shilane

It's been a while.  I'm not even entirely sure why it took me so long to come back, or why I left in the first place.  Might have been drama to be completely honest.  I've always been really quick to just jettison people from my life at the first hints of drama and even quicker to withdraw from social things if I'm feeling stressed.  It's funny because it's not like I haven't been drawing, a lot even, and it's not like it's gone unposted, just not to here.  It's always gone up on tumblr and more recently out to twitter too.  So why did I leave this place that's perfect for art posting?

Did you know I stream art now?  It's on twitch and it's a good time, small time and just starting out as an affiliate, but it's nice and usually chill and I do requests on Wednesdays, you should stop by.  If you've got a tumblr, you can follow me there too at @donebydani and that's where all the art goes, without fail.  @empressshilane if you like twitter, although it's mostly art posts and 6am sleep drunk mini rants about something that's nagging at me in my vulnerable sleep deprived state.  I think that's all the stuff that matters.

Anyway, it's been a long time and I've missed deviantart, in a weird way.  I miss having people comment and having a good way to reply to them.  I miss conversations about my art.  Not that there were many of those before, but it happened and maybe I'm just being nostalgic for high school, gross as that might be but let's see how it goes.  Maybe I stick around and make some new friends and seek out old ones.  Maybe I just trail off again because it's not fulfilling enough for the time spent.  We'll see but I'm going to go with cautious optimism.

Hi all of you out there in cyberspace that still watch me!  I'm sorry that 2007 was such a disappointing year for art for me.  I didn't work on shit except for my WFA stuff.  For those of you who don't know, go to www.warforarcadia.com. &n… where I've been hanging out all year long.  I must say, I do like it very very much.  It's a lot of fun so if you like making comics and having a nice supporting community to practice with, I suggest War For Arcadia.

[tojisuzuhara.deviantart.com/jo… Toji explains the whole deal better than I ever could.]

Deviants that have already joined!


I'm pretty sure there are more of you guys out there, and I'll find you in due time.

:ace-ix: is said dirty whore, by the way.

"List ten things about your art, then tag ten people to do the same."

1. Style and Influence  Let's just call it what it is, which is anime.  It's a terribly broad term but there isn't much else to title it.  Hyung Tae Kim-ism?  I'd have to say that I don't have any other real influences besides him.  That's not to say that I don't have bits and pieces from other places, things I haven't gleaned from my friends and artists I like.  I mean, I've looked at homoshiroi and others for colouring and missveryvery and elsevilla for pencils.  As for why I went anime instead of any other art style probably has to do with growing up in Japan.  I like other styles, but I did all my kid drawings, all my first doodles in Japan in the Japanese fashion.  It's like how people who are born and raised in America and start off drawing that way can end up drawing in a more comic book style rather than manga.  It was just what I was exposed to and what I started with.

2. Let's talk about SEX  I'd love to say I don't draw everything for the sake of sex appeal, but I'm pretty sure that'd be a lie.  I LOVE drawing sexually charged pictures.  Not necessarily nudity or the sexual acts but implied sexual tension and love and just a little bit of flirt always pleases me.  Sex is just something that appeals to me in general, not really in a nympho sort of way, just that I think it's natural and beautiful and fun.  Part of it also comes from a really deep seated personal philosophy that sex isn't just sex, that there's a lot more to it than that, mostly love and the idea that lust is an incredibly powerful emotion, one of our most intense, right up there with love.  In my head, sex is very central to everyone's life in some way or another, so why not my characters?  They're people too, in a I'malittlecrazy imaginary sort of way.  Besides, sex is about touching, about intimacy, not just penetration and everyone needs that little bit of touch, unless they're a red-headed step-child that wants to be an emo ball of hurt their whole life.

3. Media  Being incredibly lame, I don't really work in anything besides pencils and digital.  I think I'd like to try to do oil paints but haven't the money or time for it.  I use Painter a lot, and love it honestly.  I could probably work in Photoshop again if I had the patience for learning how to use it properly but for the most part, I stick to Painter because I know it.  It does what I need it to do and I'm not that versatile in the first place.  I just need it to put colour where I want it to.  I just happen to favour the chalk tool and how smooth it can be.

4. Colours  Hmm, I think I have a really weird eye for colour.  I like so many things but at the same time, I can't really come up with them on my own and I'm no good at subtly working colours in.  It's just beyond me and I have to try very hard to get things to look good.  I tend to like bright colours but it does depend on what's going in.  Mute colours and me don't seem to get along for some reason.  Most likely because I don't know how to utilize them.  Saturated and intense colours, I seem to understand, at least in some way.

5. Edumacation  Being a biology major, I haven't got much time or room in my life for real art classes.  Nor the patience for that matter.  I can't say that I like being told what to do either.  So, I have taken art classes and grudgedly done what I was told but nothing passed foundation work, so everything that I've learned through tradition classes is very rudimentary.  After that, I guess self taught is the right word but it seems like I'm giving myself too much credit.  I looked at HTK's work for a very long time before I did anything near good.  I learned a lot about form from him, and his exaggerated anatomy, in its own way, helped as much as it may have done harm.  emoxic has been generally invaluable to my education seeing as I learn a lot of random stuff from her.  Do this and you'll get a cool effect in PS, make marks like this and you render form better.  I may not be able to take the classes she does at school but if I have questions, she's usually very good at trying to answer them for me with a little good advice.  Oh yeah, and practice, that's been a lot of help.  And real people, drawing real people, nothing's better than that.  Life drawing, for the win!

6. Whyfor?  Because emoxic is a fucking slave driver.  I don't really know why I draw other than I draw because it's something to do with my hands.  I have busy hands and am really easily bored.  Drawing, like a good RPG or good book, keeps my mind busy.  And I can't even do somethings without keeping hands busy, like watch the telly (I crochet).  And I do enjoy it, although I'm not sure exactly in what way.  I mean, I like that it makes me feel accomplished and such, but I don't take too much pride in it.  I like baking more, actually.  But I guess, it's just something I do, something that kinda has to come out or I'd explode or something like that.

7. Brain Blockage  Generally if I can't think of anything, I don't draw.  I've tried to force myself to draw, and it just doesn't work out so well.  Although, if I've really got to draw, looking at HTK stuff and some of my other favourite artists and try to relax and just let things come to me instead of racking my brain for something extra special.  I don't need to be awesome or try to be awesome everytime.

8. Peeps  I think it's more than apparent that I do people and almost exclusively people.  I've never really had an interest in drawing anything else so I never bothered to learn, not really anyways.  I can do basic perspective but whoopdeedo.  I guess part of not becoming an art major is that I get to draw what I want, and I want to draw people, pretty people mostly.  I just don't have the passion to draw other things, they just don't interest me.  I'd love to do it, but I'm not motivated enough to push it.  Maybe, when I'm more dedicated to my art or a better artist, I'll strive to do all that, but for now, I'm happy to just draw my pretty people.

9. Taboo  I'd like to say that I'd draw anything for anyone for the right price, but that's a god damned lie, and I know it.  There are things on 4chan that I'd never be able to draw and there are things I just can't bring myself to draw even if I'm not disgusted by them.  Like full blown sex, that's beyond me right now.  I just have a smiggen of shyness left that leaves me incapable of drawing penises, or more intimidating, a vagina.  I don't know how that works since I love implying sex but I can't draw anything too risky.

10. Favouritisms  I think I tend to favour my characters with full and developed stories more than I do ones that are just sort of on my periphery.  Tristan is one of my favourite looking characters and I really should draw him more but I draw Shilane and Daric and Kelar more than anyone.  I don't even draw, Blaire, Kelar IDENTICAL twin as often as I do Kelar.  I think that having a story and more developed personality just makes some of my characters to draw than others.  Like Irey gets more attention from me than Blaire just because I've developed a solid personality for him.

I'm going to go ahead and tag squidbunny, nastenka, and.... uh... well I don't have any friends who haven't been tagged and read my journal so those of you who do and want to do this meme, consider yourself fucking tagged!