Getting acquainted

with my new to-err, I mean, um....business purchase

Not sure if I mentioned it to anyone here before but as of last month, GenkiGoth Studios has become official and legal her in the Sunshine state. Not huge, to the general masses, but definitely something I'm proud of. We're not just talking about it anymore. It's more than just an organized hobby now. I think the push to get the name and what we do on paper makes the whole act of what we do take a bit more of a serious turn. Not in a bad way mind you, it's just something that I have to keep in the back of my head. We can't think of this as something casual anymore...and I'm kind of happy about that, lol!

Now that we've got the paperwork in order, we've been working on getting ourselves promoted, and figuring out what we need equipment wise to streamline any jobs, projects and/or commissions we're gonna be getting (hopefully, lol!) it's been a pretty long list...and the price tags are sobering. But we've talked alot about it, and what items should take more precedence over others and the one thing that we both agreed that we really really needed was a new computer. Our laptops are SO old, to the point that we can't even update simple net broswing software because our systems are so out of date. Dee Jay's quite tired of getting burned from his laptop (seriously, he has two already) and mine is well on its way to following the same fate. And so, we made our first big investment as co-owners and bought a new computer.

Oh...my...god. Is it ever beautiful! wonderful size, gorgeous color output, it runs like a dream! I'm drooling in anticipation to start my current animation bit on this baby!! My laptop slows down so much because of all the abuse it's taken. Anything over a few gigs and it practically cries. But this...I don't think I'll have any problems animating at all. No lagging, no loud fan whirring, no crashing or freezing. I just love thinking of all the cool stuff we'll be able to do now that we've got some up to date machinery!

But enough of my annoying rambling....artwork awaits!!!

Genki

Ah, the refreshing taste of victory!!!

So, I'm leaving from my day job and one of co-workers says "you're a superhero".
Wait...what?
The scenario he gives me is that we all wake up at the theme park (don't want to name names, LOL) and from oh...a meeting or something and we all have super powers. When I came in, they were deciding who was going to be good and bad. So I've been deemed to be on the justice fighting side.

When it got to what sort of powers we'd all be getting, the were unsure for a bit and then it dawned on them. My powers would be comparable to Thor's; I have super strength that is amplified by mug.

Now, I feel I should provide some back story to this, lol!

I bring a 64oz. jug that I fill up with water every day to work. I work outside in a tiny kiosk and the only thing protecting me (not really) is a sheet of tin over the table (that leaks) and an umbrella (mostly for guests...that leaks) So, it's just me and the heat. I bring that to keep hydrated. I'm ALWAYS getting comments on it because it's so big compared to me. I see it as a very practical item; It's a water jug, an anchor, a dumbell, a travel chair and a bludgeoning weapon, LOL! So in a way, this assigned superpower fits all too well, LOL!

My whole gimmick though is I'll fight with this mug and make super anime victory poses and real corny remarks (like the title of this post, LOL) But OMG I had no idea making a costume would be so hard! I had no real rules to go by, except that it had to be skintight and it had to look kinda american, kinda japanese. Not sure how successful it was, but it was hilarious doing it!

There is no coincidence. Only Hitsuzen. And Mucha.

So I've really been itchin' to try my hand at some more detail oriented, art nouveau-y stuff. Problem is, after looking for references and inspiration, jumping headfirst into my desired project would most likely end in a mess of watercolor and tears. So I figured I'd have to take baby steps. My main references for this was Mucha (of course!!) and of all things, xxxHolic from Clamp. Both are beautiful, detail heavy, and compositionally gorgeous. All things I want to do, all things I feel I need lots of improving on.

The penciling didn't take too long (I had plotted the rough out on a smaller scale in my sketchbook, so I at least had a gameplan to go off of) The inking was a bit tedious though. I completely FUBARed the hair and was really upset about that. Luckily for me, the watercolor strangely masked alot of the inks I had laid down, so it was like cntrl-z-ing a painting, which never happens, lol! There was also the task of inking in all those lines in the BG; there was too much open space to leave there. My eyes gave out quite often and had to take lots of breaks because they were SO hard to focus on! But they came out looking pretty neat in the end.

The watercolors were interesting this time around; I used them on some aquarelle arches paper. Never used the paper before; it was always so expensive (how can I possible justify spending 40 dollars on a pad of paper??) but I found it on sale for half off a few weeks ago, so it was like "ok it's now or never" lol. I was pretty scared when I got it out because wasn't sure how anything was going to behave. I took some getting used to, but I think I'm going to really like that paper. It's smooth and barely buckled at all; the water beaded up on the surface initially and that scared me, but once it settled in the fibers everything was beautifully smooth and rich.

This project required alot of patience on my part, but I'm glad I stuck with it; it doesn't look as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now I gotta figure out something really cool to do for next time!! Well, within reason of course; I can totally see myself trying to run before I can crawl. Baby steps Miriam, baby steps! LMAO!

Genki

rainy days=all day sketch session!

It was raining cats and dogs yesterday. So much so that my job called me to stay home because i'd just be standing at my kiosk getting soaked. So I took the day to draw. I should've done something animation wise, but I wanted some immediate satisfaction, so I decided to start on some pre-planning for a portrait.

It always helps to have a great model and references, and she has all that and a bag of chips, lol! This is Ana Aesthetic; journalist, seamstress, model, actress, cosplayer, con-goer, and a great friend. She's got lots of great poses and costumes I love to look at and reference. But this pic I've been wanting to draw for such a long time because of how nicely those sepia tones might translate in walnut ink. I wanted to dive right in, but I don't want to waste the ink or the expensive paper, so I grabbed my sketchbook and went to work.














Plotting down shapes and getting the gist of the pose down on paper. I love the journey of a finished product, but i don't want to have my finished product to have any evidence of the prep-work. So I can make all my scribbles and mistakes here.

















Got the majority of the pose down, but I didn't like where the hand was close to her face; it looked too far away and the perspective seemed a bit off, so I moved that down and closer to her body. haven't drawn in the gun yet because I'm still trying to get an understanding of the body through that weapon, but there is some line work roughly indicating where it should go. I seem to be having some serious issues with her chest and that left shoulder (her left at least, lol) still seems a bit too wide for my liking.












Continued to futz with the shoulder and chest, kept moving the line work of her jacket to make it fall nicely. I think that was one of the contributing factors of the chest looking so weird. I was also adding in the piping and patternwork of her lacy top too early, so I got rid of it and just focused on the contours of her chest and waist.

Feeling a bit more confident of where things are being placed, I started to cement them by shading things in. I also started adding some more details to the face, light shading, but still not 100% convinced on the angle of the lips and chin. I started to add the gun on the paper but as I made corrections I was erasing too much of what I actually needed. (because apparently, perpective and I are not on talking terms, LOL) I never realized how awesome tracing paper was until my Tools of the Trade class. I use that stuff alot now.




Made some more revisions to her mouth and chin and shoulder, continued to shift her left arm closer to her body and am now working back on the chest, making sure there's some volume there because it still looked awkward to me. Also adding more shading to the areas that i think are ok, and still playing with the placement of that middle finger that's going to be underneath her gun (yeah, I know you still won't see it, but it makes me feel better that I know where it is, lol!













And here it is, on it's last sketching stretch. I've made some more alterations on the waist and its placement, I've been adding more contour shading than linework to the chest so that it looks rounded, added some of little surprises i found while scrutinizing that picture (like the hat above the giant feather and the checkerboard pattern on the cuffs of her sleeves) things I've yet to add are the cameo silhouette on the brooch next to the feather, the detailing of clip at the collar and the patternwork on her corset (although I'm completely at a loss as to how I'm going to do that...it confused the hell out of me) I've also done some more altering on her lip and chin...it kept bothering me, lol! The ear seems to have shrunk and her neck has gotten a bit stiff, but those seem like pretty easy fixes.






Now all I have left to do is to trace this baby on some nice arches paper, plot the shadows and get to painting!!! I can't wait to see what this'll look like finished!

New year, new habits

But god, is this ever gonna be hard...

Made a pretty hefty resolutions list for me (as well as the both of us) and I'm hoping that the more I see it, the more I'm going to want to stick to it. I've had many years where I'd be totally gun ho about something only to fizzle out before the middle of the year. I DON'T want this to happen again this year!

So, here is the condensed version, the strictly creative/business portion of my resolution list:

1. Update and polish demo reel
2. put at least one animation in at least one festival
3. build up our Etsy
4. invest in ourselves (biz cards, postcards, etc.)
5. Publish GGS site
6. Promote GGS
7. Work on art for Art Sale
8. Keep active online
   

While they all sound do-able, these (and the other 10 that I have) are pretty hefty in size. I'm doing my best to break all of these things down into easier to handle baby steps that I know we can both do quickly, together. Some of these things I'd personally like to see done within the next few months...but I know life gets in the way and we can both get real super busy in our own jobs and side projects.

I'm beginning to think that the only way to accomplish any of this will be to channel the MCAD days. We've got to take whatever time we have when we're not at work and work on this stuff to get ourselves up and running.

And, in an effort to keep content, I think I might just start posting art bits (web layouts, WIP's sketches) up to see what you all think. There's many that we'd like to see in the finishing stages but we might be stuck on a certain thing or just not sure what to do anymore with it.

OK! I think I've harassed all of you enough. Thanks for reading!

Genki