Okay, Some More Alpaca Pictures. There Were Three Of Them.

Dangit, Robert, stop scaring small children with your face. Seriously. Put that away.

Prelim concept for another comic character. Robert Granger is a HR manager on the space station where James lives. He's a yappy yuppie puppy, a little too enthusiastic, and way too over-caffeinated. His outfit is a hybrid of business suit and jumpsuit, I'm gonna have to play with that some more.

This is loaded with fail... that's what I get for inking an unfinished design. Except for the scaring-small-children-face. That's a keeper.

Bleah. So much fail.

Decided to sit down and see how well I could draw heads from a full range of angles. I think  the worst is the lower left one, since I really wasn't sure what the heck the far side of the face should look like. I'm surprised the right coulomb came out as well as it did.

Two big mistakes on this one... First, the blocks I used to rough in the positions were cubes, when heads are actually 2/3rds as wide as they are tall. I think the left coulomb looks off because the eyes are too far apart (for comparison, the drawing on the right was done with the proportions I usually use). Second, the heads are turned about 45 degrees, and tilted 30 degrees... that's at the extreme end of how far the neck can bend. Comfortably.

For the record: by "mistake" I mean "I should have known better," not "things I did wrong." The things I did wrong are legion, and it'll probably take me a month just to google up the reference images I'll need to study.

(Quickly) inked in photoshop. The pencil and paper version was a mess.

Capoeira is really fun to draw.

*’m L*lling at this harder than * really should be.

*IoI. X3

if you c*nsor anything in a post you are l*gally required to put all of the omitted v*wels at the end as a footn*te

*eeoo

 I got so lucky with this shot of a black jaguar... caught him in just the right light to show the faint rings on his coat, and he's in a great pose to boot.

A bunch of quick and loose drawings. I do these as warmups whenever I'm having a hard time getting started and when I need to play around with poses for comics. No refs, just a heap of sticks and spheres.

I can't remember how long it took to do them... maybe three minutes per figure, though I usually go back and spend a few minutes cleaning up the ones that I like.

Ember-Bell's story is entirely plot driven, and she is an entirely passive character. The story moves forward because things happen to her, not because of things that she does. She endures her problems, but does not attempt to actively solve, resist, or avert them. She doesn't attempt to do anything to improve or alter her situation. She is reactive rather than proactive.

Because she is passive, her character doesn't experience any struggle. As such she is fairly pitiable, but does nothing to earn sympathy. I feel sad for her plight, but I don't have any way to cheer for her because she just isn't trying. I don't feel invested in the story or emotionally attached to the character, because there's nothing to make me wonder "will she make it?" or "how is she going to handle this?" She isn't trying to make anything happen, nor is she trying handle the situation at all. She just sits through it apathetically and suffers.

This powerlessness is Ember-Bell's only defining personality trait. It's the only thing that defines who she is, and everything else about her focuses on what she is. For comparison: Twilight Sparkle is intelligent, logical, methodical, and awkward outside her element. These are personal traits, and independent of whether she's an earth pony, unicorn, or princess. Ember-bell, on the other hand, is... well, she's resigned to her fate. We don't know anything about what she's like other than that. If she were something else, like an ordinary earth pony, she wouldn't even have that trait because she wouldn't have this horrible fate to be resigned to.

This goes far deeper than personality traits like her favourite colour or distinctive catch phrases... we don't know how she thinks, we don't know what her attitudes or morals are, we don't know if she has any principals or ideals. She's just... resigned.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that Ember has no character faults. She didn't do anything wrong to deserve this fate, so there's nothing for her to atone for... or she can't remember  what she did, which has the same end result. She doesn't have any flaws or shortcomings, so there's no potential for her to grow. Typically, in stories like these, a character gains the power to break their curse by overcoming their inner weaknesses. Ember doesn't seem to have any inner weaknesses to overcome, though.

To play devil's advocate, I suppose Ember's helplessness could be due to the format of an ask-tumblr: her actions are dictated by prompts from the reader. Unfortunately, Ember's ignorance of the mechanics surrounding her "condition" is transferred to the readers: she doesn't know how this actually works, and neither do we. All we know is what doesn't work. We know how to loose the game, but not how to win or even how to play. We, like her, are left stumbling around in the dark desperately trying not to make a wrong move. The only option is to guess randomly, grasping at straws, hoping to eventually poke something that works.

Even then, Ember responds to most such guesses with "that doesn't work, you don't understand at all." Which isn't exactly encouraging or motivational.

Conversely...

I love the concept, and how it's presented. The story is about a character who is aware that she is in a story, and that kind of meta-narrative/self-awareness is hard to handle well... and it's handled quite well so far. And I honestly can't get enough of stuff like that. If it weren't for the whole "stumbling around in the dark" thing, I would be submitting asks on a daily basis because this is a universe that I want to play in.

A Long Answer For A quick question

So I’ve been thinking a bit on this, and about my blog here, and I decided that I really need some sorta of feedback from you guys, my followers. It’s very important, and it’s just a little question or two. It’d really help me out in the long run. <3

1. Do you guys enjoy Ember’s story?

2. If so, what would you like to see more of?

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.

What part of “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY” do these people not understand? Goddam.

Watch: Latina journalist Maria Hinojosa epically shuts down a condescending Trump adviser on the word “illegals”

Unplanned Adventure Comics!

'Kay, so... after helping Verzi with his little April Fools stunt, I've come to a realization: I plan way, way too much. Seriously. Whenever I start up a comic, I spend months doing preparation work. Lame.

So I started a new tumblr: Unplanned Adventure Comics! In three days, I'm gonna start posting comics based on whatever I come up with on the spot, and just run with it. You guys can submit material for me to make use of, using the ask button (Labled "Suggest Something Unplanned") Or the submit button, I guess (Labled "Submit").

A few guidelines:

You can make suggestions for anything: characters, plot, setting, themes, art style, items, genre, you name it.

No copyrighted material. This is going to be all original material, I'm not gonna be throwing Naruto/MLP/MegaMan in there. I am willing to do something inspired by existing franchises, however. Parody, satire, spoof, or similar basic concepts.

Likewise, I'm not going to be inserting other people's characters. I'm looking for suggestions and ideas, not full character biographies. I want to sorta make this up as I go along, after all.

Once the "story" actually get going, there will probably be some homestuck/Ask Woona sorta stuff, where the story advances based on what the readers suggest, with a bit of whatever-I-feel-like thrown in for good measure.

So! You have two days: Do your worst, and I'll give you my best. Let's see what happens.