samedi 27 mars 2010

Oh there's nothing to lose...

... And there's nothing to prove and I'll be blogging with myself... blogging with myse-e-elf !

No pics today -or tonight, cuz' it's 5:30 a.m over here-, sorry folks. Just need to sit down and talk about my problems to the big Internet psychologist.

Well, we've been together for 5 years and a half (I mean with my boy), and I've never been more active with my art, I've never worked on my art so hard, like every day, doing stuff, trying to create, trying to do things I'm going to sell in conventions. Sure I'm not pro yet but all I'm doing is trying to get better and better, and preparing projects that could be shown to editors. And even if I'm not as popular as some artists are on Y!Gallery, there are people who love what I'm doing. I have friends who support me, I have good feedbacks in conventions, people saying that they like it. It really means a lot to me and I try to remember it when I'm down. I gotta remember the people who are ready to give me a few euros because they like my stuff, people who bought my anthro illustrations last time. Not that I'm doing it for the money, because I'm not living with what I sell in conventions, I just think that it's the best proof that they love it if people are ready to sacrifice a little money just for a piece of art.

The problem now is that my boy doesn't respect what I'm doing. It's driving me insane. He doesn't respect art and I don't manage to know if it's all the art, or only mine. I try to tell him it hurts me but he just doesn't seem to really understand. I know he barely likes what I'm doing -and no, it's not a clash with gay porn, it's about everything I do- but sometimes I wonder if he thinks it's useless, pointless and totally not worthy and that I should give up or if it's just his "I don't give a fuck about anything" way to think. But it pisses me off. He just doesn't realize what my creations are to me.

Example 1. A few times ago, I was sorting my drawings, and I found the original line art of the Butterat. It's a really cute picture that I'm fond of, and I know a few people who love it, lots of people said it was cute in conventions, well. On the sheet, on the drawing, there was a big footprint. Don't know if it's his or mine and I don't care, it wasn't made on purpose. But it had me sighing to see this special picture dirty. And what does he say ? "Oh, it's not important, you won't do anything with the line art anyway, you're selling prints of the Photoshop version." Seriously, what the hell ? How can't he understand how important are original pieces ?! If originals weren't important to me I would be working on the computer all the time. Doesn't he know yet that I'm traditional, that I'm sticking to the good old paper and pencils because it gives you a solid result, an object that is unique and can't be really copied ? Yes, that's the problem, the original butterat is unique and when it's dirty, it's dirty. And when last Christmas I messed up all of the original drawings in my bag with yellow ink, it was just a lot of unique things that were gone. That's all.

Example 2. For my booth in conventions, I'm preparing my first "real" fanzine. First, there were goodies, then a coloring book, then an "artbook" and now I'm ready to go to the next level. I'm working a lot on it, all the time. See, I'm going to do it black and white so it's less expensive. But I want to have fun anyways so I'm doing some of the illustrations in watercolor : my new watercolor box rooocks and the black and white effects I'm doing with it are my new crack. I think that since I'm forced for commercial reasons to make a black and white fanzine, I'm not forced to stick to the damn manga screentones and do the black and white my way. Am I the only one to think that selling quality b&w illustrations is kind of a great deal ?
Well, yesterday I was painting two of these pics, in watercolor. He takes a look and says : "Ha, you like that effect, the border thing with your watercolor, hm ?" So I nod with a "Yes" and he says : "Yeah and you spend less time on it, it's faster than Photoshop". Dude, I'm not doing it in fuckin' watercolor to 'save time' ! That's just not the purpose of watercolor ! At all ! Won't you say next time that I'm doing it in watercolor because I'm lazy or so ?
With all my respect for digital art, on one side you have a drawing where you can erase every single step with a ctrl+Z, on the other side you have a real painting that is risky to do and that you can mess up forever in one second if you're not focused enough. I don't know, when I'm doing this I think "People, see, I'm not messing around with you, I'm giving you black and white but it's hand painted." and the fact that he doesn't see how watercolor is UNIQUE, once again, is getting on my nerves.

I don't know why it's buggin' me now, right now. Is he worse than he used to be, or is it me ? As the dear baby girl Aaliyah said :
"Am I supposed to change? Are you supposed to change?
Who should be hurt? Who should be blamed? "

I just don't know. I know that the fact my best friend is dating a guy who's got a fanzine and who loves art even though he doesn't draw himself is frustrating ; is it normal that your best friend's guy respects your art more than your own boy does ? But well, better than nothing, hm ?
On the other side, my boy recently printed a chibi version of him I did (with the damn' black and white watercolor XD) and stick it next to his desk at his office, and he took one of my "artbooks" to show it to his colleagues which is totally weird and illogical since he's not really enthusiastic about it. I don't get it.

Well, I just need to focus on good things now, remember good things are coming up, that May will be a fuckin' great month and that I have a lot of stuff to do before... yay !

mardi 23 mars 2010

Of spiders and dinosaurs...

Denver, the last dinosaur

I had the idea of this fanart when I joined a group on Facebook titled "What does mean the "And so much more" in Denver's opening song ?". Oh, what a pathetic proof that I'm a nolife, being inspired by Facebook ! u_u But that's the best part of this network, stupid groups like "Eating a salad at McDonald's is like asking a hug to a hooker" or "One day, you wake up... and you're a salmon."



There was this picture by DAvy Mourier, a french actor/director/writer/comic artist/nerd/idol of mine and as you can guess I was craving to do my own version so here it is.



I wasn't sure I would do something good, finding the right balance between Denver's so cartoony anatomy and a realistic human cock -ah, Y!Gallery !- but in the end it's not that shocking -or is it ? ^^-. He's got a round, cute face and that huge... HUGE thing. I didn't include his badass guitar but I let him hold his shades, they are so fantastic ! 80's pink shades ! XD



I don't really remember why I picked this kid among all the team, don't remember his name, sorry, but it was most probably because he was the nerdiest -or just to make an homage to DAvy's version-. Dorks with glasses deserve some lovin' too ! However, I'm not into shota at all so I made him a big boy. I really had fun drawing his chest hair, and his big 90's sneakers. I drew them in their play hut, that was such an important place in the show and I like the idea they're still hiding in there many years later to play in a pretty different way ! ^^


Lars Croft and the Spider

This one unfortunately had to be posted in the Extras on Yaoi Gallery because the spider is kinda sexually assaulting him -is it really bestiality ? Hm...-. It could have been work safe as in the video game but come on, wouldn't have been funny at all !



The spider is an homage to one of my favorite levels ever : the Temple of Xian in Tomb Raider 2. I love all this level because it's quite technical, it's trap after trap after trap, you don't have a single second to rest and it's all about knowing exactly what you can do and when to do it -ah... jump and flip from a ladder to another ladder in your back, one of my favorite tricks ! ^^-. However, I have to say the spider cave got me screaming and squealing and jumping in front of my screen like a thousand times because it's so dark and you hear them but you don't know where they come from, you don't even know where you gotta go. It's not even that this level is complicated, it's just so scary ! *shivers*



Lars' mini shorts, just like Lara's, are so tight, it's such a temptation to rip them off, that's why I do it in every single drawing. But I don't see anything underneath, guess he's going commando all the time, just in case he might need a "fast access". I kinda like the color of his skin, would like to bite his arm. I also added some shiny lights to the background to remember the weird atmosphere of the spider cave : it already has that strange emerald lighting you have in the next level, the Floating Islands. It should have been much darker too, but I prefer to fully see Lars and his cock, that's quite important, nope ? ^^

mercredi 17 mars 2010

Happy Birthday Freddy !

About one month ago, our dear Dinosaurprince told me about his ideas, his projects, and said he wanted to commission some pieces for the birthday of his friend Freddy, a.k.a Ink-B -a pretty good artist, you should definitely check out !-. He told me we could work on something else before if I wanted to, but as a good paranoid I just said "No, it's in one month, let's do it first, there's a deadline, it's important !". There you know I'm kinda... angsty ! *lol*



The first pic was prince Athan, a gorgeous original character created by Ink-B. Dino said he could be kneeling next to an open treasure chest, tossing up gold coins in the air with a very happy look on his face. The scene would take place on an island, next to the beach. He also suggested the coins would make the words "Happy Birthday Ink-B" but I thought it was going to be huge and complicated and would steal the attention Athan needed, so I wrote the b'day wishes on a parchment to figure a treasure map.



On a funny note, I am what I am... I'm used to another kind of commissions so... at first I drew Athan totally naked (and quite... glorious ^^") but then Dino told me that Athan was Ink-B's baby and that he wasn't supposed to be NSFW at all. So I brought his clothes back. Naaa you won't see the first sketch, you pervs' ! On this second version I added some jewels, all the necklaces and the gold bracelet with Ink's name engraved on it.



Inked version. You can notice I wrote Happy Birthday on the parchment in French because the internet is huuuuuuuuge but sometimes you get commissioned by a Canadian guy to draw a part of the birthday present of a guy who speaks the same language as you ! ^^ -Let's say Ink-B and I live in the same country but not at all in the same part of the world. Wow, damn colonization !- I thought it would sound exotic to English speakers, or to anyone who doesn't speak French anyway, but Ink would understand it.



As for the colors, nothing really important to say, I wondered for a while if I was going to go for unsaturated colors, for darker tones or more realistic background, but then I thought a birthday wasn't really the good moment to make experimentations : I sticked to a joyful cartoony color scheme as that's what I do the best. In the end the result is not too bad, in my opinion.

Second piece !



Being a concerned friend, Dino also asked for Ink's favorite characters from Final Fantasy : Basch and Squall. This is my first FF porn, maybe my first FF fanart and I have to say the best part of it was to have to show it to my best friend, who's a complete Final Fantasy whore. She's been a fan for years -decades ?-, she jumped on FFXIII as soon as it came out, she knows five years before when a game is supposed to be released, I'm always totally lost when I talk about it with her. I was so scared she would be picky and say "No, Squall is not supposed to be like this, and Basch should be like that !"
However, even though I'm not a gamer I've always admired Final Fantasy, since the beginning they have the best pictures... see, when a video game is made in USA or Europe, you know Japanese were doing as good 3D effects on Final Fantasy like five years ago. Not even talking about their fantastic chara design work, every time. I remember when FFX came out, I was younger, I've never played the game but I could spend hours in front of the TV, watching the previews, trailers and other videos of the game, drooling over Tidus and Wakka and the motherfuckin way these pictures were animated !



Dino requested a good old doggy style. With Basch cumming on Squall's back - that's the cherry on top ! ^^-. Doggy style is not the position I prefer to draw ; it's cool because both guys can be facing you and you can fully see their faces. (Plus it's a hot position, if you've ever tried you know what I mean...) But the way to put arms and legs is a bit tricky. I feel like ALL of my doggy style pics are the same. I gotta find a way to get better at this -without drawing it from a side view, which is ever worse in my opinion-.



You know what ? I really had fun with their clothes. At first, I think we were wondering if we should draw them naked or not but I said to Dino that definitely, their special suits are 100% parts of the characters and that they should be drawn. Basch's suit was a mess, lots of straps, leather stuff. But I had a blast inking Squall's jacket. I think I love to draw leather much more than to wear it ! ^^



In the end, I got inspired by a screencap of Dissidia for the background. Did it entirely on Photoshop. Oh, I know, you're wondering what my best friend did say about the complete illustration... or did she see it ? Don't remember if she saw the finished work, but I know she said it was funny because Squall, the character who always pouts and never smiles, was smiling on this drawing. As I told her, Dino and I are really into consensual sex, we like it playful and happy -in our works, of course ! We have a professional relationship ! ^^- and it wouldn't have been a great birthday wish if this usually grumpy Squall didn't seem happy to be there.

To see what other gorgeous pieces of art Ink-B got for his birthday, go to Dinosaur Prince's Kingdom !

vendredi 5 mars 2010

Qué pasó con mi leche ?

Guess what ? I have another blog post in progress but I just can't seem to finish to write it. I will, one day... probably... ^^" anyway, today I finally finished this illustration and wanted to share.



Yeah, it might be what it seems to be. The "cover" of a short comic I'm currently drawing, just for fun. You recognize my original characters, Javier the latino baby boy from the Bronx and Ka'eo the hawaiian chubby dude. The comic will be 6 pages long. The title means, in spanish, "What happened to my milk ?"... Yup, it's exactly what you think it is, it's supposed to be hot and funny at the same time.
For the cover I wanted a mix of what you can see in the six pages : hot hip-hop styled chocolate boys, average domestic details like the chair and the clothes on it and the urban feeling of the Bronx in the background. I tried to find the good balance between the background and the boys, using the diagonal in the composition. Honestly don't know if I managed...
However, I couldn't decide what kind of tones I should use so I made two variations, one less saturated and one more saturated. Don't hesitate to give your opinion because I really, really don't know which is better, though I like the flashy one.