Blue Frog's Thread Spam

[Blue Frog]

Couple of things to unload here...

The first is a random painting following Nastyjungle's tutorial; I like it but feel like it's still a bit too blurry despite retaining bits of lineart:

Then there's my entry for the PS! Art Room Contest:

And finally an image for the mentor mini-tournaments. I'm very happy with it—I really like its smoothness:

edit: i drew this after seeing that versilify video about smogon's ban of mega lucario:

 

[Kingler]

Whoa, really like the one with the Snorlax and Rotom-F :o

 

[Blue Frog]

Here's a quick doodle practicing the gradient style again

Teddiursa is one of the cutest Pokemon imo

 

[Blue Frog]

So today is the first anniversary of this art thread, and really the anniversary of my time on Smogon as a whole. In commemoration for this, I drew an image featuring every blue frog Pokemon:

​

It's hard to believe that it's already been a year since I started posting here, but I'm so happy that I did. When I first posted this thread, I didn't even read the rules (:O), so if I accidentally broke a rule and got the thread locked, I probably wouldn't be here right now. This thread is special to me because it pretty much represents my entire time on Smogon so far—it basically logs my journey with art over time; the only reason that I've gotten to the level I am at now is because I forced myself to draw and post in this thread. And, I feel this date is quite fitting, since that the Smog Awards came out today and I won Most Improved Artist. Winning a Smog Award was something in the back of my mind when I began doing art here, but it was something that I never really thought would become a reality until it did. Thanks to everyone who voted for me!

Smogon is the first and only online community that I have ever joined, and I can honestly say that it has affected me greatly. I've learned so much from being here—and not just art-wise. Probably one of the biggest things I've learned is how to handle rejection; I remember at the beginning of my Smogon career when I got warned on a CAP thread for breaking the size rules and didn't look at CAP for the rest of the project, only because I was too scared and self-deprecating to go back. Now, I've learned that rejection is important to help you grow and see where you need to improve—I can't tell you how many times a piece that I've tried to submit to The Smog has been rejected by Bummer because of quality issues. But because of those failures, I've been able to set goals for myself and really focus in on honing my skills in things like anatomy and lighting, which I didn't even realize were issues for myself at the time. Rejection also acts as a reality check for me; especially when coming from a generation where you are praised for being able to tie your shoes correctly, it's really important to have something that can keep you humble and stop you from getting an inflated ego. Most of the kids in my school don't like drawing and so they tell me that I am some sort of drawing prodigy, but then I come here and I see all the amazing artists and I realize that I have so much more to work on. It's a genuinely humbling experience.

I am also extremely happy with all the people I've met in my time here. I'm not sure why Smogon has such a bad reputation, because everyone I've worked with has been unbelievably supportive, helpful, and just plain nice overall. The idea of making friends online was so foreign to me before I came here, but that's no longer the case. I'm really hoping I can strengthen the friendships I've made, and to possibly contribute to other parts of the site and meet new users. I should probably use IRC more as well.

So, yeah. It's been one year, and I'm hoping that I will be here for many more. Sorry for writing so much.

 

[Blue Frog]

I'm going to try updating this thread more often now because I've let it die in the past few days...

Painting following icepick's tutorial, I figured out that making dots for highlights looks cool

I like the colors of this piece, which I completed last week but never posted because of procrastination.

I haven't been drawing as much lately because of schoolwork, but I'm going to make a bigger effort to continue practicing! I have to spam this thread more :P Requests are very much welcomed!

 

[Kingler]

The Cradily looks pretty cool.
Also tympole is a tadpole ;-;

 

[Regime]

i was just stalking your thread and your earlier pieces. And, I mean, I've come from this:http://agous.deviantart.com/art/Shedninja-iPhone-Version-410305053

but you sir. you better than me atm, and you were better when you started off!

youve improved so much! congrats on that award!

 

[Blue Frog]

Also tympole is a tadpole ;-;

same difference ;-;

i was just stalking your thread and your earlier pieces. And, I mean, I've come from this:http://agous.deviantart.com/art/Shedninja-iPhone-Version-410305053

but you sir. you better than me atm, and you were better when you started off!

youve improved so much! congrats on that award!

Thank you so much! You're improving super rapidly too—keep it up!

I made this post to respond to all the nice users and not to post art (I haven't gotten around to drawing much still...) so here's some past art that i never got around to posting:

a pair of cute kyurems that was going to be submitted for art for articles but I decided they weren't good enough

an "experimental" image that ended up really overdone


and art for couple of smog articles that were shelved:

Hide

for "A History of Kalos" (shelved from last issue)

for an article about BW LC S-rank (this was from October 2013)

and finally a big thing inspired by the many beautiful abstract images by Andrew

page-filly

 

[Regime]

OMFG that LC piece and the Volcarona is brilliant

 

[Blue Frog]

Bisharp sure is classy.

I drew this following Bummer's new tutorial, and I have to say that I really like this style. I'm still trying to find a main style to stick with, and it's either this or the gradient style right now.

also

 

[Blue Frog]

happy easter

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm sorry for not keeping up with this thread like I said I would, but I HAVE been working on stuff in my absence. I have been learning human anatomy and proportions (I might post some sketches later) and more conclusively, I managed to participate in the CAP art submissions without being warned or disqualified!

SO to make a proper thread revival I shall post my progress in that event:

First, an alternative design that I didn't go with due to there being way too many similar designs in the mix already; now that I look at it it probably fits the stats and abilities better than the design I did go with, but whatever. I like my lobster.

Next is my initial version of a boiling sea creature concept. It didn't flow too well, having way too many weird markings and such, so when user hellothisismuffin suggested that I change it to lobster, I decided to try it out, and ended up with my final design:

Here's the final submission; it was well recieved by a lot of people, so for that I am happy. There's not much to explain other than what is in the actual final submission post, so if you really want to see my flavor reasoning and such, you can check it out here.

Finally, here's some supplementary art for my submission.

All in all, participating in CAP this time around was a fun experience; there were so many amazing designs from other artists as well. I'm definitely participating in the next contest.

Well, I'm not going to make any promises about posting, but hopefully this thread revival actually revived my thread. Goodbye for now!

 

[spiresquire]

These are all just gorgeous. :D

 

[hellothisismuffin]

I said it once and I'll say it again, Gotta love that lobster

EDIT: Damn blast it! It didn't get into the 2nd poll. Kudos to all the other artists but damn, I wanted this cute fella. Oh well.

 

[Blue Frog]

I've finally managed to scan and resize many of my anatomy sketches, but not all of them because there are a lot ;.;

My main sources for learning are Andrew Loomis and Deviantart, and so far I've still been working on the male figure, which leads to many awkward situations when people look at what I'm doodling at school. Still, I think I'm making progress (the sketches are in each hide tag are in chronological order), but there's much more to do. I'm not familiar with the back view or the muscles, and I definitely can't draw hands and feet yet.

studies

andrew loomis manikin poses

back view + a drawing of some watchmen character that I copied from a library book during a free period

I also have several sketches of Pokemon where I attempted to reduce them to basic shapes first and then draw them, because I normally don't (even though I should). They are extremely unrefined and ugly (I didn't use an eraser), but I wanted to see how good I was at sketching this way, and evidently I still need a lot of work. I also did the same exercise with an elephant, where I drew one from the reference and then tried to create my own pose for it using the same proportions.

Hide

In light of all this gritty practice I also managed to make one refined digital piece of Mega-Gardevoir (I know I drew it already but whatever, I like it), which I'm quite happy with:

Please feel free to give me feedback and stuff. I need a lot.

 

[princessofmusic]

Those anatomy studies aren't half bad. Just keep it up, and at least you're practicing "the right way" as some might say by working your way up from the basics.

As someone in the sprite project, I've had plenty of opportunities to look at Mega Gardevoir and I can tell you you've gotten the pleats of her dress wrong. Granted, you could just chalk it up to artistic license, but it's a good idea to study references closely when you're drawing something to get all the details right. Aside from that, the piece does look good overall. I like her pose, even though I can't tell what she's doing lol.

I looked through everything itt recently, out of curiosity. You've come a loooong way, kiddo. On this page alone, I like the colours in the Volcarona piece, the humour in the Snorlax/Rotom one, and the fact that you just seem like... hardcore dedicated to improving. FYI, for each of the drawings that followed a tutorial, I could recognize the imitated artist's style instantly before reading the description, eheh.

You seem like a genial kid with a great, positive attitude towards art and everything really. I'll be rooting for you, and I'm also pretty sure that you're better than me at art when I was your age.

also, ellie goulding has a pretty rad voice; i should really listen to more of her music.

 

[Klinks Awakening]

I've haven't been caught up with your work for a long time so I gotta say you've been constantly improving! Keep doing more of this plz.

 

[Blue Frog]

princessofmusic Thank you so much for your post. It's true that I've been pretty dedicated to improving (less so now, because high school is hard :/ ), and most of the progress I've made is solely because of my time on Smogon and SS. Anatomy and proportions have definitely been a weak point for me, and I'm still working on getting down some basics like lines and lighting. Hopefully I'll improve over time.


Now for some art:

A really old thing for the latest Smog on an article about BW NU.

This was for an RMT by Mizuhime, which you should check out here because it's really cool ^.^

 

[Hollymon]

I love that BW Nu one where they are in the rain! The water splashing effect is great! At first I thought that the Tornadus dancing with Scizor was actually a fusion, the Scizor leg covers the Tornadus leg and Scizors arms look like they are Tornadus arms! Actually that has inspired me to do a fusion between them!! But anyway, your art has improved SOOO much from when you first started, I hope you keep going and I know school is hard because my school have had exams so I haven't done nothin' for ages.

 

[Blue Frog]

bumping

Hide

this was a logo request by Scene for the PS! Staff Interviews, though it hasn't been implemented yet:

This was a request by Psychological for his RMT (go check it out, it's really cool):

I had the honor to design the logo for the Player, and I really hope it succeeds as a project and people like my logo:

And finally I did a banner for the PS! Doubles Room:

 

[Blue Frog]

Well I've decided to revive my Fakedex, but I'm scrapping the old Pokemon/Region/Story and starting completely from scratch. Magistrum had a really cool template for each of his Pokemon, outlining each and every attribute, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps by making my own less great template. Here's an example, using my CAP 18 submission which I have affectionately dubbed "Lobstew":

Of course, I don't have 67 Fakemon yet (I kind of just pressed two random numbers and hoped for the best), but I guess that's a good goal to reach: at least 67 Pokemon. This will be an ongoing project featuring new ideas, not the hodgepodge of new stuff + super old elementary-school grade material that resulted in my disaster of a Fakedex thus far.

Out of 67, I've managed to come up with 9 so far (10 if you count Lobstew), but have only digitalized and templated the first three, the grass starters, based off of tarsiers found in Southeast Asia—

big

Also, this is as good a time as ever to announce my hiatus from Smogon for the next several weeks as I have IRL activities to tend to. I might still lurk on my phone, but I won't be posting and I definitely won't be able to fulfil requests, something that may persist even after I return. Thanks so much for all the requests thus far, but now I'd like to focus on learning the basics and experimenting a bit more.

 

[Blue Frog]

Rescued from the second page!

During my three-week absence, I didn't have access to a computer, though I still doodled and read a PDF of Andrew Loomis off my phone. I have a few of those doodles here, though there are many more; I just chose the ones that weren't surrounded with notebook work:

terrible quality from a mobile scanning app

Most of these were done without a reference, so they aren't very good :/ I focused on angles of the face (which I struggled with) and emotion:

I also took the images of Pyroar and Bjork (if you couldn't tell) and refined them digitally on my parents' computers:

The reason I had to use my parents' computers was that my own computer was apparently stolen by some TSA agent at the airport (which partly contributed to my delay in updating this thread). Luckily my dad has Photoshop on his computer for some reason (he definitely never uses it) so I still got to draw. The next two Pokemon pieces were my attempts at experimentation, which were fun to do because I didn't really worry about proportions (I did try to incorporate my knowledge in human anatomy), though the final results are kind of disturbing (watch out for the Delphox in particular).

very weird

The bright side to losing my computer was that I was able to get a new one, a Windows instead of a Mac, which allowed me to download Paint Tool SAI. I've already done some Smog art with it (can't present that until release, though), and so far I'm really liking the program.

I also decided that it was time for a new avatar (sorry Ellie :/), so I spent a while drawing blue frogs with SAI. I really wanted to paint my avatar, but none of the paintings came out good, so I finally relented and used a similar style to what I've been doing recently. This was the final result:

failed attempts

Well that was a big art dump. I think it's the biggest so far in the whole thread. I hope that I'll be able to update it quicker; I still going to keep requests closed for the time being just so I can keep experimenting.

EDIT: It seems I haven't posted my CAP 18 Pre-Evo Submission yet:

 

[Blue Frog]

The first issue of the Player is out!! It's really awesome, and I'm super proud to have been able to contribute so much for. I made its logo (seen in some above post), cover art and one more piece for "recently on PS!":

(I'm extremely happy with this)

the other one:

Art for articles:

Also, this is a quadruple post! I didn't think I would actually be spamming my thread much these days (I was contemplating changing its title), but apparently I am. If anyone has anything to say—nice, mean, constructive (which is ideal)—please post. My only hope in this thread is improvement, so feel free to tell me any weaknesses that I should work on :)

 

[Regime]

Gosh this is awesome. I mean I've seen the cover for over a day now, and it is just so awesome. The lighting, and the poses, and the filter all tie in to make it look EPIC.

Delibird looks amazing as well, especially the papers. When dealing with common items such AS paper, you must get it looking good. And you definitely succeeded. One thing I can recommend, something I learned from Bummer, is that you never need unnecessary items in the image. In this case, the "read all about it". I feel like it perfectly conveys the image without this piece of text, and would still look awesome. :)

The A4A piece looks incredibly. No doubt.

 

[Blue Frog]

In the big scheme of things recieving a badge isn't significant enough for commemoration, but it's special to me, and so I wanted to do something special for this post. I decided to look back to the first page of this thread and redraw some of the images—namely, the Politoed closeup, the Swalot/Kirby/Gulpin picture, and my first MAC entry, the surreal Gardevoirs. I didn't redraw them as carbon copies (the Gardevoir piece, in particular, was changed to something almost completely different and pretty experimental), but it was fun to see how I could handle the concepts and compare the new product to the old one. I also provided the old pieces, for reference.

Politoed Closeup

OLD

NEW

Swalot/Kirby/Gulpin

OLD

NEW

Surreal Gardevoirs

OLD

NEW

I know that it's not really customary to make special posts for getting a badge, but I wanted to anyway, in order to thank all the people who have helped me get to this point. I realize that people don't really care about TL;DR posts like this one, so I'll keep this short and tag all the people who have made my time here more enjoyable (I hope one more alert isn't too annoying).

DISCLAIMER: I'm very forgetful, so there's a huge chance I left people out. If you manage to stumble upon this post without me tagging you and you think you should have been, then please post to let me know I forgot you.

Bummer, Regime, chameleonskyes, Governess, Hollymon, Hollywood, Oglemi, Magistrum, Vacate, Andrew, Scene, Kingler12345, Snaquaza, Electrolyte, Audiosurfer, Zracknel, thanks so much for supporting me in my Smogon career thus far! I've learned so much from you guys and it's been an honor to work alongside all of you, and I'm excited to work with you and the other awesome people on this site in the future.

Given the overall sentimental tone of this post I should probably avoid posting my latest MAC entry, but whatever:

​

 

[princessofmusic]

I didn't mention this when you first posted it, but I honestly feel your logo for The Player looks really, really sweet. Like, I sort of can't believe you made it... and hopefully, that doesn't come across as a back-handed compliment oh lord. Your redraws are extremely impressive, especially the Politoed and the food chain one in the middle. I don't know if you still consider yourself a novice artist these days because you always sound so humble, but imo the new badge and the quality of your artwork now says otherwise. Congrats once more, and I'll spare you another horrifying airplane pun.