WIP Wednesday 2019 Vol 4

So I lied, and it looks like I might be finishing these. I'm still not happy with them, except for the Hogwarts student. I like that one. Also there was no post Monday because I forgot to write it... Oops. But to be honest, losing track of my days is very easy to do with the "day" job I'm working now. It follows an alternating schedule (2 days on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off) every two weeks, and instead of days, I actually work nights. So, on the off days, I'm adjusting to a day schedule because everything else in life exists on a day schedule, while on my on days, I'm on a night schedule. This is also why you will see posts from me on Twitter and other places at all hours of the day or night.

WIP Wednesday 2019 Vol 3

Not as much for this week. Some scribbly sketchy things. I'm not sure I'm happy with any of them, except maybe the last one. I'm probably going to throw the other two out. Or not. XD These are all badge designs. The first is the male version of Capricorn. The second is an elf sorcerer, which might become a sample for the DnD character cards/badges we are putting together. The third is a Hogwarts student, no specific character, for our Hogwarts student ID cards.

WIP Wednesday 2019 Vol 2

These projects are going to badges and/or buttons. They may also be turned into stickers (because stickers are my new obsession). You can see older WIP pictures of Capricorn on my WIP post from last week.

Capricorn mostly finished

Belle Sketch

Maleficent started inking

She Ra started inking

She Ra Sketch

WIP Wednesday 2019 Vol 1

I'm attempting to move away from using Photoshop and using Clip Studio entirely. I recently invested in a Microsoft Surface Pro, and Clip Studio runs better on it. Normally I use Photoshop to do all my coloring, but I am attempting to learn to use Clip Studio for that now. This means that I am moving a little slower than I'd like. 

Like I said last week, I will be working primarily on smaller things. This is going to be released as a badge and a button (and maybe a sticker too, but doing stickers might be chasing squirrels at this time). 

Developer's Notes - 4

So, Ekoja was going to post this week, but he's been down and out for the last several days with the flu, so you've got me again. =P I'm writing this now on severe sleep deprivation, so prepare for a lot of rambling and possible incoherence. 

Ekoja is still working on his mystery podcast, although progress has been slowed by illness. I'm drawing... all the things. Follow my instagram for WIP pictures. I'm still working on getting into a good groove for posting on there, but that is where I'm posting most of my progress pictures and finished pictures. And also cats. And occasionally some other more personal things, mostly fun shenanigans, like the 2 headed snowman my kids built when it actually snowed here or Sophie's hair when I put it up in a Rapunzel-inspired braid. But it will mostly be WIP and cats. 

I'm almost finished with the next chibigurumi plushie, and I look forward to sharing that with early in March.  I might link that from here. I will definitely share it from my Facebook page. You can see the Pikachu I finished for this month on my Etsy. 

Since we design games, we also play a lot of games. We meet with friends once a month to play some kind of tabletop role-playing game. Usually it's D&D or Pathfinder. This month we started a Starfinder campaign. I'm not super-hyped on the setting, but then I'm not really into sci-fi in general so it's nothing personal. I do, however, love my character. I'm playing an Android Envoy. I'm playing her like a bard, so think Vocaloid. Her name is Muse. I really appreciate that our current GM is flexible with how we play our characters and what we can do with them. Even if we're following a set adventure, it doesn't feel like we're being led along or shoe-horned into a particular course of action. Needless to say, I had fun. Most of our group seems pretty pleased with the Starfinder system. My participation was limited to primarily skill checks (by choice because that's how I'm playing this character) so I can't speak personally, but by the overall positive response from the others, it seems like it's a pretty solid system. 

I've also been watching things. I'm slowly working my way though a bunch of things, like only watching one episode or so at a time over a longer period of time. So, if I watch 3 episodes in one evening, they're from 3 different shows. Right now I'm watching Shannara, The Irregular at Magic High School, and Your Lie in April. The Shannara series appeals to me because I read and loved the books when I was younger, and although the series follows one of my least favorite books from the series (The Elfstones of Shannara) it's not horrible (actually I'm kind of enjoying it, although I wish the main characters behaved a little less like teenagers). I'm still undecided on The Irregular at Magic High School. I'm going to give it a fair chance, but I do find the way the sister flirts with her brother a little creepy personally. I'm waiting for the plot, as I've only watched the first episode or two where they're introducing characters and setting. However, I am loving Your Lie in April. I think it probably appeals to me because of the music theme. I used to play music when I was in middle school and high school, and even a little in college. I have not played in a very long time. Sometimes I miss it too. I'm going to watch an episode of this when I take my break at work tonight to eat my dinner/breakfast meal thing. On this note, I'm feeling inspired to add Lord of the Rings and Shannara (based on books not so much the series on Netflix). I'm also considering doing some bookmarks for some of the Pern books as well. Because the world always needs more bookmarks for people like me who just cannot transition to digital books.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 16

More amigurumi this week. It will probably be beyond the first of the year before I have this set and their tags ready, but I'm taking a short break from that series to make some special holiday plushies. They will be available in white, red, dark green, and green/red/white variegated with tinsel, as well as a combination of related colors. The cats and bunnies will have either red, green, white, or black eyes. My problem is that there is so many combinations and choices that I'm not sure how to put together the listings for these. I think I'll be grouping them by color type -- like single color (not variegated), two colors (not variegated), single color variegated, and two color variegated. The variegated is separate from the plain colors because that yarn costs more. But yeah. So I'm working on a set of samples to photograph for each combination. Unfortunately at this stage, I don't have much to photograph, and what I do have I left at home and I'm at work right now. Oops. So, no pictures this week, but this is what I'm working on. =)

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 14

I've been a bit slow on this project the last week or so. There's only 2 new sketches for the new archetypes--Bondage Villain and Holy Knight:

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 13

I really enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy 2, so here's a couple of chibi sketches from that movie. If I don't get too distracted, this will become part of a set of buttons.

Gotta love bad cell phone pics at weird hours of the knight so the lighting is all messed up. But, beggars can't be choosers, and I don't tend to be conscious when I'm home and have access to my scanner. =P At least not when I'm thinking about posting these updates...

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 12

This week's WIP is a little more on my crochet amigurumi plushies. I have part of a blue calico fox finished--only one ear, and it's not completely attached yet. XD

I'm working on some art to go with the plushies. The finished art will go on tags that will be packaged with the plushie. Here are some sketches I have for the kitties. Right now, I'm trying to decide between styles--more detailed or go simple. I kind of like both. I will probably finish and color these and see how they look before deciding. I may also try drawing some of the other animals in both styles as well because what works for the cats may or may not work for the bunnies and foxes as well--or any of the other animals I'm planning on making.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 11

This week, I'm going to share a little more progress on the ties. We've gotten in some new fabrics, not pictured. We ran into problems with several of the fabric designs--our fault, not the printer's. With the first round of fabrics, one print was entirely too large--as in unworkable. With the new set of fabric prints 2 out of the 4 were printed too large. One for the same reason as the first, but not as unworkable. The design will fit on the tie, but it cuts it close and won't look as good as the final design. With the other, it's a tiled pattern similar to the Pokemon design, but the pattern printed too large. Clearly we can still make ties out of it, but they're not going to be exactly what I want. We're debating what to do with the messed up designs now. Do we go ahead and turn them into ties and then sell at a discount? Do we just toss the fabric? Do we try and come up with something else to do with it? We're not sure yet. The most frustrating thing is keeping the bloody pattern straight because the fabric shifts so easily and then you end up with something crooked. Stupid shiny slippery fabric. Grr. But anyways. Here's some progress pictures of the Pokemon ties.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 10

It's been moving a bit slower than I'd like--partially because I meant to spend the last couple of nights sketching here at work, but I kind of forgot to restock my drawing folder with paper, so I ran out of paper to draw on... Oops. In theory, I could draw on lined paper, because I still have lots of that, but it messes with my head. I'm not sure why it's such a mental problem for me, especially since I will be scanning all these pages into the computer to do the lines and color digitally. Is there anyone else weird about things like this? One of these days, I'll get over it... Maybe... One of these days, I'll also start doing the sketches on the computer too instead of insisting on pencil and paper.

Anyways, here's a few archetype tag sketches: Survivor, Lolita, and Fortune Teller. Again apologies for the bad pictures. Lighting is not great here at work.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 9

This week, I'm sharing some of the other projects I'm working on. The stuff I've posted over the last couple of weeks are the main things I've been doing, but there are a few odd prints and projects that I'm working on because I'm not happy unless I have at least 10 different projects in progress at any given time.

One recent project I picked up was repainting our school room. We homeschool, so I have a dedicated space in our house where we keep our school stuff. We decided it needed to be repainted. It was the same yellowy creamy beige that everything in the house was when we moved in. Super neutral and super boring. The school room is in what is supposed to be a "breakfast room" but I don't understand the need for having 2 eating areas in our house. But it works well enough for my purposes. Anyways. The house came with the white molding around the bottom part of the walls in this room, and we decided to leave that. The top part of the room is painted a pale gray, and the bottom part is a pretty shade of green.

 These shelves are mostly for reference books and books not tied to any particular curriculum but might be considered educational. And also our D&D and Pathfinder role playing books. This includes a wide selection of classic literature for my high schoolers, dictionaries, and other fiction books that we deem less than fun (by our kids' standards). We value reading here. =P Anyways, this shelf used to be overflowing, but I purged half the books that had been on it. Most were not thrown away and will be going to a second hand store or used book store. One of my goals this year is to remove things from my home that I don't use and won't use. That makes less to clean up and more time for art! The bottom shelves used to be prettier too, but my 5 year old, Sophie, loves "reading" books and doesn't usually put them back correctly. *sigh* She is also responsible for the paper on the floor--all that came off her desk which you can see in the corner of the picture above. Encouraging her to keep her space semi-clean (I don't expect perfection, but stuff not on the floor would be nice) is a constant battle.

 This is the space dedicated to curriculum stuff. The top shelves have library books and stuff for Sophie's Kindergarten. The next row is for unit study material that we use for our younger kids--right now just Logan (my 10 year old), although we do encourage Sophie to participate where she can.
Below that are spaces for the 3 boys to keep their books: one for Logan and two each for Ty and Luke--my high schoolers. Below that is curriculum not currently in use but that I want available because I tend to use a fairly fluid system for moving through material. The bottom shelf has supplies mostly for science projects. Art supplies have moved to the garage because they were ending up all over the place. The kids can still access them, but it's harder for them to pull everything out, so it doesn't all end up all over the place.

 Our D&D dry erase board and the piano, for when someone feels musically inclined.... And a nice clear picture of the walls. =D

And finally this is their workspace... sort of. It's really just a flat surface that collects crap. =P There is a leaf like the open one above on the other side, and there's felt on the bottom of the table legs so I can move the table easily. I can move the table and open up both sides if I want, or fold both down, or keep one up like it is now. In theory, it's a good idea. In theory...

Anyways, that's a tour of our school space. This is a big part of my life right now, along with art and work and what not, so thought I'd share this for WIP this week. The painting is finished, but maintaining the rest of the room is a constant work in progress as is how we manage our school. I'm always looking for new ways to tweak our system. That makes me sound super organized and together doesn't it? I'm really not. We have no such thing as a routine, and we're definitely one of the more chaotic homeschooling families. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a nice orderly life. ... Sometimes.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 8

This week, I'm sharing some pictures of some crochet amigurumi plushies I've been working on. I'm working on some badge tags to go with them, too. These are similar to the ones I've made in the past, except I've cleaned up the patterns, and instead of just using scrap yarn from around my craft room, I'm picking a specific brand of yarn with lots of color options, so I can keep things consistent to go with the tags. Pictured this week is a Kitty and part of a Bunny. I'm working on redesigning the bunny tail so I'm not using the little poof balls anymore. Those were cute and fuzzy, but they're a pain to find in my area, and the colors don't necessarily go with what I want to use with the yarn, so... working on alternatives. You can see what I've come up with below. I'm debating on a small tail, which is more proportionate, or a larger tail more the size of what I had with the poofs. I'm also loving the colored eyes eye I got to experiment with this time around. Will definitely want to order more of those. Anyways, pictures were taken at work at about 2am, so lighting is meh at best. =P

Bunny

Bunny with larger tail

Bunny with smaller tail

Kitty

Will be a blue calico Kitty

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 7

This week I'm sharing some progress pictures on the new nerdy necktie line I'm working on. Featured in this week is progress on the Tie of Gondor and a shot of the fabric for the next several ties.

WIP Wednesday - 2017- Volume 6

This post is brought to you by more work on the new badges. I'm working on sketching all of them out before I put them in the computer to finish. This week adds the Bounty Hunter, Mecha, Swordsman, Magic Girl, and Lycanthrope to the finished sketches. Apologies for lame photo quality. =P I was using my phone and it was kind of late, so bad lighting.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 5

Hey, two posts in one week. It's a miracle.

So anyways, I'm working on a couple of projects, but one of the bigger projects is redrawing all my archetypes. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that before. I posted a WIP pic earlier this year too. I've decided I don't like 3 of the pictures I posted there though, so... I'll be redrawing those. Anyways, this week's WIP post includes 7 more archetype sketches. I'm also playing with colors for the final versions.

Witch, Wizard, Wise Master

Ghost, Necromancer, Viking, Ninja

These are some of the color variantions. I'm leaning toward #2 and #3. Probably #3... This is also one of the designs I'm throwing out because I don't like it. No other reason.

I'm also working on a new line of something awesome. More on that to come, but here's a teaser picture. The top 3 fabrics are designs I had printed at Spoonflower. I haven't laid out things yet, but I'm hoping the sizing works. @_@