Boy oh boy, looking up lots of bug pictures to get a look at eyes, necks, and heads for the Termanicz project. Have yet to look at busted bugs for the broken shell effect. I want to have goo running down like blood. Also want to improve the shape of the shoulder and neck areas to be more realistic.
Come with me if You Want to Live! (from my Patreon page)
Here is a second iteration of the alien terminator project. I still have some work to do on it but a lot of ideas are represented here. The look is a blend of insect and crustacean where the mouth is based on a lobster and the eyes are compound insect. One of the changes I tried to make was to come up with mechanical looks with most of the mechanics on the inside since bugs and crustaceans have exoskeletons. All their organs are on the inside with a hard skeleton on the outside so I am trying to have less physical evidence of the mechanics on the outside. I am going to represent the mechanics by bumps in the surface and will be removing the piston I made for the head. I think I will change the neck and maybe the mouth so I can place pistons inside the neck circle. I patterned the new antenna after the cell phone antenna on my car, which is over-wrapped in black plastic. So what do you think?
Hasta la Vista (from my Patreon page)
Well, here is the first rendition of my crazy idea, needs some polishing yet but I think it is a good start. I plan to work on the mandibles and antennas before starting a painting. The round parts on the side of the head will have a soft glow and the eyes will be compound. I pulled several reference images for that. Let me know what you think.
I’ll be Back! (from my Patreon page)
As I said yesterday, I have so many projects running through the cobwebs of my mind that I want to share with you. Well, I allowed myself some time to work on one of them today. Pure imaginative drawing run amok. Think robot but not just any robot. A robot built by an alien species bent on your destruction with different sensibilities than our own. Unfortunately it is late and not up to scanning it in tonight so you will have to wait until tomorrow. Pleasant dreams.
A New Direction for Directing (from my Patreon page)
Sorry for venting yesterday, but I had such high hopes of doing this tutorial right, like the ones I see on youtube. However, I just do not have the funds or knowledge to do so and I do not want to spent too much time finding everything I need to know instead of creating artwork. I am also facing a situation that will take away about $177 from my monthly income, which has me worried. But, be that as it may, I will work things out as best I can. To start with, I have decided to take all the screen shots I made and place them into a word document for the tutorial. I have already completed the first section detailing how to separate your drawing from the white background of your scanned file. In all, I have five sections to cover for this first part that details the initial setup before you start to paint. Hopefully, I will be able to post the file by this weekend.
On a good note, my blog is almost to the point of doubling the views I had from last year. More important; however, is that Robert Garbin’s Devianart Page has surpassed the 4,000th page view. This is small compared to some of the more established artists but it is a significant increase in viewership over the last year. Please take a look.
Director is Pulling His Hair Out (from my Patreon page)
So, I have spent several hours coming to the conclusion that my idea for using my old computer and old video editing program to make videos for my Patreon page just isn’t going to work. I began the setup for the third image in the “It’s All Connected Series” taking screenshots of the important steps so that I could load them into Ulead Videoeditor 6 and make a slide show video that I would narrate.
Believe me, this is the most inefficient method of making a tutorial as you can get since it is basically stop motion. I could put up with that for now if the video quality was good. Unfortunately, it is not. I was able to make a temporary video to transfer from the old computer to the new, but playing it back, the images were so blurry that the words, clear in the screenshot, could not be read. The images and changes were visible but not sharp enough to view details and words no matter what I tried. So, for now, I am scrapping the idea.
If anyone knows of a decent free video editor, please let me know. I really want to improve the look and content of my Patreon site but have absolutely no money to do so. Help! If you like what I have been posting, please consider helping out so that I can give you better content; which will also be available on youtube since that is how I brought the videos to you so far. I have lots of great ideas I want to share, but I am not sure how long I can keep doing this. Help! Any technical advice, support, or sharing most wholeheartedly welcome and I will try to do something special in return. Thanks.
Books Here, Get Your Books Here
I have seen people list the books they have read through out the year in an end of the year write up so I decided to join in. Here is what I have read so far since the beginning of the year. I have posted reviews of most of them on my librarything.com page that you can find a link to on the left side of this page. You will need to scroll a little. The last book listed is the one I am working on and I will say so far that it is not making sense yet. I am still hoping for an aha moment that will make everything clear. Check my librarything page to find out. So, without further ado,:
2017 Read Books
The Iron Tactician Alastair Reynolds Free Arc from Librarything.com
Caliban’s War James S. A. Corey New
Shadows of Self Brandon Sanderson New
Nemesis Louise Cooper New
Dragon’s Bane Barbara Hambley Reread
Dragon’s Shadow Barbara Hambley Reread
Knight of the Demon Queen Barbara Hambley Reread
Dragon Star Barbara Hambley Reread
The Bands of Mourning Brandon Sanderson New
Abaddon’s Gate James S. A. Corey New
At the Speed of Light Simon Morden Free Arc from Librarything.com
The Immortals War Leah Cutter Free Arc from Librarything.com
The Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson Free E-book from Tor.com
2 DEE Robin Wyatt Dunn Free Arc from Librarything.com
