New Year, new... something...?

Hi. It's me.

If you actually follow my nonsense... you might have noticed that I have ultimately failed my goal I claimed exactly one year ago. ^^; You are correct, I am no closer to finalizing my comic plans.
Admittedly, I only slowed down because I began working full time... but then I never caught back up. That and other major things came up at various times during the year. But yeesh... I even failed my attempt at getting it together with NaNoWriMo. My comic is looking a little more distant these days.

I have many MANY plans for this year, however... I tend to optimistically over-book myself at Resolution/Goal time. Some things on my plate:

• More freelance work or (and?) steady employment
• Portfolio makeover for obtaining these
• My OWN place ~_~
• MOAR crafting... maybe for a small Etsy shop?
(I actually started a tumblr for my crafting. We'll see if I keep it up.)
• HUGE, involved cosplay for Dragon*Con in September
• Still... workin' on that comic pipedream. *sigh*

Those are just to name a few. Very reasonable, I think... but I don't have the best track record for declaring and then maintaining goals.

Well anyway. Comic-wise, not much is going on at the moment. Sadly, I didn't finish my 10k-word draft for NaNoWriMo, but it did make me want to continue and do some serious character development.
While the cast on the fantasy end is pretty tacked down, I had to do a major overhaul to those of the modern setting, ie., Tavé and her friends. The characters have actually existed for a long time... a good 9-10 years, apparently. Have a look. I realize I haven't depicted these guys visually since then. XD Their names and looks have certainly evolved and changed from their creation in a 15-year-old brain. Remind me to get on that.

I did finally update lil miss Tavé, however. Click her picture for the deviantART link, along with some fun character info... that I really should post here. Ugh... remind to get on that as well. Eventually every character should have a page.
ANYWAY. She's certainly come a long way appearance-, personality-, and role-wise. I'm also really liking the style development I was experimenting with. Her facial features and expressions are much easier to reproduce and give a much more distinctive, stylized look.

More character stuff... eventually. I'm really not sure these days. I have so much I'm trying to tackle, I'll have to see where things like this fit in. Since I plan on doing some portfolio work, I might throw in some turnarounds and expressions studies for Tavé and crew. All things I've needed to do anyway, lol... but portfolio fodder never hurts. So... if you're still around and interested; things will be slow. But still coming. I promise. Mmmm.... don't hold me to this one. XD

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PS: Check my new navigation bar up there. :)

Style Experiment

Another nerdy post... but it does have relevant artwork!
In fact, that's kinda the point of this one. I've been trying to post it for days now... but it's lengthy and I've been rather busy doing insane hours at work @_@ (last post if you care).

Okay so.
While drawing my main character, Miss Tavé Deveaux... the same way I've been drawing her for years.... I discovered she could really use some work. Design-wise.

Granted that there shows my awful drawing skills from early high school. XD But still. Even in her later incarnations, it's just not working. For such an interesting and exotic personality that I've written her to be... her look is suddenly rather boring to me. Not only this, but the look and style I had fallen into rendering her with is pretty bulky and inefficient. Great for illustrating; but if I plan to make this a comic (ie: drawing characters over and over from various angles...), my style needs some streamlining. And not just on a character-by-character basis.

What I am trying to avoid, though, is changing my style completely. People have pointed out that my current style and look is unique, which is awesome. X3 But I really like it as well— I don't want to lose some of my trademark elements, but sadly, there are some problems with certain things.
Now I could sit and pick apart my own art forever (which I will try my best to avoid, lol), but I suppose some examples are in order. Here, have an experimental Tavé.

Before you sit and wonder what's different (beyond the obvious), a lot of my character design knowledge went into this experiment. I do actually claim to draw for animation, so I applied many of these principles in the redesign:

• Simplified anatomy
• More expressive features
• More aesthetic shapes
• Stronger silhouette

As an added challenge, I tried for repetition of shapes in certain elements like her eyes/glasses, eyebrows/hairline (yeah, Tavé has rather thick brows, lol), and quite obviously her hair. The little curly-cue dealy I want to carry into things like her clothing and maybe poses, as it's awesome base a character on a central shape like that. I could see her posture as... swirly. Lol.

I am hoping this is an okay look, however... Because this is still a fantasy comic. It just feels to me that the magic can be lost if it looks too... toony? Hmmm. See now... this is where I need feedback. XD I might cross-post something to this effect in my deviantART journal, since there really isn't much traffic here. <.< *ahem?*

Anyway...
I hope I can keep this up with my crazy working hours, lol. I would really like to draw and experiment more, but I've not had the problem of finding time for it in quite a while, lol.

So stay tuned.

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