a passtime in picture format

I had this odd notion of starting up another art thread since the predecessor was obliterated in the crash [yay], and what do you know, here I am yet again.

I've worked with quite a variety of mediums including conté, charcoal, graded pencils, painting [acrylic, oil, watercolours], pencil crayons, photography [traditional SLR, digital], photoshop type things, plaster sculpting, plaster cloth, printmaking [softolium woodcut, plexiglass intaglio], and scratchboard to name a bunch.

I'll attempt to keep it interesting, but I can't promise you'll like anything. all I ask is that you respect me by not stealing any of my work or using it without my permission [why you'd want to, I don't know but it has happened in the past] or leaving useless spammy comments. I appreciate feedback and critisms if you care to, but they aren't manditory.

INDEX

Drawing:
pencil
jessica alba

coloured pencil
kate winslet | photo version
matriarch

Fashion Design:
formal length
prom dress
embroidered dress
corset lace dress

knee length
lace dress
mix dress
butterfly dress

Painting:
acrylic
1 | 2 | 3 | 4

digital
michelle branch

Photography:
digital
oak trees
refraction
soldiers
structure
swing set

Sculpture:
metal 1 | 2
wood 1 | 2

Sketches:
crosshatch study
jackie
rose woman
yuna

Other:
character design - the newbies
scratchboard - celtic knotwork
scratchboard - abstract
wallpaper - muse

I guess I'll start this off with some scratchboard work. both panels are meant to go together as a diptych, one traditional and one abstract. the traditional panel is an original celtic knot design. the border itself is one line, the upmost horse is the line that goes all over the place, and the other horse is it's own line aswell. proper celtic knots are one line and one line only, but I'm no monk, so I made three!

the abstract panel is just meant to represent the same composition and mirror the subtle order vs chaos theme... which I totally made up on the spot. >_>

How ya doing, buddy?

oh there were slip ups, but thankfully a fine point black marker blends well with the black layer >_>

I started by making basic sketches of things I wanted to incorporate into the design, and once I had a good idea of what to do I got out a piece of graph paper and made the final plan on that. here's the final sketch. graph paper is a godsend for stuff like this because it allows you to keep your lines relatively the same size and keeps everything more accurate looking. after that was done I used transfer paper, which is essentially the white version of carbon paper, to transfer the design onto the scratchboard. you put the transfer paper under your drawing, the scratchboard goes under that, then you just trace over your design and the residue on the transfer paper gets pressed onto the scratchboard leaving an eraseable copy of your design.

once that's all done, all you do is scratch away the black layer in the areas you want to be white. it's a little tricky when you're trying to remember which parts of the line are supposed to go over or under, and that's where I had to use the black marker sometimes if I accidently scratched away where a line was meant to be. the scratch tool that I used looks something like these by the way. annnd once you're done that, basically all that needs to be done is to erase any extra residue from the carbon paper if it wasn't scratched away in the design.

wowee that was long.


here's a few dress designs I finished not too long ago. I despise how grainy pencil crayon shows up when you scan it, so I attempted to edit it in corel photopaint by tinting and removing noise. ignore the obviously bad job I did on some of them

There's nowhere I can't reach.

ulysses - [avoids wedding dress topic lolol] this is one I just wanted to look simple, clean, and elegant. I could definitely see adding flower patterns to it though, that would look pretty nifty. I unfortunately don't know how to sew just yet, so I'm not very familiar with dress making. it's not so difficult to learn I'm sure, but I really don't want to buy nice material for dresses like this and not be 100% confident in what I'm doing. nice dress material is expensive ;_;. I think I know who you're talking about... though, I actually used two pictures of Jessica Alba as references for the face and hair. funn times. and, yah aside from the ruler for straight lines and tracing paper for the repetition of the border knot, the scratchboards were all freehanded. you just count the squares and follow the lines, and you can fool anyone into thinking that you're talented XD

vemp - well I'll be starting university next fall [I just got a letter of acceptance from York University in the mail yesterday ^_________^]. I'll be going for a bachelor of fine arts honours degree majoring in, well, fine arts. my high school had an amazing art program though, so I've learn quite a bit over the past 4 years because of that.

elwe - aww thankyou. the mix dress is my favourite too. I actually got the inspiration for it from a dream. apparently I had designed a dance costume for a friend of mine, and she showed it to me in the dream and I'm like... I did that? cool. so yah when I woke up the next day I got out my sketchbook and came out with something like that. this is actually the original one, but since I tend to design clothes for myself as things that I would like to wear, I decided to redo it so that the dress was longer, since I'd be very uncomfortable wearing something that short.

vida eterna - haha thanks... I thought about going into fashion design, but the problem with that is I'd have to take a specialized degree before anyone would even consider looking at my portfolio. I didn't want to do that, mostly because when I thought about it, I really don't want other people wearing my clothes and also because I didn't want to end up in a deadend market where I don't have the proper qualifications for something else should I change my mind about being a designer. though the degree is probably still a bachelor of arts, which is a pretty flexable degree in itself, but I think I belong more in the fine arts. fashion design is really just a hobby, not really a passion. lately I'm thinking art directing would be pretty fun, but I'm still not 100% sure. taking a bachelor of fine arts degree program leads to a crapioli load of possibilities, so I think I'll be fine and dandy with that



just a few more dress designs to add to the crop. I have now run out of new designs to show you, so I'll switch to something different for the next batch of attachments. you all get to writhe in suspense over what that could be [].

anyways!
1. I designed my prom dress.
2. photo of the actual dress that my mother made based on my design. the skirt is folded in half width-wise just to look tidier in the picture.
3. hypothetically, if I were to go to the academy awards someday... >_>...
4. not quite the colour I was going for, but hey you can't always win.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

omagnusprime - thankya muchly, sir. <3

rydia - I don't believe I've seen you in here before, thankyou for the comment! I am quite partial to that one too, I think it's my favourite out of the formal length dresses so far.

summoneryuna - I'm glad you like them, thanks. I'll pass the compliment along to my mum too =D

nadienne - wowee it's nadi. if it were possible for me to become reasonabley successful at dress making, oh how I would enjoy that. I'm glad you approve too. I use random prom dress sites to gather reference pictures of models in a variety of poses so that I can design things without having to use the same generic poses over and over. I think that helps with giving them moods and character. I was actually pretty happy with them when they were just sketches, and once I inked them I thought "wow I actually did this right for a change". then came the colouring, and well, that's when the flops appear.

I know what you mean about the shading, but unfortunately I haven't figured out a way to get a natural skin colour going and properly shade at the same time without using black. maybe I need to do the shading part first, and then add that abominable "skin colour" after instead of the other way around. blarg. ahaha oh my, you're right. those are almost worse than manhands on the embroidered dress. I think I originally made them too small first. it figures . thanks for the comment, I really appreciate it~



next batch is of the digital persuasion.

1. a desktop background I made featuring the band Muse. middle lyrics are from "Blackout" and the lyrics on the right are from "Sing for Absolution", both of which are off the Absolution album.
2. this is a major oldy, back from the days of the art battles in TCC before the crash. the theme for this one was online gaming. it's not exactly aesthetically pleasing, but it makes me smile so I still like it.
3. this one is ANCIENT. it was my very first digital painting, done completely in photoshop. it's not much of an achievement though, as I pretty much just used the eyedropper tool and worked very closely with the reference picture. it's supposed to be Michelle Branch, if you didn't make that connection from the file name. =p

How ya doing, buddy?

omagnusprime - patience, sir, patience. I'll post some new stuff now, albeit it's nothing impressive. BUT IT'S NEW!

vida eterna - yah they were pretty funn, but I think we'd need a better way of organizing them since it eventually just became the art battle forum with random art threads. oh hay, maybe if does get up and running again, we can ask for a subforum?

shenlon - oh yah, forgot about that. just the plain ol' mouse. I still haven't ventured into the relm of tablets, but then photoshop doesn't work on this computer anymore, so that would be the main reason. also, I vaguely remember you. nice to see you again~

luckee cookie - luckeeeeee. thankya, I'm glad you like them. I would love so very much to make the mix dress. if I could only make one, I'd atleast want that one. <3



I was a peer helper in an art class during my last semester at high school, and at some point I was asked to make a very quick example of how they should go about doing their paintings. I just did a quick progressive example over four canvases. their assignment was to do a surrealist painting, so I figured I'd make the example that way too. it's acrylic paint on canvas board.

How ya doing, buddy?

magi - yah just a quicky example. it's actual size is 8'x10'. I'm quite partial to the warm colours too.

rydia - it's probably due to the softness of the whole thing. I imagine if it was a fully detailed painting, it'd be much much worse because you can't fall back on the mood to pull everything together even if it's not totally accurate.

elwe - I'm glad you liked it... haha I think after that painting [the first ever], I got progressively worse. I finished one other one, sort of, and started another one after that and they're both pretty terrible in comparison to the first.

methegelfing - I did post a photo of it... it's in the same post as the attachment for the original prom dress design. silly. art battles would be pretty fun I think, but even though I do have the time to organize them, I'm lazy, I don't really want to haha. it really should be it's own subforum though, so if anyone wanted to organize it I'd say ask staff about making a subforum for it if there was enough interest generated in the idea. it'll keep the regular art threads from getting bombarded with contest threads. thanks for the comment~

angel - oh I would if I could. thanks for the vote of confidence though.

little yuna - eeee little yuna's back <3! aww thanks... actually I'm almost finished a drawing of Yuna in her wedding dress. I'll dedicate it to you, how about that haha. I'm not always on msn as often as I used to be, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for you. we haven't talked in so long. catching up is a must. glad to see you back!



this next batch is just some typical digital photography. I am by no means great at this, I just like to take pictures when I see the opportunity for one. I really like photographing trees, just because there are so many interesting compositions no matter what angle you look at it from. light reflections/refractions are something that usually catches my eye as well.

soldiers and structure are photographs of sculpture works by a canadian artist Victor Tinkl, a very remarkable man, and by god does he have an interesting property. if you ever get a chance to see his work, I suggest you take it. the last shot of the swing set was purely accidental. I was playing on a swing set and snapped a shot while I was swinging. I love it when nature makes the composition for you :'D

the camera used was a Canon Powershot A40 with 2.0 megapixels. nothing astounding, I can assure you of that.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

shenlon - yah I was happy with how the composition worked on the swing, that was pure dumb luck. it was sort of one those "hmm I wonder... yup" sort of things. props to nature for working well with me that day~

methegelfing - just for you. it's probably one of the only ones that anyone took of me that had the whole dress, despite not showing the ribbon part too well. it's apparently a lost concept to most that if you turn the camera sideways, you'll be able to fit the whole person in the viewfinder ;_;. I'm not sure how many exactly, but there had to be atleast 100. each one had a different facial expression too, it was really nifty.

omagnusprime - thankya

pyrus - awesome, I love muse. we should get along just fine~



I suppose I'll just add some sketches to the bin. most recent, as in pretty much the only recent work shown in this thread, is the starting bits of a FFX yuna fanart. yah I realize there's about a bajillion out there as it is, but I'm playing through that game again at the moment and decided I wanted to make a drawing of her in her wedding dress to see if I could do it any justice.

yuna sketch

it had to be scanned in four parts and then stitched together since my sketchbook is hella bigger than my scanner. actual size is 11"x14" I believe. I didn't do too well on the stitching either.

and while I'm at it, I'll throw in some older sketches too. a crosshatch study of a masterwork you should recognize, a five minute drawing of a live model, and some random idea I had for a painting that hasn't gotten past the drawing stage yet.

FELIPE NO

were you thinking of christina ricci?

because that's who I used as a reference. changed a few things, obviously, but that image was the inspiration. oh how I hate using photos of other people for refs, but sometimes that's all you can do. I don't have any moveable mirrors big enough or an attention span long enough to pose for myself either.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

sure, go for it.

I used myself as a reference for the body, since it'd be way too much of a hassle to even try looking for a reference of that pose, but I found that real human proportions didn't look right. I just trimmed the edges and whatnot til I thought it looked more normal for the style of drawing.

it's probably the waist line and hips that are throwing it off though. I'm not sure, but the fact that the quadrents I fitted together from the scans don't match up in that area are probably what's throwing it off the most. she is a little wider in the real drawing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

yikes, been a while since I uploaded anything in this thread. thanks for the comments on the previous submissions.


I did a couple large drawings for the fun of it within the last couple weeks. the first one is a plain pencil drawing of Jessica Alba. yes I like that picture, that's why I drew it... again (for those who pay attention to my journal). scanned it in three parts and stitched it together in Corel Photo-Paint 7.

second is a pencil crayon drawing of Kate Winslet. I wanted to try a large scale drawing in colour, so when I came across that photo of her I decided it was the winner - lots of nice contrasts and all. this one was scanned in four parts and stitched together in the same manner.

also have a photo of the Kate Winslet drawing, since I find the scan a bit weird for some reason.

original sizes of both are 14x18 inches~

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haha well look at the last post in this thread, that was like well over a year ago. didn't realize it's been that long! I do post some random stuff in my journal here and there, but that's pretty sparce too.

I actually sized those down a lot too if you can believe it. both were scanned in at 300 dpi, so the original files are ginormous. I think the nose was basically the size of the entire screen in the originals.

anywho, thankya very much for the comment. =D

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

wherein I post moar.

some abstract sculptures. they are now living in my garden.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

oh, that's just some random "seating" area in the Center for Fine Arts at my university. my dad thought it would be neat to put it there. made the composition a little more interesting I suppose, but not very ideal in terms of sculpture photography hehe.



in other news: I'm actually posting something new! sorry about the quality, I had to take a digital photo of it because the sketchbook is much too big for my scanner and I'm currently not in the mood to do a humpty dumpty type scan. maybe later. shading on the crotch area is really bad I know, I'll fix it.

feel free to comment.

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