I tend to write more than I draw, but if there’s anything that motivates me, it’s that you gotta make the rarepair art you want to see in the world.
I spent like… fffour? five? years without access to a drawing tablet, and got back into digital art last year with GIMP, and honestly fell in love with its default chalk and pencil brushes.
I have other doodles and more finished pieces for various characters that I’ll add to this thread at some point, but here’s a roundup post of the more polished Jr./Gaignun fluff I’ve drawn since last summer.
Thank you! It’s been great getting back into digital art after years of not really having the right setup for it. Even with traditional media/sketchbooks/etc it’s tough to find the time, scanning is its own ordeal, and erasing sufficiently is obnoxious compared to digital.
Drawing human bodies interacting is a daunting challenge (the majority of my doodles and sketches are of individual characters for that reason) but my determination to depict them being affectionate with each other is more than enough to get me to push past any insecurities I have about my art and to keep practicing anyway. I try to remind myself that my younger self would be in awe of what I’m creating now, so that’s encouraging in its own right.
Recently I’ve decided to embrace the more sculptural sketchy underlayers and leave them intact (if at a reduced opacity) as part of the finished piece, since I’m rarely happy with my inking/lineart, and also trying to wholeheartedly love the scribbly doodles that I wouldn’t typically share because they’re not “good enough” to post. But hey, we’re all excited to see concept sketches and sketchbooks from other artists, right, so why not? Time to love our own stuff. Here’s another bonus, gaignunjrscribblecuddle.png:
Maybe I’ll post some progress shots of some of these, too. Just gotta find the time to hold still and do it.
Thank you! I love them I’m glad to hear my decades-long affection for them comes through. My art may not be THE BESTEST EVER but I’m still proud of my work and I care A Lot.
speed of dark was my return to Xenosaga after years in other fandoms; sometimes it just takes a while to work out how you want to say the thing, and that fic in particular remains dear to my heart. Thank you so much for reading it. It expresses what I’m trying to get across in a way that otherwise comes out as “THEY!!! LOOK AT THEM!!!” when I’m not trying to put it into prose, lmfao.
And thank you again! As you mentioned earlier the gestural aspect I think is what helps convey the closeness/intimacy as the… support structure upholding the other finer details, I guess? That’s my experience from life drawing classes, anyway. Getting that initial gesture for the spine is what sets up the rest of it for success.
YEAH you can use the visual editor or BB code to do it! I think I need to adjust the way I defined the width to scale the images down, though, because defining it by pixels makes it warped on mobile. My initial attempt wouldn’t let me specify a percentage, so maybe I just need to define both, or apply the width to the cells instead of the IMG tags. I’m still tinkering with what BB code will let me do vs HTML.
I listened to “The Beast and Dragon, Adored” by Spoon while drawing this, which has been a Jr. song for me for a long time (since 2007!) and it inspired this fic, too.
these are actually from last august and I kept telling myself I’d fix their textures etc before posting it but haven’t had the time, so here they are anyway. life is difficult and we all get a little messed up, sometimes you clip through your partner’s mesh while petting his hair, it’s fine
render in blender/eevee, GIF via GIMP
render in blender/cycles
I had 0% prior experience in ripping models/textures, 3D modeling, rigging, any of it, but @whyfish and I figured it out together through the power of OTP. I needed to see them holding each other
that I should finish
