Recovery from strain and Coffee Time image

Report on my arm is that most everything has gotten better! I was able to get off the prescription pain medicine in the second week and only have some lingering ache and weakness in the arm. Have a bit of intention tremor in my right hand since the injury as well, but it's not terrible on that. Thank goodness strains aren't as bad as some things I've done to myself. XD

I have been slowly working on character forms on my in-progress picture. It's almost time to get to dress these figures pretty soon and make them look like the proper characters... It'll be great to get back to something I'm kinda decent with! And after that is some actual painting!

Do take note of that fine rump in panel 3, please.

It's going to be nice to get back up to speed from here out. Like before, there will be Features on Mondays and then my own personal stuff on Wednesdays. Hope to see you when it starts again--the 6th will be Feature 50. I never dreamed that I'd get that far with them and hope to get so much further!

Happy New Year to all!

Art tab redone and more Coffee Time

I've been waiting for a chance to bring up the new Art tab but I have got to follow the rules that I set when I first started doing features. But now, it is time! Perhaps you've already noticed that the Art tab has a new way to get to my work? If not, there are now three buttons that will take you to the three major subsections of the art.rachburns.us page instead of having all the art jumbled together.

The top one is Finished Work, which will let you see the pieces that I have painted and now consider complete. The center button is the Lineart section that is made of pieces that I don't really have an interest in coloring at the moment (but might later). And the third button is for the Sketches that are left as nothing more interesting or are pieces that I left at the incomplete stage.
It seems cleaner to me and I hope that you can grow to like it as well!


And of course, there's an update to the Coffee Time comic! It so looks like Haley got splashed with some of that dropped/spilled coffee and I love it. XD So much more fun than the basic "WTF" reaction from Valeon and Jesse's table that was shown in previous sketches, yes?

Haley's Pose from SenshiStock

I had so much fun playing with the pose I found on SenshiStock's deviantart gallery. If you're an artist and you regularly use reference poses (you should!), her personal site is right here! This site is where you can buy several photo packs for drawing references and she has a timed app that you can practice drawing from.
Why not check it out and enjoy yourself? ^^

Coffee Time sketch

So. I'm sure you can see how Panel 3 starts with a nice rear but she's pointing in the exactly wrong direction. XD Tutor said that I didn't do the figure correctly, didn't build her arm like I should have. He plans on teaching me as soon as I can get the basic armature down. You'll see what comes of that fairly soon because I can't wait to step forward on that part. ^^

But let's turn our eyes upward to look at panel 2 instead! Valeon and Jesse decided to pose quite nicely for me. Tutor thinks that I got their idea down very well and that it's not exactly as stiff as Find the Way turned out. (It's thrilling to see it built better than in the original one!) Can't wait to get them finished and painted!

Before I can paint it though, I have at least 5 more characters to begin to build. Oh gosh, wish me luck. Wasn't I insane to decide that I wanted four characters in the first two panels? @@ It's not so much hard as it is just so dang busywork at the moment. XD
I'll be sure to put the update when I get it. Thanks for being so patient! ^^

Current project and the sudden Thermometer

So thrilled to finally get Haley in panel 1! And my brain finally agreed to let me start hopping from panel to panel instead of treating them as separate pieces. (Because...yeah.)
I'm still very happy with how Valeon's pose came out! It's going to be so very fun to get that part of the scene finished. Seeing "Find the Way" in this is so exciting--I'll get to show the reaction that should have happened in the original picture. XD

In other news, I need to explain about the thermometer below this post! That's a way to keep up with the savings going toward the computer I'm hoping to buy. It's meant to show that my Goal is $645 (the price of the computer and insurance) and that I currently have $110 toward that.

The sale on commissions is open during this! $15 for character design and full color. If you'd like a full scene or multiple characters, please get in contact with me and I'm sure we can come to an agreement. ^^

Haley is being difficult

Panel 1, for example. Look at her arm that's leaning on the table. That thing looks horrifying to me and I'm not quite sure what's messed up yet. I'll hopefully find a better reference pretty soon. Complaining aside? I'm excited to be starting on the characters now! It's going to be fun to get to Panel 2 to draw the girls' surprise at Valeon's show of temper!

Oh if I weren't so slow doing things without the dolls, though. At least the characters will be a lot less stiff. ^^

Speaking of drawing without the mannequins: My tutor has started lessons on how to draw the figure from the bottom up. We're on sketching the armature right now and finding how the body masses are tilted and shaped!
Expect to see plenty of my homework on this and please please wish me luck on this new adventure.

Coffee Time

I have the scene set up in all three panels, finally! Doesn't it look so much better without all that sketching mess in the middle of everything? (I can't wait until I'm finally done with the sketch layers. XD) And that little addition of Find the Way on that far table is going to fit perfectly!

I can't wait to see the illustration finalized!

...Of course, let's just ignore how much I'm panicking that I have 4 characters to throw in here. They're going to look great without using clip studio's dolls like I was. And they're not going to be so awfully stiff like in FtW. So what is there to be afraid of?
Nothing at all. But give me a couple hours and I'll have a few more nonsense worries. But let's look on the good side.

The illustration is almost finished!

I've been far too quiet about my own work...

Whooo. The computer did a great job dying a few days ago. Some drivers were making a mess of themselves and it resulted in Windows 10 outright refusing to open, even in Safe Mode. @@ BUT! Due to the intelligence of my very computer smart brother, he managed to copy his version of 10 to this computer and got all of my files back!

The screen is a bit odd, it seems a bit bigger than what I used before, but everything looks and acts perfectly right now.

And praise the artists who have been allowing me to feature their work! I hope that everyone is checking out their galleries and other pieces?

I have been playing a little bit with the Coffee Time comic once the crash excitement settled down. The background is slowly coming to order and I widened the characters and table in the third panel's sketch. It looks like it works so much better now! (Even more exciting? My tutor mentions that it was a good idea!) 

I cannot wait until the computer proves that it's stable enough to handle the figures and painting in this! Wish me luck that everything remains stable for it!

Stock sites and "Coffee Time"

Have I ever complained enough about not finding good references? Because I am complaining now. XD I have all of DeviantArt's stock, Shutterstock, Freeimages, Rgbstock, and several other places to look, but I am so blasted picky when trying to select the right references.

...yeah, that's my story for not having anything last week with my current piece, and I'm sticking to it. XD I'm sorry about that.

Anyway, here is my current sketch of the gestures!

I'm so happy with how much better the scene on panel 1 and especially the actions on 2 seem. That's definitely new, coming from my stuff! Here's hoping the rest of it comes out!

Coffee Time's gestures!

Gestures are finished!

Tip #1: Do not attempt to go through DeviantArt's search without knowing all the information needed for what you search for. This is a very well known thing to those of us who have been on that site for ages, but it seems that Eclipse beta hasn't begun to get straightened out on the search? At least before, it wasn't so hard to avoid bringing up a nude image starting from a low angle by searching for "slapping a table"! 

I hope that they can get things straightened out soon...we're all able to use more search terms than before, so I hope that the good folks will start adding them. (There'll always be users on that site whining that it's deviantart so they don't have to...but the majority are rule-abiding!)

Tip #2: Did you know that for thumbnail images on a comic thing, you don't have to use such strong attempts at perspective? I played a little too literally here and let it have too much focus, but I can't say that I'm upset with playing with the gestures. In a few days, I might go over the gestures at the far table again since Find the Way did better showing Valeon's action than this one did, but these are complete!

I had fun with the whole thing while getting to this point! ...so whining like I did earlier about 'not doing this again' is moot. I'm probably going to make more short comics like this if I get any more ideas for them.

Coffee Time, sketch 2.0

...Yes I have "demoted" this version a little to 2.0. BUT I'm still very happy with how it's worked out so far. When this one is actually finished, it's going to be a proud moment to put it on the Art page!
It's been very fun to play with this to this point so it can't do anything but get better on the final version!

All that said, I hope no one is going to be disappointed that I'm probably not going to do another comic for a little while? XD Still prefer my full images over this, however much fun it's been to learn some tricks and all for this one. I'll definitely be applying some of the shortcuts for this to some of my full images, though!

Before I leave today, I must say Thank You to a certain "bad influence" friend of mine for even making this idea begin to sound fun, what and all the short and hilarious comics he spits out at anything funny that crosses his mind. Just had to say!

Coffee Time as a comic!

I wish I still had some of them to show you (had a computer that held most of them die) but I used to mess with Sonic comics all the time. Why do I bring this up now? This will probably not be something that continues in a regular basis but it's finally come around that I came up with a small comic with a handful of my own characters. Look at this. XD

Right this moment I'm very happy with how most of this has turned out. And I'm more than aware that thumbnails are meant to be my eyes only...sorry if these are difficult to read right now, but I'll get them lined and cleaned up as soon as possible for everyone!
   Oh gosh, I hope I don't get slow on things now. I want to get this finished now that it's started! Just knock on wood with me!

An in-progress thing? Really?

It's been over a MONTH since I've posted anything of my own! *faint* Not that I'm sorry to have so many great pieces to feature...will definitely be keeping that up because it's so fun to see other people's work. But it feels so good to be relaxed enough to sketch some thumbnails of my own. XD

Does anyone at all remember when I threw some thumbnails for a piece called "Coffee Time"? Looking at the date there I'm gonna guess that most answers would be "no". (March was a long way away and not only on internet timekeeping! Goodness knows that even I had to look at the date to remember.)
I bring up that old thing because I've started playing around with it again. Found a better reference for the coffee shop itself and I've figured out a small story to connect it to another old picture! I won't be fully redrawing Find the Way just for this but it'll be fun to have some kind of reaction to that little tantrum of Valeon's.

Poor Cera and Haley, having their get together interrupted in such a way!

Having this come together has been great after having to rest for so long. May this drawing spurt not go dry anytime soon!

Thumbnails are actually pretty fun!

Did you know that when you are gesturing with a cookie, your friend will try to take the cookie from you? That was a lot of fun to waste a square on and it didn't delay the rest of my scene setting at all. ...probably was a very obvious thing but I don't do thumbnails too often. (Am going to have to start with them from here out!)

Had to show this piece of thing off since I learned the smartness of it all. Back to your regular schedules! XD