[David C. Matthews]

Day 6:

I have – I think – done all the freehand inking. Everything else will be rendered with the Line tool or the Pen tool.

: I have more to post, but for some weird reason (once again) my pics, other than the one above, won't show up; I keep getting "404" messages even though the pics are on the server, and weren't corrupted during the transfer (because I can download them from my FTP program just fine, and I'm typing the URLs correctly. So I have no idea what's wrong. (Have the forum rules changed so that you can't post more than one image in a post?)

[David C. Matthews]

The episode name was "Mirror Image" from the original Star Trek.  Geez, I hope that doesn't come across as too geeky (and no, I'm not a trekkie  :P).

Z

Not geeky enough, Z… the actual title is "Mirror, Mirror". (I'm a semi-trekkie ;D)

[David C. Matthews]

Given the sheer number of characters, the variety of artistic styles, and other extenuating circumstances, I'm impressed with how well this turned out, even without a background.

So "three cheers and a tiger" for SyberStyk!

[David C. Matthews]

Which version of photshop are you using, and in what language?  and for Windows or Macintosh?

But basically to transform a bit of a picture:
you can select it, using lasso or marquee tools.  Then on the menu bar go to Select, then down to Transform Selection.  You get a little box around your selection with little square handles on the sides and corners.  You can drag the corners and squish your picture around.
Additionally, you can (in Photoshop CS at least, I forget about earlier versions) click the warp button while transforming and squish around your image more organically.

Are you using CS2? because I use CS myself, and I don't have that "warp" button option. It looks like an extremely useful feature. I hope they keep it in the upcoming CS3; I'm planning to upgrade to that as soon after it's released as I can afford to.

[David C. Matthews]

I think Dr. Otto and I are coming from the same place, or at least similar places: we simply don't like bullies.

I'll speak for myself from here on, and assume that Chris holds similar feelings. But I can't respect anyone (even – or maybe even especially – if she's a muscular woman) who feels that great physical strength and/or an intimidating (intentionally or not) appearance gives them carte blanche to run roughshod over other people's rights.

I'm proud of the fact that the characters I've created are, so far, gentle, friendly and caring women – who are capable of messing someone up real good if provoked. But they don't derive pleasure out of inflicting pain and distress on others. And if I do create a "bad girl" character, know in advance that they will be a villainess who'll (eventually) get their a** whupped by my "good girls", and rightly so.

Quite a few e-mailers over the years have requested drawings portraying Tetsuko and/or Satin as leather-clad dominatrixes. I have to write them back politely declining, explaining that I'm not into that stuff myself, I wouldn't even like a woman like that if i met them in real life, and it's something I don't think I can convincing pull off because my heart wouldn't be in it.

[David C. Matthews]

This will be interesting… I've often though about sculpture myself (and animation, AND 3d CGI… I wanna do it all!). So I'll be following this thread with great anticipation.

[David C. Matthews]

Been a couple of days since the last update – I did get distracted a bit, heh – so let' get back to it.

First, to address a couple of questions:

It seems that her breasts get bigger as long as the drawing progress.

Actually, they're not. They may look bigger because I did increase the size of her chest, which push then higher into the air when she lays down, but the breasts themselves haven't  changed size.

I just have a quick question though…are you using a mouse of a tablet?

Tablet – a 12" by 9" Wacom Intuos3. I wouldn't even attempt this with a mouse! I'm amazed at anyone who can get an quality drawing at all out of a mouse, and wonder how terrifyingly good they'd be if they switched to a tablet.

And now, on with the countdown! There are several days' progress to show, actually, so I'll go day by day… mainly because I wrote out a post for each day, but never got to actually, y'know, post them.

Day 3:

No progress, for reasons too numerous (and embarrassing) to relate. Suffice it to say that Friday was my "Monday" (that is, the first day back at work after days off), and that's always a big adjustment for me to make.

Day 4:

I had made some progress to show. I was able to get a little work done on my lunch break today; but then I got the idea for the little April Fool's joke I posted late last night, and knocked out the illo for that in about an hour (and it shows!). So I'm posting two days' advancement here.

As I suspected would happen, I found some more proportion problems with Tetsuko's figure: the upper torso was too large for the lower torso. But some judicious use of the lasso tool and the Transform command allowed me to fix the problem; and now, I think the Tetsuko figure is as good as it's going to get until I "ink" it. And as you can see, I did get a little done on Sonya:

…which is also as far as I've gotten on the inking.

Stay, as they say, tuned. I have the next two days (Tuesday and Wedneday) off from my job, so I expect to get quite a bit done.

[David C. Matthews]

Fuhh-nee! 😀

Good work, JD!

[David C. Matthews]

LOL DAVID! By the way, I really don't like big pillows. Honestly.  ;D

Huh? I don't remember drawing any pillows on the bed in that…

Oh.

Not that kind of "pillows".

Well, that's OK. Whatever floats your boat. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. One man's meat, and all that. I'd go on, but… I've run out of similes. Or metaphors. Or whatever they were. Simiphors?

[David C. Matthews]

(I've altered the pic in the original post, so that anyone reading it after today will realize it's not real news.)

I'm glad my little excursion into April-foolery was enjoyed by so many. But you should've seen the prank I was planning! I'd conceived it very shortly after last year's (and JimmyDimples' prank that had so many people, including me, going).

I'd have related the story of meeting a host at the Animation tour here at Disney-MGM Studios. As we kept talking, I'd find out that he used to be in the development department at Walt Disney Television, and he'd relate to me – strictly hush-hush, of course – that one of the concepts he saw being developed was for a possible animated TV series tentatively titled "The Further Adventures of Tinker Bell", her exploits and escapades during those times she wasn't hanging out with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. According to this friend, the concept was canned when John Lasseter took over the animation department, but my friend was able to salvage some art from the show… some very interesting art. (My "friend" would show me this stuff because I'd shown him some drawings of Tetsuko, and Satin et al, and he knew I'd be interested in this.) It seems that one of the episodes concerned Tink's visit, along with an Elven adventurer who bore more than a passing resemblance to Link from the "Legend of Zelda" series, to a village that was being held captive to a tyrant who kept the people in line with a giant stone "statue", actually a primitive robot. In a rare display of heroism, Tink and her Elven friend would try to free the people from the terror of this robot, only to find out (the hard way) that it's immune to magic. Tink would then transform herself into a 25-foot tall, muscular giantess to fight the robot hand-to-hand.

I'd have spent the last year gimmicking up some "conceptual art" from this supposed project, including even a short "pencil test" of Tink's transformation. I'd even taken the first step of trying (unsuccessfully) to create a name for my fictitious "friend" that would be an anagram of "April Fool's Day".

Then I started seeing previews for a new direct-to-DVD "Tinker Bell" CGI movie, and that shot the idea to hell…

But I'm happy the substitute prank was as successful as it was… 😀

[Author]

Posts