Naked Pixels

Webcomic Wednesday: A Few of My Favorites

To help put you more in the mind of Wednesdays being webcomic days here, I have a short list of some of my favorite webcomics to share. I actually read a lot more than this, but I have most of them bookmarked and have to go back from time to time and read through the archives. There are a lot of great webcomics on the internet, and I could never keep up with all of them!

Digger by Ursula Vernon: This is an on-going story, rather than stand-alone strips, and a difficult one to describe. The tag line pretty much covers it: "A wombat. A dead god. A very peculiar epic." My favorite character all along has been Shadowchild, and I hope we see more of him soon!

Looking for Group by Ryan Sohmer (writer) and Lar deSouza (artist): A favorite among many World of Warcraft fans, and for obvious reasons if you're familiar with WoW. Still, the story stands on it's own. There's no reason you'd have to be a WoW fan to enjoy the comic, although being a fan of the fantasy genre would certainly help. I dare anyone to say they aren't tempted to hug Richard now and again!

Complex Actions by Talthos (writer) and Silkspinner (artist): This one is definitely for gamers! It really is more about gamers than the games, though, and not in a way that makes gamers look much different from anyone else. The way a gamer starts seeing game elements everywhere after a while isn't all that different from when I was sewing and started thinking, "I wonder what quilt that could go in," every time I looked at a piece of fabric. That includes bedsheets and people's clothes. And the frustration over waiting for a game's release can be very similar to waiting for the release of a book or movie. These are regular people... who play video games. And the comic is both well-written and beautifully drawn.

And finally...

xkcd by Randall Munroe: Stick figures are awesome! Honestly, I can't imagine xkcd being drawn any other way by this point. This is very much a math and science geek comic. The alt-text on each one really completes things. I first read xkcd when my husband sent me this one:

(Just in case you ever wondered how geeks say, "I love you.")

Webcomic Wednesday

Now that I'm getting closer to being able to say, "The webcomic is up!" I can at least start by giving you all a little more information about it, and establishing "Webcomic Wednesday" here.

Some of you have read my short story/parody The Call of Sockthulhu. (Some of you have even seen the real Sockthulhu!) The work I'm doing for a limited series webcomic is adapting that story to comic format. If you haven't read it and want to spoil the story for yourself, it's here, through my deviantART gallery. If you'd rather wait and read it as it comes out in the comic... well, I can't blame you for that.

The comic will begin on a Wednesday, and will be updated on Wednesdays. Instead of having a comic specific blog there and this blog here, I'm making Wednesday here the day for webcomic blog posts. "Graphic Content by Rosa Amarilla" is about all of my art, not just the Zazzle store, so I'll do this best by keeping one blog for all of it.

If I get much more excited about this project, I don't know how I'll hold the pen steady!

What is the mysterious "Other Project"?

The Other Project... hinted at, danced around, but never explained. I've brought it up so many times it must have started approaching "never gonna happen" status in some minds. (More than once, mine.) I even recently blamed some of my slacking off on Zazzle designs and blog posts on this Other Project.

Do you want to know what it is?

Do you?

I could tell you to come back Monday to find out. But, while I'd giggle about that all weekend, I don't really want to drive away people who like my work and potential customers. And, as the foundation for this has been laid, art is being done, and it won't be too much longer before you can all actually see the Other Project, I'm pretty damned excited about being able to finally say what it is!

The Other Project is a webcomic!

This is something I've been wanting to do for quite some time, but it didn't look like I would have the time for it. Only so many hours in a day, you know. I miss writing the way I used to, but there's a good chance I'll never get that back. The communication skills just don't work the same way in my brain anymore. I started looking at the idea of comics and graphic novels as ways to tell a story without having to communicate every word clearly to the audience. Certainly, it needs to be clear to me, but then I can convey much of it through the art rather than text. I'd rather do this as a webcomic, putting it out there myself, than going through the traditional process.

There was still the concern about time for doing this, and I kept mentally pushing it to the "someday" category of things to do. In the past couple of months, though, since the browsing changes that Zazzle implemented, I've seen quite an increase in orders from my store, and some of those orders have been designs that have been there over a year and were never purchased before. I don't feel like I have to push the store as hard as before to be able to make sales.

Doing a webcomic will also bring more stability to my work schedule. I know when I'll update it, and that means I know when the next one needs to be ready by. Working from an already written script means I won't be sitting up the night before the update mentally kicking myself for not having any ideas yet. Part of what I've been doing to prepare is getting a head start on this so that falling behind means it's the comic two weeks into the future that I'm running a little late on, not the one that's supposed to go up the next day.

I'm starting with a limited series comic to test the waters. If, for some reason, the whole process doesn't work as well for me as I expect it to, I only need to finish that limited series, and then I can quit without it meaning abandoning the project in the middle of it. If it does work as well as I think it will, then I've already got plans for an on-going story done as a webcomic.

Either way, I will still be doing things on Zazzle. New designs will be less frequent, but the store will be there and will be added to. And if the webcomic really is something I can continue doing, I'm sure there will be shirts, posters, and the like at some point. I would sell those through Zazzle, as well.

Rather than looking at this as changing what I do, I see it as growing from what I've been doing. I'm taking what I've learned from doing random pieces as the ideas hit me and giving it some direction, channeling it into something that follows a more clear path. I like to think my work is growing up. :)

Keeps your eyes open for an announcement for the webcomic!

The Four Little Ponies of the Apocalypse

Project Pony is now a product line in my Zazzle store! And it turns out that Death rides a pale, pretty horse!

Four Little Ponies of the Apocalypse Shirt by rosaamarilla
Browse more Pony T-Shirts

The Four Little Ponies of the Apocalypse are available on shirts, bags, mugs, mousepads, bumper stickers, buttons, and magnets. I'm planning to get them out on shoes, but I really wanted to be able to announce this today and those shoes are going to take a little more time to get the individual pieces sitting properly on them. (I drew each pony as it's own piece.)

The magnets and buttons are availble with all four ponies on one item, and also individual ponies each on their own items.

Conquest Pony Magnet by rosaamarilla
Make a refrigerator magnet on zazzle

War Pony Magnet by rosaamarilla
View more Pony Magnets

Famine Pony Magnet by rosaamarilla
See more Pony Magnets

Death Pony Magnet by rosaamarilla
Create custom magnets with zazzle.com

To view the items in my store, your viewing preferences must be set for at least "PG-13" content.There's no "PG" on Zazzle... just "G", "PG-13", and "R". I didn't think these qualified for my "Mature Content" line, and while I'm not likely to censor myself because my ideas are likely to offend some people, I do believe in being respectful. Since this line is partially inspired by biblical prophesy from the book of Revelations, I know that's getting into offensive territory.

And on the subject of biblical prophesy... No, I didn't forget about "Pestilence Pony". Death is the only horseman actually named in the bible. Conquest and Pestilence are two interpretations of the same horse... the first one described. I'm not really sure where the Pestilence interpretation comes from, but I suspect it may have been a way of avoiding the debate over exactly what kind of conquest the first horse represents. Some say it's the Anti-christ, some say the white horse and crown could only represent the Second Coming of Jesus. By going with the Conquest interpretation, I'm not promoting any of them to be correct or incorrect. I simply drew on the biblical descriptions for putting the symbols on the horses, and a crown didn't make sense to me for Pestilence.

No, I will not go with the Good Omens interpretation and substitute Pollution. ;-)

Also, before anyone asks, I think I may be the last geek in the galaxy who hasn't seen whatever Robot Chicken is. I didn't find out until all the art was done that they did a skit revolving around the same idea. (The muses probably started thumping everyone they could in the head with it after a while.) Pestilence fans will be happy to know that they did not go with the Conquest interpretation! I'm really going to have to find this show and watch it sometime.

"But you promised me a PONY!"

It feels like I'm blogging backwards this week. Monday's post was stuffed with links to great Halloween items on Zazzle, which is more like a Friday post. Today's post is an update on Project Ponies.

As I said on Twitter Wednesday, the drawing and coloring for the ponies is finished! My plan was to spend Thursday getting these images resized and placed appropriately on products, then announce the new line in today's post.

(Note for other Zazzlers: If you often find yourself having trouble getting designs to sit properly once you've uploaded them to go on products, this may help. I found the guide files for products while doing a little digging around on the site and through the forums when I first started doing this. I keep that page bookmarked so I can make sure I have things sitting right before I save the final image and upload it.)

Unfortunately, the new line isn't ready today. "Best laid plans", and all that. I've noticed my art programs running sluggishly for a while, so I spent most of Thursday afternoon doing some clean-up on the computer. Right now, I could put up a shirt with the new design, but I've put a lot of work into these ponies and really want the excitement of announcing the whole line. If I haven't got the whole line ready by Wednesday of next week, I'm putting what I have at that point out there and I'll post updates when more is added. I know it's a bad idea to delay it for too long.

Sorry, kids, but you're just not getting ponies today. Think of it as a warm-up for Christmas... the promise of something new and exciting, paid for with lots of waiting.

Art on a Budget: Tools of the Trade

There are a lot of really great computer programs for art, cameras, scanners, and other tools out there... and I just can't afford most of them. That's not as hopeless as it used to seem. I used to think the lack of money for top-of-the-line tools was going to prevent me from being able to do much.

I was mistaken. I was missing a few facts when I reached that conclusion. Okay... I was wrong.

It has taken me some time to put together the tools I use, so if you're starting from scratch and don't have at least a few hundred dollars to spend, don't try to buy everything at once. You just may not need to spend as much as you once feared.

Here are the tools I use...

Adobe Photoshop CS : Yes, I use the one from 2003. I've been using it since 2007, and before that I was using Photoshop 5.0... from 1998. This may not work for everyone. There are some things new in each release that may be truly vital to what another artist does. For what I do, though, it can take several releases before changes become significant enough that it's worth upgrading.

If you just can't get Photoshop at all, GIMP is free. I tried it at one time, and the results were so good that I figured if I was getting the same results either way, I may as well just keep using Photoshop since I'm already comfortable with it. If I didn't have Photoshop, GIMP would be my choice.

ArtRage : I picked this program up for about ten bucks in a local store and wasn't expecting much out of it. It just didn't seem complex enough to do much with, and why else would they be selling it for only ten bucks? It turned out to be one of my favorite programs! I've never become super comfortable with the interface, but that's probably because I only use the program for certain types of projects. (I still end up using Photoshop more frequently.) If the Corel Painter programs aren't a financial option for you, ArtRage has great features for digital painting. It's beginner friendly, and they aren't the same features you'd find in Corel's products (I wouldn't call one a substitute for the other... just a different tool), but I've also seen some amazing work done with ArtRage. Most things I do that look like they were done on paper were actually done with this program.

Corel Painter Essentials : This is the hobbyist version of Corel Painter. I use it in cases where neither Photoshop nor ArtRage is the right program for the job, and usually that means as some sort of "finishing up" after using one of those two programs for the bulk of the work. The results are great, and I think my biggest problem with the program may actually be that I'm trying to figure out how to do things that I'd be better off using Corel Painter for. And I certainly love their magazine!

Wacom Bamboo Fun : I will use this tablet until I have enough money to buy a different Wacom! I cannot say enough about how wonderful a Wacom tablet is! They make several models that can go a lot further in functionality (The Cintiq makes me drool!) but also cost a lot more. I'd say the Bamboo Fun is better than trying to draw by holding down your mouse button and dragging, but that's really just an insult to how much better than that it is. It's a very natural drawing experience, and I didn't even have trouble adjusting to looking at my screen while using the stylus on the tablet. I thought I would... the idea of not looking where I'm "drawing" was just so weird to me until I plugged it in.

The medium sized Bamboo Fun can still run over one hundred dollars, depending on where you get it, but I just wouldn't advise going with a cheaper tablet from another company. I've seen tablets that retail for thirty to fifty dollars, but lack many features of the Wacom tablets. Features like whatever it is that makes the Wacom only need to plug into your USB port and then not need any kind of extra power source for the pen and mouse. (Not your regular mouse... it comes with a mouse. Which you could replace your regular mouse with and do everything with the tablet, really.) These other tablets pushed the "wireless pen and mouse" thing, but you had to put batteries in them. Depending on how much you use it, or how fast it sucks the life out of the batteries, you might end up spending more that way in the long run.

If you want to get a tablet and could get your hands on someone's Wacom just to try it out, do so. Then if you can only come up with the money to buy a medium sized Bamboo Fun, that should keep you comfortably going until you can upgrade.

One more tool...

Google : Or whatever search engine you like. Some books and magazines are so helpful I end up buying them, but I wouldn't be able to keep that up for long if I needed to buy something every time I needed a tutorial or reference material. Most things I need can be found for free by simply searching for "how to" do this or that, or using Image Search for reference pictures. If you suddenly can't figure out how high up on the walls you should draw the windows for this castle you've spent the last 16 hours drawing, there are plenty of pictures out there to give you an idea of what would look best. It might be a little more difficult to get artistic nudes without getting... let's call them "entertainment nudes", but you're in the privacy of your own home and you are drawing people with no clothes on, after all!

The best tools available just aren't a reality for everyone. But that doesn't mean you have to use crappy tools, or go without. The really good news is, digital art doesn't consume supplies! You don't have to keep going back for more paper, more canvas, more paints, more pencils. Make your financial investments wisely, and they'll stretch a long way.

New Art Project

I've mentioned several times recently that I'm starting a new project - one that will allow me to work with some techniques I haven't done much with in the past. Monday's post was about some of the loose ends I was tying up before starting this new project, and I promised to explain more today. It was important to finish up a few other things first, but to be perfectly honest I have to admit that I would have preferred to get started on it a couple of weeks ago. I'm just looking forward to the project that much!

Okay... so what is "the project"?

I'm going to be taking some time to do bigger pieces. I hestitate to say "real art" because I feel like a lot of what I usually do is "real art". What I usually do leans more toward "commercial art" in it's purpose, and even though a lot of work goes into many of those designs they are intended to be seen on a product, not simply as a piece of art. What I'm going to be working on for a while now is art that only really needs to be seen, not seen as a marketable design.

These pieces will take longer for me to complete than the pieces I usually create. Instead of a week being a long time to work on one, I fully expect the average time put into each of these would be somewhere between a week and two weeks.

Does this mean abandoning what you already do to make "art for art's sake"?

Not exactly. I feel like I need to push myself a little closer to the edge of my "comfort zone" with what I do. I need to try some new things, learn some new skills, and show myself what I can really do. Which means I want to do this even if no one else ever sees the work.

On the other hand, I also know I'm going to want to show others what I've done, and if the work is already done and someone wants to buy it I'm not going to say, "Oh no, I did that just for myself. It's not for sale." Since I do digital work, it's not like I lose the original piece by making it available for purchase. These pieces won't all be well-suited for things like T-shirts and bumper stickers, but I see no reason not to make them available as prints, posters, cards, etc. If I do enough of these pieces, putting them together in a calender is also a possibility.

I'm also going to be able to use these pieces to build my portfolio. I've been working on that, and it's difficult to do when I find myself wanting to excuse how lacking it is by saying, "This is just a little of what I can do." A portfolio is a place to show the best of what I can do, and I just make my work sound like glorified doodles if I put any less than that in there.

So what happens to your Zazzle store?

It will stay right where it is, and it will still be updated. The updates will just become a lot less frequent while I'm working on these other pieces. I keep a list of ideas for quick designs, in addition to my project list. I've also noticed the layout of the store is getting kind of stale. There are some changes I could make a little at a time to freshen it up without it being a major re-do on the design. I'm sure there will be points while working on these larger pieces that I just need to look at something other than the same half-finished picture for an afternoon, and that sounds like a perfect time for little updates.

Blog content will also continue. Since this is going to be a learning and growing experience for me, I'm sure there will be plenty to share along the way.

World of Warcraft Art

Millions of people are caught up in the excitement of BlizzCon 2009 this weekend! And I do mean that literally. If you aren't a fan of Blizzard's games, you may not know that World of Warcraft has over 11 million subscribers. That's just one Blizzard game... it doesn't include (though it certainly doesn't exclude, either) fans of StarCraft and Diablo, or the original Warcraft games. So this seems like a good time to write about the art of the world of Azeroth.

It's not difficult at all to find screenshots and fan art on the internet. There are also books...The Art of World of Warcraft (which, sadly, the Barnes & Noble site says is out of stock) and The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, for example. Wow.com has an entire column, "Around Azeroth", devoted to interesting in-game screenshots. And there are several webcomics inspired by WoW that range from hand-drawn fan art to image manipulation using (legally) Blizzard's images. Azeroth is a world that people want to see!

Azeroth in a Nutshell (For those who don't know and may not really care.)

This is my extremely short explanation of things for non-fans who only need to know enough to understand this post. If you find you want to read about the lore of Azeroth and understand the story better, there are many lore-oriented websites, and the WoW wiki is one where you can look things up, instead of just reading years' worth of story from start to finish. (Not that it isn't worth reading... I personally think it is.)

The races of Azeroth are mostly divided into two factions: The Alliance and The Horde. The Alliance is made up of humans, gnomes, dwarves, Night Elves, and a people known as the Draenei. The Horde is made up of Orcs, Taurens, Blood Elves, a tribe of trolls, and the Foresaken... sort of a collective of individually aware zombies who have formed a cultural identity. Overall, the histories of Alliance races don't differ much from the histories of Horde races, except in the specific details (and especially not when elements of the history come from the actions of other forces that affect all of Azeroth), yet each side blames and vilifies the other, so they remain at war.

Cool story, bro... What does that have to do with the art?

Azeroth is a big world, with many regions. These regions are each beautiful in their own way, and attention was paid to detail even if players are simply going to be running through. Forests where bears can be found often have trees that show the deep gouges of having been scratched by bears. Water in some regions is murky and green, and crystal clear in other regions. Different plants are found in different regions, and not just the type that can be gathered with the herbalism skill. Different wild critters (extremely low level, mostly for decoration creatures) are found in different regions. The art makes the world seem more alive.

Cities built by different races also have beautiful characteristics unique to each race. After seeing some of the areas that would be considered beautiful by more traditional standards, it was difficult to believe a city in the middle of a harsh desert area could be as breathtaking, but Orgrimmar was just as beautiful to me as anywhere else... just in it's own way. The Foresaken (those zombie-like people) even manage to turn cemeteries and rotting buildings into works of almost Gothic beauty.

That's how good the Blizzard artists are. They can make dirt where almost nothing grows beautiful, and can put just enough life into death that it can almost make you feel unworthy to look at it. And that doesn't mean other areas are "even more beautiful". It means they're just that good at bringing out the real beauty in "ugly" things.

Even if video games aren't your thing, there are many books by authors like Richard Knaak and Christie Golden that focus on the lore of Azeroth and would appeal to fans of the Fantasy genre. But even if that's not your thing, either, I'd suggest looking up some of the art. There's much to be appreciated and enjoyed there, and quite a bit to be learned from it.

Corel Painter Magazine: Not Just for Those Who Use the Program

Every now and again, I pick up a copy of the official magazine for the Corel Painter program. I don't use the program (I do sometimes use Corel Painter Essentials, which is kind of a "Painter Light") but there are often articles that don't apply directly to the program, and many articles with advice that applies well beyond the limits of digital art.

Since the painter program mimics, in many ways, working with real pencils, brushes, paints, papers and canvases, articles on technique can be very helpful to an artist whether they do digital work or not. Other things can be useful even to an artist who uses a different program, since many programs now have similar range of features. Of course, the most technical aspects will only really be applicable to using Corel Painter.

There are also reviews of various programs that can be used to achieve effects outside of what Painter does (such as further enhancing a piece done mostly in Painter), tools like Wacom tablets and cameras, and books.

The magazine also comes with a CD (at least, the issues I've picked up have) that have tools and images that can be used in many ways, depending on the terms of use for each of them. The latest copy I picked up says the CD contains " Over 30 minutes of video tuition/ 120 stock photos and textures/ Tutorial source files and Painter 11 trial".

That's Issue 31, by the way, which I picked up because it has an article on websites for selling your art work online. It gives a rundown of what they consider the top 10 sites for that, along with how membership and/or selling works, costs for the artists, how payments work, and what kind of products or services are offered for customers to be able to purchase your art.

I'm an American, and the costs for things are given in pounds. This isn't really an issue for me, though, since I do have a general idea of the current conversion rate. If it is an issue for someone, there are plenty of currency conversion calculators on the internet. The magazine is too helpful to be passed up because of that.

"To Draw" List and Another NeonDragon Book

I wrote a few weeks ago about projects I was working on, or would be soon. It's time to update and revise the list a bit, and feel free to pull out your own "To Draw", "To Sew", or other type of "To Create" list and take another look at it. Scheduling is a good way to make sure things get accomplished, but being locked into a schedule that is too rigid can dry up the flow of creative energies.

New Shoes! I finished that one, and the shoes have been linked to so much lately, I just won't do it again. (Okay... just one more time!)

Sugar Skulls I'm currently working on this project. The actual skull is a new thing for me to draw, and I'm finding out it's a bit more difficult than I had expected. I really think it's going to be worth it, though.

Tauren females

"Rude Neko" and another Neko piece

deviantART Paper Heart contest The winners of that contest can be seen here. Congrats to all of them... including the semi-finalists! There was a lot of great work done for that contest, I'm glad I entered, and I doubt the judging was easy.

So, out of a list of five projects, I've finished two and am working on one. That leaves just two projects untouched. I'm going to put those two projects on hold for a while longer, and here's why...

Remember when I recommended the book DragonArt by Jessica "NeonDragon" Peffer? I really do like her teaching style, so I finally managed to get my hands on her other book... DragonArt Fantasy Characters. I want to spend some time working with some of the tips on coloring technique that she's done tutorials about, and that's not an option on my Neko project due to an intentional difference in style. And I'd like to push the Tauren project back a bit while I read through the book. I'm a little nervous about doing a piece like that for the first time, and this book covers a lot of things that would be applicable to that piece. I'm hoping to boost my confidence a bit before I do it, and that's certainly one of the things her writing is good for.