Sketch Blog

Found this while doing a little youtube surfing for tuts. I'm using Clip Paint studio perspective rulers and I really have forgotten so much about perspective drawing.

Long time no see eh? Sorry, been a mix of busy and sick. Hope to update here more often in the near future. Page 6 by * DraconianRain on deviantART

I've been using zbrush and drawing a fair amount lately. Mostly I'm putting in an effort to learn zbrush as well as remembering to practise Sculpting. Lately though I am trying to learn how to sculpt hair. It's so far the hardest thing for me to sculpt. Far harder than hands or feet. And I think it's because it's hard to sculpt pretty, beautiful and attractive hair. I like Fiber Mesh ok, but I'd prefer to sculpt the hair. These are my only latest online posts. I'll post more later when I have something worth posting. Zbrush Anime Practise Model Part 2 by * DraconianRain on deviantART Zbrush WIP by * DraconianRain on deviantART Zbrush Anime Practise Model by * DraconianRain on deviantART

Even though this sounds strange it works. I thought where better to share than my WordPress blog. The other day I had to clean my range hood. You know those fans above your oven, they get pretty grimy. Well I got around to cleaning the fan cover. I had no baking soda. I tried soapy steel wool, didn't work. Concentrated dish washing liquid, didn’t work. Let it sit in boiling water to melt of the grease. Didn’t work, just clung to it. So I had an idea. Denture pills. You know the little foaming things you put in a cup with your false teeth? I grabbed a slip. I’ll have to pay my mother back later. I put in 5 pills because it was a fairly large fan cover. 20 minutes there was an improvement. An hour later the grime was gone. Rinsed it off and it looked brand new. What lead me to this idea? Well it was my mother whom years ago use to use denture pills to clean out coffee stains in coffee mugs. Because it has a mix of things in it including a low amount of bleach. I remembered this ...

Been a long time since my last post. I've been pretty busy though. I'm trying to get back into making time lapse recordings of things I do.

So I've been using Zbrush 4r5 for a little while and these are all my experiments so far. The two females though were started in 4r5 and then sculpted further in 4r6. I'm excited to use zremesher but I haven't made much to have a use for it just yet. Still excited though.

Ok so the last thing I did in ZBrush 4r5 was decorative shoes. And I'm very proud of them even if they aren't very level. I'm also extremely excited to try out the new ZBrush that's been released! Then new remesher looks AMAZING! Anyway, back on task. Here's my work: Spent a fair amount of time on these. This is going to be very exciting for me to post my learning progress of what I make in ZBrush. I'll post some more things slowly through the week. Takes a fair amount of time for me to sculpt still. Still beginner and learning but very excited.

So my grandfather gifted me money to buy Zbrush! Can't believe it. I never see that kind of money for myself and I'm very grateful. I'm going to put it through good use. I've been on and off with 3D but I very badly wanted zbrush since I'm just one of those people that's better suited to sculpting. I can make nice faces in an hour. Nothing pro but pleasing to look at. I was using sculptris and Blender for the longest time. But enoough rambling. Here's a few screen shots of some of the models I've been making on the side during other projects and when I needed some me time rest. It looks like more work than it is but I haven't spent more than an hour on each except for that creepy looking doll thing. It took I think 2 or 3 hours. Because I kept screwing it up and also because I was having so many tablet issues, I decided some mouse modelling would be more fun than sitting and waiting for my tablet to update. As you can see, ...

So I got gifted zbrush and I'm so excited that I don't know where to start. So after I settled down I decided for some anatomy study. I started with a face and with abs. Eventually I'll move on to full body parts but for now, piece by piece. Later on in the week I'll update with some screen caps of what I've been doing or learning in zbrush. But mostly it's just been getting use to the shortcuts and learning what everything does.

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Just a few notes and random tid bits about my painting. Not a tutorial but a summary of a process. Dry media brushes set to transfer, pressure sensitive opacity to sketch and paint. Colour picking using alt key to colour pick instead of "i" and then "b". Using the alt key is far quicker to colour pick and fantastic with the intuos express keys. I'll update this post more as I complete more of the painting process. Soft paint brush, lots of random oval and lumpy shapes. I used hard with 0% hardness for the lighting and touched it up with the dodge tool for the rocky looking scales. I'm slowly going into refinement on the womans face. My next goal is to make her less manly looking in the jaw. There's a lot more to be added yet but so far so good. The clouds were the most fun. I used a lot of default brushes with minor edits made to them. Mainly just adding transfer to them. More posts on this later

So I've been busy with life. Mostly washing clothes. It's winter and of course even though the sun is out nothing is drying. But enough about that. My 3D work has made a slight change. I'm using Unity now because the Blender Game engine just isn't working out for me. I must say though with the latest update I finally like Unity. My problem was always textures and rigging but with how Auto-rig works I don't have to worry about mapping my bones any more. I'm also making an effort to learn C# for unity scripts. First C# then I might look at java. But it's going well so far. Mostly I'm just trying to get use to the unity editor at the moment and learning small amounts of C# here and there. I'm pretty happy with things though I'm not sure if I can learn programming well enough to do what I want to achieve. Only time will tell at this point. Also, after loosing two art trades, one of them twice I got back to work on one of them and it's comin...

So I hit 1000 views today. I thought I should at least make a new post since people are stopping by. My current progress in blender, I have worked out other ways to add to toon shader. Also I used Freestyle for the lines. I haven't found a setting I like just yet since I'm still trying to work out how to use freestyle.

As the title says, this is just a recording of me working on an art trade. I had to redraw this work several times. This sketch I am most satisfied with after loosing my first one. Program crashed mid painting and destroyed the PSD entirely. I really hate that but oh well. At least I can re-draw it. Turning out much nicer this time round though.

I hate trying to use Blender Cycles. I need a whole new PC if I should even attempt to use it again. Although it would be much faster on linux, I just don't have the cash to either upgrade nor acquire a new PC. Maybe one day I'll get what I need but it's not happening any time soon. Not unless business takes off. I gave it ago and it took quite a while to render. But at least it rendered on this old thing (Windows Vista yikes!) Not bad. Much easier for me to use Cycles than Luxrender. I'm happy so far with the render. Just got to keep going though.

WIP Model Marri by * DraconianRain on deviantART Had a lovely day out. Current progress on my model. I'll be updating perhaps tomorrow or in a few days how much further I got. I drew on the shirt. I haven't modelled the rest of the character yet. Still working on it.

Well I love it. Only one problem. Matcap which I have been looking forward to being implemented for so long, doesn't work for me and I have no idea why or where to report the issue. Other than that, excellent. It runs smoother, it doesn't lag as much. Sculpting is better though still a bit laggy. But I am after running on 4gb ram. I'm sure if I had the minimum 8gb I'd be happier than Larry. I am IN LOVE with the new B shortcut fixes and addons. However I am yet to try out the Blender Game engine. Before I had a weird error only happening on my laptop. Speaking of laptop I am absolutely thrilled to find the setting to change laptop number keys to function as a keypad. And now with the new overlapping panels working by laptop has become even more enjoyable. I can't explain it well but if you want to hear more definitely check out this youtube video here: http://youtu.be/wQgy3wzt2sM Yesterday I spent all day just clicking around and messing around with the new ed...

So I was screwing around with the blender grease pencil. Found out how to make a 3D reference in blender instead of using the view ports except this method I happen to adore. So here are some screen caps ^w^ My plans are to model right over the top of it and hopefully model better looking meshes. I know it's normally note taking but I happen to think this has a lot of potential. 3D reference in 3D… awesome much? I use to wonder about doing this, just figured it out. Hehe.

Today I am playing with this synth in FL Studio. This video by the company, is quite possibly the best showcase for this plugin. The sounds are amazing! Anyway if I make anything worth while I'll be uploading it to soundcloud but I always take forever to make songs so don't hold your breath.

All done in photoshop. I tried my best to try and get it to look as much like watercolours as possible. Why? Because I don't have money to buy paint or paper. Today I really wanted to make watercolour art. All my watercolours are so dried up I can't even open the tube. I can't even cut it open so photoshop it was. Artrage is awesome and all but I don't like the blenders. I've yet to master it. I overly abused the Sharpen filter and textures. My main layer blend modes were Colour Burn and Multiply. I'm happy with the overall results. I've been playing with digital watercolours a lot lately. In between requests and art trades I do this sort of thing as a warm up exercise so I don't forget what I am trying to learn. I used Photoshop CS6 and a Huion 580 tablet. It took me almost a whole day to set up my huion properly. There's something wrong with my intuos and I might need to send it off for repairs but I am thankful to have a back up at least....

So the characters in this work are Salem (The male) and Faith. Yesterday I spent hours, unexpectedly a lot more time than I planned on digitally painting this work in opencanvas. It's not finished yet, I have to experiment more with the bottom left corner. So far so good. I tried out sharpen filter on my painting this time. It definitely gave some unique paint like looks and feeling to it. And it certainly added some much needed depth. My only issue now is to try not to over abuse it and ruing the work but like my first time with overlay, it's going to take time, practise and time to settle down from the excitment over it. Tools Used: Wacom Intuos 5 OpenCanvas 5.5 Regular wacom pen nib, black.

Well I decided to hide away on April Fools day. Almost every site seems to be participating. I have a new webcomic posted on smackjeeves now. Starts out with some action. Visit the webcomic here:  Lost Words The Webcomic Right now I am working on a digital painting that is mostly just for fun and is a bit of a spoiler for early readers. Please do not steal or use without my permission or remove my watermark. I spent hours and hours on the cover art only to screw up the text. But it will do for now. I'll be updating the comic either monthly or several times a month. I mostly want a reasonable update schedule. The first image was drawn and painted in OpenCanvas 5.5 and the bottom image was drawing in Photoshop CS6

Really feeling the limitations of ToonBoom Studio, badly want Toon Boom Animate Pro. One day I guess, if not it might just be time to fully quit animation.

This drawing was a colouring and painting experiment in Photoshop CS6. Please repsect my work, these images on this blog belong to me. I used Gradient Map for the first time on the hair and I adore the effects of it. I think I will be using it more often. Pinky by ~ DraconianRain on deviantART

Here are some of my MangaStudio tutorials that I have posted, most on DeviantArt. http://draconianrain.deviantart.com/journal/Manga-Studio-EX-4-Walk-Through-Part-1-305058988 http://draconianrain.deviantart.com/journal/Manga-Studio-Walkthrough-Part-2-3D-305366109 http://draconianrain.deviantart.com/journal/Manga-Studio-Walkthrough-Part-3-Wavy-Text-Text-305375882 http://draconianrain.deviantart.com/journal/Manga-Studio-EX-Tutorial-From-Sketch-to-Finish-321648109 http://draconianrain.deviantart.com/journal/Manga-Studio-Why-Are-my-tones-showing-up-gray-306389127 http://miwasketch.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-13.html Hopefully you'll find these helpful Happy drawing!

Like the title says, I have a laptop replacement thanks to my wonderful fiance. It's beautiful! I've moved on to 3D modelling so there will be a lot of future posts about 3D modelling in blender as well as a few artworks made in blender. I hope you will all enjoy the journey! Also I will be posting many youtube videos that I make.

My first turntable. All modelled, rendered and animated in Blender 2.65 The textures were made in Paint Tool Sai. Took me all day and most of last night to model and animate. Next I am going to animate some body movements on the turntable.

Because I have been asked and this was quite some time ago, here's a real time drawing of how to do a head reference, whether it's for 3D or not. The guidelines help keep everything even.

My latest speedpainting. I've decided instead of posting sketch things I'll just post my speedpaints. I just don't have much to share that hasn't taken me hours or months.