Just One of Those Days!

You know the ones I mean.... Hehehe!
Just a doodle I did today and decided to colour.

Struggling the Apocalypse

Struggling the Apocalypse

Became inspired to draw. Gryph and I had been playing around with a story, this is a depiction of a scene I came up with near the end. Shown is some of the heroes looking upon the tower from the middle of the wasteland. The sky forebodes the difficulty of the continued journey.

Draw! Challenge #5: Gluttony and Winry

Winry somehow gets stuck on a date with Gluttony!!

Ok, I have a lot of excuses, but I'll save you from all of them. Short of it is I didn't spend much time one this one, that's why I rippled the BG (like heat) and it looks bad... plus some other flaws/incompletions I wont point out.
But it was still fun to spit this one out. I wanted to give tribute to one of the best anime series Fullmetal Alchemist which just ended last week. Gluttony is a bad guy with a never-ending appetite, and Ed in the back there is the hero who not until the last ep hooks up with Winry (on the right). I tried to do Ed's chibi self... I think I was only moderately successful. Oh I also found that surprise is a hard expression to nail... it appears that I got closer to awe or something.
Ok that's it... I'll try to squeeze more time in next week.

Draw! Challenge #5

Taking an other's work and making it your own is quite a challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed last week's cross-over theme. In lieu of this, I propose this weeks challenge to be another fan-art piece of sorts...

The Unlikely Union

This week, we will be taking characters from other works and pairing them in a romantic situation (a wedding, a date, a good old fashioned snog fest, etc). These characters can be from the same comic, game, anime, etc or from different ones. The goal is to match two characters who would make very unlikely lovers.

Exclusion: Last week's crossover inspirations are excluded from this week's challenge. Wolverine, Spiderman, Mario, Pikachu, Yui, and Yoko are all off-limits to both artists in this challenge.

Broken Polls

It seems that the Blogger Polls are broken at the moment. If you see 0 votes it probably means your vote wont go through, please bear with us, I am reporting the bug.

[Update] Please Vote HERE! in the meantime (sorry that it looks funny)

Draw! Challenge #4: Yoko-On!

Yoko-On!

So I'm gonna be straight up, I chose this weeks topic because I wanted to draw Yoko. Yoko is a character from Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan. She's fun with a bit of sass. I dressed her up as Yui from K-On! by giving her Yui's hairpins school uniform and sweet guitar. I wanted an 'in your face' pic which I think I pulled off well enough. I thought about having her wear the jacket, but though it might look a bit weird with her neck~thing.. (it's not a scarf, it has a zipper!) but I still wanted the jacket in there, so I thought it'd be cool if she was tossing it aside.

So I spent a LOT of time getting the perspective, kudos to Steve for some tips. My line work carried over pretty good from last week, but I really think I upped my coloring. Used some neat brushes to get some of the textures and tried hard to stick with the real colors. I'm not a big fan of how they do her hair highlights but wanted to stay true to the 'copy' nature of this exercise. I think one of my favorite parts of this pic is the warm colors esp the ones coming from the floor. I wanted to give it that sundown in the school feel that you get from K-On! sometimes.

Well, with this I'm starting to feel near my peek; hopefully I can practice this strategy a bit more and see where I can grow from there.

Draw! Challenge #4: SUPER SMASH MARVEL COSPLAY!!

SUPER SMASH MARVEL COSPLAY

Which Marvel comics character will you dress your favourite Smash Bros. players in? I tried to duplicate the Final Destination level from Smash Bros. It's not quite up to the standard of the game, but it's the best I could do... I think the floor's a bit bright... I tried to darken it, but I guess I should have used darker tones to begin with. It looks like I forgot to draw Wolverine-Mario's left claws, but I decided that I didn't want it to look like he was actually stabbing Pikachu. It took me all week to come up with the them, then it hit me. I hope you like it. I've spent all week practicing my lines and colouring so that they're cleaner. It seems the practice paid off.

I choose you bootknife

I Choose You Bootknife

This is a quick pic I did for ExtraLives.org's Pokemon Marathon that is currently running. Took me about an hour and a half???... Photoshop crashed on me mostway through so I had to screencap it before putting on some final touches.... but that pretty much stopped it in the current state, and left it at the lower quality.
Oh and bootknife is a cool Extralives meme, it's a knife in a boot! [Bootknife site?]

Draw! Challenge #4

"Good artists borrow, Great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso
The gist of it is everybody takes inspirations from something but great artists will make it their own. In this spirit I want to steal from other works. This weeks challenge is:

Copyright Crossover

Take two works (anime, manga, comic, etc.) that you are fond of and mash 'em up in any way. This isn't really a unique subject as it can be seen everywhere on the internet, but it's fun, and it may not be the only time we want to do this, so we better get it rolling. Remember mimicry is the best form of flattery.

Draw! Challenge #3: Live or Die

Live or Die is about a small resistance group comprised of mismatched adventurers fighting off the ever encroaching evil robotic empire. Featured here is a small portion of the group who until recently followed under Sgt. Peacock (framed on the right). In this shot we can see that the Robots are approaching right at their doorstep and they must quickly prepare their ultimate weapon (in the back) before they break in.

Ok, enough story... I finally got some clean lines! I think my coloring cleaned up too. I tried to arrange it by rule of thirds, I really wanted to bring the attention to the left side, but keep the right side interesting. I really like the way my crab turned out, and the floating screen effect I think worked. By the way, it says: "Monster is big and scary. Safety first." in Japanese.
Because we went with animals this time I tried to go for a comic feel, so a lot of white, but I didn't want to make it feel too empty so I tossed in the textures and a lot more details.
I learned a few more tricks so it was easier to spend more time on the details; so I think I've got a big improvement over last week.

Draw! Challenge # 3: Animal'Zm

Introducing the new rock sensation: Animal'Zm!!

This week's challenge was to create two (or more) anthropomorphic characters. I tried very hard to come up with an original idea for creatures to humanize, but I ended up going with your typical bunny and wolf anthromorphs... Not that these characters are to be discredited for their species, this talented duo will rock you! Stunning you with her amazing voice we have Angie Lapin on vocals. And burning those strings is our cool, suave guitarist, Rafe Lobo. I had a heck of a time trying to draw a guitar. Next time I should choose a simpler scenario hahaha.

Draw! Challenge #3

This time, the theme is simple: Anthropomorphism! Two original characters, each a different species. The only restriction is that the creatures must be organic; no mechs.

Draw! Challenge #2: Phoenix Memories

Phoenix Memories

Sorry for the delay everyone. I was having some technical issues. I spent much of my time working on the background for this one. I'm really bad at backgrounds and many video game covers have some kind of epic scenery or some kind of scene going on. So I actually had to rush the colour job and the line art for this one, so it's a bit sloppy in places. Actually I spent all day Saturday after work finishing up the bg. Then I had to rush Sunday and Monday evening to get it done on time. Then BAM! my internet's shot for a couple days... I suppose I should have spent the extra time putting the title on it, but I didn't really leave enough space for it.

Draw! Challenge #2: Outlaw

So for my box-art I decided to go with a western theme, mostly because I've been playing red dead recently. There was a lot of experimentation in this work. I added textures to give it a grainy feel. As well as some layer blending and smudge tools for fire effects. I tried to play with brush styles a lot too.

I tried to give it a dark tone to contrast the bright 'flame powers' of the protagonist. I also tried to bring in the center of focus onto the center of the box. Which I believe is appropriate for box art because that's the furthest point from all other illustrations you might see on the wall at your local video store. To add mood I dried to give the edge a dry dusty feel... though the successfulness of that attempt is variable.

This notably took longer than I wanted too and it still could have been better, so I hope to improve some of my strategies here. I look forward to the next challenge.

[Edit] Gryph will be a little late this week, we'll put up the poll asap.

Made some balloons

My mom wanted me to doodle something for her... so I made some balloons. Should've probably clustered them more.. ah well.

Draw! Schedule Change

Because of scheduling concerns we have decided to move out the weekly challenge to start and end on Monday evenings instead of the previously scheduled Sunday evenings. So this weeks' challenge pics will go up on the 21st. Please remember to come back and vote.

Draw! Challenge #2

While the readership is voting for the winner of inaugural Draw Challenge #1, the next Challenge is getting geared up. Every week, we'll be drawing-up the next weeks challenge so that you always have something fresh to vote on, and so that we can continue to exercise our artistic skills.

And so without further ado here's Draw! Challenge #2:

Theme: Action Box-Art
Requirements: Must use a box sized aspect ratio, that's about 5:6 or 5:7 I think
Details: Must come up with an original IP for a fictional action-oriented movie or game, and create the box art for it. You can have the name of the movie or game on the box but it is not required.

Draw! Challenge 1#: Reflection Under Me

So for this drawing, I really didn't want to depict my 'evil' self as a humanoid. I felt that if I were to be evil, I wouldn't necessarily want to confuse myself with the good me. A shadowy figure felt like a good fit. I wanted it's eyes to stand out like it's watching, whilst I look upon in it in wonder. Placing it at night seemed like the right time for evil to come out. I tried to use deep colors and empty space to show the divide from good and evil; but calm colors to tie it together. In the end, I think some rustiness of my shop skills show, but not a bad start.

Draw! Challenge #1: Reflection

An ordinary mirror only shows what you look like on the surface, but I chose this one to represent a more true meaning of the word reflection. We all have a darkside and self-reflection allows us to acknowledge some of the complex aspects of ourselves, the good and the bad.

For the background, I chose to place the mirror on a plain wall and use a simple gradient from black to white, respective to the personalities on each side of the mirror (That and I tend to stick to the simple backgrounds since I kind of suck at them). I wanted the pic to be powerful, yet sombre, so I tried to stay away from using too many bright colours.

Coldness of space doodle

Was playing around with some Photoshop filters and strategies. This is what I ended up with. Not my favorite, but some interesting practice. I did however find this cool effect tutorial: http://www.thedesignworld.com/photoshop-tutorials/filter-effects/fantasy-background-effect/

Top 10 Anime Duo's

So in addition to sharing my own creative work, I like to give my opinion on other works through reviews and lists. Here is my top 10 anime duo's list which was originally written for another audience but I find it's very applicable here. I'll try to carry over more of these as time goes on.

For the sake of this list a duo is defined here as a pair of individuals who work together (mostly by themselves) to achieve a common goal, that goal might be fame, fortune, love, work, revenge, companionship. To be in the top ten their interpersonal interactions and relationship must be the most interesting and fun to watch. These are my top 10 favorite duos.

#10

Issac Dian and Miria Harvent (Baccano!)
Relationship: Lovers
Goals: Fortune, Love
These two squeeze into number ten for their outrageousness. Uniquely to this list, neither of them are main characters and they only show up about once an episode, but when they do they'll grab your full attention or you'll be completely turned off. They're two star crossed lovers rushing around in a foreign country blunderingly swindling people to get by. Their great great charisma and obsessiveness to each other keeps the entire show fresh and on it's feet despite they're minimal airtime.

#9

Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist )
Relationship: Brothers
Goals: Survival, Searching
The best of brothers, they stick by each other more deeply than blood. Of course they'd have to since after they tried to resurrect their mother, Alphonse lost his body and Edward lost an arm and leg. They rely on each other to keep themselves going as they try to find away to revive their bodies, and overcoming obstacles with the other in mind no matter how close or far they are for each other. Their brotherly love is very strong and they can have the occasional comedic moment as well.

#8

Gon Freecss and Killua Zaoldyeck (Hunter X Hunter)
Relationship: Friends
Goals: Companionship, Searching
Gon has a special trait that allows him to befriend almost anybody, and make them join his cause; but to befriend a ruthless born assassin from a family of assassins almost instantaneously, that's really something. The two of them are very different with very different backgrounds but because of Gon's friendliness and Killua's curiosity of his bizarre strength they become good friends rather quickly. In fact, the friendship grows so quickly it's like they've known each other all their life and their teamwork, in and out of battle is amazingly good. Their journey, although difficult is fun to watch because their confidence in themselves and each other allows them to be light-hearted about anything, and as they learn about their abilities they only get stronger and more in sync with each other.

#7

Chidori Kaname and Sagara Sousuke (Full Metal Panic!)
Relationship: Assigned Protection
Goals: Survival, Love
Sousuke a soldier of the military is sent to protect a schoolgirl. Their relationship might be pretty bland, if he didn't set-up booby traps all over school, or inspect her locker before she opens it every time, or if she didn't respond to his ineptness by slapping him with a huge paper fan. Needless to say their relationship is very unique, and even though over time Kaname begins to like Sousuke, he remains to just not get it and keeps the hilarity going. Still the best comedy in anime.

#6

Mugen and Jin (Samurai Champloo)
Relationship: Traveling Companions
Goals: Random
I had to consider Jin and Mugen's eligibility for this list. Because they don't really work together ever. In Samurai Champloo the two almost always take their separate ways. Mugen always looking for excitement and glory, ways to show off his fighting skill. and Jin carefully selecting jobs to make a profit on. They always wind up at odds, and miraculously resolving some family or town issue. (I wont say solving) The fact that I can consider them a duo from the way they get stuff done(by not trying), while they maintain absolutely no interest in one another really makes them a unique duo.

#5

Amano Ginji and Mido Ban (Get Backers)
Relationship: Friends, Coworkers
Goals: Survival
Ban and Ginji both come from checkered pasts, but are able to put it all behind them as they focus on the day to day. Getting stuff back seems to be the only thing they know how to do, and they do it well. Their teamwork is some of the best around, and their interactions seem to play off of each other. Their abilities seemingly unique often play well together to get the job done. Even though their character is different you can see that they've been around each other for quite some time, the way they might react similarly to an issue or even get hungry at the same time.

#4

Chise and Shuuji (Saikano)
Relationship: Lovers
Goals: Survival, Love
Shuuji finally musters up a relationship with Chise for his world to come crashing down around him (literally) as he finds that Chise is Japan's strongest weapon against Japan's greatest threat. Their relationship troubles are second to none, as they overcome the call of duty to be together or the fact that Chise's body is ripping apart with missiles wings and other odd growing machinery, amongst loneliness and angst. And even with it's tragic ending their hearts lie with each other.

#3

Kamina and Simon (Teggen Toppa Gurren Laggan)
Relationship: Friends
Goals: World Domination
The worlds greatest hero and his stumbling for a place sidekick. Simon looks up to Kamina's overabundant charisma and whenever lacking Kamina fills him up with confidence in some way or another, whether it be a swift punch to the face in the middle of battle, or the famous "Believe in me who believes in you" line. Kamina in turn needs Simon as a number two, a rock to hold his place, a constant in the madness he creates. And when Simon is forced to take Kamina's place he holds dear the memory of Kamina as his strength to keep spiraling forward.

#2

Horo and Kraft Lawrence (Spice and Wolf)
Relationship: Traveling Companions
Goals: Searching, Companionship
Lawrence's life turned on it's side when the god of harvest falls is found sleeping in his merchandise wagon, Horo. Horo, a gigantic wolf who can take the form of a young woman, decides that she will return north and ride along with lawrence. A wonderful story of love and trade follows. The almost normal interactions between the two are always refreshing and clever. The characters are amazingly relatable (a rarity in anime) as you see them overcome circumstance and enjoy each others company alike. Not many pairing compare this this one in the world of anime, a true gem.

#1

Eureka and Renton Thurston (Eureka Seven)
Relationship: Coworkers, Lovers
Goals: Searching, Love, Survival
As fun or exciting or as touching as the above duos are. They don't compare to Eureka and Renton's Love story about two so young that they at first can't understand what love is; but through the story they find out. Renton and Eureka seem to have every obstacle under the sun to face and yet they work it through together. At first they must deal with getting to know each other, overcoming Eureka's children, overcoming jealousy towards Nirvash, acceptance from each other and the dilemmas grow to the fact that eureka is not exactly human. And through it all you feel for them and their bond as it grows and builds to the point where you know it's unbreakable. And that feeling of unbreakableness alone would be justification enough for the number one spot but their heart-warming moments and excellent teamwork and childish love-learning dynamics really put Eureka and Renton over the top.

Well that's it, thanks for reading. Here's a list of some of the other considered Duos:
Shanna/Yuuji, Kagome/Inuyasha, Index/Touma, Sakura/Shaoran, Lelouce/CC, Suzuku/Euphemia, Eclair/Lumiere, Hawkeye/Roy, Hibiki/Dita, Saito/Zero, Parn/Deedlit, Shirou/Saber, Toosaka/Archer, Chii/Hideki, Chrono/Rosette, Mireille/Kirika, Hare/Guu, Kei/Mizuho,

Thanks for reading,

Draw!

Tablets at 50 pixels...

It is time for our very first Draw! Challenge! It was decided that I would take the lead and decide the theme for our first challenge. I thought we should both draw something of a self-portrait as a sort of introduction. However, these shall be more of a split-self portrait. Revealing our darker halves in our own reflections.

Required items: Mirror
Theme: Good vs. Evil Reflection (or Multiple personality disorder??? o_0)

Welcome to Fated Gatherings!

Welcome to the Fated Gatherings blog. This is a place where artistic creations come to life. Here you will find artwork, sketches, blog postings, stories and much much more.

A little bit about us...

We are two amateur artists who have been best friends for several years. Our creativity has given birth to this blog and in the near future will expand to our own website where we will be able to upload and design many more creations, someday including our own web comic.

We will update the blog weekly as one of our ongoing projects is a weekly Draw! challenge. This is a friendly competition for which each week one of us will post a challenge containing a theme and/or specific items required in a piece for which we will both draw our own interpretations. At the end of the week we will submit the works for all to see and rate. Feedback and criticism are always welcome, but please remember to be kind.

Thanks for stopping by! We look forward to seeing you again!