I finally drew something again. It's also Pokémon fanart, but it's digital this time! They're not impressive, and some are pretty rough, but I had fun. Digital art is kinda difficult. I used three different softwares (Procreate, MS Paint and Aseprite), and, to be honest, none of them was very easy for me.
Also shading. Dear Lord, shading/lighting is so hard. Between you and me, I didn't really know what I was doing. I went with what "seemed okay" and they all turned out pretty boring because I got scared and couldn't dare go further; everything I tried felt wrong, somehow. This is a topic I really need to study (besides... well, everything else, aha).
Still, I had a good time, overall. So, here's some fanart of two of my favorite Pokémon, Altaria and Dragalge. I want to give Mega Drampa a try next time, and also some favorite Digimon.
Okay, I've decided to experiment with different traditional media and drew three of my favorite Pokémon.
I didn't title this "drawing lessons" because... well, I used my previous "knowledge" (a rough, untrained understanding of the basic technique) of each media rather than actually following a tutorial and experimenting a bunch of times. No lessons were truly taken, I suppose.
Turns out my previous knowledge leaves much to be desired, but that's okay, I guess; at the very least, it helped me figure out which medium is harder (more frustrating) or easier for me to use at the moment.
Here's a Skeledirge, drawn and colored on a... brown-ish textury paper (that I don't know how it's called) using a sanguine pencil, a woodless graphite pencil, white dry pastel and two ordinary colored pencils (yellow and dark blue).
So, uhm... the whole idea for this was to limit myself to these two "cool pencils" that I have, and Skeledirge almost completely fit the bill regarding the palette, being majorly orange, white and black. I have two white dry pastel sticks which I also used to make something like a mix-media drawing, and the result was... underwhelming, to say the least.
I lost a lot of my sanguine, the woodless graphite pencil is very hard and dark and heavy to handle, and I have no clue how people draw using pastel sticks because they have no pointy tips. My hands got dirty and I smudged the paper. Also, Skeledirge has a very difficult "anatomy", and I should've probably copied a pose instead of making one up. Oh, yeah, I TRIED to add a BIT of shading, but I could barely understand what was appearing before me, so I gave up basically at the beginning of the process.
This was annoying and I hated it, but I have actual zero experience with every single one of the materials I used here, so I don't feel terrible about it. I don't know if the paper I used is adequate for those pencils/pastels either. Needless to say, I won't be coming back to these pencils (and specially the pastels) for a long time.
Okay, here's a Hydrapple, drawn on ordinary white paper using ordinary colored pencils and ordinary coloring markers (I don't know the brands).
This is another Pokémon I should've limited myself to copying a pose, but I wanted three heads and didn't use a reference for the two on the sides. I don't know why. I should've, now that I think about it.
Anyway, colored pencils are a lot easier to use than sanguine/graphite/whatever I used for Skeledirge, because I learned some in my teenage years, but I ended up feeling like I could've done... more? Like, I could've colored more, or harder, I'm not sure. There could've been more shading and more lighting, but I think I got scared of being too bold and messing it up. It feels a little... washed out? I don't know how to explain it.
The markers were used for the lines, and they, uh... did NOT match the color of the pencils (the apple isn't so bad, I think), but it's what I've got at my disposal. I'm thinking about buying new supplies because the ones that I have are, like... stuff you buy for school, and pretty old, but they still work. Kinda?
Last but not least, a Dragalge on common paper and a blue ballpoint pen.
I had a lot of fun with this one. Dragalge is one of my top favorite Pokémon, and I think leafy sea dragons are one of the coolest animals out there, so I gave myself a bit of freedom and used a photo reference of a sea dragon and made it into a Dragalge, sorta.
I feel like I could've been bolder with this one as well, but once again, I chickened out. I saw one person drawing using ballpoint pens a few years ago and tried to use the same technique. I realized I kinda messed up the anatomy (or the positioning) of its head leaf-things (they should've been more... horizontal/laid down kinda), but I don't think I would've been able to make it more accurate because shading is so damn difficult.
I'll definitely be going back to ballpoint pens and probably colored pencils as well in the future, but I still need to watch some tutorials on both. I don't even want to look at the other supplies; I almost ruined them, so I guess we're enemies now. :/
(Oh, yes, also posted on my Bluesky and deviantArt)
I'm also happy to announce that the story is also coming to its end. The drama/conflict will be resolved either in the following chapter or next two chapters, depending on how big it gets.
After that, I'm going to focus on pregnancy shenanigans because pregnancy shenanigans were the original idea for this fic; I have NO idea how it got derailed into the mess that is now.
Like I said at the end notes of this chapter, I'm going to be more careful when writing new stories in the future. To sum it up, I'll try to avoid stories that are too long/complicated, and will plan everything ahead detail by detail, and will have chapters organized and structured before posting the story to the public.
Since I didn't beta-read this properly, I've probably made some mistakes that I will correct in the following days/weeks when I gather the courage to re-read the chapter.
Anyways, thank you for sticking around and reading, and I hope you enjoy it. It's a very long chapter, but hopefully it won't feel super draggy!
It’s finally done! I know I’m gonna find a bunch of mistakes and probably some plot hole when I read it again later, and chaos might ensue, but, for now, I’m okay with it!
I guess I don’t have a lot to say here, most of my notes are in the chapter itself. Took a lot of time, because of course it did... I keep hoping I won’t take this long for the next chapter, but this never seems to happen x(
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for your time and for sticking around!
This is embarrassing. Can’t even remember how long it’s been since I last updated a fic, probably almost a year. I admit I’ve been lazy and unproductive and kind of focused on other things, but, as usual, I’m not dead. I guess I’m a zombie?
So, here’s a double update. I’ve re-written the first chapter of Fondness; the plan was to just adapt it to make it less sucky, but it turned out something completely different. Hopefully it’s better.
And I’ve also updated Dragons. Not sure there’s anything in particular to say about that, except some necessary “plothole-ish” parts are now out of the way, so anything after this will be mostly character interactions and pregnancy stuff and fluff/drama/etc.
Enjoy, feel free to comment/criticize/what have you, and, as always, thank you very much for the attention and for your time! It’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll probably fix potential mess-ups sometime later; I apologize for those in advance.
I remember saying in my last post that it wouldn’t take me too long to post this chapter, but... I kinda got addicted to Yo-Kai Watch (Fleshy Souls for Kyubi power), and ended up postponing both the writting and release of Dubious.
Regardless, there you go! It’s not the most creative; I suppose I lost the “weirdness” I wanted to develop with The Nest (chapter 2), but, still, it’s Alutegra and a little awkward, so there’s that.
Like I said in the author’s notes, Dubious will be the last chapter I’ll upload to Fondness for a while. Not only because I want to focus on a more proper Alutegra story, but because I also want to engage on another creative endeavor (which I hope will benefit my love for the couple).
I’m thinking about eventually releasing the real bad and unfinished stuff I wrote, but I keep changing my mind because I get embarrassed by all the terribleness. If these scraps do get some sort of polishing, though, they’ll be posted, rest assured.
Anyway, stay safe, enjoy this little thing, and I’ll see you (hopefully) soon with something different!
It’s right here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11066640/6/Fondness
I wasn’t very creative with this chapter, I’ll admit. I just wanted a way to turn headcanons into something “narrative-y”.
Apologies for making Alucard wimpy. It’s just an idea I had for his reaction concerning the things he cares about. Or rather, the prospect of losing them. You know when Windows pops up that FATAL ERROR blue screen? That’s how I see it.
Yeah, it’s pretty fucking weak, but there you go. Also, I don’t think I’ll take too long (not my usual interval, at least) to post the next chapter.
No, seriously, it does, of no one’s fault but mine.
It’s always the same, really. I go AWOL for God knows how long, spend the entire time involved in other stuff BESIDES writing, and then I suddenly realize I haven’t updated in a long while, and I panic. So, of course, I scramble around and pretty much force myself to sit down and actually write something (because there’s no other way I’ll ever produce anything), so I feel less shitty about being online-useless.
And it hardly ever comes out the way I originally planned.
(Warning: I ramble a lot beyond this point).
I don’t really understand what happens. I have all these chapters somewhat summarized in poor bullet points. Or, at least, I have a vague idea of how the story will go. And then, when I sit down to write it, it just... doesn’t come out that way. Either I drag one particular scene for too long and it becomes the whole chapter, or I suddenly decide to combine two different ideas into one.
Which is what happened with “The Phone Call”.
ʕ￫ᴥ￩ ʔ
My original idea for this chapter was having Alucard call Integra in different, yet always inapropriate situations, to talk about whatever dumb shit he was up to, resulting in her either being embarrassingly entertained/aroused, or facepalmilly annoyed at his intrusions. The chapter was originally divided into four different scenes and would end with a bittersweet conversation, but, as you might have read, only one part survived and became the whole thing.
It also swallowed another idea I had for another chapter, which was to display Integra’s more sadistic/thrill-seeker side (which the vampire likes to probe to embarrass her; it’s canon, anyway).
I guess the chapter didn’t come out TOO bad, but it wasn’t at all what I envisioned. Again. It happened before, and it will probably keep happening. I am not satisfied with the way I write either, so that needs to be fixed.
ʅʕ•ᴥ•ʔʃ
I think I know what I have to do. I need to read more. I need to exercise more, and, perhaps, take some... lessons, whatever’s available on the Internet. Tutorials? Advice? My writing, at least to me, feels very stiffled and unnatural, lacking on “life”, so to speak. I can’t explain it, but I don’t like it. I feel like a noob.
I guess I’m just not as enthusiastic about this as I used to be when I wrote all the unpolished drafts and scripts. Rather, it’s thinking about putting in effort to produce something decent that conjures my lazyness and the result is... well, all of this.
ANYWAY, like always, I’ll try to do better next time! There’s still a couple of Alutegra fics I want to see come to life, and there’s a bunch of unfinished crap laying around that could probably use some refinement, so there’s that to look forward to. I can’t, however, focus on one thing at a time, and I actually want more and more to get original things out there, so expect different things in the future.
