The Shadows on My Wall Don't Sleep

Is faceless no longer!

 

My first, and so far only, attempt to give a doll a face.

I did a layer of pastel shading (which the camera mostly ate) to contour her nose/eye sockets and the sides of her face/behind her ears. Then, in a move I almost regretted, I did her lips with a pastel that looked like a good lip color and painted it on damp rather than dry.

Hello lipstick. I wasn't sure Talar was actually a dark lipstick sort of girl though, hence the near regret. I decided to keep on with it though, and gave the pastels a coat of sealer.

Then it was onto the tubes of water color, raw umber and burnt sienna, for her brows and eye liner. The brows, those were a major pain. I tried sketching them on with powdered pastel... nope, not enough color stuck for me to see it and it was way too imprecise. I tried with an orange pastel pencil about a half dozen times each and was only managing to polish the brown bone as I erased them to redo (and tinted the area orange as well). Eventually I said "screw it" and grabbed a dark brown pastel stick and sketched them in with the corner, it only took about three tries to get her right to match her left close enough. :P Then I attempted to brush the paint on like individual hairs and the 10/0 brush immediately showed that it was not fine enough for that, but it gave a reasonable brow texture so I went with it.

After all that the eye liner was almost a let down for how easy it was.

The lower lashes made up for that.

I then tackled the lips. My paint set has a tube of "flesh tone" paint, it's basically an opaque pale peach color, so I did a wash of that over the lips to tone down the color. Getting that to the point of "not too streaky" was a whole lot of fiddling and frustration. Then the crease between her lips was too pale, so I had to go in with the 10/0 liner and some of the raw umber to darken that up again, and then fiddle with the lower lip and the streakiness again to blend that in. Finally I felt enough was enough and I patted on some powdered terracotta pastel to even out the lower lip and called it good.

I really like the color I ended up making there.

Fingers were crossed when I sealed it; I was told, after I was in the middle of all this, that applying sealer over tube watercolor can make the watercolor blur.

After all that I figured "why the hell not?" and glued in some orange lashes I bought ages ago for her and my other redheads and had never got around to sticking in their eyes.

Now I just need to get my hands on a small bottle of acrylic gloss to add a hint of shine to her lips, but I'm happy enough with the matte look that I'm not going to worry about it.

I am now the owner of a Genius PenSketch 9x12" graphics tablet. (A delayed birthday gift from hafoc, thank you!) While it doesn't have the fancy extra tips of an Intuos3, or tilt sensitivity, the sensitivity it does have is driving me a bit bonkers, sort of like sketching with a somewhat leaky pen.

Though maybe that's linked to a problem I've been having with my mouse lately, it's been double clicking and hypersensitive. I have no idea what could be causing that since I haven't mucked about with my mouse settings. It doesn't happen with the mouse that came with the tablet, but that mouse isn't sized well for my large hands so I'd rather not switch to using that exclusively.

I'll figure it all out eventually.

[Spoke too soon, the mouse on tablet is also starting to get twitchy. Hmm.]

I will not be restoring any of my art to my old LJ posts and I will not be posting any future art here unless it it totally "kid safe". Since LJ has seen fit to allow their abuse team to determine whether or not a piece has "artistic merit", and will permanently ban anyone posting "obscene" material, I just don't feel comfortable posting nude, or even mildly sexy, furry art.

Most of my art will still be posted on deviantART. Stuff that seems a bit iffy for them (an increasing proportion of my art since they are also "adjusting" their policies) will go to my website, when I get that section back up.

I may start posting my art to my InsaneJournal, since they have a very open policy and require a threat of legal action to force them to take things down.

When I do post art anywhere I will alert people here, I don't think LJ is purging anyone for links yet....

I have in my DeviantART gallery a few pieces of fanart. I don't draw much of it because it bugs me that I can't make the characters look right but every now and then I give into the urge.

Three guesses which piece has the most favorites.

Yes indeed, the Yuusuke/Kurama/Hiei suggestive threesome pose is getting quite popular. *sigh* It's not very good so why do they favorite it? Is it that rare to see an image of Yuusuke looking all pervy, groping Kurama and about to lick his back? And I know Kurama about to go down on Hiei isn't rare in fanart.

I put it up because as bad as the art is there were a few major personal artistic hurdles that I managed to get over, even if it wasn't with any sort of grace. It doesn't deserve 21 favorites. I don't think it really deserves 1919 views but I'll give that the benefit of "looks better in thumbnail" for view inflation.

Well I suppose it's better than the flamewar that went on in the comments on one of the Daria pieces. *sigh*

I shall remind myself that the most popular piece in my Elfwood FanQuarter is Super Saiyan Sailor Harry Potter and snicker about all the "that's so wrong" comments.

It's been a while since I posted any art, largely because it's been a while since I've made any, but I do have a sketch lying around since just after Thanksgiving.... This probably not going to go any farther so I might as well show it around.

Hands suck. That's what killed this one more than any other problem. I could live with the boobs bigger than her head thing but the hands... nuh uh.

I was in both a goth and pirate-y mood so... goth pirate? Pirate goth? I think I was planning to sit her on a cask of rum or something. *shrug*

On October 26th I will have had my deviantART gallery for one year. I currently have 964 pageviews. I'd really like to have 1000 on the 26th. So if you could stop by and pimp my gallery to friends I'd really appreciate it.

I've been chatting with someone about cosplaying Kaede (from Inuyasha) and came up with this idea for her friend with lots of long dark hair.

( Diagram behind the cut )

The basic idea is that for a person with a lot of hair a wig might be a bit of a hassle. Since Kaede (and several other characters I can think of) ties her hair in a very low ponytail there's theoretically room for a snood (a cloth or net sack to hold a person's hair) above the tie.

Now if someone were cosplaying Kikyo and already had long dark hair (long in this case being sufficient to bind into a tail at the appropriate point) this is overkill. If their hair is dark and long enough then all they really need is a (possibly modified) Halo frame (if they don't want to cut fringe) and some wefted hair to match their own hair to add length to the ponytail.

Getting back to the snood-wig, it could also be used by someone with shorter hair if they wanted to have something lighter than a full wig (since even old lady anime characters have huge amounts of hair it seems). They could just add some stuffing to the snood (and possibly a small weight in the bottom to make the hair behave more naturally).

Disclaimer: I have not built a snood-wig so this is all theory based on my knowledge of things like wigs and sewing.

If my server were up I'd put an image here, but for now you just get a link. Scroll down a bit to get to the tachikoma.

Edit to add: Tachikoma Grand Theft Auto mod.

9-16-05: Server is up so here are some pictures.

Snagged from joisbishmyoga

1. Go to eLouai's Doll Maker.
2. Make a doll of yourself, trying to stay close to what you really look like.
3. Then, make another. Mary Sue!You. Extra points for wings.
4. Post!

( See the dolls )

So there's doll!me (wish I looked that good), two sues (since I have two trends in my sue-ness, though the limited clothing and hair choice made Sue2 come across more like Sue1 ), and something I cooked up because there's about 5 camo bottoms in the dollmaker and I keep thinking I need to try something with that.

Paper weighs a lot. I rediscover this every time I pack my sketchbook bag.

I am not looking forward to the walk between the "cheap" (for some Philadelphia value of cheap) garage and the hotel. The luggage has wheels (as opposed to The Luggage, which has feet), but I still have the book bag and my laptop briefcase (and if I weren't the sort to do the fanny pack deal for cons I'd have a purse too).

And I loathe Philadelphia. And this year we're actually in the middle of the foul beast rather than skirting the fringes. The City of Brotherly Love makes me wish I was licensed to carry concealed (or to carry period). I fully plan on not leaving the hotel except for going from car to hotel and hotel back to car at the beginning and end of the con. I might consider leaving for a meal or two, if going in a fairly large group that I can somehow keep toward the middle of rather than traveling at the edge of the herd. Philadelphia makes me feel like a prey animal and I don't like it.

Oh yeah, I was going to post art in this one. I almost forgot. Those legs I drew so long ago got a torso and arms and stuff.