A Merry Christmas

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Wolfsong wants to you all a wonderful holiday season, brought to you by Pagan and Clover.

An Artistic Anniversary, August 26th, 2012

My and my boyfriend's anniversary was this past Sunday, on August 26th. We celebrated our 4th year together.

Raven (you did wonder where I got my name from, yes? ) took us to Oak's Park in Portland, where we had our first kiss four years ago. We went out to eat at the Outback Steakhouse, and exchanged some very artistic gifts. I was both touched and impressed by what he was able to make without my assistance, since normally he relies on me for any artistic ideas he has (such as the Rooster comic).

Raven and me standing on the very place we shared our first kiss!

On the Carousel together

Raven looks so calm and pensive sitting on the carousel horse

We

 

 I made this painting for Raven in acrylic, on a small canvas. I'm normally not a fan of actual paint (and when I do, I tend to prefer water color and water-color pencils), and I'm normally not that great at them either. I was pleased enough with this painting though to give it to Raven for our anniversary. The symbolism being a wolf with a raven on its back, lending a guiding wing. It's our animals (obviously, haha!).

Raven gave me a Sonic Screwdriver as one of my anniversary gifts, hah! Geek out!

My cat, Clover, was fascinated with the Sonic Screwdriver. It lights up AND makes noise!

The best gift of all though was this simply little "love coupon", which has a fairly long, utterly sweet and touching story behind it.

 Back... oh... two, almost three years ago, waay back when Raven lived with his friend in their apartment in Gresham, that long ago, I used to have these cute little "love coupons" that I bought I can't remember how long ago (I think I was still in high school when I got them).

There were originally like 5 or 6, all saying things like "Redeem for a Kiss" or "This coupon is good for one Night on the Town" or "Good for One Roll in the Hay", and the one shown here, "Good for One Night of Falling in Love All Over Again". Most of them I lost or had given to my ex (same thing, right? lol), but I'd kept that one for whatever reason.

It must have been for like.. Valentine's day or something (2010 maybe) when I gave it to Raven as a cutesy little side gift. He didn't think much of it, we did so much more, the cutesy gift was just that, cutesy. Afterwards, I kept it as a bookmark. I always thought fondly of cute things like that. I loved that little bookmark. Silly, I know.

Anyway, Raven came across it one night while I was reading, saw it lying on the floor because I'm messy when I use things and asked me if I needed it anymore. Not seeing what he was holding, I said, "Probably not" (which is normally true, in my case), and so he folded it and tossed it in the trash can as I looked up at him. I felt only a little short of devastated when I saw that cutesy thing I was so fond of with an ugly crease down the middle of it. "I guess I don't really need it anymore now," is what I believe I said. He apologized, and as far as I'd known he threw it away for good that time. I quickly forgot about it, as fond as I was of it, it was just a little piece of paper.

Low and behold, two years later, I find out that he'd kept that little piece of glossy paper, kept it hidden away until he could find a way to make it up to me that he'd ruined a simple little piece of paper. He scanned it into our computer, used the little knowledge he had of Photoshop to repair the crease and added the personalization just for our anniversary. The date, the little personal message at the bottom (which he had to remove a cute little quip about eating a romantic meal, candle light and chocolates and somesuch to do it) with his own personal Raven-humor (teehee!). All by himself! I'm so proud of him for being able to pull it off without my help, and I am so amazed that he would have kept that little piece of paper to make such a wonderful, meaningful gift for me!

I'm the luckiest girl in the world to have him in my life.

 And what was the final gift I gave him for our anniversary?

A kitten.

Rough Final of Emerald City

The rough final concept of Emerald City.

The Emerald City Sketches

Can you tell I've been busy? Yeah.. I've been busy. My conceptual art class is KILLER in terms of time. It's really fun though. Here are just a few pages of sketches that I've made for the class.
The reference images I used are all along the side for inspiration, I love Photoshop for that.

Steampunk is more of a challenge than I'd thought it'd be. In addition to my not-so-grand skills at buildings and man-made objects. I've always been more attuned with people and natural things such as rocks, trees, landscapes, etc. Buildings and pipes and crazy stuff like this are almost lost to my poor mind!












 The bottom two are the more complete sketches with my idea more firmly set in mind. I'm working on the last image and adding value and detail to it even as you read this post.

 I'm working my ass off trying to figure out how the fountain is going to look. Gaah!

Sitting Warrior and School

A drawing I've been working on during classes at school to stave off boredom. In the process of coloring, but for now you can enjoy the pretty line art.

Seriously, in one of those classes, I'm relearning InDesign, to the point where he's even teaching us things that we've learned 10 times over in our college careers, such as not trying to resample images larger than they originally came. You can make things smaller, but you can't make things bigger. We learned this Freshman year, and I am now a Junior. Give me something more to go on than resizing images!

You know, maybe one reason his face is so stern is because he's reflecting my irritation at some of the things we're 'learning' in these classes. Hah!

Ranting aside though, my classes are very interesting and are quite time consuming. But they're sure to produce some nifty work! Especially my Conceptual Design class, where we're literally creating the concept designs for a movie (creating a new Wizard of Oz), starting from a style guide, to environment designs, to character designs. Be ready to see a Cowardly Lion from me in the next month!

Before Our Love Fell - Page 8 (finale)

Process:




 I had to seriously rework the ending of the first sketch, because it felt incomplete and I wasn't sure how to communicate the feelings and melancholy nature of the ending. Fortunately, that's what teachers are for! 













 Here's another example of where I had an older design for Anne's and her lover's home, which was changed in the final draft and lineart. I also had to change certain angles so that the flow wouldn't be interrupted. The 180 degree rule of site, you cannot move the camera more than 180 degrees around a subject or in a scene because it will cause a disconnect and they might think of it as a different scene. So I had to change how the angle of the wall/window behind Anne and Adam, and beside the vampire as she sits outside, to keep the relationship between the scenes to show that they are the same window.














 

Before Our Love Fell - Page 7

Process:

The overall design for this page didn't change much at all, beyond giving more emphasis on the movement of the 'camera' in the bottom four frames again to keep the frame from looking too still.

Before Our Love Fell - Page 6

The darkness on this page is very fitting for the mood of the story.



Process:

This one had a bit of fixing to do in the final stages. One thing that people always have to remember is that a camera is never still, even in movies, it's always either zooming in or out extremely slowly, or panning across the screen in some subtle manner, etc. People don't always notice these movements (nor are they supposed to), but they are there because if the camera had been completely still they would notice the stillness.

With comics, you have the same issue. If you have too many frames of sameness, it will look flat and unmoving, so I had to create a dynamic scene on the bottom four frames, zooming out of Anne as she waits outside the door. It also helps the movement of the scene and denote the passing of time.

It also was changed because having the vampire bending over Adam in the first of the four frames made the transition awkward too, and this was a more graceful flow.

Before Our Love Fell - Page 5

I had a bit of fun playing with the shading and giving the outdoor atmosphere around the vampire a darker feel. Making things seem darker where she was as if it was almost palpable.


Process:

This page was a little difficult. I couldn't really decide on a final design for the home that Anne and her lover lived in. At first I was thinking some sort of apartment/tenement type place, and then was thinking townhouses, etc etc.

 You'll notice in the final draft I also shifted one of the boxes for better flow. The jump from facing Anne as she walks with the vampire to her approaching her front door was a bit jarring, as you weren't directly connected with the destination from one panel to the other, so I switched the order slightly to allow for better flow and the destination to location to connect properly.

Before Our Love Fell - Page 4

 

I really liked how this page turned out. From the fear from Anne and the conflicting anguish from the vampire as Anne pulls her heart strings. From toying with one's food to feeling sorry for it, damn!

Process:

 Notice how the sketch follows the action lines. I did that on purpose. ;D















 On this page, it was surprisingly difficult to figure out where the speech bubbles were going to go once I fully realized what I wanted to do with Anne's hair. I didn't want any bubbles too close to the lower panels where her hair overlaps, because there'd be too much in that area and it would take away from the overall picture.






 

Before Our Love Fell - Page 3

 One thing I really liked about this page was how in the previous two pages, the lighting was more natural, and then when the vampire makes her appearance the atmosphere suddenly gets darker. Almost as if the entire world seems to darken in her presence.


Process: 

Before Our Love Fell - Page 2

 

Don't worry, it's just those two lines that are in Russian (transliterated). Since I didn't actually write the story, I can't tell you the exact translation, but basically, she is saying "I seek the one who lives here", and the reply, "You spoke well."


Process:

In the final draft, I also started to figure out where the speech bubbles were going to go. 
















I want a house like this one!