Discussion of art materials: Acrylic Paint

I can safely say that I am moving beyond student and beginner paints.
They served their purpose when I was a child, and in college when I needed inexpensive colors to put on a canvas for class.

So, if you're a hobbyist, inexpensive colors are good.
However, keep in mind inexpensive colors will:

• have less pigment in them
• more dull colors, 
• might mix strangely
• the pigment in the color won't match other brands' colors
• might be transparent, which can be good or bad for your purposes
• might be runny or clot too quickly in the tube
• dry too quickly on the canvas, so they become sticky and unworkable
• and other anomalies.

I have learned all this from trial and error. A professional or advanced hobbyist cannot simply use cheap colors. Your work will LOOK like an amateur's work. Or worse, like... sorry to say it, washable children's paint on a cheap piece of paper.

(FYI, since the cost of materials goes up, this is partially why original artwork has the cost that it does. Part the cost is the experience of the artist, part how much time is spent on the piece, and part is the cost of quality materials and making a piece that will last decades or centuries as opposed to a year or two.)

I am saying this looking back on paintings I've made over the past few years.
I am ramping up the quality of my pigments. The job I have currently is but a temp job, but I don't spend money on anything else, just student loans, some food, some transportation (I bought some clothes last week), and the rest goes towards bettering my knowledge of my crafts, mainly art and art supplies.

I think I like heavier body acrylic, but its hard to... find something that's in the middle of heavy body and low viscosity paint. At the moment I'm using

• Liquitex brand, heavy body and more general pigments, 
• Golden brand, and 
• Chroma brand.

I'm looking at my options as for paints I want to use. I have found that going to art supply websites gives you great deals, plus exposes you to reviews of other artists' experiences with materials.

What I stopped using:
Again, these were good for learning to paint and school projects, in both primary school and bachelor level college. But again, for a more professional artist, they don't really work.

• Reeves
• Liquitex Basic
• Artist Loft (basically off brand)
• Premiere Acrylic Colors

I mean, brands have cheaper colors in order to build brand loyalty with a customer and draw them towards buying the higher quality materials they sell.

However, this is the piece I am complaining of. Well, not really. I just felt I needed to say something after last night, I slowly became frustrated with some of the colors. This painting is a work in progress, and I plan on repainting most of it. I like how its coming out, except for some of the paints I used.  But eeehhhhhh...

-MNR

Designing Designs, and alternatives to buying brand

I think my friends are somewhat tired of me talkinga bout how sorrowful I am over not having access to my lolita stuff. Last night, I caught myself looking at bodyline dresses and considering prices and fits.
x_x  I know that most bodyline dresses can't fit me. But (some) are so pretty! And not all are sugary sweet hyper sweet lolita!

To be honest, some of those angelic pretty prints and the knockoffs from bodyline look like they'd give you diabetes if you look at them too long. I like Bbtssb more than angelic pretty because at times they tone down their prints. They also have slightly larger sizing. =.=

I am on an ongoing adventure to find clothes for the plus sized lolita. Unfortunately, one of the only ways a plus lolita can dress in lolita is altering a dress, getting a custom commission, going to a brand shop like F+F and getting custom sized, or making your own.

• The first option, altering a dress, is very tricky. One must find cloth that is exactly the same. You might have to decimate a bow that came with the dress, or apply a neutral color. The most common sizing fix is to add panels of space underneath the arms. That is often where the seams, zippers or buttons are. 
• The next idea is to let the skirt and bodice out. If there is shirring or gathering at the bodice or skirt, one could take a seam ripper and let some of the gathers out, and resew them.
• If one follows these ideas, the bottom of skirt width may not be enough. Therefore, another way to add width would be to add panels.
• If one is tall, adding ruffles of a plain color or a nice quality lace is ideal to add a few inches to the hem. I did this with my Bodyline dress, which was four inches too short.

Most of these ideas involve knowing at least basic sewing. I grew up being a crafty person. I played with my sewing kit when I was in daycare. (I was somewhat of a nuisance, I admit, because I left needles around... x_X) But I essentially taught myself. Back stitching, running stitch, basting, and overcast hand stitching are basic. However, if you need aid in this, there are plenty of tutorials on Youtube. My mummah taught me the basics of knitting and crocheting, and I learned the rest on Youtube.

Custom commissions are slightly more tricky. If you don't feel like learning to sew, or are just awful at it, good news! You can simply transfer the work to someone else! There are listings on the major EGL communities for seamstresses all over.  [I will list some here.]
Generally, you can get feedback from these seamstresses from their shop pages, whether it be etsy, artfire, eBay, or livejournal.

There are cheap lolita clothing shops all around the internet. The problem is, you have to make sure the dress or accessory isn't ita. Ita means painful in Japanese, and basically, its a dress that's tacky, horrible, ugly, or cheap looking. Lolitas strive to be as far from Ita as possible. It takes some skill to not be ita, and every lolita goes through an ita period. Cheap dresses tend to be ita, so check with an online lolita community to get feedback before you purchase an ugly dress or skirt. Some brand clothes have been ita offenders, so also check this out.
Some different  low cost japanese, chinese, or korean stores:
Taobao
Fan+Friend
Bodyline
QutieLand

These sites all offer custom sizes, all the way up to around US size 20 or 22. They also offer men sizes, which mean skirts and torsos are longer.

Making your own dress:
Slightly more hard. There are lolita sewing circles and knitting circles you could join.
I will list more about this later, though.

I'm thinking of making this blouse: http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/andrea-blouse. I only have cotton broadcloth with me, so I will have to double it up. Most free burdastyle patterns don't have instructions. However, basically just stitching the seams and hemming, using fraystop and lining helps. Every handsewn project will be different, and is a step to learning how to become a good seamstress. Everyone makes mistakes, it just takes practice.

http://www.burdastyle.com/search?key=lolita+skirt#

When I have time, I hope to make a small guide on handsewing lolita clothing.

I have plenty of lolita clothing designs. I would love to make my own line of plus sized lolita clothing, sizes 10 to 22, or at least lolita patterns. The problem is, I'm a game artist now. I feel like I have to devote all my time to achieving this goal. I love both, but I don't know which I love more: crafting lolita items or drawing for video games. I don't like choosing... I guess this subject is for another time.


Stay frilly y'all.




-MNR

Drafting Patterns

I tend to draft my own patterns because I can never find ones I want, or ones that fit me. This goes for mostly sewing and knitting. With crochet, I'm still pretty inexperienced.

Not to say that I'm amazing in either of the three. My mother taught me the basics of sewing when I was little, and I had a sewing kit and fooled around making little purses and dolls. Then I stopped for several years. And when I was in my late teens and early 20s, (which I am now, being 20,) I have picked it up again, and have started patterns.

From my last post, I discovered that I found lolita when I was 13 or 14, but only liked drawing it. I feel now that I may like sewing it then drawing it. But I still love designing lolita themes and dresses.

With knitting it was the same way. I learned from my mother. I must have gotten bored with only knitting scarves, and how long it took, because I put them away until a couple of years ago as well. I then learned from youtube how to knit, purl, increase, decrease, knit socks, knit in the round, seam, and other fancy terms, that would allow me make actual garments. Now I have a ravelry account, and am working on designing my own patterns.

I find it funny that my mother wants me to teach her how to knit and crochet. Especially since SHE'S THE ONE WHO TAUGHT ME. I didn't know that's something you could forget. There are no hard feelings, it's just that that is somewhat strange/funny.

I've only recently started drafting my own knit and sewing patterns. Most of what I know I know from online searches and Youtube. Unfortunately I don't go to the library enough. The problem is, for most of the hours I am out of class, the public library is closed. It's such a shame.

I've learned to draft my own lolita patterns. I usually look at actual dresses, see what shapes the pieces are constructed in, draw them onto paper, and take my measurements. I also got a very rudimentary pattern for a jsk from egl on Livejournal. I just need to learn tailoring, which I've been getting much better at, being large-breasted. Bust darts are your friends, boys and girls. Burdastyle has helped me learn tailoring.


I'm working on a new steampunk corset styled tank top with ruffles. When I can, I will put up my preliminary picture and pattern. It will be my bust size range, with is 44-48. Right now, or soon, I have to finish up a paper and send it to my professor...
It will be knit in caron simply soft and is designed to be worn with a lolita skirt. I think lolita clothes should have more of a DIY aspect, and knitting and sewing your own outfits is moving into an untapped market.

I have some dreams about this.
I've always wanted to create a line of lolita clothing for American sized women and men. Making a line of lolita knitting patterns may be a great way to start. Victorians knit and did other crafting quite a bit. What can be more lolita than crafting your own clothing and accessories?

Themes I'm interested in: Aristocrat, regency, rococo, romantic era, medieval, ethnic, industrial, steampunk, pirate, sailor, fantasy, and to some small extent, visual kei.


How I learned:
Knitting:

Crocheting:

Sewing lolita:


-MNR

Experimental Game 2, and knit pattern drafts

I'm supposed to be working on my game right now. I'm making it in Gamemaker 8 lite. I don't have screenshots because I have NOTHING DONE. Waaah.
I love game design but making a game on your own in a total of 2 months is horrific.

I like the resolution 900x700, which is a slight scale-up of 800x600. The character sprites are going to be 100x50. I am using placeholder sprites for now, because I don't even know if I'm going to stay with that.

I've been so distracted by lolita. I'm ashamed, I woke at 8:30 and took a shower, and spent all the time I had for breakfast primping and preening and making sure my bow was on right. I only have a phone picture.
But I was late for my multimedia class. Basically art history. So, I got marked tardy. So another two tardys and my grade goes down a letter. But this is the first time I've been late to class this year.

My friend Jacob is.... not that fashion oriented. So he chastizes me whenever I take too long or go over the top with my lolita outfit. I feel guilty because I was at least 5-10 minutes late for class because I was trying to see what my body was doing in relation to my grey dress.
The waist was fine, my butt was fine. It was those infernal BREASTS! They keep growing and saboutaging me! If they keep growing I won't be able to properly fit into the dresses I have now!
But I had to re-lace the back corseting and make sure the hem was fine... I can never get ready in time for a leisurely breakfast.

I have to scan in the paparazzi image and trace over it in vector-ness to make it look clean for the game.
I also have to trace in the crowd.

My main problem is that I shall need to find code that allows my character to be fixed in one relative position on the screen, while being able to move up and down. The room is going to be a long room, and enemies spawn from the right side.

Edit: Triumph! I got my character to move up and down the screen and stop at an invisible wall!

----------------------

Patterns on another note:

I see all these brand name cardigans in these online lolita shops. They're 200 dollars and gorgeous. Cardigans are a staple of almost every lolita substyle.
I love making things, especially things I can wear. I figure, why not make replicas? They won't be exactly like the cardigans, because I'm not aiming to make something in fingering or lace weight. Worsted weight is fine. I consider these patterns to be inspired.

I get this idea from going to Ravelry and Craftster and there being patterns like: "Anthropologie Inspired capelet" or "Anthropologie Inspired Cloche". I can't find patterns for this stuff, and I want to spend my money on jsks and the little brand that I can buy, so why not make them? Or at least try?

I want to try this also because even if I should want to buy their cardigans, I will never be able to fit them. So this will be for all those women that are larger than a Japanese small/medium (or are a Japanese small/medium).

There are so many knitting patterns that can be altered to make replicas, hybrids, or even brand new original cardigans. Once I get a hang of creating cardigans and other objects from scratch, I want to design my own patterns and share. This is a project I will work on in the future. First, I must make something presentable of my game project.

But my next cardigan project will be a plain low scoop neck top down raglan, with Caron one lb sky blue acrylic yarn. It is this pattern. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/safire

If you do want to buy these cardigans, or draw them, or drool over them, they're here. These are cardigans I absolutely love and can't afford...

Inspirations for my note, and others:
http://www.marymagdalene.jp/contents/outwear/223/0404/
http://innocent-w.jp/shopping/094805/index_e.html
http://innocent-w.jp/shopping/102801/index_e.html
http://www.angelicpretty.com/shopping/item/jkt/102c-5116/102c-5116.htm
http://www.babyssb.co.jp/shopping/baby/knit/134106.html



On another note:
I love that innocent world has been making their sizes slightly larger, and they have amazing sales for brand name clothes! Angelic pretty has been doing that tooo! They have size "large". Good job lady and gentleman designers! Keep up the good work.

-MNR

Which comic to start.... or finish.

Oh goodness. I have so many comics. And un named ones at that.


Should probably finish a whole comic.
Though now is a good opportunity to start up another comic while I still remember how to storyboard.

1. final project for GS: Story about seiryuu, lola and the eternity elixir. (short)
2. Geneva and Ursula: their lolita love story. (several chapter project)
3. Deer and Wolf yaoi tragedy. (short)
4. Oliver, ametaro, Alphonse, Ulysses fighting love story, in Thundara city. (several chapter project)
5. Harley and Sebastien branched story, same universe (several chapter project)

all the character profiles are on my site.

I want to get #3 out of the way before it grows stale. Or grows weeds. Like the flower beds in Sims 2. Or the bare floor that gets water on it. How can someone urinating on the bare ground cause weeds to grow a day later??? Oi. It's kinda funny though.

I think I should continue with final project #1, then #3, 2, 4, 5. Might as well go with Seiryuu's story until I get writer's block. As far as I can go, hopefully.



Have little else to do this summer anyway. =.= Summertime sucks. End of discussion.

Old Inspiration

I should probably link my personal site here soon.



Was looking at my artwork on elfwood from years ago. Like, when I was 13-15 years old.
I remember all the traditional artwork, all with backgrounds, that I did. I was just looking at some of the artwork that other people are selling on etsy. I used to be able to do these things.
I just wonder... why can't I do this anymore.

I guess, it may because I don't have ideas, or I've become lazier. I sorta miss that.
Maybe to get inspired, I can remake these old pictures.

Oh, a link to my elfwood if anyone is interested: http://www.elfwood.com/~vardomelewyn

I posted some stuff a few months ago. But that is mostly old art.