Moroccan Table, A Set On Flickr.

reblogging on the off-chance any artists who follow me haven't read this WONDERFUL post full of excellent advice. Its ALL here :D

Character design and drawing are tome-sized topics and even if I had all the answers (I don’t - I have a lot to learn), I’m not sure I could communicate them effectively. I’ve gathered some thoughts and ideas here, though, in case they’re helpful.

First, some general things: - Relax...

Its Friday the Thirteenth and also my birthday and also I'm thirty. Whaaaat

do you by any chance draw inspiration from (amongst other things) jak and daxter and nickelodeon's avatar? i was just having a look at your deviantart and i really got a strong vibe that your work has been influenced by both these things...

Totally love them both so much omg. I rewatched all of Avatar on Netflix recently and all the nitpicks I had back when it was airing didn't even matter because as a complete story/world package its just SO quality and I'm still grateful for its existence and for helping to bring attention to fantasy based on non-european cultures. Love Legend of Korra too though I have been a bit frustrated with it. Industrialization of magic-based societies is MY MOST FAVORITE OF THINGS and my own fantasy story has been trying to address the political ramnifications of technology making magic use obsolete, since nonmagic users are traditionally an underclass blablabla man that finale tho. I dont even know.I have some old Jak & Daxter fanart on DA XD and I got the remastered collection for PS3, replaying it all, and I'm just in love again with everything uuuugh. The aesthetic is still just so unique and pushes all my happy buttons, its got everything I ever want in my games, and, well, makes me a little sad too because they just dont make em like this anymore. (Ratchet and Clank franchise is over now too, sob) Dont get me wrong I love Uncharted but Ill take Jak & his annoying talking animal sidekick over Nathan Drake, mass-murdering treasure hunter any day.

A wig made out of basically four wigs, guys. SO much painful sewing because I kept poking myself with straight needles (I used curved needles too but they feel so clumsy, I dunno!). It’s three wigs from eBay which ended up being cheaper to take them apart vs buying wefts, and two sets of wefts from Arda because they have some super pretty shades of powder blue.

Tried to get a gradient with minimal dyeing, so I blended five shades of blue… I dyed the tips though. Jaquard iDye Poly for synthetics works pretty well (Arda has great wig dyeing tutorials), best out of every other technique I’ve tried! Which is most of them xD If you look hard enough you can find wig hair in pretty much ANY color and I reccomend that route if you plan on having a wig you can wash and restyle and don’t have to worry at all about any color rubbing off on costumes, etc.

I want it BIGGER, I need more styling practice, I was tempted to add more hair but tbh it’s too much weight tradeoff. I have some ideas to add fluff without additional hair so we’ll see! One thing about big cartoon hair is how often it’s drawn with MORE volume near the ends which is pretty, but nonsense since any layered hairdo will obviously be thinner at the ends, plus teasing it makes it big at the scalp! It has plenty of volume at the scalp cos my head is huge :p I put some tubular crinoline in it last time I wore it which helped me make a big fat braid, so there’s more possibilities to explore there, man I am writing too much about this

ITS ALSO GOT TINSEL IN IT but the process is SO tedious I haven’t got much progress on that yet meeeeeeh! BTW it’s gonna be entirely fiber optic 8)

Aaaaand of course the designs I finally settled on. It seems to have stuck cos I haven't been interested in changing them much for a few years now (actually I just checked, about eight years holy shit that's not a few at all!). Like I feel it reached some kind of creative maturity because they incorporate everything I learned about actual functional outfits over the years, but of course I still make them as fancy and stylish as possible. Because they are elves.

working on a color based battery life indicator, just got the colors mapped to analog input yaaaaay

So.

I'm the flakiest artist to ever flake uuuugh. Sitting on a bunch of half-inked or half-colored works-OHNOsomethingelseIwannadrawimmediatelyONTOTHEPILEWITHYOU- will I finish?? Ever?? WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

MAN I've just about had it with tumblr, this is the third time it's eaten my responses to asks and taken the original asks with it. It's happened on my phone and on my galaxy tab-I rarely use tumblr on my computer because my computer is for getting shit done! Plus I travel a lot so I guess tumblr app is still only good for checking my stupid dash. The last two I did copy and save the text so I'll at least be able to post SOMETHING when I get to my computer again. Tumblr suuuuuxxxxx

Windfarm, WY

Doodle from tiny sketchbook I keep with me at work. Still figuring out designs for supporting AEM characters... In the past I'd get a little agitated after short doodling sessions because I always immediately wanted to figure out colors but HAVEN'T THE MEANS. Problem solved! Sketchbook Mobile app is great for anytime anywhere color studyin'