*groan*

I have to admit... I like medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog-jobs but sometimes I miss my chubs work. I hope I can finish all the missing comic pages for this month next week (brilliant optimism, I has you!) and finish some more medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog things and next to that I finally started working on the 4th calendar. I have no idea when I will finish but I pray I have some a lot time in July/August/September/whatit'salreadyDecemberholysh#+§.

*hint* there's a story...
I dislike how it looks so unfinished but surprise! it IS unfinished and the only person I can blame for it is me, myself and I. I normally try to get the face right and mull over the rest when I have more time (ending up redoing everything anyway). I want to stick to a non so 3dimensional style and include some more funny geeky illustrations this time and hope it works out and people won't freak out when they get weird stuff for their birth month.

At the moment I'm happy I have my moleskine with me most of the time since lately I keep getting tons of ideas (obviously always the case when you can't work on them....) and have to scribble those down with additional notes. Totally not worth uploading but good to keep them for more than 3 nano seconds.

Farewell, I have to finish a bit more of medievalsomethinghousenumbertenmillionohthere'sadog. Buh. I still love the job. I tell myself so.

Sometimes...

... my own idealism is totally not cooperating with healthy common sense.

.... painting size... and final size (actually you see a bit more but ... you get the point). I know it's an idiotic obsession with details but.. but... but. It's DETAILS!

Some thoughts on details: I have to admit I hated painting details. I can't kid myself when I say I loved painting those 2 years ago. I hated it from the bottom of my heart.

It changed a lot and in two years I realized that it's a good practice like yoga. The longer you meditate over something and keep your inner demons at bay when all you want to do is scream and yank the computer off the table and throw it out the bloody window... the calmer you can get.
A lot of things stress me still now (like setting up the working color scheme and god, sometimes it's really hard- especially if the colors are not in my usual comfort zone) but details don't stress me anymore.

It's something I learned to love and I'm quite grateful for every job I got with tons of details because it meant I had to face my inner demons. A lot of artists neglect it and stick to their comfort zones, colors they love, lack of details blabla endless list. I understand sometimes it can be called "style" but normally I see it as a bad habit and no craving to take your art to another level if you keep doing only things your 100%ly sure you actually CAN do.

I am not fond of radical changes but whenever I can stuff something into my style and it's a good add-on and no distraction or harsh change my votes are totally up for searching and sticking to them... and searching for the next one.

What's your thoughts on the topic? Are you more of the "I against I" or "no need to change" type?

Color and Fails...

I actually didn't really have any time to blog and dang, I thought I'd still have more of the fails on my computer but no... deleted in shame ;)

Anyways, this was one of the comic color schemes I got mad over. I wanted to achieve a warm summer evening scheme with a darker setting but everything I tried just looked muddy or too dark.
The problem with sunsets is that of course gras doesn't really look green anymore and all colors fade over to the yellowish-brown-muddy-something range.
But the real problem is: It just looks shitty.
I have no idea how Kazuo Oga manages to get those moods done but I decided to go the unrealistic but more appealing way. Sometimes you have to tweak it and god knows I wouldn't have liked a mud page. :/
The whole problem took 3 months to solve. Sometimes it's really the best to put the page away and start mulling over the problem again if you feel you finally have the nerves to work on it again.
But so much for realistic nature... no idea if it would have done any good to test out another scheme.

I wanted to write something about another more delicate topic but still after some weeks I can't figure out how to wrap it up, so just enjoy the weather (hopefully awesome) and have a wonderful week.

Winter Pong

I'm a sucker for interactive stuff. And I'd really like to animate around and do this and that and make a Kiki LWP but no time right now =.= Still it's on my agenda and I reallly want to have a cat live wallpaer that makes you ogle the screen for hours and get that high on rainbows cross-eyed face people normally get when they look at cute baby cat photos... or maybe it's just me getting that expression.

Christmas.... still unfinished

If the animation doesn't start click on the image ;)

... this will take ages to finish. I have to admit I'm having trouble with the colors but maybe it's good to know that my color schemes aren't always perfect. I suggest that whenever you have the feeling the one you chose doesn't work: Try to change it instead of finishing without trying out other combination and ending up with a result you're not 100%ly pleased with.
I changed the whole composition as well since the original one in my Moleskine didn't look very good on the new format.

I'll post a gif with the complete process when I'm done. Maybe it helps somebody... ;) It's the best attempt of something close to a tutorial I can do.

need a little magic

burned my fingertip today... which makes hitting keys pretty hard and mistyping all the time. Argg...
A bit work in progress... with a chubby fairy version of Kiki requested by somebody from Deviantart.

 

sketched in my moleskine with blue pen (thanks to Lew!)

 

Lew scans it and cleans it..

 Flats... done by Lew as well (I feel pretty useless without her to be honest XD )

 

correction of base colors and first color blocking done... by me...

 

soon to be pretty without outlines. At the moment looking rather odd.

I think the best or worse part is finetuning when the details come out nice (or not) and the shapes get clear and everything looks just "right". At the moment the dress doesn't look right but it's okay... not finished and i think it's good to show the steps between messed up and "pretty" ;)

Kiki recently got a lot of very ugly and stupid outfits. The more I make the less I think she's not gonna end up in another butt-ugly costume. Alas, she wears those with grace.

Brushtest

One thing I can warmly suggest to everybody is making your own custom brushes in Photoshop... I made a lot in the last months. It makes sense if you need highres and printable brushes and some matching to your style.

Brushes will be brushes after all and you'll likely recognize those but it also means that you have a result without people saying "Ah, I use those as well...." well... doh... not good.

Sometimes people complain: It's all brushed! Oh well, and on canvas it isn't? I use a feather brush for grass, so that's not "cheating"? Or a broken brush for small flower-spots? See, I guess it really depends if you can mold those into your idea or not.
Worst is if you are too lazy and use one that "happens to be available".
Take your time and create some on your own :)

Doodle #2

couldn't finish in time and probably never will but not really sad about it. Except the cat's hat. I spend way too much time on the hair...

Character Doodle #1

Trying to finally combine everything and make my human characters more fitting to my Chubbanimals... I will work hard on it. I'm so tired of not knowing which works best and I think this does.
Painting with only 1 brush (my standard one) and no white helps as well to grab the concept better....

it might be earth...

... but actually it's not. Never was.. more like.. marble in his previous life. A stamp-size detail of a planet i just finished. It's work for another board game and I finally feel like getting closer to what it should look like in the end (after adding nearly hundred layers...i love Photoshop). Getting the textures done is the worst part O_o

So much for my Sunday.

Next to it I'm excited about the TOKYOPOP auction starting tomorrow. I hope my canvases will do well in the bidding.

peek

unfinished detail -not finetuned nor corrected. I just want to get the final colors done though the leaves already drive me crazy.... arf. I love Halloween and Autumn (and especially pumpkin soup. Gosh... so yummy).

The Yellow Dino

Original character belongs to Yudi. Love that critter! Only a little fan service... rare thing.

Black n White n a Fail

study for something I didn't finish because it was canceled. I might say "thanks god" or "darn" or "unhappy me" but I guess it's okay since I suck in painting humans a lot lately.
Drawing animals all the time for projects doesn't help at all solving the problem. I guess it's always like that if you have decide for your "style" and oh my if mine shall be cute chubby animals for the rest of my life I won't start complaining.

but damn, my general concept was so nice. The only thing I'm unhappy about.

... and that's why the airbrush brush is BAD....

Because I am stil working on the image (now the couple .... and gods, Kimonos can cause a trauma XD ) and because the whole thing still bugs me.
A lot of people still use the airbrush brush... which is bad. JD *used* it as well and that's why we actually did the Skype session. I know a lot of people don't get the whole thing because nobody wants to tell and explain but the airbrush versus concept brush pretty much shows why you shouldn't use it for something or better anything that screams: I'm a detail!
I hope JD won't kill me (hun, I love you even if you love the airbrush XD) to show the difference. Left is what I call airbrush fail, right is my cleaned out correction. It doesn't mean I had to redo everything.. just the color. Which is fine because it took only around 1 hour to correct everything. I know it is a matter of taste but the smaller the illustation gets printed the more you have to care for non-muddy edges and good contrast.

And because Mirjam will pop up in some minutes for a photo-shoot I'll rush offline.

Jellydance

huh... neon!

Feel like i have ants in my pants... I keep staring on my phone waiting for a phone call from my publisher. Argggg.... arggg! Argg! Cross your fingers for me.

I really wanted to post the "adventures of having a broken car in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday" but I guess the title says all...

Confuzzle

unfinished because I am not that patient today and because fur needs ages and because I already regret choosing a detailed fur... rahhh

adding nose and eyes...

adding details to the eye for a less creepy look...

starting with fur... zommmg...

... for those who wonder, it's the nasty hair brush from this pack. (be aware of the possibilty that your computer dies every ten seconds while using those...)

... and because I am close to kill the critter (lack of patience on my side) I stop now and hope I finish it next week....

Sleepyhead

I really should do cleaner sketches... digitally. o_o hnnn

and the color sketch....

Brushes

Currently working on:

A small detail of a huge image. Anyways... some people always ask: What kind of brushes do you use.
Mostly it's this one:

and because I think everybody should start with a good brush and not millions of fancy textured brushes you can download this one here:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-2395666/brush.zip.html

I hope everybody knows how to install it. This one is mainly for pure painting. You can set the option and size as you want (I vary it every five seconds if needed). Just keep in mind that you need some more strokes to get smooth colors. I use it for my color moods and for all those annoying things that need a painted look.

I hope it's useful and that you enjoy painting with it.

unfinished....

can't see chubby fairies anymore and still no end in sight o_o

Funny thing: I recently got a lot of mails with "Hey, if you put this and that on your homepage and write things for our page we advertise you, so if you work for us you get more popular"
(subtitles: You work for us, you advertise our page and if somebody accidently stumbles over you on OUR homepage it's even better for you). Call me picky but those offers are weird.

pretty in pink

weee!!!! *sparkle sparkle*
I was in time *well mostly* for all deadlines this week.
scouts: done
scout's juniors: done
tokyopop: done

my week-end: will be relaxing.... I am so gonna test my new paper (if I find my arm bandage o_o.... 95 qm² leave a lot of possibilities of losing/hiding/forgetting things o.o)