Ye Olde Piece of Crap Computer - A Tragedy

So basically, I've had the same computer for quite a long time now - almost as long as since I was able to type. I've been using it since I still lived in San Jose, and around a year after I came to Benicia, being sure to have it upgraded whenever appropriate - which was almost never in the cheap money grubbing eyes of mine.

So it came to pass that after a while, it would just shut off on me randomly on certain programs - random ones, regardless of how much processor power they took up. I dealt with this by either grabbing an old tooth brush or a q-tip or whatever and scrubbing the fan and heat sink of both the motherboard and the graphics card. And this was rather necessary, as after a while *tons* of "dust bunnies" (lil' fluffy masses made out of dust) would collect within, and it would take forever to remove.

Usually, this helped keep my computer alive and going, but during the last few weeks it would just shut off no matter what. There were times when it would shut off right after I started it, and then I'd restart it only to have it shut off five minutes later, only to restart it and get frustrated yet again.

So at that point, necessity was shoved in front of my family's quality being frickin cheap, and I got a new one. It's not great, but unlike the last one it can at least play games made after the year 1748, and best of all, it won't shut off! So now I can actually do concentrate more on digital artwork, being online, staying up to date with everything, and every other nerdy thing that makes up my life. Yay me!

Grendel/Demon Monster Thing

So basically, this was something I was to do for my English class in accompaniment (is that even a word?) to this *very* odd presentation I had to do with a partner. Basically, we had to use fake Old English to tell the poem of Beowulf the way the old bards used to do it. His role was to strum a Ukalele (as a substitute for a lute) and my role was to pace around and wave my hands like a conversing Italian while screaming out jibberish. Sound fun?

But anyway, after I did that one axe dude (previous post) my partner had this bright idea that we say that the drawing is Beowulf, and I draw a Grendel to go with it to show around while we did the presentation in hopes of getting more extra credit. So that's the dealio behind this...

This one took so darn long to do, mostly because the features needed to be more anatomical. Unlike the last drawing, I used a ton of references to get the muscles right - or right enough - on basically everything but the head and the feet. There's still probably a ton of issues with the proportions and such, but ah well. The lighting is also just mediocre, but overall I think this came out better than the "Beowulf" drawing.

And now that I'm well and done with the whole English thing I can work on Hannah's request of a happy guy running in the field chasing a bunny (it can be safe to say that the only reason I'm doing it is to see the Mickey Mouse beheading a little kid with a chainsaw she promised in return).

A guy with a Super Mondo Huge Axe

(click for a larger view)

This is a request I did for a friend, and is nothing more than a mean looking guy in medieval armor with a big-ass axe in his gloves. I don't think he likes you very much.

This entire thing was done on actual paper (no digital at all this time). I did a basic pencil sketch before transferring it over to a new page in order to fit the axe in. After transferring, I overlayed the linework with pen, and began shading with Prismacolor markers. The fine cross-hatches were done with a 005 Micron.

Overall it came out decentish, but being that it was done on paper I couldn't erase some of the horrible mistakes I made - particularly in the hands and the shading on the axe - which I had no clue how to do. I used no reference except towards the end when it came time to shade the chain mail, and even that could have used more work. Of course, the scanner may have butchered it up a bit as well.

The sketch of that crazy Chinese dude is still being played with - ever so slowly. I'm sort of trying out some interesting ways of lighting it, but that kind of thing has never been my strength, so it's a lengthy and confusing process.

A Chinese Officer Dude - WIP

Normally I would do a bit more before I post a piece, but I figured it's been long enough since I started this blog without putting anything in it, so I shall begin with a simple WIP preliminary sketch that I plan on painting later on.

So basically, we have here a Chinese military official from the old days, whose features are based somewhat on traditional paintings. The reason the era isn't specific is because I used absolutely no references for the face or the armor - it was all just done by eye, I guess for the challenge of it. The armor itself as well as the helmet could change, as I am currently not too happy with their designs, but I'll keep working with it I suppose.

I believe what got me started on this was a friend's repeated comment that I look like the kind of guy who *should* have the old stereotypical long Chinese beard and moustache, even though I don't think I even look at all Asian. So because of that I had this odd image in my head that I just decided to get down on canvas. Weird I know, but ah well.