Not dead, just drawing... and other things
I'm trying to... learn to draw doesn't seem quite the right way to put it... get decent at drawing? Actually become an artist? I'm not sure. All I know is that I was sufficiently surprised at my own ability when I did that 50 hands/50 feet challenge thingy on deviantART that I'm...doing whatever it is I'm doing.
This involves trying to work in some drawing every day. This started with drawing parts of faces (I didn't think I could manage whole ones), which led to the realization that a page of nothing but noses is really frickin' creepy to look at. (On the other hand, I'm not too bad at drawing, or at least copying, noses now.) I then started drawing actual whole faces - copying pictures out of movie coffee table books from work, and, of late, trying to copy SW:TOR screen shots (since one thing I'd like to do is illustrate my fanfic stories). I'm struggling with getting the proportions right, but I've progressed from "gah, I draw like a twelve year old" to "damn it, proportions, I hate you, but if I'd gotten them right, that wouldn't be half bad..." (There is, after all, a difference between "look, a face" and "look, a specific face.") Okay, I uploaded a couple of my attempts to my deviantART because, well, it'd be nice to use it for something besides drooling at other people's work.*
I'm also still writing. If still rather slowly. I still don't know why I stalled out the way I did. I vaguely want to blame NaNoWriMo, since that's when I stalled, but I don't know that that's cause and effect. It may have been a coincidence. In any event, I'm trying to get un-stalled.
And that's pretty much what I've been doing. Besides work and feeding cats. And feeding cats some more. (I really wish I could find Smokey a non-vet food that she could eat. I hate not just being able to have food down for them.)
Oh! I've been reading the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic book series. I was going to say, "finally, a likable Jedi!" but I just got to the point where he opted not to become a Jedi, so... er... who knew you could say "never mind" to the Jedi Order? I do like Zayne Carrick, though, and the other main characters. The art is a bit up and down and, once again, the Jedi as a group come off looking somewhere between bad and horrible. It says something that, of the two actually good Jedi in the story, I know one will go on to be a Sith Lord. It also says something that the main villains were a group of Jedi who... wow... I don't even know what to say about them. I'm going to have to re-read the six graphic novels I've got ILLed again, though, before I send them back. Either the story didn't entirely make sense, or I missed some things. It's still about the best new bit of fiction I've encountered in a while.
*I also have started uploading my fanfics to deviantART because I wanted to put them somewhere more populated and fanish, but I don't want to deal with the formatting issues of fanfiction.net and AO3 is invite only (and was almost devoid of SW:TOR fics. Now... it's... um... good gravy, when did SW:TOR fandom explode? O_o). Given that there's a decent amount of SW:TOR fanishness on deviantART, it's not a bad way to dip my toes in actual fandom. *reponders AO3* (It went from less than 10 last time I looked to 123 stories. whut.)
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/131195.html.
This involves trying to work in some drawing every day. This started with drawing parts of faces (I didn't think I could manage whole ones), which led to the realization that a page of nothing but noses is really frickin' creepy to look at. (On the other hand, I'm not too bad at drawing, or at least copying, noses now.) I then started drawing actual whole faces - copying pictures out of movie coffee table books from work, and, of late, trying to copy SW:TOR screen shots (since one thing I'd like to do is illustrate my fanfic stories). I'm struggling with getting the proportions right, but I've progressed from "gah, I draw like a twelve year old" to "damn it, proportions, I hate you, but if I'd gotten them right, that wouldn't be half bad..." (There is, after all, a difference between "look, a face" and "look, a specific face.") Okay, I uploaded a couple of my attempts to my deviantART because, well, it'd be nice to use it for something besides drooling at other people's work.*
I'm also still writing. If still rather slowly. I still don't know why I stalled out the way I did. I vaguely want to blame NaNoWriMo, since that's when I stalled, but I don't know that that's cause and effect. It may have been a coincidence. In any event, I'm trying to get un-stalled.
And that's pretty much what I've been doing. Besides work and feeding cats. And feeding cats some more. (I really wish I could find Smokey a non-vet food that she could eat. I hate not just being able to have food down for them.)
Oh! I've been reading the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic book series. I was going to say, "finally, a likable Jedi!" but I just got to the point where he opted not to become a Jedi, so... er... who knew you could say "never mind" to the Jedi Order? I do like Zayne Carrick, though, and the other main characters. The art is a bit up and down and, once again, the Jedi as a group come off looking somewhere between bad and horrible. It says something that, of the two actually good Jedi in the story, I know one will go on to be a Sith Lord. It also says something that the main villains were a group of Jedi who... wow... I don't even know what to say about them. I'm going to have to re-read the six graphic novels I've got ILLed again, though, before I send them back. Either the story didn't entirely make sense, or I missed some things. It's still about the best new bit of fiction I've encountered in a while.
*I also have started uploading my fanfics to deviantART because I wanted to put them somewhere more populated and fanish, but I don't want to deal with the formatting issues of fanfiction.net and AO3 is invite only (and was almost devoid of SW:TOR fics. Now... it's... um... good gravy, when did SW:TOR fandom explode? O_o). Given that there's a decent amount of SW:TOR fanishness on deviantART, it's not a bad way to dip my toes in actual fandom. *reponders AO3* (It went from less than 10 last time I looked to 123 stories. whut.)
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/131195.html.