Working on Sylvania the Elven Ground Staff!

 

Working on Sylvania the Elven Ground Staff #WIP!

I was inspired by a sponsorship ad in Lifering’s exit interview episode I have seen a while ago on Youtube.

Her war-object design is based on Sylvania of the Spirit Keep. I incorporated a few elements from her elven design, such as her chest plate, hip guards, and pauldrons, into her staff from the game.

I had some troubleshooting on her staff design. Polearms usually have a blade at the end for a long-range strike, like halberds, spears, or tridents. The blade-like protrusions on the head of Sylvania's staff don’t look like they are made for striking from the side.

 

 

For something that looks close to her staff weapon in Raid, I was able to find the Fangtian Ji, a Chinese spear from the Song dynasty (960–1279AD), designed for striking opponents directly or knocking them off their horses with the spear tip or side blade. (see also the Dagger Axe for a better context of her design).

Sylvania does not do this in the gameplay footage in the ad, she just strikes the ground with an AOE attack. So, I think it’s a staff weapon for casting powerful magic.

In this design, I exaggerated the blades and lengthened the spearhead. It made her look very intimidating in my style. A powerful and high-ranking war-staff!

Old stomping grounds

 Well...

 

....it's been a while since I been here and I am surprised that a few posts are still getting views on here.

Anyway, since I left Twitter (for personal reasons I will not mention here), I also gave up a platform for posting my rough sketches. I like posting on Tumblr, but I like to spread out my content on different platforms. DA, Insta, and my portfolio are mostly for my finished completed work or polished sketches.

So, maybe a possible revival here??? Just for the sketches?

Anyway, here's something I have done recently. I'm writing an objectshow comic about living object people living in a fantasy world. Here's the carrd for one of my stories set within it: Rise of Relics! Also, if you are wondering what the "Not for the use of NFTs" watermark is for: it's to hopefully slow the scrapping of my art by nft art thieves.  

 I do not support nfts nor have any intention to create or profit off them. 

So yeah, enjoy my art! You can find me on other places, too! Check my about me page for more information!

Well, it's has been bloody long awhile! Tumblr is (possibly) dying

This Pelquin character, an weird alien bird lady, is probably banned on Tumblr. Well, dang.

I love Tumblr, but their recent anti-nsfw policy is harming artists, fandoms, and many people on the website. This policy is suppose to target illegal content, including child porn, and hopefully will ban and delete such content, including porn-bots that try to follow tumblr blogs.

The problem is that the policy is poorly implemented and blindly targets any form of nudity, artistic or pornographic, anatomical studies, etc, regardless of the age and context. This ban also targets sfw (non-pornographic) artists as well. You can read more about it here: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th, Tumblr's Child Porn Crackdown Ensnares Legit Blogs in Purge

I am not sure if my Tumblr blog: Vistalgian.tumblr.com will be targeted in the purge, but I do have art that contain anatomical drawings and artistic nudity, and some drawings exploring the anatomy of my adult human and non-human characters. The blog will stay up on Tumblr and I'll see after this date what is deleted.

I backed up my Tumblr blog and I might import it all here in the future (once I figure out how to convert from my bbolli-tumblr html backup to xml). I had a lot of fun on Tumblr, seeing the diverse culture, people, and fandoms of the site. I found many of my favorite artists there and follow them throughout their artistic journey. Some followed me back (Thank You).

Blogger is my old home (how old is this blog!?) weird that I am back here. I'll see if I can clean things up around here. So much dust!

Upcoming Class time and Sketches

Early Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 After this Sunday, I  have only one week left before classes! For the 2012 winter quarter, my classes are Drawing 2, Survey of Western Art II, and Design 1.  So, for the remaining week I have left, I'll practice drawing and go back over my drawing notes from last quarter.

Also, I won't be updating on the 24th, Christmas Eve.  I need to spend time with family and friends, open presents, walk with God, make sure the cats won't destroy the house (I swear they do that for fun, seriously), and draw stuff!

Anywho, here's some very belated sketches:

New Character...not sure what to do with her...

Perhaps a human/angel version of Vistalgia?

Or a guardian with a heart of stone...

Still life infodump

Ok, I decided to keep updates on Saturdays only because of school work.  The updates might become irregular over time as my studying and drawing for my class become more intense.

Also, I was unable to take pictures of the drawing exercises due to technical difficulties (camera won't work) but I do have thumbnails and notes as an example of what we do in Drawing 100:

Thumbnails are a helpful drawing tool used to analyze the composition.  Here I draw the still life in a few thumbnails.  The thumbnails are created by using the viewfinder, which is another drawing tool used to analyze the composition and is a smaller version of the 18x24 paper I used for the artworks.  What I look for in the thumbnails are a variety of lines (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and curvilinear),  size of the objects, and changes in rhythm and flow in the composition.   When I'm satisfied with the thumbnail, I bisect it, draw boxes around the subjects in the drawing, and do the same to the large 18x24 paper for my final artwork.  After bisecting the large paper, I draw boxes, which can be any size according to the thumbnail, on it and begin to use sight and measuring tools to scale and draw the subject as accurately as I can.  This, the sighting and measuring process in creating the drawing, and drawing in the details takes about 10-15 hours to finish the artwork.

Here's some information on using sighting and measuring techniques on drawing still lifes.

INFODUMPMADNESS And now for something different:

Meet Briell Fetcher (name is spelled wrong in the picture).  Briell and Vistalgia and best friends for LIFE considering that Vistalgia is a deceased dragon spirit living within Briell.  Yup, this is going to be fun...

Hair styles for Briell Fetcher.  Dread locks are awesome.

All these ellipses...how do they work!?

I'm still alive (and drawing awesome stuff).  It's been a while since I last updated this blog (understatement I know) but attending FREAKING SCAD, doing my first projects, and studying for my first exam took a lot of time out of my hands.  Then that is to be expected when I get a job for animation....drawing forever.............{insert overused internet meme here}

Anyway, I had fun in my Drawing and Art History classes, my two classes for the fall quarter, and met some very interesting people (artists unite!).  Both my classes are foundation classes meaning that each freshmen and transfer student needs to take these classes if they haven't already.  Art History is the study of historical artworks (redundant is redundant) and understanding how such knowledge can help us understand art today and ourselves and our culture.  Drawing-100 deals with the basics of all art and design, how to organize a composition, understanding the elements of art and design (line, shape, texture, value, space, color), etc.  Some of this I learned from earlier experiences but it is incredibly helpful for me to go back to the basics of art.  Expect lots of sketches of still lives from this class because this is what each and every assignment is going to be based on.

There are two assignments each week, exercises and projects.  Exercises are short sketches (2-3 hours) and studies based on in-class lessons and projects are long (10- 15 hours) drawings and are complete versions of exercises and thumbnail sketches.   Drawings are done with direct observation, no photos whatsoever!

Here what projects I did so far (sadly the camera died on me so project one is not shown, exercises I'll show later):

Project two...linear still life.

Project three...ellipses are HARD TO DRAW.

Project four (wip)...ellipses are still HARD TO DRAW.

Updates might move to Saturdays only...I'm just having trouble managing time here so bare with me...derp.

Update schedule change

During this past week, I found that updating this blog every day was very challenging.  I found it difficult to plan new posts because I have to edit my pictures and, hopefully, upload them without the blogger picture upload acting up. That and I'm sick of updating late every night. (I missed Friday and Saturday because I was very tired of the picture upload.)

Updates will return to their normal schedule this week, Fridays and Saturdays.

And a random she-sphinx for you.

One more thing: Japan is seriously going to need all the aid and support they need to overcome this earthquake disaster. So, I encourage you, my readers, go out and donate canned foods, money, do whatever you can to help. Get the word out! Post on your blogs, talk to your friends and family, volunteer a group, pray to God, do what you can do to help these people!