A Few Streams in!

I’m about 3 full streams into my Twitch experiment. So far only a few technical hiccups. But as a friend of mine said, “You gotta go through it to grow through it.” Wise words. It’s been great fun and I hope to continue. The stream has been pretty great fun. I have done a couple of pieces in them that you’ll see below. They are another step on my journey to fully master color. This has by far been one of the most challenging things that I have tries to master in my artistic journey.

This one is of the Mancubus for the Critical Role one shot for Doom Eternal. It is truly a lot of fun and if you’re a fan of Doom or Dungeons and Dragons, this is most definitely a video for you. If you’re not familiar with Critical Role, they are a group of Voice actors that play D&D. It’s, of course, more than just that as they have almost single handedly revived the hobby for a whole new generation.

This drawing is not my best work, but boy is it still funny. I think the Mancubus and the Revenant were both my favorite characters. This piece experimented a lot with light and shadows considering the armor is jagged and odd shaped. Without the shading it looked super weird and it was an interesting time trying to get everything textures so as not to look flat.

Her signature phrase was to just yell her own name at the top of her lungs. It was, like everything Laura Bailey does, absolutely amazing.

Anyway, I had started this drawing on one of my streams but finished it off camera. I couldn’t just let it hang there. That might be something I will do in the future. Start and end the same drawing on stream. Not all in one sitting, I don’t think. But continue a drawing from where I left off. I don’t know, we‘ll see. This whole twitch thing is super new to me.

Here is another drawing I had started on stream. It is, of course, Natasha Romanov. She is better known as Black Widow of Avengers fame. This was an excellent expensive in color variance. Her outfit is monochromatic. Basically that means her outfit is basically one color. What makes this a great exercise is single color outfits are actually HARDER to color because you can easily lose the shape of the person by having one flat color across the whole thing. This is where blending is some highlights and shadow in a subtle way really comes in.

The trick is not to be overpowering with the light. At least in this case. You just want there to be just a little bit of a hint of light. However, if I wanted her to be in the shadows stealthing about, than I may have switched the lighting up.

All in all, I am happy with this piece. Once again, I finished it off stream. I need to really re-assess that strategy. I really want to create an artistic journey. I wish I had the time to stream for hours at a time and do one full drawing in a single stream. That isn’t doable in the long term. Though I have the time to do that right now due to quarantine, I wont have time to do that after the world returns to normal. I’m trying to build good habits so I can continue to stream my work on Twitch.

Anyway, Black Widow was fun. However, there were a couple of other pieces I did that were not on stream.

This drawing is of no one in particular but the big thing about this one is the color style I incorporated. I tried something a little different this time around. I used a base color for each of the piece of clothing plus the hair and skin. Then I tried different shades of that color to create highlights and shadows. I think it turned out really good, however I want something more. When I discover what that is I’ll be sure to let you know.

What I do like from this is the texture of the clothing. You can almost see muscle structure with he shading. This is something I want to explore. Can I use color to create anatomy vs using shading, Only time will tell.

One thing that this coloring style does is really accentuate my “messy” line art. I am not digging on it. I actually like the aesthetic. I need to practice line art without making “hairy” lines. There are sometimes when I want my work to look super clean.

Here is the last full piece I’ve drawn this week. I really like this one. Maybe because its my most recent. Maybe because I like the attitude of it. I cant quite put my finger on it. I can say that I landed the coloring. I used base color and then I used different shades to create highlights and shadows, It turned out way better than my first attempt above.

The colors seem sharper somehow. One of the things that bugged me about the other coloring techniques I’ve tried is that the colors always seemed subdued somehow. They always appeared quite bland. Here the colors are vibrant. The shadows don’t look “dirty” or “sooty”. They accent the primary color I used as the base.

Now I need some extra work to really make the work pop. What that is I currently do not know. However, this is the first time I feel I made significant progress on color schemes. Who knows, that may change when I look at this again in a week. That always seems to happen doesn’t it?

I am pretty proud of all the work that I’ve posted here today, but I’m particularly proud of this one. I hope you all like it too.

Anyway, I’ll be signing off now. I hope that all of this quarantine weirdness isn’t getting to you yet. Make sure to get some exercise. Make sure to get some mental stimulation even if that means a 10 minute meditation every day. Also, reach out to your loved ones and see how they’re doing. I think I’ve said this before, don’t let social distancing mean social isolation. We are social creature. Find ways to reach out and connect even if you’re quarantined. Take care of yourself during these strange days. You still want to be you on the other side of this thing. I guess what I’m trying to say is continue to work on you even if no one is watching at the moment.

Piece and health to you all. See you soon.

Poofypuma