aka Allison.
30-something, married with cats, hobbyist doodler of doodlethings.
Daily doodles are on semi-hiatus. They're more like semi-daily doodles for now.
I like to reblog the occasional tutorial, other cool art, and random stuff that amuses me. I dig Supernatural, Doctor Who, MST3k, Mass Effect, and lots of other stuff that I won't list 'cause I could spend all day making it.
Good luck.
Over on the El-Jay, Quickreaver asked me for some recs on how-to-comic sites. Well, I’ve reblogged a few comic-specific tutorials here, and sometimes I like to wade through manga -apps on dA, but most of my suggestions are books. I’ve never really done a straight-up rec post, so this is short and sweet.
These are some of my fave books that I’ve picked up in the last few years. I don’t tend to use any of them as an exact script of what to do or how to do it, but I like to flip through them frequently for ideas and ponderings:
- The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics by Freddie E Williams II. This covers a decent amount of ground as the title suggests, and has some good suggestions on how to really use the digital format to great advantage for comic-ing.
- Making Comics by Scott McCloud was one of the first ones I got and really read, and is definitely a favorite. Lots of suggestions for various storytelling exercises, not just for drawing specifically but also for writing and creativity in general.
- Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Mestre. Okay so, I can’t really say a lot about the actual written content of this book, because I get too distracted by the pictures in it. It’s a great book just to flip through and feel inspired. His use of contrast is beautiful and I’d love to be able to use it so effectively in my own doodles some day.
This is just a quick list of some things that have helped to inspire me the most. I’m sure I’ve forgotten to list something, but these are books that are sitting immediately to my right on their shelf where I can stare at them. I also pick up magazines like ImagineFX (I think their annual comic special edition is still out right now?) and of course, I still read some comics - though nowhere near as many as I used to. Anyway, just dive in and play around and don’t be afraid to make a mess, because you’re going to learn something from each pic you do :)
So that’s my humble mini-list. If anyone has more suggestions to add, or specifically websites like she’d originally asked for, that’d be fab.
Edit: Sonicscribblings adds:
Love these books - I own all three :D Another I’d mention is Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics.” It really breaks the reading and creating of comics down to a science.
So I called off sick today, and Jake was more than happy to keep me company while I napped… in fact, he was perfectly happy to stay in bed even after I managed to crawl out of it…
Man my phone takes crappy pics -_-
Today at work I built a replica of the Sears/Willis Tower out of money and my glasses. I took a few pictures with my phone, but then co-worker #2 had to take the fun out of it by reminding me that taking photos of assets while inside our office may not be one of my smarter moves. doh.
I’ve had a decent amount of new followers lately, so I figured this was as good a time as any for a spontaneous mini-info dump about m’self.
My name is Allison, of course. I count money and solve related issues to said money for a living, which is not as awesome as it sounds most of the time (but admittedly could be a lot worse). My household consists of myself, one husband (Mr. Ammo), two cats (Jake and Elwood, and yes, they are brothers), and one mother (momcat).
The nick “Ammo” came about way, way back in my early days of interneting, when I was trying to come up with a clever nickname with a friend. Basically it developed from saying my initials outloud, which at the time were AML. They’re now AMM, so it worked out.
Most of my artwork is done in Painter 12, although I frequently use Photoshop Elements for coloring. Occasionally I use Manga Studio 4. I don’t do as much traditional art as I used to, but I like to play with Copic Markers. Last year, Mr. Ammo built an awesome new computer for me that wouldn’t freeze up or crash one or two times a week. I named it Castiel. My previous pc was Tardis, and before that were Jack and Hal (my first wee pc back in the day).
Dream jobs I’ll probably never get around to having, but still would like to someday: Radio DJ or foley artist.
Some things I like: Dragons, Supernatural, Coldplay, Doctor Who, Mass Effect, comics, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Star Wars, Talking Heads, U2, the Uncharted franchise, Rock Band, cats, chocolate, making up new and questionably improved lyrics to songs, Warcraft, Inception, Firefly, murlocs, BT, iced coffee, Wacom products.
A few artists I admire that I can think of right off the top of my head: Amanda Conner, Mucha, Arthur Rackham, Alan Davis, Phil Noto and Drew Struzan.
And this has gotten long. Thank you all for joining me here! Now let’s have some cookies.
I am home.
I survived the Dominican Republic. I have the sunburns to prove it.
I have sooo much catching up to do, but first,
Hello again, lovely people :3
…tomorrow I’m leaving for a week’s vacation in a warm, tropical, and sandy place. So daily doodles are unfortunately stopping for a few days. Hopefully I’ll pick up again on Sunday the 25th. I will be dragging some oldskool sketchbooks along, but can’t say how much they may actually get used. *nod*
Blog Hiatus 9/17 - 9/25.
Be well everyone, and have a fantastic week. :)
Going to ramble for a moment, bear with me, please.
I think one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most with my fake animation screencap stuff as of late, is that it’s really making me focus on my line art, keeping it as clean and the lines as simple to read as possible. I’ve mentioned “inking” and “line art” a lot for the last few months, because it’s been very important to me lately to improve that aspect of my art. I think in the last few weeks, I’ve really shown - to myself at least - that I’ve made a huge jump. I like my messy, chunky inking look that I’ve developed, but I don’t intend for it to look sloppy. At least not all the time. I can do nice, neat lines. They’re not always perfect, but perfection isn’t always interesting.
So uh, my morning wake up work. Same face, different characters.
We got congratulated at work this week, for being the only office in the district to properly carry over a new system that was implemented. It wasn’t hard, I just read the directions. I barely had to do anything. I even had another office call me to ask questions on how to proceed. It caused a ton of problems in other locations. When did reading comprehension become so difficult? This isn’t exactly brain surgery.
In other work-related news, my attempt at a four-day weekend has come to an unfortunate end, as our supervisor has messed up our alternating Saturdays, and the one I was hoping to use for trading went to the person I wanted to trade with. Doh.
