I thought it might be helpful to post pic of character also because I feel bad for not having new art since I mentioned as an example. I have been tweaking her design a lot since I drew this but it is essentially the same.
I think there's a lot of mixed opinion about what qualities make a good protagonist, they have to be relatable but not looking for a full self-insert (though I GUESS that's fine depending on the story), and relatable characters can be pretty subjective too unless you have a really narrow audience? Edie is meant to be, well, ordinary, which is relative, but I think in a fantastical setting it's important to have the protagonist be mostly human, and that doesn't have to be literal, btw, but it's gotta be deliberate "humanizing" characteristics given to someone the less you can take it for granted that they are relatable (like say your protagonist is an alien blob or a serial killer).
blurb:
Edith St. Eisenmädchen's father was a widower from Austria, he was a very talented mechanimancer but fell into extreme debt due to plot contrivance, and then he DIED. Edie lives with her stepmother Hortencia Casamaestro and both of them work two jobs to pay off that asshole's debts fffff
She works for the Royal Axiomatic Mechanimancer corps (RAMcorps) as a low level engineering technician/grunt. She is somewhat odd there being a woman and all, but its not unheard of, it would be like finding a female mechanic in an autobody shop... well, TODAY. Her second job is helping out part-time at Bridgemason Bro's Repair & Resale which is owned by a family friend. In her free time she likes to make and sell musical instruments that play themselves, and stomp around in the city underground (sorta identical to seattle underground) scavenging for parts and scrapped equipment.
Awww shit as a random aside I looked at the wikipedia entry for Dexter and got season 5 spoilers DAMMIT WHY DID I LOOK.
Where do you start when you begin to build a world? With the people, the landscape, the politics, the clothes? (heh) What seed of thought directs you?
Characters, nearly always! I'll have one or two and just build everything up around them. Though some of my favorite ideas have come from dreams which I am less comfortable taking credit for since they happen without my permission :p but it's still my brain I guess, right??
I knew I had to make Gerudo Chief Riju's hair the moment I saw it in #botw because Looooong. ;p Its an epic cosplay Athena (45") with an unbranded ebay lacefront spliced to it (I added a widows peak and sideburns again because Elf) some braiding hair (80" ebay kanekalon) and a pack of 35" wefts! There's a BUNCH of tubular crinoline (aliexpress) as filler so its really lightweight and I'm VERY PROUD! There's some progress pictures in highlights <3 The braid is a little sloppy BUT Im in a hurry :p (managing all the hair took soooo long and then styling took less than 2 days pffft) Later I will consider adding SOME more hair (its already too much guysssss this wig! is my height!) for smoother braid with more coverage cos there are a lot of gaps where I didnt stagger the wefts well and I crimped the hell out of it for volume of course. And I just want to make it more fancy in general. And THEN I want to make her headdress and probably a Thunderspear because its my favorite weapon in the game okurr This year is my first DragonCon I'm so excitedddd! Will I wear it EVERY DAY probably I worked very hard on it ok
Been stumbling through months and months of frustrating art constipation where my drawing attention span is just not even there, and my ability to simply draw anyway has been faltering? Normally I don't sweat this and if drawing is too hard I just take a break from it but that hasn't been an option this year (I am SO poor you guys)
Doodling a fun thing yesterday I thought would get me more motivated and excited about drawing but even then I just constantly felt like stopping! Today I am workin on another commission and its a bit of the same story. BLARRHHHHhh
Anywaaaaay. This is Megla she is a unicorn faun and I want to make a costume for my best friend, pretty much every time I design a random character Im like DUDE THIS NEEDS TO BE A COSTUME I'm totally gonna do it ok it's gonna have glowing sparkly hair and tail (leds and fiber optic threads) and digigrade legs (I found some tutorials!) and its gonna be so awesome XD I notice when I have artblock its not so much creative block so much as I wanna do something else I wanna make stuff :E But crafts have waaay more overhead when I make money I have to buy food instead of art supplies
BEHOLD.
My masterpiece 8D Well, defining masterpiece as a project that incorporates all the art skills one has learned up to that point. So considering how long ago I started this and how long I sat on it after finishing (sorry about that, the internet), this is no longer a masterpiece as defined as a showcase of current mad art skills. OHOHoo that's right, I have other projects in the works as we speak
Anyway, since Errikan is my bb I owed him a big sexy hero image, and the size is inspired by the time I went to the Mucha museum in Prague and realised HOW HUGE his art really was and ever since I knew that I just had to make really really big art. And I finally found a printer that does huge art at accessible prices :D
the paladin - 26x52"
And of course, there's also 8x16" and 15x30" for people who don't want a door-sized picture of an adorable elf guy embarassing their roomates :D
BUY MY ART if you want to!
My fiercely burning Tony Stark fetish has been flaring up and the only cure is FAN ARRRT
Camera phone and photoshop express for android are poor substitutes for a scanner and actual photoshop, but those don't fit in my pocket, ok. I've been using my phone so much for stuff I'm considering getting a nicer one.. I kinda want a galaxy note for the giant screen and stylus, but I need my qwerty slider, kinda want a mytouch slide for the 12megapixel camera and HDR... etc. Godammit gadgets still not scifi enough, gimme all these things in one smartphone already I basically want a pocket-sized tablet laptop is that too much to ask??
:p
Extremis Tony is my favorite (ugh don't get me started on that magical bleeding edge armor, I suppose he stores his extra mass in a pocket dimension??) but a while back I did some research on bionanotechnology for a paper and I always have my own sci/fi bullshit ideas for how stuff works. Instead of having an undersuit stored in his bones (arrgh bones aren't hollow, learn to anatomy!) he'd sweat out a protocellular metallic gel that functioned as a medium for nanobots and synthetic flora to leave his body and interface with the armor like a circulatory system. He'd sprout fiber optic "hair" that would wire into his nervous system. Wetware! It would be super gross :D
I steal ideas from myself (in this case the Antonia Stark that I did forever ago)... cos it IS challenging and fun to design robot armor, but you can't really improve on perfection :p There's only so much you can do before it loses its iron man...ness.
BUT I needed to give him rocket launcher arms I DRAW WHAT I WANT
HOW DO YOU ART SO GOOD?! Also why you no been on for like a year?
I was on the fence about answering this XD; BUT I got a bunch of new followers recently (HI THERE) so I figure I will give it a shot. tl;dr guys.
That’s.. kinda related to the second question. It’s hard for me to articulate why I am such a freaking hermit. It’s not shyness… a lot of it is sensitivity because my relationship with art is SO personal. People can dislike me IRL all day long and it’s not even an issue cos FFF they dont KNOW me. But if they don’t like my art its like OMG I’m giving you a peek into my BRAIN, that IS me, it just got personal, time to throw down. When I say I peaked early, I was a fairly active artist on the internets when I was a teenager and got a LOT of attention I wasn’t able to handle well. The pervasive attitude that artists are sort of visual candy dispensers with a duty to share everything they do makes me reeeeaaally uncomfortable. I don’t draw for attention. I draw because I have stuff in my head that has to come out, and because creating makes me whole (I say creating instead of drawing here because I also love to make stuff, dance, sing, play music, I wanna do EVERYTHING).
I feel weird saying “I don’t draw for attention” because there’s a sort of implied diss that I don’t want to be there. Attention is actually really valuable! Motivational encouragement, constructive criticism, etc, all great stuff. I have made a lot of amazing friends through sharing art, and I totally love talking about it all the damn time, it’s often the medium that gets in the way with me. I like realtime chats best. I’m gonna sound like a cranky old lady now but it took me way too long to figure out tumblr and I miss IRC >:( And in my crankly old lady old age I just don’t have anything to prove to anyone and fucks are no longer given. I draw what I want, when I want, and share when I feel like it. SORRY NOT SORRY.
I’ll be honest, it’s only because once in a while someone tells me that they are really inspired by my art that I make the effort to share. But I forget often, and the fact that I can go thru really long periods without drawing much at all… well. Gushy fangirling is about the only thing that will bust down that wall these days. I used to feel guilty about this but it’s just how I am.
I’m a lot happier answering more specific asks about art tho XD Composition? Design? Style? CLOTHES? Lighting/Materials? Color theory? COLORSILOVECOLOR? Gimme.
I dug into my hoard of cheap wigs and cheap kanekalon for styling practice and I'm pretty happy with the result. It definitely confirmed in my mind the value of starting with higher quality wig and hair fiber though! The black fiber absolutely refused to hold a curl. I want to try another fluffy shoujo style again soon. Its very tedious work, I tied in about 3 packs of extra long jumbo braid, but also calming, so its been the only type of crafting I've been able to manage lately. Been slowly stumbling my way out of a 6month+ funk due to cross country move and difficulty adjusting despite having moved a gazillion times in my life... I think Im pretty good at moving but that doesn't mean its actually easy :\ I'm doing much better but better =/= good. Still working on that. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwr8nXkDxtL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=p70ktgej1d86
GET IN ON THIS, IM MAKING A POSTERRRRR
✦❤✦ THE KICKSTARTER FOR AGENTS OF THE REALM HIT ITS FUNDING GOAL ✦❤✦
Gosh gosh gosh!! Thank you all SO MUCH for your support so far!! Last night the Kickstarter managed to hit it’s initial funding goal of 17K! The kickstarter campaign, however, is still running and will remain running until March 2nd so I’ve got LOTS of stuff planned for the extra funds to go towards!
Are you looking for an easy way to show your Magical Girl pride? If the Kickstarter hits 20K, I’ll be getting 1.5″ Enamel metal pins made so you can let the world know exactly how magical you are!
If the Kickstarter passes that…
Everyone who pledges in the tiers $50 and above will get a chance to upgrade in order to get their hands on limited edition prints made by these wonderful artists! I was lucky enough to get @wscottforbes, @quantumqstar and @mattahan to agree to create absolutely gorgeous artwork in honor of Agents of the Realm. I’ve been getting peaks at the works done so far and let me tell you, you’ll definitely want to get your hands on them!
From there, the funds will be going towards making the book even more shiny and magical than it already is!
Hitting 40K means everyone who pledged in $30 or above gets their softcovers upgraded to be foil embossed!! Talk about a perfectly fitting upgrade.
And the last stretch goal is a Foil Hardcover Upgrade available for everyone who pledged in tiers $50 and above!
The campaign still has 22 days left! Let’s keep this ball rolling!
questionstar.org & questionstar@deviantart. I like to make art, friends, costumes, trouble, and history this is an art/creativity/rambling blog where I complain about art more often than I actually post it!
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