Update #3 - Moving forward I'll be calling my "Monthly OC Challenge" the "OC Project" or "Monthly OC Project". The intention is still the same - spend a month drawing each of my characters to help give them more exposure, finalise their design, try to grow them etc. but I feel the word "project" works better than "challenge".

Update #2 - Decided to add in the extra elements to this version, rather than writing a whole new one.

Update #1 - Modified the copy I wrote for Ephea's back story to make it flow a little better and fix some typos. Further teaks may be added. Also added in the first Ephea picture for this month's challenge to the "OC Challenge Archive".

Bloody hell, it's nearly February already?!

Mid Month Update

So far I'm pretty happy with the amount of art I've produced so far. Three coloured pieces, as well as some sketches I've yet to upload (I'll be getting to them shortly). Not bad considering some of the "paralysis" I've found myself in the past. That being said, I have found some of the feedback frustrating. Not in a "How dare people critique me!" sense, but more a "I can't believe that's an issue"/one step forwards, two steps back/annoyed with myself sense. I am aiming to re-draw the Ephea pose one last time, especially after some comments on the most recent version and maybe use a different reference this time.

The comments have also lead to me doing a few practice sketches - which I plan to compile and upload soon - and I've also decided to take March off my project to focus instead on practicing anatomy and proportions. My intention is to use this time to draw some simpler poses, with the majority likely being swim suit or topless/ecchi pieces to help improve and resolve the issue. Yes, I am aware "Continue with the Challenge" was the most popular option in the poll I recently made. However if people feel my proportions and anatomy are off and/or I'm not improving as much as I'd like, then this will likely stifle my overall intentions for the project.

I'm also going to remove my "embargo" and allow myself to draw any of my characters so I can practice other body shapes and types. My goal is to draw at least one traditional piece of Snow, Mewrah and Ephea, then perhaps branch out into others depending on how I get on. While I do have two weeks off, I can see myself being busy for at least half that time (and that doesn't include the Easter weekend) so I don't want to overload myself. I doubt I will draw a digital version of any of the pieces as the emphasis is more on practice than "finishing" but that may change. Finally a month or so back toonartist challenged me to draw multiple different types of eyes, a challenge I've been ignoring until now so I'm planning to incorporate that into my goals for the month. I've yet to decide on the "perfect face style" to use, which is why it fluctuates so much in my most recent pictures so hopefully this challenge will help me chose and stick to one.

Update - While catching up on YouTube videos over the weekend, I stumbled across an EXCELLENT video on inspiration and "idea debt". I think this is something many artists can relate to, myself included so please give it a watch:

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Ask Me Anything

I know I've done these from time to time in the past and I always find it fun seeing what (if anything) people want to ask me, so go nuts. It can be anything with regards to me as a person, my characters, my art, how I want my artistic journey to evolve etc.

Character Updates

My good friend toonartist has recently uploaded the pictures from the fifth and sixth waves of of commissions he's done for me. As with the other "waves", toonartist has offered his take on some of the characters I've created and adopted over the last few years. His take will serve as the main inspiration for their design although I may make a few tweaks myself when I come to draw them, depending on my own inspirations.


Edit - And apparently we've been friends on Facebook for a year today; yay!

February's Character

As I mention in my last journal, I've decided to "bump forward" one of my lesser used OCs, Ephea Pearl/Asheth.

Created back in 2008, towards the tail end of my "Caracal007" account/stage in my life, Ephea was intended to serve a relatively minor purpose and as another possible love interest for Silrun. During my spriting days I came up with a possible plotline where Reilly arranged for his son to get married to "Tifa Blade", a minor OC made by my friend Tom. However as I didn't own the character and with what I had in store, I felt it wasn't an appropriate use of my friend's OC and created Ephea to fill a similar role. At first Ephea was heavily inspired by "Euphemia" of Code Geass, mainly down to her having pink hair, a similar name and being a princess but due to her being created towards the tail end of my 2008 creative phase I never really took the character any further. Last year, during a chat with toonartist about one of his possible projects I suggested he could Ephea along with a few other characters, and after seeing his version of her I decided I wanted to bring her back into my own work.

Ephea is the only child of a royal family (which has recently been retconned to be/named as the "Pearl Royal Family"), and along with her father was constantly in awe with the exploits of the legendary hero Reilly Pepin. After he saved the kingdom from a threat, Reilly was granted the chance to meet King Pearl and the two became fast friends. It was through this friendship that Ephea and Silrun met and became childhood sweethearts, although they would separate not long after. At some point, roughly in the middle of the story, Reilly and King Pearl would reveal that they'd arranged for their children to get married - with Reilly hoping such a marriage would help focus Silrun on his duty as a leader and his successory (this was before the "Avatar of Ra" angle) - and Silrun would meet the now grown up Ephea. Old feelings were quickly rekindled as the two once again fell for each other and as they were getting reacquainted after so long, Ephea would get killed (aka "Girlfriend in the Refrigerator", although it was only recently I realised I'd fallen into this trope), an angle mainly done to drive Silrun into a "dark phase" and side with his uncle against his father.

Like before Ephea is both a princess and a possible bride for Silrun. While at first Ephea and her father idolised the Pepin family, they'd later feel betrayed after they fail to come to their aid and stop someone (possibly Lord Havoc) from destroying their kingdom. With Ephea being the only survivor of her crumbled Pearl kingdom, she swears revenge on the entire Pepin family. This level of will also gives her the ability to almost immediately overcome the Sound Demon after she finds herself possessed by it, becoming the Sound Daemon. Her powers have also been a lot of fun to work out and play with, but I'll be keeping that hush hush for the time being . I'm also planning on tweaking her design a little from the version you see above, mainly with regards to the colour palette, hair and weapons, but the core design will stay the same.

And now for some trivia:

• As with others like Mewrah and Norika, Ephea has drawn some inspiration from Final Fantasy characters. After reviving the character I decided to modify the design with elements from FFII's Maria, namely from the "Dawn of Souls" artwork that accompanied the 2004 GBA port. This design tweak has also lead to her favourite colour being lilac.
• I envision Ephea as being a "darker" alternative to Mewrah and in many ways a "What could have been" had things played out differently. In turn I envision Ephea having a similar body shape to Mewrah, albeit due more to her surviving on the run. Her power, Sonokinesis is also an ability Mewrah used to have although I envision Ephea using it in a different fashion.
  
• At the moment Ephea is the only character who uses a ranged weapon - a bow and arrow. Everyone else uses a melee weapon.
  
• As with other characters, Ephea was recently renamed from "Ephea Asheth" to "Ephea Pearl". However unlike with other re-names, this was done to expand the character and her history. The surname "Asheth" comes from her marrying Tameto Asheth", an as of yet unused character who's heavily based on the "Ace Strife", aka the FF fan fiction version of Silrun. As I want her to have a life before meeting him, as well as wanting to expand on her kingdom I felt I needed to give her a maiden name.
• The surname, Pearl, was originally used by my friend Tom. He initially created a character with the surname "Pearl" who was very loosely based on the "Tifa Blade" character he'd made before but when he decided he no longer wanted to use it, I asked for permission to use the surname and gave it Ephea.
  
• The "Demon Element Sound" is created by combining the elements of Wind and Metal. I got the idea for this recipe partly from an episode of Kill la Kill and also due to my experience playing a brass instrument.
• Due to her powers, I envision Ephea being extremely good at music. She uses her abilities to manipulate her singing voice to sound perfect to any who listen and while she does have to spend some time practicing with an instrument, it doesn't take her long to master it. I also envision her using music to help her make money as she roams the lands.

SFW Pictures


NSFW Pictures

OC PROJECT Archive

ART FOR OTHERS

• User-2018225d's Athena and possibly his Egyptian woman
• toonartist's Shield Maiden
  
• DEADMANNARTWORKS's Azure
• kagato007's Ceira
• kaeveris' Qareveris
• StaciNadia's Illia
• Keem-Toon's Rouge
• Artemis-Polara's Melody
• saberkung's Inda