Also I got e.coli and had a hives based hospital trip

What a week + vein of gold

Personally this week - ne this whole ass past few weeks was exhausting low-key miserable - I had a lot of health problems this week so I wasn't able to do as much as I usually am. I didn't get a chance to go over the history lectures this week, though I did actually go out and do my super long walk on Saturday- in which I had some really interesting synchronicities - just as Julia Cameron-sensei said.

I picked up an incredibly rare translation of some literature that appears to only exist like... in New York which is neat! Gatekeeping though lol. New York flooded this weekend so I couldn't go to the Magical Girls festival which was unfortunate. So instead I stayed home and got Dressmaker which is fun as hell.

I also made progress on [super secret dev project #2].

I was gonna work on my history of comics lectures today but instead I had hives all night and after two rounds of allergy meds returned no allieviation I had to go to the hospital - turns out I had a stomach infection (which makes sense because I wasn't feel great and had some severe stomach aches in the morning that made me miss a meeting :( ) So instead I played around with Leaflet's new canvas feature -

My favorite art from the shoots I directed (p.1) - Multi-hyphenate

because I spent the night in the hospital lol and I wanna try out this new feature

torrent-empress.leaflet.pub

since I couldn't take my ADHD meds cuz I woke up at like 4pm.... (didn't get out of the hospital until 7AM)

So I learned how to draw hands!!

So this week in comics school I learned that there are actually several tricks to hands - by my teacher who reminds me a lot of Jack Nicholson (this isn't shade he just is very interesting and wears sunglasses at the computer but he did recommend some videos which I haven't watched yet but just the lecture was fascinating)

So for the breakdown - he shared several ways to get hands down - he admits that there is no one "good" way for every angle and type of hand: Each which I've given their own names: Sheet, Egg, Wi-fi, and tube. ~~(I also snuck in a question about how to draw old people)~~

How I understood the methods

Sheet - In this method you start by drawing a sheet first then having the natural flow of the fingers and structure of the palm follow. I really like this method and think it works especially well for feminine hands.
Egg - This method you start by drawing "yolk", then adding digits. This works better for more bulbous and shorter fingers, gives them a lot of definition and "heft".
Wifi - You try to emulate the wifi signal. Interesting for maintaining more correct widget lengths but I had a bit of trouble implementing it.
Tube - in this method you draw out tubes first then add the segments of the knuckles - I really liked this but it didn't immediately work for my particular style, but I can see myself incorporating it in the future.

All of these methods could be combined depending on the need but they're excellent for speed. He also emphasized studying people who you like - not necessarily life drawing which I found super interesting.

More gestures

I got out the biiiiig sketchbook for this one - since they were very insistent on getting our figures looser and bigger I continued to work on it - these I believe were 30 and 1 minute drills with the Trueref gesture tool. That's what I call on the ground product research lmao. They really emphasized - drawing from the shoulder! And that gesture drawing is really important in learning how to draw for speed.

Silent storytelling - how to tell stories without words or dialogue

In this our great teacher (and head of the school) Tom Hart went through examples of silent storytelling across all different mediums of comics - I took notes about what worked and what didn't. Overall, because of my over emphasis on manga as my general place of where I learned comics (and take the most cues on in my own art) - I learned a lot about how more western comics cultures make use of these devices in a more maximalist way for example:

Sound effects: (ignore that I wrote SPX I am dyslexic lol) each culture has their own iconography for expressing certain movements and sounds!

Expression & body gesture: using the whole body to tell a story and more movement panels. (more on this later)

Labels: when in doubt it seems that indie comics and are really comfortable using labels - interestingly enough it reminds me a lot of meme culture - makes me wonder if we should consider memes a form of comic - many memes take from comic panels anyways lol

Silhouette - Using silhoette to show where and what to focus on but also, movement without drawing everything out. Imma def use this shit.

I love the wholesome french lesbian yuri going on here (it does turn sad later, in classic yuri fashion)

Symbols and balloons: Could be used to condense whole conversations or actions into simple terms.

Afterwards we were given an exercise to make a short diary comic about our day and this was mine. What i learned is that it's incredibly hard to indicate what a fucking google home is.

So i wrote about my morning in which my phone died and I overslept. This is what a google home mini looks like, in case anyone is wondering (my teacher didn't know lmao). Yes I know it's a "security hazard" you're all walking around with little always on mics in the forms of phones shut up I have ADHD and autism ;w;

Bringing together gesture and movement and finally - emotions

After everything, I finally got to learn more about emotions - thankfully this was an exercise that I actually put myself through quite a bit. They had us draw 3 characters - so of course y'all know I had to draw my man my man my maaaaan Astarion. I wasn't particularly happy with his but I am pushing myself to get better. It's hard to find the balance between showing his mature look without letting him just look old which is annoying. I find a lot of artists just sanding off his features which is annoying - I love his little smile lines.

These are my favorite Veluthe gestures EVER though I think. I was considering turning them into stickers on my discord. And I decided to draw Aleta - an old OC that I've decided to share custody of with nerdigrey.bsky.social as I help them a bit on their comic

Compare to 2 years ago?