Well I'm kinda happy… what started out as a mere imitation of one of the "moefied" drawings from the vipper "make this pathetic drawing moe" story and ended up with me figuring out how to draw flowy, decent looking hair and producing a drawing considerably different than the original. It's still on the sloppy sketch/poweramatuer level but it's progress so that's good enough for me.

Now I just need to drop her in a scene and shade her…

Yes, I left Japan and returned to the US a week or two after the quake and right in the midst of the reactor trouble.

Ok, so here’s something to think about.

Let’s say that some time soon (within the next few decades) we manage to open up a wormhole (in space, not on Earth). We proceed to travel through it and come out on the other side.

How would we figure out when and where the hell we came out? This is all totally unknown territory, so for all we know our exit point could be so far away from the Milky Way that it isn’t even visible from our position and a thousand years in the future. What on earth could we use as a reliable measuring stick to figure all this out?

The other thing is how long will the hole stay open… the expedition would be pretty boned if it decided to close a few moments after passing through.

If we can’t figure these things out, humanity might end up in some pretty wonky situations like settling on an earthlike planet on the other side of the universe several thousand years in the past.

Oh lol… I assumed it was something really high since it looked so much better than the rest of the series, haha…

Well there's 87836483FPS-girl from Clannad (actually I think she's 60FPS, but I have no clue), but she's only on screen for around 1-3 minutes per episode and is definitely the exception to the rule.

As dull/uncreative as it may sound, I've been doing a lot of copying lately. Not as in tracing, but as in finding a pic I like or running into a character in something I'm reading that makes me think, "That looks good, I want to try that" and then proceeding to draw what's on my screen.

I gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised by the results just about every time.There's definitely been an improvement in my penciling abilities and my hands are becoming more adept at following my eyes every time. It's kinda funny, though – I can never manage an exact facsimile – it always ends up with some amount of my personal touch. even if I don't intend it, With the latest attempts in particular I've changed various things about them on purpose, usually out of preference.

I don't have any scans to show right now, but if I remember I'll try to post some soon.

Satoko said:

I find this a little ironic actually, since it's said that Mac is the thing to use when you work with illustrations and other media. And at the same time the majority of these tools are for windows only.

And it's true, at least in the US market. Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Painter, Artrage, Sketchbook Pro, etc all have Mac versions. Japan seems to be quite the opposite, however. At least my trusty old Wacom is still completely useful on this side of the puddle!

tychan said:
I don't think Sai is the only tool the japanese use or artist in general. Some use Copic markers or another brand. Others use water colors and other different mediums. I actually think there may be softwares they have that we don't.

Well, as far as digital stuff goes, SAI is the software I see mentioned the most. Copic markers have a cool feel (good example is Kubo Tite’s art in Bleach) but I don’t have $15+ to waste on a box of markers, no matter how special they may be.

Satoko said:
I must take and mention IllustStudio then, I don't think that there is any English version of it… but I want it.
[ video ]

Also I wouldn't mind having one of these Wacom tablets…
[ video ]

Wow, IllustStudio looks nice. I saw the boxed version of it on the shelves of some stores when I was shopping in Akiba, but figured it was one of those crappy half-assed programs boxed programs akin to “Windows SuperAwesome Tuneup Master Wizard HD 2011″ or something. Guess that’s what I get for assuming!

Anyway, it looks like what Adobe Illustrator would be if they went through and made it feel more like a raster paint app, making it easier and more natural to precisely control without ugly mathematical things like paths. I think I might feel like I was cheating by using it, though, with all the line fixing and such that it does!

giascle said:
Make sure to ALWAYS finish the under-drawing before you draw the details. It looks like you drew the face and then added the hair, when you should have drawn the whole head and then added the hair. If you did, then you're probably underestimating how far the back of the head extends. I really like that mouth, though; very unique.

It’s the latter – I underestimated. I was so worried about the front and the chin that I forgot about the back /facepalm.

Ninsheart said:

I use Shi Painter and openCanvas. Both Japanese as well, just for the record.

I’ve heard of openCanvas (which quite deceptively is NOT open source), and it looks pretty nice. Isn’t Shi Painter that little Java applet?

On a sidenote, I really hate that all these pretty little apps are Windows only. IllusStudio is coming out with a 64-bit OS X port in Spring 2011, but waiting sucks, I don’t like Windows, and I hate having to reboot to use said tools in Windows even more. I might try a VM, but last time I did (admittedly, on a less powerful machine) I couldn’t get any smooth strokes.

Grabbed Paint Tool SAI, the the Japanese software used to create most of what you see on Pixiv and the Sankaku channel, a little bit ago and have been trying to get familiar with it. Here's some lineart I drew with it… it's in dire need of cleaning, but meh.

It’s an effect caused by the way a certain type of lens refracts incoming light, with the image becoming increasingly bent the farther you get away from the center. It’s a common effect, and you’ve undoubtedly seen it somewhere before. Here’s an example: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2498422598_ed6fd3f104_o.jpg

In anime/manga, some close-up shots apply a little bit of this effect on top of the standard perspective.

I would agree, but the thing is, there’s photos documenting it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina

Absolutely crazy, both of these cases.

Well, I didn't want it to be too strong, but it's also very likely that I just failed at the effect >_<