o84. sutafo gijinka

1. I should never, ever think it's a good idea to draw while half asleep and waiting for the teacher to come.
2. I should know better than to color using cheap colored pencils and then stick the page in a scanner.
3. The anatomy is so freakishly off on some of these it's just kind of fiodsjfoisdf. Krystal's face is just OFF.
4. I like how Fox, Falco and Wolf are all wearing Brawl outfits while everyone else is just wearing WHATEVER. xD;;;
5. Had NO idea what to do with Amanda. I'll probably end up changing her a bit until I find something I like.
6. Lucy looks too young. D| But I do like that hairstyle. 'Cept it kind of looks like a floofier version of Slippy's over there.
7. Speaking of Slippy, he looks like a ten-year-old.
8. Leon looks like a manipulative businessman.
9. This is the second design I've had for Panther, and I definitely like this one more. The first one was way too flaming to even be considered straight.
10. Wolf needs to stop changing his hair. xD;;;


Also, note to self: Finish the whole "No Sleeping" thingy...
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Final note to self:
Stop drawing Fox like such an uke.

o83. uchiha falco/sasuke lombardi HUUUH?

I'm going to pretend I didn't draw that.

LOL I totally had no ref for Katt in Bio so I just barfed up a pink cat thing next to Sakura.

Poooony!

o82. sumabura gakuen junk page

Just some quick doodles, half from Zoology and half from sitting in my car while waiting for my sister to get out of school. Some seriously wonky anatomy in there, but uh... don't really care, it's just scrap material. |D; Wasn't trying very hard and was too lazy to use the eraser.

SumaBura Gakuen junk~ I like this idea too much. u.u;;; Probably because it's been a year since I've been in a high school-set RP... or any formal RP, really. xD;;;

o81. no sleeping in mr. o'donnell's class plz. [1/???]

No one wants to finish it for me. .___.

@ Tegaki.

o8o. didn't i give up already?

I was supposed to have given up this fight ages ago, but.

Why is this kid unbanned?

Am seriously contemplating leaving MO for good this time, I can hardly take it anymore, plus, it takes too much of my time and attention away from my school work anyway. It's a waste of my time and energy.

Like he said, I am a hypocrite, but hey, at least I'm not a hypocrite and a complete idiot.

o79. warp hole?

I think I like the softness and the bg colors... but that's about it. xD; This is too squishy for me, honestly. I failed at anatomy here. =x=;;;

o78. wolf flash!

I love Tegaki.

... but I can't believe I parodied an anime that I've never seen aside from the opening animation (though I've loved the OP song for a while now xD;;;;).

o77. oh good god, the stupidity never ends.

I freakin' lol'd.

Seriously, though, why the heck would he want to come back to MO, considering plenty of people on there hate him or find him rather irritating? Okay? Furthermore, if he is capable of drawing the picture that he uploaded/drew on that other oekaki board, why did he not show us that skill? Because his lineless skills were certainly not at this level a few days ago.

Whatever.

But ahahaha, man. Just. GAWD.

o76. well, here's something.

Fun fact:
You just can't win on this oekaki board.

I give up on this fight; it's a lost cause. Some people just won't change. And some people don't know when to shut up, me included.

To Iskola:
I didn't really handle it well—I don't really think things through. I'm a human with faults. But at least I know I can accept that and I can try and change myself. And I'm not going to pass the blame on to anyone else. The way I behave is my own responsibility. I have responsibility for my own words and my own accounts. If my sister made a mess of my account, I'd try and act rationally, delete all offending posts right away and apologize to the original artist. If I insulted someone using a word that should not be used as a derogatory word, I would not blame it on something I may have been watching on YouTube.

Don't bother asking for an apology because I have none for you and I don't think you're deserving of one. I am of the opinion that you need a permaban because you haven't shown yourself to be capable of change—you've been given plenty of second chances. February 6th, I thought there was still some hope that you could gain some maturity or something. I don't know about everyone else's opinions, but over a month later and those hopes I had have pretty much been decimated. You may have grown in terms of art skills—just a little bit—but everything else? You're lacking, and I wish I still had the optimism to believe you when you say that'll you'll try and work on what you're doing wrong. But I don't.

So that's it. I'm done fighting with you, and maybe even with fighting on this board because once we kick out someone else for scrapping with us, there's always someone new to replace that void. I'm sick of the drama, but it's human nature to want to rip each other to shreds, I guess.

o75. BAAAW WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

Because it's apparently NOT OBVIOUS as to why people dislike you, Iskola, I thought I'd clear it up for you using some old stuff and screencaps.

27 JAN 2008
On Marriland Oekaki, we got to yell and mock an idiot art theif who stole two of Imura's amazing artworks and took one of mine, erased the lineart and wrote something like "you guys suck or something". He also said that we look like 'nasty things' (namely 'penis' and 'fuck fingher' [sic]). Now, sad thing about trying to steal art on this site is that, when pictures are set to public and are edited by another person, it automatically credits the original artist. So, duh, of course everyone's going to know when you're stealing someone's work. He blamed his thieving on someone he called 'Brandon' and said Brandon was his little brother. We continued calling him a liar and said all sorts of stuff to get him to delete his posts. Pokedive (the idiot I've been talking about) continued to cry for help and called us all rude and came up with all sorts of lies and excuses. Then, Marriland actually showed up and deleted the stolen art (plus some related BAWWWWing). Wow, he exists. He also sent the person an o-mail, but it looks like he still has his draw access intact and all that when I checked out the person's profile on the memberlist. (WTF? Where's the BANHAMMER?)

The idiot, of course, came back later on under the name of 'Pom' for spamming and stole another piece of Imura's art from the main board (under the alias 'Iskola75'). He said that he was the same person from before (though, I could tell just by the e-mail address), but then later said something like 'you've never seen me before'. He also denied ever blaming a 'Brandon' or knowing one, something like that.

There are 6 accounts signed up with '_lguitarplayer@hotmail.com' at MO. Someone needs to start monitoring who the heck they're letting into the oekaki—there's a 'no more than one account per person' rule on MO, but obviously, someone's not paying attention to who they're accepting.

So yeah, it was rather fun, picking on an idiot who just wouldn't learn his lesson—yes, I am that mean. I'm normally forgiving, but somethings are just plain old unforgivable in my book, and if you're just going to repeat your mistakes over and over, never changing your method of doing things, never trying to gain respect the right way, I will be mean, and I will pick on you. Some people are really hardheaded and need it to be drilled into their heads that they're doing it wrong.

6 FEB 2008
And here's today's little... weirdness. After that, though, Iskola75 said:

"....well as i said before...im not that good at drawing since im new...so...

well anyway thanx for telling me teh canvas resizing thing.. i hope we can all be ffriends

ill just delete this and resize the canvas"

I was actually willing to forgive you and hope for the best yet because, y'know, I can be optimistic sometimes and hope that you'd learn your lesson. And while you had learned this lesson, you still need to learn a whole bunch more before I even think of not wanting to think of you as completely stupid.

When you comment to make yourself look better, you actually make yourself look stupid. I don't care what you are in real life, because I don't know you in real life, and online, you act like an idiot. You say that you're one of the smartest kids according to your school board? Then act like it. Show me that you're capable of being mature and that you can actually type and spell like someone your supposed age should be able to.

I swear you don't even think about what you're saying before you comment. You keep saying things like not to bring up Topic A or Topic B or your BAWWing about Starly moving pretty much all your work, and yet, it's YOU who's always bringing it up. "Let it drop" you say? Why don't you, since it's you who's always bringing stuff back from the dead?

And you come up with way too many excuses, even more than I do.

I'm not surprised that Muse even went and made a hate picture after that post, because this was more than ignorance—this was flat-out stupid and completely uncalled for. You called her a lesbo as if being a lesbian is something wrong! If that's what you believe, fine, but don't you dare use a term like that as though it were an insult.

Your critiques are so unhelpful, it's laughable. It's like a list rehashing whatever other critics say minus the helpfulness. Don't you get that you're too inexperienced to really offer an effective critique? If you're incapable of helping, don't even try it, because all you'll end up doing is confusing the poor artist. Your advice is about as helpful as me trying to teach a classmate Calculus (and if you must know, I'm FAILING, which is why this analogy works).

And I'm sure I'm forgetting some reasons and I'm missing a lot of screencaps, but there. That's why I don't like you, and that's what you're doing wrong. If you're banned, it's for a reason, kiddo. When you're banned, either don't come back ever or change your ways before you come back and try to start fresh.

o74. ... and gay, possibly?

o73. ファル子

Just a little quickie done in Photoshop to show Yunyun how I envision Falco. T-too pretty...! But birds are like that anyway, right? So there.

Yeah, no shading 'cause I'm too lazy. xD; I just wanted some colors slapped on lines.

I'm such a dork, though, 'cause now the headset is, like, crooked. I somehow forgot to draw the lines in for part of it before starting coloring. <<;;; How awesome am I? I do that a lot. =__=;;

He looks too feminine now, doesn't he? xD;; This doesn't really match up with that whole "once a member of a gang" hinting thing... Again, oops? I don't care, though. xD; N-not that much. Not like how I care about Wolf retaining masculinity. xD;;

o72. on redlining.

Originally, I was going to put this in with the "how to critique" article, but I opted for putting them in separate posts since it was getting kind of long and the figures would've been totally screwy and all over the place. Still, they kind of go hand-in-hand with each other because redlining is like a form of critiquing. But anyway, here we go! This isn't really going to be like an article, but more of a sloppy do's and don't's guide... but mostly concentrated on don't's.

Here's one that bugs me: asking for a redline over basic shapes. It's kind of like "what the heck is that?" When it's just a bunch of shapes, it's harder to tell exactly what needs fixing.

o71. 「スタフォクス」

I think I've been playing too much Brawl. ;;

Anyway, here's, uh... gijinka Fox McCloud lineart, done with some pen I bought from Wal-Mart and a Sharpie marker for the thicker outline on the outsides. I haven't actually done lineart traditionally for maybe a year and a half, so... It's really quite terrible, worse than I was back then. Uwaa.

I just realized his ears are freaking off. xD;; Great. I should probably clean this up more in PS but I want to color it in Prismacolors... which I haven't done in ages as well, even longer ago than my last hand-drawn lineart. o__o;;;

Auuugh, the anatomy is awful even for a headshot, how lame is that?

o7o.

Aaron-sama x Lucario, take 9034329409324932. Another WIP to be finished some time next week, hopefully.

o69. choutarou, the quiet , sweet and polite lucario.

Yay, new design!

Choutarou, named, yes, after Ootori Choutarou of Tenipuri's Hyoutei Gakuen. Since movie!Lucario and Choutarou share a seiyuu. (Which means Lucario cannot sing, lawlz.)

He is my first Lucario and the daddy of all my other Lucario and Riolu... which would be over 30, actually. <<;;

His head band is actually two layered bands, which is why there are four ties sticking out instead of two. His necklace is supposed to be a spike pointed outward. The flat side rests against his chest.

His jacket is hooded and there is soft fur on the hood. The black toward the armpit is supposed to simulate Lucario's shoulder pad-like shoulders, but has a stripe running down each out-side of the sleeves. The sleeves are 3/4 sleeves and end with an uneven black like Lucario's paws. He wears fingerless gloves with white spikes on the backs of his hands.

On his hips sits a simple black belt—they do not go through the belt loops of his pants, and they are often a bit lopsided. His pants are tight fitting and follow the same kind of pattern as the sleeves of his jacket. There is a hole in the back to allow his tail to stick out.

His shoes are simple black boots.

o68. OHEMEFFGEE.

This is the funniest shit ever. There's something hilarious about someone who is worse than oneself asking if they can HELP YOU. Because it's absurd, yes? Unskilled my bum.


I LOL'D. I couldn't even tell that thing that represents me was a drawing of my avatar. xD;;;

[EDIT]: This just keeps going and going and going... Is it going to stop? I don't know.

You guys, help, I'm still unskilled because I draw demented and my shading is all over the place!


... Nah, but seriously, I still fake the fact that I know what I'm doing. But it should be obvious that I don't.

o67. on critiquing.

Yahoo~ Third article-type thing for MO!

... C'mon, people, these things shouldn't be so hard to understand that I feel the need to write about it in a blog and link it all over the place.

Let's begin with the basics. The definition of critique is as follows:
–noun

1.	an article or essay criticizing a literary or other work; detailed evaluation; review.

2.	a criticism or critical comment on some problem, subject, etc.

3.	the art or practice of criticism.

–verb (used with object)

4.	to review or analyze critically.

So basically, critiques are critical comments on a piece of work. In our case, the work is a piece of art.

Constructive criticism (or concrit, as it is affectionately known as) in art world is a critical comment that is useful to the artist. It is meant to help a person notice their mistakes and what can be done to fix the mistake or improve the piece.

Concrit is not a comment that looks like that thing to the left—concrit is not meant to simply express one's opinion or an idea, like a comment. Also, this comment is very rude and just overall bad.

A good critique should look something like this. It isn't perfect and it's on the long side, but it's a decent example of one.

One should be critical when critiquing, of course, but do so by picking words that are not hypercritical. Try not to sound condescending as well, so the artist focuses on your advice rather than the need to scream at you for sounding mean, or doesn't lose confidence in themselves. Again, the point is to help, not hurt.

Try to be as clear and concise as possible so the artist can understand your advice. If possible, provide figures or links to further clarify your words. Some people learn differently than others, and some people are better at expressing things in pictures rather than words. In this critique, I used a couple of different links to pictures and redlines to illustrate and straighten out what I meant, since outside of essays, I pretty much write like I would speak.

When critiquing, or heck, even just regular commenting, make an effort to use proper grammar. You don't need to be perfect, just understandable. Chatspeak makes you look ignorant, and no one will take you seriously then. Good spelling is a plus too. FireFox users can use the built-in spell check, y'know.

If there's something you know looks wrong but you can't think of the term for it, either look it up, point it out in a figure, or describe it. If there's jargon that is specific that you'd like to use but isn't something that most everyday people would know, do the same thing. Most kids will probably look confused if you say "sternocleidomastoid", so provide something to clear a specific and uncommon word like that. Toward the bottom of the screencap of the critique up there, I explain the sternocleidomastoid by pointing out what area of the body it is.

Words from Imura:
Let's say you stumble across a picture depicting an oddly proportioned, shakily lined human with inconsistant colouring. Now, knee-jerk reaction for most is to say "OMG U SUCK GO 2 THE DOODLE BOARD." That is a horrible thing to do, because for one, it knocks down the confidence of the artist AND doesn't help him/her improve. Try to avoid comments like that.

An example of a good critique would be:
"I would pay attention to how you do your linework. Using the beizer and straight line tool will make your work much cleaner. Also, remember that using references is a good way to become familiar with the form you're attempting to draw. *insert exact examples of where the proportions are off and how they can be adjusted* The colouring looks good, but there is always room for improvement. Keep in mind shadows/folds/wrinkles/light sources when colouring, and use any tool that you can. That way, you can broaden your abilities and grow as a result. If you'd like me to go into detail about anything I covered, feel free to o-mail me and I'd be happy to explain it."

THAT, my friends, is a critique.

It touches on all the elements the critic thinks need improvement in a conversational and non-condescending tone that offers help instead of highlighting the flaws of a picture. And, if you feel that your advice could be greatly beneficial to the artist, say that you will offer further help at the artist's request. Simply saying "The lineart is shaky and the colouring is bad" is only half the battle.

Typing in complete words will not only make you seem smarter, but will also make reading the critique much easier to the artist. Typing in complete words does not take much more effort than chatspeak.

SUCK IT UP BABIES.

Not only that, but typing complete words gives you an opportunity to practice typing for school. Chatspeak does not go over well with teachers.

Words from Sovern:
The best format I've found is like.. a crit sandwich.
Specific praise, crits, general praise.

o66. farfie, the french sneasel

I love Sneasel, and I love Weavile, too. The other day, on the GTS, I decided to go on a Sneasel hunting spree because:
1. I didn't feel like catching one myself.
2. My two Weavile are male.
3. Traded Pokemon level up faster.

I deposited a Pokemon in the GTS the night before, and I think it was an untrained Roserade that I evolved from a Roselia for no particular reason. Anyway, the next day, I got on the GTS while I was making breakfast and I got a male Sneasel named "Friday" instead from that trade. I poked around and found a female Sneasel that I could finally trade for (some people ask for some stupid stuff on there—like, why would anyone have a level 100 Abra?!) so I did it~ And Farfuret was mine.

Farfuret is the French name for Sneasel, so I decided to nickname her Farfie. And I'm not going to evolve her because I don't want her name to be just WEAVILE. I have a thing against unnicknamed English-named Pokemon. |D;;

I was really happy with this trade~ Lucky~! I mean, I got a female Sneasel, and she had a nature I liked for Sneasel, yay~!

So yeah, Farfie's a Jolly Sneasel~! Isn't she cute? And she will stay that way, no matter how much she wants to become a sexy Weavile. Too bad, so sad, I like your name the way it is.

Since she's from France, I wanted her to look rather stylish, thus, the Lolita look. The frills are kind of killing me, though. :x I've always hated drawing frills, but uh, here they are on her outfit. I like the colors~ The magenta sticks out so much~! xD

This is Farfie's alternate outfit. Yes, it's a little transparent for sexiness, but she's just too cute to really pull that off. xD;;; The colors are kind of cotton candy-ish, too, adding to teh cute.

Anyway, I overworked her a whole lot over the past two days or so that I've had her. I leveled her up to lvl. 47 before sticking her in the Daycare Center for mating. She was with a Buneary first, so that I could get Ice Punch on a few Sneasel, but none of the females came out with a nature I liked. I took another male Sneasel I got from the for more Ice Punch, and then I bred her with my shiny Weavile, SexyBack, to copy his moveset from. Poor thing. ;o;)/ And then I leveled her up s'more this morning. xD;;;

o65. striving for main board success

A lot of people seem to be confused about what can be considered Main Board quality and cannot. The Main Board is meant to showcase art that one spends a decent amount of time on. It is not meant for doodles or practicing a new and experimental drawing/coloring technique. If you wish to practice, try for the doodle board or critique board instead. There are plenty of talented people who can help you here.

Remember that the main rule of the Main Board is that there is a required ten-minute minimum of effort in your work. However, we will not be looking at just the timer to judge whether or not your piece is Main Board-worthy—we will also be looking at the quality of your work. Some people can produce Main Board-quality pics a lot faster than others can, so we will take things like that into account.

When I say quality of work, I don't mean that you have to be someone who has years of experience and all that. You can still be new to oekaki and drawing and work hard and make something MB-worthy. You don't have to be stylish, you don't have to be flashy, you just have to put in a good amount of effort.

Anyway, here are some examples of what is Main Board quality and what is not:
Not Main Board Quality:
This is a picture I would consider more of doodle board quality. The lines here are kind of shaky and rather messy, am I right? The coloring is really messy as well, though it's an interesting way to use white. But it looks like the artist didn't try very hard at all, doesn't it? It's a scribble with colors slapped on it.

Just to show you that the timer doesn't matter so much when it comes to quality, the timer for this picture is about 25 minutes. This was way back from when I first joined MO. I wasn't new to oekaki then (I've been oekaki-ing since 2001 or something like that) and I wasn't new to drawing either (that goes to maybe 1998 or even before), but see, even then I wasn't a Main Board artist.


Here's another one I wouldn't consider MB-worthy just yet either. While the lines have at least cleaned up, the coloring is still of the weird kind.

I would probably tell this person to ask for help on shading and suggest line tapering to make the lines look less chunky, because with this style of coloring, the lines kind of takes away from the colors because they're even bolder than the bright colors. Of course, that's preference and critiquing, so you don't really need to listen to this right now. xD;

This probably took, like, ten minutes tops.

Like the last one, this one has cleaner lineart than the first one does, but the thing about this one is that it has a very unfinished feeling about it because of the very stark background and lack of shading (though, at least we have full base colors here). If it had at least a background color and some shading, it would probably be more MB-worthy, but at this point, it looks more like a WIP or a doodle.

I'm pretty sure the timer for this was around 10-15 minutes but the original never sent. xD;

Almost There...:
Here's something that's almost there, but not quite yet.

I can still see some of the base sketch behind the lines; Always make sure you erase them or hide that layer! The lines aren't too bad, but could stand just a bit of clean up here and there, or maybe some variance in thickness.

Also, the shading and coloring could use a bit of work. It's still messy, but otherwise, it isn't so bad and so far off at this point.

Timer for this is 16 minutes. Still over the 10-minute requirement, but see how quality is more important in determining whether something is more suited to the doodle board or not?

Main Board Quality:
See this? This is a good example of what Main Board quality is.

The lineart is very clean here. It's not sketchy or very shaky, and you can't see the original sketch lines through anything. The coloring here is also very neat compared to the previous pictures. You can tell that the artist took great care in creating this piece in comparison to the others.

Timer for this pic is a very nice 55 minutes.

Other Examples of Main Board Quality:

Although the lines on the right picture are a little messier, I'd still consider it MB-worthy because the coloring is very nice and the sketchy lines for this picture aren't so messy and distracting.

Timer for both pics is 75 minutes.

In short, all Main Board pictures should display a decent amount of effort in them. They don't have to be perfect, and you don't have to spend hours upon hours on them either. You don't have to be a da Vinci or a god to draw on the MB—you just have to put in time and effort. Honestly, most people can't produce something all that great given ten minutes of time, so if you want to produce something that won't be so likely to be moved to the DB, take the process slowly, and build up first rather than starting right at the lineart. Take your time, art shouldn't be a race—drawing something good takes patience, and if you don't have that patience, just stick to the doodle board or be prepared to get your head bitten off by those who care about their real work being bumped off by things not even worth anyone's time.

Timer: approximately 165 minutes.

o64. TIPS ON PRO-DOM

Hints for Pro-dom @ MO:
1. Hang around a bit before applying. Show us some of your skills, let us have a taste of your style and also let us get to know who you are as an artist. While yes, we do have an application process, we will look at your previous works as well.
2. Do well on your application and put forth your very best effort! Plan it well, take your time and just do not rush anything.
3. For subjects, choose something and draw it in a full body or put in as much of the body as you can, because anatomy is something we will be critiquing often, and because headshots don't showcase the full extent of your abilities. If the anatomy is off, it can throw off the whole picture.

Also, if you choose a Pokemon or some sort of creature that is made of simple shapes, don't expect to get into Pro. As an example, don't use something like a Weedle or a Jigglypuff for a Pro app because they're basically circles.
4. Don't be discouraged if you're rejected! You'll have plenty of chances to try out again. Don't, however, keep constantly making new Pro applications, like, every week. It's very irritating, and besides, it's highly unlikely that a person will improve that much in their skills over a week.

After rejection, pick yourself up and poke around the Pro board or look at the artists who are marked as Pro. Observe intently, and look at what it is that you're lacking in or less experienced in compared to those people. Practice on the doodle board, ask for help on the critique boards and listen to the critiques given to you on your application picture.
5. You don't have to be an ace at them, but you should at least be able to produce a decent background. Blank voids, endless skies with airbrush clouds, a fill tool color layer, textures... are very simple backgrounds and don't highlight your skills very well. You don't have to be capable of elaborate landscapes, but backgrounds make you much more appealing to the committee.
6. You should exhibit maturity if you want to be a Pro. Maturity doesn't exactly have to do with your art skills, but acting immaturely can make people apprehensive of making you a Pro. Do not have a spaz attack when you apply and don't try to throw a pity party on us, because that makes you very unappealing.

Also, your age does not matter to us. While certainly time affects ability, your age—not so much. If you're nine, ten, heck, thirteen? You have plenty of time to gain experience and grow as an artist.

Anyway, here are some examples to illustrate some of my points:

Bad Types of Pics to Use for Pro Apps:
Like I said earlier, headshots do not showcase the extent of your abilities. While the coloring style and the anatomy of the head and face may be good, can the rest be said for the rest of the body? I don't know! For all we know, you could just specialize in making fantastic heads because that's all you practice, and suck wonderfully at bodies and avoid them like the plague. Pros should be able to handle a subject as a whole.

If you look at this pic (which I drew last night btw), the head looks pretty good, but the rest of the anatomy, we can't really tell so much because there isn't really much for us to go on here. Plus, what we can see looks really, really awkward, doesn't it?

Timer for this pic is probably around 40 to 70 minutes.

Here's another type of picture I wouldn't really use for a Pro application. While yes, it is in a way a full-body picture, it's in a chibi style, rather than my usual style. Chibi are very simplistic and have very screwy proportions that vary between artist styles. It also lacks shading for the most part, and the background is incredibly messy and childish.

Timer for this pic is probably around 30 to 55 minutes.


A pic where I tried to be epic and failed. And it's kind of old by now.

Anyway, a pro for this pic is that this is a pretty good amount of the body to use when drawing an app for Pro. (That is, of course, ignoring the fact that I have some pretty bad anatomy going on in this pic—I should really redo it...)

The bad thing about this pic is some of the coloring. While the shading on its own was probably good, I kind of killed it with my dodging and burning. (Though, that's mostly a critique about the, rather than what makes it a bad type of picture to use.) The main reason I wouldn't use this as an app is because the background looks pretty rushed compared to the rest of the pic.

Timer for this pic is approximately 130 minutes.

- I would also avoid drawing pictures with a large amount of negative space (or HUEG BLANK SPACE) in them. If you find a big gaping space in your pic, try filling it in with some background scenery if you can, but don't put anything in that would detract attention from your main subject. Just don't leave it blank, though, because then it'll feel like your composition is lacking.

Decent Pics to Use for Pro Apps:
Here's a pic that's a little closer to being a good Pro application! It's kind of ugly though, since I dug it up from the pits of my art folder. Dx It's from July '07!

What makes this closer to being a good Pro app is that includes pretty much all the basic elements I noted before: a lot of the body is included, giving us a good view of the anatomy skill of the artist; there is a background present, and it isn't a generic fill-tool layer of one color or a sloppy mess of colors; and it looks like the artist really tried to color it nicely.

A person displaying skills at this level is pretty good, though pretty much the whole picture could use some reworking. The anatomy looks a little weird, the background is a bit more on the simple side and the shading could use some work as well. But a person here would be well on their way to Pro. Given a few months and plenty of practice, a person at this point could very well get into Pro.

Timer for this picture is approximately 105 minutes.

Wow, this is kind of an old request... xD;

Another point where I could see someone almost making Pro but not being quite there yet. This is a pretty decent show of anatomy skills. I'd probably be wary of anything showing less than this much anatomy.

I probably wouldn't let the subject cover up so much of the canvas like it does here, though, because, as we can see here, we can't see much of the background. What we can see of it, though, is color fill + texture which is still on the very simple side. (Though, it does work nicely for this pic, I guess.)

Timer for this pic is around 83 minutes.

This one is a pretty decent show of skill. There's a pretty good amount of the body shown here, and while the subject is off-center, our eyes are brought straight to him. The background doesn't detract attention from the subject—instead, it adds to him and brings attention to him with the white glow around him. Still, the background and anatomy could use some work... but even Pros aren't perfect. (|D;;;) But we can get a pretty good gauge of a person's skills with a pic like this.

Timer is about 139 for this pic.

Pro-level Pics:

I personally don't have any Pro-level pics (I have yet to have finished my one WIP on the Pro board yet), but if you want to know what Pro work looks like, check out the main board works of the artists with the diamonds by their names. And the most obvious place to look would be the Pro board, of course. xD;

Anyway, I hope this is helpful for all the Pro-hopefuls and that you guys don't think I have a big head for saying all sorts of things about my own stuff here.

o63. & the results are in!

Let me just say it was extremely difficult choosing which entry to give first place. You guys are all totally awesome, though. ♥


First place: Android-21; Gaara & Nintai

This is probably one of her best oekaki yet. While I'm typically bothered by the pairing of OCs with canon characters, I get past my bias here because, gosh, this is just so... nifty!

I've always been very jealous of her ability to create depth with her shading, so the coloring was a big fat plus. The pose and idea were pretty original compared to most of the other entries as well. And the hands making the heart! (*∇*) Also, it was really nice because I felt nostalgia looking at this. Making connections with the good ol' classics is always awesome. I looked at this and I was totally thinking of Aladdin and Jasmine riding on Carpet and singing "A Whole New World". So yeah. Awesomeness.


Second Place: Pazzo; Sintram & Faux

Gah, this picture is pretty darn awesome, what more can I say? Sintram is a sexy man and Faux is a very pretty... um... something...

I really love the little details in this pic! Sin's piercings, Faux's ribbon and rose bow, her curls, the cross... Their faces, too! Faux's blue make up on her pale face looks really, really good, and Sin's pink lips and slightly more colored skin. *o* It makes for a nice contrast between living and... something. (I'm going to offend her speaking this way, I swear...)





Third Place: Shirona; Ciara & Alina

The only strictly GL-pairing pic that was entered, and oh gosh it is so very cute. This is probably actually one of my favorites of Shirona's pics. |Db

The Ovis Cornu girls look so cute in Shirona's style! It's a nice happy medium that isn't too shoujo. 8Db I also like how the poses and the coloring came out in it. Yus!


Anyway, those are the results, people. :3 Thank you for your participation and your patience in having to wait forever for me to post the results. I kept postponing and postponing and now it's well over a week since the original closing date of the contest. xD;;; I'm so sorry! <3

o62. take a drag, forest prince.

One of these days, I'm going to make a list of which kids make me want to stab things.

o61. nara rabu.

I NEED NARA FLUFF NOW.