July 26, 2013

Vintage Animal Crossing

So, you might have noticed I have been playing a lot of Animal Crossing. Well I guess it is at least good for inspiration. Still working on my Blather's crochet, but it coming along slowly since I keep ripping it apart and starting over trying to get the body shape right.

I have created characters for my husband and me (see the last post): Cerulean and Grump. Well I for some reason wanted to draw them together in a formal portrait... Not sure where that urge came from, but like a family thing. So then I started thinking about poses... Both standing? One sitting? So then I thought about famous art... naturally... and thought about the painting American Gothic. I might have to revisit that idea and do another painting, seems fitting for Animal Crossing. Anyway I then thought about old daguerreotypes, because my dad used to collect them. So I found this one in particular which I liked so I based the pose off it.

Decided to watercolor it since I could use the black and white to get the grays and it might be a challenge to work in black and white. It was. Started off with a light gray wash to get the camera lighting kind of idea then started with the blackest parts. Mistake there. It was ok for Cerulean's feather markings, but not for Grump's jacket since then I immediately lost the ability to put in any details since I could not go any darker. I tried to pull some of the black back up with a wet brush and it helped a little. Then I could put down white for the buttons on top and it looked ok. But I lost the pocket so I cheated at the end an used a bit of black ink to crisp up some of the details that I could not paint in.

Overall it took me about an hour to do this. I can't help but think there is a fun idea here. Animal Crossing takes place in real time, so their world could have existed in different time periods... I mean imagine Animal Crossing in the Renaissance! Anyway, it could be fun to do more portraits.

July 24, 2013

AC Tumblr

Just a quick note here. Been playing too much animal crossing I think (especially considering the contents of this upcoming Friday's post). Anyway. I made a tumblr blog to put up all my pictures from in game. They will be of anything that I find interesting that happens, QR codes for new outfits I work on, etc. I will most likely post any fan art I do here as well as over there, but this blog is not the place for in game snaps.

Blog address is http://starlite-ac.tumblr.com/ if you want to visit or follow.

Speaking of fanart for the game, I drew my husband and me as animal residents. I am a blue jay, simply because I wanted to be blue like my hair and couldn't seem to pick an animal. Plus it helps that I have always wanted to be able to fly. For my husband, I had already made his likeness as a bear so it was only natural.
Cerulean and Grump

Also made this custom background for my tumblr page. It's vertically repeating.
Ask if you want to use it. :)
Happy Crossing!