The End of Another Sketchbook

I successfully filled up another sketchbook. Which is a good sign of bad-habit-breaking for me. Back in the day, I used to always partially fill my sketchbooks, then I'd get a new one and just switch over. So I always had bunches of half-full sketchbooks lying around. But I've been doing pretty well with actually finishing them lately, and finishing them more quickly, drawing more often. So yeah. Better.

And I've started drawing my dogs a lot.
Here's the bishopric of my home ward here. Yeah, that's my dad in the middle.


McKinley sleeps funny, with his face all squished and his ears flopped up and his paws curled under. He's just a weird dog. And I love him. But as far as drawing goes, I like the top-right one of Hunter best. He's usually easier to draw, since he spends so much time lying around the house doing nothing.

I always feel obligated to draw something impressive and climactic on the last page of a sketchbook. But of course, as I sat on my bed musing about what sort of awesome drawing I could put on that fateful page, I started doodling my stuffed animals without really meaning to.
Anticlimax!

Exile

As it says on my DeviantART, "I originally started sketching this picture this morning with the intent of experimenting a bit in Flash, and it was turning out really well, but after about an hour, my computer froze up without letting me save. And my lovely work vanished. I was most displeased. But after a prolonged period of angry brooding in which I browsed through custom content for the Sims 2, I decided I'd try again. And though the original magic of my first sketch is now lost to the carnivorous appetite of my laptop and its perpetual hibernation habits, I am decently satisfied with the final product of my experimentation."

Hooray. I also realized that this is my first serious lion picture of 2008. I mean, I sketch them all the time and draw silly cartoons of my fursona, Moth, but this is the first time this year I've done an all-out, shaded, realistic study of my most favorite feline. And as usual, no reference was used. I've drawn lions enough times that I just do it from memory nowadays.

Final Fantasy Infection

Being home has wrought noticeable changes on my thought processes. And therefore my sketchbook. My productive skill-building life drawings are becoming more sparse, which I guess is understandable since I see the same people within my own house everyday instead of the multitude of unfamiliar faces I'm accustomed to seeing at school. And to make things even worse, my little sister, Hannah, has rekindled my old Final Fantasy fandom, thus infecting my sketchbook with useless fan drawings. I am ashamed. ...But apparently, I still like them enough to post them.

This first page at least was semi-productive. But then Hannah and I started drawing back and forth during church this last Sunday. She drew herself (Pinweasel) and I drew my lion persona, Moth, and later the dragon. Even this is tainted with the Final Fantasy-ness. Hannah totally made an inside joke in my sketchbook...about Cloud.
But these here have nothing to do with Final Fantasy. Yay. This is Rachel's pirate cat, Hobsen Brinepelt. He is grumpy and I like him.
But then we go right back to the fan art.
That one in the bottom-left corner was drawn by Hannah.

I do rather like the robot though. And my giraffe.
Hopefully my next post will be a little more original.

Flash Training and The Fourth

So, I think I'm finally getting the hang of this Flash nonsense. Here's what I've managed to make so far. I know the animation's not the best, but I've never used Flash to animate before and I've never actually animated a four-legged animal either, except of course for that rat for Kelly's film, but that was an entirely different style. So all things considered, I'm decently satisfied with it as a rough.


And this is what I did after watching the tutorial on how to do clean-up work.
And of course, Happy 4th of July to everyone.
This is a shot from our local firework show. They shoot them off over the lake here and huge crowds form along the banks. Lots of people take boats out and watch from the water. Makes for good pictures.