FanArt_Calt.Flarmy

I didn't realize I never posted the final to that old Florrie-inspired Torn Alter Token, so here it is at long last.

Not normal,

Reuxben

Fun_BagLady

Saw this rando bag-o sitting aroundo and had to sketcho.

Not normal,

Reuxben

FanArt_CloudPop

Some happy little clouds.

It was raining out so I wanted to paint a rainy scene, but it never came together so I compromised with this cloudy scene.

I was recently listening to this song, "I, the Swan" by The Sound of Animals Fighting, which has the catchiest groove to it as well as excellently employed vocals, and this made me want to make the clouds look swan-like, or at least bird-like.

Initially I just wanted to paint radical, swirling clouds like Grzegorz Rutkowski's new Iconic Masters Ryuusei art, and only after I blocked in the rough forms did I start getting birdsy vibes, which led to that swannish decision point.

After putting this piece away, that feeling of wanting to use my landscapes for greater purposes kept nagging at me. I often draw backgroundless figures or figuresless backgrounds, but rarely do I mix the two from the outset. So after finishing this, I came up with a figure to complement the imagery of a couple backgrounds (including this one), but I have yet to design both elements together from the outset, at least in recent memory, so that's still on the to-do list. I'll post the figure version at some point...

Much later (today is 2/5/18) I put a little mock Magic card together inspired by this card. The Great Designer Search 3 was still on my mind, I guess, but I've wanted to make little custom cards from my art for a while now.

Not normal,

Reuxben

FanArt_Linkachu

I saw someone mention an online, in-browser auto-sketching program and wanted to give it a try. The idea is it builds a library of images for people to "autodraw" from, like autofill guesses what you're typing to complete the word, but this guesses what you're trying to draw and completes the drawing for you based on what it has in its bank of art that matches your mad scrawlings.

I wanted to give it a try but it was clunky, a little hard to work with, and was more meant for lineart--the colors I added here were mainly just big chunks of coiling lines filling the space I wanted to color. But the deal breaker was that it froze up on me and so the Link I drew got locked in that state, at which point I was done wiff dis.

It's a neat idea and has great potential for more designy or logo-y art say for posters around campuses and stuff, but it's currently unable to be pushed for more complex drawings. If they can ensure it doesn't freeze up and make it so longer drags don't move your selections of smaller lines or stutter the program, I could see giving it another shot.

Not normal,

Reuxben

Fun_ChocoChippo

Sometimes for stress relief I'll draw on stuff I know I'm gonna throw away, like this old cookie box.

Not normal,

Reuxben

Fun_HipHopi

Just saw this sitting around right where I left it years ago. It's one of the earliest art pieces I can find...I painted this little Hopi guy when I was 8 or so.

Not normal,

Reuxben

Fun_DidiPizza

I knew I wanted to color this pizza box piece, and was on the fence about Copics vs. digital. I was on the heels of a Twitter deadline, had just seen a KNKL guide on photo filter effects, and was feeling more pressure than usual to go digital, so I decided to go in with some Photoshop, hoping to see how fast and simply we could color rather than paint. After posting to Twitter, with like a minute to go before deadline, I decided to bring it a little further, as like a hypothetical teaser poster for Splinter.

Here's the textless version. As far as bitter, bitter, inside jokes go, I should note I hate any permutation of the word "friend," and use such a word only with extreme care, if ever. I have allies and associates, mostly people/someone "I know" but I simply cannot use the f-word loosely. It's too dear.

Back on topic, here it's a little easier to see the duality that we played up to honor that theme of the comic. You'll note half of her is darker and the other half even has a phantom-y effect over it, lifted (albeit more subtly) from this old Didi PhotoJam.

This's what it looks like when we take away all the trendy filters, and yes, I'm actively practicing those effects...I don't normally embrace fads of any fashion, but I legitimately like the slightly gritty effects you can get.

Anyway, this was the Twitter version we squeaked in just under deadline. I looked aight to publish, but after the cookie of posting, I obviously felt the mouse to give it a little more.

Reuxben

Fun_DidiPizza_L

Moving tomorrow...

...hope I can find a pizza place that delivers free empty canvases with every pie.

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.Halfheart

A torn alter of a goblin, using my four-color ballpoint pen.

The impetus was that I wanted to see if I could render skin and metal with this janky, limited pen, and to draw Ib's hat again, which I enjoyed the first time around.

Anyway, I screwed up on this, but I did learn from it. Even on the technical side of it, since the pen lock stopped working early on, so I had to figure out how to maneuver it color-stem by color-stem without the stem bending out from under the pressure of my fingers. So there's that.

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.NoVNoMt_I

The inks to this torn alter, still, undecided on how to color this...kinda wanna try actual paints. I picked up some acrylic gauche that I've been looking to use...

4/21/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.NoVNoMt_L

Studying a cool pic I saw as the album art for a song I was listening to. Seeing if it might look good on a token, but using a different technique.

Rather than strictly tearing the token, I scraped off the token art with an art knife. It gives a neat look, much smoother than I'm used to, so I am wondering how this might impact colors.

Customized some of the gear, though--some Zero and Nyao merch for our heroine.

4/20/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.JombiJowels

And the final to our jombie dooder. Decided to go with a graveyardy background.

Easter Eggs: A familiar name on the top tombstone.

I noticed a neat effect when I held this up to my little drawing lamp. Looks cooler in person, but his eyes and some of his rotting flesh kinda light up in a spooky sorta way.

4/16/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.JombiJowels_B

And the base colors for our jombie jent.

Coming along in a satisfactory direction, though this reporter has learned the artist was secretly freaking out about what to do for the background. Sources close to the hasbeen say he went to a local 7-11 to chow downward to a solution, though these rumors remain unsubstantiated.

Extra extra, read all about it--a pic of how just the guts were turning out.

4/16/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.JombiJowels_L

Another jombie torn alter token, this one done after the SOI prerelease, just to see if we could go gnarlier.

And kill time.

4/16/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.Elfior

A live ink to da max with my multi-color ballpoint pen for this (largely useless) Elf Warrior torn alter token. I actually started this a while ago, before SOI rendered Elf Warrior tokens even less relevant, but I finished it off just today in an effort to clear my little docket of tokens that have been waiting to receive finishes.

It does suck that the token is basically unusable, but to be fair, this was more of a learning experience anyway to see how articulate we can get using just this pen. I do know not to mix them with Copics, for example, we learned that. So I'm pretty happy with what we can get, will have to watch the blending a bit more, but next step is to try this on a more usable token. I do love Copics, so I figure this might be just a good option if I'm ever looking for something relatively more straightforward or mobile, since I don't need my Santa-bag of Copics immediately on me for these.

4/15/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.OolfBun

And the finals of Oolf and da Bun at long last.

Again inspiration for this was from Chiara. The background, I was on the fence about. Didn't want to do another night sky, kinda wanted to incorporate more green for the token's actual color, so went with a jungly/foresty-night, somewhat abstract background.

4/15/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.OolfBun_B

The base colors for our little Oolf and Bunbun combo setto.

4/15/16

Reuxben

Fun_Calt.WraithAwaiting

And a Merry Christmas it is--our little Wraith just got her wings.

Again the throat armor took inspiration from Algenpfleger's Solider token, but other than that, just hardcore riffin', especially on the bg. I chose to make the armor designs vaguely based on the letter M, for Markov.

I couldn't have this token fully colored for the SOI prerelease since I needed to pull this peculiarly rare token from one of my packs in the first place. Once I ripped one, I kept it BW for the event since I didn't want to present a half-colored, not-yet-ready-for-prime-time token, especially when the others were all fully colored up or BW themselves.

4/12/16

Reuxben

Fun_DearNeighbors

I decided to color our little experimental letter sketch, from when I randomly bought ice cream for everybody in the share house, all of whom I didn't know.

I used to do stuff like that in college all the time, just randomly leave people snacks and stuff because I'd often win contests in my residential college for free food at the student dive or I'd have spare grub stored up from Commons or the Law School.

I don't like talking to people, so I express my humanity and affection in nonverbal ways, typically through art but also frequently through gifts.

I like art.

I got to eat all that ice cream myself.

4/12/16

Reuxben

Fun_DearNeighbors_L

I found a draft of an old letter I wrote to my neighbors at my old place when I randomly decided to buy everyone ice cream.

I thought it would look funny to draw right over it because I used to be so precious with paper and stuff--never draw on lined paper, keep everything nice and neat, etc.--but meh, just cut to the chase!

I'm in a letter-writing mindset lately.

4/12/16

Reuxben