Busy Bee

Finished the painting, that I really wanted to complete. Or stopped working on it ^^, I don't think that I could improve it with my current skill-set so continueing is a bit pointless and a time-wasting. This sounds off-putting, but it's not. I'm really happy with it.

Now it's back to comissions and stuff. After that I'll draw the remaining character-files for the comic and start working on page-layout + other important stuff.

Diablo 3 will be released today, yay!

What a niiight!

Friday was my last day of my vacation, boooooo! I needed a vacation and it was awesome. Well, awesome on my very own personal scale. Others may book a trip to the Southpole and do something really mindnumbing awesum... me, I'm happy that I got stuff done. And that I finally got to see the Hippos in the Berlin Zoo.

Aren't they cute? So big, so... bootiful!. Lew was a perfect tourguide. http://zeitgleich.blogspot.de/

Some other animals:

An endangered Poitou-Donkey. 

One of many nutrias.

Also, I met Gab, her husband and his colleague by chance when I went to see The Avengers today. The movie was really good and we spent some time at a fancy bar afterwards.

And I was busy drawing stuff. You can check out about 3 hours of pixel-pushing on my Livestream account. This is just a preview. Klick me

It's scary, I think, I'm developing something resembling a social-life. You have to squint real hard and use a big magnifying glass, but it's there. Shhhh! Don't scare it away! :P

More updates when I actually finish stuff I'm working on.

I've decided

I've been trying to improve my art in forever, but over the years I got stuck. I thought, my steampunk comic could solve my problems if I take one step at a time. The comic touches all aspects that I can't draw. Architecture, cars, technical stuff, lively characters... It makes you wonder why I burden myself with such a project, right? All these things - houses, cars etc. are topics that I personally like. Put me in a museum with historical cars and I'd be just as happy as when I go to a zoo (except if said zoo has a hippo-pond). Subject and topic of my steampunk project are not the problem. It's my attidude. I know that I can't improve in 2 weeks, it's a step by step business and yet, I still burden myself too much and force too much. Just started a random portrait and even if I struggle a little, it's still so much better than any of the stuff I've worked on lately. Because I could just relax and paint. I know how to paint faces and that's just the truth behind my problem.

I need to train and draw more. And that's why I'm putting away all colors for now and I'll work with pencils. Still need to finish the character sheets, but those will be the last colorworks for my steampunk project for a while. Need to go zen, haha :D and once I'm more comfortable with what I do, then I can worry about color again.

The goal is still a full color comic ready for print! But the road doesn't have to be that frustrating and rocky.

Speaking of zoo - I'll be visting the Berlin Zoo for the first time since I moved here in 2007. Maybe I'll post some photos  - I just hope the hippos aren't camera-shy!

Work in Progress

It's been too long since I worked on a full-blown illustration, but what can you do? Whenever I tried to work in that amazing idea i always smashed headon into a brick-wall that said: "Meh". Not: this sucks, just meh. Rather irritating! I feel, I can finish this one, I haven't run into the brick-wall - yet. Just grazed it a bit, but i recovered. It's a diablo 3 fanart of the female Demonhunter. I got to play the beta and it was awesome. Very fastpaced and fun.

Beta!

Blizzard oppened beta for their two news games, Mist of Pandaria and Diablo 3 and what can I say? Both are awesome! Ok, the new Warcraft expansion would feel more awesome if players weren't... retarded. Seriously, I felt I was dealing with mindless zombies. Instead of listineing to tipps, people kept on spamming and clogging quest-NPCs, quest-items. BAH! The artwork created for the new expansion looks really nice, very colorful, but it fits. Diablo 3 is the complete opposite, very dark and moody. Texture and art are mindblowing. I've been playing Demonhunter with a friend who gave Monk a try and we both loved it. Will test the game later today as I have work to do. Something like that:

I've been meaning to pick up colorstudies for years, but never got around to really get into it. Now I mean to start kicking my ass and do it. I'm not forgetting the concepts for my comic-project - rather studying and working on that go hand in hand. If the comic is supposed to be in full color, then I can't have my coloring look like total crap, now can I...

March Madness has ended!

Finally things are slowing down. My wrist wasn't broken, but one of my bones in my right arm is shorter that it's supposed to be, resulting in added stress to my wrist and damage to the cartilage. PAIIIIIIN! but it's controllable and wearing a splint has helped. Currently I don't even need the splint anymore.

And I drew stuff! Yay!

Have to work on a couple more of these sheets!

Not my week

Actually, it WAS my week so to speak. I'm going through some difficulties that were inevitable, not pleasant, but necessary. Doesn't mean I have to like it nor that it doesn't take its toll on me. Add a few visits to several doctors to that and you end up with a desperate need for some R&R. At least I get some results tomorrow and the day after that I'll have the diagnosis of my right wrist. IF it's broken, then I expect it to be healed :/ the splint did help and if I don't turn and twist my hand too much then it doesn't hurt anymore. Nearly two!! months between the MRI and the diagnosis, this is so not cool.

With the change in my personal life I expect changes in my art as well - at least I hope I'll see some changes. Like drawing more and more as soon as  the fog in my head clears up. AND pick up artstudies again, asghadaurks. I simply had not enough room in my life for anything serious painting, which made me really sad... and angry. I mean, art is my job and it's been part of my life since forever, it SHOULD not be neglected the way I did :(. Guildtrip much? Oh yeah.

So, here is to the next weeks! May it be the beginning of something new, great, sparkling and happy! Yay! (no, I'm not on happy pills, haha :P )