This Is The Best... Otter, You Are The Best Ever.

Went to the zoo.

Got to feed alpacas.

Totally worth it.

Up here in Canada, despite being more influenced by european standards than US, (French bilingual, the metric system, english spelling in most cases, etc), the V for victory gesture is not considered rude (with either the back of the hand or the palm front). We use index and middle finger when gesturing “two,” Though gesturing with the middle finger is still considered quite rude.

Bilingual mishaps are always fun:

I was at a restaurant once, and a patron was asking a waitress about “more de-sheys...” The english speaking waitress thought she was asking about menu options, dishes, but in French, “des chaise” means “the chairs,” ...she was asking for more seats, because there were going to be more people showing up, and “more” was the only english word in the phrase that she knew.

As for pleasantries: a brief “hello” is usually standard when addressing a cashier, and if it isn’t busy, I’ll trade some brief small talk too.

On a similar vein, Canadians definitely will apologize when someone bumps into them, rather than the other way around. The reason being, if someone bumps into me, I must have been in their way.

Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????

Little sketch of another character. I spent a few hours working on military and law-enforcement gear for this setting I'm developing.

Not sure what this guy's name is... I'm calling him Galen for now, but it doesn't sit right with me.

Sat down and took fifteen minutes to figure out the right and wrong way to use an ellipses template and straightedge to draw cylinders.

I'm pretty sure everyone else in the whole entire world already knows this. I hate having to figure these things out on my own. I could always just stop making art, I suppose.

Pfffft, naw. Who am I kidding. Once more into the breech.

This is one of my favourite poems. ^_^

Happy Hallow' indeed!

Happy Halloween, folks!

Possibly because you're learning: in the time it takes to process and post your work, you've already figured out multiple ways to improve it.

Alternatively: maybe you spent a few hours working on it, so you're already sick and tired of it before it's even posted.

The only reason artists ever post things is that once you display something publicly, it's finished: it's like putting the final nail in the coffin... no take-backs, no do-overs. If you don't post something, you end up fussing with it forever. Once you post, you can put it behind you and move on.

Since artists learn by doing, by the time you're done, you're a better artist than when you started: as such, the features of the work you did at the beginning aren't as good as what you're capable of by the time it's done. So, of course it looks wrong in retrospect: hindsight is 20/40.

Why do I get the urge to delete all my art from the Internet the day after I post it? Am I tired of looking at it already????

UGGG.

I got an early Christmas present... a set of charcoal pencils and sticks, and a pad of paper suitable for them. Lucked out really: charcoal was the last thing on my list of things to play around with that I hadn't yet acquired the materials for. Pretty well the only thing missing was a tortillion, of which I already had a few.

I spent an afternoon playing around, getting a feel for them, but this is the first drawing I've taken the time to sit down and put some effort into.

The process was pretty straight forward: I sketched the figure with an HB charcoal pencil, then darkened the lines and filled in the shade with a 4B. After that, it was a steady cycle of blending with a tortillion, lightening patches with a light application of 4mm eraser stick or kneaded eraser, laying down more charcoal where needed, and back to blending again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Man, I love this stuff! It's much better for heavy shade than graphite, and it doesn't make as much of a mess as I thought it would. Charcoal doesn't compare to india ink for pure, solid black, I don't think anything could, but the charcoal is so much more workable. I don't mind the time and effort it takes to build up a ton of hatching with a nib pen, but all you can do is build up. Being able to lay down, blend, and erase charcoal was an utter delight. 

I might do a few more pages of that steampunk comic I worked on a while back, just for something to do in charcoal.

'Nother charcoal drawing. WhiteFox likes snow. WhiteFox likes snow very much. Also, I am apparently one of those select few who has the right kind of face for tea-shades, so I consider myself lucky there.

I don't really draw my avatar all that often... I'm not really sure how to define him. I don't think of him as a fictional character, persona, or mascot. He represents me, but I don't think of him as being me. I guess he's like the visual component of a pen-name.

I don't like this drawing as much as the one I previously posted, probably because I didn't get to define the planes of the face or neck. Course, when you're matte white, there's not a lot you can do. I did play around with using unblended strokes to add definition to the hair and beard, and it was an informative exercise, but it doesn't carry a whole lot of visual impact.

Still... I like it. 

Follow up from the 3x3 headshots. Dun like the shape of the muzzle, but not too horrible otherwise.

Inked on paper, touched up in Photoshop. I did more editing on this one than I usually like to do... my hands were reeeally shaky, though, so the lines were even more shabby than usual. 

Edit: I like the new monogram I'm using. (Compare to the one on the pic of Galen.)

reblogging to my art tumblr, since photography counts for that sorta thing. Sorry for the redundancy.

So, on our daily walk to the McDonalds today, my brother and I took a detour through the waterfowl park, and came across not one, but two geese in the middle of the path, each with a little bundle of baby goslings. I apologize for the picture quality, but all I had on me was my iPod touch, and nothing to brace it on. Also: we didn’t want to get too close, since geese can be very protective, territorial, and irritable. We stood around for at least twenty minutes, and they held up any foot traffic coming through. Every now and then, one of the adults would stand up straight, stretch their neck upward, look around, and hiss at anything they didn’t like the look of. After a time, one bundle of goslings made their way across the path, one at a time, and snuggled in with the other bundle. Occasionally, one of the adults would check out the little ones, and get jumped on, or pick through the grass looking for edibles. Not gonna lie, it was pretty adorable.

We didn’t see any ducklings, but did spot plenty of ducks swimming around in pairs, so you know they’re on the way. X3