Neon Dragon's Supa Big Exciting Journal That Holds the Key to Universal Harmony

Fae Dragons

Fri, 09 May 2008 03:00:44 GMT

Finally finished up the fae dragon designs for Flight Rising. After taking 3 months off :-/ These uh... don't fit so well on the page together, but oh well :-/

Sleepy Fox

Thu, 08 May 2008 09:28:57 GMT

The cute and cuddly animal spree is almost at an end. Bec recommended to me that I should do a baby lolrus in a bukkit ^^ We'll see =3

Promise more dragons are on the way >.> And they shall have only one highlight to their eyes!

Hugs Plz Finished

Sun, 04 May 2008 11:54:05 GMT

And done! I think he's going to make a great sticker. If there's enough interest, I may do a tee too, but sadly it won't be ready in time for Anime Central :-(

A couple of people have wondered why I sometimes throw a thick border around my art. Usually it's because it's intended for something, in this case a sticker. Dye cutting to the exact edges of the design itself would be very difficult and pricey. The thick border gives it some leeway. Same with certain tee designs.

hugz plz

Sat, 03 May 2008 07:58:02 GMT

More sickeningly adorable sticker designs.

In prog

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:50:38 GMT

More akiri elfs:

Nom Nom Nom

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:58:03 GMT

I'm still working on new designs for stickers for my massive sticker order. I hope to have it placed very soon! It would be nice to have the stickers in time for Anime Central. I still need to draw up some more chibis according to the votes people placed on that poll a month back.

I'd like to do some chibi animals to be made into stickers as well. This guy might make a cute sticker/tee. I think I'd like to do a baby fox and gryphon too. =3 At the same time, I want to get the Flight Rising God dragons finished and some personal art done as well. Eeep!

Fire Dragons

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:31:44 GMT

The Fire Lord, Dragon God 3 of 11 for the Flight Rising Project. Still needs LOTS of work, but I got the inking and some flats done while at Tekkoshocon.

Akiri Elfs

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:25:01 GMT

I fancied I'd update with something so I stop receiving "r u dead?" e-mails. (Somewhat silly: If I was dead, I'm not going to answer you!) This is something I'm doing for Akiri of his mage. Needs shading an the like.

Some New Line Art

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:58:35 GMT

As per request, there's some new lineart in the coloring bin. I hope you enjoy them!

I'll post the fae dragons later tonight. I think that today shall be tutorial day. Something fresh and new, not a redo of past tutorials or a book excerpt. Tomorrow I hope to do another chibi (whatever's currently on top of the poll) and then go back to doing dragon god art. The Firelord shall be awesome, ho ho! And that's the cunning plan >.>;

I feel like I should be updating my website more often :-/

E-mail situation is at crisis point. Apologies.

Stickers: Chibi Demon Lineart

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:00:23 GMT

And the lineart for the little demon guys is done. Kinda cliche, but kind fun. I removed the "demon" option from the poll, since he was allready voted up to the point where he's going to be completed. Greek gods are still an option because I have many gods I have not yet done, as well as many other fun themes. Give your opinions here. (you can vote on multiple things with one vote, but vote only once.)

Stickers: Chibi Hera

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:12:24 GMT

At the time I started this, Greek Gods was at the top of the poll. It's now second to demon, so Hades, Zeus and the gang are gonna have to wait before I do another god. Here is chibi Hera. (sketchform)

A non-live store page of the stickers I intend to create so far. I'm probably going to end up with upwards of 25 designs before I'm done ^^; Please don't try to order any of these stickers. The page isn't live, and they simply are not printed yet! I'm curious what people think of the choices, and if there's anything in particular from my gallery that they'd really like a sticker-form of.

I'm starting in on the demon chibi, since he's currently at the top of the poll. I'm a little bit unsure of what to draw, as I can think of two interpretations for demon. One would be a little goth guy with red eyes, horns, black bat wings, and maybe a tail in black clothing, probably a trench coat or something Victorian. The other would be the archetypal little red guy demon. The one who sits on your shoulder and argues with the angel who sits on the other shoulder. I can see people kinda wanting both, just stumped as to which one is what they voted for. They would look very different, and appeal to different crowds =X

Stickers + Please Give me Your Opinion

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:58:47 GMT

Edit: And... done! Poll is still open. Will do the top voted design when I wake up.

I found a great place to get short print-run glossy polyester stickers made. I am very excited! The problem is that much of my artwork is insuitable to be shrunk down to 2-3 inches tall. Much if it is too detailed, to painted, or just not sticker-material. I have found a small selection of cel-style dragons that will work out great for stickers, but I'm going to have to largely create most of the images from scratch. I don't have any good images of people that will shrink down well. As I sell my work mostly at anime cons, this could be a problem!

I wanted to do a set of chibis that would work for the stickers, and possible for buttons and t-shirts if people would like. (but stickers are my main goal). Here is my first chibi, still in progress. I'm such a little weeaboo. ^^; I'm going to try hard to reference costuming with these so that they're accurate. The one below was referenced from this. The pose was cute =3

Poll for what chibis I should draw next. You can choose multiple answers. I value your opinions. I don't know what people will want, and I really don't want to do them all... You can add your own answer if there's something you want that you don't see.Keep in mind that these are for stickers, and POSSIBLY buttons and tees. But mainly stickers. So if you could vote for things that YOU would like to see as a chibi sticker, please do so!

The fae dragon set is done. I should have it uploaded tomorrow. Gotta assemble them together to look all cute and stuff.

Wry!?!?!?

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:27:46 GMT

i am reactivate gaia k? i dun no y tho...

The Light Weaver

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:46:01 GMT

I battled with this, and it really didn't come out the way I had envisioned, but it's time to set it down and call it done. It's not horrible or anything. Just not what I wanted.

More Fae Dragons

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:01:48 GMT

Doop.

Fae Dragon Color

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:43:06 GMT

Needs moar babies.

Mirror Dragons + Fae Dragon

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:31:38 GMT

The finished set of Mirror dragons:

And the start of the Fae dragon designs. (Still needs inks and color, obviously!)

And then there were 3.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:55:06 GMT

I can't help it, I'm excited about the new Star Wars TV series. The 3D animation stylization I originally despised, but it's growing on me.

Zombie Panic is another link Xhaztol pointed me toward. It's a half life two mod that's fairly unique. Players enter a city and 1-4 of them will be infected and become a zombie. The human players must stay alive, and the zombie players must kill, and thus infect the surviving humans. If you die as a human, you rise as a zombie. Trying to survive the duration is very fun! Highly recommended if you own half life 2.

All of these were created 100% digitally. I think that I have retained my inking style despite the fact that its now digital instead of done on paper and scanned in. I may look into creating anything I intend to ink 100% on the computer from now on; however, things where I do not want inked I will likely be creating in my sketchbook and scanning in the old way.

>.>;

=3

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:08:57 GMT

Xhaztol pointed out that my art is on Joystiq =D (They followed my image usage guidelines and provided credit. ^_^) What's more, it comes with good news. A possible Lair control fix. Reading the article it sounds more like a port... but eh, whatever. I loved the music and graphics of the game. The game play wasn't awful by any means... but the controls were. I hope this goes through.

Speaking of the music, here's one of my favorite tracks:
John Debney: Firestorm

25

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:41:49 GMT

I'm now 25. That's 15 years from 40, 25 years from 50, and 55 years from probable death barring injury or illness. w00t!

I had a fun time at A&G Ohio this past weekend. Thanks to everyone who stopped by my table and visited the Photoshop panel.

I was very pleased with the setup we had at A&G, and its something I hope to do at future conventions. I had my laptop facing out toward people visiting my booth, and my tablet facing me, so that people could see what I was painting WHILE I was painting it. I enjoyed doing demonstrations and answering questions as I worked. What's more, I didn't feel guilty for working at a con! Previously I was isolating myself behind my laptop and no one could see what I was doing and was hesitant to talk to me for fear of interrupting. Not a good setup.

Speaking of the tablet, there's a pixel gone bad smack dab in the middle of my cintiq display. Its red. It's very small. I called wacom about it and I guess it's not going to get any better or worse, and cannot be returned for one pixel that's not gone completely bad. Since its shining red, not black, it's partially functioning. As stated, it's VERY small. It's ONE pixel on a decent resolution of LCD moniter, but... I get to look at it for as long as I use this tablet. Joy!

I've been getting quite a bit of work done of late. The third tutorial book is picking up full force, and Akiri had a 5 day weekend to work on Flight Rising. Seeing all his progress is very motivating and makes me want to work faster. The project is coming along nicely!

Kudos to Anon on their peaceful IRL protest of Scientology. I was genuinely impressed with their conduct. Protests such as what was seen on Feb 10th will go much farther toward promoting a cause then internet crimes ever will.

Dragon nao has psychobaby. Yay.

Quickie color

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:34:10 GMT

Cheap Tablet Experiment:

More Tablet Power (though half of this was allready done):

Bwee

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:40:43 GMT

Well, after some installation headaches and a "hello" to working with dual monitors, I have my cintiq up and running. I'm really enjoying it so far, though I havn't really gotten past the curve just yet, as I know I could do things quicker on my old tablet at the moment.

I warmed up for a couple hours finishing the coloring and shading on an image for Flight Rising.

After that, I sketched up this... directly on the screen. Mind you, it's no masterpiece and I still prefer pencil and paper, but this was neat to do because I've always had difficulty drawing directly into the computer. Funky head crest inspired by Beast of Oblivion. This guy was supposed to be based on dual things. Dual crest, dual eyes, arms, wings, tail... I think I may ditch the second wing and second set of baby arms >.>; The multiples may have been a lame tangent.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:45:09 GMT

Its here.

Its a sign

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:34:04 GMT

For the past two months I've been drooling over the digital marvel that is the 12 inch Cintiq, the newest offering from Wacom. I decided not to purchase one, because for the past 6 years I've gotten by just fine on a little 4x6 Graphire. *begin tangent*

Oh wacom, you sexy beast you:

The Graphire's really small, and that area I'm working on represents the entire area of my computer screen. I have to be zoomed in rediculously close to have my movements and lines be smooth and clean. The size on my Graphire has been something I want to correct for a while now.

The Graphire doesn't have shortcut keys, which means I've got one hand on the keyboard for any "shift" adds "alt" take-aways "ctrl-alt-z" step backs, and "[" or "]" brush size increase/reductions I need to make on the fly. Usually my tablet rests above or below the plane where the keyboard is, depending on if I've got my tablet resting on the moniter ledge or my lap. It's uncomfortable to hold that position for hours, but I get by. The Cintiq, like the newer models if Intuos, allows you to scroll and program several shortcut keys ON the tablet, so I could have both hands on the same plane. That would be nice.

The graphire model I have has 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. This means that if I press harder, the pen will register 256 unique levels of pressure. When I first got into digital art, I had an intuos that at the time had 512 levels of sensitivity. When it broke prematurely, I got the graphire and noticed no difference in how it was reading my pressure and pen tilt at all. Intuos wuz ttly a rip-off!!1! At the time, I was clearly an expert in digital artwork and would have totally been able to appreciate the difference in control:

i maed this 4 sakura mirror in 2001 an he has sparklies cuz he needed teh sparklies cuz thats gud art wiff highlites and ppl just dun't understand how importantz highlites r 2 a pictrue!!1!!!! i no those arn't kanji but I mades them liek kanji cuz that wuz c00l.

With the 256 to 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity I would hope that at this point in my art I may be able to appreciate the difference, though obviously I still have a long way to go in my digital work.

Finally, there's the fact that with the Cintiq, I would be drawing directly on the screen. Nay, in my lap. There's a reason I avoid drawing and inking digitally, and it's the fact that I like seeing what I'm doing while I'm doing it, not watching the moniter with my hands mindlessly moving below me. I could set up a dual moniter setup and run around with my laptop, having the menus all on the laptop screen, and a gorgeous corner to corner zoom in on whatever I'm working on RIGHT IN MY LAP. I think this is the most appealing feature for me.

*end tangent*

Now... about the sign? Despite all these advantages of the cintiq, I couldn't justify getting one because for all that it's better then the graphire... I'm getting by JUST FINE on my graphire. Why replace it with something 10x more expensive when I've got something that still works? That's just wasteful.

Well, today my cord snapped and it's got wires poking out. It will still draw, but has very strange glitches. I'm unsure of whether the cored frayed from constant use or from my wire-loving kitty cats getting into my workstation. The point is, I need a new tablet. I should be bummed about this, but I'm strangely happy that I can now justify what I felt to be a whimsical purchase.

------------------------------

Edit: It is done. My bank account is not happy, but I am =3

DeviantArt

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:41:26 GMT

Since the rise of Deviantart and other such galleries, artists just don't seem to make personal homepages anymore, or if they do... there's not much on them. =(