Pencil Lines

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated, and that I probably should give some excuse, but you all know it already. School, busy, lazy, blah-blah… but I have done some drawing the last little while, so here are some sketches. Enjoy!

The first is a gift for a good friend of mine, TheTazza, of her character Tex. Tazza is a friend of mine in my Fine Arts program, and she is an awesome person as well as a talented artist. This is her belated Christmas present.

It was drawn with nib/dip pens that my sweetie got me for Christmas. I’ve never used nib pens for inking before, so this was a real treat! I have used fountain pens before, but that was mostly playing around with caligraphy. This “dipping” thing was very new to me!

Here was a page of practice scribbles I did with it, trying out some of the dozen or so nibs that Dennis got me, before I started on the picture of Tex:

Tex himself was done with only one nib, and I only very rarely went back over a line with it. It’s amazing the amount of variation in line you can get with a nib pen, especially for someone like me who’s used to technical pens.

Right, onwards!

This is just a little unicorn I sketched back in October at the height of school insanity, just to make sure I still remembered how to sketch. I just liked some of the lines on it.

A weird Alien Dignitary or summat that I sketched a couple of months ago. I thought it looked rather neat. Originally done with blue mechanical pencil, but I tinted it in Photoshop.

This sketch was done over Christmas break at my mum’s place. I was trying to do something productive rather than just sitting around watching TV. I used a photo I found on the Flickr Commons for reference for the dress (it was over 100 years old and in the public domain; I can’t seem to find it again, hehe!). I loved the corset belt thing she was wearing; it looked so cool. I had fun inking her hair. I still need to work on noses, though.

This is a picture of Celes from FFVI that Dennis told me to draw when I was asking for ideas. I had a lot of fun with it, drawing in all the details and trying to get the pose/anatomy right. It’s still not perfect, but it’s better than I’ve done freehand for a while. F pencil, tinted again in Photoshop.

And that’s it! Hope you enjoyed. I hope to get another post up soon showcasing some of the work I did at school last semester; we’ll see how long it takes me to get around to that. Happy New Year!

So, I just recently uploaded a picture to deviantART. A picture I’ve been working on for three years, and was never fully satisfied with. I don’t think I can fully articulate how much it means to me to finally have it out of my hair and out in public where I don’t have to worry about it anymore!

It started as I said, three years ago, when I was going through a rough time and needed some extra cash. I decided to put out a plea for commissions, just quick $10 sketches and small digital drawings and the like. I don’t think I got any bites, except for one; Mia, aka. Losmios, told me she wanted a commission. But not a piddly little sketch, oh no. She wanted a fully painted digital picture she could make fancy prints of. I didn’t know whether or not I had the time or the energy to pull it off, but I accepted it anyway. How could I refuse?

Anyway, it did turn out to be a little more than I could handle. I was rather intimidated and vowed to do the best work I could do. I had an image in my head of how I wanted it to look, but it just wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. As such, it sat on my hard drive for all this time, during which I would randomly open it up again every few months, put a couple more hours into it, then close it up again. It wasn’t until I started art school and wanted to start fresh that I decided to bite the bit and just set it free.

So I have. But it seems so anti-climactic after so much work that went into it. So I’m going to post a series of WIP images to show you just how many iterations it went through before I finally came up with what I’ve uploaded today.

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Ho-ly! Two whole months without a post? What happened?

Oh, yes. School happened. But really, it’s okay! It’s art school! It’s a very good thing! It just means that I’m extra busy nowadays, and I have less time and less drive to actually work on any of my own stuff outside of class. But, it does mean I have some in-school assignments and things I can show off. That’s always nice, huh?

I have already uploaded some of these to my LJ, so I apologize for cross posting for those who read both. Probably not many of you.

Read below the cut to see them. Be warned; there are lots and lots of images under here, some of them Not Safe For Work (NSFW).

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Right, so something new to report!

Since I was fairly bored one afternoon and procrastinating heavily on studying for final exams, I had enough drive and motivation to create a new page and customized layout for my comics:

Allegro: Random comics by Rheall

I had a lot of fun working on the CSS and uploading my comics and such. It’s so satisfying to see them all laid out with “next” and “previous” buttons. Sometimes I am very easily pleased.

Like it says on the main page, this doesn’t mean I’m taking those comics seriously or anything. I’m not going to have a specific update schedule for them, and they aren’t meant to be any kind of serious foray into the webcomics world, not by a long shot. It’s just for fun. I draw comics now and again, and it’s fun to have someplace to show them off once in a while!

So yes, that’s that! As for art stuff, I haven’t really been drawing much this month, or even this summer. However, I did sit down and bang out a couple sketches tonight, so I’ll see about scanning those in the morning. I now have two weeks free of any sort of schedule or responsibility, so maybe I can make myself churn out some art. Or at least get sketching again!

Hope y’all have been having a wonderful summer!

Eeee!! Okay, please allow me a moment to indulge myself and squee mercilessly.

So, remember in my last post (on LJ) where I was whining about feeling guilty because I only had a dozen pairs of foot jewelry made for my step-sister Linda to sell for me at an Art Festival down in Point Roberts? Well, I did try last week before this weekend to make some more for mum to pick up on the way down, but I found I was running severely low on wire, chain, and cord coils, all of which make up the foundation of my jewelry. I made one more pair and was forced to stop, since I was all out of wire.

I also found that, oh shit, I was incredibly low on funds, otherwise I would have totally gone out and bought more supplies to make more. It’s hard, though, to make dozens upon dozens of these things when you’re constantly having to replenish your supplies for them, which leaches away money you haven’t yet made because you haven’t sold any. Umm… not sure if I’m making much sense. Anyway, yes, so I felt bad, and only had one more pair made,and felt terrible for only providing a dozen when Linda wanted fifty to sell for me.

Anyway, so Mum went off to Point Roberts for the weekend, and I heard nothing until I gave her a call today. And guess what? They were a bug success!

They only sold six pairs out of the dozen I gave them, but mum said that was mostly because of a lack of variety. People loved them, and wanted them in certain colours but of course there were only the ones I made. Apparently green and blue were all very popular, as well as gold, which was pretty much what I expected!

_{That’s Linda in the pink dress in the foreground, sitting next to the little table with my jewelry on it. Eee! Major squeeing moment!}

The biggest thing that shocked me, though, was the unending generosity and awesomeness of my step-sister Linda in all of this. She went out there with a table and sat around in the hot sun, singing my praises and modelling/showing off her own pair, and- get this- refused to sell them for $20 CAD/pair. She upped the price on them to $25 USD/pair, and that’s how they sold. And she also refused to accept any sort of commission on them, and made sure the entirety of the money went to me. Oh gosh, what an absolute sweetie.

_{The table of my foot jewelry after they had already sold a few. They look so pretty on that gorgeous beige scarf Linda used to cover the table!}

Mum said they sold a lot more of them at the Farmer’s Market they went to in the morning as opposed to the Art Festival, and many people were asking, apparently, whether Linda would be back in subsequent weeks so they could buy some later. And Linda assured them she would be, which means agh, I’ve got to get to work!

_{Linda told mum she wanted to get a couple glamour shots done, so she took this gorgeous photo of Linda wearing her pair out at the beach in Point Roberts. This is going on my website/Etsy store once I get it up and running!}

Also; when I was back in Mission a few weeks ago and got my hair cut, I showed them to my awesome hairdresser Cie, and she wanted me to make her a white pair. I did so, and mum gave it to her last week when she went to have her hair cut, and Cie gave the hair cut to her for free in exchange for the foot jewelry. She liked it so much! She also wanted me to make her around ten or so pairs for her to have for sale at the hair salon too. Oh geeze!

Mum’s right, it seems I’ve got a little business going on here! I think I’m actually going to have to get serious about recording inventory and costs and such when I buy these supplies so I know exactly how much money I’m making versus the supplies I’ve bought. I’ll probably have to research cheaper alternatives to Michael’s, DeSerres and the Beadworks store in Granville Island for supplies…

Gosh, I’m just so amazed, I never would have thought they’d be this successful. Indeed, they definitely wouldn’t be if I hadn’t had the help of my mum and Linda to spread the word about them! I’m not entirely sure what to do next, haha, except perhaps replenish my supplies and get back to making them, now that I’d made some more money off of them!

Right, I’m done squeeing about that now. =D Hope all you British Columbians had a great long weekend!

EDIT: Mum also told me about this lady that Linda knew, who owned a ladybug farm somewhere in Point Roberts. This lady is obsessed with ladybugs, was wearing a ladybug t-shirt, and apparently wore nothing but red. She saw them and thought they were lovely, so Mum immediately showed her the red pair I had made with the ladybug beads, and that was it, she was sold. I’m so glad they went to someone who liked them so much!

She also said how Linda would tell people that I was making the jewelry to sell to finance going to Art School (which is pretty true!), and that was enough for some people to get in on it for a want to support me. People are so nice!

_{(X-Posted to my LiveJournal.)}