Reileen van Kaile

I finally finished a commission for vyctori's original characters from her novel-in-progress. And I gotta say, it's looking pretty spiffy. o_O

( Allie, Colin, and Denver )

Incidentally, this picture was the inspiration/base for the style I did this commission in. I have a lot more work from this artist in my art reference folder - if only I knew who the hell this artist was so I could look up more stuff. ;_;

-Reileen
she's so lucky, she's a star

To make up for my posting drought (not that anyone noticed...), have a picture I just did of my friend's original character, Shinya Toshio the Esper.

( below the cut to save flists )

It's a bit of a change from my usual "outline-and-color" cel-shading style, and while it's taken me a while to get the hang of it, it's become very, very addictive. Mainly 'cause I don't have to futz about with getting super-smooth outlines when doing a picture in this style - all I gotta do is lay down some base outlines and then slap some color on that thang and I'm good to go. :D :D :D

In addition to discovering the joys of Photoshop painting, I've also been working on some scanslations of Japanese 4-koma for my two main fandoms, Bomberman and Golden Sun. It's a good thing I don't have much of a life at the moment...

-Reileen
welcome to my nightmare, I hope I didn't scare you

You ever notice that, no matter how much you believe that something you're showing off is crap, you still feel disappointed when you don't get (m)any compliments on it?

***

Shiroko's gonna have to go from the "Now Three" animation, assuming I still decide to attempt to continue to animate that thing. One of the problems brought up when I showed the prototype first half of the animation as my final project in ANI240 is that no one could decipher what her role was supposed to be in the context of the story. Not that I blamed them - I've had her character concept since January or February of this year, and I still have no idea what she's doing in the animation. Which, you know, is probably a very good sign that she doesn't belong. I think that's just as well, though: the story of Now Three truly has nothing to do with her - she was simply there because she could be. But now she won't be. (Instead, she'll star in a number of original CGs and will probably become my mascot of sorts. She's just too adorable to leave hanging.)

One more final to go. Let's see how badly I botch that one.

-Reileen
the same rain that draws you near me

( Charcoal drawings. Ho-hum. Not sure when I'll have actual art for you guys to see. )

I've really surprised myself in ART106 thus far. I almost never do observational drawings, and I don't use traditional media all that much, but these have turned out surprisingly decent. Now I want to experiment more with charcoal...though I don't know what I'd want to draw with it. Still, there's something creatively romantic about walking away from a drawing with blackened fingers. It's like the time I was working on aerithzstrife's oil painting and I had colors all over my fingers and arms. I love working in Photoshop and don't plan on stopping anytime soon, but I also feel at home getting into the mess of things. Kinda makes me feel like I've "earned" the title of artist. Now where are my stat bonuses, bitch?

***

Got myself a lime green 4GB iPod. Have named it Saria after the green-haired sage from Ocarina of Time, and am very amused by it.

-Reileen
so don't turn away now

Midway Games of Mortal Kombat fame was a homely little industrial building smack-dab in the middle of an industrial plain smack-dab in the middle of the North Side of Chicago. Well, okay, I don't know if it was actually in the middle of the North Side, but it was in the middle of something (like that ComEd plant). I took the Red Line to Addison, then got on the westbound #152 for a ten-minute bus ride to Addison and California, after which I hopped off and hiked one long, cold, and dreary block to the building.

Inside, we were greeted by a man named Stephan, who I think is the current director of game stuff at Midway. My ANI220 professor mentioned in class that he was French, and let me tell you, this Stephan guy had the "Frenchman director" look down to a T, with jeans, a turtleneck knit sweater, and even the freakin' beret. (Although to be fair, he lacked the curly black mustache. If he had sported one, I think I might've been a tiny bit scared.) Stephan was a knowledgeable, articulate speaker, and he led us through a tour of the hall of concept art for a game they're working on called Stranglehold, based on a John Woo movie. It was really fascinating to me to get a look at what's behind the inspiration for different parts of a production, whether it be a video game, an animation, or a movie. But here are two really important things that I learned that I'd like to share with the world:

1) Destroying things in games = very, very good. The more you can destoy, the better it is. Maximize destruction in as many ways as possible.
2) Chicago has no train yards. For that matter, neither do any of the other 49 states. Train yards are a nonentity in the U.S. of A. When trains die, that's it - they go bye-bye. There is no train afterlife. The atheist trains were right all along.

Overall, it was a really cool experience, and I've become convinced that this is a possible (and practical...relatively speaking) career path for me. I've always said that I'm more Greek than Roman, because I love playing around with ideas but throw hissy fits and sulk if I actually have to do anything with them. If I work as a concept artist, I can throw as much shit as I want out there and then have everyone else deal with the consequences! Or so it seems.

***

( The final results for my first assignment in ANI105 )

-Reileen
freedom is being alone