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It apparently takes me two years to write a hello post.
15 years ago
General
So, basically, I signed up two years ago and then didn't log in again for a long, long time. On one hand, I wasn't sure if I really belonged here—though I have many dragon characters, I don't have many anthro characters, and I wasn't able to consistently draw a humanoid figure so why make any when normal dragons were so much more fun to draw? On the other hand... I could belong here. I mean, if I could go back five years and tell my 14-year-old self, she who was constantly turning other people into dragons and drawing them everywhere, that there was an entire internet community around making animal/creature personas out of people and drawing that, I would. Because I would have been and still am totally on board with that. Maybe 14-year-old self would still run away screaming because of the rampant smut, though. Maybe. I'm not *particularly* bothered by it nowadays, especially after doing so much internet browsing, but I think I'd rather keep that mature filter on for most purposes.
I had a bit of a breakthrough today, however. Being disgruntled with how laid-back last semester's art class (focused on graphic novels) was, I signed up for a figure drawing class with high expectations for improvement. If the folks at Concept Art and similar professional sites keep evangelizing that sort of practice, it must be worth a try, right? Except that it was frustrating, for the first three weeks, because I wondered if I was actually making a good use of my time/tuition—no drawing homework outside of class, no classmate critiques, very little theory/anatomical study, just attending and drawing the models. My teacher somehow refuses to critique my work, which is annoying because there were still loads of things I was doing wrong: proportions I wasn't getting in foreshortening situations; sloppiness with the technique, applying too much value and making the texture look metallic rather than subtle, and plain just not drawing things as they appear. I get it, I get it, it's another one of those "you get what you put in" type of classes that aren't straightforward, and because of the right-brained, memory-intensive nature of creating art, I have to be patient because a lot of improvement won't be seen until days after the practice actually occurs.
Anyway, today. I was doodling the different types of Mythic Zoocanthri (a race from the mythos that's the setting for a game I'm writing a soundtrack for; said game probably isn't ever going to be made, but I like some of the leitmotifs too much to abandon it), and found that I could draw my humanoid/anthro characters in action poses from my head. And it wasn't hopelessly hard! Some things are probably still pretty "off", but they're not a mess of measured (guessed) proportions and meaningless cylinders. Some of the muscular contours and pose shapes actually make sense for once. It's a little premature to be celebrating, but there is a pretty big difference between spazzing around without a clue what you're doing and actually placing lines and forms in a way that makes sense in the mind's eye. No doubt I'll run into another phase of art block soon (probably regarding composition or perspective, other things I suck at), but for now—I'm on a roll. I probably won't upload the sketches in question, but I'll work on a finished image using those designs. Sometime after FAWM ends, though.
So the moral of the story is, figure drawing (in a life drawing class, not just drawing gestures from photos or 3D modeling apps) really helps. A lot. One has to do a certain amount of still life drawings to know what to do, but I'm beginning to show the results of internalizing anatomy and lighting knowledge, and it's making me really excited. I think I can start drawing humanoid things, including anthro characters, from my head now.
Anyway, I'll start uploading art when I get home, for the wi-fi at my college is SLOW. This site apparently has a flood limit, so I should go with small quantities at once over a period of several days. I may even include some OLD works just to show where I used to be to contrast with where I am now. And because there are things I've drawn that I haven't done in a while—like dragons with musical instruments.
As if this journal weren't long enough already... A little word on how I plan to use this account. My main home on the artistic side of the internet will always be deviantArt. However, I have a lot of anthro related pieces I have not yet (and may never) upload to dA, so why not differentiate my galleries on different sites. On FA, I'll focus on MMS and Trilogy of the Players stuff, along with whatever actual-anthro style animals/dragons I make. I'll try to keep the fan art mostly on dA, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll keep my FA gallery Pokémon(for example)-free. I'll make a CA sketchbook to upload studies and works I want critique on.
I had a bit of a breakthrough today, however. Being disgruntled with how laid-back last semester's art class (focused on graphic novels) was, I signed up for a figure drawing class with high expectations for improvement. If the folks at Concept Art and similar professional sites keep evangelizing that sort of practice, it must be worth a try, right? Except that it was frustrating, for the first three weeks, because I wondered if I was actually making a good use of my time/tuition—no drawing homework outside of class, no classmate critiques, very little theory/anatomical study, just attending and drawing the models. My teacher somehow refuses to critique my work, which is annoying because there were still loads of things I was doing wrong: proportions I wasn't getting in foreshortening situations; sloppiness with the technique, applying too much value and making the texture look metallic rather than subtle, and plain just not drawing things as they appear. I get it, I get it, it's another one of those "you get what you put in" type of classes that aren't straightforward, and because of the right-brained, memory-intensive nature of creating art, I have to be patient because a lot of improvement won't be seen until days after the practice actually occurs.
Anyway, today. I was doodling the different types of Mythic Zoocanthri (a race from the mythos that's the setting for a game I'm writing a soundtrack for; said game probably isn't ever going to be made, but I like some of the leitmotifs too much to abandon it), and found that I could draw my humanoid/anthro characters in action poses from my head. And it wasn't hopelessly hard! Some things are probably still pretty "off", but they're not a mess of measured (guessed) proportions and meaningless cylinders. Some of the muscular contours and pose shapes actually make sense for once. It's a little premature to be celebrating, but there is a pretty big difference between spazzing around without a clue what you're doing and actually placing lines and forms in a way that makes sense in the mind's eye. No doubt I'll run into another phase of art block soon (probably regarding composition or perspective, other things I suck at), but for now—I'm on a roll. I probably won't upload the sketches in question, but I'll work on a finished image using those designs. Sometime after FAWM ends, though.
So the moral of the story is, figure drawing (in a life drawing class, not just drawing gestures from photos or 3D modeling apps) really helps. A lot. One has to do a certain amount of still life drawings to know what to do, but I'm beginning to show the results of internalizing anatomy and lighting knowledge, and it's making me really excited. I think I can start drawing humanoid things, including anthro characters, from my head now.
Anyway, I'll start uploading art when I get home, for the wi-fi at my college is SLOW. This site apparently has a flood limit, so I should go with small quantities at once over a period of several days. I may even include some OLD works just to show where I used to be to contrast with where I am now. And because there are things I've drawn that I haven't done in a while—like dragons with musical instruments.
As if this journal weren't long enough already... A little word on how I plan to use this account. My main home on the artistic side of the internet will always be deviantArt. However, I have a lot of anthro related pieces I have not yet (and may never) upload to dA, so why not differentiate my galleries on different sites. On FA, I'll focus on MMS and Trilogy of the Players stuff, along with whatever actual-anthro style animals/dragons I make. I'll try to keep the fan art mostly on dA, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll keep my FA gallery Pokémon(for example)-free. I'll make a CA sketchbook to upload studies and works I want critique on.
Sure you belong here! Not /everything/ on this site is anthro... no matter how hard we try to make it look humanoid (read: I fail at art)...
Haven't seen any of your stuff since we parted ways at D&D club, should be fun to see what you've come up with in the meanwhile.
I had another IRL friend attempt to convince me into using my blank account, but that particular bit of persuasion was insignificant. There IS, however, an unmentioned second reason I decided to start using this site, but little evidence of it exists outside of BARD.
You should know it's not D&D club anymore. We're BARDs. We don't really play D&D as much as games in general. Right now there's a World of Darkness game starting up, which should be quite a bit of fun.
I haven't been on BARD in a while, I wouldn't know... unless it was right under my nose, then I probably missed it.
I guess when I left due to always being unavailable when the rest of the party was free we had D&D, GURPS, Paranoia, and Exalted... the WoD group hadn't quite gotten solidified. Anyways, I feel like I may have spent too much time here {{big arm wave motion}} to return to "mundane" D&D... I still draw maps up (I'm actually going to be using the latest one to write a D&D adventure story... hopefully people here like that kind of thing :P ), but my personality might get in the way of playing in one of the groups... might be too "furry" for them.
Haha, that GURPS group STILL hasn't gotten started yet.
You're not too furry, just as I'm not too furry—the only reason I haven't started up an animal-character-centric RP is because I don't run groups very well and I didn't think other people would be interested. Do note that many RPGs do have a feral option for player characters, though... for example, D&D 4.0 has dragonborn as a core race (they came from a splatbook before). I think BARD could use more furry fans, just as long as they aren't the annoying "fursecution" types. If 2/5ths of the admins are furries, how can it not be allowed?
Really?... I thought it had gotten started by then...
I never tried running an anthropomorphic quest, though I made a world structure and races for one. I played a shadowperson (Dragonlance Campaign Setting) and rakshasa for two discrete quests with Toben, and a hengeyokai (or whatever it's called) for the Oriental Adventures quest... having me play animalistic characters isn't anything new. I also played a half dragon for the elemental quest. From what I've seen, I seriously doubt that there is any spoken drama about furries off the internet... people simply don't care... That said, I see no reason why there would be any problem with having furries in the club.
A picture is never "good enough". Don't confuse "good enough" with "presentable". I always ask myself two questions: "Is this presentable?" and "Do I know what I could do to make this better?" If I answer yes on the first and no on the second, that means it's time to wrap up the drawing, scan/crop it, and upload it, then move onto the next one for which I try to address any issues I had with my previous images. The quality of a critic comes not from the harshness, but from the correctness. As one becomes more skilled, they learn what to look for and can fix their problems more intelligently.
No. Toben always seems really busy these days. College seems to eat people alive sometimes...
Was the rakshasa for Planar Endgame? If so, I think I remember that character. I didn't spend much time in that part of the group, though.
Yeah, people IRL usually see it as just one more thing to be into, and are usually "Oh, that's cool, good for you," when you tell them what it's about. People who spend a lot of time on the internet might have their opinions colored by the vocal minorities, but most furries are normal people.
I'll try to keep that in mind to the best of my abilities...
The rakshasa was for Planar Endgame... it could have worked better, though (as in not dying...)...
The exceptions, of course, are your parents...
I guess I could have phrased that better, because "presentable" is another way of saying "good enough to show other people". Art's just something you can't ever be perfect at, and sometimes it's hard to not fall into complacency when a certain aspect of it becomes easier. Professionals and anyone who really cares about making good art know to never be fully satisfied, because in that state you don't learn anything.
Yeah, I heard that half of the group had a lot of problems after I left. Not that it had anything to do with me (I just got impatient with the non-plot-relevant stuff that was happening, and the presence of evil characters was a problem because I had my dragonborn paladin). I sort of get why Toben doesn't want to run D&D again.
Hm. My parents don't really care about my hobbies (though my dad helps indulge my music-making habits, as he plays/arranges himself). Are yours problematic? Or did you mean that your parents are furries?
You phrased it well enough the first time.
I think I can think of some reasons why... I can understand why Toben doesn't want to DM again, at least it's better than a group of evil characters, or... {{shudder}} neutral... at least you never had to deal with ~~~~~ (or however you spell his name)... (Ok, enough ranting about group members.)
My dad thinks it's a "stuffed animal cult" and considers any interests involving it are nonexistent, and mom is being overly wary that I don't get "too involved" in it... which is a euphemism for "she doesn't want anything conflicting with her hopes that I become a Christian".