Friday, November 17, 2017

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mommy! Hermione was the hardest to draw and I didn't even do that much of her hair! You can't really see Ron's freckles, but they're there! Do you know what "All is well" is from?

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Digital Animation

It's done! Until now, all the work I posted here was on paper, but this one is my first full digital animation. This incredibly short video was made with Adobe Animate, which you may expect has much less of restriction on frame rate than Windows Movie Maker. It's not the most complex or beautiful animation, but like many things on this blog it's a start. There's not that much to say about this one because of it's simplicity. I'm not that good with digital drawing yet, so the simplicity of the image was intentional. This was an exercise in determination. Because it didn't feel like much at the beginning, I wasn't as eager to finish it. But once I got in the thick of it, it seemed so much more fun to finish. New and different technique, same old process it seems. Well, no need to divert from the pattern now. Praise God!

Sunday, September 10, 2017

The Correct Hallway


I have some trouble with proper perspective. Often different sections of one drawing will each work on their own but not all together. So I decided to use that when I came up with this idea. I may not know exactly how to do perspective correctly, but I know tons of tricks for how to do it incorrectly. You may recognize the character from one of my earlier drawings, but it's not really essential to getting the feeling of this picture. I didn't use any references for the drawing except the image in my head, but I'm fairly certain the image in my head takes inspiration from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) and surreal artwork. In my head, the checkered office floor is red and white.

I'm almost exactly three weeks into college today. Often my experiences walking alone around the grounds and empty classrooms (especially the few times I've been out after dark) have been almost dreamlike. I feel like I'm simply watching myself get from one place to another, without the ability or desire to alter my course. And the only one willing to get on the ride with me is God. Of course, that's not entirely true, but it often feels that way in the circumstances. So I used that dreamlike feeling to create this drawing.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Completely Your Fault

Okay, unlike the last post this might require a bit of explanation. So since I got my English credit out of the way in high school I'm taking a course about concepts of Hell in western literature this semester. The course started a few days ago, and while I was waiting for the professor to arrive, I drew some shadowy figures. These figures are based on an idea I have for drawing the unsubstantial ghosts from Hell in C.S. Lewis' book The Great Divorce. (You may have noticed I've been drawing a lot from C.S. Lewis lately, but that's because focusing on familiar experiences often eases times of transition.) These figures were also an experiment in communicating a human shape with as little lines as possible. Then I added a bunch of random, fiery lines to distort them. After the class my head was so full of vague uncertainty and cautious hope that I decided to draw the characters Ford and Rick fighting with the ghost figures to balance my brain out. I finished it today. So still nothing incredibly original, but it's something.

I drew Rick's head too big in proportion to his body. It's a common error of mine. Ford also looks slightly off somehow, but I think I'll have to re-draw him to figure out what. I drew the topmost, rightmost, and bottom-left ghosts first, and I like them the best of the five. Ford is the one saying that this is completely Rick's fault. To which Rick responds with something like "Yeah, put it on the list."

Maybe I'll try to do something different next time. For a minute it looked like I would have too little energy to draw this like I said I would. I'm thankful I ended up doing it. Thank you God for today and for this drawing.

Cartoon Sky

I warned you abstract stars featured heavily in my doodling. This drawing was done not only one week before today, but also the first full day of college for me. I had some time before a test and I didn't want to do anything too elaborate, so I drew this when it popped up in my head. It's practice drawing cartoon stars and clouds, which I think I need more of. I like this picture better in color. In my head, the clouds are pink and the sky goes from light blue at the top to dark blue at the bottom. I thought I'd share it today since I have time.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Your Affectionate Uncle

Tonight I was listening to The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, and I took it upon myself to create a rough character design for the titular character. For those of you who don't know, The Screwtape Letters is written from the perspective of an arch-devil giving advice to his nephew. It's a fantastic literary device for a great book. You should read it.

I have seen many illustrations of Screwtape, but none of them satisfied me. They were neither arrogant nor frightening enough. So I drew a bunch of concepts till I had something I was somewhat happy with. There would be a lot more design decisions to make, but I wanted to do this now while I could. I'm doing something a little different. Because I'm in college now I don't have easy access to a printer, so instead I took a photo of this page with my phone. I have no idea how this will work in the future for things like animatics. Right now all I can do is take college three days at a time when I want to be taking it one day at a time. God have mercy on us all.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Shelved Discussion

My second original animatic! The story and script for this one has been finished for quite a while, but I only just drew all the frames this week because I wanted to get in one more animatic before college. This is also my first animatic that I've done in my own (heavily influenced) style rather than Gravity Falls style. The last animatic got a lot of in-person comments from different people about how "smart" it was. One person even compared it to the independent film "Primer," which was not my intention. I like smart stories, and I like making smart stories. That was kind of the point of Tachy's Time Pizza. However, I wanted to do something more relatable for this animatic. So just as a reminder, Bookends is a story idea I had about made-up sentient books. One is Classic Children's Fairytales, another is 1983 (my parody name for the George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four), and the third is The Great Journey. Their character design and personality are based on what kind of books they each are. You may have been wondering why they were sleeping on shelves. Now you know.

This time I actually drew the frames from start to finish, then went back and filled in more. In other words, I didn't draw the beginning and end frames first, so there is a little change in dimensions overtime. Usually I don't make that mistake, but it's something for me to learn from next time. I simplified the shapes and lines early on. It was fun to take a character I had designed in detail and figure out how to storyboard them properly. There are a lot of amateur mistakes as well as flaws that just arise out of the scanned paper format I'm using, but I'm really glad I did this. Thank you so much God for helping me to finish this. I had a lot of fun. Your will be done.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Last Day


Well, today is July 21, 2017. It's the last day I'm legally a child. Ha. Shows what they know. But if I'm being serious, I feel a kind of weight over the future that I know is there and yet I can't touch. I don't know if I've done a good job of portraying myself on this blog or if I just made myself seem constantly creative and faithful and fun. But today as I was thinking about it... all the dreams I have for the future are very hard to dream right now. Right now I don't feel super invigorated or absolutely hopeful for the future. I feel introspective and alone. How am I supposed to do the great things I want to do if I can't even find anyone except my God that cares about those same things? I don't want to express these feelings though dark or lonely images; I want to address them through images of beauty and fun.

To that end, these drawings are how I spent my evening. The first is an image that explores personality (grace and confidence) in a static image, and the second is basically supposed to be a drawing of myself if I were a cartoon rabbit. The first image is part of a larger project I hope to use in the far future, and the second is just something I wanted to do for fun. You may begin to grasp the connection between them. I like how they both turned out. I didn't leave myself enough space in the first image, and I'm sure her form isn't even close to being right or whatever. But I think she's pretty, and that's the point. I've drawn a few cartoon robots in my day and that came in handy. The second image turned out to sort of be a combination of the two main characters in Pixar's "Boundin'," which is kind of appropriate actually. "Boundin'" also might be my favorite Pixar short. I know this drawing is not as adorable as the duckling, but it's fun. All I know is, I prayed to God for help before I started drawing, and these pictures are what I drew. God's will be done. I will trust in You all the days of my life. I love You. Amen.

Monday, July 17, 2017

The Movement of a Dragon's Wing


This is perhaps the first time I've really gotten a line of action close to being right. I've tried to do it before, especially when imitating comics, but it's never really clicked until now. Part of what was great about this one is I could just trace the figure's leg straight from the line of action, and I had a reference for at what point her hair dipped and came back up. The elephant's line of action in the right-hand corner isn't as well done. I knew a scared line kind of hesitates and zaggs in one place, but I didn't quite leave myself enough space to communicate that with the elephant's back. And yes, that is a cartoon baby elephant with feet instead of just toes. It's complicated, but it makes sense in context. The dragon also has a less obvious action line for where I want it's back to arch, but that's more for my reference.

Obviously this image was experimenting with motion. It's a little odd, but I actually tried not to use motion lines (my normal technique) and just try to convey the motions of the figures though shape.

"Going Down," or "Not So Hidden Depth"

So the focus of this picture is creating a sense of depth. Nothing I haven't tried to do before, but his time I tried to used specific techniques to create the sense of depth. The rectangular hallway appears wider at the bottom of the picture than at the top. The two visible elevators are obviously of different sizes in the picture because one is closer. And that sense of depth allows the audience to judge that the tail in the foreground is actually very big on it's own, not just closer in perspective.

I think I will give a little more backstory to this picture. I don't know how obvious it is, but the two humanoid figures were actually arguing by the elevators before they both noticed something menacing sneak around the corner. This moment comes at the same time the young woman's elevator arrives and speaks "going down." As you might imagine, these words have a bit more meaning in the context of what they were arguing about and what they just saw, but I won't say exactly what.

The Shape of a Hero

Don't worry, I haven't gone cubist. Not even a little. That kind of style is a little beyond me right now. No, all the shapes in this picture are very important to the actual scene, not just for style. The small figure made mostly of triangles is made that way because they're very active. She isn't shaded in so that she's the first thing you see before the larger character in the foreground. The shadow behind her is meant to show that she's on equal level with the larger, more intimidating shadowy figure. The figure made of rectangles is that way to show how they're closed off but also tough and powerful. The larger triangle around the figure and her shadow highlights the angle of the action. The rectangle behind her is a wall. The circle around her is a spotlight. The triangle coming off the circle is the beam. Pretty simple actually.

So as you may have guessed, this image is focused on finding all the shapes of the scene, not just the characters. It's also about using those shapes to create a certain focus and effect.

Streetview

Remember that project I mentioned that I was really excited about? Well believe it or not, the next four pictures including this one are all from that project. I won't go into more detail, mostly I just wanted to share these images, not the idea behind them. One common theme you will notice is that I'm trying to use very simple shapes to convey the scenes. Just an experiment. This image actually turned out to be a combination of all the techniques I was practicing for the other three images. I kept coming back to this image to use what I'd learned. Anyway, this image probably has more meaning to me than is obvious. A lot of it is just a reminder of the kinds of things I want to do in the long game project. It's nowhere near close to the final image in my brain. God's will be done. Amen.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

1 Samuel 17:34

Another drawing inspired by my youth group, only this time it actually pertains to the lesson we were learning. In the story of David and Goliath, David mentions protecting his sheep whenever they were carried off by lions or bears. One very smart guy in the group asked what geographical region you'd have to be in to encounter both bears and lions. Our youth leader suggested maybe it was mountain lions. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not, but I wanted to save the image in my head just in case. I've had an interest in doing an independent web animation series based off the Bible, because I learn best when both my hearing and sight are engaged in a story based way. I want people like me to be able to quote the Bible (or even ideas from the Bible) as easily as we quote our favorite movies and tv shows. To that end, I had already done a concept sketch of David that looks much like this one. So I already knew how to draw him.

Because this was during youth group, I drew David and all three animals from what I remembered about them. The drawing is in pen, and obviously I made David's arms way too big in proportion to his body the first time I drew them. I'm not crazy about how big the rest of his body is compared to his legs either. I suppose I've got the image of mountain lions in my head better than bears or sheep, because David and the lion are drawn much better than the other two figures. As you can see, the bear is at the edge of the scan and blurry, but I'm okay with that. It's not my best bear anyways.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Touch the Stars

 
These are a pair of drawings I did in Youth Group today. I'm feeling much less depressed than I was earlier. If I do anything surreal, I like it to be positive. I think I've had a fascination with the idea of actually touching tiny starts ever since I actually went on Mission Space in Epcot. All I know is that it keeps showing up in my art and writing. I pictured this girl in my head from the back, but then after the first picture I just had to do another one from the front. She draws inspiration from the origin story of Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy. It's a surprisingly emotional story for a Mario Game, which is probably why I was thinking about it while I was gloomerated. This girl's left arm looks a little weird zoomed in, but I like her expression.

Since I'm talking once again about my mood swings anyways, I guess I'll mention that I wish mainstream American culture didn't trivialize existential crises as much. And I mean all of the different kinds, whether they're teenagers' or mid-life or artists'. We all have that image of the moody, melodramatic teenager, but now that I'm actually going through the emotions... they still feel real even though I know they're irrational. So today I was kind of annoyed that existential outbursts are treated like jokes in most of the media I've seen. Eh, I'm probably being overly emotional about it. God will save me.

Chapter 2

It's random drawings of my "Bookends" characters '83 and Classica. The title of this post comes from that the hypothetical episode names of this hypothetical show could be chapter names. I wanted to draw this to get a different view of both of them. This image has '83 standing up, and you can actually see Classica's book "wings" from this angle. I drew Classica way too big this time, and consequentially their eyes aren't actually meeting as well as they should. Still, you get the kind of attitude the characters have towards each other. I actually wanted to draw the top left image of '83 to make it obvious he does actually have two eyes and not just one- though one eye would be cool. Regarding that kind of proud, loudmouth expression I experimented with on the left- for some reason I actually find that expression really cute in an obnoxious sort of way.

I'm not extremely confident this idea will ever become much more than an idea, but I have fun drawing these guys. Besides, you never know. "God knows, but he's not saying..." And I'm okay with that.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Experiment Comic

I'm not really sure about posting this before all my other Pines Twins stuff, but obviously I did it. So. Rebecca Sugar, the amazingly nice creator of Steven Universe, suggested writing and drawing comics for people that wanted to be in animation. That struck a cord with me tonight because I need to learn how best to tell the story ideas I have, not just how to draw certain scenes from them. So I needed to start again somewhere, and that somewhere was here, with this comic. If you can't read the words that's fine because they're not my best by the long shot, especially for Dipper and Mabel. I actually think it's more meaningful without the words. I'm basically just posting this because I like the art (for how quick I drew it) and the way I did the panels. The idea for this story came from a very visceral feeling I had when I encountered these huge piles of garbage in the woods behind my church. It was saddening to see something like that. So I had the idea that Mabel and Dipper would feel the same if they encountered something similar. I intend to make this into a much bigger, better story.

I guess I should mention somewhere that I have a job now. It's at a pizza place called Blaze Pizza, and yesterday was the start of about my second full week there. The people there are really nice to me, and they're very helpful. The customers have been friendly and understanding. It's a much easier and nicer environment than school (the teachers were great, the other kids usually not so much). I'm still amazed I got my first job at a pizza place after I wrote and drew "Tachy's Time Pizza." Things like that make me wonder if Someone planned it.

Meeting of the Minds

Well, here's a blast from the past for me at least. I was drawing in this journal tonight and I decided I should post this one that was already in here before I posted the drawing I'm working on. This drawing is of two comic characters very close to my heart, with one of them aged up to some degree. I won't say which two characters because I want to see if you can guess or if the dialogue that goes with it surprises you. I drew it at a time when I was really missing the character on the right- because the author had stopped making the graphic novels containing her- and I wanted to feel like there was a future for her and that she wouldn't just end. That's the thing I've felt about characters. They don't go to heaven. They don't have lives that happen afterward unless someone keeps writing them. For that matter, we don't really have a future unless God wills it. I guess I needed some help from my first favorite existential character.


I'm really pleased with how well I drew each of these characters for what my drawing skills were when I drew this. The right character is about perfect and the left character is awesome. You may be surprised that I gave this character glasses, but his family has a history of it. Also it was kind of a tribute to my cousin, who just got glasses about when I drew this and he mentioned in passing that he wished more characters he liked had glasses too. I was so surprised it affected him so deeply. The shadows on the tree and bus stop sign are a little weird in this image. This is also one of my favorite in a long trend of crossover fiction of mine that has existed since I could imagine Harry Potter as a Star Wars story. I see no signs of it stopping either, but I'd like to learn how to write better first.


Life is... busy. It's hard, and it seems impossible. But it's good because God gives it a point. It's not just filler space till the end. Anyway let's set the scene: these two teens are waiting at the same bus stop, and for some reason the character on the right (I'll just call her "Right" for now) feels like the character on the left ("Left") is a kindred enough spirit to talk about something on her mind:

Right: Hey, I don't mean to bother you, but do you ever wonder if maybe we don't have a real purpose in life? It always seems like people are telling you who to be and how to be it, and they never consider that it might not be the way to do things. It's always "do this" or you wont get what you need, "get this" or you'll be sorry, "be this" or no one will like you.
Left: I think the problem isn't that humanity has no set purpose, just that we tend to generalize about that purpose. It isn't that people are misinformed about communal aspiration, but self fulfillment. My best friend says the world isn't so scary if you know what you're doing, but people rarely do.
Right: Yeah, and I guess that if people ever thought someone else could be doing things better they might have to deal with the idea that they could be doing things better too... I'm Amelia by the way.
Left: My name's Calvin.


Yeah. So for those of you that don't know Amelia is from the graphic novel series Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley. And Calvin is obviously from the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. I think I kind of nailed Amelia and Calvin's voices- and even Hobbes'. But part of why I like writing dialogue for older versions of my favorite characters (*cough* DipperandMabel *cough*) is that there's a margin of error for how they may have changed. God is my fulfillment. He is my aspiration and my purpose. He's the only thing that really works, and He's just so great anyways. Oh and if you scrolled down prematurely to see the reveal, that was a bad thing to do. You're only hurting yourself.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Digital Drawing

Alright, recently my parents got me an amazing drawing tablet. I wanted one because it would make it easier to move my drawings to the computer without scanning them all individually. The tablet is great, but I didn't get much chance to use it until now. This image was done in Adobe Illustrator. I wasn't trying to do anything super original, I just wanted to practice doing something I already knew how to do with the drawing tablet. So I drew fan art of these two: the Pines Twins from Gravity Falls.

I already discussed how I drew Mabel (on the left) as an adult in "Ideal Election," and this is how I usually draw her and Dipper (on the right) as young adults. I know it's not an exactly perfect drawing, and I'm sure it would spark a lot of debate about how exactly they should be drawn, but this is how I draw them and I enjoy it. Anyway, that's the first digital drawing I've done. Unfortunately my free trial for Adobe Illustrator runs out in seven days and I can't afford it, but this gives me hope that I'll be able to use it well in the future. Thank you God for this.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Magic Cowboys

 
This is the first image I ever though of and made for this idea I had about, as you can see, magic cowboys. I was thinking of ways to portray traditionally violent topics and situations in nonviolent ways. That's when I realized: magic! Magic can be directional through wands or hands, and unlike bullets, it's colorful and less graphic, kind of like light sabers. And as Harry Potter shows, you can use a lot of the same hand-eye-coordination skills and dexterity for spell casting as you can with traditional ranged weapons. In short, it's the perfect device. So that made me think, "What if I put magic into a traditionally violent genre- like the wild west!" It happened pretty much how you'd expect it to. Plus, Disney has been pulling this trick for years.

Additionally, I'd love to get practice drawing Monument Valley type settings like the kind you see in Calvin and Hobbes. I've got a long way to go. You can probably tell that this picture is not recent because at the time I hadn't started working in pen yet and I hadn't even started dating my drawings. I've worked on this particular idea lot since then, and I might share other drawings I've made later. But I don't want to give anything away, and some of the drawings are a mess anyway, as you might expect. So this may be the only image from Magic Cowboys that I put on this blog. I would reveal more of the plot and characters, but I'd like to turn this into a web-series or something. Where would the fun be in telling you all of it before I'm even started?

I can say that, looking back, it's a bit more political than I'd expect from such a simple concept, but I still think the characters and lessons intended could apply to everyone. Part of it is that the two main characters are based on an actual struggle inside myself over selfish rationalism vs. religious altruism. I think there are a few people out there who can relate to that. God's will be done.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Dropped

As you can see from the picture, I did this drawing one week ago. It was actually during my spring break, but I didn't post it that day because me and my family were doing college tours. Very exciting, but I had some time to kill so I drew this as quickly as I could in pen. I read some advice from Dana Terrace recently that people who want to be animators should practice drawing people in situations with other people. You may have noticed I don't always do this in my drawings so I wanted to do it in this one. I also wanted to draw the characters in more dynamic poses than normal, and it worked very well for a rush job.

Looking at the drawing, I'm not sure if I was subliminally drawing about my feelings during this time or not. The anxiety and concern the characters are showing didn't come from nowhere, but I don't feel particularly anxious about my college search or about not posting to this blog enough. God will make thinks happen how they should, regardless of whether that's how I want them to be. There's nothing I can do that's so bad God can't turn it around somehow. Now if only I could convince my unconscious mind of that.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

In the Path


This is an idea for an animated short I thought of. I haven't finalized the plot, and I don't have the technology to do what I want with the short yet. But I didn't want to forget the idea, so I drew it in pencil first. I won't give away the whole plot, but I can explain this picture at least. The person sleeping on the ground is a hiker who's trail is blocked by a large, smooth rock right in the middle of the path. As you can probably tell, this rock is alive in a way and has large eyes. Part of what I want to do with the animated short is see what kinds of emotions I can express just by moving the eyes around. That's moss on it's top-right corner and left side. I'm not sure that's clear. This image is actually from a long time ago, but I decided to get it back out today.

I haven't been posting lately due to schoolwork among other things. I'd apologize, but I don't think it's necessary in this case. I've started moving towards working with pens in my sketching. It's surprisingly relaxing not being able to erase mistakes on random drawings.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Bookends Idea



This is art from an idea I had called Bookends. It's got a somewhat Steven Universe-like premise where instead of the characters having forms and personalities based on different kinds of gemstones, these personalities have manifested from different types of books.
It's set in a future where books are no longer used. Without the ideas contained in books being diluted to the populace, the books have manifested as sentient creatures and have been discovered by a single little girl who's trying to preserve them. I was originally never going to share this, but then I came up with an idea I'm really excited about. And now I can put this one out here safely. It was really fun designing the books, and you can see the different sheets of paper that make up their forms. Even the book covers have some function on them. It'd be so cool to put the page texture on them in a digital format, but I thought trying to replicate that texture here would take away from the art. Anyway, I thought I'd give you the personalities of each of the characters so you could have some idea what was going on. They are basically parodies of stereotypical genre's so some of their features should be recognizable at a glance. They'd meet other kinds of books and people along the way of course, but this is the "core group."
(Bottom)Laura: The single-named human girl who first discovered the library where these books were hiding out in. She's exactly the kind of person who needs to be able to curl up with a good book from time to time, but she never knew it until now. She'd probably need the most developing before this idea was ever taken off the shelf. She's a necessary presence, but she's not quite as interesting as the sentient books.
(Top)The Great Journey: An epic fantasy tale of sprawling lands, wizards, and dragons. “Jour” has perhaps unexpectedly manifested as a girl and is an incredibly valiant knight-like big-sister. Often speaks in nearly incomprehensible poetry, but is loving and good and is perhaps the only book of the three who can really laugh at herself. Her book cover forms the chest-plate of her armor. I didn't draw her big enough.
(Left)1983: A classic dystopian novel who looks and acts like a mopey teenager. 83’s extreme paranoia and ability to find the most pessimistic, tragic, overly-complex interpretations of the most innocent happenings can be humorous in that he says them in total seriousness and nearly without emotion. His book cover forms the pocket in his jacket. He was the only book who's design I just drew today.
(Right)Classic Children’s Fairytales: “I’ve always thought of myself as more of a Classica than a Classic.” Stereotype princess with a belief in happily ever after. Bubbly, remarkably philosophical at times, slightly lazy, and overly-emotional. You can't see it from here because her capelet is covering it, but her book cover forms her fairy wings. Her design is probably the least original, but I think it's the funnest.

Friday, February 3, 2017

I Pledge

This is a draft for a comic I came up with about a year ago. Turns out I like the draft images better than the comic itself. I learned an important lesson about not adhering to the traditional comic format and leaving yourself enough space. Anyway, I'll just tell you what happens along with these images:
It's in school and the pledge of allegiance just finishes playing. The boy in the top-left snorts. The girl notices and leans over to her friend: "What's his problem?" "Oh, he's home schooled. He's just here to take whatever standardized test they're making us do now. He doesn't normally have to say the pledge of allegiance." "So? What's so funny about saying the pledge of allegiance in school?" "At a guess, I'd say the 'liberty and justice part.'"

This comic is based on the true story of me doing exactly what the tall boy describes. For the record, I did not actually laugh during the pledge of allegiance. I take pledging my allegiance to a country under God very seriously, and I take my standardized tests also very seriously (to an unhealthy extent, though I've gotten better since a year ago!). However, I was mildly amused when I was led into this big high-walled concrete facility- through a series of electronic doors we had to get permission to go through- and finally into a room with only one door and no windows- where I would spend the next 2-3 hours sitting in one spot being as silent as possible with intermittent periods of exercise. It was a startling contrast from public school online, where I could get up in the middle of any lesson and go outside when I felt the need to, then return right back to my lesson. Add that to having to say the pledge of allegiance for the first time in about 6 years and I probably smiled.

It's one of my biggest hopes that this joke won't age well. I hope in a few years it will seem completely and totally reasonable to say "with liberty and justice for all" in a public American high school and that my kids will not get the joke. It should be completely and totally reasonable, it just isn't quite yet for a lot of people (who have it much worse than me). Hands folded. God's will be done for our educational system. I finished some of my biggest classes for this semester and year today. It was an even bigger day than I thought. Praise the Lord! For he is good to his servants in everything.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Hippocrisy

The title says it all. We were talking about hypocrisy in my Youth Group today. Someone asked what that was and wondered if it had anything to do with democracy. So I explained that- yes- it is like a democracy- but with hippos. Then I said what it really was, but my next remark was "I should draw that." This is the result. Who knew hippos could get any more dangerous? Note this is not a political cartoon. It's a semantical cartoon.

This is my first time drawing cartoon hippos, but luckily I got lots of practice in with just this picture. They're exactly how I pictured them, which is harder than a person might think. Thank you, God (even for the small stuff). I got my signature a little shmushed on the side there. Anyway, these are the words of the cartoon to make them clear:
Hippocrisy: Like a Democracy, but with Hippos. 
Chief Hippo: Motion carried.
Poster: Hippo Freedom
This is what I imagine when I hear it.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Strange People

As you can see, this drawing is actually from today. The idea I had was to depict people doing normal things, but add an unusual feature to them (in this case a second set of eyes). For example: the rightmost figure is actually crossing his eyes in two different directions while sticking out his tongue, and then the picture below him is him laughing at this action afterward. Obviously, making a face and laughing about it is a very common thing to do, but add another set of eyes and it is not immediately obvious what he is doing.

This is in an attempt to see whether or not people can still identify with and enjoy the drawings as much as if they were of regular people. I expect the result to be: they can't. But that was sort of the point. I'm often taken aback by how strange I think other people can be, only to be swiftly reminded that I myself am in many ways much stranger. More than that, people could be a lot stranger and still be people. Given the idea of the subject, I tried to add extra features to the drawings that I normally wouldn't in an attempt to make them more realistic than my other drawings (such as actual nostrils). The drawing would be much better if I could actually do this to any convincing extent. I thought about whether to post this on the sabbath or not, but this is not work, it's fun. I'm still not sure if that's a good justification or not. God give me wisdom on this subject.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Break Down the Walls

This is a section of a page of sketches I felt good enough about sharing. I like this particular part of the page. It's a good example of experimenting with different poses and positions and even different types of faces. I draw this particular character a lot actually when I want to emote through my drawings. Sometimes I just have to put the expressions I want to make into the more versatile people on my page. Nothing nearly as much of a mile-marker as my last post I know, but I'm trying to learn perseverance in the little things so that I won't fail God in the big things. A lot of that is just doing something small but good even when it doesn't feel as impressive. At least I think so anyway. What do I know?

I'm posting this on what's basically the first real day of school for me. I was anxious earlier today, but- as always- it's all working out. Thank You, God. What I get done in school is okay, but I certainly want to do more. Those are the walls which I am referring to. Or maybe they're just the walls of making sense to anybody that reads this.

Monday, January 16, 2017

Fencer Animation!


My first ever animation! For those unsure: an animation is distinct from an animatic in that all the frames are close together instead of spread out to tell a larger story. This is a simple animation of a fencer lunging with a foil. I felt this would be the right starting place for animation given the simplicity of the character design, and how well I knew the motion itself. I fence foil, so that allowed me to ensure this fencer's form was as close as I could make it. For example: the arms extend fully before the foot hits the ground. The only problem is that each paper is cut slightly differently than the rest of them, and this causes the image to wobble ever so slightly so it isn't as perfect as when I can line them all up. My only regret is that, because it's Window's Movie Maker, I can't make the frames as short as I want them and so it doesn't look as fluid as it should. Ah well. Nothing's perfect except God. I'm so excited to share this, given that animation is my reason for creating this blog in the first place.

I had originally intended this to be a gif, but among other complications, there were too many frames (ten frames altogether, including the end credit). This is also the first time I used in-betweening, where I drew the first and last frames and then slowly did the frames in the middle of the ones I had already drawn. I was amazed at how well this worked and how easy it was to do. Once I had the first and last frames, I was able to do all the other frames in less than a day. Each frame only took about fifteen minutes. I just have to keep reminding myself how easy this is so that I keep doing more. I certainly didn't think I'd get this project done today! God helped me do this the whole way through. Praise be to God! He fulfills His servants' wishes even while they are serving Him.

Courage


The trouble with sharing random bits from my sketches is that I want to share them but feel that these sketches and whims of ideas are at least to some extent inferior with the work I have already put on this site. This is especially true since I have shown good work and am eager to show more, but I'm working on so many different things in an effort to improve them that none are finished (or anywhere close to it).

In short, it feels like this sketch. This drawing started as my attempt to draw a different cartoon body type besides "really tall and really long." After that, I added a stick figure and suddenly it told a story. The smaller figure is eager to meet and befriend the bigger one, but the idea of doing so must look impossible to him. I feel the same way when I'm talking to anyone I'm not completely familiar with. I also feel this way sharing my two-bits of drawing with potentially the whole of the internet and any future employers. The stick figure is succeeding where I normally fail. I can only hope God puts my efforts to His own good use, because I'm pretty much powerless to even do what this stick figure is doing.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Socket Man


I recently organized all the drawings I've done into a couple labelled drawers, instead of allowing them to accumulate in various stashes. The result was that I discovered a lot more of my random sketches were sharable than I presumed. Like this guy for example. For some reason or another however, I had a sudden rush of possessiveness. I think I'll get over it eventually, but I compromised by scanning just this socket man off a large page full of sketches. I've usually thought sockets looked happy. This one looks kind of like a video game character. I'd be interested in depicting this character in different positions (and drawing him so he looked happier). The original drawing is very tiny, so this image is extremely zoomed in. I did it in pen.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Public Service Announcement

No joke here. Just a straightforward message I wanted to put out. I got a bit carried away and tried my hand at lettering while I was at it. I don't usually use the word "suck" to describe anything unless I'm speaking literally because it is so vague, and it seems kind of childish to me. But in this case it's applicable specifically because of those traits. I haven't made any deals with devils personally, but I can say from personal experience that devils just suck in general. In case anyone is wondering where this came from, I was thinking about the plot of the play "Faust" when I decided to draw this. I have some scrap paper I'm trying to use. Coincidentally, today is Friday the 13th.

I tried to make all the letters in "devils" off by just a little bit to emphasize how they literally can't do anything right (being removed from all that is good and right as they are). Look at the other letters for comparison. I was originally going to shade in both "deals" and "devils" to emphasize them, but then I realized that "devils" both don't really deserve that effort and couldn't do so much as that properly. It's a good thing God is taking care of everything.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Landscape

This is a landscape I worked on for a couple weeks in my art class and finished this week. It's from a view of my backyard. This is what it looks like when the farthest part of the backyard is in sunlight, but the closest part is still in partial shadow because of the trees. The middle path is just worn from my pacing, there is no official or dirt path there.

The drawing is not perfect because it's from my memory. It couldn't fit in my printer scanner so the quality of the drawing suffers from my poor photography skills. I wanted to share it anyway. I'm not consciously aware of having learned anything  especially, but I've noticed my other drawings have improved somewhat so I think this helped.