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!

Animation Overload!

Today's a very good day, because instead of having simply just one piece or animation to show, I've got three animations to present to you!

Desoldri and Kurian - Walk Cycle: This is my first walk cycle with a moving background (done for animation class). Kurian's walk turned out okay, Desoldri's...not so much. But with practice I'll get better. I'm just so excited that, little by little, I'm bringing my own original creations to life!

Michael Jackson Dance: These next two pieces were not for animation class - they were for illustration for electronic media. We've been getting into sequential art, and one of our studies was Michael Jackson. I've realized despite how hard it might seem in the beginning, dancing is one of my favorite things to animate. It's even more rewarding than a simple walk cycle.

Dance feat. JustSomeMotion: My other sequential piece I did based on the electro-swing dancer JustSomeMotion. This piece leaves me excited to make better (and finished) animations of him in the future!

Desoldri-Fireside

Desoldri-Fireside: Desoldri and Kurian have been living ten years without the sun. In all this time, they've been told that the world as they know is doomed to end, that their days are numbered. But because it's been ten years since these apocalyptic declarations were made, Desoldri is beginning to wonder if there's more that the people in the monastery aren't telling her. Because doubt is forbidden, Desoldri discusses her theories with Kurian late at night.

I was inspired to make some pencil concept art after seeing so much Disney concept art over the last couple of weeks. And while this isn't my finest attempt, I am trying to work with practicing lighting in my compositions.

Tools: Dick Blick pencils.

Priority Break!

Hi, ArtzDeeva here! I'm just here to say that unfortunately there won't be any art for today. In fact, I'm taking a break until I return with a finished piece for next Saturday.
I often struggle with prioritizing things in my life. I'm doing school, I've got my part-time job, I'm involved in a project I can't talk about, and I have my own artistic projects to work on as well. And I have a bad habit of getting the things that need to be done dealt with first, and by the time I get to the projects I want to work on, I've run out of time or stamina.
This week I really need to find the balance that I'm missing. That and I've got an accordion book to make a mock and official version of for class, so I really need to press on with that.
Worry not, I shall return next Saturday! By then I should have plenty of sketches and finished pieces ready for your pleasure-most of them back to original projects like Between God and the Devil, Arlecchino!, and Desoldri.

Desoldri

Desoldri: Last month right before fall quarter was over, I posted some sketches of two original characters of mine, Desoldri and Kurian. Desoldri's design, as I've said before, was something I could never seem to get, no matter how many redraws I went through. But I think I'm finally settling on this design of her-my finger/hand memory with this design is really good, and she has more of a distinct figure, looking less like a generic fantasy heroine.

I've made a couple mistakes in here, but I decided to finish it anyway just because I love the original lines. The coloring job is really more to show her color schema than to look perfect.

Tools: Pencil (outlining), Prismacolor pens, Faber-Castell watercolor pencils.

Wildcard Wednesday #21

This week, we can expect: no sad stuff! (Unlike last Wednesday) Showing off two new original characters and some practice leading up to one of the Saturday pieces.

Desoldri #2: Well it took forever, but I think I've finally settled on designs for this lady and her friend in the picture below. This young woman's name is Desoldri. Her name and the concept of the story she's in came to me in a dream, where a land lived under a fixed solar eclipse, so there was no sun and it was always night. No one believed there would be light again. But under mystical circumstances (which I can't talk about because it's still in development and SPOILERS!), Desoldri is granted the powers of the sun and sets off to restore daytime to her land.

Desoldri #3: Kurian is one of Desoldri's friends and her sole companion in her quest to restore the sun to their land. During the solar eclipse that got fixed, he looked into the sun's rays and was blinded, but once Desoldri is given the powers of the sun, she restores his sight. You can actually find a drawing of blind Kurian in Wildcard Wednesday #17.

Action Practice: This weekend I bought two drawing books from Michael's - one on exaggerated expressions, and one on comic book action. Everything I know about drawing the human body I've taught myself over the last year or so, through books, the Internet, images on Pinterest, etc. I intend to continue teaching myself until I can nab a life drawing class at Metro. These were practice from the comic action book, and I used what I learned to make this...

Miraculous Ladybug #3: Because who better to practice action poses on than superheroes? I like drawing Ladybug and Chat Noir in little funny/dramatic situations as well as any other fan artist, but to draw them in such dynamic movement like this? It's the best! During some of my work time in Vector class, I scanned this sketch in and did some work on it in Illustrator. You'll get to see the finished result this Saturday!

M3's Art Journal Samples Part 3

Okay, so this is it-the grand finale of my art journal samples! It was also the final entry post I made, and with this one, I pulled out all the creative stops and just went crazy. Understandably so, because this entry is based on the prompt of "dream".

I am a very active dreamer. I've been keeping dream journals since I was around twelve or thirteen. So of course I couldn't pick just one. Get ready to enter my mad dream world with this extensive entry!

Art Journal #12: Here is Layer One (yes, this is a multi-layered) of the dream entry. The Oscars were coming up soon at the time, so I themed the first layer like a red carpet for some of the notable characters and people that have shown up in my dreams (must remember to put down Megamind's name). Some are obscured by the invitation card.

Art Journal #13: Under the red carpet is Layer Two, with notable scenes from various dreams I've had.

Art Journal #14: Detail from Layer Two.

Art Journal #15: Detail from Layer Two. The middle scene is actually getting conceptualized into a story (Desoldri). And yes, if you're wondering, that is Alan Cumming's Emcee from Cabaret up there with me. Those dreams have been...interesting, to say the least.

Art Journal #16: Layer Three-various locations and inspirational soundtrack (some songs were in dreams, others illustrate my dream life).

Art Journal #17: Layer Four-side one of some of the strange scenarios I've had in dreams. Fortunately for me and everyone else, my dreams are pretty safe.

Art Journal #18: Side two of Layer Four-more scenarios (Maud's my twin, and I have saved her a lot in my dreams. He-who-must-not-be-named isn't Voldemort, I don't remember who "he" is at the moment)

Art Journal #19: And last but not least, Layer Five with some notable/recurring characters in dreams. Whew! If this were Inception, we'd be in Limbo by now! Notes: usually in "saving the world" dreams, I've had Bilbo Baggins at my side. I consider him to be like a fictional uncle. Joker was my boyfriend once-and to make it weirder, he was good at the time! But I was there to see his turn to evil, so you can imagine how strange that was. The Baron, as I think I've said before, is like my muse, and he has often come to me in dreams. And while I've never saved my twin from Freddy Krueger (not yet, at least), I used the picture to illustrate how I've often saved her from bad company with my powers of no.

Well, I hope these three posts gave you a little joy (and a chuckle, no doubt). I know I had fun going back over these samples from my art journal. Hopefully now that finals are simmering down, I'll be able to put up some new finished art for next Saturday.

(Note: Any pictures or photos used in collages for this entry don't belong to me)

Wildcard Wednesday #17

This week, we can expect: Alice gets mad with the Hatter, all the while Angelica encounters Valentyne and Admetus, and two new concepts get briefly introduced! (Again, all from my school sketchbook)

Alice #2: A little scenario I drew of Alice and the gang on a dangerous (and clearly quarrelsome) adventure together.

Between God and the Devil #15: A little scenario where Angelica is in pursuit of Admetus.

Between God and the Devil #16: Our two primary characters during their second ever meeting. My teacher got a chuckle out of this.

Desoldri #1: Preview of a character from a project I've been working on for a while (Desoldri)-more information coming up soon!

Arlecchino #1: Preview of a new project I'm working on. This is directly inspired by the characters and stories of the world of commedia dell'arte. I wish to create either a webcomic or at a later time, an animated series that would be a mix of traditional commedia dell'arte plays and Blackadder the Third involving these characters. From left to right: Pantalone, Columbina, Arlecchino, Pierrot, and Dottore.