Blackdove_EU

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Swissy, but I love my smudge tool... especially since the airbrush is broken and I'd have to reinstall everything to get it to work I think :s

But yeah, my next project would be to shade different materials to look that way, leather, satin, velvet, skin...

Thanks again for all the nice comments, definetely made my day

Blackdove

Heya, been awhile since I've posted here (mostly because my pics haven't been CoX related enough). But here's one I just got finished. I was trying out drawing sitting people and also wanted to color inked base instead of pencil work like many of my previous ones. Coloring done in Photoshop.

Rebecca

Blackdove

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Well, if people are acting like idiots when RPing kids, react as a lot of adults would, and give the little buggers an IC spanking!

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In some countries violence against children is forbidden, even if done for disciplinary purposes. Admittedly, I believe physical punishment of kids is allowed in many states in USA. But even then, I doubt it's accepted to smack around someone else's kids even if they do act like idiots.

Blackdove

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Go for it! Do the plot! I think it's a great idea! Just don't tell me that it's "Community Wide"! Which, by the way, you did. I direct your attention to the OOC section of the original post in "Heroes Among People".


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Uh, okay... Just because it seems to be couple of magical words that are the cause of your discontent with this, I'll quote the "Heroes Among People" thread, the first OOC paragraph:

"It is probably difficult to avoid this ongoing plot because it seems a large part of our roleplaying community has taken enough interest to participate, but also because the nature of the story could politically affect the world you roleplay in permanently and that could be deemed as God Moderating across the community. However, I argue that anyone who wishes to can simply ignore both the process and the outcome of this community-wide plot."

So yes, indeed, words "community-wide" were used... in sentence that said you could ignore it!'

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I shall state it again. You have decided to GM this plot. You have said that this plot affects the entire RP community whether they like it or not.

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Complete untrue, see quote above.

If that was all that your objections were based on, and it is now proved to false assumption and/or strawdoll, are you now content that the plot is fine and you can, indeed, ignore it and move on?

Blackdove

I would like to ask, how do you see on little petition "changing the whole political enviroment"? At most, it succeeds, there'll be some speeches, maybe medals given, a wall or something put up. Things like that are forgotten in a day in real world, and they do not signify any change in actual matters. A nurse might get medal for being good at her job, there might be national Nurse Day, but they still would get the same crappy salary, and would still get the same crappy work hours. Often, in fact, public displays of gratitude are done instead of actually improving matters since it's more cost-effective.

Personally, I don't understand this reaction. Some people are running with a plot that they enjoy doing. You don't enjoy it. Why don't you go and do your own thing that you do find fun? If the ideas of what is fun differ that much, you probably wouldn't enjoy playing together much anyway, so no loss there. If you happen to have a friend who likes the plot, you can just not discuss that with him, and turn a willfull blind eye to the few remarks. Talk about something else. Do something else. Don't come to the forums and call someone else's plot a "half-wrecked car". Do no OBJECT on the way other people do their plots. Ignore them. Stay away. If you don't like a plot, don't take part, ignore it, but don't come to forums and try to tear it down.

Live and let live.

Also I'd like to point out that these kinds of plots come up ALL THE TIME. The most latest one was Zortel's Youth Offenders where it is defined that the City condones Orwellian experiments on metahumans.

Blackdove

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Read what I said again. I said a player has left due to frustration cause by this petition. I said nothing about any particular player. Nor is it harsh and unfair, as knowing Kelvin OOC, I've spoken with him about it and know EXACTLY why he's taken this decision. My statement is fact.

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Yes, a _petition_ started by _a_certain_player_. You really think you can say 'it's petition's fault', and not assign any blame for the person who wrote it?

And what I said, was that "blaming PUBLICALLY" is harsh and unfair. We all could dig up lot of dirt and post our bits as a fact, and for what? To create more negativity and ill feeling. Or what do you think, someone is going to feel better after your accusations?

Blackdove

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...the whole thing therefore comes across as a pointless exercise and has resulted in one of the earliest public RPers in CoH withdrawing from roleplay entirely, due to frustration caused by this petition.

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It has come across as pointless excercise as any RP. It has created character development, plot twists, actions and opinions. And given something to think about to many people. However, if one wanted, he could've stayed well away from the whole thing, as I know several people who have, for various reasons. (Me included. None of my chars have been involved in this in any way. Because of my limited time, and because of all this OOC-sniping)

However, blaming publically another player for someone's quitting, is harsh and unfair. I dare say, if the said player had been having wonderful time playing with his friends, he could've just ignored this thing and carry on doing his thing. If one person does something you don't enjoy / agree with, you stay away and do your own thing, don't go into middle of it, complain about it, and then leave and blame the others who were just doing their own thing for being Bad People.

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If Ammon doesn't want to accept the responsibility of GMing a plot HE created, then there's no point at all in playing it out and people are likely to just ignore the whole thing and retcon it out of their characters.

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Yes, it is Ammon's plot, and whatever happens to the signatures collected is up to him. But considering the main organiser has gone missing, I'd assume the signatures aren't being delivered anywhere until she re-surfaces. And even then, who knows what happens? Maybe she's decided it was stupid petition and destroys the signatures? Getting all huffed up over it so soon is quite unnecessary.

I very much doubt that 'people' in general are going to retcon it out of their characters, no matter what happens. Among the 'people' I know, retcon should be avoided whenever possible. You're of course free to retcon anything out of your character when a plot doesn't go where you think it should or it isn't handled in the way you think it should.

Personally, I think this kind of initiative and moment to engage lot of the roleplaying community is a very good thing, and I appreciate it, even if I haven't taken part.

Blackdove

Bye bye Jest... We knew this was coming, in the vague way, but still... And I have high fever right now and can't think of anything smart to say.

I hope things go great in RL and being loved up (And hah! What did I tell you?)
I remember meeting Jester for the first time and Pyr being all freaked out, and everything else that followed.
Thanks for all the good times and take care!

/hug
/sniffle

Blackdove

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ah heum... It's very kind but I prefer not to be presented anymore in any creative nomination because I already had one (even if it was last year ), others deserve this nomination

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If you think others deserve a nomination, why don't you go and nominate someone? In any case, I doubt Bridger would give you the award against your will if you tell him ^^ I can't edit my post any longer, so what's done is done now.

Blackdove

I don't know if soulasylum really counts if he's posting on the french boards as well (assuming the pic was posted on french creative, that is)? But if he does, it is my pleasure to nominate the wonderful Monte Cristo - Voice of Anubis (version two)

It is beautiful, filled with emotion and story, like the best pictures are. The colors, the positions, the mood, just wow .

Just incase soulasylum wouldn't count, my second nominee would be Solar for his Teddy picture. I already wrote a lot why I liked this piece in the thread, but especially I think it's worth Creative Genius nomination because of the huge progress Solar's been making in refining his expression. Big cheers ^^.

Blackdove

Chibi-Isaac, cuteness! ^^ Very cute. I don't think the legs are too short at all for a chibi. It's great the way it is .

From the other pictures, the Grav Mistress is my favorite, in that you got much softer look to the drawing and lines, I like that. The tablet picture, I think you should try using a softer brush, now the line itself is "pixelated", when the line curves, there is 90 degree sharp angles.

Also, big /clap on the hands on Bishuju picture, that is very good. (I seem to have hand obsession... I keep commenting on how people draw their hands.)

Blackdove

Hey there, very nice . Gorgeous hair, and I like the expression on her face.

The pose then, there's nothing wrong with it artwise, the drawn back hand especially is hard to do and you aced it. The only problem for me is the reality of it, if you pull back the string that much, it's going to go through her other shoulder (as it looks to do in the pic as well), as well when she lets go of the string, it's going to lash against her arm (because her arm goes "through" the bow.)

Anyway, that's not something most people would notice, I bet. And it's a cool picture. /cheers

Blackdove

Awesome poster I can't really think anything intelligent to say so I'll just clap my little hands and cry "More! More! MORE!"

Reading your comments it sounds like you gave proper thought to all the elements, composition and colors and I for one love to hear why and how people do their pieces (if it's not giving away tradesecrets, anyway )

/claphands

More!

Blackdove

Yay, more sketches ^^ And I'm very interested!

By the way - bad news from me. The scanner I've been using has passed on to greener pastures, and hence I am mostly scannerless. Though contemplating on buying my own.

In case you haven't seen this website, I thought these were rather cool pictures, especially the bar ones might be good for you?
Ice Hotel!. Also some glacier pictures are very nice (from google's picture search).

Blackdove

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Oh, curious question: Does anyone else find there's a time of day they draw best at? The picture of Isaac, Juan and Mina, Isaac half-naked, they were done at night time. The picture of Jess and some of the other later ones, done at daytime. Hikari-Hime thinks I may be a wereartist. She may be right. o_O

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I usually doodle during days and draw in the evenings / afternoons (when I do, which sadly isn't everyday), but I don't think it's so much the time of the day, as just sometimes I'm more in tune with it. Might be you're more relaxed / focused during night-time and can tune into drawing better? For me, it's more like there's whole days or stretch of days even when the pictures don't go where I want them to go at all. Very annoying. But changing medium/style sometimes works for that. (From pencils to watercolors, or straight to digital, or from realistic to manga or whatever).

PS. I thought you'd know Boy Meets Boy ^^ That was fun ^^

Blackdove

My fav is Juan and Minako hugging, they look so cute, sweet and shy. (And from what little I know of the characters, that makes me giggle ^^). Isaac, looking cute and bishounen as always (he reminds me of the blonde of the webcomic of two guys that I don't remember the name of right now. One is small blonde who dresses like a punk, and the other is tall dark artist, Mihail or something.) Drawing glasses is difficult, and yep, good work with the elbow on Isaac.

I think you tend to draw quite thick necks usually, it just harder to notice in the guy pictures .

Blackdove

Oh my, Solar, I love that! The simplistic doll like style of body and the coloring fits that exactly. The background fits it as well, simple, serene and vacant to the extreme. What I _really_ love about this pic are the eyes, however! So don't be so annoyed . They set the whole mood of the piece, and put everything else in their own context. Everything else is calm, peaceful, symmetric and then you have the eyes with their wiggly lines and stare, questioning the calmness and harmony. To me, the eyes say 'Who is this girl? Why is somewhere all alone, hugging her teddy so tightly? What has happened to her? Is she angry? Is she sad? Or would she be smiling behind her teddy?" The girl's exact expression is hidden, only her eyes talk to us. That is only enhanced by the expressionless face of the teddy. And I love the girl's eyes, really great way to do them.

Okay, if you were going for just 'cute little girl hugging her teddy, lala laa', that is not what I'm getting at all and I'm very glad of that. Because right now, I think it rocks, seriously. It's vast improvement to your other pieces as far as I can remember them, I think the more time spent on this really shows (as well as your general improvement).

Feedback in form of something else than lavished praise... The colors all work very well together too! (Drat, more praise. Let's try again.) Well, the dark black line of her eyes go over a few strands of hair, which is not something I'd draw, although I have seen (professional) artists do the exact same thing, draw eye lines on top of hair. Teddy's feet aren't as symmetrical as rest of the picture, but I am not at all convinced that if they were more symmetric that would be a good thing for the picture. Just a notice. Teddy's eyes have white-spot of glow, but that seems to come from light source on the right, when every other shadow is coming from light source on the left. Again, maybe this 'fault' actually works better than the straightforward solution.

All in all, I'm really awed, cheers at Solar!

Blackdove

Nice work, CoSton. I like the expression on his face, and the coloring on the blue bits. It's unusual, but gives nice effect. And I love Alan Davis's work

Blackdove

Oooh, very nice! And I love to see the in-progress work! Yahay! Nice colors, I'm curious to see how it turns out Go draw! No going to pubs, draw draw draw ^^

Blackdove

Great, thanks for posting your sketches Zortel, I enjoyed looking at them. I think you're right, during the pause you've gone rather out of practice, but on the positive side, it shouldn't be too hard to catch up to it.

The pictures I liked the most are pretty much the ones you pointed out too. I think you suffer a bit from same fault as I do - the faces tend to get a bit skewed unless paid special attention to it. (I tend to take a look at the mirror-image of the picture I am drawing to get rid of that, either putting the paper against light or with mirror.)

Swissy's advice about doing circles and ellipses is very good and I'd like to see bow it looks like when you draw 'softer'.

Blackdove

Sorry, I very very rarely download any files to view them. I think that is the case for lot of people. Besides, I don't even have Word on this computer.

On copyright infringement - saying "copyright xxx" doesn't actually make it any less infringement, if you don't have permission to use it, or unless it falls into 'Fair Use'. Fan-art in non-commercial use and in additional value (IE - you don't compete with them) should be fine. But of course stating where you got the original art is Very Good Idea.

I did look at the site, and that looks very nice

Blackdove

Great, Catz! It's really cool to see you improving and trying new things (Or at least for me it seems you've gone into more energetic poses). My favorite without a doubt is the Chiefette picture, it has action, difficult angle of hands that is nailed exactly and to top it all off there is vivid emotion on her face and movement. If there's something to improve on, it's symmetry and perspective on her the head (if you try flipping the picture to mirror, I think you'll see what I mean - mostly it's the relative position of her eye and ear). But this is just a minor thing

And the manga style seems to work for you nicely, and still remain fresh. Keep it up

Blackdove

Very nice Z! It's great to see these, they do make me feel like I know the characters better now.

On Nene's picture, the lines make me wonder how you are holding the pen. It looks like you're holding the pen very tightly and pressing hard on the paper. I like the small mouth, I think it fits with the robotic look.

Isaac looks nice ^^ I really like the way his left hand goes, and the curve of his body.

Keep it up, Z

Blackdove

Hey guys, let's not go into the debate "Location X is better than Location Y". The original poster was giving his list of places that are best for RPing for _him_ and asking for _our_lists_. There's no universal truth of what, where and how is best, it is all subjective. Apples and oranges and marshmellows. Besides, I think it was a good question and would be interesting to see people's lists where they like to RP most.

Here's MY list of places where I tend to RP most.

5. Random ingame outdoor locations. (Talos Beach, Steel Canyon University, Galaxy Girl statue. A few Villain locations)
4. SG bases
3. Missions
2. Outside game RP, MSN/IRC
1. Pocket D (Blue Side, or Monkey Cage, usually, and Chalet while it was there.)

Blackdove

Yay, new soulasylum piece I've been wondering when I'd get to see another one And yet again, very atmospheric, beautiful and filled with emotion. /clap The way the women are touching each others, and especially the expression on the non-horned one's face and the contrasted lighting coupled with the yellow/orange/black color scheme all work together really well to create the mood of the piece.

The version 2 is IMO _hugely_ better than version 1.

I really, really love your work. When I'm daydreaming, I can believe to be as good as Swissy one day, but this style of art, I don't know if I have it in me, and I do wish I did.

Blackdove