Joan in the Rain
10 May 2010
Joan takes gettin' wet
into lookin' good! Ah cha cha!
Merry Mondays, PHN-seekers! PHN here, dropping down another update upon the downtrodden in an attempt to befriend the besmirched (and be-soaked!) Joan! She's out in the rain, why? Maybe she prefers it. Maybe that icey-cold water feels good on her leather jacket as it soaks in between the grooves in the textured cracks, or maybe she likes the droplets rolling down her skin or clinging to her hair. In any event, I need to point out that the SITE is run by (a)trained professional(s)/(lab monkey) and you should not attempt anything you see here, lest your craving for pneumonia supersede your superego!
Live shot of PHN figuring out
the alliteration of each update post.
When it came to this piece, it followed the same mode of thinking that the Cleo piece did. It was a coffee shop doodle that I took too far, so there was some re-working to get it to become a finished artwork. The lack of a background turned into some digital photomanipulationinisming, which worked out pretty sweet. The contrast here is the slick, yet soft/delicate Joan d'Arc pushed back against a very rough and unforgiving backdrop, drenched in pouring rain. As opposed to Cleo, who when it's cold outside, she's got the month of May (I guess you'd say, what can make her feel this way?). It really highlights the two different kinds of characters they are. I suppose the question is now, are you a Cleo-clinger, or a Joan-jockey? Myself, I like Joan, mostly because.........................hold on........wait a minute..........I'm getting a call....
Quickly, PHN-boy, to the PHoNe!
Plundering Paladins, PHN-man! It's Commissioner Ced! It seems the PHN-tastic pair is needed in the land of Lordaeron! They need our PHN-esse! Bring it back next time, PHN-ners! Same PHN time, same PHN channel!
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Cleo in the Sun
03 May 2010
She's wet. And sassy.
Just how I like 'em.
Hey hey, it's a post in May! PHN here, ending April Showers with May.....uh...boobies. I was at Starbucks, drinking my two dollar cup of coffee (I have no idea how to order there...people are getting vente double half cap mocha lattés, and I'm getting "Coffee.....uhh.....medium?") and I started doodling one of my favorite ladies. Although that's not entirely fair, anyone can be my favorite lady when they've got big sloppy cans.
This lesson in Gender Sensitivity has been brought
to you by the latest issue of "Big'uns."
Funny story about the "wetness," well, not so much funny as it is long. While I was coloring Ms. Cleo here, maybe it was in the cards, but I thought she needed more zing. So I decided to add some extra glints and highlights to her haltertop to make it look vinyl. It ended up looking awful, as far as vinyl goes, and just made it look like I dropped a bunch of water on her. And then I thought......."Hey......why not?" Going with it, I made her wet and wild.
Webcam shot of my workstation
the second inspiration hit.
Now, all of you know my homeboy Cedric Nocon, but did you know he's a bit of a shutterbug? No, he's not contagious, but his way of thinking certainly is infectious! Brother loves taking photomographies of things, and has quite the extensive bit of camera knowledge. We'd spend hours on end, him telling me about cameras, lenses, how they work and the effects they cause and how such ideas can be used in illustration/coloring, and I tell him about reality TV and what I think is going to happen next on "All My Children," followed immediately by what I think SHOULD happen. It's a very productive exchange, if I do say so myself. But ridiculous tangents aside, Cedric has been giving me the skimmy on how flares work, and particularly lens flare effects. Now, anyone with or without Photoshop knows that lensflare is kind of an overdone effect, one that is rightfully mocked and ridiculed and hated and despised and deserves nothing less than the wrath of an angry God...but that's not to say it can't be interesting! Not Filter > Render > Lensflare, no, but the act of lensflaring itself. Up above is some experimentation with the effect...and if you look really hard, and believe with all your heart, you might even see a rainbow.
I just haven't posted a wrestling gif
in a long time and I wanted to.
Unfortunately, I didn't make a video to this one. Back to my Starbucks story before I got sidetracked, I was merely doodling when this drawing sort of just got finalized into a full-on pencilwork. When I brought it in to color, I thought it would just be a simple thing, but the rain idea came out of left field and before I knew it, I had a background and special effects and the whole she-bang. But that's not to say you can't bring it back next time...Cleo might have a friend Joaning her....ok, that wasn't entirely too smooth. This is Peter Huu's-as-subtle-as-a-Mac-truck Nguyen, signing off!
Joan's Hair 3: Die Darkman Die
30 April 2010
Don't worry if you've never seen the "Darkman" Triology.
Not everyone can be cool.
Put your hands up, PHanna Nontannas, cuz it's a party in the U.S.A! Joan's movin' her hips like yeah, because I think we settled on her hair: Just go back to what I had before. She seems to like it enough, and I can't disagree. One element of her design that I changed from her initial design, aside from the belt, is I made her pants come up lower. It's a little skankier, but the previous iteration came off like a pair of "mom jeans." Plus, I don't think they even sell those kind of pants anymore, but I could, and probably am, wrong. After all, I'm hardly a fashion centerplate
My idea of fashion may or may not be:
dated, eccentric, unacceptable.
Choose one, or all of the above.
This pretty much concludes Joan's hair-stravaganza. Like the United Nations (on which ideals and principles were the foundation of creating the SITE), a lot of talk was thrown about and ultimately nothing was accomplished, and we send the bill to Uncle Sam. See you next time, PHN-timers!
Joan's Hair is Sketchy, and so am I
28 April 2010
"Maybe if I just fix this strand, this drawing
won't look like total crap...nope. Still is."
So concludes the longest week of my relative life. Well, in recent memory anyway. Super Street Fighter 4 finally dropped, and man was I having a time of it last night. Wanna say thanks to everyone I played last night, and I'm looking forward to playing some more as the days go on. As for the sketch, I was doing some more doodling with Joan. The hair situation still isn't solved, but in turning lemons into lemonade, I found out that I really, really love drawing hips. So brother likes butts, boobs, and now hips. I just love lovely ladies...and their parts.
"Uhh...you probably should ignore that."
One thing you may or may not notice, or even care (well if you don't care, why don't you just go? JUST LEAVE. GO. I'M TRYING MY BEST HERE), is that I changed the belt on Joan. Instead of a typical buckle/strap setup, I changed it to a skull, because she's like, a goth. Very deep design here. When I did my initial take on Joan's design, I had animation in mind. I had to skimp on details because there are certain things you can't draw hundreds of times for a few seconds of movement. At least not without a team behind you. But for these single images, I can be more detailed in the design. If you're not savvy to what I'm talking about, check out an issue of Batman, and compare it to Bruce Timm's Batman from the animated series. Timm's Batman is a lot more simply drawn because some things just aren't possible in animation, like cross hatching on all the artwork and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I love the art of Bruce Timm, and as far as comics into animation go, Timm's design is just absolute perfection. A mix of detail, authentic characterization, and just pleasant aesthetics.
And I like...and I like...and I like...
I just like everything!
As for Joan, we'll continue her hair escapdes next time. For now, I've got to hit the drawing table. Catch you crazy kids on the flipside!
