NaNoWriMo Follow-up

Ok, this is going to be a quick one. NaNoWriMo went great. It was a lot of fun and I found out that I actually enjoyed writing this month. I didn't make it all the way to 50k by the end of november. With school and the holidays I got slowed down a little bit, and didn't manage my time outside of those the greatest. If I had done a little more writing I would have been great.

I managed to make it to 46,889 out of 50,000. I spent most of Thursday and Friday last week feverishly writing on my story to try to make it. I managed to do some amazing strides, which included about 9k on Thursday and a whooping 17k on Friday.  By the time it got to 10:30PM or so, I'd been writing all day long and my hands were hurting and my brain just couldn't come up with anything so I threw in the towel.

I don't feel bad about it, I learned that I liked to write and I think I will continue to do so afterwards. A lot of the South Dakota NaNo group is going to continue to write and support each other in is, so I might end up doing that, not entirely sure yet.

I'm going to work on editing the first chapter up and get it to a point that I like it and I might post it up here for anyone who wants to read it. If anything, I know where I think I want my story to go and what is going to happen, and I'm excited about that.

Ultimately, I may end up using my novel as the basis for a comic series/graphic novel. That's been a goal of mine for a long time. I've wanted to write and draw a graphic novel or a comic since high school, just never thought anyone would want to see anything I could do or read anything I could write.

I'm starting to get over my fear of being rejected finally, so I'm going to work on it and put something out. All I got was good feedback from those who read part of my novel for the month. Anyway, my "short" post is getting longer so I'll end it there. I unfortunately don't have any art to post with this one as most things I'm working on right now are presents and I don't want them to accidentally be seen by the recipient of the gift.

Good Night everyone and have a fantastic holiday season!

NaNoWriMo Progress

Hello Everyone! So if you read my last post, I told everyone that I was going to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Over the month of November, you are tasked with writing a 50k word novel. If it seems daunting, it definitely did to me too. Here we are, 18th of November, and I'm about 15k words in. I'm far behind the curve but I'm not worried. On days where I can focus for a little while to write, I've managed to get a few thousand words out in a couple hours and with the holiday weekend coming I'm planning on being able to throw some time at it. Anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo?

So far, I'm liking my story. It is a fantasy adventure in a setting I've been writing and designing for years, so I was happy to finally find something to use it for. Maybe I'll throw up the first chapter or so on here if anyone is interested.

As far as artwork, I haven't done a whole lot recently. Most of my time has been devoted to school, NaNoWriMo, and general chores and such. I did manage to get a little piece done for me and my wife's 2 year anniversary of our first date. She likes angels and pandas and she has a tattoo of a panda angel (or what we've dubbed the pangel), so I decided to do a drawing of a pangel for you and put it in a frame. Here is how it came out.

I like how it turned out. It came out how I was wanting it and I was surprised that from start to finish only took me about an hour, hour and a half or so.  I'm still trying to update more often and I think it will be easier once I am done with school. Anyway, hope everyone else is doing great.

Long Time No Post

So, it has been a while since I posted. I haven't posted in about seven months and it has been a crazy seven months. Right around in march where my last post was I had a couple family emergency trips pop up that needed to be taken care of.

Then right around that time, the hard drive that I had been storing the drawing for my challenge on crashed and I lost practically all of them except for the ones I've uploaded here, kind of a bummer but I'll make sure to go back and post the ones I was able to recover off the hard drive. I plan on re-tackling that challenge soon and finishing it.

The summer was crazy with projects I did. I created a couple websites, one being for my dad who is a musician and just got out on his own. I helped him create a website for himself and he recently put out a new CD. I'm pretty proud of him for getting his own CD out there and giving it a shot. If you want to take a look, check out www.davewermers.com or on YouTube and if you like the music, we have CDs people can buy. [Sorry, shameless plug for my dad. :)]. Also, I did the artwork/design for the CD that is on the cover and inside.

Besides that I had a couple other projects, a couple videos I helped with a couple other websites I worked on designing. I did some personal design work, but not a whole lot there I can share quite yet. Then in September, school started up again, stealing even more of my time.

As far as completed work, I did a painting for my wife (fiance at the time) for her birthday in August. She loves beauty and the beast, so I did this painting for her from the stained glass in the beginning of the Disney version.

Finally, throughout the whole time, I've been helping in planning and creating practically everything for my wedding, which was October 6th. We made almost all of the decorations and the food ourselves for the wedding and it turned out amazing. We had it outside in the fall, with the leaves changing color and a fountain in the background, it was beautiful.

Anyway, one last thing. Next month is National Novel Writing Month. Basically, starting November 1st, you are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel. Comes out to about an average of 1667 words a day. That is about 2 and 3/4 pages a day. Seems like a ton, but I think it will be doable. I plan on doing this and will try to post my progress on this as I go. I may end up posting it, I may not. I want to, but part of me doesn't think it will be good enough to post, we shall see if I get over that.

Anyway... Thanks for reading, I know it was a lot more words then artwork, but for how long I was gone, just wanted to throw out an update. Thanks again and have a fantastic day!
 ~Ben

Scott Pilgrim Pattern

I was surprised the other day to see my hits had jumped a little bit and then I noticed a comment. I was awarded the Liebster Blog Award!

I was awarded the Liebster Blog Award by Emma at Emma's Stitches. Thank you, you made my day. :)

The rules:

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.
2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.
4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

As to who I'm going to give the Liebster Award to, I'm not sure yet. Looking through the blogs I follow, most I thought of to give it to already received it. What I will probably do is this: from here on out, blogs I run across that I think should get it, I'll give it. I comment and let them know, as well and putting them in a blog post.

Facts about me:
1. I'm rather artsy, I love to paint/draw/stitch/create. I love to work with so many different mediums.
2. I like playing games, including video games (mainly RPGs), but I play most types of games. That included D&D and other pen and paper RPGs and board games. Currently, I'm somewhat obsessed with Arkham Horror.
3. I've got a brother and a sister.
4. I'm currently going to school for a degree in computer science. I already have a degree in digital art.
5. I'm currently engaged and will be getting married next October!

Alright, and as a thanks for the Award. I've had a few people ask about it so I'll post up the Scott Pilgrim pattern I made. I've seen many other people do this over the internet, but not a stitched pattern, I'd only seen it in done mainly Perler Beads, so I just converted that to a pattern to work off of.

I will give a word of caution. The colors may not be correct, so check the floss color before using it. The color it shows in the program I use isn't close at all to the color of the real thread. I didn't pay close enough attention and ended up having to remove quite a bit of floss after realizing my colors were rather dark.

So with that. Thanks for reading and have a fantastic day!
~Ben

Day 12 and 13

Alright, here we are at Day 12 and 13.
Day 12
Words:
AN: Squid, Mudskipper
VG: Thick Leaf - Jade
EM: Cement, Sediment
TC: Place of Worship, Totem

AN: Tropical - Parot, heron
VG: Poppy
EM: Frost, Snow
TC: Laser Beam

Here I decided to use heron as the base for the creature. Then I used Thick Leaf as inspiration and decided to make this a plant based creature. A plant/bird hybrid creature. It's beak is bark and I made his feet to look like roots. The rest of him I decided would be covered with leaves, imitating feathers. Overall, I think it turned out pretty good. Eventually I will probably go back and color it.

Day 13
Words:
AN: Frog, Newt
VG: Birch
EM: Molten Lava
TC: Brush - Hair, Tooth

AN: Seabird, Penguin
VG: Carnivorous
EM: Dew Drops
TC: Solar Panel

Here I decided to use Carnivorous plant as the base. I didn't want to do a side image, so I tried doing one from above. I decided that this particular plant, when wide open waiting for prey, had part of the inside of its mouth that would look like a lizard, or newt of sorts. It acts as a decoy, luring something close enough to get caught by the plant. I named it Trionaea because Dionaea is the real name for a venus fly trap like plant, and since its also a TRap of sorts, I decided to call it a Tr(ap)ionaea.

And there we are! We have a ways to go, but I'll get caught up.

Day 10 and 11

Alright, so things didn't go as planned. I ended up having to go out of town for a family emergency for about a week or so and then had friends over this last weekend so I've had almost 0 time to post anything up. I also missed a few days of drawings, but I'm not going to worry about it, I'll just finish them up and post them all out as we go.

Here we go!
Day 10 - The Volcato
Words:
AN: Flea, mite
VG: Maple, Oak
EM: Ember, Hot Coal
TC: Aircraft

AN: Bat
VG: Desert Cacti
EM: Volcano
TC: Lock, Key

Here I decided to go with Desert Cactus as my main word. I also got inspiration from both Volcano and Hot Coal. Overall, I think this one turned out pretty good, I drew the cactus as if it is breaking out of the ground almost coming out of a crevice of sorts. I also envision the cactus spikes to be like red hot pokers (using hot coal). I thought of this as some sort of vegetation that would be growing on a plane of fire or something like that.

Day 11 - The Boar Fly
Words:
AN: Fly, Dragonfly
VG: Grass, Dandelion
EM: Fire, Vapor
TC: Cycle

AN: Pig, Boar
VG: Tree Fruit
EM: Tar, Gum
TC: Telephone

Here I decided to combine both Fly and Boar. So It was basically just an exercise in drawing out the body of the fly and getting it to look alright and then adding in the head of a boar and getting the two to match up and look alright. I think it turned out pretty good

So there are the next two drawings, and I will try my hardest to post up the next two tomorrow so we can keep this moving this time.

See everyone next time and have a fantastic day.

Day 8 and Day 9 (Playing Catch-up)

I haven't posted in awhile, but I've still been working on my challenge. I just haven't been so good about posting them up here. So I'm going to post a couple of them a day till I get caught back up to spare everyone from a post with all 14 or so I haven't posted yet.

Day 8
Words:
AN: Farm Fowl, Rooster
VG: Ginger
EM: Brick, Cobblestone
TC: Brush - hair/tooth

AN: Turtle  
VG: Mushroom 
EM: Electric Bolt
TC: Ornament, Pillar

Here I first picked turtle, because Turtles are fun and I've always liked the look of them. So I started with that and like my other drawings I grabbed some references because I've been trying to draw a little more life like. As I went, I was trying to decide what else to use and mushroom sounded good to me, so I added those in. for the turtle shell, I'm going for a brick/stone sort of texture that I'll probably re-do eventually. I named it a Shroomed Turtle.
Major: Turtle & Mushroom
Minor: Brick, Cobblestone

Day 9
Words:
AN: Frog, Newt
VG: Asparagus
EM: Rust, Oxide
TC: Spacecraft

AN: Lupine - Wild Dog
VG: Vine
EM: Planets, Saturn's Rings
TC: Rail, Train, Trolly

Here I 'tried' to do a spacecraft. I had intentions of making it old, rusted and vine covered, like it had crashed and had been left for ages. I may go back and try to do this again some day, but right now, I just can't seem to get perspectives down so it looks right. So after a while, I just decided to stop messing with it, add in some final details and call it 'done'.
Major: Spacecraft

I also got the idea that after I'm done with the 30 days, I'd go back and take the ones that turned out good and finish them up nicely so they could be put in a prortfolio of some sort. I also thought, with those I didn't like as much, take the reason why, and work on that and the piece to a point i'm happier with it.

Have a great night everyone and tune in tomorrow for the next 2.
~Ben

Day 7

Another quick post tonight.
Words:
AN: Crocodile, Gila
VG: Flower- domestic
EM: Galaxy Form
TC: Shovel, Pick

AN: Feline - Wild Cat
VG: Ooze, Jelly
EM: Crater, Asteroid
TC: Old Village, Cottage

So for Major words I decided to use Gila, and Wild Cat. As far as minor words, I really didn't use anything else. I basically decided on crossing a Gila monster and a wild cat. The challenge here for me was to work with the muscles and structure some so that the creature looks like it somewhat would look like. I settled on calling it a Desert Giline. And here it is:

So now I have completed a full week doing this and I've had a lot of fun doing this so far. I wouldn't say I love every piece I've done this week, but I've got a few that I think came out really well and I think I've learned at least a little bit with each of them, so there is that.

With that I'll wish everyone a happy sunday and thanks for reading.
~Ben

Day 6

Hello! Just a quick post.
Words I got for day 6:
AN: Caterpillar
VG: Corn
EM: Volcano
TC: Sled, Ski

AN: Seabird, Penguin
VG: Bamboo
EM: Wave
TC: Tank Tread

I decided it would be fun to draw a caterpillar. It was  challenge for me to make it look decent and not like a kids sorta thing with just a line of circles, if that makes sense. Then I decided to use volcano and put in some sort of cannon sort of thing on the back of the caterpillar. It is mainly a defensive mechanism, spewing a gas/acid that has a strong smell that wards off predators. I decided to call it a fuming caterpillar, as most caterpillars I saw were _________ caterpillar, and for the most part, it has the look of a plain ole caterpillar. I intend to go back and color this one sometime soon. We will see what happens.

Thanks for reading and have a great Saturday!

Day 4 and Day 5

Hello! Yesterday was busy and I didn't get around to posting the drawing so I'm posting them both now.

Words for Day 4:
AN: Lotus, Mantis
VG: Birch Tree
EM: Electric Bolt
TC: Pen, Paintbrush

AN: Sheep, Cow
VG: Willow Tree
EM: Cracked Clay
TC: Turbine

Major: Mantis, Sheep/Cow
Minor, Willow Tree, Birch Tree
This one took a little bit to figure out what I wanted to do. I decided to use Mantis as a basis for the creature, then decided to make it more of a herding/farm animal using sheep/cow. Then after I decided this creature would be like a sheep, where its hair was cut to make things. Then the thought of using the willow tree jumped in, the hair falls off the body like a willow tree. I decided to use birch tree to give the body of the creature texture. Overall it wasn't too hard drawing, but just took time figuring out how to draw the hair or getting the body the way I wanted it. Total ~2 hours. I plan on going back and coloring it sometime. It is called a Meesh.

Now, on to day 5.
Words:
AN: Fish - Freshwater
VG: Pumpkin, gourd
EM: Ripple
TC: Bulb, Lamp

AN: Lizard, Snake
VG: Maple, Oak
EM: Glass, Crystals
TC: Fan, Propeller

Major : Snake
Minor : Crystal, Bulb

Here I decided to go with a snake as a major form. I wanted to use crystals and bulb in it somewhere and then decided to go with sort of a rattlesnake and the rattler would be made of crystal and can also be a light source if rattled, or something like that. The challenge here was getting it too look coiled up without looking weird or off. Again, I didn't get it colored by the 2 hour mark so I decided to just shade it and then come back later to color it someday. I decided to call this one a Traplight Rattler. I see it as a snake that would lure unsuspecting prey by the light coming from it tail, and then strike when they got close enough.

And there is Day 4 and 5, hope those who are reading are enjoying this, I'd love to hear any comments and such. Thanks for reading, have a fantastic day.

Day 3 of the Challenge

Already a new post!

It's a quick one though, just posting up the drawing for my challenge today.

Words:
AN: Feline - Wild Cat
VG: Tree Fruit
EM: Cracked Clay
TC: Modern Skyscraper

AN: Elephant, Giraffe
VG: Ginger
EM: Fog, Vapor
TC: Castle, Domed

Here I decided to not go with an animal today and try out doing a building and work on some perspective work. So I used Castle and Skyscraper sort of as inspiration to work from and then was going to do clay as the texture for the building. I got done drawing it and I thought it looked pretty good but I didn't really feel like coloring it out, so decided to just stop with it.

I will say, i thought it was a little more fun to work with creatures than a building, it just seemed so rigid to me. And here it is.

So, goodnight, hope everyone has a good Wednesday. 
~Ben

Long Post, Updates and a Personal Challenge

Hey everyone! It's been a little bit since I've updated, I've both been busy with schoolwork and a couple projects I had short deadlines on. I had a couple things I wanted to get done for Valentine's Day.

First was a miniature I painted. My finance likes angels so I decided to paint an angel for her. Her favorite color is also pink so I made it have shades of pink in it, but not be overwhelmed with pink. I don't have a great picture of it so I will post that when I do.

The second is a cross stitch. We both love scott pilgrim and I happened to stumbleupon a couple different patterns like this one, though those I saw were mostly done in perler beads. I looked through those and created a pattern, added in the hearts and worked through some shading myself. The problem I encountered is that the colors shown on the program I use do not mimic the real colors they are, so I had to unstitch quite a bit after realizing the #s I had picked looked terrible in real life.

I got quite a bit of it done, and it'll mostly be done in the next week or two.

FYI: She has received both and loved them. If you wondered. :)

I have not had a chance to get a whole lot done on the Mario cross stitch, but I managed to get a little bit done. I am currently just finishing out the black boxes across the bottom and so I can just do the rest of the Marios after that.

I also have something new I am doing. I got a book for Valentine's Day called Fantasy Genesis. It is sort of a game for the imagination. It has charts and with a series of dice rolls you generate a list of words, afterwards you look at them and pick out a few words as Major words and a few as Minor words and come up with an idea and draw it. It also has tips and techniques to help you out. You don't have to use all the words, only a couple of them. It looked really fun when I saw it and got it for a gift. I did one last night and it was really fun.

So I decided I'm going to challenge myself and my imagination. For the Next 30 days (Sunday counting as day 1) I am going to roll out a list and the next day post up what I came up with for that list. I am also trying to limit my time. After I decide what words I am going to use I am going to give myself about 10-15 min to find references if I need, and then only giving myself a few hours to sketch/finish/color. I just don't want to end up spending days on a piece because I tend to be a perfectionist and I want to work on letting things be done. I plan on posting each night, with the words I rolled, my initial thoughts and then how I used the words and post up my drawing.

Here is what I got Sunday night for my list.
(AN - Anima, VG - Veggie, EM - Elemental, TC - Technology)
AN: Squid/Mudskipper
VG: Seaweed
EM: Brick/Cobblestone
TC: Bulb/Lamp

AN: Pig/Boar
VG: Flower - domestic
EM: Ember/Hot Coal
TC: Reactor Core

With these words my first thought was to use squid/mudskipper and seaweed to come up with a creature of the sea and then my mind was trying to use other words as well, but decided to start with just a few. I looked up what a mudskipper was because I couldn't think of what that actually was, and found I didn't want to use that as a reference, so I found a couple squid images and started sketching. I decided that it's limbs were very thin and ribbon like that almost looked more like seaweed. Then when I started coloring the brick/cobblestone words popped out to me and I decided to use shades of brick red to color it. I thought it came out rather well. I decided to name it a Sqweed. Turned out really well I think, and I had a blast doing it too.

Sunday night I rolled out my Day 2 list. I came up with:

AN: Mouse/Rabbit
VG: Mushroom
EM: Fog/Vapor
TC: Spring/Coil

AN: Ram/Bull/Buck
VG: Lichen
EM: Slate/Shale
TC: Telephone

Here I decided to go with the Ram/Bull/Buck as my Major word, it just sounded fun. I chose Slate/Shale, Fog/Vapor, and Lichen as minor words to go with. I decided to use an Elk as a reference. My thought process came up with a elk-like creature with stone/slate antlers. For the fog/vapor, I decided that as a defensive mechanism, it could spout fog/vapor cloud from it's antlers. Because of this moisture and the antlers being rocklike they would have lichen growing on them. I also challenged myself here by not drawing it from the side, instead having the head facing more toward the viewer. That was really hard for me, I'm not that great at creatures and perspective. I had some problems with perspective on the antlers as well. I only spent 3-4 hours on this and for that amount I think it turned out well. Took a lot longer to color than day 1 as well, but it was a bigger thing. I decided the name of the species is Shelk (real imaginative right?).

Also, if anyone else is interested in doing this with me, I'd be more than willing to throw up the list the night before and just edit in my drawing the next day.

And if you're still reading, Thank you. I know that was a little drawn out and lengthy, but I get talking about this stuff and well, I can go a little bit. I hope everyone has a fantastic day and thanks for stopping by.

~Ben

Completed Project and start of a new one.

This will be just a short post. I just wanted to post up a shot of the framed portal 2 cross stitch and then a quick pick of what my next one I am working on is. Here it is framed:

And here is what I am working on next, its pattern created by Johloh over at the Sprite Stitch blog, which is a really cool blog as well. The pattern link is here. It's been going so much faster than other projects I've done. I've been told its because I'm actually having fun doing this one, unlike a couple other uncompleted projects that don't go very fast.

 

I'm also working on a pattern for my next big cross stitch, well, make that a couple patterns I'm working on, I seem to have tons of ideas and not enough time to do them. We'll see which one wins out and gets started. And with that, thanks for reading and have a great day!

First Project Completed

Hello Everyone! 

I finally finished my first large cross stitch project. I've been working on it for a good month or so in the evenings and it's finally done! It's a late Christmas present for a friend of mine and I only had a bit of it done by Christmas, enough to show him what it was turning into. If you don't know its inspired by Portal 2 (based off this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyLUU3O4zW8). I had seen a couple others using the quote around the internet and wanted to do it for a while, I just hadn't because I was working on this HUGE cross stitch that I'd be working on for a good 6 months or so. That one though began to feel almost like a job though so I decided to put that one away for a while and work on new projects. I found someone who had done the text already, and used most of it and modified what I didn't think looked right. Then I added more lemons to it to create a full border and then created the companion cube pattern for the corners.

And here is how it turned out!

Here is the full cross stitch.

Here is a close up of just the companion cube.

Overall, I think it turned out really great. I really want to do it again so I can have one on my wall, but I think I'll wait a little bit before I do it again. Now the hard part is picking out my next project. I think I know which one I'm going to go with but we will see what I decide. And with that I hope everyone has a great week and has lots of inspiration brought to them.

Ben

First Post!

Ok. So I'm finally starting a blog where I'm going to show off the stuff I'm working on. I figure it might keep me motivated to keep doing stuff. Also, it'll be a way for me to look back on what I've done and hopefully see some progress in my art. I figure I'm mainly going to be using this to show my works as they progress, but I also might post up things that inspire me or things I think others might like.

I guess before anything else, I'll say a little about myself and my blog. I'm currently 26, and I'm going to school right now. As for artistic stuff, its just about everything out there, and if I don't do it, I'm most likely planning to or really would like to try some day. I hope to get better in the art I do as I love doing it, but I've let life tell me I wasn't good enough or that I can't make it in art anyway so why try? That's gone, I'm over it, I'm going to work at it and I will get better. I've also always been a bit anxious or nervous about showing people my artwork, and I'm getting better with that, but I'm sure you don't want to here my go on about that.

As for the name of my blog, Brood Studio, I came up with the title a few months back when I was considering trying to do my own thing freelance in art. That popped into my head at work one day. To me it fits almost perfectly because I am not just one type of artist, I like to paint and draw (both physically and digitally), I went to school for Design in terms of Logos and Ad work (not the most fun to me but still pretty fun), I stitch and I'm just generally a crafty person. So there were so many things I couldn't just single it down. A brood is a group, a breed, or a species, so it fits for me with so many different mediums I like to work in.

And to get this rolling, here's a sketch I've been working on for a friend. I'm drawing a strong cave woman for her blog and got the sketch to a point where I'm good showing it. I've been working on this one probably a couple hours a day over the last week or so.

I've also got a couple other projects going on at the moment, but I don't have any pictures of those right now, so those will most likely be shared in the next day or two.

And with that, I'm going to sign off for the night. Anyone stopping by, thanks for checking out my blog and I hope you like what shows up the future.

I also plan on messing with the look of the blog, as currently its pretty plain to me.