I have to say, this is the most absent I've ever been from deviantArt!

Thus, I would like you to know of things that have been happening till now and what exactly is to come. The past month has been rough without a personal computer. Life cannot get any more... dull. I most definitely thrive on the internet I could get on the internet in snatches here and there, but nothing definite.

I have a unhappy feeling that this place may see even more infrequent postings until holidays or breaks in my schedule. In two days, I will be opening a new page in my educational career. Due to its demands, I fear that my art will suffer dreadfully both in depth and frequency.

In light of that, I will do my utmost best to keep this place alive. In no way will I abandon this account, even if it sits quiet for (always) too long.

I assure you, my story still lives, my characters still breathe, and my pencil still scratches any and all sheets of paper to cross its path, no matter what - and one of these days, I may surprise this account with a deluge of art!

Much love,
Lila

So, over the past few weeks, I've been trying to keep a steady sketchblog. [link]


Hell, like that worked.


But, I have revived it somewhat. Anyhow, it will have the goodies that I don't really feel like to drudge through and upload on dA. Goodies? Maybe not really goodies, but the sketchy junk that I love seeing from my favorite artists. Basically, they are what I do during lectures, those things which I should not be doing but do so anyways. -I will stab you if you take away my pencil, I swear.-

Anyways, a couple of those sketches do appear in the scraps section of my gallery here, but majority of them will be there. I hope to expand a little bit more of the world and happenings about Abaeran, my original character. I don't think I feel confident enough to expose my writings to the face of the world (I am already my worst critic...), but snippets may appear there.

For all things Abaeran, sketchy, random and simply me, check it out! (Let's be friends, yes?)



<Edit> Assassin's Creed is here. *ahhhhhhhhh! finally!* At least, I must set my hands on the artbook.....

-Lila

I just got so tired of the /eyesores/ and the non-finished collections of WIPs, sketches, etc. etc. accumulating and laying like dud blocks of lead in the gallery. So, I scrapped just about half of my gallery.

Posting everything has made me rather lazy - I have not finished works, leaving things just at sketches and I've seemed proud of just that. While time is not to my favor, I need this to change, and by wiping out my gallery by scrapping a lot of my older works along with these deviant duds, I feel a lot more refreshed.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing sketches and WIPs. But for me, they will not continue their presence in the forefront my gallery. A gallery is something one is proud of, and these were just accumulating and making me tired. The one thing that kept me from just completely deleting my old drawings is the fact that, wow - I have improved. There is progress; there is hope. So, I have those oldies to show me that practice does make perfect, and only by smudging my fingers, getting good and dirty with my growing stacks of drawings will I ever achieve one step closer to that vague perfection.

I have just rolled up my sleeves and carefully placed aside the deviations that don't belong.

And- I feel awesome.

So, I finally, after all these years of wishing wishing wishing, got a tablet and it mailed in to my front door, on a very rainy Saturday evening (the box was sopping wet). It's a small wacom one (yay!), but cute enough that I love it for every square inch represented.

I've been experimenting with the programs that came with it (a very outdated Corel 2.0 - but something is better than nothing) and I've realized... color is hard! It takes me an excruciatingly long period of time to plan, test, then finally lay down color on my few traditional works that I have... and here, I can do anything - watercolor, acrylics, oils, spraypaint! - and I'm pretty lost. So, I've been messing around, understanding it is a learning curve. A steep learning curve... (woo, I guess I expected that I would suddenly hop into painter and whip out some extraordinary colored sensation...) Apparently not.

I've been paying attention to the fantastic computer graphic works out there (I realize the incredible amount of workmanship behind them now)... reading 78 hours of work, bleh blah bleh and I'm thinking - oh. I never realized how much time actually goes into pieces since I tend to do them during classes (bad habit! bad habit!)... but yes, I see, it will take time.

I also realize, traditional painting techniques are to be followed in the virtual painter... another thing I need to smooth out. Some color theory too. And lighting (where is all the light coming from?!).

So, for all my blabbing, I realize I'm so incredibly excited to enter the world of color, but my goodness - it's one big leap! (For all of you who have already journeyed into color - wow, I have such great appreciation and I applaud you for your awesome skills )

*holds trusty pencil in one hand and tablet pen in other*

It takes time. It takes time.

-Lila

I received a very pleasant surprise today! My Prelude (WIP) drawing received a nice little feature in "The NEW Dragons of deviantART - Issue 7" ( [link] ). Thank you *ray72285! I am so honored!

There are plenty of other beautiful dragon artworks there and an abundance of talented artists. Check it out!

In other news, I saw Stardust yesterday... and I was so incredibly pleased with that movie. I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's books, and knowing that he took a large part on the creation of this movie has made this one of the best book adaptations to movie I have ever seen. It was such a delight to watch! From lighthearted to serious, action to everything else... this movie really had everything.

*smiles*

-Lila