Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 18

There has been a lot of my mind lately so I feel I didn’t put as much effort into this page as I wanted. Still, I think it’s turned out quite nicely. Definitely still need to work on backgrounds a bit more.

Thanks as usual for reading 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 17

New style! What do you think? Should I stick with this or switch back to using mainly screentones?

I’ve been doing a lot of one-off illustration-style pictures lately just for the fun of it so DHG has kinda taken a backseat lately… feel a bit bad for neglecting it because I really do love this story a lot. This new style is a little messier but less time-consuming. I think it’s the right balance I need to produce pages a little more efficiently. (She says hopefully but secretly worries it’ll still take a long time!)

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 16

I’ve secretly been going through an emotional time these past few months so I’m really happy to have DHG to keep my mind busy and be a creative outlet for my feelings.

Although this page in particular was written years ago, I’ve only just drawn the page. But I have a Word document which is filled with ideas for future pages. I’m hoping the webcomic will soon catch up with my ideas but… well, I’m about 3 (probably more) years behind so I’m not so sure right now 🙂 But I’ll keep going because I really want to share this story.

If nothing else, it makes me feel better. I’m hoping as the story goes on, it’ll make some of you feel good too 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 15

One of my favourite things about writing Rory’s character is his back-chat 🙂

I’m also really pleased with how Remy’s hair turned out in this one. I’m quite liking my slightly new way of working.

Thanks for keeping up with me and DHG! 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 14

Hello! Page 14 is here!

I’m really pleased with Rory’s surprised face in the middle panel 🙂

Also, the little flowers in Remy’s speech bubble were a last-minute after-thought that came to me whilst finishing up this page. I thought it would look cute 🙂

In other news, I’m now the owner of one of those activity trackers everybody seems to getting. It’s not a Fit Bit but I didn’t really want an expensive one and it does what I need it to do – so I’m happy! It’s amazing how much more aware it makes you of your daily activity and makes you think of how you can be more active. For example, I’ve actually been sat down for the last 2 hours working on this page… so I now feel the need to go out for a walk or something to make up for my idleness hahaha. It’s difficult to balance activity around hobbies which require staying stationary.

The tracker isn’t entirely accurate though. I’ve taken up doing daily stretches (and I mean for like half an hour+ each day) and while stretching, I don’t move enough for it to register as ‘activity.’

Just because I’m a computer scientist and secret writer/artist, it doesn’t mean I’m not also an active person 🙂 Well… I at least try anyway.

Anyway, enough random news. Thanks again for reading, I hope you’re enjoying it! 😀

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 8

Remy gets a bit carried away. Oops.

I’m still in the midst of re-arranging parts of my life; various challenges lying ahead. On top of that, I’ve shifted focus onto the writing project I’ve been meaning to make progress on. I’m thankful for my nifty little tablet so I can ‘ink’ over my sketches quicker than before.

Thank you as always for reading 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl -Chapter 2: Page 7

Oh Rory, be careful how you word things 😉

The last update was a month ago – and during that month, I was away gallivanting on a mighty adventure!… Well not really, but I was out of the country for almost a month 🙂 It was definitely another growing experience, as I believe most of this year has been (especially the latter half of it).

I haven’t been doing as much drawing or writing lately. Reflecting back on this year, I feel like a lot has changed and I’ve really grown a lot. I say something similar almost every year but this year, it seems especially so. Because of that, I’ve been busy re-arranging the pieces of my life – not because I feel like it’s broken, just that things no longer belong in the same order that they used to.

I’ll still be working on this as always 🙂 But by now, I’m sure you’re all used to the randomly sporadic updates anyway. But just know, I haven’t given up on DHG 🙂

Hope you all had the most wonderful Christmas, filled with magic and love, and I wish you all an equally magical New Year 🙂

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 2: Page 6

Rory, you’re so mean!

Around the time of working on this page, I managed to slightly hurt my arm (not because of drawing, hahaha) … It’s nothing serious and isn’t really that painful, but even clicking a mouse button gives it a bit of strain at the moment.

As a result, I’ve been trying to rest it and avoid any unnecessary pressure on it. This means using my left (less-dominant) hand to do most things. It’s kinda funny, I’ve found it rather entertaining to switch my mouse hand and to change the way I type so my right hand works less. I tried to avoid using my right hand altogether but typing is unbearably slow 😛

It’s even more entertaining given that my day job requires me working with computers!

Given that DHG’s updates are a little sporadic, this likely doesn’t make a difference – but I like to keep you informed 🙂 Hopefully by the time this update becomes available to you, it’ll be all better!

By the way, I’ve also been away for a little bit so if I take a while to respond, it’s because I have no access to do so 🙂

New Cover Page for DHG!

Hello 🙂 It’s been a long while!

I’ve been working on all sorts of little projects for myself so DHG has taken a little break recently. But that’s not to say I haven’t been working on DHG at all!

Despite having very little experience with full-colour pictures, I decided to dive in and make a full-colour cover/avatar and banner for DHG – after all, the only way to better at something is to keep doing stuff!

So above, you can see my new Cover Page. This will be the ‘avatar’ for my Comic Fury site too and if you haven’t already seen, I’ve also added a new banner to both WordPress and Comic Fury — and additionally, my Twitter!

A few notes about this picture:

• I sketched this out by hand, scanned it into my computer then coloured it using my snazzy new tablet-computer. It’s quite useful being able to draw directly on the screen.

• Rory is wearing a plaid shirt. This look is inspired by Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls (a favourite TV show of mine) whose staple wardrobe item seemed to be plaid.

• The plaid shirt seemed like a great idea until I started drawing it…

• In the end, I opted against drawing the plaid by hand and created a swatch-type image on the computer, basically by drawing a set of straight lines of varying thicknesses and colours then layering them over each other. I then cut and paste this onto Rory’s shirt as appropriate.

• The problem with the cut-and-paste method is the shirt ends up looking a little cardboard-like because the lines are all completely straight and doesn’t consider, for example, the shirt collar and sleeve which needed some ‘bend’. It’s not perfect but hopefully not too noticeable!

• Remy’s dress is inspired by Amy Rose (from Sonic the Hedgehog) and also this dress here. (I chose against doing more plaid…)

• Remy’s hair looks a lot lighter on my laptop than on my tablet…

I’ll now start work on Chapter 2 – hope you’ll be tuning in for more!

 

Dragon Hearted Girl – Chapter 1: Page 55

It took three years to get to the end of Chapter 1… what?! :O

When I first started doing this, I wasn’t expecting for it to take so long. At times, it was a little frustrating. I wanted to churn out pages as quickly as possible – but it wasn’t happening. I felt really slow. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t good enough.

But I’ve learned that sometimes things take time. Over these three years, I feel I’ve definitely improved my technique and style. And although still not as fast as I’d like, I am much faster at doing these pages than when I first started!

If you keep at it, little by little, you do get better and it’s really nice to look back at your progress. When I compare this page to my very very first one, I can see a huge difference!

After three years, I’m now less impatient with myself. I’ve learned to let things go their own pace. I’ve learned to be less serious (because this project is supposed to be fun, after all!). If I run out of time then I can pick it up tomorrow. Although I try to be efficient, sometimes everyday life can take away my attention!

The next update may not come for a little while. Since it’ll be a Chapter Title page, it’ll be in full colour – and for that, I’ll have to work on my colouring technique!

Thank you for sticking with me ♥ I’ll do my best to keep this story going.

P.S. Aspiring artists should not be afraid of using Google Images to find reference material for their drawings. It’s exactly what I did for the middle panel of today’s page, a great way to gather ideas and really helps you to learn how to eventually draw things without referencing!