Up Here In Canada, Despite Being More Influenced By European Standards Than US, (French Bilingual, The

WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

Yay, spambot.

My earliest memory is watching my brother play Super Mario Bros. on a rented NES, and he keeps "throwing" the controller to make Mario jump farther.

Straight out of high-school, he got a job coding browser games at nearly twenty bucks an hour. He got laid off and re-hired twice, and he's currently writing fiction. I've spent the last seven years trying to drag myself out of an addiction to gaming.

'Nother charcoal drawing. WhiteFox likes snow. WhiteFox likes snow very much. Also, I am apparently one of those select few who has the right kind of face for tea-shades, so I consider myself lucky there.

I don't really draw my avatar all that often... I'm not really sure how to define him. I don't think of him as a fictional character, persona, or mascot. He represents me, but I don't think of him as being me. I guess he's like the visual component of a pen-name.

I don't like this drawing as much as the one I previously posted, probably because I didn't get to define the planes of the face or neck. Course, when you're matte white, there's not a lot you can do. I did play around with using unblended strokes to add definition to the hair and beard, and it was an informative exercise, but it doesn't carry a whole lot of visual impact.

Still... I like it. 

This is what I feel like when I wake up in the morning.

I suppose you could call this vent art, but it really didn't start out that way. My motivations when I began were to do a figure of some sort, draw someting post-worthy, and to ink the blazes outta of something. I think I got two out of three.

As far as vent art goes, I think its good for art to be inspired by the artists experiences... but when the work is self indulgent or self gratifying, the work sours. I think I got away with it here, mostly because the figure isn't in anguish or anything... just weary.

Not gonna go into what I don't like about it... I brushed the rust off my pen nibs, and that was what I set out to do.

I did finally manage to get comments working on this here blog... at least, I'm pretty sure they're working. Lemme know what you think, I love hearing peoples thoughts. 

Steal This Rant

Alright, so, a friend of mine (Flux Chord) is getting trolled because he allegedly copied another artists work. As reprehensible as I find plagiarism and theft, quite frankly these people have no idea what they're talking about. It's a disgrace to allegations.

Here's how this whole thing went down... Flux Chord used a piece of art drawn by CandyClops as reference for the pose of two characters (in an amorous situation. I'm not gonna link either of the images or the artists tumblrs, because I have a pretty strict SFW policy). On the one hand, he only used the ref to draw a couple of sticks and circles before continuing on independently. On the other hand, he did not credit the original artist when the work was posted. CandyClops' followers... not Candy, mind you, the followers... have since been directing some very inappropriate and unwarranted comments at Flux. Here's the thing... this can barely be considered theft. Sticks and circles, people. There's a big difference between using reference, and tracing something. I've taken a good close look at both images, and I highly doubt that it was traced. Are the two poses very similar? Yes, they are. And I don't see what the problem is.  Before we start slinging mud about unoriginality, let's not forget that, well, they're My Little Ponies. Their designs were inspired by a cartoon show. CandyClops' work was inspired by another artist, just as much as Flux's was. Fan art is kind of like that. Furthermore, it's an extremely generic posture. There are probably hundreds artists that have used it. It's practically a stock pose. So, again, I don't think CandyClops' followers really have any high ground in that regard either. If it were a distinctive or iconic pose that CandyClops was known for, I could understand being upset. This pose is downright ubiquitous, everyone uses it. Is it cheating? I really don't think so. I use real life photos as reference all the time. It's a fundamental element of how you learn to draw: do studies till you're familiar with the subject, and then you can draw without refs. What's that? That's different because I use a photo, while Flux was using another artist's work? Well, I hate to break this to you, but Flux wouldn't be the first. You see, "copying from the masters" is a standard learning exercise. And I don't mean drawing some sticks and circles, I mean copying famous paintings and drawings verbatim. They did it in Renaissance Europe, they did it in ancient Japan, and they're still doing it today. Now... Flux didn't give credit. That's rude, totally not cool. Let's be honest, though, this was a faux pas. A minor oversight, which was quickly redacted. Hardly an infraction of the Artist’s Ten Commandments, or one of the Seven Deadly Artist’s Sins. Let's face it, plagiarism is reprehensible but I honestly think this was just an innocent mistake. Wanna know why? Okay, let's take a minute to look at why people plagiarize or steal art. Unwarranted reputation, for one. Artists generally steal work to make themselves look better than they actually are. I've known Flux since he first started getting into art, though, and I've never known him to take any such shortcuts to fame. The guy is constantly working hard to improve his abilities, and I've never once seen him cheat before. That's the main reason why I really think that using CandyClops' work as reference was nothing more than educational experience, rather than theft. Tracing is a really lazy way to make art, and that's one of the major reasons why plagiarized work is so contemptible. I've compared the two drawings, and Flux definitely wasn't tracing... no question there. He wasn't being lazy, either: the sticks-and-circles stage takes the least amount of effort, it's all the inking and coloring afterwards that's a pain. Profit's another motivation for such things... except that Flux wasn't drawing a commission. He isn't even taking commissions, so it's not like he's trying to attract undeserved clients. Well, there's always popularity... make yourself look better to attract followers. Except that if Flux was trying to attract followers, he'd have a lot more R#34 in his Tumblr and a lot less story-driven comics. Plus, that'd be Discorded Whooves and Derpy in the artwork, or Luna and one of the Royal Guards, or... well, you get the idea. His and his girlfriend’s OCs, on the other hand? Yea- no. That's not what I call pandering to an audience. (By the way: the OC's are married adults, making this some of the least illicit R#34 in the fandom I've ever seen) So, what is this really? Flux used some artwork for reference, and didn't credit the original artist. When objections were raised he took it down immediately, fully admitted to his mistake, and made an apology (sounds pretty responsible to me). Which CandyClops accepted. That's right: the matter has been settled between the two artists. What's the deal then? Why is Flux getting hounded (and his girlfriend too, for that matter)? The trolls smell blood in the water, that's what. This is harassment and nothing else, and any moral high-ground is just a pretense to spew forth vulgarities and abuse. It takes very little spin to make Flux look like a villain in this situation, making him an easy target for slander, but there's really no substance behind any of it. Seriously. There's actual plagiarism going on all the time, and people are twisting the subject like this to get a few desperate jollies by making life miserable for a legitimate artist? Is this supposed to come off as some kind of white-knighting attempt, or act of social justice? I don't think so. Like I said: this just gives allegations a bad name.

For Jasper, my OC, I chose a specific breed: Irish Sport Horse, aka Irish Hunter. I'd consider that the equivalent of picking a race.

This was very closely related to his personality and character concept, not to mention his physical build and appearance (though, I didn't realize until later that I'd made him Irish and gave him a green coat).

His swooshy forelock was inspired by Superman's iconic curl of hair. I wanted give him a sort of hunky-dreamy sort of look. The ponytail and black ribbon bow was inspired by 18th-century hairstyles (Think Will Turner or Lieutennant Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean).

I actually did draw Jasper as a human at one point... I really should dig that pic up, I liked how it came out.

Hey guys

I’m just wondering, do you people with like pony characters make up the specific way your character would look if it was a human- like hair styles, race, etc.

I mean like

do you decide on the race your characters

do you decide on the body type

i mean whut.

Last one, I swear: Watusi Cattle. I swear, these guys look like a cartoon rabbit snuck up behind them with a bicycle pump and inflated their horns.

*’m L*lling at this harder than * really should be.

*IoI. X3

if you c*nsor anything in a post you are l*gally required to put all of the omitted v*wels at the end as a footn*te

*eeoo

Here we have two of Syzygys pals from way back in the war: Cerbearursus, the three headed Grizzly, and Russel, the black bull, who is not black in this image because inking and rendering digitally would be way too much work... there’s a story behind Russles name, which I may tell at some point or another. We’ll see. I’m pretty sure I could do a whole webcomic of just these guys and Syz sitting together around a campfire telling war stories.

Funfact; I scribbled each of these guys in like five/ten minutes apiece, if that, and have never been able to draw either of them ever again. I didn’t even have refs for bulls or bears at the time (and it shows). Sometimes, magic just sort of happens, all by itself,  somewhere between the page and the pencil, and you spend the rest of your life trying to recapture it. They’re far from flawless, but even so, I dunno... I just like how they came out.

These pics are particularly messy: construction lines all over the place... you can still see most of the box I used to block in Cerbear. See why I don’t normally post my pencil drawings?

Follow up from the 3x3 headshots. Dun like the shape of the muzzle, but not too horrible otherwise.

Inked on paper, touched up in Photoshop. I did more editing on this one than I usually like to do... my hands were reeeally shaky, though, so the lines were even more shabby than usual. 

Edit: I like the new monogram I'm using. (Compare to the one on the pic of Galen.)

First decent shot of James. I usually avoid curtained hair like an old cliche, but it just seems to work for him. The inking went pretty well.

Principal character for a future comic.

I need to do more studies of bats. Argh.