Atla Short Story

 

 This is a picture that goes along with the short story I wrote here. I've put it on this blog before, but I thought it made sense to put here again. 

Atla Short Story

Slight content warning. This story includes violence, gun violence, violence nearby a school, and child endangerment, though no children are harmed. There's also the use of minor swears like "shit." If you watch Marvel films, you're probably fine. 

 So I've been working on this short story for a while now. I had the initial inspiration for it earlier this spring. I was exploring a feeling I had that the main character shares. Overall, I'm very happy with how it turned out. The climax is resolved through sacrifice and compassion instead of violence, which is important to me. One of my favorite ways stories can cause a turning point is when one character teaches another character something they need to change about themselves. It feels very natural to the real world. I also like the foreshadowing and the character development I manged to squeeze into this short story. 

God be with me. Lord save me. I need you all the time. Amen.

Gently

The title of this post is a reference to a line from Princess Bride, which will only make sense when you see the last picture in this post. Here are some sketches I've done as time has allowed.

This picture is done in pen. I would've wanted to redraw the hands otherwise. 

Had this image in my mind. Not really sure where it came from. It's basically a creepy evil bunny rabbit with human arms.

Experiments with subtly different eyes and body shapes.

This drawing was done during a session of Dungeons and Dragons that I'm doing at the library I'm working at. It's an ongoing weekly program. I'm helping keep everything on track as part of my work. So I'm basically getting paid to play Dungeons and Dragons for three hours a week. My life is pretty sweet.

God be with me. I love you. Lord save me.

Draw Your Feelings

 

As you can see, most of these drawings are from about a month ago. They say "draw your feelings," so while I was in class I drew a monkey warrior and some characters inspired by the games Resident Evil and Evil Within. School is going okay. I just got exhausted after a while. I've experienced a bit of a crash it feels like, but I know God is taking care of me. I can't tell yet if I'm out of the rut, but I do feel somewhat better. I'll just have to keep going. 

I liked drawing these characters because they're different from what I'm used to. The woman in the next-to-last drawing was fun to figure out how her anatomy works.

God be with me. I love you.

Jetty the Magic Girl

 

So I had an idea for a tv series about classic magical girls versus Lovecraftian monsters. That's not too original, but the series would also take major inspiration from the comic that first inspired me: Atomic Robo. It's a really great series for all ages. You should read it. I was inspired most by Volume 3: The Shadow From Out of Time and Volume 7: The Flying She Devils of the Pacific. The hypothetical show Magical Girls Versus Cosmic Ones would also take a lot of historical inspiration, including a sort-of Ghibli-esque steampunk aesthetic. I've outlined the episodes of the first season and all the major characters. 

Jetty (pictured above) is from the mid-1800s. She was taken from her universe by a cosmic evil and rescued by magical girls from another universe. Now she works with them to fight evil and return to her world. Jetty's design is based mostly on Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, Alice Liddell's design from Cheshire Crossing, and pictures of Ada Lovelace. Her design would need some tweaking and added details, but I'm happy with it for now. 

If I could, would I spend all my time making this show real? Yes. Am I in graduate school with two jobs? Also yes. God be with me. God's will be done for this idea, just like all my ideas. I love you.

Canny the Friendly Ghost With Work Problems

 This is an idea I had for a character. It's fairly simple, just a man who is a sheet-headed ghost who struggles in his patent attorney job and other areas of his life. No matter how powerful or dapper you are, life (or unlife) is hard. It's not a good enough concept for me to really work on, but I thought it would be fun to draw him tonight.

 

I spent some time deciding how to do his eyes and head sheet. But his design was pretty finalized in my head from the beginning.

This is a small reference image I did for the next picture.

 "And now, Margaret Wellenek of Tax Form Management, you will return my calls." 

Here is the picture based on the one I was referencing. I'm glad I did the reference first. I'm so happy I've got better perspective skills now. 

God be with me. Lord have mercy on me. I need it. I love you.

More Pose Work

So, school has started at this point. It might be a while before I have anything from school to share on this blog. My classes are mostly programming and a production that's supposed to remain secret until after its done. But I've been doing some important work doodling in and outside of class (and church). It can't hurt to try to get different methods of drawing forms to look good from different angles. These pictures were each drawn without visual reference, so you know I like that.

I don't know what the next step is, and it might have to wait until until school hits a lull. I think it might be trying for more realistic proportions like 90s anime style, animating something else in Blender, or modeling something simple in Blender. We'll see.

God be with me. I love you. God's will be done. Lord save me.

Animated Punch in Blender

 

This is my practice of an animated punch in in the software Blender, just to try and get a feeling for how it's done. I should be more excited than I am, because this is pretty cool. I just kind of used up all my energy figuring out Blender's obtuse systems. Hopefully next time will go faster.

I'll need to remember to hold on each of the frames for longer. Sometimes, some of the frames don't play in YouTube and sometimes they do. I'd recommend playing it at a slower speed if you want to see all the frames. Overall, this is pretty cool to me. I think this is a good step in the process of wrangling Blender. We'll see. 

Thank you, God, for everything. I love you. God's will be done.