Enterprising

Not only am I using Google email, blog, notepad, homepage, and search engine... now I'm using their web page creator too! You can check out the page I've made so far here. I think I'll use the website for a similar purpose to this blog but with more of a focus on content and less of a "web diary" theme.

After work I have to go and find the house of an old Argos colleague so I can re-fix his computer. I already fixed it once, he just wanted me to swap his old hard drive for a newer one. After swapping them over and screwing the new one into the housing I kind of... forgot to attach the wires. Oops. Well I'm going over there this afternoon to remedy that. The funny thing is that I've done that several times before to myself.

I received "The Book of Vile Darkness" yesterday so I'll be going over it for the next few days so I can introduce some truly diabolical villains and encounters for PCs in future games of D&D. I had previously bought "Heroes of Horror" and while it was a good read it didn't provide me with exactly what I was after. I've only skimmed The Book of Vile Darkness (charming title eh?) but from what I've read so far I can see there's promising material. There's also stuff I definitely won't be using unless I play host to some truly masochistic players (one or two illustrations are enough to put you off your dinner).

The other books I received from Amazon were "The Comic Artist's Reference: People and Poses" by Buddy Scalera, "How to Draw Manga: Putting Things in Perspective", by K's Art and "More How to Draw Manga: Mastering Bishoujo Characters" by Go Office.

The Comic Artist's Reference is really good. The author writes a humorous, light-hearted, but informative introduction and the photographs inside have already proved useful.

As you've probably guessed by the artwork I've already linked to, I'm not exactly a Manga artist. But since Manga is essentially simple line art drawn in sequential comics (albeit read backwards) I decided to try one or two of the books from the series (namely "More How to Draw Manga: The Basics of Character Drawing", and "How to Draw Manga: Amazing Effects"). Both are very good books and, to my relief, useful even if you're not planning on drawing Japanese comics.

How to Draw Manga: Putting Things in Perspective goes into a lot of detail on drawing backgrounds and sizing things up. You don't have to wade through pages of waffle or useless information before finding what you need. I'll definitely be using this book in my future projects when it comes to putting characters on a background, or even when just drawing a panorama.

Although More How to Draw Manga: Mastering Bishoujo Characters is definitely aimed at artists illustrating Japanese Manga, it was recommended to me by another artist when I related to him my abysmal skill at drawing female characters. While it doesn't go into as much detail on the anatomy and specifics of female characters, this book really delivers drawing a character and not just a figure on a page. Getting a sense of personality and the feelings of a person across when they are just line art on paper isn't the easiest of things to do. This book really helps.