Smorgasbord

A lot of different drawings today! Some of them aren't particularly good, but at least they're there.

The titular character of Guardian. He looks a little strange and dead-eyed here, but I like the movement in his clothing.

Some expressions for Jeff, who you saw yesterday. From the top, they are "awe," "apathy," and "nerd rage." Jeff is fun to draw.

Lastly, a still life I did for drawing class today. Totally messed up the proportions, so I sort of quit halfway. Oh well, can't win 'em all...

Sub-human

It seems that lately, drawing anything that isn't for art class is a total chore. Argh. Still managed to churn something out tonight... Developing sub-human characters for a fantastic setting.


American
Following WWII, the United States of America experienced a great deal of prosperity and wealth. Life became easier for everyone. People no longer had to work as hard to achieve their dreams. Science fiction writers warned the people of America that consequences for becoming a lazier society could be grave, but they did not listen; in the past fifty years, they have seemingly devolved and become beings of a much simpler biological persuasion.

Although most of them don't realize it, as they never leave their country (and when they do, they never pay attention to how they look compared to the locals of other countires).

This particular American is named Jeffery Waters. He makes geeky independent films.

I DID NOT FORGET TODAY

I was just out and about today. I still got to draw, though!


Thanks very much to commenter "Zombie" for modeling for me today.

Warhol Museum

Today, my art class visited the Andy Warhol Museum! We focused on trying to capture the contrast present in a lot of his photography.

I really liked it, because I got to use my sharpie a lot. I really like sketching in Sharpie.

I'm bad at this

GUESS WHAT I FORGOT ABOUT AGAIN TODAY, GUYS.

That's right! My blog!
In a weak attempt to save face, here's some character designs for the minor characters of Guardian.


The ones with wings/halos are deceased... I'd go into more detail about them but if I ramble it will be midnight before I get this up!

Tomorrow I have art class again, so I probably won't forget about this blog. Hooray.

Still Lives

(Still Lifes? I dunno the plural.)

Sorry this is so late; my sleeping schedule is off. Here's some new drawings I did in art class today.

In graphite from above!

In Sharpie from below!

...I really love sketching with Sharpie.

Today...

I forgot I had a doodle blog. Whoops!

I also didn't get a chance to draw anything. Double whoops!

So, I'm a little bit at a loss as to what to post. In the end, I thought you might like my Screenwriting homework.

A little backstory. The Guardian is the story of a boy who wakes up to find he has wings. This is two years after he finds out that he can fully recover from any wound in a matter of seconds with no scarring. He lives in a pretty normal universe, so this freaks him out a lot, to say the least. Before he can fully cope with his problems, a mysterious supervillain shows up and starts causing terror. With everyone else powerless to stop him, it's up to the boy--Sydney--to save the day.

This scene would occur... around the early middle of the story, I think. Our writing assignment was just "write a scene," it didn't specify where that scene needed to fall. Sydney and his partner-in-crime-fighting, Ruby, are meeting with a detective and Ruby's former co-worker, Roy Howard. Please forgive any crappiness here. It had to be between 100 and 125 words, which is really nothing when it comes down to it.

EXT. BRYANT PARK - DAY

ROY is sitting at one of the tables scattered around Bryant Park. He seems rather nervous about the ordeal, glancing at his watch, then at the surrounding area, then back to his watch. Finally, he catches sight of SYDNEY and RUBY. He smiles and waves half-heartedly and the two enter the frame.

RUBY
It's good to see you, Roy.

ROY
Likewise. How's the apartment working out?

RUBY
It's great. Really. Sydney and I - we owe you a ot.

ROY
(Distracted, not even looking at RUBY or SYDNEY)
It's nothing, really...

A beat.

RUBY
(Grave)
What's wrong?

Roy suddenly turns back to the table, but looks down as he speaks.

ROY
(Fast)
I think - we caught someone today. Nothing big, just some kid with no experience. He broke down real fast when we brought him in; started telling us all this stuff - he knew a lot about the underworld, it seemed. Mentioned a group of superhumans in one of the seedier areas... a place we haven't checked, yet.

RUBY
Do you think it's -

As she's speaking, SYNDEY holds up a page from his notepad. On it is written "7?" RUBY glances over at the sheet, stops talking, and ends by half-heartedly pointing to the sheet.

ROY
If the kid's telling the truth... more than likely.

A beat.

ROY
They want to send in a few officers soon. I'm trying to convince them not to, but... you know how that is.

RUBY
Well -

SYDNEY has already written another note and pushed it to ROY. He reads it; it says "WE'LL GO FIRST." He looks back up and SYDNEY and RUBY, smiling.

ROY
You're right to the point as usual. Thank you.

NOTE: This is my first time typing it up... now that it is, I find it's approximately three times longer than the length asked for. Dammit. Hope it's acceptable.

Landscaping

So... long story short, I've been taking a drawing class and I feel like sharing what I did today with you.

Sorry this post isn't sooner--I only realized I needed to used fixatif on one of my drawings when I went to post, and then the fixatif takes an hour to dry... but I'm posting now, so yay.

We're working on landscapes right now. My focus is on doors. That probably says something about me...


This was the piece I needed the fixatif for. It was my favorite of they day. Done with charcoal, which I usually hate... but I like this.


Flowers. I was distracted by a hobo (or at least, a guy who looked a lot like a crazy hobo) when I drew this, so it wasn't as good as some of the others. Oh well!


Another door and the staircase leading to it... I like this one.


The building where I'm taking the class. I sort of messed the scale up on this one... it's decent.

Progress in the making

More Masako!


_{Click for Animation.}

And so, I prove that I can make progress on a project if I actually give a damn.

Also, a finished sketch of that one from yesterday:

What Yako Drew Today

_{Click for Animation}
Added more to Masako's transformation sequence today. Above contains only the parts I added. After this, I just have to add some goggles and some fancy pose-y end stuff and I'm done with the rough! Whew, that took forever.

Also...


Here's a rough for a different project.

HENGE!

I could preface this post with something long, but you probably wouldn't care. So how about something something sort of short instead?

There's a person I subscribe to on YouTube who does some pretty awesome animation work. And they're holding a contest. The goal: to make a pretty magical girl-style transformation sequence!

As the deadline's coming up and I don't even have my rough draft copy finished, I was working a bit on it today. A lot of my upcoming posts might be about this, actually, since I really need to sit down and work. XD

Today, you get to see what I have so far!


_{Click the thumb to see the animation.}
For those curious, the character is named Masako Yagami. She was created when I was still rabidly into Japanese culture and is based very loosely on a former friend. She's the member of a fictitious organization; if I post more clips from this video in the coming days I'll give your more background.

In the meantime, I hope you like the animation!

Never Before Seen

I'm sort of going through an art block. I can't bring myself to draw anything today. But I still need to post on the blog. If I break schedule it's this blog's death.

When I run into an art block, I design characters. Not necessarily for use or anything--just design characters. So, to make up for a lack of new doodles, here are some old ones I've never posted on the Internet. The theme: characters I've designed during an art block but have never wanted to use.


Three girls I designed for a story that had really cool characters but not even a semblance of plot and was therefore scrapped. They're based on Japanese spirits.


Bandage Babe. I really liked her design, but I still don't have any use for it.


...Buttons. I think the idea here was "JRPG hero" but even then... buttons. Moving on.


The zombie-looking guy on the left was created for the story mentioned above. I really like how he turned out. The girl on the right is completely random... I still have no idea who she is.


Two more designs for the aforementioned story. In some ways, I regret letting it go, but I think it was for the better in the end.

If you happen to stumble upon these designs and want to use them--feel free to do so! Just credit me and link back to the blog, please. I'd actually really like it if someone used these designs.

Robots! Part 2

Wow, another day of robots? I guess so! They're sort of fun to draw, if only because they're so different.


Today, it's a scalene triangle of bots!

• The top one is just another picture of Medibot. He's got an electrical charge between his "fingers," see? I took out his "thumbs" because they're sort of pointless.
• Bottom left is a little guy named Nut. Originally the main character of a vague platformer called "The Adventures of Nut & Bolt" (Bolt being a much larger, friendlier looking robot), he was exported to Project Cataclysm. He's about two feet tall, very fast and can use swords. I'll talk about him at a later date.
• And on the bottom right is a sniper robot. This is a design without a gun, but he has to use a separate gun. It's not stored in his body anywhere. His mono-eye can rotate 360˚ and zoom in and out on targets, giving him deadly accuracy. His armor is pretty sturdy and his thick legs keep it from losing balance, but I imagine the glowy spot in the middle is unarmored and therefore susceptible to attack, making him an "I-have-no-will-to-live-here-is-my-weakpoint-please-shoot-it" sort of enemy. Silly engineers, they should make their robots less vulnerable.

Robots!

That's right, folks! Today we interrupt your daily dose of Estoria to bring you robots. (And one cyborg, but really, we're splitting hairs.) There's four of them on one page, so I'll talk about each briefly, starting from the upper left and moving clockwise.

• First up, a scientist android. He thinks he's better than humans. He corrupts them with his quick wits and turns them into robots (well, cyborgs). He wears glasses most of the time, which is what he's cleaning in the above picture. He thinks the glasses make him look more approachable, which they probably do over those vacant black slits, but not by much.
• This one is called daddy longlegs, named after the insect it closely resembles. It's about seven feet tall and very fast. It's sort of a biological/siege warfare tool; that syringe-like apparatus on the bottom of its "abdomen" can inject chemicals into the soil that make fields infertile. It can probably shoot lasers or something to protect itself, but it's otherwise lacking in that area.
• This woman is Android Scientist's right hand. He's an early victim of his. She's very loyal to the robot and is attracted to him romantically as well. She keeps replacing more and more of her body with cybernetic implants; she finds them more beautiful than her human parts so she'll often try to show them off as much as possible.
• This is a Medibot. Cute, huh? It has knowledge of how to fix damaged robots and heal human wounds and keeps materials stored for the purposes of both inside it. When threatened, it can use electricity-based weapons (also stored inside--handy compartment, there) to fight back. It flies with a propeller on its head (not pictured because I forgot it).

A couple of these were created with stories in mind; some were just drawn up for fun. Hope you like!

Estorian Citizens, Part 2

Forgive me for the late post! This would have come about an hour earlier if my English teacher hadn't e-mailed me with some good but time-consuming news.

It's been a long day, so this post will be short. I'm sorry. I really ought to make it up to you all later. But for now...

--Well, first off, I doodled this today. It's a stylized picture of me in the Estorian setting. We'll be getting to lower-class Estoria soon enough...

And this is Maxwell Light, the eldest son of Gerard Light and therefore destined to take his father's place in Parliament. We'll talk more about him later, too.

Estorian Citizens, Part 1

I was going to have two guys to show you today but considering I'm so tired I can barely see straight, you only get one. Sorry!

His name is Gerard Light. Not only is he a member of Parliament, but he owns a sizable chunk of the country's entire coal and energy industry. His family has long been an important icon of Estoria.

The man is resolute and stoic. He's also highly competitive. He's the kind of man that people trust with their life or despise to their core, and he has just as many friends as he does enemies. One particularly notable enemy, Joseph Selarch, was going to accompany him in his post. Alas, it was not meant to be.

Gerard's wife died of consumption eight years ago. She is also survived by her three children--from oldest to youngest, Maxwell, Anne, and Victor.

Estoria Culture, Part 4

All right, we need to set a schedule. Let's say for the time being to expect posts daily between 6:00 and 9:00. That seems to be a good target time.

So, politics.

Estoria is a constitutional monarchy. A head of state controls has a large amount of control over the country, but his actions are directly answerable to the parliament.

The parliament is 110 strong. It includes a large amount of the noble families. A long time ago, elections used to be held for both Head of State and parliamentary positions. At some point, it came to be expected that the elections were rigged to keep the same people in power for as long as possible, and their children won when they became too old to govern. Eventually elections were abolished altogether and governmental power is entirely hereditary. The pressure to marry and bare a male heir is immense.

...Women aren't allowed into the government, as may be expected.

Very little gets accomplished in parliament. Over the years, family feuds have gotten involved in the stagnant atmosphere and they all do their best to keep each other from changing anything. As a result, things remain in the status quo. Nothing is ever done about the waning coal supply. The economy slips further and further into a deadly state. And don't even mention trying to reopen Estorian borders. That's a surefire way to get everyone to hate you.

But these people can't be all bad for letting their country fall into disrepair, right?
Tomorrow, we'll meet a few members of Parliament.

Estoria Culture, Part 3

I really need to start being a little more strict on myself with this updating thing.

Too late to go into politics. So here's our elderly Estorians! Tomorrow will be an all-text post so I can publish it early and get ahead.

Estoria Culture, Part 2

Another late post, a few less sketches... to make up for missing the "Elderly" NPC set, I'll use this opportunity to talk a little about gender roles in Estoria.
_{If you can't tell, those are "Man" and "Woman" NPCs.}
You might have noticed by now that women always wear long dresses. This is considered proper for a lady. Anything showing leg above the ankles is unheard of, and women don't need to wear pants. Pants symbolize work, and what lady does work? An upper-class woman's role is to bear their husband's child and to look pretty on his arm. I almost forgot, one more purpose is to be married off to tie families together for whatever reason.

An upper class man runs things. Some run large businesses; others run the country. Still others do a little of both. What time is not spent managing business, politics and family is spent furthering knowledge. They are men of intellect.

The middle class dresses similarly to the upper class; only a bit more plain. Men work as merchants or laborers and women are allowed jobs, too, as seamstresses, maids and the like.

The poorest citizens basically have no line between genders. They've found that women are often just as good as men at scraping by. Some poor women are seen in pants, and sometimes they're short enough to show thighs. No one really cares, though, because... they're poor.

Tomorrow: Old people and some political background.

Estoria Culture, Part 1

It's too late to to a long, descriptive post. Sorry about that; today's drawings took longer than I thought they would. Instead, a few conceptual sketches.

First, a little background on what I'm doing that I've written up in advance:
An important element of world-building is culture, and culture directly affects the way people look. The average American is going to present themselves (via dress, stance, etc.) differently from a Frenchman or Spaniard, for instance. In many modern RPGs that involve traveling around a fantastic planet, game developers will emphasize this by creating different character models for just about every city. The different types of characters can be grouped into eight categories:

-Boy
-Girl
-Young man
-Young woman
-Man (middle-aged)
-Woman
-Elderly man
-Elderly woman

So, let's pretend for a minute that I'm a character designer for a modern RPG. Here are the designs I've come up with for upper-class Estorians.

Boy and girl!

These are pretty much self-explanatory.

Young man and young woman!

It is customary for adolescent men to wear long coats until they are married.
Women tend to show their marital status by the way they wear their hair. If it's down, that means they're single. However, women tend to marry much younger than men. A girl like in the picture above is fairly rare.

Tomorrow, the last four NPCs and further cultural explanation!

Estoria: An Introduction

Welcome to Estoria!


_{I swear we'll have more interesting images soon. Really.}

A totally independent nation that considers itself a separate continent (although some maps in other parts of the world group it with its massive neighbor). It is a little larger than France and has a population of about six million.

Now, about the colors on the map...
Blue = Fresh water
Dark Green = Coniferous forests
Light Green = Plains
Sandy Brown = ...Rocky areas rich in minerals (OFFICIAL TERMINOLOGY)
White = Tundra
Red Brown = Industrialized areas

So, as you can see, population is concentrated in the southern part of Estoria (and for obvious reasons; the north is largely uninhabitable). The black dots are cities; the one with a white star is the country's capital, Nolanburg. We'll talk more about the city later.

Estoria is named for the man who discovered the island, Lewis Estor. Although the north was perpetually frozen, the south had rich soil and was soon found to contain large amounts of coal and precious metals. Population booms occurred and the Estorians eventually seceded from their mother country. The steam engine was invented and steam-powered technology made vast advancements (thanks to the large supply of coal). Eventually, other countries declared war on Estoria and tried to seize control of the coal supply. After numerous bloody battles, Estoria closed their borders. Five hundred years later, they are still closed.

The most common crop in Estoria is wheat. Bread is a common dietary staple, even among the poor. Because there is little space to raise livestock, meat is a delicacy.

Some farmers and ranchers wish to expand their fields and have petitioned to be allowed some old mine areas to try and turn them into fertile growing land. The central government has denied all of these petitions, saying that the minerals in these mines are far too valuable to go selling away. The big secret? There's no coal left. What's being found today are just tiny traces.

Maybe it's for the better. Five hundred plus years of steam technology has worn on the country. Cities and other industrialized areas are dirty. Glimpses of the sun are rare as the sky has mostly been covered with a gray mist. If you're a rich woman, your average life span is 40; life span only shortens from there. Consumption is a particularly rampant disease.

On the other hand, what will happen to civilization when the fuel runs out...?

Tomorrow, we explore that culture a little more.

Introduction to Another World

Before I start talking about individual countries, I thought it might be useful to know a little about the world itself.

It's a fantastic place called Montell. Here, have a map.

(Please note that the map is not finalized and subject to change in the future; however, this is a pretty good idea of what the finalized map will look like.)

Montell has a rather strange climate. The overall temperature of the planet is cool and rain does not fall very often. Cloud cover is dense and gravity is low enough for large chunks of rock to float on it. Some nations have learned how to extract water from the clouds and live that way; others are at the mercy of infrequent rainfall.

The overall climate of the world is "cool and dry." There are deserts and tundras but you'd be hard-pressed to find a rainforest. Temperate forests are common.

The political and cultural structure of the world is quite difficult to explain in one post. Tomorrow, we'll start our explanations with the continent in the upper-lefthand corner: Estoria.

Introduction

Hello everyone! I'm going to try this blogging thing again. All right, so... welcome to my doodle/story blog. I don't have a lot to say right now, other than I'd like to try and update this daily and for a little while I'd like to try and do some world-building so the next few posts may be a little text-heavy... huh, I'm not explaining myself well. Why don't we just do this over?

My 'Net alias is Yako Yamaguchi. I'm in my senior year of high school and there is little I enjoy more than drawing and creating stories. But the thing is, I'm bad at recording a lot of my thoughts. To try and rectify that, I have created this doodle blog. Every day I'll post at least one drawing and a little bit about whatever story it relates to.

For example!



This guy is called Dax... getting into some of his history now might be a little complicated, but we'll get to the nitty gritty soon enough.

Tomorrow, I talk about his home country.