RatCreature's Journal

Snowflake Challenge #2

2022-01-03T20:06:27Z

Challenge #2: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Practice digital drawing with the smart pen I got for my tablet last year, that I've barely used. Bonus would be to actually post some fanart.

Put more consistent effort into studying Russian again. The last months (probably a year even) I've done barely anything aside from a course once a week and the associated homework, which really isn't enough to make progress in a language. So the goal is to get back to making Anki cards, and revising with them, get back to listening to Russian podcasts, and other other language input, like actually read some of the easy readers I have acquired.

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argh, hair

2012-11-23T17:06:58Z

I suck so much at coloring hair. I need to draw more bald people. Or they could all wear hats. Better yet, paper bags. That would take care of a whole lot of other difficulties too. Sylvester Jr. would be the ideal subject...

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in need of design opinions...

2011-12-15T22:12:24Z

I need opinions on an art choice for my secret_mutant piece, that would be revealing if I posted it publicly in the post. So if you don't participate in that exchange, are online more or less now when this is posted, and are willing to get a PM and answer a quick question right now (no art or X-Men knowledge required) to help me decide something, could you comment here?

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fanart process: Methos with a mutant baby

2011-10-13T17:56:54Z

I'm not sure whether anyone is interested, seeing how the art itself got very little reaction (only two comments and one kudo so far *sulk*), but since I took the pictures of the in-between stages, I might as well post them.

( many images of the work in progress )

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argh

2011-09-12T13:58:56Z

How is it that you can have a reference photo, then draw a body with a limb exactly in that position, and then in your picture it looks completely contorted or deformed and as if there was no way for it to work like that? I mean, of course I realize that the trick to drawing (whether from life or photography) is to create a believable 2D abstraction, but this limb thing is just unfair.

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a non-rat post, for once!

2011-04-23T09:14:30Z

To give myself incentive to draw something, and others incentive to rec over at fanart_recs I've decided to offer anyone who signs up to rec a fandom in May (just four recs as a minimum!) a sketch as a bribe. It would be more elaborate than the ultra-quick drawbles I do, but I won't promise a painting or anything like that (those can take me up to 100+ hours after all), just a pencil sketch (or rather a scan of a sketch) that fulfills a request. I'm offering any fandoms I've drawn before, i.e. DC, Marvel, SGA, Merlin, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Dresden Files, and Temeraire, and all other fandoms I'm into would also be possible, which is a long list, among them Sanctuary, LOTR, Sherlock Holmes, Terminator, Farscape, Murdoch Mysteries, Avatar the Last Airbender, Star Wars, X-Files, Sentinel...

I'm fairly flexible, however I don't do any kind of RPF, nor pornographic art. The limit for sex in my art is pretty much things like kissing, groping and cuddling, but I'm not particular wrt pairings. There are a couple of non-explicit kinks I don't think I could realize well, for example genderbending, crossdressing or mpreg art.

Anyway, if you are willing to be bribed, just comment here with a description of your request, and I'll say whether I think I could do a sketch like you have in mind. Then sign up the usual way on the rec comm, and I'll hopefully be able to finish your sketch before May is over. BTW, should you happen to be one of the three awesome volunteers already signed up for May, you can also ask for sketch, if you'd like.

ETA: If you don't have a DW account which you'd need to post recs in the comm, I have plenty of invite codes to share.

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fanart process: my yuletart piece, "Fealty"

2011-01-05T08:53:40Z

Considering the many, many hours my recently revealed yuletart picture took, I thought I ought to get more than one post out of it... ;)

( picture heavy art process post )

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sort of self-indulgent poll

2010-11-21T19:06:33Z

With my last acrylic painting I tried for the first time to skip the lineart inking, and now I'm wondering which version of my style viewers like better, if they have a preference at all, i.e. without inked lineart like in this Star Trek art, or with inked lineart like for example in this SGA art or pretty much any color art I've done before.

View Poll: lineart: to ink or not to ink

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looking for an artbeta

2010-11-21T01:03:07Z

I have the preliminary pencils for my Yuletart piece. I need an artbeta to take a look at it before I transfer it to the expensive paper. After drawing and redrawing so many things, I probably wouldn't notice right now if I had drawn someone with a third arm.

Aside from more general comments (e.g. does it work to connect and tell a story), does the composition need tweaking, and such, I'd like the beta to check for perspective, anatomy, proportions, and other technical things. If you offer to beta, please also tell me which size you want to work on, i.e. whether you prefer the high resolution scan (rather largish at something like 3800x3400 px) or something smaller, and where to send the file.

Oh, and in case it makes a difference, the art is harmless and worksafe.

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snapshots from my yuletart (non-)progress

2010-11-18T15:59:58Z

One of the moments to wish for roommates: you find yourself tediously posing for some position, trying to catch yourself on autotimer with your crappy camera, and not just that, but actually half-naked because it turns out that if you photograph yourself wrapped in two layers, one of it a cozy, thick fleece, you can't easily deduce how the limb looks. I'd actually even take a tripod to put a camera on, because balancing said crappy camera on something a workable height facing in a direction where I can pose on doesn't really work all that well. Argh.

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finished drawbles so far

2010-08-08T02:05:57Z

Here's a collection post, because the drawbles are spread out over comments in two posts.

( a picture of a fluffy sheep. with a rainbow for hugglewolf )
( picture of an octopus (or a squid, or some random tentacled creature) watching television for penknife )
( Watership Down & Doctor Who for argosy )
( Sherlock and Watson rats for tazlet )
( Poison Ivy and radioactive rubberbands for petra )
( Team Shep in a truly alien landscape for telesilla )
( a swashbuckling rodent of some type for cofax )
( Muppets & TSCC for goss )
( a rattie Neal and Peter for reginagiraffe )
( Batman's pet rock for odditycollector )

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pokes flist/circle

2010-08-07T21:05:29Z

Surely not everybody can be at VVC? Why is it so quiet? Where is my entertainment? *poke*

Well, maybe incentive is better than a stick: I haven't offered drawbles in ages (and not drawn anything else either, sigh), so if you prompt me, I'll draw you a doodle.

As usual: I'll do my best for any fandom I'm familiar with, or random stuff (monsters, steampunk machines, animals...) or I can just pick prompts from your interests. I don't draw porn though, and I'm not good at portrait likeness. Also keep in mind that these are quick doodles, so for a prompt that is a description of some epic scene you've always wanted to see realized in fanart the results aren't going to very satisfying for you (or much fun for me).

If you want to see the quality (or lack thereof) you can expect, look at the drawble tag. I don't make any promises for results or a timely delivery, but the past I've usually managed to draw something for everyone who prompted me for these non-demanding, open drawble offers.

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fanart process post

2010-05-22T23:34:31Z

Because I'm procrastinating on my SGA Reverse Bang piece, I've decided to do a process post about my last fanart, the one for the Trek Reverse Bang. That painting took me a long time, and quite a lot of work spread out of over three months, and maybe some are interested how I get from the first idea to a finished painting.

( image heavy )

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argh

2010-04-08T08:28:50Z

I was attempting to do a grayscale value thumbnail for my Trekreversebang artwork as preliminary to painting it, and couldn't figure out how the shadows would look, not even in so far as to roughly fake it. So now I have resorted to trying to make a rough pseudo-maquette simulating at least the broad masses. Of course I don't model or sculpt, so I do not have any of the materials or skills needed for actual maquette making. Instead I am making a contraption from some old cardboard, toiletpaper rolls and play-do. >.<

Unrelated to this, I still do not have the newest Dresden Files book, because I ordered the UK edition (which was sold about four euro cheaper than the US edition by the German Amazon), and that apparently came out a few days after the US one. But I did just get a notification that it's in the mail, so it will arrive soonish. I hope.

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doodle: "Infiltration"

2010-04-03T21:33:04Z

( doodle behind the cut )

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art meme, art 2003-2009

2010-02-17T16:22:01Z

I gacked this from glockgal, but the original empty template comes from Kamaniki at dA. The time span for chronicling art in this meme fit me well, because I started posting fanart in 2003, so I took it as a sign that I ought to be a memesheep.

( a huge image behind the cut, it might be considered NSFW by some strict standards due to kissing and groping going on in some art samples )

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two more drawbles

2009-12-10T19:50:32Z

I didn't manage these two last night, so they got them today.

( An octopus flying a helicopter for Odditycollector )
( Matt Murdock--as Matt or Daredevil--stopping at Starbucks (or other coffee place) for a break during Christmas shopping. for Tartanshell )

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finished drawbles so far

2009-12-09T23:19:18Z

( Aeryn Sun and Ellen Harvelle, being awesome for Cofax )
( John and Ronon surfing, or just hanging around on the beach for Telesilla )
( TOS!Trek characters making friends with a tentacle monster for Shadowvalkyrie )
( Woolsey with some animal. Some alien little creature. His new pet. for Astridv )
( Lorne debating paperwork vs painting...with John looking hopeful for the former. for Seikaitsukimizu )
( a rattie party, with hats and balloons for Droolfangrrl )

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drawble offer

2009-12-09T18:31:39Z

I'm in the mood to doodle and haven't offered drawbles in some time, so prompt me in a comment?

As usual, I'll do my best for any fandom I'm familiar with, or random stuff (monsters, steampunk machines, animals...) or I can just pick prompts from your interests. I don't draw porn though, and I'm not good at portrait likeness. Also keep in mind that these are quick doodles, so for a prompt that is a description of some epic scene you've always wanted to see realized in fanart the results aren't going to very satisfying for you (or much fun for me).

If you want to see the quality (or lack thereof) you can expect, look at the drawble tag. I don't make any promises for results or a timely delivery, but the past I've usually managed to draw something for everyone who prompted me for these non-demanding, open drawble offers. So this isn't limited to something like "the first X comments get a drawble" or anything like that, which is impractical with the crossposting in three places anyway. (However considering the broken state of the LJ comment notification right now, I'm more likely to notice your prompt quickly if you comment on DW or IJ. ETA: Except that IJ seems to be down completely just now. *argh*)

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random grouchiness

2009-06-30T21:52:02Z

I'm beginning to feel oddly understanding about the stupid "sex kitten" poses female characters are so often stuck with on covers and such. It's not that I'm getting fond of the sexism, but it is frelling hard to come up with engaging poses when you just want to draw some character, portrait-like I mean rather than some scene with an inherent action. And while the message isn't great, at least the stripper body language says something rather than having the character stand around dumbly, looking very boring.

How do people who are good at portraits figure out how to arrange the character? I totally fail at this. My attempts always look stiff or stupid or both.

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AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!

2009-05-16T20:18:37Z

I hate, hate, hate when supposedly water resistant ink turns out to be not water-resistant at all when you use it. I know, I know you should test every contingency, but I unwisely (very, very unwisely) assumed that when I put that black ink on paper with paint (the goal was to then scratch in the black ink) it would then be possible to paint some water-soluble color on top of the scratched off areas.

However it turns out that this black ink will get liquid again when painted on if it is painted over other paint. So the black seeped back into the areas that I spent hours carefully scratching and crosshatching a picture into with a razor blade. It was a Robin portrait that looked rather cool with the white on black, and I just wanted to give it some red and yellow color highlight effects. Now it is a blotch. Well, not completely a blotch, I may be able to rescue something, but it certainly won't look like I wanted it to... waaah!

Of course I should know by now that it always comes back to bite you if you are too lazy to actually test how different colors react onto each other, and just assume that they behave in a certain way, but still.

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yet another drawble

2009-05-06T09:01:44Z

After seeing the earlier iguana caiusmajor asked for "kangaroos in space" which made me think of the Muppets' Pigs in Space, so I sort of borrowed from that only with kangaroos.

( 'Kangaroos in Space' for Caia )

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a straggler drawble

2009-05-05T20:42:16Z

hsavinien requested an iguana in a spacesuit.

( a bewildered iguana behind the cut )

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not exactly a community promo

2009-05-04T14:58:29Z

Once upon a time -- as reckoned in internet years, in reality in September 2007 -- I started a community called slothsdraw on IJ as a place for regular drawing practice, especially for people who have trouble sticking with their resolutions to draw more often. The reason I started it on IJ was that this was in the wake of LJ's Strikethrough debacle, and LJ's policies over what counted as unacceptable artwork (then even murkier and unclear than now) made me uncomfortable with the idea of creating a drawing community on LJ. Anyway, it never really took off -- I guess in part due to the target group being people who lack motivation *G* -- and has been inactive for a long time now.

I still thought that some of the exercise prompts and resources posted there might be interesting for others, however IJ has a policy to delete inactive accounts and though I reactivated the community there last time this happened, that's less than ideal to archive stuff. So I reposted these to a comm on DW, also called slothsdraw, for a more permanent home. (Obviously for all past responses not made by me you need to head over the IJ comm.)

I actually have no concrete plans for slothsdraw on DW, but the last days people joined (I assume they did an interest search or the like and the comm came up), so maybe activity there could revive. In any case for now there are seven sets of drawing prompts to pick from, so people can post responses to those if they like. And if there is some actual activity there also could be new prompts or discussion of a more open format as just a place to post practice drawings.

Anyway slothsdraw is present on DW now. Maybe it will be less dead than the IJ counterpart. Or not. But at least it won't get into trouble for its sloth-like inactivity. Membership is just moderated so that posters who prefer to show their practice drawings locked can have that option, without immediate and open joining undermining this, but anyone can join. More details are listed in its profile.

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three drawbles

2009-05-02T22:45:23Z

( Terminator + gardening for ilyena-sylph )

( Snape vs. Deathstroke for katarik )

( SGA + steampunk for telesilla )

Also, are people getting shyer when it comes to prompting?

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