I did a quick drawing of Ahri from League of Legends a few weeks ago, but never shared it. Anyway, here it is. It didn't come out too good, but I didn't have good stock photos to work with and I wanted to finish it as fast as I could.

Now that I think about it, I have actually only played Ahri once that I can remember. Maybe I should try playing her in normals... Have a great week! /bye

I decided to do another drawing of a League of Legends character. I didn't really give much thought into what character to draw, but just went with Jinx somehow. She reminds me of Harley Quinn from Batman. I like how the drawing came out. It was super fun to draw! 

I'm still a bit noobish in LoL. The learning curve is a bit steeper than in Heroes of the Storm. The game is quite fun also. My only problem is that LoL has way more trolls (especially AFKs) than Heroes of the Storm. Hoping that higher ELO will be better. /nobigdeal

Oh and today is 29 February... Have a great week! /bye 

Annie is one of my favorite characters in League of Legends. I was bored the other day and decided to draw her. I pulled some Annie cosplay images from the web and based this drawing on one of them. I drew Annie and her teddy (Tibbers) on an A3 size paper, which I rarely do. Not a great drawing, but I had fun.

Until next time! /bye

Last night I had some time to kill after programming for a bit. I decided to do a simple sketch. With my last two sketches I focused on speeding up my drawing process, even if it would lead to more inaccuracies and perhaps less detail.

Taking a look at the news

I opened the MSN news application this morning to find only the usual load of negative articles. The media is full of drama like always - that is why I usually ignore it. Small things that I would deem insignificant (like one man mockingly name-calling another) are made headlines. The media also seem to focus on publishing tweets nowadays. Obviously a lot of rude things can be found on Twitter. /nobigdeal

Just the other day, ANN7 made headlines about the tweet of some bird woman in the Natal (apparently she said something rude). The next day when I switched to the channel, the news reporter said "even more comments have been made on Twitter about the tweet by the bird woman"... I mean seriously? Was it not expected that people would comment? =D>

Like the old saying goes: no news is good news. Have a great day! /bye 

It has been a while since I have drawn anything. I didn't really plan on drawing today, but as I was sitting in my room, listening to Veela and the rain falling outside, I sorta just started. The drawing was (of course) a very quick one, but pretty fun to do.

We have been having a rainy week in the North West. It has been cloudy most of the time which is really welcome since we had a heat wave a few weeks ago. I love gloomy and cloudy days and hope that this weather will continue in the coming week. /please

Our campus is currently full of first years. The seniors will probably be returning this week so I expect some more life forms to be dwelling around here soon. /bye

I did another drawing with my laptop mouse when I got home from church this morning. I decided to draw something a little darker with some bright colors that would attract attention. I'm a sucker for blue and drawing faces, so a blue-haired girl in a black cloak was the most obvious choice.

Some thoughts

Drawing with my laptop mouse isn't really super comfortable, but it is not that bad to use. It is obviously a little bit slow to use when compared with a graphics tablet. /nobigdeal

After finishing this drawing, I realized that it looks a lot like Konan from the Naruto universe! Best be off now. /bye 

So after a little bit of working today, I decided to draw something while I was sitting in front of my laptop. I decided to draw with my little Logitech M325 mouse. Of course I did not expect anything too good, so I just kept things simple.

Drawing thoughts

What I really enjoy about digital art is that creating vibrant color effects are easy. I used Adobe Photoshop CC to draw so I could use layers, loads of different brushes and some filters. Anyway, the drawing started out as a girl doing some kind of face-palm pose. Then I turned her into a type of angel-like woman by giving her wings. I played around with the background for some time, but then set on creating a type of space atmosphere. :)

I haven't picked up a graphics tablet yet, but I'm looking forward to doing more digital art soon. Think I'll watch some Psych now before going to bed. /bye

For some reason I always like to draw on Thursday nights or Friday mornings. Anyway, I decided to do some toony drawings today. I thought that I would try a few different cartoon styles and see how it goes. It came out okay I guess. It was definitely fun drawing the characters!

Some thoughts about the drawing

I started off with the girl holding her hat on the right of the page. I drew it a little bigger than the others for no reason really. The nose looks a bit strange, but the idea is there - some kind of country girl. She might be standing in a field or in a garden. Next I drew the character at the top of the page. It reminds me of the older Disney kind of cartoon characters. /hmm

I then drew the little girl who is sitting on the rock. If you've played Don't Starve before, the character might appear very familiar. Finally I drew the woman spilling her wine. She has probably had too much to drink and now has trouble keeping on her feet - thus the strange stance. /blur

So it is around 1:00 AM here and I better be off to bed. /bye

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't drawn much during the past couple of days and have been spending a lot of time implementing a variety of econometric models for quantitative trading research that I'm doing. So I did a very quick drawing (maybe took me 10 minutes) this morning of a face that I decided to post on my blog even though it is really just some messy lines. 

Things happening in real life

December is here

So we have finally arrived at the last month of the year. Everyone seems to be getting ready for Christmas and vacation. The stock markets aren't doing particularly well, which is a little different than usual for the last part of the year. I expect some bullish (upwards) movements soon though. /nobigdeal

New Hitman film

My brothers and I decided to watch the new Hitman movie tonight. I thought it was much better than the previous film. It was actually quite decent and something I would definitely recommend to those who enjoy action films. :)

Taking a break from HotS

I've been playing Heroes of the Storm with some Twitch streamers for a while now. I really love that game. Everyone seems to be playing the new Cho'Gall character now which is a little irritating though. I won't be playing HotS for the next few weeks as I will be focusing on more serious things. Not that online gaming isn't a serious thing. /hmm

Exercising thoughts

I have been totally skipping on exercising the past few months. So I plan on running again every morning. The hardest part is making it become a habit again I'm sure.  

I'm hoping that December will have some interesting happenings. That's all for this post though. /bye

I decided to do a type of scenery drawing this morning before heading off to university. I wanted to go into something a little darker, but halfway through the drawing I decided to move into another direction. It could have been a scary scene with a spooky house and a strange girl with perhaps some graves scattered around, but I decided to just create  kind of gloomy atmosphere.

Some thoughts about the drawing

I realized that I'm actually crappy at drawing houses! Some parts of the house are quite wrong. I didn't even try to cover up the mistakes... /nobigdeal

In front of the house there is this kind of weird thing sticking out of the ground. I never really decided whether it should be a boulder or a gravestone. Now it is pretty much nothing. /XD

The weird bushes in front of the house came out okay I guess, but I have no idea what they actually are. I just messed around with my pencil to create the impression of some leafy bushes. The grass was done very poorly. Perhaps the entire scene should have been grassy?

Maybe I have bashed this drawing enough now? My parents are coming to visit today, so I won't be playing Heroes of the Storm tonight. That is all for this post. /bye

I followed my normal Friday routine once again and drew a face this morning. In this post I will quickly share my progress and thoughts as I was drawing. First of all, this was a quick drawing by any standard so there are a few mistakes hidden away in the drawing. I took a few shortcuts, so parts that could have looked more realistic are a little bit more cartoon-ish.

Step 1: Rough outline

To start off, I just needed to get the main idea on paper. I roughly outlined the general idea of the face with some apparent mistakes. I have erased my planning lines before I took the picture, so I cannot share it this time. No detail has been added to the eyes, hair or mouth (except for the teeth that looks a bit awkward at this point). /blush

Step 2: Give the face some life

In step 1, the face still looked quite blank. I added some detail to the eyes and mouth and also darkened the eyebrows and features of the nose. :)

 

Step 3: Add detail and darken more

I added some lines to the hair to make it seem a bit more real. I drew very roughly so the hair looks a bit hard and weird. I also darkened a few places, but mostly wanted to get the hair in place during this part.

Step 4: Time to shade!

I tried to do something to the awkward looking hair. I made some more curvy lines and darkened the original hair. I could probably have created much better looking hair had I used different pencils, but I only use one 0.5 mm pencil for these rough sketches. Anyway, I shaded the face to try and make it appear a bit more realistic. I also darkened the mouth which didn't really add too much. /nobigdeal

Well, that was the process. I'm not exactly sure how long it took me, but I had fun doing this one. /bye

I've just finished roughly drawing a female face. I have taken some snapshots as the drawing progressed to share here along with my thoughts as I drew. It is by no means supposed to be very neat or correct. I however like how it came out considering that I drew very quickly.  

Step 1: Roughly outline the face

I started off getting the general idea on paper. At this point there is nothing detailed, except for the eyebrows which I have already added to give a general idea of the face's expression. The hair looks quite awful here... /XD

Step 2: Refine the drawing a little

I added some lines for the girl's hair. It is very roughly drawn and not darkened as I may change my mind about details later. I also added some detail to the lips and darkened some of the outlines of the drawing. Note that I have drawn the lips very simple. They shouldn't actually appear as outlined as I made them... /nobigdeal 

Step 3: Add detail to make her look alive

At this point it is all about refining and getting her expression to become more visible. The overall hair was darkened (I decided not to change anything). I added some detail to her eyes and then just roughly scratched all over her face to give her some complexity. :)

It was definitely fun drawing this one. Hope you enjoyed seeing the progression. /bye

I have been playing Don't Starve the past weekend. It is a horror themed adventure game and has led to me wanting to explore darker "limbo style" sketching. This was my first attempt at something like that.

The idea was to create a foggy effect with a person standing in a forest. I did the drawing very quickly so it is rough and not accurate at all. At some point I thought about making it a rainy scene and leaving out the forest part, but ended up adding the trees anyway. /nobigdeal

The approach of roughly drawing without adding much detail was fun. I think these type of sketches leave much for the imagination of the viewer. Anyway, just thought I'd share this first attempt.  :) 

Last night while the wind was blowing heavily outside and rain was creeping up on the city, I decided to make coffee and draw something. I felt a bit lazy so decided to just use normal A4 printing paper. I had a quick look through some reference photos that I keep on my laptop and then jumped right into drawing. It was a fun drawing! :)

The weekend that was

A number of interesting things happened this weekend. Saturday morning I had the task of impersonating my younger brother at a function. The awkward part was that I had to introduce myself to so many people! I will think twice before I do that again. Hopefully they don't read my blog... /XD

Saturday night I hung out with my brother and his friends. Most of them are actuarial science students, so the conversations were great! And of course the Japanese rugby team won the Springboks! How cool is that?! I don't dislike the Springboks, but I really like unexpected events. Apparently only 0.2% of SuperBru players got that one right! /:)

The week to come

We have a public holiday on Thursday (24 September) in South Africa. It is titled "Heritage Day". Frankly, I don't care what the holiday is actually about. The good part is that it allows me to have a long weekend if I can manage to slip away on Friday. I'm going to do just that... /nobigdeal 

I plan on going home for the weekend and spend some time with my family, I haven't seen them in ages. Now to get back to my code...

Yesterday I decided to quickly draw a magician girl while taking a break. In this post I will share some pictures of how it progressed and tell a little bit of what I was trying to achieve. It is not a realistic or accurate drawing, but it was fun to do.

Step 1: Draw a face with some expression

I started off with a generic face. The idea was to create an expression that looked as if the magician girl was casting a spell or perhaps shouting something. It kinda looks like she is just gasping for air, but whatever... /nobigdeal

Step 2: Draw some magician features

I'd guess that magicians would typically wear hoodies or some kind of strange hat. I decided to go with a hoodie and roughly outlined where I think the hoodie should be. I drew some hair to make her look a little less weird. I also started playing with the idea of the magician girl holding a staff (bottom left corner).

Step 3: Draw a staff and some armor

I drew some armor that is probably a little bit to big, but who cares? I also added an (ugly looking) staff. At this point the drawing looks kinda bad, but I thought that I could just fix it later.

Step 4: Get her face to look less weird and more human

This was the first part of adding detail to the sketch - especially eyebrows. I shaded her face a tiny bit, colored her hair and outlined the overall drawing. :)

Step 5: Improve by shading and adding details

In step 4 her face was already looking better. The same approach from step 4 was followed to add detail to her armor, staff and of course her hoodie, I drew strange symbols on her hoodie to create the impression of mysticism.

So yeah, that was the process. I only used 0.5 mm pencil lead (as always). Hope you had fun looking at the progression of the drawing! /bye

Last night I had a quick look through some old downloads that I had on my computer. I discovered a video by Feng Zhu where he did some quick landscape designs for an old PlayStation game called Chrono Cross. His paintings are really good and made me think of getting more into digital art.

I am comfortable enough with traditional sketching (pencil + paper) to think that I shouldn't have issues with drawing digitally. I have played around with a few Wacom Intuos tablets before, but have never done anything serious. So I am considering to buy a new graphics (drawing) tablet! :)

The two most prominent brands for digital drawing that I know of are Wacom and Huion. Wacom is an expensive and higher-end brand that focuses on professionals (or hobbyists willing to spend a small fortune). On the other hand, Huion is a Chinese company that offers good technology for a fraction of the price that Wacom does.

I don't really have a budget. but would like to spend below $300. Basically this means I can purchase any Huion graphics tablet, but only some Wacom tablets. I should be able to get a tablet with at least 5080 LPI (lines per inch), 2048 pressure levels and an active drawing area of at least 8" x 5".

I guess it is time to shop around and see what product has a good value-for-money ratio... 

Check out Feng Zhu's blog here!

Yesterday I decided to draw something after eating breakfast. I started off with a random face and then decided to transform the face into one of my favorite Heroes of the Storm characters, Johanna. Now Johanna is originally from Diablo. What makes her stand out is that she is a female crusader.

I had so much fun drawing that I decided to take quick shots of my progress. It isn't one of my better drawings, but since everything was pretty much made-up on the spot, it was entertaining. I actually have no idea how Johanna should actually look when appearing more "life-like". Anyway, I'll briefly share my progress...

Step 1:   Draw some random facial features

I drew a random face to start off with. Obviously it didn't look great (actually it looks quite bad, let's be honest), but I thought that I could fix it a little afterwards.

Step 2:   Draw some facial features that are similar to Johanna's

What I recalled most about Johanna is her hairstyle. She has her hair shaved off on her left-side. So I quickly outlined some hair. 

Step 3:   Draw some body features that are similar to Johanna's

Johanna is a crusader. She wears really heavy armor and has a gigantic shield. Her shield will not be visible, so I just roughly outlined how I think her armor looks in the game.    

Step 4:   Do some shading

This is a pretty straight-forward part. I just darkened some parts of her armor and her face.

That's it. I am somewhat pleased with the resulting sketch, but to be honest I am not sure if my drawing could really pass for Johanna. Maybe if you have a great imagination, it could be acceptable xD. I haven't played Diablo (where she is actually from), but I will definitely put it on my to-do list.

I have a fair number of "artsy" friends. Some of them are really good at drawing and just by having observed some of their creations, I have been inspired to also try my luck at pencil sketches (or "graphite" sketches, which just sounds more intense).

I started out drawing anime characters in school. Pretty much all of my classmates did it at some point during our teen years. It was quite common to see people drawing Dragonball (Z) characters like Goku, Gohan and Vegeta. It was always interesting to see how everyone had a different "touch". You could easily tell who drew something by looking at the way the shading and lining were done.

Recently I have discovered that I enjoy drawing faces, I'm not really sure why though. It might be the emotive factor (faces usually depict some form of emotion unless it's Kristen Stewart) or perhaps it is just overall very common for people to draw faces. 

I think drawing is pretty fun and often rewarding when people are in awe of your creations. I cannot say that I have experienced the latter much, but I've had the odd occasion of people telling me that I'm good and then asking me to draw them. It usually results in me steering the conversation in a different direction. Why? Drawing a photo-realistic face is hard and time-consuming! I've never tried my hand at it, but my friends take up to 20-30 hours to achieve near-photo-realism. I prefer just drawing a toony version of something, otherwise why not just take a picture and gray-scale it? Yeah, there is the sentiment, but seriously I find it unpractical. 

Anyway, I hope to share some of my creations on my blog in the coming time. If you were wondering, the image above is a drawing (of an actress) that I did a few weeks ago. If you can guess who it is supposed to be, I will be very surprised!