Sims 4 brain!

I am so sorry for not having any images of my own to share today. I've been given the bestest of Christmas gifts. The Sims 4! And oh my stars, is it a ton different than 2! XD It's been a ton of fun so far and I'm far from being ready to draw yet. Let me introduce you to my 4 characters in this new thing!

The Altera brothers

Meet Riac, Trezari, and Zen Altera. All three of these dolts are doing exactly what they do best. Not using the dining room table and eating on someone's bed while said someone is taking a bubble bath. At least the three of them didn't argue with getting jobs to support themselves. Speaking of jobs, I expected them to be something similar to what we'd find in 2? It's been pretty fun to see how much things have changed in this case!
Only one of these boys has the job he was written for and of course it's the little brother/entertainer of the family.

Tre Arlet

This is my fourth character; the resident Vampire in town. When I learn how to go around the town itself and see all the characters, I'll be able to tell you if he's the only one in this place. Tre has settled nicely and has taken a writing job to keep some money trickling in.

I spoke of how things have changed in Sims 4? It's still something of a shock that a job is no longer leashed to how many friends the Sim has. They don't have to be friends with the whole town and have 20+ friends just to be promoted anymore! I've found that a ton easier and it works out better for how the characters' play out in my mind.
One thing I am poor at is having a character throw a party. In the same way as one doesn't have to befriend the whole town for their job, there is much more to throwing a party that I didn't know. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to be too upset with Tre about that.

So yeaah, I'll be back to drawing sometime in the next weeks or so but there'll be a few posts about what these nonsense makers do in between!

Tre image is finished!

...finished until I decide to give more detail on the side-facing version, anyway. And I might not decide to do that for at least months after I set it down.

Seriously, I'm so pleased with this! @@ This is the first reference-style image I've done and if I can do more of them (or at least not be lazy on the side view), maybe I'll be able to add that to what I could do as commission.
...Gosh, my ego is so cute! 

And what the sap, spellcheck? Arlet is not supposed to be Arlent. Where did you come up with that, all of a sudden?

Tre and Streaming Bothers

Someone's noticed something I forgot to do on this picture--I got too occupied and forgot to add in the brighter hues for the face looking left and the one looking forward. This will not be too hard an edit, it's just having to go back to that bit when there's plenty of little things to adjust!

Edit: Nov 30

How about a useful tip when recording? Make sure that you've adjusted OBS (or whatever your recorder is) to be recording and not just streaming. You'll be able to decide your moves just as quickly either way, don't get me wrong, it'll just delay having something to put on youtube yet again.
Maybe I'd be wise to just finish poking around the small bits and try to record painting the full bodies for youtube.

All and all, I'm happy with how it is at the moment; silly complaints aside.

I also give up with Picarto.tv for the moment.
Can't really figure out what I did with OBS to cause it but, the past few livestreams have been jittery and blocky on that site. (If it's OBS at all and not something else.) Plus it makes my computer run so hard for whatever reason.
Not getting those problems on Twitch.tv, though; so I think I'll move any other streaming/recording operations there. I'll leave a link to it on my Contact page.

The bar has been set!

I now know Tre's hair color, his skin color, his eye color...and it all works!

I wasn't aware that his 'dark brown hair' (as I've been imagining it) was actually dishwater brown/dirty blonde. It could be either at this point. It's always fun to imagine that the character hasn't "told" everything until he (or she) has "picked out their palettes. And it's always a fun surprise! Especially after being hung on something and not being able to put pen to the tablet.

Yeah. Funny too that it's often the palettes that keep me hanging. Oooh, had to fuss so much about them to be able to finally do this. The madness of the arts...

Let's see if I can keep making these work on the other parts of the image!

Edit:
Ahahaha! YES! You know that your drawing of a face looks right when Facebook is trying to make you tag the person you had in the "photo".

Therapy. And Tre's values are DONE!

First, I've been mouthing about therapy here and again. Today went great. There's been a noticeable improvement for my balance and left hip at this point--which was very much needed. Thanks to those at Therapy Plus for helping me get this far!
...I almost wish that I had more than two weeks left. It's nice to go there and exercise, the people are great (and very much fun) and it's nice to be able to use the stepper that they put me on!

I'm thrilled with how Tre's turned out so far, too!

Fairly sure that the coloring will defy some of this valuing, I can tell a little bit of it doesn't reach dark enough, but it's so nice to have an idea! Some color should be...I don't want to say 'soon', as long as it's taken me to do this bit, but there will be something coming in the next few posts. ^^

I hope the rest of the grayscale comes out like this one!

(Edit: Oct 27 post)

He'd be a little better if I knew how to detail the jeans more but right now I'm very happy with how the front facing looks. I plan to change the light source on his side view, to make it come from the right and if that works, I'll try to change up the source on the other pieces.

And oh my gosh, I'm going to have such a fit if my painting doesn't come out with these values!

Edit Oct 24: A bit more grayscale was done. If I keep going at the clip I am now, the rest of it ought to be valued soon!

Critique time!

Thanks to Proko for face and head tutorials

Yeaaaah, as silly as it sounds? I think that I can't draw profiles or profile-clothing. XD Anyone willing to give critiques or references? Please post!

I may need to redraw the sketch and try to make it a little more 3D. ...should I have tried to draw a 3/4 instead? Or is it more that I should try to just redo the shirt? I shall not be defeated by this sketch!
(And, as much as I may whine, I'm pretty happy with what is already there. Everything can just be better!)

So all critique is welcome!

Edit: Oct 18
Corrected Tre's shirt and jeans, thanks to my friend who found a couple nice references!

Tre's Portraits and Clip Studio is still amazing

(Edit on Oct 17 post!)

I'm not sure at all if the profile face agrees with how the looking up face does...but let's just call thatlearning. At least I'll get it right the next times, hm? And it won't be as hard as it was this time!

It's also very silly. I'm too nervous for my own good about drawing the clothing on him again. Why that's going to be difficult is a mystery to me. I drew it once so it shouldn't be hard to draw it again.

All this complaining aside, I'm actually really happy with how the whole bit's turned out so far. There was a point that I wouldn't be able to draw any of this at all! So to have an almost finished reference page is pretty exciting. ^^

Ooh, I also learned something about Clip Studio Pro! It saves backups! Right now it's only showing the filetype .clip, so maybe this came with the recent update? I've been thrilled since discovering this a few hours ago.
No more needing to worry about a project for whatever reason! I can stand backing up a few steps if it means not having to restart from scratch. Eeee!

Sketch 1 complete (at the moment)

Yay! Finally got the forward sketch in order!
I'm looking forward to getting the second view sketched in, it shouldn't be as difficult as it was the original!

...Then, as we already know about me, I'm going to redraw over the both of them several times before they're painted. So please pretend to be excited. XD

Tre's shirt and CSP layers

(Edit on Sep 19 post)

I have been dying to get finished with this because I've been stuck for so long. XD Got finished with his top though, so all I need now is his jeans and boots (as well as a few more lines to make him wear his gloves).
Have got to get more clothing references, the front of his shirt looks so flat. BUT I love how his sleeves came out!

The sooner I'm done with the lines is the sooner I get to color and finish this. Can't wait.

Also, Clip Studio Paint is a great program. @@ Should have known how to change layers back and forth from raster to vector. Silly me only found how today... Yes, I've already squealed about this on a too short deviantart journal post, but if I hadn't found this, I'd have probably needed to just trace my lines instead of fixing them!


Edit:
I'll figure out how to fix his top tomorrow. But I'm quite pleased with his jeans!

Newest edit on Tre (and a feature from dA)

Tre Arlet

As you can most likely tell, Tre looks funny when he's bald. When I get his hair on him, I'm probably going to bounce to his knives or claws. ('specially since I've been delaying hands long enough!)

Been planning to draw another head that is smirking at whatever he's looking at, but I'm getting so frustrated. XD

That said, thanks to PuNK-A-CaT on deviantart. They gave me several links that I can use to study the way that hair should look from the side, so surely it will come together soon enough. ^^

I'd like to show off some of PuNK-A-CaT's work here. I'm personally loving the skill they have in traditional works! So trot on over to these links and take a look yourself!

Love this dragon's wings and its color. He almost looks like he's trying to decide what to do with some adventurer that woke him up! (At least in my mental story.)
http://punk-a-cat.deviantart.com/art/Self-portrait-552909389

The next drew my eye because I love skillful nature scenes. The patterning on the mountain does a lovely job of showing off the stones and the sense of looking further back has been done so well.
http://punk-a-cat.deviantart.com/art/Mountain-522243945


Last in this feature, you have got to see this cat! It's painted with acrylics--doesn't it just look ready to pet? The eyes and fur look so realistic and I just want to play with those whiskers.
http://punk-a-cat.deviantart.com/art/Cheshire-Cat-602335561

Mercy. Been fiddling with a picture--

--and I'm completely late on my so called "weekly" posts! Do not know if I mentioned what I'm doing before, but I'm working on a 'character sheet' of sorts for one of my characters.

(Image update on July 31)

As you can see, I've not gotten too far. I've been planning and studying how to draw faces and whatnot--in the upper left, I want to draw a few expressions and the bottom right will have something. (Currently, I'm hovering between another weapon of his and maybe other small things he carries or has on him.)

Have to share what I'm looking at to learn how to draw faces. These four videos are on drawing the head:

1. How to Draw the Head from Any Angle    2. How to Draw the Head - Front View

3. How to Draw the Head - Side View           4. How to Draw the Head from Extreme Angles

He has a free course on Portrait and Head Drawing under Lessons > Library of All Videos then find the Portrait / Head Drawing header if you're interested!

Edit: July 7, 2016

I have done that which I will never succeed in repeating in the next few months! He has hair and his features are corrected! (Thank you to girlfoxgirl on dA for helping!)