Admin Post: Community Check-In for March 2018

[goss]

Yesterday was the last day of March, and we'd love to have you check in and chat with us. How have things been with you this past month?

Did you sign up for or take part in any fandom activities in March, or have you been 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

[goss]

It feels like my fanart productivity has taken a bit of a dive these last few months, however, I've been really enjoying seeing other artists' works round these parts. <3

In place of fandom challenges, I've given myself a RL project that's been taking up most of my time this month. I do have the next two weeks off work though, so I'm looking forward to devoting some of that time to fulfilling a couple fanart challenges, including those at drawesome. :)

[mific]

Shed Steve is coming on apace and looking great. :)
If I was writing more I'd be arting less - not enough time in the week!

[mekare]

Enjoy your free time! It's amazing how quickly the Steve-project is going.

[olivermoss]

I did one drawing. The sketch was okay, but it went wrong during inking and coloring. But it was good coloring practice.

I have a few projects in process, but am going slowly because I want them to be good, but don't know how to make good.

[dylan_mx]

Nice sketch, at least you have a picture to remember it :) What did you use for coloring?

[olivermoss]

I used Copics to color.

[mific]

I love that olive green colour. I find the drawing and painting tutorials on youtube are really useful. Keep at it!

[olivermoss]

Thanks! I was drawing a character who wears eyeliner, so I had to define the eyes more than I usually would. I love that green and I am liking using the blender pen to add highlights to cloth.

[mekare]

Although his facial expression changed a bit I don't think the coloured version looks wrong. It's just different! (And in my recent Bucky piece I went overhis face for several times and he still came out looking completely different from what I wanted).

[olivermoss]

To me, the eyebrows are too high and the eyes are too small. Hopefully, future attempts will go better.

[mekare]

Sorry for the platitude but practice really makes perfect. :-)

[tarlanx]

I finally have some new art equipment :) I had hoped I would have time this Easter weekend but I've so much else on the backlog it's not a joke anymore :(

I have created some digital art during the month but it's for a fiction challenge that doesn't get posted until later in April. I'll share my main piece then. I've also made a number of icons and a couple of wallpapers (digital manips) but I really want to draw/paint freehand.

[dylan_mx]

Too bad, hope you get to use it soon... What did you get?

[tarlanx]

My younger girl had raided most of my art supplies over the years so when I finally had a little time I ended up using an ordinary pen and paper. For my birthday I asked for some replacement sets:

36 Derwent Academy Watercolor pencils
12 Derwent Academy Watercolor Skintones pencils
36 Derwent Academy Color pencils
12 Derwent Academy Sketching pencils (6B to 5H)
Line Markers (0.05 to 0.8)

A basic set of pencils, black and white chalk, erasers and a pencil sharpener

[mific]

Ooh - that's a great haul - lots of fun in store!

[tarlanx]

I forgot to mention two sketch pads to go with it all :) All I need now is to kick myself out of my current apathy and get drawing/painting :)

[dylan_mx]

Woah! Lovely :D

[tarlanx]

It's been a long time since I last sketched/painted. My skills are incredibly (embarrassingly) rusty! I need to have some stress-free time where I can just relax and go for it :)

[mekare]

Wow have fun with those! That's a good set of stuff.

[tarlanx]

Thanks! All I need now is a nice, stress-free break where I can relax and sketch/draw/paint :)

[minoanmiss]

In the US it's National Poetry Month! I'm going to post a half-year's worth of art and poetry all month!

[goss]

Ooh! That sounds really exciting! :D

[mific]

Yay for poetry!

[mekare]

Oh yay I rememer you talking about his. Am looking forward to what you come up with.

[syntheid]

I'm still kind of in the middle of two larger paintings, both of which have pieces I've been getting stuck on, though I did make some progress on my CritterDeck portrait. I should... really have done studies of various parts instead of just jumping into it, but I always feel like that's going to take too long, and then it kind of bites me when I have to take five times as long to finish a piece instead, but oh well.

I may have less free time for a while if all goes... well? And if not I'll definitely be doing more art. But I hope to at least continue to inch progress on those regardless and try to keep up doing a few gouache studies here and there, too.

[mific]

I like the Critterdeck painting - is that digital art, so you're able to work at it over time?
I'm having fun with gouache studies as well.

[syntheid]

Thank you, and yep using Clip Studio Paint. I've already probably put around 30 hours into it, I think, ahah. I haven't kept track exactly, but I started in the beginning of February.

[mekare]

I really love the composition in this! Great pose and nice use of dark/light contrasts!

[mific]

I've probably been doing too much art, this last month, to the detriment of sleep, writing and boring stuff like dishes and laundry, sigh.
Art that wasn't for a Drawesome challenge was a mix of watercolour and gouache.
John Sheppard, Long Suffering (SGA) - my first entirely gouache work.
Fond (SGA) - watercolour, gouache background.
Taika as Viago (What We Do In the Shadows) - watercolour, gouache background.
Weighing Things Up (Captain America) - watercolour, gouache background.
And Painting Exercises and Gouache Studies on my DW.
I enrolled in the ds_c6d_bigbang (due South c6d Big Bang - art with some fic is the plan), in the Captain America Big Bang as an artist, and in intoabar (usually do fic for that but I see they accept art and other media as well now), and of course in the sgareversebang which has made a comeback, yay!
All this will be unsustainable as soon as RL work gets busy again, which it will, soon. Oh well, make the most of it now, I guess - I just wish I could get a bit less blocked with the writing, and that arting while listening to podfic wasn't so enticing! Also I need to stop getting seduced by mail order art supplies. /o\

[olivermoss]

Wow, you've been busy :) Great work! And good luck with all those challenges.

[goss]

OMG, GO YOU! There is no such thing as too much art! YOU ARE AMAZING. KEEP IT GOING. :D :D :D

[mekare]

I've done some art last month:

Anchor (Star Trek Discovery, Rating G)

Awake (MCU, Black Panther post-credit scene, Rating G) (and boy was that ever a fantastic film!)

Reunion (MCU, Black Panther post-credit scene, Rating G, Bucky/Steve)

There is one for the smallfandombang that is going to be posted tomorrow after the author's done their post (Fandom: Midnight Texas). It's a big pastel piece and I like how it turned out. I've never done cover art before and this was fun to do.

I also signed up to make a primary artwork for ds_c6d_bigbang - I am still nervous because I still haven't the slightest idea what exactly to do.

I didn't feel inspired at all by my remaining ladiesbingo prompts, but I'll keep the card in case the muses strike again. I wish I'd had the energy for some Tolkien art during b2mem - the prompts were very cool, but...yeah energy is a limited resource.

There's still one piece for space_swap to do (which I have started a sketch for) and I think then I'm out of energy for other challenges for a bit.

[dylan_mx]

Can't check out the last two because I still haven't seen BP, but the first one is amazing :D

Also thanks for introducing me to b2mem, I joined because I need an excuse to draw my favourite hobbits again.

[mekare]

Great! I love being responsible for other people making art :-)

And thanks for the compliment :-)