. And through the total 51 episodes (The movie being the 52nd) you really get drawn into the story line. I've since hooked a friend (Tyler), and a friend of a friend (Frodo) onto the series.

But yes, in any case, I was seriously nerding out.

I have my doubts now upon reflection as to the authenticity of this DVD. I fear it may be a theatre rip, with hasty subtitles thrown in. The quality of the image was a bit fuzzy, and there were moments of skipping. (Though that could have been the disk.) The subtitles were very hard to follow, since I don't speak a whole bunch of the language as of yet. I can catch small words here and there, but for the most part I'm lost. I was rather annoyed that they did not get any of the names right, and I would be sure that the director/writer/creator of the series would see to that. (For example: Wrath instead of Ross and Winry instead of Wendy. They went based on how it sounds in Engrish. If Greed were still alive, I have no doubt the subtitles would call him Greedo. XP)

Aside from those flaws, I was still rather happy with how it came out. Don't watch it, however, until you've seen the rest of the series. It's rated TV 14, so not for smaller children. It does have mild language, though they don't drop the F-Bomb anywhere. There's no sexuality. Most of it is for violence and dark themes, considering reviving the dead and 14-year-old boys paying retribution for their mistakes. But it is so. good.

Well, I got that out of my system. Back to the grindstone, as they say. (Really not happy with school right now. >P)

-Flip

Candy Hearts break Easily

Brushed Metal necklace

I'm not much one for Valentines day anymore (Ever?) but I saw this while looking around for desktop icons, and felt just a little nerdy. Maybe I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for iTunes' Brushed Metal look?

No matter.

Here's What I'm Talking About

(Not that I don't mind chocolates either. ;) )

Sorry for the lax in updates lately. I'm going to see if I can't work on improving things on my computer and my blog. I may also wander the 'net a bit, and weigh the possibilities of buying a few more Anime DVDs. (I just bought FMA: The Conquerer of Shambala from Animearigato.com, so hopefully it'll be here soon.)

Oh, and My Dad has been a bit out of blogging commission. His laptop just died, and he's going to order his new Macbook Pro, of which I am insanely jealous.

So, hopefully more updates throughout the day.