Caelum [Process]
dunkel as Artz
Jul|27|2008
Background: I was part of some club at dA, because a friend asked me to join. Ended up not participating in anything at all (as I tend to do in all clubs I join), so decided to participate this once. The contest theme was Roman Gods. I chose Caelum, the God of the Sky (the God of Death, I predicted correctly, would be too popular).
Further, the last time I drew a city scene was close to 3 years ago, so thought I’d try again, to see if I’ve improved any.
Tools: ArtWeaver 0.5, tablet, 2 layers total (sketch + piece), PSP
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Sketch; trying to get some proportions right. Seeing if the composition works; wanted all lines to lead back to the subject. Actually, I wasn’t aware of that at the time of making, but it’s a good habit to have. Never lead the eye out of the canvas. |
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Something I picked up recently, after your sketch, always put in the general tone of colour before starting on anything else. This is so that the colours you use later on will be relative to whatever you slop down in this step (ie if you started with a white background, your finished piece may not look unified). |
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Lowered opacity of the sketch even more, to block in colours. Worked on the face too, which was a mistake, as seen in the next step.
Colour theme of piece determined to be a dull orange/yellow + grayish-blue. Blue, to reflect Caelum’s eyes (so it will fit the description that goes with the piece). Dull orange/yellow, pretty self-explanatory. |
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Put in way too much detail in Caelum’s suit at this stage of the painting. I still have to practice working equally around the piece, and not concentrating on one spot too early. :\
The head in the last stage was not placed correctly, and seemed too big to me. So I blocked it out and corrected it. Began putting in windows on the buildings. I hate architecture. Became so dissatisfied with them that I was quite ready to give up, finish up his head, and submit as is. But, decided to keep going, as I’d been meaning to draw this for a couple of weeks now. So, looked up a reference Still felt somewhat unmotivated to keep going; I have to paint those friggen buildings /again/?! |
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Started painting over the buildings on the left. Realized that every time I painted cities (including this one), I had always gotten lazy with buildings and ended up with boring rectangular, kiddy-type skyscrapers. So, using the same reference as before (can you see some parallels?), I tried to make my buildings distinct from each other, and at least somewhat interesting to look at. Also because at that moment, Caelum didn’t fit into the painting because he was so detailed, and the buildings were so plain. Realized that if all the buildings were yellow, Caelum will again not fit into the painting because he was blue. So, still inspired by my reference, I decided to put in bill-boards and ads, with blue content. Buildings aren’t actually /right/ beside the sidewalk, so I added a road and more cement before a building actually started. The road was also to help stick Caelum into the painting, thus it is blue. |
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Painted over the other side of buildings. My painting has been flipped twice to check for mistakes. I can’t stop mentioning that. It has been the most useful tip I picked up.The bill-board was fun to do. : D
Also discovered this tool called “Artist Brush”, which basically tries to imitate Seurat, Van-Gogh, etc. I found it nice as a texture sort of brush. Tried it first on the top-left building to make it not so plain (as I was starting to get lazy again), then used it on the sidewalk. |
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Painted his face, defined the clouds more. |
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The sun was looking quite rectangular, so I rounded it off. Added a jet plane to balance out the sun… and to enforce the pollution. 8D
Darkened/Browned the entrance to the building at the bottom left, since the blue wasn’t really fitting and was too eye-catching. Finally, altered the contrast a bit in Paint Shop Pro, put on a border, done. |
It used to be that the colour of the sky matched the colour
of Caelum’s eyes. As time passes, the God of the Heavens
finds that gradually, the sky he loves is drifting away from
him, slowly engulfed by a murky brown haze. He and the
sky are not together anymore, he has lost his territory, his
home, himself.
City of Giraffes [Process]
dunkel as Artz
Jul|3|2008
This should be short; it was a speedpaint.
Blocked in general background colour; I wanted green to go with XP’s green theme (I was a little off though :\).
Drew in the shapes of buildings.
Added windows to random buildings, fixed up others.
Put in a sun (was too lazy to make some of the rays perfectly straight, though I should have), darkened the bottom and top corners to create more contrast.
Added more short buildings in the ‘foreground’, a crane in the distance, and a giraffe.
Increased the contrast with Paint Shop Pro, added bottom border; wallpaper ready for use. : D
Tack - hmfPet [Process]
dunkel as Artz
Mar|6|2008
I use PSP7 to make hmfPets, but it’s fully possible to do this all on Paint. Just a bit… more time consuming. ‘Sides, I really only use PSP features once I get to the white border.. I’ll tell you when. Otherwise, I’m basically working on Paint.
I often work zoomed in, for more detail. Remember to zoom out regularly, and flip your picture to catch mistakes.
Brush: 1px, completely opaque.
Sketch
Sketch it out, doesn’t matter if it’s ugly.
Clean it up, make sure there’s no unnecessary blocks of black:
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Fix up the outline to your liking.
Colouring
Apply base colour.
Now to shade, all you need to do is pick colours
that are slightly darker/lighter than your base.
See how it works, below:
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So just shade it in, keeping your light source in mind.
Done shading, with a bit of adjustment to the top
part of the tack. I found it too bright.
The little tack on the top left is what it looks like zoomed out.
‘Cutting it Out’
This is where I actually use PSP’s… err ‘features’…. But again, you can do this on Paint manually, just make sure you make the white outline evenly.
Select the white space around the object with the “Magic Wand Tool”, then go to Selections > Invert
Afterwards, go to Selections > Modify > Expand > Enter “2 pixels”
You should have something like the above. Ctrl C + Ctrl V to.. well, literally cut it out.
Slap on a copyright, save as a .png file with transparency, upload to photobucket, done.
RPG Characters History (Part Three point Five)
dunkel as HMF
Jan|6|2008
The Special Kid
Mirla Ambler
Straight from the profile at HMF:
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*giggle*
Ok. Well, let’s see. My name is Mirla Ambler, and I am 12 years old. I live with my Grandpa. I don’t know how old he is. *giggle*
Oh yes and, I’m a girl.
I was born on Spring 18th. I [came to Aurora] as soon as I turned twelve.
I don’t have a job, but… Grandpa says I’m a Princess. Does that count?
I have long brown hair, and I love putting it up in different ways all the time! My eyes are black like my Grandpa’s, but I’m not half as tall as him. *giggle* I like to wear dresses in pastel colours, with animals on the front! On my left hand, I always wear this bracelet that Grandpa says my daddy gave me. It looks very nice, don’t you think?
I’m… friendly, I like to talk. I love making friends! And…. Grandpa always says I’m much too curious.
I like animals a lot, and I like candy. I love to read, and sometimes I draw.
What do I hate? Um… That’s a hard one. I love about everything!
…Oh wait! I know! I hate bugs. And medicine! Yuuck! I don’t like papercuts either, but I like the bandages Grandpa puts on them. Oh and, I don’t like to travel a lot. I get sad whenever we leave..
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I remember WM complaining to me about Mirla, after I posted her profile and rped with someone about 2 posts in. It was an excellent complaint; it proved/suggested I was rping her properly.
“Why does Mirla act like a three-year-old?!”
Mental State
Wasn’t quite sure how I could title this section..
Mirla constantly claimed that she had a secret she could not tell anyone (ie in the entrance post that was linked in the profile I copied and pasted). It was understandable. Judging by the events that happened in her childhood, it was just logical that she’d keep it a secret.
She was mentally retarded.
Family/Past
Let’s keep this short.
Father - abandoned all of his family upon realization that his daughter was retarded.
Mother - stuck by her daughter for twelve years, to hopefully be able to bring their family back together. Ultimately gave up hope in the end, when her husband did not show up as he claimed he would.
Grandfather - the only truly sincere one, remained with Mirla until his death.
Art
Being a self-proclaimed art-nerd, I’d have to say Mirla was influenced by Picasso. After studying the fine arts, he seeked to draw like a child again. Thus with Mirla, I tried to not only have her create her own world with dragons, nymphs, castles, and royalty, I also had her draw [what she saw].
Father
From the start, I portrayed Mirla’s father as the usual ‘bad guy’ who abandons the family at the first onset of problems. The one who promises a reunion but never shows up. In the end however, it was revealed that he had never actually given up, and it was Mirla’s mother that did the abandoning (in Mirla’s introduction post, she departed swiftly as soon as she realized her husband wasn’t going to show up).
Reading Claude’s final post, you will realize that indeed, he is her father, and indeed, he was not ‘all bad’. He changed his last name due to shame and did initially leave his family and all his past behind, but soon realized that he needed his daughter. Unfortunately, Mirla never had a chance to discover this.
The End.?
As posted in HMF:
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She looked down at her small hands as they felt the rough iron of the gate. Everything about this town was rough. The wood of the fences that surround the never-ending stretches of farmland, the sand between her toes when she visits the beach, the hazy sky on lazy mornings, and worst of all, the burden of knowing her father has abandoned her for good.
Rough, rough. All very rough.., she thought to herself, as she continued to pass her hands over the bars on the gate. Why was there a gate anyway? To lock all the world’s stresses into a tiny village? She’ll let them out, she will.
Mirla slowly pushed open the gate, hearing the rough sound of its feet scraping the dirt floor. Just like the rough edge of each of the words that escaped her Grandfather’s mind..
But she’s leaving now, escaping this place for good. She took a step out of the village for the first time in months, and took a deep breath. Nice and soft. Soft like the clouds where Grandpa’s sleeping. When the tears began to well up in her eyes from the painful memories of the loss of her Grandfather, Mirla started to run.
They said she’d never understand. That because her brain will ‘never mature’, she’d never learn.
But she did. She understood. And she knew the thing she wanted most at the moment, was to sleep on that soft cloud up in the sky, beside her Grandfather.
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The ending of Mirla’s story is unclear. Her running suggests her eagerness; her desire of being with her Grandfather suggests a drastic measure she would ultimately have to take. However, could one say that someone like Mirla would be able to even grasp the concept of suicide (I admit, I do need to do more research on that to determine a legitimate answer)? Or perhaps she didn’t die at all, and just wanted to run away from all the bad fortune Aurora had obviously brought upon her? Of course, there is also the possibility that she finally meets up with Claude again outside of Aurora. It wouldn’t be too hard to determine whether a retarded girl named Mirla was your daughter or not.
I am rather proud of the final posts for Mirla and Claude… Considering that the decision for their departure came so abruptly, and that I figured out their ending in the couple of minutes that followed. That said, Claude was intended to remain a bad father throughout, but I changed my mind at the last minute.
Conclusion
Mirla and Claude are the first two RP characters I’ve ever rped simultaneously. Being a nub at dual characters, I obviously had to relate them somehow. Know that Mirla had not been planned out beforehand, and was more of a spontaneous idea (”Wouldn’t it be cool to rp a retarded dude? But I’m already rping Cl– They could be related! I could say that Claude abadonned him/her, and they were to meet up in Aurora again, But of course, he’s not going to want him/her back..” etc; Mirla’s gender was decided when I settled on a name).
It was fun rping Mirla (ie being the propellors of her own helicopter, made of nothing but Kiki (methinks?), kitten’s [old] character), but I found the process of weaving her story into Claude’s more interesting than the actual rping.
Thus ends dunkel’s RPG Characters History.
RPG Characters History (Part Three) [Edited]
dunkel as HMF
Dec|2|2007
Your ‘Friendly’ Traveling Salesman
Claude Stone
Guess since I have it, I’ll post up the profile I made for… Maple Village, I think.
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[General]
Full Name Claude Stone
Pronunciation Clode Stone
Gender Male
Age 28
Birthday Autumn 18th
Gold 705G
[Currently]
Occupation Claude’s a travelling salesman; he brings goods to and from other villages. However, he is always on a constant lookout for odd jobs to earn some extra Gold.
Home/Workplace Content to sleep in the same place that also houses the goods he sells, Claude lives and works in the cart that he [sometimes] so effortlessly pulls along.
[Sketch]
Appearance
Claude stands at five foot nine inches with a dark gray fedora covering his short mahogany hair. He is often well-dressed, in a suit that was a deep shade of royal blue, a black dress shirt that made him appear as closed as his eyes and soul were, and a stunning white tie. The tip of a black handkerchief sticks out from his breast pocket, the one he uses to wipe beads of sweat from his brow. However, he was careful to make sure no one noticed that his suit was more worn than his cart’s wheels, and that it was the only ‘classy’, expensive thing he owned.
He is slightly tanned from having to travel in the sun all day, and is usually seen with a cigar sticking out of the right corner of his mouth. A small sack of gold is tied to his belt, along with a single silver key.
Personality
Claude loves to play with words, and could converse about any subject to anyone. He is a very playful person, but in very subtle ways. Initially, it might seem that he doesn’t like to be around people, but in actual fact, he wouldn’t be able to stay sane alone.
Appearance is very important to him for sales, so he often speaks in a slightly more high classed language when new people enter his life. However, he loosens up later on - often times quicker than he would like to believe and claim. He loves to meet people, but tries hard to not become too close to them. As a traveller, he doesn’t want the burden of knowing someone is missing him in a village far away.
Claude always appears to be carefree and content; he learned early on that any other emotion was poison for marketing. If hiding his real feelings becomes completely impossible, he often gives in to a nice cold glass of beer.
He is always open to criticism and new ideas, and is difficult to anger. He loves to try new things and is already learning a second language. Claude is easily interested, and is definately the cat that curiosity loved to kill. Be forewarned however, this cat that sports a friendly mask holds onto grudges with a grip strong enough to split century-old trees into two.
Likes
o cigars - They have become as normal in his routine as waking up in the morning. As dangerous as they may be in his wooden cart, they are most often his only source (or reminder) of warmth as he wanders through the cold, the dark.
o making others laugh - He isn’t quite good at doing so, but he enjoys it when he does.
o street entertainers - Claude likes to travel with the entertainers. They had a common goal: to sell, and to explore.
o languages - Communication is key.
Dislikes
o cobble stone roads - The cobble stones cause his cart to tremble dangerously; he has many fragile things to sell.
o second hand stores - Items that already hold memories should never be forced into a story they don’t belong in.
o being alone - Having company puts colour in one’s life; cheesy as it sounds.
o books - Why rely on written words when you can tell an even better story without?
Talents
Claude can draw quite well, but is very modest about it. He may be seen practicing when he has the chance to. He can cook well enough to provide a decent meal for himself, and knows enough first aid to treat mild injuries and illnesses. Claude is also good at lying to make himself appear happier, wealthier, and more successful ..but that consequently leads to his lack of trust in others.
Inabilities
Musically handicapped ever since he was born, Claude cannot play any musical instrument, cannot sing, and cannot dance. He won’t notice if a villager plays a wrong note, or if a young child sings out of tune. He is unable to keep a steady beat, much like how his lifestyle suggests.
And although he does it for a living, Claude is horrible at persuading others. He is rarely able to sell anything, but his determination keeps him going from door to door, and from person to person, in hopes of finally making some money. Perhaps one day, he can buy a new suit.
Trusting others is also a great difficulty of his, since liars always assume others lie as well.
Fears
Claude is absolutely terrified of being alone. But he hides it well.
[Personal]
Family
A strong believer in that every person should hold at least one secret, Claude refuses to talk about his family.
Pets
None.
History
Claude was born into a modest family twenty-eight years ago. He was lucky enough to attend school, but stopped when he finished the fifth grade. The Stones moved to a nearby country, which soon sparked Claude’s interest in travelling.
Claude worked for a local carpenter for a short while, and learned basic carpentry skills. When he finally saved enough money, he left his town, soughting only for land to quench his thirst for travel.
And now, with a cart at hand, Claude decided to make money as he explored the world, by selling other people’s goods, and by doing quick, simple jobs.
Aspirations Claude hopes to discover a new plot of land that has never been touched by humans before, and to declare it “de Stone”.
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Originally..
Claude was supposed to have a donkey pull his cart. But I figured he could pull his own. That was probably the biggest change from Original-Claude. I’ve never rped anyone without a pet before.
Purpose of Claude
When I first made him, I was a member of.. I dunno.. 4 HMF RPG boards? I wasn’t active though. So I thought making a traveling salesman would help with my activity.
He was going to literally be a traveling salesman. I was going to have him go from RPG to RPG, asking people for stuff he could sell for them. He was going to give back a fraction of his profits (though he tends to rip people off) whenever he returned to the village. My plan phailed miserably though, as it takes time to realistically build enough ‘trust’ with characters in RPGs to have them give you things to sell. So I ended up going back and forth in between HMF and Maple Village (’back and forth’ being.. twice max.). Maple Village, frankly, got boring fast, so I ended up just rping Claude in HMF and having him leave for ‘another village’ every once in awhile.
I was also going to use him to practice my French (which caused a lot of repetition as I had to type out the French and then hint at the actual meaning of whatever gibberish came out of his mouth so then other people would understand.. It was kind of fun actually.), but. phailed. Waay too lazy.
Paintings
I was going to have Claude paint various things/people of Aurora Village. He had a half-finished painting, the one with the pine tree in the winter time.
After having his paint set traded in to pay off for a particularly large meal (because Wallace performed again D:<), I just happened to grow bored of Claude. I had to have him sell things, but no one else was around to sell to. As time dragged on, I just lost interest in getting his paint set back, but needed it to make more paintings. In the end, I said he earned enough money from other villages and got the paint set back. And then had him leave Aurora Village forever soon after.
Moneys? 8D
I liked the stereotype of Salesmen being greedy. So that’s how I played him. Selfish, and often ripping people off. However, Claude does not keep his money. This is not due to gambling, or just liking to spend. It was a psychological state of sort, where he just /could not/ be in possession of a large amount of money. Although he was notorious for jacking up his prices for useless trinkets, he would not accept more money than he asks for. Once a villager gave him 1000G or so, I remember him.. Hell, I’ll git you a quote.
1000G?? Claude hurriedly shoved the money back at the farmer, as if the gold burned his hands.
And really, Claude believed for some reason that too much money was bad. Though I’ve never really taken the time to think out the reason for that. Just thought it was a nice little twist.
Not much else to say..
I leave you with his exit post. It’s important:
Two long thin tracks ran parallel to a set of footsteps that lay in between them, footsteps that didn’t belong to a person in a hurry, nor to a person with an abundance of time.
Claude walked in a leisurely pace, though determined to leave Aurora. There was nothing left in this town for him. He waited for business to increase, and for his name to become well-known, but none of that happened. Most of all, he waited for his daughter to arrive, but she never came.
There was no reason for him to stay in Aurora anymore. The most logical choice then, was to leave. He didn’t want to, for something was still holding him back. The slight hope that he might actually hear her laugh again..
But as time passed, Claude knew, Aurora would become ‘just another town’ to him.
RPG Characters History (Part Two)
dunkel as HMF
Nov|23|2007
The Lonely Glazier
Rusty
Originally, I wanted to just post up the .txt file I brainstormed Rusty’s character with. I tried to pack all the mental illnesses I knew into him; it was kinda funny. I also wish I hadn’t lost the .txt file because I’ve forgotten a lot about Rusty (ie his last name). D:
Family
Rusty moved to Aurora in search of a cure for a fatal disease that had taken over his hometown. His family was still alive, but no one was allowed to leave the town (how he was able to, I don’t remember). Unfortunately, his sister was one of the many victims..
Occupation
Again, I wish could post up my brainstorming file. I ran through a lot of possible jobs for Rusty, including taxidermist, glass blower, locksmith, and music-shop..-ist (link). In the end, I ’settled’ with glazier (link). It was unfortunate that Rusty never got to see his shop open before he moved out of Aurora (ie I got boredz with him D:).
Mental Health
As I stated earlier, I tried to pack all the mental illnesses (and other random things) I knew into one guy. As far as I could remember, he had hallucinations, schizophrenia, OCD, paranoia… I ended up making him a locksmith anyway, because he had a multitude of locks on his front door alone, and always had to double-triple check all his locks before leaving his house (thus paranoia + OCD). Also, one of his ultimate goals was to make an unbreakable (unhaxable!) lock.
The death of his sister obviously had a large impact on him, for he began to see an animal as his sister. The animal resembled that of a squirrel, and was a hallucination. He’s often seen chasing or looking for his ’sister’.
Character
Oddly, Rusty was my first ‘friendly’ character (aside from Miku, but she was a side character..). He talked a lot, and genuinely liked to be around people. However, his unexplained references to a sister often alienated him (imagine eating dinner and having him suddenly jump out of his seat, running around your house scolding a ‘little sister’, then sitting back down, calming down the empty space that was supposed to be his sibling).
House
Rusty dug his own house out of the side of a mountain, and coined it the Wooden Door. His house was supposed to be a personal art project, to force myself to practice drawing more inanimate objects. But that proved to be phail.
Not about to let go of his potential as a taxidermist, I was going to have him dig out his own secret taxidermy workshop. To stuff animals in a sad attempt to recreate his sister. His paranoia was supposed to escalate as he created more stuffed animals, but, I never rped Rusty long enough to reveal his skillz as a taxidermist. For now, you’ll just have to imagine a creepy red head gutting ferrets (and enjoying it).
Conclusion
Rusty was created near the beginning of my discovery of the field of Psychology, which explains the cramming of mental problems. However, he was completely created from my imagination (aside from his name, which I thought up after reading about Dusty from one of Cornelia Funke’s books), so was something I could be proud of. And I am. It would’ve been interesting seeing him interact with other people in Aurora, and seeing whether he’d ever realize he was only imagining his sister.
If I were to ever write a book, it’d be about him.
RPG Characters History (Part One)
dunkel as HMF
Nov|16|2007
..Starting from the Great Wipeout of ‘o4, because the ones before that are teh lame0rz, and dunkel would rather forget about them.
I also feel the need to write this because many aspects of my later characters were never revealed (got bored of them too soon).
The ‘Feral’ Child
Kyouhai Adauchi
Not entirely a feral child, but he has lived alone in the wilderness for ten years or so. He’s not one of my proudest characters, but I’ve used him for the longest.
Originally, he was pretty much based off of Sasuke from Naruto. Yes, I liked Naruto, but it was back in the day when it wasn’t officially in North America, so I was teh cool. I remember convincing Colleen (White Mage / Wonder Weasel) to watch the first episode of it, and how pissed she got when she saw Naruto perform his Sexy No Jutsu. Yes, Colleen did used to be that innocent.
The main difference between Kyou and Sasuke at that time was that Kyou grew up in a forest alone, instead of the city. So, I had fun making him hunt for animals and being technology-challenged (i.e. attacking Wolf’s pickup truck because he mistakened it for some sort of beast). I did realize how ghey basing a character off of an already existing one was soon, so I branched off fast.
To Start
Kyou became interested in being a doctor, whereas Sasuke wanted to be a policeman. Kyou hacked off his arm to stop an infection, whereas Sasuke is still relatively healthy to this day.
Past
I think the most fun I had with Kyou was almost always when I wrote his flashbacks. The first one or so, I admit, was pretty much the same as all that was revealed of Sasuke’s past. Again, I soon strayed off (yayz) a lot. Here’s the last bit of his past revealed to people. Quality’s poor though: View n00b Flash
Organizations
Back when dunkel was a n00b, when he made a character based off of another, he stuck with it, despite attempts not to. D: So Kyou’s brother Rikane, started a group named the Kuroi Gaitou, obviously paralleling Itachi and the Akatsuki (though Itachi did not form the group). Near the end Kyou did join his brother’s group, and ended up learning how to be an assassin through the more ’skilled’ members (shown through a series called To be an Assassin, but it is pretty shameful, so view with low expectations: TbaA). Each member had a weakness of sort. Somewhat influenced by FMA. *lame*
Brother’s Goal?
Now here’s the thing I never really had a chance to reveal. Rikane had never completely abandoned Kyou (unlike Itachi), and turned out to have been closely watching him as he grew up. He created opportunities for Kyou to practice and to improve on his combat skills. Rikane’s ultimate goal was to use Kyou as a weapon against..something I forgot, because I never wrote it down. -_- His other goal however, was to resurrect.
Magic
This was different from Naruto’s chakra and Jutsu system, as magic was not allowed on HMF. Only Rikane had magic, and he only appeared in the stories I posted in a site that I’ve taken down. He was able to read thoughts, control people (made Kyou attempt to kill Colleen many times), and near the end, to resurrect.
Pets/Failing Sanity
Sasuke never had any pets, and is currently sane. Simple as that.
Kyou however, had pets. Originally a fox named Seken, then a coyote named Kainashi. One of Kyou’s flashbacks included the discovery of his fox, and how he came about to name it. I forgot how it died, but it did. And that was when Kainashi came along. In the beginning, Kyou hated it, for the coyote was the one that chose him. As time passed, Kyou grew to accept it, but never showed it.
As Rikane continued to mess with Kyou’s head to turn him into the weapon he desired, Kyou’s mental health began to deteriorate. He gouged out Kainashi’s eyes, which evidently led to the coyote’s death, thinking he could stop it from seeing the evil in the world. When Rikane successfully resurrected Kainashi, the coyote returned to Kyou (though whether it reached him itself or whether Rikane brought it there, is not known… I just never thought about it.), though as a half-rotten carcass. Still feeling guilty for having killed his friend (and having never told it how much he cared for it), Kyou saw Kainashi as perfectly alive and well. He clings onto it, even though it was missing patches of fur, was lacking eyes, and had rotting flesh hanging from exposed bones.
Ah yes, he had a horse somewhere along the line too (Thunder or something?), but it was killed by Rikane, blah blah. I should post up all the flashbacks again someday. They’d be fun to laugh at. [Edit: lul, I found it, and uploaded them: here]
Death
The death of the Adauchi’s apparently was to fuel Kyou into wanting to surpass his brother and to kill him (which, I assume was the same for Sasuke and Itachi). Kyou did succeed to an extent, which made Rikane realize he joined the Kuroi Gaitou not because he wanted to support the group, but to be able to kill him.
Conclusions
I like to think of Kyou as actually ‘my own’ character near the end of his stay in Aurora Village. It was only after I realized how much of a nub I was that I actually made Kyou mine. I’m terribly ashamed of his roots though. Ah well. It’s done and over.
Amazing how there are whole message boards out there dedicated to rping as characters from a particular series/anime. One Sasuke is bad enough. Imagine rping where a multitude of Sasukes are running rampant.
And thus ends this self-confession of what a n00b dunkel started out as (what with all those Japanese names and all. -_-). ..Actually, my memory’s kinda foggy. Someone ought to bring WM over here to look it over. She’d remember every single detail.
Where’s She Now? [Process]
dunkel as Artz
Oct|30|2007
*posts it here for easy linkage*
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Tools used: tablet, OpenCanvas1.1 (or, the free, stripped-down-to-bare-minimum one), 6 hours, 1 layer (though layers were duplicated as a way to ’save’))To start off, you’ll need an idea! 8D Some of my thought processes: [as looking at others' speed paints:] These have always looked spiffy. I should try my own. I haven’t done one before.. [some other day:]..That girl was so cool. Unfortunate how she started to get all messed up. She never used to swear or anything. Wonder what happened to her?….. Remember that cool-assed [photo] with the green and yellows? It looked really nice.. ….And somehow those merged into my idea. So anyway, sketch out what you want to draw.<——————— Check for proportions and all that. I never sketch out the face right from the start, but I forgot to save my sketch before I used it later on, and it would’ve been boring anyway, so here it is. Also, the only colour on my sketch was supposed to be the red indicating the light source, but as I was colouring, I forgot to switch layers. >> |
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Thar background. Just trying to paste down the colours I see in me head. I had the sketch up, on low opacity, so I knew where to throw on my blues. |
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Putting down base colours. |
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General shadows. |
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Adding light, shading the dress. Realizing the blue in the back is a bit dull, so beginning to brighten that a bit. Made the hair darker. Shaped her hand a bit. Turned off the sketch layer.Deciding I wanted blue to surround her, I started to put blue behind her, on the right. |
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Decided her middle finger was was too straight and boring, so bent it a bit. Continued to shape the rest of her hand, lightening up the blue in the back. |
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Did the face (creepy, huh? :D), continued working on her hand. |
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Gave her a fingernail, darkened her eyes, defined her nose and face-shape a bit. |
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Here’s where I had a lot of trouble. I can’t do lips for beans. This is probably where most of my hours were used out of the six. I tried to look for refs, but found nothing in the particular angle I wanted. Oh wells. I left it at that.Added a bit of shine to her dress, highlighted the knuckles a bit. |
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Oh yeah. Always flip your work while you’re drawing. All the bad stuff jumps out at you when you do. If you’re not drawing on the computer, use a mirror.Her fingernail was really awkward, so I changed it.I wanted brighter colours, so I put a more saturated green on her dress. It matches the shine I put earlier. 8D
Gave her a collar bone. |
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Darkened the hair a lot, gave it some green highlights. Realized I should show an end to her head so I coloured the top right corner light blue.Notice the blue in the back is much brighter? :DFor the hair, what I basically did was use a fat blunt brush (as I did for most of the painting) for the larger strands, then gradually use thinner ones to give it detail. |
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Shaded her ‘bangs’ from black to light green. I used a brush of one pixel for the hair by now, to pick out individual….’strings’ of hair. |
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After many attempts to fix her mouth again, I decided to leave it. -_- Igave her eyebrows though. :3 |