CosmicFlux

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FLCL FTW!!!


Personally, I've never traced stuff, but that was only because I grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford tracing paper.

I had to settle for staring at comics, and even real people sometimes , when I'd go outside. Yes, I do go outside occasionally. I've gotten some real good visuals of people giving me this look like they were saying "why is this person staring at me?". I'd just try to sketch what I saw with varying degrees of success. I think I've gotten better over the years. I really don't know whats the best way, but thats what I did, and continue to do. Sticking with something, and practice seems to do the trick for most things, not just art. So just keep drawing.

-Pep

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As I was wandering around today, I thought "Ooh, I could snap pictures of people with my camera and then use them to draw from." But, then I thought people would be freaked out if someone just out of the blue took a picture of them. So I started wishing they'd develop eye cameras that you could just take a picture into a computer in your head and connect like a USB cable to your computer and download from your brain.

I've actually got it, and need to finish reading it. I've been hung up on doing the pre-read drawings. Portrait, hand, and chair, I think.

I really should do those tonight.

Cosmic.

My Brute isn't exactly all that brutish or evil looking. Actually, her costume looks vaguely heroic.

Once upon a time, Smoosh, or Lexi as she was known then, was the girlfriend of this guy in Perez Park named Charhead. Charhead, as you might guess, was a Hellion and a fairly respected Hellion at that. Or, as respected as Hellions ever get at any rate. Well, one dreary day, while Lexi was having a fairly pleasant chat with the girlfriend of a Fallen Gunner, this guy jumped in and started beating up all of the Hellions that were there. Well, he was trying to at any rate.

As far as heroes go, he wasn't all that spectacular. But, just before the Paragon City medical teleporters whisked him away, he landed right on Lexi. Stupid hero bled all over her. It took three showers to get it all off, and she had to burn her clothes (which included a brand new top she'd picked up just the day before from this cute little boutique in Atlas Park).

Strangely, shortly after that particular fight, Lexi started exhibiting strange powers. It wasn't long after that, she was fingered by this old bat who'd had her purse stolen and sent to the Zig.

I'll try to get a screenshot up tonight.

Cosmic

Last night, I took one of my comic booky "How to" books since they were right there, and went to the part at the beginning where you have to draw your egg-ish shape for a head, and build from there toward something that looks more head and face-like.

When I finished, while my drawing didn't look exactly like the one in the book, I think it's the best I've done so far.

The one problem I find I have, and I think it's getting better (but we'll see in time) is looking at something, seeing how a particular line is drawn, and then getting that signal to my pencil. The nose I was drawing last night was particularly trying because I couldn't get the curve on the right nostril right.

In the end, though something clicked and I was better understanding what I was trying to get my pencil to do and things started to look more natural and noselike.

I expect to have a scanner within the next week, and then I can start putting stuff up. Woo hoo!

Cosmic

Thanks all!

I'm anxious to improve my drawing, but not at the expense of learning bad habits. *Puts away Rob Liefeld "artwork" and tracing paper*

I'll keep on the way I've working. So far, I've been working from the books I've got here at home, as well as just looking for something interesting around the area to draw. Nothing stellar yet, but at least I can actually recognize what I've drawn as what I've been working from (ie a bottle of water actually looks like a bottle).

I'll see if I can find some magazines or anything else with pictures I can draw from as well.

Again, thanks. Having the community here helps a lot, even though I still don't have a way to put up what I've been drawing.

Cosmic

When learning to draw, does tracing help?

Cosmic

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You can specialise in heroic busts or portraits!

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At the moment I specialize in malformed, somewhat head-shaped scribbles. Tonight, I am hoping they will start emerging less malformed.

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Well, that's pretty much the look she has, though, so maybe the pole would make sense. I can Photoshop one in if I do a colour, I guess...

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Oh, well, in that case... I hope Sexy Jay makes an option for chaps for that complete cowboy/girl ensemble.

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The Turtle Gang demanded I change the avatar. You don't deny the Turtle Gang.

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I can see that denying the Turle Gang would be very bad.

I was trying to locate a screenshot that could be used as an avatar today. I was unhappy with all of my selections. Eventually, I plan on using a malformed head-shaped scribble.

Cosmic

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Your lies burn like lies.

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They're all there now. I wish I had something to trade.

I drew a partially formed head and face in my sketch book last night. Eventually, I hope to get a fully formed heroic personage.

Probably a good move not putting in the pole for Vegas Strip. My first thought was Nancy from SinCity because of the whole cowgirl theme, and the pole would have really hammered that home. At least for me. Still, very nice!

Completely off-topic and unrelated, it's hard to get used to recognizing people on the board when they change their avatars.

Oops! My image for this link is no longer here.

Thank you so much for all the advice and encouragement.

While I didn't do as much as I wanted, I did some sketching last night. More to come today. With enough, I'm sure I'll start to see improvements.

Cosmic

Hiya all,

I've doodled off and on for a number of years, and for the last several months I've been really wanting to improve my artistic skills. I've got a number of books that I've picked up, including Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, a couple books by Burne Hogarth, and a book by Jack Hamm.

One of my big failings is not sticking with it. This time, however, I do really want to commit. If I can get to the point where I can start to see progress in my work, I know it'll make it easier to stick with it. So, I need to get to that point.

What I'm hopefully looking to find is a few helpful hints in where I can start myself out at. Is there any best spot to start? Or just start drawing what I see and go from there.

Looking at the before and after drawings from the Betty Edwards book, I was very impressed with the progress made in just a few months. I'm planning to go through the exercises in the book, and hopefully be able to see some improvement there.

Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner yet, so I don't have a way to show off where my skills are at now. I plan to pick one up soon though.

I think one of the problems I've had in the past is that I haven't had (haven't sought) the support and encouragement to keep me going. When struggling through something, having someone there to say "Keep it up, you're doing good" really helps. And being around so much great and creative work, I can't help but be inspired.

Lots of rambling there. Anyway, at this point, what I'm really looking for is any advice on exercises to help me get started on letting my inner artist flourish. He's languished for far too long.

Cosmic

I would love to see lower cut boots as a costume option, hopefully with a few different masking options (such as laced, with socks, without socks, with tights option from the legs, etc).

Jay is sexy.

Screenshot

Cosmic

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This is an accurate summary of the opinions I posted. That being said, I just want to footnote this: I'm satisfied by the damage buff to Propel that has gone live.

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When we got the free respec for the Anniversary, I copied my controller over to the Training Room and tested both Air Superiority and Propel.

I like the damage from Propel, it's a fun power, and even though it's slow, I'm sure I'll find a use for it. So I dropped Air Superiority and picked Propel up with my respec.

Even if the enemy is already defeated, there is still a bit of fun in throwing a forklift at it.

Zuri

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For the most part, this thread has been very civil even though there's clearly two camps regarding the whole Wormhole fiasco. I've seen Dev responses in threads far, far more inflammatory than this one. It's pretty disappointing that a calm thread with well over 400 posts about issues that greatly affect Gravity Controllers doesn't have a single red comment while far less civil threads get much more attention. Too polite for our own good, I suppose.

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Time to start chewing on the furniture then.

My Grav controller is now 13th level and pretty close to 14th, though I won't have a lot of time to play for the next couple days. So, I still don't have a character big enough to test out the Wormhole change.

I did test out Propel, and really liked it. The only real danger is that I may stop fighting whenever I throw a forklift. For the first day after I got it, I'd announce in SG chat whenever a forklift showed up.

One of my SG mates told me that he'd fear the barrel of hazardous chemicals before he feared the forklift.

Just testing a few times seemed like Prople was doing more damage than Air Superiority, though because of animation times and all that Air Superiority may be better. Despite that, I think I'll stick with Propel for now.

Phear the Phorklift!

Zuri

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If your suggestions do not at least address the control gap, then your suggestions are an attempt to keep us gimped. Not that I mind really--I enjoy the set as it stands on live, and I enjoy the set as it stands on test. At least I know I went on there and tried it out. The new wormhole does lose some functionality--functionality that you can retain by taking teleport foe and by accepting that sometimes you have to send a mob away with a beacon. But it gives us another AoE mez type than just hold, immobilize, and untouchable.

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I would prefer that they left Wormhole as a single target villain flinger. I can't test out the new Wormhole because my Grav controller is only level 10, but I'll be picking up TP Foe if the AE change stays. I would prefer the far more flexible Wormhole though.

I think the power that most people were hoping would be changed is Dimension Shift. I know I was. Instead of removing the villains from the fight for a period of time, they could be slept, disoriented, or tossed up and down repeatedly. I'd prefer giving the villains a timeout my team could still attack through, rather than giving them one that makes my team want to attack me.

I'd rather see Wormhole stay as it is on Live and Dimension Shift become the power that fills the control gap.

Zuri

I would imagine you could stop some of the staggering with Crushing Field, but I think that's also a request for large amounts of debt as you asborb lots of ranged damage between the time you hit with Crushing Field and get to the point where the disorient hits.

I think one of my least favorite forms of control is disorients. I have an attack that causes disorients occasionally on my MA scrapper, and again on my EM tanker. If they just sort of wobbled in place, it wouldn't be so bad. If you hit someone with a disorient while they're moving, it seems like they suddenly take off at Warp 9 leaping over anything that happens to get in their way.

When you're trying to control mobs, and all you do is make them scatter in a random fashion, that's a serious limit in how much you can actually control.

As I've mentioned before, I have no intention of picking up this version of Wormhole. While there may be cases where it could be useful, it feels like way too unreliable and random to ever hope to rely on.

Zuri

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Anyone think the devs will make additional changes?

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I hope so.

Zuri

My Gravity/Kinetics controller is only 6th level, so I can only really talk about the lowbie powers. I didn't take Propel. I think Air Superiority will do better for doing damage if I need it, and it's a vast animation with a fast recharge. I have an Empathy/Psy defender, and the animation time on Propel is the same as Mental Blast or Psy Lance, and those powers are so frustrating to use because of how long they take to use. If Propel had a shorter animation, I'd definitely consider it.

I had hoped to pick up Wormhole as a tool to feed my Singularities once I got them. I don't think I'll pick it up as long as it's AE. While there are occasions where it might be useful, I don't really like the thought of only picking up part of a group. The aggro also concerns me.

I was in a group with an Earth controller who kept using an AE Immobilize, and I think he had to be rezzed after nearly every big pull. From what I understand, the new Wormhole is kind of like that... Activate power, got shot at while power is activating until group is finally relocated and disoriented (at least those that do get popped through the wormhole).

Again, I can't really comment on either power since I'm not high enough level to test Wormhole, and I forgot to copy my Controller to the test server when I got to 6th level.

But, I can't foresee myself taking this version of Wormhole, and I may end up picking up Propel despite it's exceptionally long animation.

Zuri

The missions you get around level 7ish where you have to hunt for Circle of Thorns in King's Row should also be looked at. There are a few CoT that like to hang around on the ground, but the rest perch up on top of buildings.

Maybe a Temp Power where you get special boots with springs on them so you can jump up onto rooftops.

That way I don't have to bug one of my teleporting friends for teleportation duty.

Zuri

I think I was around level 10ish and in the Hollows. We had one member of our team who was running into trouble getting out to the mission, so I started back to help. I think I was just running sprint and Focused Fighting (Katana/SR scrapper).

Raced (as much as sprinting can be considered racing) toward where my teammate was. Got across the street, clipped something as I was running...and then there were suddenly a bunch of red numbers flying over my head.

I think that's about when the group of purple-ish Trolls I ran into appeared. Dead scrapper.

I wasn't being very careful when I ran, but if I'd been able to see the Trolls that hadn't appeared yet, I would have been able to avoid them.

You can only really navigate around a hazard if you know the hazard is there.

Not having to navigate through a minefield of purple baddies is a good IMO.

Zuri