Admin Post: Community Check-In for July

[goss]

Today is the last day of the month, and the perfect time to check in and chat with us. How have things been with you? :)

Was it a busy month, were you swamped? Did you get the chance to take part in any fandom activities or are you working on any personal art projects? Are you currently trying to meet a deadline? Feel free to share upcoming challenges that have got you excited, any frustrations you've been experiencing, possible goals for the next month, and so on.

Comments

Oops, that got long.

[mekare]

YAY first check-in post! The month started excellently with the new drawesome comm and challenges (#2 I'm most proud of), but now I am afraid I'll have less time for art.

My roughest moment art-wise was challenge #3 - for which I have a half-finished art piece and have got the song. I'm still not happy with the anatomy. It's a side view of a male torso (sitting on stairs, so there's the issue of trouser creases as well) but somehow it doesn't quite look right. I'll try to finish it during amnesty week.
Since challenge #3 frustrated me, I didn't start #4 (and was a bit horrified to learn today that only you had posted for that challenge).

Due to some anxiety issues about going back to work I spent a lot of time reading Steve-Bucky fiction. Fortunately that inspired me to do (challenge-unrelated) art which I posted in my journal today (4 art pieces in total).

I am happiest with the last one, but in another I played around with pastels (it was mostly an exercise in moody backgrounds) which was cool. I love colour, but so often I work in small formats where pastels are not fine enough to use, and I feel like I lack skills in that department. alby_mangroves is my pastel hero, I hope I'll be as good one day.

Also, there's an unfinished Star Wars art waiting to be completed, I did some reference search into head-turns and tilts, but that's a project I've put onto the backburner for now.

Phew. What about you guys?

Re: Oops, that got long.

[goss]

Yay, first post! \o/

alby_mangroves is my pastel hero

OMG, can I take a moment to flail and fangirl over her talents and amazingness?? ♥______♥ I am in awe at how prolific she is, and also her skill with getting realistic textures, and her use of colour. I'm always so inspired by her art.

Wow, it's so great that you're been inspired to create Steve/Bucky fanart. One of the nice side-effects of reading fic sometimes. I'll go check it out. :)

And cool to know you've got a WiP going for the song lyric challenge.

Re: Oops, that got long.

[amberdreams]

Oh I just discovered alby_mangroves today and was exploring her tumblr earlier! I love her most recent set of pencil drawings!

[nanslice]

I was pretty bad this month and didn't participate in this community at all. :( But I managed to draw other things this month! I painted this sfw Alucard (Castlevania) piece and this mostly sfw Alucard/Trevor (Castlevania) piece. Hopefully I manage to be more active in this community in August. ;3;

[mekare]

I'll look forward to your participation, that's some sexy vampire art right there. :-) I really like the hair in the first piece.

[goss]

You have such a cool art style! You know what I really like about the first piece? The play of high contrasting lights and darks, as well as the symmetry, gives it a kind of Rorshach ink blot feel. Innnnnteresting....

[kiki_miserychic]

My June was full of caring for my grandpa after a total knee replacement. It went great until it didn't and we were in and out of the hospital. I got a decent amount of drawing done. I even have a dedicated insert in my new traveler's notebook for the community challenges. I did the intro and first two challenges, but I ended up spending about 15 hours at the hospital a day and just wanted to go to bed when I got home instead of turning on the scanner. I didn't even have the energy or willpower to take a photo and tinker with it on my phone. I'm hoping to catch up soon when real life settles down a bit more. My grandpa is getting better slowly. His knee is fantastic and the only real issue is his low sodium, which the doctors haven't been able to find a cause or even sustainable treatment. Mainly he's weaker from not being able to get out of his hospital bed.

[goss]

My dad had knee replacement surgery on both knees, and being over 70 years, I know how complicated and exhausting it can get. It's a slow process at this age, but I hope the healing is going well so far. *sends good vibes*

I'm hoping to catch up soon when real life settles down a bit more.

Yeah, most important is to take care of yourself whenever you can. Glad you're keeping in touch with us here. :)

[amberdreams]

I wish your Grandpa a speedy recovery!

[mekare]

Best wishes for his recovery and thanks for checking in!

[amberdreams]

I seem to have been busy without actually achieving that much. Did the first two Drawesomes but have fallen by the wayside a bit so will try and do something before I go away on Friday. Got nine days of athletics to watch in London plus the last ever GISHWHES week at the same time, so I know I won't have time to do any extra challenges for that period of time.

In the meantime, I'm working on my art for the Wincest big bang (just coming up with ideas at the moment), a quickybang piece (J2 pirates, yay!), an idea for a Dr Who TARDIS art, and two more hares for the Norwich GoGo Hares trail next year. I've submitted three designs and have until 28th August to get my final ones done and sent. Oh and I did manage two J2 Reverse bang arts and a couple of pictures of Wash to get something signed at the LFCC by Alan Tudyk, so actually, July was a bit more productive than I'd thought! Huzzah!

[goss]

Yay for getting so much done in July! \o/

Also, it's really cool that you're getting your Wash pictures signed by Alan himself. *___*

[mekare]

Wow, that's a lot. Have you anything you can link already? (Looking forward to the J2 pirates actually).
Some clueless questions: what is GISHWHES and LFCC? (L for London I guess, C, some kind of convention?)

[korafox]

It's been a pretty busy month. Work has been super hectic and it's only going to become more so as we get closer to the new school year starting. On the plus side, I am going to be a full-time employee starting tomorrow! On the minus side...less time/energy for drawing, heh. Things will get better--sometime around mid-September!

[amberdreams]

Congrats on the job!

[mekare]

I hear you, school starts Thursday here and I am afraid I won't draw very often after that :-( Congratulations on being full-time employed. :-)

[adafrog]

I tend to spend what time I have not at work or in the barn reading fanfic. :D I have been enjoying the canary recs comm on DW and the great art from this com.

My problem with the song one is that I have so many songs running through my head. lolol

[mekare]

Yeah that one was difficult for me too. In the end, I chose one of my all-time favourites and more or less immediately thought of a character it would fit. (May have been influenced by all the Captain America fic I was reading at the time).

[goss]

Do you have a links for the recs comm on DW? I'm always looking for new rec lists.

My problem with the song one is that I have so many songs running through my head.

Heh. Yeah. There's just so much to choose from... /o\

How I made my selection - Since I knew I wanted to create fanart, I chose the character first (Wonder Woman), and then it helped me to narrow down the mood of the song I wanted (strength and bravery). I have a playlist with songs for Overcoming Obstacles, so I went in there for inspiration, and landed on "Titanium", which made me think of the No Man's Land scene in the movie. And that's what I ended up illustrating.

[alias_sqbr]

Other than drawsome challenges I made a little 30x40 pixelated Terezi as a user submitted puzzle for the picross game Paint it Back. That was fun, I might make some more.

Mostly I've been working on a fic for Dragon Age remix. 26K and counting, I gotta get this thing finished /o\ I'm looking forward to Remix Revival, fanart remixes are much more my thing but harder to find oppurtunities to do.

[goss]

Awww, I intended to sign up, but missed the deadline for the Remix Revival sign-ups. I'm excited to see how all the various works get re-interpreted. Good luck with your assignment, and you can keep us posted on how it turns out. :)

Also, very cool that you create both fan art and fic! I have zero skill as a writer, so I'm always fascinated by people who can do both.

[mific]

Oof, I've been immersed in lots of art for the Defenders Big Bang, deadline right now, but I figure I've got a few more hours being ahead of everyone here in New Zealand. I picked up a pinch hit as well as my initial story and am doing two good-sized works for each. It's been fun and has gotten me more into the fandom, so in my breaks I've been watching Jessica Jones and Daredevil, and a little Iron Fist - I already watched quite a lot of Luke Cage. The two stories are both great and totally different, like romantic kink vs kidfic different! Both have been loads of fun to illustrate but I have to fly to Australia for 2 days of meetings in 12 hours and I don't want to take my laptop, just my pad, so I have to get the last artwork done in the next couple of hours. As always, sleep'll be the bit I can't quite fit in, but I can nap on the plane. That should be the last big art challenge for a while, so I'll be able to do the challenges here. I like the idea of that Remix one though - remixing art would be interesting. I've really been enjoying the weekly Drawesome prompts, and am getting some drawing mojo back a little, as opposed to my more digital art that uses blended references more directly. They're both fun. Back to colouring!
ETA: durn it. I stupidly didn't subscribe to Remix Revival and missed the sign ups.

[goss]

Aww man! I was also considering doing the Remix Revival thing too, but was waiting until I'd finished changing out all the broken image links to my fanart, before signing up. Sorry I missed the deadline. :/

[dhampyresa]

I really need to finish a drawing. ANY DRAWING.

[goss]

Awww.

If you're up for it, you could just start small and simple, doesn't have to been fan-related, just to get the ball rolling...

[syble4]

I haven't had a chance to do much in the way of fandom art this month. I find myself uninspired of late, and the creative mojo is not flowing. Next month I have some professional projects to do, so I hope it comes back soon. Oo

[goss]

*nods* Hey, don't sweat it... Sometimes I go for months at a time without the urge to produce any fanart, and then all of a sudden some show/fic/vid with strike a chord and I'll be back making art. :)