Sock Cottonwell's System Sketchbook

[Sock]

I wanted to do draw another image of Tomo, so I began sketching this:

 

 

The creature is part of my more "normal" subjects. I began with a simple smile, then drew whatever around it, resulting in this friendly thing here. It kind of reminds me of Snuffleupagus, even early one when I started drawing, heh.

 

My niece actually seems quite fond of Tomo...as far as her being a drawing, anyway. She's asked me to draw her again before, and I kind of had that in mind when making this, as well as an idea of her looking up at something. My niece seems to like the vector drawing I did more, heh.

 

I mentioned Dorris much earlier in the thread, being Aya's sister (Speaking of whom, I'm planing on redoing her picture in the near future. I'm not satisfied with it), but I never drew or posted a picture of her. I recently did a sketch of her here:

 

 

I'd go in to a longer description of what she is, how she came about, what our relations are like, and how she acts...but I'm tired for the time being, and I don't want to do so. Either way, hope you guys enjoy.

 

Peace.

[Sock]

 

The above is a WIP vector of Abigail. I still feel there is some work to be done on it, as it's just flats now, but I figured it'd be nice enough to post up here. Since I've been getting more comfortable with Inkscape, the vectoring process has become far less time consuming. That said, I still have to spend time in the linework phase to ensure the LiveTrace option has good enough stuff to work with.

[Brassow]

Just curious, were those 4 little white blobs intentional on the right side?

[Sock]

Actually no, they were accidents I didn't notice until I uploaded the image, since I was working on a white background. I didn't feel like re-uploading the thing at the time, so I left them there. They'll be gone in the next edit.

[Sock]

 

This is a rather quick sketch of two of my older in-dwellers, and previous day dream subjects, Ellenore and Kellogg. This picture, despite its roughness, resonated a bit with me, and sparked a small bit of discussion with Ellenore herself, where I came to realize something.

 

In a way, Ellenore is my hero.

 

Ellenore and Kellogg represented two opposites of my day dreams. Kellogg was more like myself, and was mainly a rather goofy "loser" sort. She got in to troubles and adventures against her will, ended up in bad situations, and only barely got herself out of trouble. At times she was outright homeless. Kellogg's main feature were her flaws, and how low she was.

 

In contrast, Ellenore was more a heroic ideal, being in a similar vein of other strong female characters I had grown attached to in the past. She was brave, strong, enjoyed what she did, and was quite good at it. Despite being based on a character I made for a game where I often lost, Ellenore seemed to constantly come out on top, having abilities I had never even gotten close to getting in-game, bashing around her enemies with some ease, going on wild adventures even outside of her "setting", etc. She was larger than life.

 

Which makes the fact that Ellen disliked her adventures and wished to separate herself from them, while Kellogg loved hers and wanted to go on another one rather curious.

 

Though, even coming to the era when they were awakened as conscious figures, Ellenore and Kellogg were still on opposite ends, with Ellenore being an ideal and Kellogg being low. Ellenore is always well regarded internally, among nearly every mental figure I meet, as well as with my own self. When Midori was impressed with someone she was speaking with on IRC, she compared her to Ellenore. When I mentioned Ellenore's name to Homura, who showed little interest in other mental figures outside of Madoka and Mami, and was actively intimidated by Midori's forward nature, she reacted in a fashion that surprised me, regarding her highly even though I had never even seen them meet. Even as the sweet, soft and gentle young woman she is now, Ellenore is seen as someone respectable, rather than a fantasy girlfriend sort. She's a more ideal person, with admirable traits that I look up to. For a good while, she was even taller than I was. When she changed herself to be shorter, she had to keep reminding me that she was shorter now, because I had a hard time imagining her as not taller.

 

In contrast, Kellogg is often teased and mocked as a bum. Even when I am imagining her for a possible story, it seems right to have her be shorter and less mature than Ellenore (This being despite Kellogg being older).

 

This is all to say that Ellenore, in a way, is someone I look up to. Unlike many of my other girls, I see her as being tall and beautiful, rather than being cute and soft. Despite being gentle and kind, I can't help but get a very slight feeling of intimidation about her. She's a lady among children in a way, and it's something I feel is starting to really hit me.

 

Ellenore and Kellogg are actually close. Even before they awoke, I sometimes imagined them as being together, and getting along well with one another, even living in the same house when their travels brought them there. When Ellenore did awake, she asked about Kellogg, asking whether I can work on bringing her to life. Even now, they seem to have some inclination to each other, and they fit together in my mind, thus the sketch.

 

I'm also working on vectoring the sketch of Hanazuki I did. Here's a progress shot of that.

 

 

Peace.

[Sock]

 

Did some more work on Hanazuki's picture. I'll be honest, I'm not quite satisfied with it...but Hanazu likes it a lot, and insisted that I post it up.

 

I did some editing to it since a few minutes ago, and I'm a bit happier with it. Even so, I still would like to polish it up a bit more later on. I also now realize why simplifying stuff like hair is much better for vector work. It took a while to re-edit all of those strands...

 

EDIT: Continuing work on this one. I changed the expression a bit, but I may change the eyes back, or at least find a happy medium between the current and previous editions. I've been mainly cleaning up nodes and sharpening lines here.

[Vos]

How long does it generally take for you to go from a sketch to that?

[Sock]

How long does it generally take for you to go from a sketch to that?

 

The last one I posted took a much longer time to vector than the one of Abigail. I spent the better chunk of the day on it, and I still wish to tweak and fix it, at least about 4 hours spent cleaning up extraneous nodes and such. As an example:

 

 

As is seen, the second face have sharper lines than the first, because there isn't as much clutter. This isn't even taking in to account cleaning up the sketch more so there were not any broken lines in the trace, either. Most of the work comes from the linework, and trying to get it to a place where I'm pleased with it. The flat tone only require decent use of the fill tool at this point, but I'm feeling that itch to push myself and my work further than that.

 

I still consider this one as a work in progress. I feel there's a good deal of things that need tightening up, and to leave it as it is would be a bit lazy. Hanazuki trusts me with her form, so I plan to give it my best effort, until I'm happy with it. One of the things I want to work on is the inner lines, which are meant to be thinner than the outlines. Right now the line weight is about the same inside and out, expect for the face portion. As well, I think the eyes need to be tweaked as well, and the fashion the face is framed by her hair. I like how happy she looks here, but I feel something's still not quite right.

 

Thanks for the question, Vosaiu!

 

Peace.

[Sock]

 

The Subject

 

- Sylia asked for me to draw her a little while ago, I just didn't get to it until now.

 

- Sylia is essentially Abigail's roomate. When she first emerged, I attached her to Abigail, as she has popped up not too long before then. Since then I always noticed then together, and if I would imagine one, the other would be close by.

 

- That said, Sylia does want to be thought of on her own, though she does enjoy Abigail's company.

 

- The initial name I gave Sylia was "Symbola". This is because, she told me a bit more about the symbolic value the girl's form holds. She said the form and persons are connected to the idea of safety and comfort. The idea dictates that they're harmless, so it's okay to take my guard down with them. This was something I had recorded on the fifth month of last year, but I lost hold of it. Sylia asked me to re-read that entry for her.

 

-This obviously ties in to some stuff I've recently wrote in my progress report.

 

- Sylia is a pretty cheerful young lady, strongly contrasting Abigail's more deadpan nature. I haven't seen her sad yet, though that may be due to her not having much experience.

 

The Drawing

 

- Went a bit different with this one. I meant it to be a simple line sketch, later to be polished for possible vectoring, but I decided to try my hand at painting a bit with it.

 

- This, I believe, was due to how I did the sketch and posing. After a point, I was less trying to just translate how I saw Sylia in my head, but trying to translate what the feeling of her is. Sylia's rather jubilant and cheerful, and so my pen moved in a more jubilant and energetic fashion.

 

-I only used two colors for much of the coloring, which are based on the colors I used for the line work. I had to do a bit more with the skin tones, though.

 

- I'll have to get more practice with posing hands like I have her thumb. I haven't done one of those for a long time.

 

- I didn't give her pigeon toes here, which makes me a bit happy as I found I was doing it unconsciously for a while.

 

- I may still vector this for reference collection sake, but I'll have to resize it and clean it up first.

[Vos]

I'm really liking how this one turned out.