it's been a long time...shouldn't have left u...

...without a dope - well, u know. ^__^



so, it has been brought to my attention by one of the three people that read this blog (including myself) that my daily blog hasn't changed in over a week! tsk tsk and i swear, its not like i haven't done anything hence the quietness. quite on the contrary, that's why i haven't really had the time to post new blogs. plus the fact that i've been sick for like a week now. however, since i'm all better and ready to get crackin again, it's time for something new to stay positive!

this is a scan of the pencils. i didn't ink this one cuz i figured the painterly style i was going to use would work better if the lines weren't so defined. i didn't want to put too much detail to leave it open for any digital manipulations i may do to it. specifically, the surfboard and her bathing suit.

this is the flat colors i did. this is how everything pretty much starts out. makes parts of her easy to select too. i also added the little designs on her surboard. the black and pink squares are there for the checkered flag effect. then i just put her name on it cuz i think if she was going to have a surfboard, she'd probably put her name on it. that's just me tho. =P

this is the finished piece. he trees are a brush. the funky cloud thingy is similar (if not the same) brush that i used on the whole piece, just bigger. then the implied horizon line is really just a gradient applied to the entire background. i experimented a lot with the layer styles. i find that choosing "Hard Light" or "Vivid Light" really changes a lot and makes for unexpectedly cool effects. give it a whirl!

i've had this drawing in my head for a little while and decided to draw it as simply as i could to create the background digitally. but i was having the toughest time deciding who it was going to be. i initially wanted it to be Trixie in the spirit of the new Speed Racer movie, but then i wasn't feelin it as i drew. so i nearly gave up on it and threw it away. i just wanted to throw up on it after erasing the hand and arms over and over again. but then we went to see the movie and i was just blown away!
[short digression]
i kept waiting for it to suck because i've heard from more than one source that it was really bad. (tho i never take the newspaper's criticism seriously because they hate EVERYthing except for extremely deep or abstract films like "the Pianist" or "the girl with the pearl earring" or that one that's real trippy where they were singing and dancing at the bowling alley. which is fine and all if i was looking to watch something deep or abstract. but i'm just looking for something entertaining.) i kept thinking "ok, maybe this is the point where this is going to take a turn for the worse." or "alright, maybe it gets boring from here on out." but it never came for me! the movie was a whole lot of fun to watch and look at. it was really a family film. there was no sex or cursing or bloody violence in the cartoon-turned-movie. they did their darndest to be as crazy with the visual effects and by golly its just downright entertaining. i mean, i know i haven't seen an entire episode of Speed Racer but knowing what i do know about it, i couldn't find any fault. i mean here's a kid whose entire life is about racing trying to fight injustice on the tracks with his family supporting him and his girlfriend literally being ride or die. what more can u ask for?! he even did the Speed Racer pose at some point which was quite cool.
[end digression]
so after thoroughly enjoying the Speed Racer movie, i went back to turning her into Trixie again and it worked out really well. and i tried hard not to make her overly married to the character. the only thing is that she's got the Mach5 emblem on her neck which can be easily erased for other purposes of this image. u can't even read her name on her surfboard that much either. anyways, i'll probably never make anything this cool ever again. so sad. =P oh well, ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!!