Please Don't Cry...

This was a bit of vent art that I did a little while ago.  Since I didn't post it when I originally finished it, I don't think I'll write the entire venting sequence here.  So it's just Literal Tatoba comforting a very sad Sombra.

Yes I did redesign Sombra but I think I'm gonna keep old Sombra around for a little bit for more vent type art like this.

Sombra v.4

I felt this need to revamp Sombra's design.  I put a lot of effort into how she looked before.  And honestly there wasn't much physically that I wanted to change.  But there was something that I felt I needed to change about her to make her more interesting.

I thought at first maybe that meant I wanted to drastically change her physical appearance.  Trying to mix her with corded poodle or various other dog breeds to give her a more interesting coat type or to thin out her frame.  Debating on what colors she should be. 

In the end...I liked the colors that she had.  The cream, red, and brown.  I just wanted to rearrange them a bit.  And for good measure I added in a bit of white.  What I really wanted to change was her personality.  She wasn't an interesting character before.  I just gave her whatever personality I had on a given day.  Which for the most part (if I'm not hanging out with friends) wouldn't make for a very interesting character.  So personality wise, instead of having a personality 100% like mine, she has the personality of the sort of person I want to be rather than the one that I am.  I ended up writing and rambling on the various things I wanted to get out of this character (things that I previously didn't think about), and just worked from there.  Physically she isn't very different.  The colors are the same.  Just with the addition of the white spots and modifications on the brown markings and the split between her neck and torso markings.

This is just a temporary reference for now.  I'm working on a full one that will include how she looks like in anthropomorphic form as well as various outfits that she likes wearing. 

I think I'll keep Old Sombra around too just as a sort of juxtaposition between the person I am now and the person I want to be...something like that...if that made any sense.

Sketches n' WIP's

As we can tell...I have fun drawing literal Tatoba.  And each time I draw him he seems to get toonier.  But that's a good thing I think.  He looks really good toony.

The top WIP started out as a bit of vent art.  I was feeling (and still feel to a degree) very stressed with the change from being in college to being thrust into the real world.  So I drew my optimistic fursona (L. Tatoba) consoling Sombra.  There was something I liked about the look of the shaded characters in this flat looking universe so I saved a WIP that looked like this.  I've painted up the background a little more since then but it still needs to some more work.

Second is a plan for a future fursuit.  I knew I wanted to make a fursuit based on my literal Ratoratah design.  But I didn't want to make a male Ratoratah.  Yeah, making the mane might be fun but I wanted to make a more female version of the design for me.  So I cut the mane back into a mohawk.  Unlike most of the anthropomorphic animals that I draw, I decided I didn't want to add any body padding to this.  So she has plantigrade legs instead of digitigrade ones.  And I want to make the feet fairly small since I want the suit to be pretty form fitting.  And yes, I want that tail to be dragging on the floor like that.

I'll make a better, turn around reference for her when I get closer to starting this project.  I've got about 2 or 3 ahead of this one.  She's kinda on the back burner for other costumes (depending on what I want for the conventions I'm going to).

"No Escape" - Progress Day 4

I'm starting to slow down in my work on this. It happens when I'm detailing fur. It looks good at first but then it sets in how much work it takes to make the fur look good. It's un-intentional, but when I start to lose interest in something, I don't want to work on it anymore. I'm at the point where I'm just forcing myself to get it done because I have to get it done. It'll look good when it's done (at least I hope so), but for now I just don't really want to work with it.

Doesn't look like I did much but I spent the majority of my time today detailing Sombra's fur instead of Yesebel. There's a little bit I did with Yesebel (blocking out her nose, adding more blood on her muzzle and starting to work on the inside of her ear). But mostly the work for today was done on Sombra's fur and thickening it up.

"No Escape" - Progress Day 3

I'm really trying to get through this.

But now I'm starting to have more tablet trouble. I tried my best to do a good amount of work today. But hand cramps and a semi-broken tablet are really starting to get to me. I have an idea about how to fix this up so only part of the picture can be used for the cover. But I'm only doing that if it's absolutely necessary. I did order a new tablet today. If I'm lucky I'll have it within the week I doubt I will but maybe I will.

I didn't work on this as long today as I did the past two days but I still think I got a good amount done.

"No Escape" - Progress Day 2

Got more done than I thought I would today. I would work more on it but I just need to step back from it for the night. I'll get back working on this tomorrow morning.

Started detailing Sombra. Most of the time was spent detailing her wound and the blood around the impact. There's no way I'm going to actually look at a real picture of a dog biting another dog. It would be too traumatizing to look at a real photo of something like this. So I'm just guessing at how the fur would look with blood mixed in as well as how her fur would bunch up around the area where she's getting bitten and where her neck and cheek is pressed up against Yesebel's.

You can see where one of Sombra's ear's is gonna be. Didn't block it out yet aside from that tiny bit of shading there.

I rarely draw Sombra from behind so working on her back markings like that is a little weird. But since she's my own character/fursona, I know how it looks even though I've never drawn her from behind.

Also more work detailing fur on Yesebel's face. The crosshatching works fine for a basic texture, but it didn't really look that great on its own so I have to go back and thicken it up and use more than one color to make it more realistic. Also just some moderately rough blocking out of her teeth since I started working on the area where she's/shi's biting Sombra.

"No Escape" - Progress Day 1

The reason I don't usually do realism or semi-realism too often is because it takes too long. But to make up for a lack of decent animation (or lack of animation in general), I can at least do what I do best which is more illustrative and preproduction work. I didn't mean to really start out getting this detailed with fur, but it just happened and I'm gonna stick with it.

So far I've only started detailing on Yesebel. I took out the sketch layer so you can't really see the distinction between Sombra and Yesebel here. It all looks like one big blob with a little bit of detailed fur on Yesebel's face.

Did a lot on this today (even though it doesn't really look like it). Gonna take a break from it and either just rest for the night or sketch up the bio pages for Sombra and Yesebel. I'll probably just rest.

"No Escape" Faux DVD cover (sketch)

Done for TAS.

Well it's not quite done yet. I'll be working on this most of the day today and am gonna try to do this some justice. I'd hope that if a parent ever saw something like this in a store they wouldn't bypass the whole "dying dog caught in a hellhound's grip" thing. Cartoons are too often though of as just things for kids. That's such a crock. I would never want some little kids watching this short film (that maybe I'll finish or maybe I won't...maybe I might just make a longer story out of it). So the cover is just showing what the film will show anyways. I'm not gonna hide anything about the violence that's in it.

The larger dog here is Yesebel the hellhound. The poor little dog she's got caught in her jaws is Sombra.

Sketch- "Magic of the Smile"

Start of one picture in a 4 part series of pics based on a song called "Magic" by Rina Aiuchi. The song is in Japanese but there's four lines in the song that are completely in English (they're in the background and hard to understand but probably the more potent lines in the song in my opinion):

Magic of the Smile
Magic of the Word
Magic of the Love
Magic of the Music

"Smile" is most obviously the easiest thing to portray. I think "word" is going to be the hardest element to portray without words. I think "music" is going to be the most fun to draw. That's also my favorite part of the song.

Detective Conan Related Works of Doom!

Seriously...I draw too much stuff relating to this show.

The good thing that's come out of my obsession with this series is that I'm getting decent people drawing practice. The bad thing is that I've gotten the terrible yet brilliant idea to make canine versions of all the character (at least the main ones anyways) and of course that starts with poor Conan-kun (and by default, Shinichi).

Okay...and one of those is really just my fursona, Sombra, cosplaying as Conan. But it's related enough to Detective Conan that I figure it fits in.

And in the sketch dump, there's a few pokemon sketches. One of Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Ivysaur.

Sombra Mask- Complete

Haven't uploaded anything to here in a while, but figured I might upload some stuff I've drawn up/made over the past few...months.

Well, finished up my first partial fursuit. So far I've only got a few photos of the mask. Once I find the cable for the digital camera, I'll take some photos of me wearing it. Mask, hand-paws, and tail. I took these with my webcam while I was at Midwest Furfest.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product. For a first attempt at it, it turned out much better than I thought it would be. Especially the shaving of the fur on the face. And I learned a lot of stuff about sewing and made my mistakes here so hopefully with my next one there'll be even fewer sewing mishaps.

The mask fits fairly tightly though. It's built on a balaclava base which is nice because it's comfortable. However I think I like all foam bases better and that's what my next mask is going to be built on. Plus the all foam base allows for a more sensitive moving jaw.

Sombra Fursuit WIP- Foam base finished

Got all the foam work done for my Sombra fursuit. Everything's basically perfect. I trimmed the ears down a bit from these pictures. Might have to trim down one ear tip a little bit more and smooth out the foam for the division between the eyes. But pretty much this is ready for furring. Don't know how I'm gonna do her nose just yet. I'll figure it out eventually. I'm just happy this works right. The jaw movement is pretty much perfect. I can see out it (that's a...pretty important detail...still wish I could wear my glasses under this though). I wanna make a little video maybe showing the jaw movement.

Anyways, next step for this would be to buy the three colors I need and some mesh for the eyes. Found the perfect shade of red for her main fur and I just need to order that from CR's Craft's site.

Sombra Fursuit WIP- Mask Construction

There still has to be a good amount of work done on the foam alone before I can start putting fur on her. Especially with the ears and I have to do some tweaking around the eyes. At least making sure the shape of the eyes are nice and toony.

Hoping to have the partial suit done by time for Midwest FurFest this year. Right now my Excalibur cosplay is the first priority. I need to start putting the fleece on the head. I at least want to finish the head before this break is over with.

Sombra Fursuit Sketches

Planning on making a partial fursuit of my fursona, Sombra. I don't want to jump into making a full suit right away so I just want to make a head, hand-paws, tail, and digitigrade legs and then I'll just wear regular clothes. I think I'll just start this over the Christmas break. I'll get more foam, a balaclava, and some elastic so I can at least form the base of it. It'll be my first try with a working jaw, second try making a fursuit head, but it'll be fun.

I sketched out an idea for a corded poodle suit, but I'll scan that in later.

Model Sheets

Haven't really drawn model sheets before, but I had to for class so...this is what I ended up with:

1) Sombra
~Breed: Alaskan Malamute/Finnish Spitz
~Age: 2.5
~Gender: Female
~Personality/Temperament: Given her status as my fursona, it's whatever I'm feeling on any given day.

2) Heaven's Gatekeeper
~Breed: Ibizan Hound (Wirehaired Variety)
~Age: ???
~Gender: Male
~Personality/Temperament: Regal, Kind disposition. Can come across as stuck up at times. Does his best to show goodness and kindness to others.
~Alt. Details: The collar around his neck is his halo. Can be depicted with or without wings (for the purpose of this project though I don't think he needs wings though I might draw him with them later on).

I could go into more detail with Sombra, but it's a little unnecessary. As for the Gatekeeper, since he's more of a one shot character specifically for this project, he's not too developed as a character. Though I might draw him more because you don't see too many people drawing Ibizan Hounds, let alone the wire coated variety...

Storyboards

For my storyboard concept and development class's final project, we have to create a Leica reel for something we hope to turn into a full animation. I chose to create a storyboard for the song "Hero's Come Back" by +nobodyknows from Naruto Shippuuden.

These are the first two. Something to just start me off before I really get started with my final storyboards. These'll probably change a lot for the finished product. My main idea for this was to not create a full story nor animation based on the words of the song. The song's in Japanese anyways. But I wanted to create something based on the mood of it. Hero's Come Back has a pretty upbeat tempo and I always think of a battle when I hear it. That might be some of the influence from Naruto, but I think a fight sequence would go great with this. So basically there's going to be somewhat of an epic battle between my evil characters and a bunch of good characters (some that belong to me and others that do not). This is also gonna double as a gift for some people I consider friends and inspirations. Unfortunately because I think this is going to be difficult enough as it is, I don't think that I could put in everyone and everything that I would want to, but that's okay because I have some more ideas in mind that I could use.

My teacher warned that if I did make an animation out of this that I wouldn't be able to show it off (except maybe as a portfolio piece). I was aware of this, and I'm just using this as an exercise in timing and movement. I do want to make something to go along with the song CaramellDansen as an exercise in lip sync...but perhaps later.