Admin Post: Community Check-In for June 2019

[goss]

Today's the last day of June, 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 June, 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

[minoanmiss]

I have spent June making things for a Dark Subjects exchange. Including two drawings! On the one hand it's been cathartic and productive, but on the other hand kind of lonely (because of the subject matter I am not posting excerpts or details anywhere).

I also drew fairies for labels for the candies I make, and need to post those drawings to my journal.

I also made several kinds of candy (another one of my creative expressions).

... put that way I did rather a lot!

[yhlee]

I was sick for almost all of June but have resumed doing Phil Metzger (Perspective without Pain) to learn basic perspective, Bargue for figure (Charles Bargue: Drawing Course), and have been screwing around with my iPad/Procreate: Now and forever, I'm your gun I actually finished earlier today. If I can get into a habit of doing Metzger and/or Bargue every day, I'm hoping it will eventually make a difference.

What I'm struggling with right now is feeling like I'm a hamster on a wheel--I'm practicing, but the last time I had art class was 9th grade and I suspect I just do not know how to learn effectively. I am seriously starting to doubt whether it's possible for me to learn on my own when my foundations are this shaky, but realistically my job means I won't be able to commit to even community school type art lessons for some time.

[yhlee]

Oh, that's amazing! The fairies sound lovely. :)

[goss]

Not too much going on with me art-wise right now. RL responsibilities are taking up most of my time and energy at the moment. :(

But! I can't wait for summer vacation to begin next week. (Yay!) I'm hoping to getting myself into a proper drawing schedule over the summer, since I'll have more time to devote to my fanart then.

I think the most I've probably done in terms of visual work for June is creating the header banner and default icon for nirvana_in_fire, a fandom community that just opened its doors this week. \o/

Fandom-wise, I like many others have recently fallen for Good Omens. Also C-dramas Guardian and Nirvana in Fire continue to fascinate. The visuals and imagery in these shows are wonderful, and I'm really looking forward to using them as inspiration for fanart this month. :)

[goss]

Now and forever, I'm your gun I actually finished earlier today.

Nice! I really enjoyed following along with your entire process in the vid. Also, the galaxy effect you got is so cool! Thanks for linking back to the tutorial - makes me want to attempt digital painting again.

As for art lessons, I feel like it's never too late to learn and develop art skills. You definitely have a good eye for it and lots of natural ability (I love your figure sketches!), which can help compensate for discrepancies in your former art education.

These days the vid tutorials available online are such good quality that sometime I find myself using them as a guide for how to teach certain foundation art concepts in my own classes. Perspective is always my most challenging one! /o\

[goss]

You make candy? That is so cool. :D

Please link us to your candy label fairies whenever you post them to your journal, I would love to see them.

[juzo_kun]

Started working on my own website for the 3027410th time. Maybe it's the good one this time.

[minoanmiss]

All good fortune! *cheers you on*

[minoanmiss]

Have a glorious and productive summer vacation! And I will definitely link you when I post the fairies. :)

[minoanmiss]

Learning can be a bit more difficult when we're out of school, but I have every faith you can do it! ANd by doing this you are exercising your brain, just like muscles, ad thus staving off age-related degeneration down the line!

*cheers you on*

[goss]

Heh, I hear ya. I too seem to be challenged when it comes to maintaining my website.

Best of luck to you! *\o/*

[olivermoss]

I was AFK and now that I am back I am just dealing with sorting / developing / posting / organizing photographs.

I've doodled a bit, but I haven't really gotten back into drawing. First I need to wrap all this up, make some new website galleries for Alaska and rain, and make a table of contents for my travelogues because it's hard for people not familiar with DW to navigate them via tag.

[yhlee]

Thanks! I really appreciate the words of encouragement. :) I'm working on developing a habit of drawing at least a small thing every day even if work gets busy.

[yhlee]

Yeah, I keep forgetting that "look it up on Youtube" is an option these days, which it wasn't when I was a kid growing up! My daughter does it constantly (she's in the GT program for art at her high school) instead of going to books the way I do, and it's certainly working for her! Thanks for the words of encouragement. :)

[yhlee]

Yay summer vacation! Your arting plans sound fantastic.

[yhlee]

Good luck! :D

[yhlee]

Best wishes with the photographs and website stuff! I've never been to Alaska but the photos I've seen (from another friend who lives there) are amazing.

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

In a few days I should know what photos I really want in my galleries. I do also need to work on my photography website a bit: https://dorkvania.com/ but I am waiting until more of the stuff with the new version of wordpress is bashed out before I do stuff.

[juzo_kun]

Thank you! :)

[juzo_kun]

Thank you! :)

(The irony is that I'm a webdesigner, and my own site is the most difficult work...)

[juzo_kun]

Thanks! :)

[mekare]

It's finally holiday time so I can catch up a bit. In June I signed up for the everywoman exchange and wipbigbang (ancient China Guardian AU) which will keep me busy during the summer. I also finally finished a WIP I posted here in March looking for anatomy help.

Most of my art was for Nirvana in Fire which really got the muses going this month after finishing the series in May. The show features tons of interesting female characters and my new goal for the summer is to portray them all at one point.

I did a strange crossover art (Guardian/Inuyasha).

Had a bit of a break from watercolour with this marker sketch.

Went back to water colour with this portrait.

Tried layering watercolour very lightly over a pencil sketch to preserve it and tried a flying boy in maid's clothes.

I also went back to attempt another erotic art.

Here's one of the awesome ladies I mentioned: Princess Liyang (I also had some ink pen problems but I think I've solved it today by disassembling the pen and reassembling it).

Also did a silly comic featuring Princess Nihuang carrying her fiancé bridal style to bed.

On the second to last day I went back to pure pencilwork which I haven't done in a while.

Huh. I was ill for the last two weeks of the month so I'm a bit astonished at how much I did despite that.

[mekare]

Interesting. Are the works in that exchange going to be collected anywhere? I'd love to see you post those fairies!

[minoanmiss]

The exchange will come live this Saturday, I think. I'll post about it when it does. And I should really post the fairies. :)

[mekare]

Cool, thanks for posting the process video, I'll watch that later. I like the lighting in the art.

Re practice, I've had that feeeling of not feeling like the practice makes a difference but I do believe that regular practice will pay off in the end! Plus there's always the comm here where you could get some advice on WIPs if you want.