Toad in the hole.

This was a nice little start to a project that's been talked about between myself and a friend for a while. A long while.

Here's an idea sheet for the uniform of the characters in the story. I'm still getting used to using the same figure and putting different clothes on. It's basic, but I usually just draw in pen, so it's been fun having a template.

Then I drew a couple of body types for the character I was wanting to push. I cheated for the body type - I grabbed some images and flew over them quickly for the shape. I don't do this for final projects or things I'll use professionally because it's pretty lame, but for a rough idea of shape, I don't much care.

And then the final character! Still pretty rough and not in my usual style, but the idea of the project is that it will help me find another style and a more comfortable and quicker way of working in photoshop. I spent about 4 hours on this today, so it's not the worst start, time-wise. I tried to keep my colour range low - helped a whole lot by the Kuler extension in photoshop.

The guy is called Toad. He is an artist and an excellent outdoorsman. He can hunt and track anything and is one of the best chefs in the land. He carved his spear from the rib of a Megalisk and the knife he wields is shaped from the tooth of an Octobear.

There are a few things that I'll come back to with this guy, but after four hours of sitting in front of a computer screen, I need a break.

I'm going to watch some TV with my wifey.

Peace.

Exciting things.

Well, Christmas is nearly here. It's been a fun year.

I can confidently say that I have been blessed enough to make more this year with my art than ever before! My prayer is that I can claim that again this time next year!

My wifey and I just got back from being with her best friend. She gave birth today to a lovely little girl - the same day as my best friend's birthday, too! Since getting home, I've managed to finish a draft of a design that I was asked to do and I'm going to start making a doll now.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. It's my first Christmas in America, so it's going to be fun seeing what new traditions I'll be involved in. At the moment, my wifey and I share our family quirks and manage to have ourselves a four-day Christmas. It's great!

I prepared a scavenger hunt for her for Boxing Day. I know we'll have it free to ourselves because it's not a thing over here. I'll post what I did after the day - I don't want to spill it all here and have her read it. That would be a waste of a day! But I can say that it was a challenge for me to think up and a joy to do.

This might be the first Christmas that I know what I'm getting. I think the grammar there was right...

I ordered a few camera lenses, so I'm going to have a lot of fun playing with them. My mother-in-law gave me her Canon Rebel about a week and a half ago, so I'm ecstatic!

I also got my hands on Final Cut Studio, so I can't wait to get that installed. With the shopping and the wrapping and projects that I'm working on and dealing with both my bank card 'breaking' and lovely issues with my Green Card, I haven't had much down time. Hopefully that'll roll around about this time next week.

For now, the above is a picture of me in a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. It was a pretty cool dream. I described it and drew it for my wifey the morning after. It was a lovely example of how our brains differ!

Apparently, the two hemispheres of my manbrain are slightly farther apart than her ladybrain. The same is true for most other men and women. This means that us men have the ability to picture what an object is like from any angle without having to physically pick it up and turn it round. Or at least we have a much better idea. On the other brain, it's easier for women to express themselves emotionally and make quicker emotional connections - because more of their synapses are intact; they haven't been broken from the larger gap between brain sides.

In summary;

I drew my first-person dream as a bird's eye view and she didn't know how I could do that.

I'm tired. That was far too much writing for this time of night. It wasn't even us that had a baby.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.

Peace.

All for one.

It's always fun to re-imagine characters. Here are the Three Musketeers. I still have D'Artagnan to draw. And maybe spell right.

It's nice to be drawing for myself a little bit again. I've just finished a few weeks working construction and it was leaving me too tired to draw much, so now that that's over for a while, I'm drawing a few things for some friends and otherwise getting back into drawing and making things for me (and my beautiful wifey for Christmas). That's a wonderful thing about being a creative type. I can make gifts! What I save in money, I spend in time, but it's more than worth it. To be able to pour into a creation and see it loved is so fulfilling!

I've had my camera out recently. Nothing much to show for it, but it's nice to give it a spin. I took the photos off and formatted the card so I can start anew. Some of the photos were from two years ago, so it was time to start over!

In other good news, we have a card reader and a scanner here, so I'll be able to get better pictures of my doodles instead of tiny, blurry, grainy images.

What else?

'tis the season!

I love Christmas. It's not been the same for a few years - this year, my wifey and I are staying with her parents, so it's going to be an All-American Christmas, with all of their traditions and things. I'm looking forward to it. Last year, it was an All-English affair, with my wifey and I staying with my folks for a few days. Before that, it was our first and only Christmas as an engaged couple and going back further still, we weren't even dating! So it's changed up a lot over the last four years or so. Which is amazing. Combining our traditions, my wifey and I have a 5-day Christmas, so we love it all the more!

To me, Christmas is all about the presents. I've said it before, but it was on Facebook and now I can't find it. I thought I'd already blogged about it, so I'll do that and update this post with the link. Basically, Jesus is a year-round thing for me. The only different thing about Christmas is that we get presents.

Anyway, that's my update today. I'm going to draw some more and maybe shower. Who knows?

Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.

Peace.