(Belated) Wildcard Wednesday #50

This week, we can expect: Cirque du Soleil simplicity and more Chess developments.

(Sorry this came late-I lost track of time and I'm trying to make sure I'm ready for Patreon)

Cirque #1: A simplistic doodle I did around the Innocent, a character from Cirque du Soleil's Kooza.

Chess #22: Playing around with my Chess concepts again. This time, I made some ceremonial outfits that resemble the pieces' appearances. The knights are a little wonky, but I'll get them right soon enough.

Chess #23: When I said I'm playing around with my Chess concepts, I really mean it, and it's not just because of Patreon. This series is something I want to make big and meaningful to many people. So I'm really going to work on the story to make sure everything is perfect. And a perfect story will provide perfect visuals and artwork.

Going on Patreon-Voting Rights

Hi, ArtzDeeva here! So yesterday, I talked about the overall basics for my upcoming Patreon page, which is again launching Independence Day. Even though the $7 reward tier involving voting is pretty straight forward, I just wanted to further elaborate on the significance of voting rights on my page.
Even as a creative person, I like to think of myself as being very persistent and prolific. And often that is what I am. However, no matter how hard I try sometimes, I'm not always the best with managing time. In my time at Metro, where projects are usually due every one-two months (we go on a quarterly basis), I've found that's given me enough time to not only put in the work, but also make something I'm proud of. Having the supervision of my teachers has also been a good way to reel in my overactive imagination and get me focused on tackling projects one bit at a time.
This is what voting rights will do. Like I said, all my animation and graphic page projects will be in one-two month schedules. With voting rights, you'll not only be able to vote on which project I work on for that month, but also what aspect of it I work on (story, world-building, character design, and color script). At this reward tier, you not only become a patron - you become a creative partner, someone who's actively a part of the development of my projects. Your votes will help me guide the direction of my projects so that I'm not just aimlessly scratching on paper or wrestling with a gigantic story in my brain. And it will help me truly develop my projects from simply bare bones ideas to fully realized worlds and characters.
This I feel will work the best in terms of keeping me accountable to my schedule and patrons. And I think patrons will really enjoy being part of something big. Trust me, these four main projects are all going to be movies and series in the future-that's no small thing, and no amount of help in any of these projects will go unforgotten or unappreciated. And it's also good for me, the artist, as well. So often, it's easy to just go about your work day to day feeling like you're one fish in the sea or disconnected from the audience you want to reach. This system will eradicate such isolation and keep me engaged with those who get excited about the stuff I make.
This is the significance of the voting right tier I'm creating. And for those considering pledging at that amount, I look forward to our creative partnership together.

Going on Patreon-The Basics

Hi, ArtzDeeva here! I apologize in advance, there is no finished art for today. This week was crazy, and I finally got a job! Yesterday was the first day, and one of the activities (which fortunately is not the norm for work) reawakened the tendinitis ghosts in my wrist and elbow. I'll be okay, but I need at least a day of recovery.
But I am here to tell you the new launch date of my Patreon and some of the details concerning it.
First off, the launch date is Independence Day! What better way to celebrate going indie? After having more time to better prepare for Patreon, I now feel more ready than ever. Although in many ways I still feel very unprepared.
Secondly, I'll talk a bit about the rewards. I have four tiers of rewards in place. $1 is eternal gratitude and also all sneak peeks into developments and works in progress. I will be sharing my blog posts on Patreon, but because I'm already posting for free, my blog posts will be accessible to non-patrons as well. If you remember the trading card art from one or two weeks back, that is all still going to be part of the Patreon rewards. I've actually had these pieces sent in to a mass-printing service, and so I will keep printing as needed to distribute to patrons. Starting at the $3 reward, all of the above plus one piece of trading card art will be yours. At the $7 reward, it's all of the above, two pieces of trading card art, and voting rights on projects. I will talk about the significance of voting rights on my Patreon in a separate post tomorrow, but trust me, they're really important. Lastly, at the $13 reward, it's all of the above, five pieces of trading card art, and the classic your name in the credits of my finished animations.
Thirdly and lastly, since I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is, I've kind of built up a work system for when I'm actively on Patreon. Smaller projects will be completed on a one-month basis, and larger projects will be completed in two months. This holds me accountable to the work, but also gives me some room to breathe and have fun with what I'm working on. Also, as far as original art goes, I've so far boiled work down to four central concepts: Between God and the Devil, Chess, Tommelise, and Desoldri. Because these are all future movies/series, I'm already thinking about how much I reveal to patrons and how much I keep secret for the future. Chess and Tomelise are series, the former I suspect will gather much popularity, so I think I will post more for those (including exploring plotlines and such through graphic novel pages). Because my characters from Between God and the Devil have been pretty popular, I'm going to release some stuff, definitely some comic pages and stuff. But because it will be a movie, I will hold back more on the story (which even now is still under development). Desoldri you'll get even less meat as far as story goes. That's another future movie, and it's going to be big and hopefully amazing. But because of how grand it is, I really can't afford to put out too much, so I might throw out teaser concept art without context for the scenes, characters, etc.
So yeah, those are the basics of when I'm launching on Patreon and how things are going to work for the most part. As always, I'll keep you updated, and tomorrow I'll talk about the importance of the voting rights. Stay tuned!

Wildcard Wednesday #49

This week, we can expect: new Chess doodles and a bit of Cirque gestures!

Chess #20: As my Patreon launch gets closer, I'm kicking back into original projects! I'm really excited to be getting back into Chess. I'm actually going to be studying a couple books on the game to bring even more awesomeness to this concept.

Chess #21: I've never really taken the time to explore rooks in my Chess concepts. But after reading about just how powerful and important to capturing the king they can be, I'd say it's definitely time to work on them.

Gesture #1: After having enjoyed it in classes, I'm taking up the practice of doing gesture drawings. They're good for warm ups, cool downs, and practicing action and movement in the human body. It's also a great way to build up reference poses for future projects.

Cirque and Politics

It's another double piece weekend! My summer, job wise, has taken a weird turn for the better, and because of all the time that I've got, there'll be plenty more double piece weekends to come, I'm sure.

CdS-Duet: Been doing a lot of thumbnailing for my "for fun" Cirque du Soleil page project. I made a couple of these two as Zaia (the young woman) performs an aerial strap solo. So I decided to turn those images and feelings into an illustration.

Justice and Sessions: I don't talk about it often, but ever since Trump got elected, I've been in and out of states of political angst. Rather than express these feelings with words, since people use words all the time, I'm instead turning to political art. This was in response to the Jeff Sessions testimony. He looked very nervous and couldn't stop squirming in his seat or sipping water. Perhaps it was because a certain someone was haunting his desk at the moment. (I played around with some embossing filters to get this strange, nightmarish effect)

Tools: Photoshop, thumbnails (for CdS-Duet).

Wildcard Wednesday #48

This week, we can expect: a couple animations!
(Also, quick note - I'm back on for Patreon business! I've set a new launch date, things are getting prepared - and I'll let you all know of the updates and information this Saturday)

Why?: I've just recently joined Instagram (find me as "artzdeeva"), and I realized I hadn't actually posted any pictures of myself yet at the time. So I tried and tried...and I just can't do it. I'm terrible at taking pictures of myself. So I animated my dilemma.

CdS Anim - Niko: I've been getting back into drawing lots and lots of Cirque du Soleil art. It's so much fun with the character designs, colors, and movement. So this week I started animating some of the characters! These ones are from Kurios.

CdS Page #1

Thought the animation was all there was today? You're in luck, 'cause I finished some more art!

CdS Page #1: The first of several pages I'll work in between original works. This project, which I got a rough start in two or three summers ago, is just something I work on for fun (haven't got a full story yet, but when I do, I'll have some animatics for later spreads-and even animations). It's inspired from Cirque du Soleil's Solstrom show many years ago. It's so much fun drawing these characters and bringing in others just for the fun of it.

Tools: Photoshop and many reference pictures.

Rough Animation #1

Imagined Scenario WIP #1: Because animations can take a long time to make and tweak to perfection, I'll just throw up whatever I have at the moment to compare with finished versions later.

This is the first of such animations. This is just a little vague scene in my head...yes, that's me. And for those even more curious, yes, that's Emcee from Cabaret. It's a long, ridiculous story I'd rather not get into at the moment.

Most of the keys and breakdowns are in for this. Now I've just got to work on the nitty gritty tweening process. For the most part, I'm trying to ween myself off of using the opacity and instead "flip" like a regular animator would do. It'll take time, but after using Actions in Photoshop to create a "flip" mechanism, I feel like I'll be able to eventually get a more organic movement in my animations.

Tools: Photoshop.

(Belated) Wildcard Wednesday #47

This week, we can expect: an in-progress viewing of a Cirque du Soleil piece I'm working on! This is a project I've been doing just for myself over the years, but I'm giving the whole thing a new treatment and new life through Photoshop. I'll put up my progress on a small animation I'm working on this Saturday!
(Sorry for the delay-was having technical difficulties yesterday, ended up just saving my progress pics from Instagram, which will explain the filters)

CdS Page-Sketch: This is where the digital work originates from. It was just a random doodle I did during school earlier this year. Because I loved the composition so much, I decided to turn this into a piece of digital art.

CdS Page-WIP #1: I considered scanning in the sketch and working from there, but I wanted to make the image bigger in Photoshop. So I just decided to start over from scratch, glancing at my sketch to keep the same feel and composition.

CdS Page-WIP #2: Here is the finished line art. While I have gotten much more comfortable with the Intuos, I decided to keep my lines pretty loose so I wouldn't get hung up on perfectly drawn out lines. And I felt it added a bit of a playful feeling to the characters.

CdS Page-WIP #3: The first round of coloring on the first panel. I played with the hue and saturation/brightness levels on an image of Zaia (the girl hiding) to get the exact darker hues I needed. I ended up scrapping the dull gray shadows and the erroneously green underside of the sofa.

CdS Page-WIP #4: The first panel finished! Used the eye dropper tool to get the exact colors for the room (it's based on a location in an episode of Cirque du Soleil-Solstrom) and on the purple-legged character. This panel was a little labor intensive-and I still have no clue how to do real blending on Photoshop-but I'm pleased with the results.

CdS Page-WIP #5: My latest progress leaves off with the start of coloring on the second panel. While I love the Baron, there are several details about him that can make him frustrating to draw (I hate drawing stripes).

Fantasy Tree

Fantasy Tree: This week has been an emotional mess between Patreon business and trying to find a summer job. So I allowed myself to make something simple today, a tree inspired by the style of my fantasy landscapes. I often find peace and enjoyment in making up my own weird plants that will never exist outside of paper.

Tools: Prismacolor, Faber-Castell, and Infinity markers.

Patreon Launch Date - Postponed

Hi, ArtzDeeva here! So today was going to be the launch day of my Patreon page. Well...
...not anymore. Launch day's cancelled.
I will still be going on Patreon, don't worry-I've just realized I need more time to really think over the logistics of some of the things I'll be doing and the rewards I'll have. I thought I had it basic and manageable enough, but as practical as I try to be, I still don't always think things through.
And the thing is when I launch my Patreon page, I want to be as ready as possible. I know there are some things you can't prepare for or little problems that arise. But when I launch on Patreon, I want it to be more fun and exciting than crazy and stressful. I want it to be more about creating art and animations and giving all of you wonderful work than me floundering about making mistakes or being behind on things. That's just the way I want it to work, and I'm sure you'd all appreciate that as well.
I don't know when the new launch date will be. I really need to get looking around for a summer job, on top of all this. I'm going to tentatively say I'll start putting out pre-launch things around the end of the month. I'll keep you posted about this as I sort things out over the next couple of weeks.
Sorry for the delay, and thank you for your patience!