Zero Views Per Day: Slow Going (ALSO! I LIED)

Hey! Long time no see. It's been since MARCH 20TH 2016! So much has happened since then- Kaitlin had a birthday, I had strep throat, I registered for Summer and Fall classes (the last time ever?!), we finally saw Star Wars (which I liked a lot!), Dark Souls III came out (which I can't afford/play), etc. Life has been busy.

I've been putting this post off for weeks because I promised you that I'd finish painting that character from last time. I actually started but was having a very difficult time getting it to look how I wanted. It could have been I was painting with only the vaguest sense of color scheme. With my rudimentary feel for color, it was certain death. I also need to uv it again before painting, just another step to worry about. I want to complete it, but I was sad that I'd been neglecting my blog for weeks.

A couple weeks ago, I was playing with a custom action in Photoshop that was feebly attempting to be the mirror mode that Photoshop still lacks and I came up with the sword sketch this model was based on. I finally finished painting it today, so here it is! There are a couple spots that could use some polish, so maybe I'll revisit it. The top two views were rendered with perspective present, so I included a third view with no perspective (flat from the side). 978 tris, 1024x1024 diffuse map.

I sketched this sacrificial knife a couple weeks back and banged it out pretty quick in Blender. I spent hours painting it, though. I really like the hand-painted look for textures and have been playing with that as a way to avoid learning more modern ways of generating maps. I'll be getting to that this summer, hopefully. Also, I figured out how to take nice screenshots today, which means the image I snapped of the dagger looks nasty, but since I'm in class I can't make it look nice. Maybe I'll swap it out when I get home (EDIT 4/15/16 - I snapped a new shot and the quality difference was negligible, so I'll just leave this image here).

I've almost finished another sketchbook. I'm on track to do so within a month, which is nice, but it's been a doozy for me. The first half is just atrocious. None of you will ever see any portion of it. I'd been slumping pretty hard until I switched to a black Prismacolor and for some reason I've felt much better while drawing with it. These first two splash pages were done when I'd just changed drawing utensils, so I was still hating my life and everything I drew.

This next one has a cool sword I'd like to model and a character with a flaming head I'd like to model. I'm saving him for a summer project. Also, that really ugly guy in the bottom left!? It's depressing.

After I put the above 2 collages together, I've been on a roll. By the way, when I say that I'm not tooting my own horn, it's more a description of how I feel when I draw. Drawing while slumping is a frustrating thing to do, and with these next ones I just felt really good about everything. On this first one, I really like the monster at the top.

I like the weird antlered creature down on the bottom. If he had legs he'd be grade-A awesome.

I like the guy who's too serious on the right. What's his problem!? He needs to take a chill-pill.

That's all I got! Hopefully next time I've got that character finished, but if not there will be more 3D. I really need to branch out from bladed weapons when it comes to props! Treasure chests, potted plants, braziers, etc.

I just realized I haven't eaten lunch and I ate breakfast at 6:30 am (it's 2:49 pm now). I'm hungry!