Hex Through the Years (v2)

Gosh I love stuff like this.

See it bigger here.

- Hex

Faceless Flynn

Did some studies of sketches from the Art of Tangled book because ffff Glen Keane. Didn't draw Flynn's face in half of them because ffff Flynn's face. I really enjoyed drawing Rapunzel but I didn't quite get her face right either. Mostly this was for pose reference but I found myself practicing drawing on-model as well, so that was fun.

- Hex

P.S. I've posted TDKYLID on my deviantArt here, with a bunch more information about the characters if you are so inclined to read about them. I tried to keep it short... I did, honest! So if you want to hear more about them, all you gotta do is ask.

They Don't Know You Like I Do

Behold, the finished product.

...I think.

Left to right: Derek, Ethan, Lexy, Levi, Gale, Ter, Charon

Man, how many hours have I spent on this thing? Scratch that, how many weeks? I guess I've just kind of been chipping away at it here and there, but it always astounds me to think back and realize how the time adds up. I always tell myself I should time myself, see how long it actually takes me to finish big pieces, but I never get around to it and anyway I have a tendency to start and stop, getting distracted by the internet and food and things like that.

Stopping always used to be my downfall, too, with finished pieces. I'd just lose interest and give it up. Lately I think I've been doing better, though. I've also been more willing to change things that don't look right, instead of going, "ugh, can't be bothered" and letting it sit. Not that this piece is perfect, of course, but it's damn well good enough for now.

Things I did between the last update and this one:

- finished shading

- added a very subtle gradient to the bottom so that the backgrounds aren't completely flat

- scribbled in the quotes from the song that inspired this piece, consistently becoming frustrated at my chicken scratch and also the positioning of everything

- did some level/colour tweaks and minor edits

- modified the border to be uniform all the way around (not sure why I'd left it before)

For those curious, the inspirational song is Masterpiece Theatre Pt. 3 by Marianas Trench. It's the last track in their album Masterpiece Theatre and extra awesome in that it's also a medley of all the other songs on the album. It's just utter genius, especially how at one point it layers several lines from several songs. And it has its own unique parts, too. Anyway, I took the majority of the lines from the track and applied them to whoever I thought they fit the most. Some lines are left out because they don't fit, and there are lines from the rest of the album that I'd probably have liked to use, but I'm staying true to Pt. 3 here.

It would be ridiculously coincidental if my favourite album ever just happened to fit all these characters from the same storyline. You'd call me out on it. But I promise it's not completely forced. I had vague ideas about all of them before ever associating them with the album, but I will happily admit that the album's helped me solidify their respective stories. I did spend a long car trip listening to the album and figuring out which song fits which character best. I'll save the rant about the characters for my dA artist's comments. Anyway, the phrase "it's complicated" comes to mind...

All I can say now is phew! Nice to have it done. It will now sit as one of my desktop backgrounds until I get sick of the errors.

- Hex

Stop it Lexy

Lexy is being an ass.

I redrew him entirely (except for his head because fffff); this is probably something like the third or fourth version of him. Possibly he's finally decided to cooperate. Why are arms so hard to draw?

I'm really enjoying cel shading this, incidentally. It seems like it teaches me about form and lighting much more than soft shading, where I can get away with bullshitting it for the most part. I am learning that I need to not be afraid to be liberal with my shading, because it frees me up to really emphasize what needs showing, and I can always pull it back if it gets to be too much.

Also, why are eyes so small? I love colouring them all pretty and then you can't even see them. >:

Left to right: Derek, Ethan, Lexy, Levi, Gale, Ter, Charon

- Hex

TDKYLID 6

How have I not lost count yet?

I have started shading. Huzzah! Eventually settled for cel shading after being inspired by some things I've seen. It's... not brilliantly impressive, but it works. I'm kind of getting sick of this thing now.

Left to right: Derek, Ethan, Lexy, Levi, Gale, Ter, Charon

- Hex

ToK Size Chart

Click for a bigger view. That's how it works on Blogger, right?

This is a quick size chart I did for some of the dragons of ToK. I had to add the two humanoids on the far right because they're part of the main protagonist group.

There are several species of Dracona on Kenah, each with its own general size, i.e. a Scorral like Xeari will always be larger, on average, than a Nauvin like Vark.

In addition to this, dragons grow throughout their lives regardless of how old they've become. The growth slows as the years pile up, of course. Cym, having defied death and basically become immortal, has been around for way longer than any other dragon known to Kenans. That's why he's fucking huge. It is entirely possible that an existing dragon species could match his current size, but his particular species isn't meant to get anywhere near as big as he is.

Dauren's also quite old, though realistically so for dragon standards. Keelira's a bit young but she won't come up to Xeari's current size until she's near the end of her life.

The humanoid species, Wevlins, grow the way humans do because I don't feel like having superlarge humanoids in my story. Their wings do start off disproportionately small, though, and won't be big enough for flight until the kids are at least eight or so (in Earth years).

I just realized that I totally forgot to add any Zethyls to this line-up. Tisk tisk. Zethyls are... well, you know centaurs? Something that looks like a centaur on Kenah would technically be an equinoid Zethyl. Basically, take the body of an animal, size it up or down to about horse size, and tack on a humanoid body and head at the front where the animal's neck would be. Then add wings and you have yourself a freak of nature that potentially has ten limbs, because Zethyls need two pairs of wings in order to actually fly due to the added weight of another torso. I'll sketch a couple of my Zethyl characters for a later post. Zethyls, Wevlins, and Dracona are the three sentient species on Kenah; other creatures populate the planet, with varying degrees of intelligence.

Oh boy, it's been ages since I've thought about ToK! Maybe one day I'll put conceptualizing aside so I can actually focus on the plot.

- Hex

TDKYLID 5

And that's all the colours and lines done. I'm still a little iffy on some of them, so I'll probably spend some time tweaking and such before I... what? I originally hadn't planned on shading due to my linework, but said linework isn't quite bold enough to be its own shading. Well, we'll see. I think cel shading would suit this much better, but soft shading is so much more fun...

Left to right: Derek, Ethan, Lexy, Levi, Gale, Ter, Charon

- Hex

Draw This Again! Meme

This meme has been floating around deviantArt for quite a while now. I thought I'd poke at it for fun. Back in 2007 at school I asked all my friends to name an element, then drew a mage character for them. I didn't even bother referencing fire for my redo. Also I forgot the guy's ponytail.

The only reason I'm uploading the "before" is because you can compare it to the super amazing 20-minute "after" sketch. It still hurts to look at the old one...

Deviation here.

- Hex

TDKYLID 4

So apparently Levi actually looks alright in red. I'm not a big fan of red and therefore don't have a lot of experience using it in my art, I guess. Still contemplating Gale's colours. Stupid hair. Also Levi is not supposed to be THAT pale. At least not that ghost-coloured.

Left to right: Derek, Ethan, Lexy, Levi, Gale, Ter, Charon

- Hex