Extra Credits episode 99 chatter

I had the great pleasure of working for the Web Series Extra Credits again. This is so much joy, because it is more about the concepts and fitting imagery than about elaborate drawing. I like jobs, where I have to think. I figured out that my style is not working as well for this as the general style developed by the series makers Dan and Allison. Also its waaaaaay too slow to draw anatomically somewhat probable figurines.

My full pop culture nerd senses tingled, when the topic was announced: The Heros Journey and illustrated by the beautiful Game Journey by thatgamecompany. I obsessively watched playthroughs, especially enjoying this one: Video Part 1. That narrator sounds so awed and sympathetic : )

The Hero's Journey explores the stages a hero walks through in the straightforward “epic” path in many hero-centered narrations. Therefore I had an excuse to single out tons of great epic stories and use them to illustrate James’ text and Dan’s narration thereof. Watch the Video here.

Let my start with an assemblage from some drawings from the Episode. Be very invited to read the more obscure reference links below.

I started out by planning the episode. This way i have an overview on how many images are needed, the pacing and how much non-drawn material and how much dan-standing-and-talking is involved. I strive for balance:

practice

greetings, wanderers!

today i want to share with you some sketches and practice-drawings i did over the last weeks. Major failing happened as well - but the Anatomy Sketchbook of Doom will be scanned in its finished glory, with all its failures for you to see. Would be a waste of time to actually sit down and scan this atrocity several times. bah!

On the back of an old drawing board i found the little prince. My favorite book of them all. I mindlessly doodled this to do a watercolor test. It's probably from Spring 2011.


Portrait + fantasy time. It is a long-term goal to be able to draw anything i can imagine. These come pretty close to what I had in mind. Reference used for every one.
Watercolor, digitally cleaned up and highlighted.

monster monster on the wall

Hey folks,

a bit more than 2 month to go on the diploma. The main project is almost done, the documentation slowly drags along. I wish I just could hand in a ring book folder... or something. But noooo.
I will post a full review of the exhibition (which has ended) soon, I am still waiting for the permissions to post the photos.

In the meantime, whenever I hit a minor... very minor... mile... okay, centimeterstone in my work I scribble around on monsterstuff. I need the distraction to keep my lines in order for the diploma. So, among some "this is what i am wearing today" and gadgets for the monsterbook, here are the rough drawings of some monsters - all pages from my current sketchbooks.

Thank you for stopping by : )
At my tumblr I keep explaining some of the designs (also showing the slightly more polished, sometimes colored versions)

Here they are implemented in the still in progress monsterbook: http://www.gabrielsmonsterook.net . Soon the Submission Form is bug free, then I await YOUR take on everyday or neverday fears and annoyances.

tak and sketches!

I finally bought Skydoll - I love the Drawings of babucci/canepa. I am way too prudent to approve of all the boobs, though... but i somehow like how relaxed they go about sexuality as it goes well with the concept of the Skydoll-universe.

While practicing on hands (later) I got viciously be-cuddled by our cat Tak. Tak is very shy and small. She almost starved but grew up to be a happy, young cat. I see her as a young tomboy teenage girl. 

random stuff for a story universe. did not quite capture the faces the way i wished to. They'Re all students of a very special class. They're allowed to design their own uniforms with the only rule that it has to involve the school colors.

A lot of the sketches are heavily inspired by combing through the first book of skydoll. I have troubles with hands so i copied every hand from the beginning of the book to understand, how the amazing artist-duo solved the hand-problem. It's not my only grey spot, but one that has to be targeted rigorously.

The algenpfleger (look im up on DA!) gave me the advice me to take up screenshot-drawing again. I randomly picked a movie i like and Shutter Island was a bad choice. I love the movie but it does not have a lot of interestingly layered shots for practicing lightning. No Problem, because I have to practice on proportions and composition as well.

they're all from the first 5 or 10 minutes and took 15 - 40 minutes. meh. I concentrated mostly on getting the mood right and tried not to hang myself up on details.

Dark Paper!

During the past evenings i kept oiling my rusty traditional gears...
It's not that my days are totally packed, but i have so much on my mind, that it's hard for me to focus. But - nevermind!

4 years ago I handed in a proposal for a comic project. Unfortunately the answer was: Yeees, we really like it, wait half a year and we'll talk about it! And this kept going for 1 1/2 years. The constant excitement and hope and disappointment got to me and I decided to let it be. One day, when I am through with studies, I plan to take off some month and just concentrate on finishing one of the projects connected with this world : )

First one copied from a editorial, the other ones without reference, but totally out of proportion. partly it's becaus the left character is way smaller than the right character, but that doesn't explain the really small hand :X. And there needs to be a way to protrait these two characters together without them looking weird. meh. last one an oekaki.

Thanks for looking in!

practice and edna again

The first two pencil drawings are practices - copied from old daguerrotypes I found on the internet.

The essence of what I felt was in their portraits reminded me of two characters I always wanted to design. Since I started doing something for the M-project again, I used the inspiration to draw their younger alter Egos. In the stories, they are the parents of the main-character-cast.

I felt rusty with watercolors and had this postcard-pad lying around. I did not menage to scan this at all : / It's 3 layers of colors done during some breaks.

And Edna breaks out from the Adventure Edna Bricht Aus. I wanted to draw a good fanart, but somehow it never turned out the way i wanted it to. What the heck, i leave it in the Sketch-section before it gets burried forever.

VanCanto Poster!

Hey Folks!

I am very proud to present (a very small!) version of the Poster I did for the special Edition for the new VanCanto Album - Break the Silence. It's out today!

I illustrated the very complex Song "A Storm to Come", circling around the Peer Gynth topic in a modernized Version.

(click to see a detail)

The poster is on the back of the booklet, carefully crafted that no fold will obstruct any character's head. Boy, that was a challenge and I enjoyed it!
Check out their Music. They do acapella! Metal! Seriously. And they can do that life!

And stay tuned, to hear more about the Peer Returns Project!

Minecraft! Step-by-step

To view the full-size of the finished picture, either visit this image on deviantart or my fun-homepage.

I drew this for the 5 people who make me enjoy the time in Minecraft (this belongs to the Mojang AB). Such a creative playground with so very different people : )
We have the composer, explorer, architect, miner, collector and redstone ("electrical stuff") engineer.

After this followed color-editing and some last changes like stripes on the green-haired-guys suit and a broader smile on him as well. See the Result here.

Extra Credits Eggsamples!

This is the long story of the previous blogentry. If TL, scroll for pitturz...

About Extra Credits
Tvtropes.com calls Extra Credits:

"(the show) that takes a deeper look at videogames: how they are made, what they mean, and how we can make them better. "

Since their very first episode I have been a big fan. I love the depth and the good research, I love the entertainment, the great visualisations of complicated topics and the many different solutions Dan, James and Allison offer for discussed problems. They usually have a very positive and motivating approach and its a great pleasure to watch them and discuss their input with friends and everybody who does not run away in time.

The episode Gamifying Education (link will be updated as soon as this esisode is back in the internet) blew my mind. As the Credits where rolling, i started talking and talking because I really wanted to discuss the topic, but my boyfriend made me stop to see the credits... and there we were... him asking me for my hand in marriage. So... you know how much i love that show. So much, that my boyfriend made the efford to ask the amazing people for this favor. I cried for 2 hours out of happiness : )

Oh Noes!
Some weeks later I learnt as many other viewers, that the artist of the show - Allison Theus - got really sick and could not afford the operation necessary for her to continue drawing. Extra Credits started a rockethub project to collect donations. Within hours they exceeded the goal. I do not seem to be the only one really loving these guys. Extra Credits would not be Extra Credits if they took the money and ran off with it to Mars. Read about the project they have planned on the rockethub-page!

But - alas! - I am about to finish university and could not give as much money as i liked, so I offered my drawing-skill0rz! I had in mind to help out coloring or cutting thumbnails or whatever needed to be done, but suddenly there came the mail: Yay! Do a whole episode!

Issues and Artist Angst
I was very hesitant at first. First: I never worked in Flash before. Second: Extra Credits has a lot of fans and they are used to Allison's visualisations. Allison Theus draws amazing creature designs and _could_ draw elaborate shows as well, but there is a reason for the show to look like it looks. I was afraid that the fans of the show would hate a different approach or even feel, that i was disrespectfull to the language Allison, Dan and James created.
In the end James and Dan reassured me, that they really liked different styles and the chance to have guest artist's on bord for exactly that reason.

The Process
Along with other artists (every one of them blew my mind!) I was allowed to chose a topic. Allison usually does one episode in one week. We got 2! And, oh boy, did I need this time. I had 1 1/2 Weeks to plan, think and draw the episode (the other days went into cursing codecs and acknowledging my utter n00bnes with moving pictures). I am so lucky to have a short episode and 2 weeks. Such an interesting topic and a great scale of emotions on the narrator Dan's voice. It was a blast! I thank everybody who helped me with their input.
Dan and Allison finally turned the flash into a video, because I could not slay the beast that is convert to .mov!

Thank You.
I hope, that the fans of the show see, how much i love Allison's visualisations and that i tried to keep close to her colors and many elements. But i did not want to copy her. Even though in the end the lovable stick figures are faster to draw, it would have taken me way longer to learn how to create these persons and make them look "original".


These are some of the drawings from the episode. My sincere apologies go to Bill Waterson, Terry Pratchett, and Cthullhu.

TwiSTeD stuff

Some Images from my comic project.

Barbera sketch in her new design

Screentone and Ink and Pens on notepaper.

Step-by-step for THIS PICTURE:







Jaune's Redesign

Edna breaks out - a funny adventure by Daedalic Entertainment. Sorry to say that i did not think about this fanart but wanted to draw her again.

Notebook 2008-2011

Maybe somebody could also help me with the two Sodokus on the latter pages - are they even solvable without guesswork?

To escuse myself: i usually do not use this book for drawing but for keeping tracks of appointments, schedules and so on. When I happen to be on such an appointment (like class or the doctor's) i find some time to decorate the book. For drawing i usually have bigger scetchbooks or my computer. Buuuut i grew to really like this little book, even though I got tired of some of the pages. I scanned the ones for my archive that i found somehow interesting and why not sharing...
I erased names, addresses and phonenumbers, so there are some blanks. I never really intended to draw these for display, even though i scanned the one or the other previously.

Thanks for stopping by