Latest Posts by whitefoxart - Page 2

Stream's over... I would have gone for longer, but eyestrain decided to kick me in the head. I'll probably do some more later in the week. 

Thanks to everyone who came out!

A random little drawing of Spooks, just hanging around.

I start livestreaming, and what's the first thing I do?

Make a banner for my Livestream, of course. Eyup.

Still streaming!

Livestream is Streaming Lively

WhiteFox Art Studio: Come on in, everyone's welcome.

Chat rules:

Be polite, be civil.

If there's a problem in the chat, bring it up with me or a mod.

Posting of links is allowed, as long as they're personal (ie: your tumblr, dA, or FimFic page), or relevant to the conversation.

Stream is mostly SFW: no R#34, no graphic violence. Other than that, I don't object to people discussing mature subjects, there may be some blood or nudity in the art I work on, and I'll be very surprised if I go the whole night without saying a few bad words.

Discussion is encouraged, arguing is not. If you want to share your opinions, by all means do so... do not rant endlessly, shout down others, or get your panties in a bunch. Listen as much as you talk.

Roleplaying is fine, as long as you aren't obnoxious about it. Chatting in-character is okay: inane slap-fights, zaney madcap antics, and inappropriate displays of affection can get annoying if they're taken too far.

This list of rules is not comprehensive. If I say something is not allowed, it's not allowed.

What's on the schedule?

Purely digital painting and drawing. Which I've never done very much of, so it should be hilarious watching my epic flails. Bluey suggested doing some urban scenery, so I'll probably be trying some of that.

Perceptionality character art.

Scanning, editing, and colouring of an Unplanned Adventure Comic page.

I might be taking a few requests, on an "if I feel like doing it" basis. If I can get my web cam set up with a minimum of fuss, I'll stream the traditional media part. Or something

Art critique and commentary: if you have work you'd like feedback on, or there's a particular subject you wanna hear me talk about, go ahead and ask. I'll see what I can say about it.

During breaks, I may be putting on a movie or something. Probably R.E.D., we'll see.

I may sing a little bit.

Well! I think that's everything, so let's get this trainwreck started!

Online, Five By Five, Alive and Amplified

Well, I finally got my internet all hooked up at home. You know what that means?

We's gonna be Livestreamin's tonight! Probably 4 or 5 hours from now... That's gonna be around 6:30PM (Eastern Standard Time) for me, 5:30 for those of you in on the east coast of the US, 4:30 in the central US and Mexico, and 6:30AM for those of you in the middle of Russia or Indonesia.

Still taking suggestions/requests for what to do! I'm gonna be drawing stuff this afternoon and screwing around with it digitally for the Livestream... if you'd like to see something, now's the time to speak up. Ask and Submit buttons are right over, you know how to use 'em. I might take requests in the stream, but I'd rather do the drawing and inking on paper in advance (I have a webcam, so I may be able to stream some traditional work. I don't have any of it actually set up yet, tho, so that's speculative at this point).

One thing in particular: If anyone has B/W or grayscale lineart they'd like to see coloured and rendered, I'd totally be up for doing some of that.

At any rate... see you there!

Mod pic! Because reasons.

People don't really seem to believe me when I say that I usually look like a total psycho... you be the judge.

I'm not in a bad mood or anything here... this is just my typical "game face" whenever I'm drawing. I'm not kidding: I spend eight hours a day staring at my sketchbook like this... small wonder I get eyestrain so often.

Suggestions for Art to Livestream?

After two months of going without, I'm finally getting set up with internet service at home (no more mooching off of various fast-food establishments and public libraries with free wi-fi!).

First thing I plan to doing is Livestreams of art stuff. However, Perceptionality is a B/W, traditional-media comic, and the only digital work required is clean-up, typesetting, and graphic design elements. Not particularly fun to watch, I wouldn't think.

So: If anyone has suggestions or requests, let me hear 'em! I'll draw whichever ones seem like the most fun or interesting. Once I'm set up for the livestreamin's (hopefully not more than a couple of days from now), y'all can watch me clean and colour the stuff. And listen to me ramble about stuff non-stop. There will probably be music too. I guess.

I won't be drawing extreme violence or porn (though I will draw tasteful nudity) but aside from that, anything goes. I'm not kidding. Fan art, OC's, art styles ranging from anime to realistic to pre-raphaelite, sci-fi or fantasy or modern day, scenery and backgrounds are cool, whatever you can think of.

(This is gonna be a catastrophe, I just know it.)

(...I'm okay with that: should be fun)

So it's my birthday. I drew myself a gift for it.

It's lazy, but I feel like being lazy right now. No jubilant celebrations or anything, just a quiet day to myself.

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.

I saw this tutorial years ago, it's invaluable. Seriously you guys.

http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Abdomination-How-to-draw-beef-132538271 < Source

Some interesting background trivia regarding Princes Taco:

Originally she was going to be a Queen, but Hasbro intervened because Disney had established the trend that Queens were evil and Princesses were good.

Loren Faust came up with the premise for Princess Taco's debut episode, but most of the script and character design was handled by the rest of the crew, since Loren had left the team at that point. She was surprised to see Taco appear as an alicorn when the episode aired, as her original concept was for a unicorn.

Prince Fajita was originally going to be Prince Burrito, but Hasbro had lost the copyrights for the original G1 character. Loren combined the appearance of G1 Burrito and the name of G2 Fajita. Also, he was originally going to be Duke Fajita, but again, Hasbro intervened because Duke sounded evil.

When asked where Princess Taco was during The The Best Night Ever, the writers said that they hadn't even considered giving her and appearance, and she never even came up during production. Fans raged, but Taco's episode in Season 2 was very well received.

Taco's dress appears several times on a rack in the background of Rarity's shop, and is frequently reused as a set piece or prop. However, the taco is in fact her cutie mark, and is so large it just looks like an item of clothing.

True story.

two images for the new tumblr I’m drawing for, AskprincessTaco . I don’t know why I do these things to myself.

During my stream I drew that second picture and somehow that started the legacy of Princess Taco. PrinceShootingStar made the tumblr when I mentioned that I totally would if I didn’t, you know, have two ask blogs and an art blog already. So now I’m drawing somestuff for him and AskPrincessTaco. :P

(Also thanks to Whitefox for all of the amusing hasbro quips during the stream)

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.

Unplanned Adventure Comics!

'Kay, so... after helping Verzi with his little April Fools stunt, I've come to a realization: I plan way, way too much. Seriously. Whenever I start up a comic, I spend months doing preparation work. Lame.

So I started a new tumblr: Unplanned Adventure Comics! In three days, I'm gonna start posting comics based on whatever I come up with on the spot, and just run with it. You guys can submit material for me to make use of, using the ask button (Labled "Suggest Something Unplanned") Or the submit button, I guess (Labled "Submit").

A few guidelines:

You can make suggestions for anything: characters, plot, setting, themes, art style, items, genre, you name it.

No copyrighted material. This is going to be all original material, I'm not gonna be throwing Naruto/MLP/MegaMan in there. I am willing to do something inspired by existing franchises, however. Parody, satire, spoof, or similar basic concepts.

Likewise, I'm not going to be inserting other people's characters. I'm looking for suggestions and ideas, not full character biographies. I want to sorta make this up as I go along, after all.

Once the "story" actually get going, there will probably be some homestuck/Ask Woona sorta stuff, where the story advances based on what the readers suggest, with a bit of whatever-I-feel-like thrown in for good measure.

So! You have two days: Do your worst, and I'll give you my best. Let's see what happens.

Capoeira is really fun to draw.

I was in a livestream last Friday, and asked for a challenge... a photo of something that'd be really hard to draw.

First thing I got was a picture of a hand, but I draw hands all the time. Second was this portrait. Bald guy, really bold lighting with strong shadows, and all I had were H2 leads.... that was more like it. So, here's the results.

This took about... I dunno, I wanna say an hour and a half, two hours? Probably needs another solid hour of work to tighten up stuff like the ears and the nostril.

Anyway... came out alright, I guess.

I'll take this as a point of pride. :3

Here's to the next 200 followers!

246 to be precise, and it’s all thanks to your interest and support, while I left out a lot of people (specially Fox, damn I can’t draw your characters without messing them up),

You're a Superstar

I was reading up on stellar nucleosynthesis today... turns out, any chemical elements other than hydrogen, helium, and lithium are created by the immense heat and pressure in the heart of a sun. Elements heavier than nickle are only created by type-II supernovae. Which means that trace quantities of your body were made in the death of a massive star. A heavenly body that was 8 to 50 times the mass of our sun, and one to ten billion years old. You have some of that inside you. I like to think that's a pretty big deal.

Hey, look. I drew some keywork 'cuz I was bored. Then I inked it, really really badly.

True story.

I might do more of these, they're good practice. Straight lines aren't exactly my strong point.

On paper, this is 12 cm across... just under five inches. I really should be able to manage one about half as big, we'll see how that turns out.

Concept sketch for a piece of cover art... Evangelion Unit-01 suplexing a cyborg dinosaur into a volcano full of beer.

Long story. Don't ask.

Man, I've been neglecting my tumblr.

Not dead, just busy. I'm trying to get this comic thing started, which involves a lot of design and concept sketches. Which are messy. So, I'm filling out three pages of sketchbook a day, but very little of it is presentable.

...And drawing dodecahedrons. I'll post about that some other time.

Here's another charcoal thing, I love it. Windy oaks have got to be the very epitome of spooky trees. 

More charcoal stuff.  Perspective is fun.

I might work on it a little more yet, who knows.

Edit: tumblr shrunk the image, and it looked crappy, so I reuploaded with one that I shrunk myself.

INFP... INFP... Luna-? Sweet!

bringing this back

http://16typequiz.com/quiz.html

find your results and tell me what pony you are

I’m Luna~

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. 

Gift for a friend. I hope he likes it.

'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. 

I got an early Christmas present... a set of charcoal pencils and sticks, and a pad of paper suitable for them. Lucked out really: charcoal was the last thing on my list of things to play around with that I hadn't yet acquired the materials for. Pretty well the only thing missing was a tortillion, of which I already had a few.

I spent an afternoon playing around, getting a feel for them, but this is the first drawing I've taken the time to sit down and put some effort into.

The process was pretty straight forward: I sketched the figure with an HB charcoal pencil, then darkened the lines and filled in the shade with a 4B. After that, it was a steady cycle of blending with a tortillion, lightening patches with a light application of 4mm eraser stick or kneaded eraser, laying down more charcoal where needed, and back to blending again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Man, I love this stuff! It's much better for heavy shade than graphite, and it doesn't make as much of a mess as I thought it would. Charcoal doesn't compare to india ink for pure, solid black, I don't think anything could, but the charcoal is so much more workable. I don't mind the time and effort it takes to build up a ton of hatching with a nib pen, but all you can do is build up. Being able to lay down, blend, and erase charcoal was an utter delight. 

I might do a few more pages of that steampunk comic I worked on a while back, just for something to do in charcoal.

Portrait I drew this afternoon. It started out as a warmup, but turned into a little exercise. When I draw, I'm usually very sketchy. When I want to do something with a little more finish, I do a moderately-sketchy drawing, and ink it as neatly as I'm able. It's a bad habit, and one I've been trying to correct for... well, years now. So I tried to get things as neat as I could reasonably manage.

Came out okay... better than my usual, at least. If I'd been sensible, I would have used something softer than an H2. 

This is Caleb, pilot of an interplanetary courier shuttle. It's a bit of a hotrod: all engines and reactor, minimal cargo and passenger capacity. His parents operate a large mining operation in an asteroid field but he wants to prove his competence before taking over the family business, so he's taking some time to make it on his own and earn a reputation. Fielders are big on that sort of thing.

I freakin' love Huskies. 

I just noticed that I forgot to add some black around his right eye. Blorg.

Quick little study of my hand, 5-10 mins. Hands seem to put most artists on guard, but I love drawing 'em. Well, maybe more of a love-hate thing. I wasted half my time in high-school drawing my left hand.

Sweet Celestia in a bucket... when I sketch, I just fling lead everywhere, don't I? Tho, some of that is actually hair on my knuckles. I'm kinda scruffy.

Does that mean this counts as furry art? Guh.

Sketch of a heavily-armoured gauntlet for Galen. I liked how it came out, so I inked and coloured it.

You know you're  in a rough line of work when the dress code includes reactive armour plating. 

I just realized something.

Mirrors don't flip something left to right. They flip things front to back.

This is, officially, blowing my mind.

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.)