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C-quel In reply to thesdros [2011-06-10 03:14:25 +0000 UTC]

A, la chica maliente de pelo negro con ojos rojos, jeje? ^___^

Bueno, no al cabo el dibujo no es mio -- simplemente lo pinté. ^^b

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C-quel In reply to CrystalPicard [2011-05-09 03:40:42 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much! ^.^

In fact, this is actually a test run for a similar hybrid vector/paint drawing that I want to give as a gift for my beloved Haya. It's just that it will be a lot bigger than this, and with different lighting (sunset rather than sunny afternoon).

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CrystalPicard In reply to C-quel [2011-05-09 14:38:01 +0000 UTC]

How did you learn to do work with Vector? Is it self taught in trial and error or did you use any tutorials like the video you showed me before?

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C-quel In reply to CrystalPicard [2011-05-10 01:55:22 +0000 UTC]

fufu, I love answering questions. ^.^

lesse... well when I was a lad I used to do really awful hand-drawings -- very detailed, but ultimately quite awful due to my really bad natural jitter. It was kind of irritating to have wonderful ideas in my head, but the inability to recreate these faithfully on paper.

Then when I had a computer circa around the time I went to college, I began to experiment with the usual warez solutions... think Photoshop, but also at the time Fireworks, PaintShop Pro, Macromedia Flash, and a slew of others. It was Photoshop that stuck with me through all this for a while, but because it was simply a digital form of hand-drawing, I STILL drew very badly on it....

[link]

Which is why I usually spent most of that era doing collages and other fancy image editing...

[link]

I had a bit more success with 3D graphics (also using stolen warez), but I could never really commit to anything, since all I ended up doing was drawing other people's works (nothing you could call original, or even sellable). Plus there was always the overwhelming shallowness of using stolen properly, and then when I actually started paying for stuff (e.g., Vue d'Espirit, Poser 5), then I felt cheated cause I thought the stuff was over-priced.

And despite learning to use a little of Photoshop's dinky little vector tools, it still wasn't enough to stop my inevitable slide to boredom. By around 2002 I gave up on my so-called creative endeavors and closed shop for what I thought would be forever. I the pursued more useless pastimes after that.

That is, around 2006 when some anime I had seen inspired me to pick up drawing again. This time I was critically-minded enough to realize what it was that I wanted: to draw clean, colourful anime cel-shading style, while doing it quickly and without abnormal western deformities that I often saw in Anime Convention guest art.

But I knew Photoshop's vector tools limitations, and I knew Illustrator was horrendous to use, so I set about to look for a new vector graphics tool. One that hopefully was paid and cheap, since at that time I was also pretty sick of being a pirate.

Luckily, by then Inkscape... [link] ...already existed, and it was not only awesomely easy to use and powerful, but free and open source. It was my first conscious exposure to open source software (Firefox doesn't count since I didn't really know about its open source nature until later).

I guess you can say the generosity of the Inkscape developers, the vitality of the Inkscape community, the wonderful karma of FOSS philosophy, and the beauty of the artwork it was capable of producing all inspired me to give it my all. More than I ever felt with any stolen piece of software -- after all, I had as my goal not just to produce great anime drawings, but also to bring pride to my new favorite software and community.

Admittedly, since I still had too much Photoshop training in me, my first vector drawings weren't completely up to snuff,....

[link]
[link]

...but they were good enough for me considering my lack of practice and the fact I was pretty much learning along the way, and pretty soon my pics were going in complexity and improving my morale...

[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

Naturally, I'm omitting the bad parts of my journey, but all in all I think I've come very far for someone with no formal training -- it makes me feel happier when I can solve problems like these on my own and with little monetary investment. ^^b

In that sense, I would definitely say it's more trial and error, although I would call it a "goal-oriented progression". :3

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C-quel In reply to shizuneyuki8720 [2011-05-03 03:25:03 +0000 UTC]

Thank you Shizu-nyan. ^-^

fufu! Kolibri is official, I like it. ^__^

Please get better! ^^
[and yeah, answered the rest via chat..]

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C-quel In reply to nekoCAT21 [2011-05-02 04:43:17 +0000 UTC]

Thank you. ^^

We'll I've been showing Shizu-nyan copies of the colouring process as it went along, so as far as I know she at least seems to like it. Maybe... >.>

btw, do you think another one of those drawing order diagrams might be useful?

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nekoCAT21 In reply to C-quel [2011-05-02 04:50:13 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome.

It sounds like she will like it then. ^^

I don't know how useful it would be but it would certainly be interesting to see.

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C-quel In reply to nekoCAT21 [2011-05-03 02:46:42 +0000 UTC]

Alrighty, I'll set it up sometime in the next few days. ^^

And yep, turns out she loves it apparently. ^__^

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nekoCAT21 In reply to C-quel [2011-05-03 03:04:32 +0000 UTC]

Cool. I look forward to it.

That is great to hear. ^^

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