Face practice. 10 min and little erasing <3

If you’re like me, then you’re probably one of those people that get frustrated very easily if things refuse to work xD This is exactly what I’m like. It gets immensely disheartening to erase around something around 1000 times and it still doesn’t look right xD I once heard a great saying on a YouTube video explaining different practice techniques (which are great, by the way), that went along the lines of

If you make a mistake, accept it and move on. If you’ve screwed up, so be it; it’s called practice

Of course, that doesn’t work with finished artwork, but I’ll try and keep it at that for these practice thingies xD It’s no use spending hours on a face or moving and transforming things around – move along and learn from it for the future. Spend your saved time doing something different… like coding wordpress templates or writing stories. Or do a finished illustration for a change… you’ll have a lot less to fix after a lot of quick sketches >=>

Got tag?

What are your greatest fears?

[x] the dark
[ ] staying single forever
[x] being a parent
[x] giving birth
[x] being myself in front of others
[ ] open spaces
[x] closed spaces
[x] heights
[x] dogs
[x] birds
[ ] fish
[x] spiders
[ ] flowers or other plants
Total so far: 9

[x] being touched
[x] fire
[x] deep water
[x] snakes
[ ] silk
[x] the ocean
[x] failure
[ ] success
[ ] thunder/lightning
[x] frogs/toads
[ ] my boyfriends/girlfriends dad
[ ] boyfriends/girlfriends mom
[x] rats
[x] jumping from high places
[ ] snow
Total so far: 18

[ ] rain (Are you crazy? I love rain ;__;)
[ ] wind
[x] crossing hanging bridges (close-to-death-experiences ftw…NOT Dx)
[x] death
[ ] heaven
[ ] being robbed
[x] falling
[ ] clowns
[ ] dolls
[x] large crowds of people (x__x)
[ ] men
[ ] women
[x] having great responsibilities
[ ] doctors, including dentists
[x] tornadoes (That’s actually a justified fear |D)
Total so far: 24

[x] hurricanes
[x] incurable diseases
[x] sharks
[ ] Friday the 13th (wtf?)
[ ] ghosts
[x] poverty
[ ] Halloween
[x] school
[ ] trains
[ ] odd numbers
[ ] even numbers
[x] being alone
[x] becoming blind
[ ] becoming deaf
[x] growing up
Total so far: 32

[x] creepy noises in the night
[ ] bee stings
[x] not accomplishing my dreams/goals
[x] needles
[ ] dinosaurs
[ ] the welcome mat
[ ] high speed
[x] throwing up (makes me feel like I’m choking ;_;”)
[x] falling in love
[ ] super secrets
Total so far: 37

If you get more than 30, I strongly recommend some counseling
If you get more than 20, you’re paranoid
If you get 10-20, you are normal
If you get 10 or less, you’re fearless

What do we learn from this? I probably have issues. But everyone knew that already |D

This is me. Hello y'all.

As of today, I have ridiculously short side swept bangs. They look awful, but heck, my bangs have always looked awful. That’s why I usually wear them tucked up, like depicted here:

Sadly, my forehead is HUGE. It has...alien-like dimensions.

It’s even larger than on this picture. Seriously, that’s some huge sh*t. Either way, the problem with my bangs, my forehead and the fact that I like Feuer Frei by Rammstein (Bang, Bang! =D) has pushed me to write this blog post.

This is about bangs. Bangs are serious business. Most anime characters have them, and they are pretty common in actuality as well. Not only are they super-cute, especially the long ones and side swept bangs, they also work well with basically any hair style, face shape and body type. Bangs are awesome.

However, most anime style characters have one flaw: their bangs always look the same. This might not be a problem at all, as you can explain with something as: “The character likes his/her bangs the way they are and always styles them the same way”. True, but if your character’s bangs still look entirely the same after they’ve just woken up, been in a fight or violated, something is wrong. Hair changes.

This is Yui. Everyone should know Yui.

Yui’s bangs are fairly long, and she wears them parted in the middle, as depicted above. Whenever she wakes up, I usually draw her bangs to look exactly like this. Technically, this is a mistake. (Warning: NSFW image ahead)

This would be more accurate.

With this basic bang model, the styling possibilities are nearly unlimited. Most anime artists (including me, of course) don’t do this. Some even use the bangs as a way of differentiating their characters (along with hair and eye color), so variating those would be like shooting yourself in the leg. Instead, sticking to one bang styling, along with possibly even the same hairstyle is preferred.

I’m talking here. In a lot of bishoujo games and anime, where the characters are depicted first in child hood, then in their teenage years, you will notice that their hair never changes. Seriously, I don’t know anyone who has worn twintails (or any other style, really) like…10 years in row (from age 6 to 16 for example), without ever changing their hair once. Do you? I doubt it.

Just for the heck of it, another way of styling the "basic bang" type that Yui has.

Of course, this works best in theory. Personally, I’m going to stick with Yui’s standard bang styling for the most part, simply because it’s cute and suits her so well xD However, I think everyone should play around with their character’s hair every once in the while. At least with the rest of the hair, If you feel that nobody will recognize your character once you change their bang styling. (Which is a problem, btw. So fix it. >=< It’s what I’m working on, too.)

I wanted to show you another picture of Haruki with wet hair, but let’s save that for tomorrow. If you read everything until here, congratulations. Have a Yui-cookie.

It is July now. As always, Yui is having coffee >=>

I’ve been thinking for a while about why I do things the way I do them.

This isn’t supposed to be a rant about how horrible my life is and how depressed I am, so let’s just skip the details xD It’s about morosity. Or, in other words, persistence. Why would you do things the way you do them, even though you don’t get anything out of it, even though it seems pointless? I’ve thought about that for quite some time and come up with a few clues to an answer.

1. You do it because you love it.
   Strongest argument. No matter if you’re good or bad at it, you do it because you want to.
2. You do it because you’re good at it.
3. You do it because it’s expected from you.
4. You do it because you’re used to it and are afraid of the void that will be left once you step out of your habits.
5. You do it because you can’t stand not being able to do it well.

The latter is the most problematic and most propulsive point. A somewhat aggressive drive to achieve things for the sake of achieving can quickly get you to a breaking point, at least from what I’ve experienced.

So, why do I keep drawing? =D I’m not good at it, nobody expects me to do it, and if I didn’t do it, I would have plenty of other things to do. That leaves two options: Either I do it because I love it, or simply because I want to be able to do it well (at some point, at least) for the sole purpose of obtaining a skill.

I’m not really sure. How about you? Why do you keep doing the things you do?

Yui isn't sure if she agrees with this statement! =<

Title quote by my (awesome, fabulous) English teacher (who is made of win, did I mention that already? >=>), quick doodle…like 20 minutes or so. I had a hard time deciding the pose. xD

Okay, time for a rant. You can stop reading now if you don’t want to hear it. xDD

Monthly annoyance

(no, I’m not going to post something like this every month from now on =,D)

I have no idea what to do with my life =3=. Seriously. Dx I lost my drive that kept pushing me forward a while ago. Now, the only thing that I want to do is to slump into my chair and do some pointless messy doodling of geometric forms that requires as little brain activity as possible. It’s awful. It’s not like I don’t want to get any work done…I feel like practicing my newfound knowledge on semi-realism, I want to excercise, write, work on PH and CB…but I just can’t get myself up to do anything Dx

At first I thought I just want too much. So I started focusing on one thing at a time, but it didn’t work out. I was simply unable to finish anything. until the start of my vacation on thursday, I couldn’t even draw. I can do that now, hardly, but I can’t color or do any lineart, it just becomes incredibly hard once I get started and I start messing up x,D To me it feels like the quality of my drawings, of my writing, of anything I do is dropping dangerously low.

Also, I need to start working to establish some sort of portfolio. Next year around this time, I will be preparing for my graduation, the last oral exam and everything. Dx I’m almost forced to do something. It’s always “You’re so young, you have lots of time! =D”, but I really don’t. x,D There are deadlines for everything and I’m not sure if I can match them. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to match my own expectations.

Fuck you, perfectionism.

[/rant >=<]

Saying farewell is hard~

Okay, to be perfectly honest, it’s just a change, not a farewell xD Starting tomorrow, I’ll post realism practice stuff => No anime anymore. I’ve decided to learn how to draw the human body properly after 6 years >=,>

I’ll draw realism only for the next 14 days…and afterwards, practice both styles for maybe another month or so with the focus on realism and semi-realism C: And then…we’ll see. It will be an interesting experiment ♥ The pic above is the last of my RQ/AT-batch xD

For an art exchange. Since this is my blog I can say this: It wasn't exactly worth the effort >,D

I still tried very hard, because I need to get some practice and learn how to CG faster => And despite messy CGing and failing hard at making her look different from every other blonde-hair-blue-eyes-chara I’ve ever drawn, I still think it’s cute. I’m good at this whole “aguu~”-thing. >=>

It’s awwright, I’ll keep practicing >=< Like my speech for tomorrow. Dx God, I’m nervous and keep making the silliest mistakes.

Hush, they're sleeping q_q

I’ve always been struggling to keep things consistent xD Everything I do is irregular, unstable, even my handwriting |D It becomes a hassle eventually, and I notivce that especially when I draw Manga.

The same characters tend to look very different from page to page. You can still somehow recognize them, generally because of their hairstyle, but the faces look completely off and sometimes even the body types vary…it’s though. I will try to keep some kind of consistency in the future. |D It’s going to be become vital once I start working on the sprite poses I already sketched in my head. Dx

On a sidenote, I got tagged (in German), so here we go. I blame Onee-sama for this! x,D

1.) Wie hieß deine erste Website und auf welchen Hoster war sie?
Blackblue auf Homepage24.de~ x3

2.) Was war dein erster Nickname?
Evangeline |D *SHOT*

3.) Beichte 5 Tätigkeiten, die du nicht gerne erledigst
Rendern, Texturen oder Brushes machen…>__> Outlines machen uuuund die Farblayer für Visual Novel Sprites editieren u_u *sfz*

4.) Nenne 5 Sachen, die du gerne tust ^^ ~
Uuuh, uuuuh, ZEICHNEN,vor allem CGen~~,! *_*, Layouts machen, coden, Icons machen, Farben anpassen ;o;

5.) Nenne 5 Seiten die du jeden Tag besuchst
schneeregen.org, deviantart.com, deji.ishitera.net/blog/, veoh.com, google.de

6.) Besitzt du Twitter oder Facebook, wenn ja welcher Name?
Twitter = TheMooneater, Facebook = Sarah Reszow, bin nur sehr selten on x,D

7.) Über welchen Ani/Ma würdest du am liebsten eine Fanpage machen?
Öhm, über keinen, ich bin kein großer Fan von Fanpages x,D

8.) Wie viele Seiten besitzt du / arbeitest du mit?
Mooneater.org und diesen Blog xD

9.) Hast du ein Vorbild? Wenn ja, nenne die Seite und beschreibe WARUM
Tally: Weil sie total toll zeichnet und ihr Wortwitz unvergleichlich ist xD Meine Onee-sama~~ ;_; *Besitzansprüche stell* xDDDD
chunli: Sie hat mich mit EA total inspiriert und ich liebe ihre Layis – vor allem die blauen xDD
Blacky: Ihr Gfx-Stil rocks my socks, wie man so schön sagt |,,D
Deji: (Deji.ishitera.net/blog/) Weil sie einfach nur toll zeichnet, total gute Tipps gibt und ich mag, wie sie vor allem Anfängern immer wieder aushilft xD
die KS-devs: (katawa-shoujo.com) Beste OELVN ever, basta. |D Es motiviert mich unglaublich, das zu sehen, Kreativitätsschub, wenn man so will xD

10.) Was hat dich dazu bewegt eine AniMa-Seite aufzumachen?
Nun, meine erste Seite war keine Anima-Seite, sondern eine J-Rock-Page~~ xDD Ich war totales Dir En Grey-Fangirl und hab zufällig das Wunderland der Baukasten-Homepages entdeckt |D Es war wirklich Zufall o.o

11.) Wie lange betreibst du schon deine AniMa-Seite(n)?
2006, mit längeren Hiatus-Phasen zwischendrin =D

12.) Hattest du schonmal überlegt zu schließen? Bzw. Hattst du schonmal “geclosed”
Alle 2 Wochen, vor allem, seit ich dem Blog habe xDDD Mangelnde Useraktivität, gegen die ich zu faul bin, was zu unternehmen. Haha. |D

Blackblue hab ich das Interesse verloren – aufgegeben, dann gabs noch unzählige andere, die nie richtig ins Laufen gekommen sind, Silent Letters, umbenannt in El Concerto, umbenannt in Keksparfait, umbenannt in Pumpkin Street umbenannt in Mooneater, wobei ich nie offiziell geschlossen hab oder so xD Ja, ich benenne gerne Sachen um ;___;

13.) Findest du, dass sich die Situation “zwischen” den Webmastern laufe der Zeit verändert hat? Wenn ja, beschreibe näher?
FRISS ODER STIRB IST DIE PAROLE. (“Die Toten Hosen” xDD) |,D Viele versuchen, alle anderen so oft wie möglich und so sehr wie möglich zu übertreffen Dx Und Newbiefreundlichkeit? Was das? x,D Ich hab zu nur wenigen Leuten näher Kontakt, weil ich grausam antisozial etwas zurückhaltend bin, aber als Phantom bekommt man so einiges mit ♥ >=> x,DDD

1 (4.) Was willst du noch alles erreichen?
Neben der Weltherrschaft und einem 1,0 Abi? xD besser CGen, bessere Hintergründe, einheitlicher werden, bessere Anatomie…meinen “eigenen Stil” verbessern und einfach mein Ding durchziehen. Und mehr Besucher haben, die nicht auf Windows 2000 mit IE 6 surfen. *SHOT*

15.) Welcher Ani/Ma legst du deinen Lesern ans Herz?
Manga: MAIL, Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, Variant, Darker than BLACK (Manga UND Anime xD), Rozen Maiden
Anime: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (alle 3 Staffeln, ohne Ausnahme >_>), Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Manga ebenfalls! xD), Jigoku Shoujo, Hidamari sketch (directed by Akiyuki Shinboooo~ ;_;), Le Portrait de Petit Cossette (Shinboooo! ;O;)

Ich schaue sehr sehr viele Anime und hab früher auch mindestens genauso viele Manga gelesen, aber das sind die besten, die ich bis jetzt so gesehen hab xD

16.) Was ist dein meistbenutzte Tool in Photoshop/PaintShopPro/Gimp?
Öööööhm…Adjustment Layer, Ebenenmasken, Alphakanäle und das Brushtool bzw der Radiergummi ♥ EBENENKOMPONENTEN! xD

17.) Layout Code Typ: Table, Div, Frame oder CSS?
CSS. Und nichts anderes. Nervar Evar. >=>

18.) Welche AniMa Pages meidest du grundsätzlich (Allgemein)?
Alle, die ein sehr unansehnliches Layi haben, das meistens nicht mal in FF funzt, Staffelpages, PaGeS AuF dEnEn MaN So qAiil  ScHrEiBt, generell alle, die glauben qaiil wäre cool. |D Ich bin ein rücksichtsloser und kritischer Mensch, ich darf das xDDD

19.) Peinliche Erlebnisse aus deinem Webmasterleben? xD
Ich hatte zwei Affianfragen und hab deren Emails durcheinander geschmissen und jeder von ihnen die Mail für die andere geschickt xDDD War recht peinlich, aber sie habens locker genommen u///u”

20.) Noch ein letztes Wort zu deinen Lesern?
U MAKE ME WANNA LALA D:

Ich tagge:
Akai, Anca, Eris =>