Scully! Scully doesn't know!
But Mulder does.



I'm an avid fan of the X-files. I watch it off and on and am almost done with season 4.

My favorite episode is Jose Chung's it came from Outer Space. Where practically everyone is a unreliable narrator and spoiler the mystery doesn't get solved because of all the contradictory evidence.


My skeleton manikin is named Scully after Dr. Scully.
I lost his bow tie making him more gentleman like.

For this painting I'm in the thumbnail/sketch research phase.  I have a solid idea of what I want to do, even though it just looks like scribbles. Its the extra details like the the host worm the smoking man,

I spend a lot of time in the research and reference part, albeit too much time. Sometimes for a single illustration I can find and take 300+ images to look at. Just to gain a better understanding of the subject matter and more ideas. 




 
All these scribbles mean something. I can see this drawing in my mind but need to fill in the blanks.
Sketching something again and again can also help to pinpoint what you want to achieve. The first few thumbnails I did the characters didn't have the gesture I wanted. With gesture drawing at times it is best to draw it quick and fluid.

Once I get out of this idea/sketch/reference stage. I'll show more of the progress. This may all look like chicken scratch but I can see most of this in my mind already.
I want to make a cool sticker or t-shirt design. 





I generally like phycological thrillers, humor and stylized flashy action.  It's actually weird to say my favorite show is a romance called Fated to Love You. Its in Taiwanese and all the characters are good. Even the side characters are hilarious and the show makes you laugh and cry.


The larger portraits were just an excuse to draw on paper while watching t.v.
It won't be part of the final illustration. An example of sketching to better understand the subjects. 
If I have paper and a drawing instrument in front of me I can't help but draw.

Drawn with water soluble graphite & water brush.

After the second time someone came in to print this poster and explained what the event was I was fascinated.  And will go! One of the last times I went for dinner also got dragged into dancing...that same morning I went to Physical Therapy for my legs and such! I was sore and not very flexible. The best I could do was wave my arms around like I actually cared!

I was told the dress code was a joke.

I've been working in the printing business for awhile and surprisingly I don't look or pay attention to people's photos or events unless something catches my eye. It is a common misconception that I'm genuinely interested in what I am seeing. For me its a very small percent.

After seeing numerous: event posters x amount of grandmas I don't know talk about their grandsons or the girl with her bathroom selfies sending it to her six prison boyfriends or the self proclaimed iphone expert photographer who thinks Lightroom is the most powerful photo manipulation software out there...(*Ahem its Photoshop. LR is a toned down version more user friendly addition.) Or the thousandth legal document or vacation photo. I wouldn't get any work done if I snooped at everyone's documents and photos!
















This past week I've been obsessed with the game Persona 5...I've put like 30 hours into the game and I only got it last Thursday. >__> It is that good. Usually I'm disciplined with how long I play games. 12 hour binge and loosing sleep over this is no good. <___<

This is huge because I grew up watching and eventually playing the Final Fantasy series. At some point usually FF and Persona fans get into it with debates with which one is better. As someone on the FF side of things I can definitely say FF is weird. The story is generally up its own douche about being convoluted and complicated it does not make any sense. The FF games I tend to like the un-numbered installments like 4 Heroes of light and Crystal Chronicles.

Everything is flawless: the character design, combat system, story  and the music is good but I don't understand the lyrics 97% of the time. Apparently it is a 100hr+ game. Haven't played something that long in a long time.

Its like 3 degrees outside.

Work in Progress

This probably is 80 percent done. Hopefully I'll get this one done this week.
Theres some other stuff in the queue as well. Seriously updating my portfolio.
It is all over the place and not streamlined.

The last bit is always rough because when do you call a painting finished?
More than once I got carried away with the snow effect it was a total blizzard.
You couldn't see anything.


I kind of want to go for a creepy feeling.
Ghosty chilly thing.


Based off and my interpretation of the song Silent Spring by Massive Attack.
It's interesting Elizabeth Fraser sings in a different method
that doesn't make any sense but she is singing in english.
And with my bad hearing I hear something way out there.

 


Screenshots here and there.



Now I have a cool trick I started to do with my reference photos which I'll share later.

Crazy now I have a computer that can handle what I throw at it. I have 70+ ps layers and layer effects.  >__>; The way I work digitally is different from my traditional work.

Here is a general overview of the materials I used for Inktober.


Papers





This Strathmore marker paper is a new product that I recently tried. This is wonderful paper. It is thick but also smooth and not translucent. Usually I use bristol paper with marker work, but that can soak and eat up the ink in the pens too much.  In the future I'm going to use this as my go to.

Towards the end of Inktober I used the Bienfang Graphics 360 pad because I misplaced the Strathmore pad. This is decent paper but it is semi translucent and light weight. Ink bleeding happens a lot. Had to get this paper for art school.


Ryan Spahr did the artwork on the Strathmore pad.

A) Copic multiliners. Plastic light weight barrels, with smooth consistent ink flow.

B) Color ink Copic multiliners. Wish I had more colors!

C) Copic Multiliner SP has replaceable cartridges and has more options with pen thickness and has a stainless steel barrel.

D) Sakura Micron. They are hit and miss with what quality you get. Sometimes great and other times the tip is chewed up. The ink doesn't usually last as long as the Copic brand.


White highlights



I've found Prismacolor white color pencil, Sakura gel pen and the Sakura pen touch work well with white highlights.



Usually I keep these supplies in a super cute container. :3




I have more pen & ink materials but these were the ones that I was able to use comfortably after not using these for a long time.

This year I was able to complete 31 Inktober drawings!
I also did an extra bonus round of another drawing making it 32!

🙌      🙌     🙌     🙌      🙌      🙌     👊

Maybe I'll go for 50? There were so many game characters I missed that I wanted to draw!


I finished sketching last week and finished inking this weekend.

22) Link from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. The best one in the series in my opinion. Know this game like the back of my hand. I've played a lot of them and beaten ones like Phantom Hourglass without any cheats. 

23) Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. A classick! (Yes I spelled it wrong on purpose.) When the gameplay and story was good before it got too complicated and serious. The dry humor is one of the best parts of the game. I highly dislike how the story is so complex that its up its own @ss.

24) Liquid Snake's young version from Metal Gear Solid 5 the Phantom Pain. Annoying as ever but less annoying as a child. 

25) Navi from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time....Cheat day. 

26) Catherine with a C from the game Catherine.

 

27) Katherine with a K from Catherine. Theres a point in the game when all the ladies in the game show their batshish crazy angry side. 

28) Vincent Brooks from Catherine. The main character you play in Catherine. This again is one of the few games I've played where the story does not entail saving the world. You help Vincent get through these nightmares stages he has where if he dies he dies in real life. He faces a crisis in his life of does he stay with his long term girlfriend Katherine who nags that he doesn't seem to care deeply about or Catherine the one night stand who is totally his type. Both women are named Catherine. Depending on how you play the game is how it goes, it has 8 different endings and next year the enhanced version with more content will be released. 

This is one of the unique games you have to try to try because explaining it does no good. I'm replaying this currently and am more than halfway through.

Ugh! I dropped my brush pen on this portrait. I kept with the rule with not editing mistakes out. So I flipped it to be part of the drawing the best I could without looking like a obvious mistake. 

29) Blaze Fielding Streets of Rage. One of my favorite games on the sega genesis. I would always play her and my sister would play Axel Stone. We got close to beating the game twice... Friendly fire was in this game and we would always duke it out with each other over stupid things. Like stealing health items when you didn't need it and then beating the other to one little bar of life left to be murdered on the next part of the level. So technically the other wasn't responsible for hindering progress in the game. 

30) Coco from Crash Bandicoot. Usually when there is an option to play a female character in a game I'll play her. 

31) Sonic the Hedgehog from Sonic. I loved this game as a kid. One of the three games where I would try to repeatedly draw the characters or environments. I would also do this with Crash Bandicoot and Pokemon. For those games I had a Schoolastic how to draw book as well.  At the height of my obsession I would defeat all the enemies in the level and then go back and pick a favorite spot and attempt to draw Sonic and the background I chose.

32) Bonus Round Nariko from Heavenly Sword. Wanted to draw a strong female character and her gorgeous long flowing red hair. 

Thanks for viewing!

I'm so glad I was able to complete Inktober abeit it being slightly late. 

But I finished it! 

Yesterday my boss texts 

Yes! 

Basically this commercial summed up my day of sleeping and playing videogames. 

Except for the real life side mission

of dropping house keys in snow. 🙀

Obtain spare house keys in neighboring town.

Beware of icy roads.

It ain't Mario Kart where the winner is the fastest one...

Happy later Halloween-ish!


 
Not quite but almost done...
Here is a sketch of these cute Dia los Muertos cookies I saw last year.
Went to a cafe out of town. I have so many random references I have taken over the years.
That one day will be a future painting or drawing.



Alas, I didn't do anything cool for Halloween. My friends canceled the plans and I wasn't invited personally to any other cool event. So I stayed home. Made a dent in my Annual Fall cleaning, sketched and played video games.



This is the last Alla Prima portrait I've done last month or so before the drawing group went on hiatus. I didn't think much of it. But my mentor sees a huge improvement. A new thing I tried is starting off with Holbein Mars Orange instead of the Alizarin Crimson of the same brand. The Holbein Alizarin Crimson personally has more of a Burnt Umber look.




















It extremely  difficult to focus when there are major stressors in your life. :<
Hopefully things will get better for me and I can get my mind off those things.
And be more creative!

It is both an emotional and physical battle when you aren't feeling well. 

Wish y'all well!

On Day 17 I was able to catch up on Inktober. Yay! Everyday since then I've been doing my Inktobers from sketch to finish.



My goals and intentions were to practice: 

1) Using ink medium better, with awareness of line weights.

2) 31 days of different portraits and styles.

3) Above all my technical goal was to draw different angles and facial expressions.
This idea clicked on #10 because I only was doing smiling and neutral faces and doing 20 more of these won't improve my skills much.

Next post I'll go in depth with materials used.

One of my favorite parts is looking at the sketch part and the inked part. Right when I'm about to erase the quick sketch lines.

All of these are about the size of a sticky note.

02) Was the enchanted bottle Stan was locked in for 300 years. I used pen and nib and it didn't go well...


03) Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere.
I redrew this twice. Sometimes keeping it simple is best. Redrawing can be quicker than noodling on one drawing forever and having nasty marks all over the paper.

04) Oswald from Odin Sphere.

You know a game is hard when you played and put in 52 hours in the game and you aren't fully ready for the final boss! >:O




I misplaced 05 and drew two. But I reorganized it in the order I drew it in.

05) Oliver from Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.

06) Rosalyn from Okage: Shadow King. The "hero" who is a foil to Stan's diabolical plans. She has a major grudge against him for ruining her shadow. She believes her career as a professional hero is decimated and carries the pink parasol to hide her pink shadow.  She has a pretty cool theme.

Around here I felt more comfortable with the medium and getting smoother lines and line thickness.

07 Ari the real main character of Okage: Shadow King. He is "Overshadowed" and is the host of Stan. I relate a lot to his character when I was younger because for most of the game his opinions and feelings do not matter. He starts this whole adventure because of the whims of other people imposing on him. This was at the time it was rare for games to let you input different dialog options.  

I drew thin lines to try to emphasize the personality. 

08) Linda from Okage: Shadow King. One of my favorite inktobers where I experimented with violet ink from the copic multiliner. 

09) Epros from Okage: Shadow King. Here was when I decided I wanted to try different angles instead of the classic front and side face postitions. 

10) Princess Marlene from Okage Shadow King. I was tired of drawing beautiful people and wanted to draw a tired ugly princess. Failed attempt to draw down looking up.

11) Gutten Kisling from Okage: Shadow King. Creeper dude who is a scholar: loves ghosts, paranormal activity, beautiful women and toenail clippings. For being such a weirdo he has one of the most romantic persistent theme songs of the game. 

12) Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat Series. Needed a break from drawing anime and cartoons. My favorite character when I play MK. Plus glacier blue is one of my favorite colors. Sub-Zero Wins!

13) Chun Li from Street Fighter Series Just had to draw the first lady of fighting games.

14) The Assassin named Altair ibn La'Ahad in Assassin's Creed Another break and needed to draw in semi-realism. I'm happy with the results in blacking out the full hood. That part was not planned. I was going to leave it blank. Another one of my favorite entries.

  



15) Pikachu from Pokemon Series.  Again playing with expressions and drawing a ugly mortified Pikachu. Pikachu I do not choose you! Not the favorite anymore! Was the pokemon I drew a lot as a kid. Pokemon Yellow was my game. I was so good at this game no one in the neighborhood wanted or dared to play or challenge me. At a young age I learned you play to win with no mercy! People say I'm competitive...I see it as I like to win a lot and care about that a lot more than you do.

16) Snorlax from Pokemon Series.  Probably my favorite pokemon from gen 1. He's a handful and kind does what he wants in battle. There have been times he would fall asleep! Mid-day naps are dope though! He has high hp and heals through his restful naps. With normal type pokemon I would teach him random attacks like surf or blizzard...the element of surprise.




17) 05) I drew twice accidently but this was the last I drew on the 17th.
Big Bull from Okage: Shadow King. This last entry of drawing Okage characters. Unless I draw James...Who wants to draw a character with the same name as one of your exes? I sure don't for now.


 

18) Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes. For my barely legal submission.
One of the few games I've played where the story does not entail saving the world at all.
This guy buys a beam katana from ebay and to support his lifestyle as an otaku and takes up a job as an assassin. He has moe anime magical girls on his shirt. To add more comedy to the mix he makes up his mind to become #1 assassin in the world because on the promise that maybe Sylvia Christel from the United Assassin's Association would sleep with him. Thinking he would never be #1 Sylvia agrees. Travis Strikes again seems like its gonna be an awesome game when it comes out!

Suda 51 says his character is modeled after Johnny Knoxville from Jackass.
When I was drawing this I heard something funny and drew a pouty face. XD








19) Sylvia Christel from No More Heroes.
Didn't nail the look I was going for. Wanted to draw an annoyed nonchalant look but it ended up
looking worried.


20) Henry Cooldown from No More Heroes
"You're a disgrace to yourself, and all those you killed."
He's the secret boss from No More Heroes and is extremely super hard. I had to hear that quote countless times and for some reason if I fail so bad at something in real life that voice pops in my head. This battle was a intense battle of reflexes. <Insert Bragging rights> I beat this game on Bitter mode! And got the platinum trophy for this game.
 I gave my copy of the game to my friend and she can't get pastd the first boss because you have to learn to dodge properly and get real close to the enemy and have to be extremely patient and reactive reflexes.

Henry is the cool guy whos good at everything and has everything. But it doesn't seem his wife likes him too much.

21) Shinobu Jacobs from No More Heroes
"You killed my father!"
"What?"
"You got the wrong guy."


I think her character was based off of Afro Samurai.

Final entry for Day 21 so far.
Starting this Inktober mission for the last few week I've personally seen a lot of improvement. One mistake I am constantly keep making is the blasphemous tangent. In other mediums I don't make this mistake but ink is permanent. I could edit them out in photoshop but left them in for now.

A tangent in art is when two lines connect in an unintended unsatisfactory way. For example you drew a table with an apple on it and the apple lines converge with the doorknob in the background. Stuff like that. In this case the hair and the corner of the lip touch. That's a No no na-uh in art.

I won't point all of my mistakes in all the drawings. Even in high school art we got lectured on tangents!
Since these are practice I won't go too critical on myself. Least I am aware of this mistake.












Thank you! Until Next time 
10 more days!