Mystery Background

Play a pointless guessing game and win nothing!



I really thought I could get this next project done in one week, but that wasn't the case. It still takes me a while to make a decent background, which is what I've got finished so far. I don't have much left to do, and that may have worked out well for me, since my boss has me working more than usual next week.

I did get the characters started, but I figure I could make a game outta this and let you guess what the overall picture will be using only the background. It has hints on what it could be, but it's probably less obvious then what I think it is. I can tell you that it's fan art, so it's from licensed stuff and isn't an original creation of mine.

Binary Plus Two

Feh.



Well, they can't all be interesting. If I'm gonna eventually put up all my college stuff, that includes the work that I don't really like.

...That also means I'll eventually hafta post the nude drawings and paintings. Hoo boy...

Anyway, I don't think this painting for my intermediate painting II class is bad. It just ain't much, and I don't like that there isn't some character or figure in there either. I don't remember what the criteria was for this project was, but I assume it had something to do with patterns.

I remember I got this idea from the episode of Futurama where Bender had just woke up from a nightmare and said to Fry, "There were ones and zeros everywhere! And I think I saw a two!," and Fry replies, "It's alright Bender. There's no such thing as two."

Phillip Doesn't Heart Macaroni Penguins

How's a slushie gonna borrow a chip? Slushie, is you gonna give a chip back?



Okay, bringing up that drawing that I made for Mayu again makes it seem like I'm tooting my own vuvuzela, but I swear that's not my intention. I just found it funny that that particular drawing and Animal Crossing in general is made to be cute and cuddly, and yet I keep portraying Hopper as being rather boorish and not cuddly. And that's pretty much every Animal Crossing comic I've done, since I usually don't focus on the other neighbors. If only Peanut were in my town to give my comics some much needed class.

I guess Hopper and the other grumpy characters are a bit boorish in the game as well, although I don't ever remember them threatening me with physical violence or belching in my face.

Samantha

...has a sad, apparently.




Here's another character from that scary school drawing. If I remember correctly, I named her after a friend from school (although she usually went by Sammy). I wanted a girls name that was at least three syllables long for some reason, and her name popped into my head first.

Samantha is the second youngest and the smart one of this group of kids that I talked about on Reason's post. She's a bookworm, and has the reserved, shy disposition that usually goes with that type of person. I usually picture her in constant possession of some book, maybe an encyclopedia on the supernatural. If action were required for this story, I guess it could also be a witchcraft spell book, or somethin'. I also imagine her as a possible love interest for Reason, and there could be an on again, off again relationship between them due to him refusing to elaborate on his mysterious left hand of mystery.

On that note, I think of her as being 15 years old, and I said before that Reason is 17. Is a two year age difference too big for a relationship for high school kids?

...OOH, I can talk about their outfits. I wanted them to wear school uniforms, but I didn't want to do the typical japanese sailor outfit. Since a slightly gothic look could go with the supernatural theme, I thought I could give them a made up school uniform design were there's lots of black, like all the kids are going to a funeral. It could also be a good contrast for the ghoulish stuff they deal with, where in they're normal school life is boring and colorless, but they're ghost/monster hunting is hectic and colorful.

...And I swear, I got the idea of the dead being more colorful than the living before I saw Corpse Bride.

Scary School

All done.



I guess I'm finished. I was just sitting there lookin' at it toward the end wondering if there was anything else I needed to do with it. With the comics, I finish the last panel and BOOM, I'm done. But with more artsy stuff like this, it's tough to figure out when to call it quits.

What I did was add reflections and shadows on the floor. I thought I could be clever by just duplicating the characters and then use Free Transform to flip them and create a mirror image on the floor and then use Gaussian Blur and lower the opacity to make it blurry, but that didn't look right since the point of view is too high. If the "camera" was closer to the ground, that might have worked. So in the end, I just painted it by hand.

I also added a little more detail to the floor in general, made it a tad darker, and gave it a slight blue colorcast. Cool colors are usually better suited for creepy stuff than warm colors.

So, uh, go celebrate, and stuff.

Paint Guys Ain't Done Yet

Encore needed.



Here's another Intermediate Painting II... uh.. painting, with some more paint guys. It started out with just them randomly placed on the canvas, but in a critique, the other students said they'd like to see more cohesion between them, so I made it that so that they're standing on top of each other in a crazy balancing act to keep that black stuff from falling on them (Think of that gag in that Daffy Duck "Duck Amuck" cartoon skit).

...I suddenly want Skittles for some reason.

Mayu Hearts Sheep

Insert squeeze toy sound effect here.



Here's a cutesy pic I drew for Mayu, an Animal Crossing Wild World player who posts about her online get-togethers on her AC diary. She's talked about how she loves the Animal Crossing sheep, and this image popped into my head.

Mayu is also a mother, and I love how she can still find time to play AC on regular basis. Growing up, my parents pretty much hated video games and were rather strict on John's and my play time, as they thought we'd spend more time playing than we would on schoolwork, chores, etc (and they were absolutely right). They eased up eventually, and Mom even has her own DS and library of games now. I'm sure there are plenty of parent gamers in this day and age, but they still fascinate me.

Mayu, if you're reading this, thanks for saying nice things about my drawings.

To anybody else... um... please don't tell her I'm not a huge fan of AC sheep myself.

Reason

But probably not the one you're thinking of.




Here's one of the characters that I'd promised I'd elaborate on from that fancy illustration I've been working on. His name so far is Reason but that could change, as any name or anything else about any character I create is tentative until I think of something better. Reason is one of John's many nicknames, which I stole for this character as his lankiness reminds me of him, and also, out of this particular group of characters, I wanted him to have a name that isn't "normal." I have no idea where John got the title of Reason from, so it's origin could end up being inappropriate for this guy.

Anyway, Reason is the main character, and the eldest of these kids (I guess 17 years old or so). The story starts with him being discovered by the rest of group who've been doing the Ghostbutster's thing for a little while before. They find out he has the sixth sense as they do, and he unwillingly joins them. Each character in the group brings something to the table, and Reason inadvertently becomes the leader. All the paranormal stuff scares him more than the others, but he's brave enough and has a good enough head on his shoulders to overcome it.

And now for the pull. His gloves. I normally put gloves on everything, but for this particular story, I made sure to have him be the only one with gloves, as he's hiding his hands for some reason, particularly his left one. In the little notes of these sketches, I mentioned that he always keeps his left hand in his pocket, but that would be awkward in some situations, so I just dropped that idea and made it so that it's in his pocket most of the time, and when it ain't, he has the gloves. What's he hiding? Is it sinister? I won't tell you. Although I can at least say it's part of the whole paranormal theme, and it's not dry skin.

As is usually the case with older works, I can see some things I don't like in these early sketches. The lines are too angular and the half closed eyes make him look too smug. He often feints nonchalance, but he's not a douche.

...Holy crap, this post is getting long. I'm taking a nap.