Three For One

Sorry about missing yesterday's update. Like I said, I felt myself getting sick, so after school I downed some NyQuill and went right to bed. I woke up about 10 minutes before I had to get to class today, so I wasn't able to upload the images this morning.

Today, I give you two Katara images and one special image of Kei as an apology.

TYL Katara Second Fire Nation Costume

and

TYL Katara Swimwear

and Finally
Kei- "Yuri, not now."

Part of me wants to make a Beat Angel Escalayer inspired image with Kei as Escalayer and Yuri as that purple haired robot chick. Some of you know what this means.

TYL Katara Fire Nation Costume

Late again.

I feel like I'm coming down with something. I think it's the flu or something. Damn viruses.

TYL Katara Old Costume

Sorry, this one is late. I had too much to do today. Oh well, at least it's up at the same time as the DA one.

TYL Katara Adult Costume

Katara
Age: 24
Height: Between 5’6” and 5’7”

About the design:
I’m going to try to make this much shorter than the Toph thing. Hopefully I can avoid an inane wall of text that no one will really give a shit about.

I actually had an idea for an older Katara a while ago. Deviant Art removed that painting for some reason, but some of you may remember it. (It’s in one of my blog posts if you’re interested in seeing it.)

Katara is a difficult character to pin down, describe and ultimately translate. Whenever I see a description of her, I usually find that it either exaggerates or glosses over her flaws. As such, I think it’s hard to really portray an older Katara wrong. Instead of focusing on what not to do, you have to pin down one of many possibilities.

I think Katara is one of the most accurate depictions of an adolescent girl ever put to TV. In the series her personality is volatile and ever changing. One moment she’s the voice of reason, the next she’s trying to justify stealing or committing murder. In the first season her attitude towards Aang changes and fluctuates from admiration, to jealousy, to maternal, and so on and so on.

As Katara would age, and as puberty passed, this volatile nature would probably go away, or at the very least, be subdued. Most likely, it would merely be subdued. Rarely does a character trait that overwhelming just dissapear. So with this design I want to give a hint of that youthful volatility but still communicate that she had matured as well.

Physically, I wanted to describe this design as “A babe that exhibits a beautifully controlled and asymmetric flow.” I wanted her body to have kind of a wave like quality to it. Her stance is the first attempt to communicate this. All of her weight is on one side giving her an asymmetric balance. Her features (hips, breasts, shoulder, hair, etc.) culminate to give this wave like quality across the countour of her left side, but then there is a much more rigid right side to counteract and balance the figure. This decision further compliments my idea of giving her a kind of under control volatility. Were she to shift her weight, surely she would be more stable, but she chooses not to. She remains stable by conscious choice of how to balance herself.

I also wanted her to be attractive. I wanted her to look kind of like a model. She needed to be “a siren godess.”

To that end, I also chose to age her face a bit. Pick up any anatomy book, any good one at least, and you’ll find a basic layout of how a face can change over time. The fact is, what is said is not gospel. Not all faces grow and change like that. But , our faces do indeed change as we age. Yet, we remain recognizable. I changed Katara’s face to appear more adult, but still retain her innate attractiveness.

I’ve been trying to do that with all of these characters. Age their face, but keep them recognizable.

I also chose to make her well endowed, and to give her shapely hips. I did this to communicate that she’s gone through puberty. I put these two elements together in a way that I think makes her very attractive and shows her obvious age. When it comes to endowments, with Toph, that was just ridiculousness, this attempt is meant to be attractive. Of course, whether or not I succeed is based entirely on the viewer’s tastes. Her hips and legs are thicker to give her a kind of dancer like quality.

Honestly, I read through all of this and think I succeeded more in my previous painting than in this character design. Oh well.


Looks like I failed in making this shorter. Oh well. Maybe Aang’s or Sokka’s will be shorter.

Sorry for the blathering once again.

Toph 10 Years Later Cosplay

And we're finished with Toph.

Initially I gave her very spiky hair and through the course of making all of her costumes, noticed that with the spiky hair, the figure, and the lipstick she looked a lot like another character. I changed the spiky hair the day I posted the first one because more than a few people made a compelling argument to do so. But with this, I kept the spiky hair for shits and giggles

On this whle ten years later thing. I actually found some images that echo some of the things I've done already, both in Toph and in Sokka. I found one image of toph that was pretty much the same pose, same figure, same everything. I found one of Sokka with a certain garment I added after noting a particular Kuruk garment.

In both cases, what I made I made before I saw these images. It's funny, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that another artist would draw similar conclusions to my own. On one hand, I know I'm not crazy to do something. On the other hand I worry about accusations of plagerism. Oh well, what can you do? People will tend to assume that the first thing that they see is the first thing that is created. And that if there is anything else like it, then that thing is a rip off.

Perception. What can you do?

Tomorrow, I BLATHER ABOUT KATARA! HUZZAH!

Toph 10 Years Later New Swimwear

Sorry about this being late. I had some travelling to do.

Anyway, this is Toph in her new swim wear... that never touches the water. Toph is wearing a one piece because in my experience, well endowed ladies tend to prefer the one piece suits when they aren't interested in giving a free show.

I originally planned to have only five images, but after finishing that last one, I thought to myself. "That's rediculous. She'd never wear that. That's just disgusting." So I felt compelled to make something that was a little more-- respectful of her figure.

That resulted in making new swimsuits for all of the other kids, which you'll see later.

Toph 10 Years Later Old Swimwear

The title is self explanatory. The material is less restraining than her Fire Nation clothes but still form fitting. This is why her cleavage looks different. It's still the same mass, just a different shape.

Toph 10 Years Later Firenation 2

Interesting thing to note, I was working on this while I was working on Toph the Melon Lord. Hence the similarities. Though, this is more-- unified. Everything is rendered as a cartoon, instead of a cartoon head on a more paintingly rendered body and background.

Toph 10 Years Later Firenation 1

I don't have much to say about this. I pretty much blew my description wad on the first image.

Toph 10 Years Later Young Costume

Same info as before. I think her bust size is way more apparent in this one (and will become even more apparent in the next ones). This is why I chose her first costume as her primary costume. These next ones are just for fun to compare how her body has developed and changed.

The response to the first toph was pretty much what I expected and such that I learned that it would be a better idea if I disabled comments. My reservations about fan reaction were somewhat justified. And that was the tame and "serious" one.

It's funny, I had all these polls to make sure people would actually want to see these and still some people had to nitpick about what they didn't like. It's almost as if the polls made them believe that they had a voice in their creation when that wasn't the intention. The intention was to ask one question and make one statement:

Do you want to see these?

If I want your opinion, I'll ask.

You'll notice that I've been trying to do less and less fan art. I originally said that it was the first fan art I'd done in months, but I forgot about The Apprentice. The reason for that, is with fan art, fans can tell you that "you're doing it wrong." I fucking hate that. Whether or not that makes me ungrateful, mean, stupid, or a bad artist, I don't care. I just fucking hate it.

I hate it to the point that it makes me not want to do fan art. So, just to avoid it, I disabled comments. That may make me a totalitarian dick head, but I can't help it.

I've learned, as an artist, you need to "be a man about it." You need to make clear cut and communicative decisions and never second guess yourself while you're close to the work. To that end, it's a better idea to ignore what people have to saying during, and just after you've created what you've created.

That isn't to say you can't learn from your own mistakes, but worrying about that shit while you're making the art, makes making the art not fun. Fun is the point of this whole thing. All of my "great" art is stuff that I had fun on. Andrew Jones once told me

"if you don't enjoy what you do than you are cheating yourself out of your full potential and your also cheating the people in your life from benefiting from your full expression as a human being,

your on the right track , manifest your enjoyment to the fullest,"

So to the end of enjoying myself let me say. You can think whatever you want about these, but don't expect me to adjust or change based on that opinion.

Toph 10 Years Later Adult Costume

Today I begin uploading my "Avatar Ten Years Later" character designs. I'll upload them here 6 hours before I upload them on DA. As I mentioned on DA, I attempted to follow a few rules of logic and flex my character design muscles without starting from scratch. Here are the basic rules I followed:

1. Must gain at least 1 to 2 heads in proportion.

2. Must be obviously older, in otherwords, they have to look like they've been hit by puberty like a ton of bricks.

3. Each character aesthetic must be described on one sentence. For example, Sokka's aesthetic description is "A buffet of manliness."


Each image will be accompanied with a description of how that basic character was designed. My thought processes.

Anyway, without further adieu.




Toph
Age: 22
Height: Between just Over 5’ and just under 6’ (depending on whether or not you count her hair as a part of her height)


About the design:
Instead of talking about what I did, first let me say what I tried not to do. In all of Avatar, Toph is the most drawn as an adult despite the fact that all of the main cast are children. Why? Because Toph is such an intriguing character and the youngest of the main cast, one can’t help but ask oneself, “I wonder what she’ll be like as an adult?” In most of the fan art I’ve seen a few things happen that I don’t agree with and tried not to do.

Some tend to make her tall, skinny, and girly. That has never sat right with me. None of those adjectives will ever really describe Toph in the series. Toph, despite being a girl, is a stocky and mannish character, that’s half of what makes her intriguing.

However, there is the other side of the coin, and I feel that this interpretation is just as wrong. The interpretation that makes her really really muscled and too mannish, a testosterone dripping body builder girl. I don’t like that either, because despite being stocky and mannish Toph is still a girl. (Remember Tales of Ba Sing Se.)

That contradiction is half of the intrigue of the character. So I approached the character with contradiction in mind.

Toph’s posture and expression are meant to communicate the contradiction in her character. We can tell that she is happy, proud and confident from her stance, hands on her hips, and the wide smile on her face. However, at the same time she is standing on her tiptoes. It’s almost as if she’s still not comfortable being the short member of the group, and is attempting to compensate.

Remember Toph was the most confident and self assured of the group, but was still insecure about her appearance, sad about how she had treated her parents, and was insecure about how others saw her. She went out of her way to prove she could carry her own weight, was visibly hurt when other girls made fun of her appearance, and well, the parent thing should be obvious.

With her basic structure, I approached the character with one basic idea. “Thick.” When I say “Thick” I don’t mean muscled, but I don’t mean fat either. Sort of a compromise between the two. That compromise informed the creation of this design

But in trying to make this compromise I ran in to a little snag. She looked exactly like her old self. Apparently that was the philosophy of her young design as well. I mean, just look at how stocky she is. A good example is when she first wakes up in Tales of Ba Sing Se. Compare her to Aang, someone who is roughly the same age as her. There is a comparable difference between the two in terms of height and general width. I think it is just her nature to be very... compact... like a rock.

As I said before, my strategy with all of these characters was to make it look like they’d been hit by puberty like a ton of bricks. Just making her “thick” didn’t really communicate that. So I made her shapelier, and initially attempted restraint. However, she wound up looking a little too much like Jin. Which in all truth is probably very accurate, but I didn’t want it to look like a color swap on one character. These needed to be unique silhouettes.

Going back and forth, I was finally like “fuck it!” I wound up making her even shapelier than Jin and making her even more well endowed than Jin. I feared the repercussions from the fans but also worried about it ruining the character. Then a friend of mine pointed out, that there is a cliché in Anime where the manliest or the most confident female character usually is the best endowed. He pointed to Kuukaku from Bleach, Kei from Dirty Pair Flash, and Motoko from Ghost in the Shell. I decided to play to this cliché and have fun with it.

I hope that fun comes through and that you enjoy it. Thank you for taking the time to read my blathering. :D

Another DA Deletion

Alluring Katara


I forgot about this one too. Personally, this is the best Katara I think I've ever done. In terms of making her sexy and sticking to the character design

Old Deviant Art Deletion

Stripper Kim Possible
This was deleted ages ago and I need to add it to this blog. I was never really surprised it was deleted, and never really that angry either. But, it's one of my better Kim Possible pieces anatomically. (aside from the arm)

The Force Unleashed video process

Normally I speed these things up and add music, but I really can't be bothered this time around. Mainly because I chose a recording option that saved the mouse as a seperate sprite track. Which means it's very hard for imovie to compress. Infact, when I import it, it just shows the mouse. So, sorry guys, you're in for a few boring and long videos of me painting.

More Deviant Art Deletions (this is getting redundant)

Moar deviant art deletions.

OMG NUDITY, ON AN ANIME CHARACTER....that is obviously an adult

Yet more explicit stuff is allowed in photography.

What?

I really fucking hate Deviant Art. I can't wait till more people know about this blog so I can pretty much drop DA all together.

Star Wars and Tattoos

Here are a couple of pictures I forgot to upload when they were finished. Sorry. :(
Shitty Sketch of a scene from The Force Unleashed

A tattoo I designed for a friend

More Deviant Art deletions

A cunt deleted this work, so I'm posting this here. This is my virtual middle finger. Sit on it and spin.

OR

I hope that the ones who support and enjoyed this work will enjoy it here instead. I'll be uploading work like this here instead from now on. Deviant Art is now my print bitch, nothing more.