The Chronicles and Art of the Sphinx

How To Go Broke in 15 Minutes, Sphinx-style

2009-12-16T12:36:46Z

Step 1: Scoot over to the Department.

Step 2: Discuss with someone about a specific movie franchise and recall a mention of an art book of said movie.

Step 3: Attempt to find said book online.

Step 4: Stumble across Amazon.com.

Step 5: Search for it.

Step 6: Never come out of there again.

Step 7: Compile list.

* Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Excist (<3)
* Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
* The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure (<3)
* Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor (<3)
* An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Military Uniforms of the 19th Century
* Uniforms From 1775-1783 American Revolution
* An Illustrated Encyclopedia: Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars
* The Armed Forces of World War II: Uniforms, Insignia and Organization
* Architecture: Elements, Materials, Form
* Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, And Meaning
* Earth Architecture: From Ancient to Modern
* Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture
* Architecture of the Ancient Ones (<3)
* Edge Presents - The Art of Videogames (<3)
* The Art of Halo: Creating A Virtual World (<3)
* The Art of Discworld (<3)
* Secrets of The Wee Free Men and Discworld: The Myths and Legends of Terry Pratchett's Multiverse (<3)
* Video Game Art (<3)
* Action Anatomy: For Gamers, Animators, and Digital Artists
* DragonArt Fantasy Characters: How to Draw Fantastic Beings and Incredible Creatures (<3)
* DragonArt Mythical Monsters: How to Draw and Paint More Fantastic Creatures
* DragonArt Evolution: How to Draw Everything Dragon (<3)
* Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes

Mhrr..

2009-12-14T23:13:47Z

At times the not-letting-the-little-tiny-things-or-the-world-get-to-you seems an all-around easy task to do, but in reality it's just a matter of time before all the little points and events of random bursts of negativity from around you pile up and crush every manner of optimistic or positive thought you could try to conjure. In such a case, skulking and feeling a slight need to distance yourself from those sources becomes obvious.

However, that's not the best of things to do, and although I am trying, it is not easy. Thankfully, where tea alone didn't seem to be a good enough booster, a new source of music has charged in with reinforcements, and coupled with some out-side proddings, there's finally a dump of stuff that's been lacking updating for a longer while now.

With this dump, there's a few notes:

- Firstly, only through a bit of shock therapy did it become apparent that my style has taken yet another twist down some path that I wasn't sure to be there in the first place. Within the past months, for the most part I've been drawing for either specific classes, for work (orders on MML) or for the film project, with perhaps one or two sketches every two weeks that are a more personal sort.
As such, when trying to draw up the MiD folk, it became apparent that I needed to forcefully adapt myself to drawing anthromorphs again, given most of the things in the past month have been either items, human-likes or overly-stylized; and the intended look of basically all things Fronian has always been something of hyper-realism. Which is why you might note that Elior looks a lot more along the lines of something-stuck-up-his-bum than the rest, given he was the first drawn.

- During the course of this post I shall use the term MiD to refer to Mercy in Darkness, the almost-complete novel I wrote during NaNo in november. If you know nothing of it, no worries, there's basically nothing mentioned of it outside IMs and my NaNo profile, anyway.

- "Inkdinks" is something of a brainspazz word that I figured might as well be the title of ink doodles.

So, with that said, the monster of a dump that's been a long time coming:

Since I bothered to figure out the slightly-less-modern Thystian Guard uniforms, thought I might as well give all the MiD cast folk a concept to go with it. So far there's still some missing (Amis, Halyna, Fhael, Hesinox and MD) and some of the ones drawn need to have their sheets filled with additional doodles, but here's what's done so far:

Elior

Ksivu

Shamira

Nermyn

The Warden

Two Elior's (headaches and a bust) and one Ksivu (prancing) to go with 'em

The sketch for the MiD cover, which later on was coloured.

A rather blindly doodled NS and halavenian, given the doodling took place in a very dim room. Along with the slightly older-than-the-current modern Guard uniforms (the spear being largely ceremonial/random as they don't really use melee weapons as much any more), a character from a puppet film we were watching at the time (hence the dimness) and a preliminary Elior head and Shamira at the top and bottom

Artamos sporting the more stylized version of the jecorian robes, this being the first of his design sketches and I'm rather braindead as to if this was uploaded earlier or not..

A layout design for the so-called Sword Nest of the Sanctum, located in the middle of the Ankh Hall (the Nest being the rocky formation and the Hall the room of large pillars). The bottom of the entrances leads to upper levels while the top one leads to the Prisons

A slightly chibi-ish Anargyros inkdink, that I'm fairly sure was drawn freehand

A mesh of stuff, among which is my irish exchange-student-person-character played in a more creepy/horror mystery style roleplay hosted by Olga, a random werewolf, some irish symbolism items and a concept for the workings of the tanekian rider spear

The slightly altered bust of the Ramon Mark critter

Storyboard-ish concept for a drawing assignment where we had to take a series of photos with us interacting with a drawing, while the drawing changed slightly in each frame. This one was with the ramon mark, although I ended up figuring three possible stories to use. Two ended up being made, this among them. Once I figure out Youtube's uploading technicalities, might post the clips of them there and link back here

The second one included a bit of a rivalry/duel/face-off between the Stresomer and the Frusenduce, but didn't get made due to the technical difficulties involved with it (large space of wall necessary, intricate drawing/alterations and lack of time at the time). Some day I might pick up on it again or use the concept in another form

Speaking of which, a shaded inkdink Stresomer

Some inkdink seekers, random hand and my poor phone that was unfortunately lost to the streets of Old Tallinn, when I was running around trying to maul folk to death with paper claws during the Zombie Walk..

A most pouty Warden, with due reason. Also, finally figured what the hell would happen to his face *fistair*

Haden's somewhat revised appearance, which shouldn't be a surprise 'cause the bugger's gone through about a dozen changes in concept and style ever since the character was created

Hard at work or hardly working?

When one's creator is prone to unexpected character deaths and/or tortures, to see their expression range into something like this provokes three general schools of reactions from the characters: sheer horror, questionable disgust and morbid curiosity

Getting lunch in town during the autumn season of rain and not-so-well-paved walkways is often an adventure/show of dexterity of its own..

..Equally, it's not quite as easy to pick apples, largely for the same cause of the reasons..

..never mind their sense of humour.

Rune as a tanekian bastet for the SW thing we have going on, only it's not nearly done given her outfit would include a lot more detail as well as objects than what she has so far. So, very much a WIP for now..

"I am the daughter of the earth and the wind. You have broken your vows to me. Prepare to become extinct..
There's a right good reason you should never, ever, EVER piss of daughter nature.. and NS' wrathful mode gives a glimpse why. Although accidental, the Haden inkdink that shows through the other side of it gives it a nice symbolic/ironic twist x3

One of designs for HxR, of a possible shrine-keeper, although haven't heard back on the concept so far. Personally, I like the barracks ones better x3;

The barracks-keeper. It's like a mix of t-rex, Godzilla and Quetzalcoatl

Fronian version of chickens

A redraw of Casey from a while back, to see how much he would differ by style between from when The Curse first started and now

A random deer/chupacabra-esque thing drawn from the depths of my imagination at rather random, then a jackal and finally a cheetah

LC with a flock of crows about her, as usual

"Your cronies.. I do not like them in my garden. Plz to be taking out ur trash." The most typical reason for the conflict between LC and HSC

Some L4D fun, drawn post-art-history-seminar, hence the joke on 'Blurpson Blarghac'. I really do hope I'm not the only dorky sod to get the joke x3;

Messing around with coloured pencils while waiting for an evaluation to begin resulted with a rather colourful Eksin and a sayanized random human head

"I don't think he likes me that much, yet.."
Claudius hasn't always been the mild-manned little hermit crab Dakota often boasts about a few years later, in particular due to seemingly not liking shiny piercings within folks' brows, thinking it would be rather lovely to try and snatched them off of said brows. Also a little-known fact, but given this would take place a good several years before the more 'grown' Michelle, she did in fact go through a brief goth period with somewhat plausible success

And now to runrunrun..

13blackdragons @ 2009-11-18T23:52:00

2009-11-18T21:52:12Z

Tonight, at 11:45-ish PM, I walked home from the bus stop, following a longer day with a whole lot of people-association and interaction, through some mild sludge/rain.

And for the first time in a while I felt truly, utterly, really happy. Not the fandom generated fangirl happy nor the comedy-resulting amusement happy, but just the simple Hop and Dance and Twirl in the Rain for No Reason At All happy.

In fact, that's exactly what I did <3

(That's.. pretty much it for this entry)

Mmm.. Random Art

2009-11-08T20:06:10Z

Some time ago I came to the realization that Necran, for all his plotness, development and use in roleplays, has never once been drawn coloured.. Oh sure, he's had a Sim made of him, but that's not exactly the same.. x3;

So! In the spur of needing to make something random and test out the pressure sensitivity of the tablet/brush methods in PSE6, this saw light:

..I forgot, did an hour's arting count as speed-painting?

----

*Now returning to your regularly scheduled intricates of daily life, NaNoWriMo in particular.*

Yes, plz <3

2009-11-06T22:36:10Z

View all Tallinn events on Eventful

Meme-traaaaaaiiiiinnnn... Choo-choo

2009-10-25T09:40:19Z

First saw this pop up in airukitsu's Journal. Then in armaina's, then traxer's, then neogeen's.. and began to figure, "What the heck, let's do a social experiment and see what comes from it!"

So here's the deal, some of you know about it, some don't, but the basics are like this:

Ask me either a broad question (i.e 'Who is your cruelest character?', 'What is your most optimistic story?') or a specific question/request ('Where does ___ come from?', 'Tell me about ___') and I will answer you. Or you can ask meta- questions like 'What was the inspiration for creating ____?'

References are mostly here on LJ, but also on dA

(Couldn't make myself witty enough this morning to think up a fitting paragraph to go before it.. Curse you tea-lacking mornings..)

13blackdragons @ 2009-10-20T22:36:00

2009-10-20T19:45:57Z

"Our creator, who art in the void, cursed be your meddling.."

A whole bunch of symbolism stuffed into this one with very simple means. Unfortunately, since most of these are still just ideas for stories floating around my head, afraid most wouldn't much get them.. yet. Although a few could be easy to guess, if one plays detective well enough..
(Left to right: Édan/Anmorior, Degn´iler, Khér, Tekuitan-dar, Artamos and Sadoe in the background )

School, wot? & Brain plz?

2009-10-15T09:33:39Z

Last week we had a rather interesting Drawing class assignment where we were told to draw up snippets or little details of at least 50 various and completely random pictures, which.. isn't at all as easy to do as you'd think in a week.
In the end, got some help from Josie, Chris and Adam, as they each tossed me 10 random pics to draw from (I can't ever choose many from few or few from many), plus managed to draw about 10 up in the first class we were given the assignment in and surfed the last few from among the various saved pictures on Neph, bringing the grand total to 45-ish, which was below the requirement but the teacher didn't seem to notice.. x3;

Only posting the ones that came out neater than the rest 'cause that would be one massive art dump and some of the stuff is on A3s which are difficult to scan (we were told to go with whatever paper size, from A1 to A5)

Also, at the bottom some rough scenes from the film, albeit a bit effed up by Photobucket (I considered them too short to toss on Youtube just yet)

One of the class-drawn ones, from a book on mythology, but forgot what it was exactly that was drawn (looks dragon-ish)

The BunnyDuck

Shanghai

Shadow-wolf's Kace commission (Arm guard thing with the celtic knot)

Clockwork Spider (Middle section)

Bee-eater snatching up a dragonfly (Head)

B L U E F I R E, pg. 5 (Figure in lower left corner)

Fireeyes-Dragon's LJ icon, back when she still had a LJ (and unfortunately, due to it being deleted, I couldn't track down the origin of the icon or who made it in the first place)

Can't seem to find the actual image it was drawn from, but it's a flintlock in any case..

Montu! (Left-ish side of the head)

Jecorian Guard sigil/mark x3 (Okay, so I cheated a little on the 'draw from somewhere'. She never said not to drawn from one's own stuff..)

A durian x-rayed (Upper darker middle area)

The 'angel' leader bot from the Pts. of Athrity video, obviously :3 (Bottom row, far left, headshot)

Khaosdog's Phaing

The reference for this is once more lost to the deep depths of dA's Women's Stock Image galleries x3;

Rough Scenes (If it's clichy or doesn't want to load, F5 it until it does):
- Primoris' turn around and crawl loop

- Primoris wakes up and immediately goes 'huh?' at the sky

- "Catch a falling star, and put it in your pocket.."

- Nature Spirit appears surprised and contemplates, when an idea strikes

- Makin' birds literally out of thin air!

- Floaty person

In unrelated news, I just spent the last 8 hours of the night, from 10 PM to 6 AM playing Left 4 Dead with Mikk, Sven and Vesse at the department. Yup, still here and still kicking!
(Though we ran out of campaigns to do.. Bugger)

Mrrrr... Geekdoms, ahoy <3

2009-10-03T07:24:35Z

I expect both Josie and George to know what this references to at the end. Make me proud!
The story itself relates to what happened at the start of last week, when I rather suddenly came down with an ever persistent an bothersome fever. Thruout the night of monday to tuesday, Mirri thought it a good idea to spend most of the time sleeping either on my back or next to my head and say what they will about favorites, but damnit, at that point I considered cats to be far superior to dogs in the Man's Best Friend contest.

Obs' fault: During a convo it was mentioned that a salaves attempting to carve a pumpkin with their tail would be awesome, and thus, Rependo was picked for the Poor Sod lottery x3 Teeny glasses are, of course, for precision. Ignoring there can hardly be any of it while trying to twist a knife with one's tail.

Mear and Corabrom all dressed up for HxR's Vai Min Mur contest, a sort of local Halloween on the forum. Mear would be costumed as Miguel from The Road to El Dorado and Corb as the Blue Spirit from Avatar (the show).

A creature concept design needing finishing, as sort of a semi-commissioned sort

Random ink doodle to start, semi-fanart-ish thing to finish x3 No tat-lung in particular, just some fun

And Maronith in ink

Class Doodle - Bit of Zack practice and general personal amusement on the account of the character's own misfortune

Sadon shaded ink head and a rework of the Ware Watchman behind it

Rune bust in ink, complete with markings

Class doodle - Random human head practice

Background scene that has strangely enough been present in at least three dreams that I can vaguely recall. Not sure what the symbology (*shot*) of it is, but weird and strange and curious all the same.

"You fail," goes the leftmost caterpillar, while the rightmost considers other topics on the agenda to be much more worth the concern.

Artamos' 'turn that frown, up-side-down' philosophy would on occasion take quite literal form, at times on the expense of such as Marcel x3

Class Doodle - Jaerdan or random ware, I'm not too sure which exactly x3;

A younger Hesinox, who did not tip over the lamp at the bottom, I swear. It was just drawn the other way around..

Frusenduce, a possible counterpart for the Stresomer, seeing as their creation went along quite similar lines

Class Doodle - When we had to mess around with ink in Drawing. A quick rough concept for Artamos and eventually a stylized cheetah to boot

Aaaaand the illusionist that is the imp bugger, the full-body-half-imp-half-human-shelled Artamos :3

Thare be moar icons in them thare posts

2009-09-16T12:53:30Z

So got me more icons to choose from, got me a desktop soon to be delivered (once the soundcard's stuck into it as well), got me a new lovely lovely medium of chinese ink, almost half of the movie done and refreshed my memory on HTML (been using waaaay to much BBCode these past two years, as opposite to HTML)

Life's good. Increasingly busy, but good.

A floaty Todd :3 (Forgot his necklace, dangit)

Schematic for Thyst's sword that I'm making for the elective course "Unique Wooden Object". So far got the blade and most of the handle carved out, though the blade lacks the inward grooves. Still plenty of work to do with the guard and hilt in any case

Thalassina for a Mobius forum rp. Should be interesting.. x3

A random ramon drawn up in class, playing around with my semi-dry aqua ink pen that's got this brush tip and pin-point tip :3

Another ramon bristling the mane and growling. Usually tails a lashed around behind them in such situations, buuuut.. I ran out of paper on the edge x3;

Praemet, little buggery things I tried to pitch on MML, but they don't seem to have been accepted, so I made grabby hands and kept them for Fronia x3

Bus doodle, Ocrenos striking a strike pose

Jaegie sitting and smiling, two of his currently most characteristic poses x3

The more typical memorial depiction of the destroyed Halaven Milenio, memorialized by the thystians who had strong allied ties to them. Several of the historians still doubt the tie's credibility, as the thystians were renowned for being the most fanatical of all Guard factions, whereas halavenians frowned upon all bloodshed, to the point of utilizing weapons that would not harm the flesh, but rather the spirit of the enemy.

"Oh definitely, no argument there.. Nope, none.."

Bus doodle, sneak fail

Philosophy class in interesting in the sense that it can view things at such different angles as to make it amusing and true at the same time. For example: last class we talked about the probability of seeing 'mythological' things like the Bigfoot and such, and the teacher went to mention that up until we can actually classify it inside our heads a fly is as much of an Unidentified Flying Object as the saucers x3

And finally the two Cracky redraws I promised last dump

You know.. it's oddly amusing that I actually need to dictionary.com some of the moods at the bottom of the list, where I rarely ever wander x3

LifeYes <3

2009-09-02T23:00:01Z

Some updates on things faring, and since everything comes in twos, here we go!

Good news: My dad managed to get the adapter (aka box dohickey on the recharger) fixed, so I may not have to buy a new one after all <3
Bad news: It may be a while before I'll have time enough to visit them as to pick it up. He also wished to test it first, in case the new wiring might have a hitch somewhere. Technically it should work but you never know..

Good news: Got a substantial amount of the movie project done in keyframes (18 and a half scenes out of 54) this past two weeks.
Bad news: The 'half' of a scene which compromises of the first 5 seconds of the movie is still MIA somewhere in the piles of paper at the department.. as a result, I can't finish off that scene either to make it count as the 19th.

Good news: Been going on different kinds of tea, but I may have found one which helps animate as well as keeps me awake enough as to not become zombiefied.
Bad news: I can't drink it if I plan to go to sleep in the next 2 hours, else I'll be up for the next 4..

Good news: The first week of school promises to be pretty easy as we have nearly nothing scheduled yet (plenty of time to wrap other stuff up).
Bad news: As a result, we also have no bleemin' clue what our schedule will look like aside some random courses set in place already. This makes for gawdawful planning.

Good news: Worked out an idea for a plan to assign a certain amount of work on certain days of the week (like, animate on monday, edit scenes on wednesday, work on TC pages on tuesday/thursday and colour them on friday/weekend).
Bad news: That idea requires us to have an actual schedule to incorporate it into, not to mention TC still needs a script re-work which will take a week or so of discussions with Josie at the least..

Other than that, things are chugging along surprisingly non-chaotic, despite the occasional lack of order or perspective. It's also a strange yet familiarizing feeling when you actually have birthday parties to go to in this month. Not used to knowing people who also have a birthday in September.. probably because in school I was the only one for nearly half of the term served there (there was one other, but she left in the 6th or 5th grade).

And we got plums <3

Semi-Massive Photo Dump + Art

2009-08-27T11:37:42Z

Recently a tragedy struck my frail little online life when Neph's recharger (Yes, I do name some of my most used appliances, sue me) cord melted, leaving the laptop to survive on what precious little power there was left in the two batteries I have for it. While normally it wouldn't be seen as much of a big deal, then to consider Neph's a pretty old model and all the new ones have nothing that could be used on it as well, I still linger with a concern of whether a new charger box/brick dohickey of Neph's model is still in excistance somewhere..

Hooking up with the local Dell representive told me they'd search around for one and get back to me, but the delivery could take up to 3 weeks. The bummery aspect is that searching online would amount to about the same worth of waiting time for it to be delivered (outside Estonia, only found one from a local vendor that's almost fitting, but the amps were a bit too high) plus a rather evil postal fee to boot, no doubt.

So, yeah.. up until then, I'll be forced to use the remaining 'juice' sparingly and pop online from the department or from the desktop at home (just as soon as I manage to finish wrestling my brother for it).

But, on a lighter note, artz and photos!

Thalassina doing a one-handed summersault/handstand and an anthrofied ghaenelt, 'cause the mental imeage of an anthro ghaenelt with buttspikes amused me too much

A whole bunch of Primoris sketches. Primoris is one of the characters (and arguebly the main character) for one of my final films, which I'm currently working on. At first it (I don't dare call it either 'he' nor 'she' cause I honestly don't know) was just called Caterpillar ('Tõuk' in estonian), but I figured if it's going to be sticking around and being all main-character-like, it needs a name, so Primoris was the semi-obvious choice, considering the name of the film itself is "Primoris Lepidoptera"

Following seeing "District 9", I realized just how soddy the sirk were being at their whole 'alien' role, and promptly redesigned their anatomy and appearance on the bus home from the cinema. The first to suffer the redesigning try-out was Cracky, as he is more or less my only defined sirk character, aside the commander from Labrats, but since that one doesn't have a name and Cracky does, Cracky won the Poor Sod lottery.
The reason his redrawn appearance isn't posted with this dump is because I'm posting this from the department and I, uh.. left those skecthes at home <.<; (Don'tkillmeJosie..)
(Some of the other stuff include a paw/fin design at the bottom, a pidgeon and a candlestick)

The No-Spoon Included Tea for Twelve Party (click for larger)
To date, the most bizarre event due to the sheer fact of all characters included being nice to one another and some not trying to kill others. Although, it appearas not all are quite enjoying the party as such..

Loot from a Sweden trip a couple of years back (2, I think), including a slice of blue agate, a chunk of raw amethyst, a piece of unrefined hematite, a plastic scorpion figure, a snake-plate bracelet and a black stone ring (I forgot what rock it was, but it's some kind of onyx variant, I believe..)

The injured crow we had visiting us for two days. Found him/her (we still don't know for sure, but I still called him/her Kadmen) in the middle of our street, prolly having been run over by a car or struck by a car. Can't say mom was too pleased on seeing me with the crow in hand at the door x3; But eventually, he/she fortunately survived the night with the injured wing and everything and was taken by the Nature Reserve people the next day.
Oddly enough, back when we did our zoo-trip with the course (the one from where all the sketches were from), in the open-air bird enclosure I did notice one crow walking around with a wing slightly drooping towards the ground - the same wing our crow had injured, which inevitably left me wondering, but also oddly fuzzy inside..

'Cause you all haven't even seen nearly enough pictures of Mirri, here's some more!

A mushroom cloud and a cloud dude moving the forest (from the first Vilsandi trip)

Barn swallow in nest and perching on the little hut we stayed in for one night (first Vilsandi trip)

Fuzzy caterpillar :3 (first Vilsandi trip)

Red and Blue

A pendant/necklace piece I made for Kasper for his birthday last year, seeing as he's a Cancer. Looking back, I really ought to have realised that Cernit is by no means a match for the strength and ingenuity of a 4-year-old-turned-5 x3; With luck, I'll have it fixed next time I see them again

And 'cause I know at least Josie would want to see these - the building-stages of the Anargyros sculpture. Started out simple enough, but probably the most difficult was the head, tail and hands.. The head in particular because at one point towards the end it sort of.. came off x3; From frequent molding. But fortunately, by the time it got baked, the head was reattached and remained on it thruout the process

The painting process started with a base coat of blue and by the time all the basic tones were down, it was effectively ready.. but very dull..

So I decorated it with patterns in the end :3

This was a geniousness of Olga (ole_black), I just crouched and was bemused x3

One of the tasks in the pre-academy prep courses was to make an alphabet out of nine items found in your household and then make a saying out of those letters. My choices were obvious in every way

The unpainted Mr. Teatime Chibi figure, now all painted and resting on one of Josie's shelfs (I presume it is, anyway). Gim knows this due to me rambling to her on the subject, but you wouldn't believe how evil curly hair can be to sculpt..

One day.. I shall return to Denmark with enough money and conquer these from their local Games Workshop stores. This, I swear!

Other amusing things found in the stores x3

My first set of shinies <3

General Composition course - How I wanted to put them up

General Composition course - How I ended putting them up

Drawing + Anatomy, first semester works, close-ups of individual stuff that I liked more below:

.. and then Vesse effectively trumped us all by putting up stuff like this along with the mandatory things x3

From one end of the hall to the other, all-animators'!

The imp-Anmorior mini, which I was afraid might be too big compared to actual minis.. but in fact ended up quite small compared to them x3; The half-elf-Cosentica one still needs to be painted sometime..

Our room at Turku, where as you can see, the animator people are very much tired from the day

Finnish duck army puts Danish duck army to shame, sadly x3

At one point we managed to find a local Games Workshop at Turku, where people were joyed over the shinies within. I bought my first drybrush from there, but.. I managed to lose it no more than an hour later x3; Bummer..
(Second one was bought from Denmark, and is still un-lost, fortunately)

Erik posing before the most prettiest sight I've ever seen <3 I love finnish stores.

Vesse and Sven showing what it means to be an animator in a foreign land

But all the hubub aside, serious work was being done during the trip! Just so no-one would think we only went there to loot stores, lose stuff and draw like crazy (Okay, so some of us still drew like crazy during serious stuff times, but that's irrelevant..)

I'm not sure what it was, but it was old, it was neat and people went all "Holy crap!" over it when it was spotted at the finnish animators' department x3

There was an exhibition at their school during the time as well, and these two I rather liked. Can't quite place why, but they're just.. neat to look at

My second set of shinies <3

The 'House' project me, Mari, Sven and Olga did for Colour Study as a means of presenting some freeform project. The first one is the unpainted room with some objects in place and the second one was the lighting test

The final painted version. Sadly, I couldn't take along the same lamp I light-tested it with, so the other lamp's effect was washed, to say the least..

All the rooms together aka the end result

Sven's promptly put all of ours to shame x3;

And the other rooms (Olga's and the last two being both Mari's)

My colour study composition piece + colour wheels (Curse you watercolours for being so demanding.. Currrrsse you..)

And finally, some of the guys made a giant kaleidoscope as their freeform project x3

Trailer Huntin'

2009-08-18T14:06:51Z

In light of discovering movies I'm yet to see, found a channel on Youtube with a whole bunch of trailers, including the ones I was looking for. So, after having hunted through the list for some time, thought I might as well compile a To See list of my own:

- 2012
- 9
- The Brothers Bloom
- Daybreakers
- Planet 51
- Ninja Assassin
- Mutant Chronicles
- The Last Airbender
- Whiteout
- The Book of Eli
- Tron: Legacy
- Sherlock Holmes
- Avatar

More may be added as huntin' continues

Of Spit of Islands and Muse

2009-08-16T21:08:34Z

Things I Learned on Vilsandi (Spit of Island west of Saaremaa, for the confused):

- The little island has it's share of odd natural mutations in the local fauna. Such include the killer-swallows that swoop at you relentlessly whenever you cross the farm's yard, the bohemian woodpeckers that value a good sound of a small wooden house over food for days and the uncommon earwig, that's just Friggen' Big.

- I have a kind of an affliction to injuring my right hand in many different kind of ways, including but not limited to: slamming the fridge door so the thumb gets stuck between the door and the 'ridge' over the door, scratching myself over a dust-bin's uncovered screw, slicing the skin between the thumb and the index finger with a knife while attempting to dry it (slippery blighters..) and getting it bitten by a horse.

- Vilsandi is afflicted in storms as I am in injuring my right hand.

- The only exception to the former is the President. Vilsandi storms either fear his presence or the presence of his Secret Service. In either case, Presidential visit meant a day of sunshine in an otherwise week long rain, thunder, howling winds and general muckery of weather.

- In terms of puddle jumping vs. rainstorm fishing, rainstorm fishing wins.

- In terms of rainstorm fishing vs. speedboat traveling, speedboat traveling wins.

- Even in water up to my chin, it is still possible to seriously scrape one's knee upon divings. Still, the water was crystal clear, so that made up for it :3

- Kuressaare airport is very much like Kopenhagen airport in the sense of the approach and landing. In case of Kopenhagen you spend 5 minutes on approach over the sea and the final last 10-15 seconds watching tarmac go by and land. In Kuressaare, you spend all but the last two seconds between approach and tyre's hitting asphalt going "Ohshiterockstrentchesgrasslandrocksrockrocks!"

- You don't quite miss tea until you've gone a week without.. And although I do not think myself addicted to gummibears, they were sorely missed. (Note: There is no store on Vilsandi. Even if there were, I highly doubt they'd sell 'em)

- Cows are scary up close.. And no, I don't mean this in a City-slicker-never-seen-one-alive sense. I mean it in a sense where it's midnight, there's one staring you in the face, with a calf, a whole bunch of party people shouting and laughing around and being in a semi-fenced area.
I'd get nervous too, honestly..

- Estonian islands can only be classified as Large, Small, Smaller, Smallest, Tiny and Spit-of Lands. Seriously, when compared it all makes sense.

- I forgot how much I loved Dannyl <3 (*discovered she still was half-way through The Magician's Guild, which she started reading, oh, around November last year?*

Archy

People can say what they want, but personally.. I think one hasn't quite lived up to it, until they've gone puddle-jumping in a thunderstorm in the middle of a semi-busy street (being mindful of cars, of course)

Since Kadune's plot stretches across quite a long period of time, he needed a reference of a younger version.

Just the beginning, just the threshold of things to come. Events unfold and disasters happen, but compared to the whole of the destiny woven, a needle could barely support it.

This is just the beginning, just the spark of much to come.

*throws fish at anatomy for now* Just wait 'til school starts.. I'll show you..

"Cursed storm.."

Don't think I've drawn these two together yet.. Hmm.

Bus doodles, as my MP3 player is a bit.. broke'd x3;

"S'Atirev is whom I'm called."
"For an imp, you certainly look.. fancy."
"Ah, for this you can thank a kind soul long since tarnished in life. See, in the old days us imps were not quite as confined in shape and form as now. But, following a bit of a mishaps with the first of the fae queens, she sought it a fitting reward for my troubles. 'If you fancy yourself to look like this, then forever shall you wear this form and forever shall truth be what you speak, for I shall have none of your lies for ever more'."
"A curse for appearances?"
"Hardly as simple. I simply spoke as I saw things. Of course.. I do not think she much appreciated the words spoken in her name.."

One evening the subject of woodpeckers was quite inescapable (in particular since it was the bohemian variety)

OH shite. She's not dead!

2009-08-09T20:46:02Z

Chris challenged me to draw a weredeer (as some might recall from a previous mention), and this is the second attempt at it, which came out way better in terms of credibility

A bit of design work for Josie, in the form of a mount critter

Got something down for the Thystian archivist finally, naming him Hesinox (thanks to some ideas-bouncing with Chris) and a siren to boot. An old, dusty, raggedy, near-sighted siren.. x3

This is what happens when Unusual Angles meets Anatomy Practise

A Bilious bust, from out of boredom at a bus station

Shayna, one of the MML NPCs. Josie was kind enough to lend me her tablet for making it, seeing as all the NPCs got their own accounts now and kinda lack icons for the most part..

And Mr. Simon, the ever eccentric owner of the Playful Pup

Evainmoire Pholier, a secondary character I'm planning on eventually getting when I don't need to cram various workdays (ice cream selling, item making and animation drawing) into the same week several times a month, or not saving up for a new tablet for that sake

A bust of Cho, one of 'Ri's characters. Also an attempt at style-mimicry

SNEEZE sniffle

2009-07-15T20:51:29Z

Josie is to be blamed for my quite contant giggly-fits in terms of the icon.

The thing with Lord Asriel is that I'm not quite sure how to understand his character x3; On the one hand, he sounds all influential and powerful and charismatic and can-get-anything-he-wants-with-words, but on the other.. he gets shoved out of a flying machine by Mrs. Coulter of all people, like no-one's business.
Reminds me of a Serenity quote: "Start with the part where Jayne get's knocked out by a 90-pound girl, 'cause.. I don't think that's ever getting old."

*didn't bother finishing it*
Based on real life x3; The '4 movies' were the Alien ones (we ran a marathon in our department)

In ur city, stalkin' 'n killin' ur demonz.

By suggestion which amused me :3

A commission-esque thing in the works. Tablet is still out of order so I'm not at all sure how I'll go about colouring it (or anything else WIP to the point of lineart, for that matter)

What, the quite unusual ghaenelt

Contest entry for the one Ri is holding. Strangely.. being sick as a dog (is there any other animal that can be sick worse than a dog? Might be that one too) makes for quite excellent drawing moods in terms of motivation or lines

".. 8D Punkin!"

2009-07-08T22:15:30Z

Ayman all suited for combat/hunting

Illustration of how south-american dragons could be fashion divas (or close enough) along
with busts of Falmeh and Todd (one who does approve of fashion and one who is just slightly confused)

Film characters, two stresomers and some random stuff that goes with them

The 'Ramon Mark', or tribal-ramon-thing which I've unofficially adopted as a logo of sorts

A random fish creature design. Basically it's a bottom-feeder one with a semi-transparent or
transparent belly in some parts

Not-Nuncy

Onyx, the wyrm familiar

Gablar throwing ice

Fhér all deceptively innocent

Anargyros :3

A bit of an older headshot of Kerren (done around May-ish?), showing the short hairstyle version

Stress Period Artz

2009-06-29T22:32:19Z

Starting with some MML again, a xeno-kwal character called Eloi. Loads of fun with the armor,
although I didn't quite dare to put in the markings of the armor, 'cause it would've gotten
very.. liney.

(Yes, it's a word, according to one rather popular geeky writer of series and some movies)

My half of a trade with Remiel, whose character apparently has a phobia of birds

Seeeenkaaaa x3 The quite vicious yet-ever-shocking vulticus. Who is currently Not Impressed.

Then, Daily Challenges:

Corén Mearehséle

Erynes

Robert Bronx

And now some Just Drawings

Dakota disapproves of something, but I'm still quite unsure what..

I figure Niel isn't too fashion-savvy in the sense that he is perfectly comfortable wearing
beanie hats upside-down and inside-out without so much as giving a second glance.

„Remember I asked you once ’Why do they do this to us? Are we demons?’ and you said ’No.
Imps are not demons, although some can act that way. They are pawns, in everything going
on for all of those at the higher power.’ I asked why were so or had to be, you said simply,
showing me this fire, ’That is life.’. Well it’s my life, and my gods damned bauble now, so
feel free to try and reclaim it, if you think you can..“

Disguises only cut it when you have the appropriate amount of limbs for it x3; In the case
of Sergé, he is missing a digit or two for the job..

Oh hai, Lost Challenges..

2009-06-13T22:10:31Z

In an odd tid-bit of A Lesson From Life, one doesn't really realize just how much they might use the thumb on their handed (whether you are right- or left-handed) hand, before they go and tear a nice gash in it against a screw in a wooden lid, on the inner palm's side.

Up side! Slightly Disabled apparently makes for odd artz:

Michael (Mack) Mahogany

Robert (Cleaver) LastnamepossiblylackingImayhaveforgotten

Jonath (Guard)Lastnamelacking

Ashley (Sweep) Lastnamelacking

Sander (Cliff) Lastnamelacking

Jennifer (Sunny) Whépyl

Jaque (Jack) Lastnamelacking

Hunt

Tirma

I went to mention to Josie how Sergé's hair is LoikeWhoa!Wild with his (third) redesign. Not
soon after we had established that Sergé's and Conway's Untaimed!Hair ought to battle it out.
Sadly, I very much still suck at drawing Conway's hair (and him kinda in general..) x3;

Also Sergé's 'mugshot' so to speak

I didn't quite like how Hunt's Daily Challenge piece came out, so I figured I'd draw him larger
and see if it fixes it any. Kinda does, kinda doesn't, but concept, he can has it naow.

Certain songs listened to lately tend to spark certain kind of images x3 Like this.

Oh, and this one too..

2009-06-09T21:20:39Z

One slab of artz to go with the scale-fingers to complete the day:

Tried something a bit different with this, but now I'm also unsure where to take it from here. The lineart looks more or less good, but coloured it might be even better. The question with colours is whether to take some kind of odd route with that as well, and if so, which one? Or just to go with the usual and see what happens x3;

Ah, decisions, decisions..

My mind seems convinced that I have too much time on my hands..

2009-06-09T17:39:10Z

I keep trying to prove it wrong, but sometimes.. Stuff like this happens:

Yeeeaaah.. No excuse for this, really x3;

Dark Materials and Critturz

2009-06-06T19:38:02Z

Josie knows what curse this is, but I will go to mention that it has struck frequently
over a various geekdom periods, and still continues strong it seems.. Damnit.
(I also figured Parig and Kerren needed to be the ones to comment. You can't get much more
cynical than 'Rig, really)

Outfit test for a short-story thing still waiting to be written.
(For some reason the mood to write it always strikes me at 1 AM..)

And a complementary dagger to go with it x3

Reworking David's drawing style, to make him more fennec-y

Same with Ingemar, tho the differences are not so drastic.

Wall-E, the roach, Eve and Mo :3 Really sweet movie
*had to watch it three times while on Gremlin Watch*

Obs' Avunda doing the apparent 'caudi version of 'Not Touching You', translated to 'Not Scorching You'

A Corb sketch for a siggy thing still being worked on. It amuses me how the ghaenelts'
growth actually made him look like a grandpa too x3

A spoof of two combined scenes from the Genesis or Collision rp with Sels (One of Rolf
sneaking about within the sandstorm and one of Petrel chasing his 'prey' in it)

Nightmare, as pissed off and angry as ever. Also for the siggy-project-thing

13blackdragons @ 2009-06-01T00:29:00

2009-05-31T22:01:50Z

First ze zoo stuff!
(A bunch of us went to the zoo one day and just drew whatever got in our way as we walked
onward, hoping to score some additional points for the drawing evaluation. These are just a few)

Crocs and kaimans and feesh!

Przewalski horse + a seal and a stork

Stresomer hed, a'cause it is a neat bugger to draw at times x3

Don't think I've posted this before, but it was one of the three head concepts for
Rein (aka Project 'Salus') who sadly doesn't have any LR appearances (and so far just
sticks to rps)

Nature Spirit revisited

Jaerdan revisited x3

*reading The Subtle Knife*
Don't get me wrong, I really really do love Lee Scoresby, but sometimes, just sometimes..
he's ever so silly x3;
The reaction is an actual quote from the book

And in other news..

2009-05-05T18:54:30Z

Yeah.. Fun first day x3

A little something for Drawing/Anatomy grading along with the siren stuff below

And Jaerén gets his first outfit test x3

Some siren anatomical stuff

Along with the slightly reworked wing design

Stresomer (affectionately named by Josie), the stress nommer who popped up during a more stressful
time during studying for the Art History exam. Hence the name :3
('TGOI' was going to be what I initially called it, standing for 'The Gist of It')

Corén hasn't RAWLed in a while, so practicing is in order x3

And Degn'iler still pops up every now and then, as he always does x3

Scrappy concepts for tanekian weaponry

13blackdragons @ 2009-04-14T23:33:00

2009-04-14T21:01:20Z

Roughly based on real life, as one jingle bell on my shoulder bag really did drive my
previous bench mate quite crazy.. x3;

Very based on real life, sadly..

Yay for managing to double-reference two Liam Neeson's characters x3

A bunch of MML critter sketches (Phobos, Mear, Amonuro, Petrel, Kazuki, Corb and Thalassina)

Trying to get out various Sanctum-concepts, this being one of the doorways.

Vesse's wizard, the great illusionist Don Mustafa (and Tod the frog, who sadly croaked..)

Cosentica, two NPCs and a kobold (turns out those 'dog-ish' thing were kobolds..
It's the muzzle.)
So there's a snake-kitten, a flame-kitten, a spider-kitten, a patched kitten, a two-mouths-
on-the-body kitten, a cube kitten, a squid-kitten, a tri-tailed kitten (which Cosentica
grabbed and named Mirianov (I am secretly rofling over the irony)), a triclops kitten, an
Imhotep-mouth'd kitten, a sludge kitten and a 2/3th-cerberus kitten.

..Yeah, last session was kinda crazy, yet hilarious at points x3; Then again.. we also played
for 13 hours straight, right into the next morning, so..