Inktober 2019 Retrospective | Day 5: Distance

My understanding for how (or lack thereof) of how to draw rocks is taken almost entirely from how Akira Toriyama draws rocks. Haven't quite made them look as well-executed as he does. Ever, I think. Reads like rocks because of context, but ehhhhhhh. It is just occurring to me that I perhaps ought to look elsewhere for inspiration. Hmm...

While this picture passes the squint test, it's an adequate pass. Not so much flying colors and more gliding colors. Not every picture needs high contrast, but it often helps. It would help here, I believe. It's approaching muddiness.

Tried to mix up the textures with materials, but I think had I laid further into either or both media, this would have been better for it. In color, the rock would stand out as its own brown or grey, but the darkest value isn't that much different than the values on her. This may have been caused by the fact that I was filming this one. At least, it think it was. I was pressured to move quickly, not stay in one place for too long, finish before the phone died. There's a real plus in filming these, aside from just the record-keeping. But there's a downside, too. Rushing, rushing, rushing. I suppose I could add to it after the fact.

I do like this one, though. I like her design, more specifically, her execution. Her name is Fen. I'd had an idea of this little girl living alone in a shack in this Harvest Moon-like world. Over time, Fen would learn new skills, upgrade her tools, find new places, and expand her little shack. It was a cute idea, but I never really knew quite how to execute it. I'd given her a hammer she could smash rocks with, so that's it up there. She was a stubborn, curious, explorative type, Fen was.

Fun fact: It was supposed to be based on a video game world with video game rules, i.e. pockets that can hold a finite number of infinitely-sized objects, an abbreviated day-night cycle, hit points, the list goes on. I'd mentioned Harvest Moon before. I believe in one or more installments of Harvest Moon, the easiest crop to grow is turnips, but turnips also gives you exactly 0 EXP, so you can't just buff up by growing tons of turnips. From this, Fen's story was called "Turnips Don't Give You EXP," which was also the name of the first WiX site I ever made. As goofy as that sounds, that interpretation of "comic set in an unironic video game world" was the prototype for The Great Moon Wars! idea.

Also, no, you can't see the Turnip site because it's unfinished, unpublished, and bloody unattractive.

Thanks for reading.

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