Tag: drawing

Industrious Illustrating #33 – Character Turnarounds

Robin Leave a comment

Apologies for the lack of a post last week. I’ll make an extra post to make up for the gap.

Recently I realized that I’m lacking character design work, specifically turnarounds, in my portfolio. As a result, I decided to make more detailed character sheets for my cast of original characters for my cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic story idea “Blade of Seafoam”. If I were to one day make “Blade of Seafoam” into a video game or a comic where I have other artists assisting me (e.g. 3D modelers or character artists on a video game, art assistants on a comic) I would need to have these design sheets to pass along to other artists as a reference for how they should depict the characters. Even if I don’t end up doing anything substantial with the “Blade of Seafoam” story concept, I can still use these in my portfolio to apply for character design jobs with larger companies.

What I want to do next is work on turnarounds/orthographic (internal/detail) views of the mechs in Blade of Seafoam to better establish the world that these characters live in as well as demonstrate my ability to draw mechs when applying to video game art jobs. Stay tuned to see those!

Also, if anyone is interested in seeing me in real life, I’ll be selling my art in the Artist Alley at Con Ja Nai at the MLB on April 8th, and I hope to table at more conventions pending results! (I’m still waiting on artist alley application results from Anime Central and Dokidokon in particular).

Industrious Illustrating #30 – Self Portraits

Robin Leave a comment

While most of what I post is related to freelance work, commercial art, illustration, etc., I do also enjoy drawing from observation to learn from and reinterpret what I see around myself. Just as I try to find visual solutions to questions and problems (what would a giant military robot engineered from a construction model look like?) through stylization, I also try to find ways to convey information about the real world in the most efficient and expressive ways possible. Which is to say, for the self-portraits I’ve made for class over the past few weeks, I’ve simplified my features and the shadows on my body down to express what I’m seeing and feeling in the moment, rather than committing a photorealistic representation to paper. The self-portraits are shown below, starting from the earliest to the most recent (drawn last week).

 

Out of all of these, I like the most recent one the most because it looks the most developed and thoughtfully realized. It also helps that it was at the largest scale (18×24″) and on the nicest drawing paper I own (Strathmore 400 series), whereas the others were at 9×12″ at the largest and drawn on mediocre drawing paper or mixed media sketch paper. The quality of materials really does matter for traditional art, which is both a major annoyance (supply costs add up very, very fast) and an interesting limiting factor (making the most of the given materials is immensely satisfying to me).

While I’ve been pretty busy with schoolwork and making game assets for “Flamechaser” lately (we’re releasing the 0.58 build soon with an expanded story and more complete visuals/animation/sound effects), I’m also going to try to find time to make watercolor and oil paintings again, either stylized or observed from life. Having to draw people from life on a regular basis has reawakened my interest in traditional art, and my improvement over a few weeks of study feels promising for what I could do if I practice my traditional painting skills more.

Industrious Illustrating #27 – Life Drawing 2

Robin Leave a comment

This semester I’m enrolled in ARTDES 269, aka Intro to Figure Drawing, meaning that I’m drawing regularly from live models to hone my skills at drawing human proportions and anatomy from observation. This is something I haven’t been practicing as much as I feel I should because I’ve been so caught up in the grind of making game assets and polished illustrations. But now that I have a mandatory biweekly opportunity to draw the human figure from life, I’m working with charcoal and gray pastels again and falling back in love with drawing humans.

Warning for artistic depictions of nudity under the cut: Read More

Scribble #21: Everlong

Sydney Braun Leave a comment

“I know you’ve always been out of your head,”

All of a sudden, I only have a few short weeks until I return home for the summer. At the beginning of the school year, I viewed summer break as something to look forward to – a return to my own room, my home, my family, and some stability. With each passing day, however, I become more and more sad to know that, soon, I’ll have to say a temporary goodbye to Ann Arbor and all of my friends here.

“Out of my head, I sang,”

I don’t sit around dwelling on the fact that soon I’ll move out of the place I’ve spent the majority of the past 8 months and be hours away from my best friends, and this allows me to make the most of the time I do have left. I am only halfway done with my time pursuing my undergraduate degree, and there is plenty to look forward to over the course of the next two years. However, the end of this academic semester comes with sadness – many of my friends are graduating soon – but I am happy excited for them and excited to see all of the amazing things they go on to do after graduation.

“And I wonder, when I sing along with you,”

Here’s to having a good rest of the semester, to focusing on savoring every moment I have left here, to studying hard for my exams, to not procrastinating my final papers, to spending as much time as possible with my friends, and to knowing that I have plenty to come back to when I return to Ann Arbor in August.

“If everything could ever feel this real forever?”

Ann Arbor – my second home – and my friends – my second family – I will see you again before I know it, and I look forward to all of our future adventures!

“If anything could ever be this good again?”

Listen to Everlong by Foo Fighters here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxuTd9rwEHQ

Scribble #20: Champagne Supernova

Sydney Braun Leave a comment

“Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide,”

This past weekend was made complete by a visit from my best friend: my mom. It was great to see her and be able to catch up – these past few weeks have been very busy and I haven’t been able to speak much with her. It’s always weird when a family member leaves after visiting me at college, but every time it gets easier and easier to get right back into college life. That doesn’t mean saying goodbye isn’t hard, though.

“In a champagne supernova,”

Singing along to the entire seven minutes and twenty seven seconds of Champagne Supernova by Oasis with my mom while we were driving in the car was a highlight of my weekend. I’m glad we are able to bond over our shared love of similar music. Tonight, I had another singalong with some of my closest friends. I can’t help but remember how all throughout middle and high school I wouldn’t sing in front of anyone. It makes me happy to realize that now (while I am still very aware that I am no professional singer) I am secure enough to sing in front of my friends and family.

“’Cause people believe that they’re gonna get away for the summer.”

It was great to be able to spend quality time with my mom, and a nice way to make my way into finals season. It’s hard to believe that I have less than a month left of my second year of college, but I’m proud of my personal growth and how far I’ve come since late August 2021. It’s going to be an academically exhausting few weeks, but I look forward to the satisfaction that will come with it – and the de-stress singalongs that will happen along the way and into the summer.

“But you and I, we live and die; the world’s still spinnin’ ’round, we don’t know why.”

Listen to Champagne Supernova by Oasis here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V-wUzZvj20 

The Indian Artist – American Dhulan

Riya A 3 Comments

When I mention the fact that my parents had an arranged marriage people look at me like I’ve stepped out of an 18th-century melodrama. At a young age, I never understood the semi-shocked looks or the elongated replies of “Ohhhhh interesting” that I would receive. Each one of my aunts and uncles had an arranged marriage along with all of my grandparents and their parents before them. It seemed like a normal thing that I was expected to partake in as well when I was ready to get hitched.

However, growing up in American society, and over time, veering away from the strict traditions of my culture, I have found myself torn between following in the footsteps of my ancestors and creating my own path. This is an aspect that I choose to discuss heavily through my art, the culture that I was born with versus the culture that I have grown up amongst, and the difficulties that come with being pulled constantly in different directions. As I am sure many kids growing up in an immigrant family with diverse backgrounds can sympathize with, this dichotomy, this constant battle between sticking to my roots while wanting to experience beyond the uber-traditional and what is “expected”, has proven to be more than challenging.

How about a little background before we dive in too deep? Both of my parents were born and raised in north India, coming from families that had strict ideals and followed tradition to a T. They were set up, married, and came to America for their educations, to start a new life, a life of promise and opportunity for their children. When my brother and I were born here, we were also raised in similar ways and held to the same expectations that my grandparents had set for my parents. Along with these expectations and all of the rules came the unspoken belief that I would one day grow up to blindly marry a man of my parents’ choosing. The mere thought of falling in love with whomever I chose, a man of any race, was something that wasn’t dared to be entertained.

The piece that I have shown represents this internal struggle and discusses some of the challenges faced by many children in strict traditional families. I chose to title this piece American Dhulan, once again representing the dichotomous relationship between my Indian upbringing in American society.

In Hindi, “dhulan” means the bride. This piece, done in various mediums ranging from watercolor, colored pencil, fabric, and gold leafing, is a rendition of a traditional Indian bride decorated in intricate ornaments and clothing. In the drawing, all of the jewelry has been removed in place of different scenes. Her necklace symbolizes the destruction of true love as two hands reach for each other but never meet. The earrings, nose ring, and forehead decoration are each whited-out. Instead, they are replaced by images demonstrating different modes of stress and mental health challenges many children face but are oftentimes overlooked.

As time has gone on, I have come to find solace in my culture while continuing on my own self-made journey. I have chosen to accept the very traditional parts of the Indian lifestyle and the difficulties that may come along with it as another part of the otherwise beautiful culture. However, now I choose what I want to be a part of my story.

In the following posts, I will dive into other aspects of my culture and how it has molded me into the person that I am today. If anything that I discussed in this post stands out or if any questions arise please comment and share your thoughts!!

Looking forward to next Sunday!

 

~ Riya

 

Personal website:   https://riyarts.weebly.com/