Nuggetty Goodness

My beloved surgeon doggy... here's to hoping you found the poodle of your dreams.

~_o to those of you who have no idea what I'm babbling about... Move along, nothing to see here. XD

Edit:
Zoot! The things you keep, (or well, I keep) without realising you kept them!

I still have Broekn's desc after so many years. O.o

"A large, shaggy mongrel dog stares up at you with limpid amber eyes. He wears a rather silly grin, and his tail thumps the ground in delight at seeing you. He's shedding long brown fur all over the place, and looks like he'd love to have his floppy ears scratched."

This week's random head started out as Eurydiche from Tanith Lee's Faces Under Water, and ended up as... well, what you see here.

I find that for every piece that turns out the way I initially envisioned it, there's another 20 (or more!) that turn out nothing like what I had in mind in the first place. This, of course, is one of those 'nothing likes'. For one thing, Lee does mention that Eurydiche, when she wears a mask, wears a huuuuuuuuge butterfly. But I just couldn't get the butterfly to work. Alas!

One thing I've noticed about Asian games vs Western ones - Asian games have boys that are sooooo much prettier! (At least, to my tastes, anyway. ;))

It's rather interesting really. If you had, as a random example, a Western-based game with a guy who looked like Final Fantasy's Seifer Almasy, or, God forbid, Sephiroth, it would be a general joke that they just had to be gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. ~_o Being gay, that is.)

Just take WoW's Blood Elf guys, for example. It's pretty much a given that they look 'gay'. It just seems that when it comes to Western-made games, there's this impression that, 'If a guy is beautiful (yes! I used that horrible word to refer to a male specimen, ohnoes!) then he must be gay. And if you play such a fellow, you're either a gay guy, or a chick.'

Yet when it comes to Asian games, that issue rarely comes up, if at all.

And you know what? As a girly, I so, so much prefer the male eye candy provided by Asian games. It just seems to me that in Asian games, there's an understanding that when it comes to looks, while you can certainly pack a guy with so full of muscley macho cues that his whole look just screams, 'GWARRRR ME SMUSH!' (Street Fighter's Zangief, for instance,) there's still the understanding that speed, grace and elegance can also be masculine. (See other examples above, or Balrog/Vega, if you prefer more Street Fighter stuffs. XD)

For me at least, the argument that, 'If I have to stare at an avatar for hours, I want it to be cute!' rings totally true. Unfortunately, this means that in MMOs, I tend to play girl avatars. Not because I'm a girl, but because the boys look horrible or strange or unappealing.

But in Jade Dynasty, for example, that I play on and off (mostly off), I have 3 male toons and counting. Why? Because they're hawt!

WTB, moar hawt boys in games please!

Fine, fine, nuggeet, but what does this have to do with today's sketch, you rambling chunk of batter-covered chicken goodness?

Well... after all that raving about the wonder of Bishonen, I must confess...

I don't really like Manga style art. I think it's mostly because it gets Mang(a)led way too much. It seems some take 'Manga' as 'I can throw all knowledge of anatomy, proportion, and everything else right out the window, because after all, it's "my Manga style"'. That being said, I do like some very specific Manga artists - those like Yoshitaka Amano, whose abstraction of anatomy obviously comes from a sound knowledge of it.

So! Nuggeet likes the whole Bishonen thing, but she doesn't like manga, oh noes! Wut to do!?

...make my own I guess. XD

And that, my nuggets, is this rant's rather convoluted link to this week's sketch.

(Oh yeah, and so far it's  only heads cause heads come really easily to me, and I'm a really lazy nugget.)

 

I blame this week's random comic book femme fatale type on Travis Hulsey who filled my head with comicbook talk shortly before I waddled off to scribble this...

So, a mere 4 months after buying my new PC laptop, I suddenly realise that this means I can play with zBrush!

What I really love about zBrush is how totally intuitive the sculpting process is. If you know how to sculpt in 3d (as in, with real, traditional clay, etc), you know how to sculpt in zBrush. I do understand that there's a lot of things like polygon counts and whatnots that models made in zBrush have downsides in... but I hope in my nuggetheart that this is the kind of interface that 3D programs can move towards. I have no idea if that's practical within my nugget shelflife of course, but in the meanwhile... VIRTUAL SUPER SCULPEY! WOOT!

I've also learned that the top part of the sphere should not form the front of your 'face'. -_- It only took me 4 hours to figure out how to patch the hole in the mesh. Ah noobie goodness.

 

Part of what I'm trying to do with these weekly sketches, (other than prodding myself into not being so darn lazy about sketching) is to get myself to 'loosen up' stylistically. Not to have this neurotic desire to delete each and every single 'mistake', and instead, to work the 'feeling out' lines into the sketch.

Intellectually, I know that madly deleting lines left and right can lead to a piece that isn't as rich as those where the feeler-lines (can't think of a better term right now) are left alone to do their thing. Soooo here's me mentally slapping my hand going, 'No! No eraser (tool)! Bad nugget! Leave it! Erase only for highlights!'

I think it's working - especially compared to my first sketch of this series (bleck!) but still a long way to go towards training myself NOT to twitch for the eraser. XD

^_^ This week, I actually know who the random person is! Or is supposed to be.

Inspired by Hal Duncan's Book of All Hours Series (Vellum and Ink), here's Josef Pechorin.

Soooo... every year I tell myself I should be less lazy about sketching/painting, and do more un-work related stuff. Of course, being a sluggy nugget, I usually fail to be less lazy. *mourn self*

However, in yet another one of these twitchy attempts, I am now attempting to whip myself into doing at least one random sketch of someone, something, whatever, at least once a week.

And sooo we has: Ze Weekly Random Nuggetsketch!

I dunno who the chick is. These random people showing up on my screen, who are they? Who knows?