Dream Strings
creative output by Andrea Brooks
creative output by Andrea Brooks
Aug 12th
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and so I thought I’d just write about it since it’s kinda neat to reflect on.
Most of us develop our character concepts over the span of years. I know for me, Banrai was made in the late 1990′s, along with the larger part of my other brainchildren. When I first began drawing up my characters, the way their personalities developed was really based around my life, my thoughts and ideas, my fears hopes and dreams. As I grew up my characters slowly changed to reflect my growing ideas of who I am, and they matured with me through the years into what they are today.
The best character I can think of to illustrate this is Macase, my black avian character. At the time of her creation, her name was Makaze Darktalon. At the time, I was on a weeabo streak and had to name EVERYTHING after something Japanese. I made her to be my avatar in the Gryphon Guild, and wanted to be unique and memorable. Her history was that she had killed her parents or some-such, and her feathers were all tinged red from the perpetual stains of the blood. Clearly, I was emo as heck. At that time, this is what she looked like.
Having established a real ‘persona’ for her, I of course thought often about her and how she relates to my other characters. Through explorative sketches and writing, she developed into less of a gryphon and more into a black hybrid animal with no real recognizable species. After a while, I took to drawing her more as an anthro and as less of a quadruped beast. From that, she really began to develop her own ‘style’ – I tended to draw her in clothes remenescent of the victorean era. This developed along with my concepts for Astian (which is my sort-of world mythos project) and I slowly began to weave her into the story. The themes that I highlight in that universe fit well with the direction she was going, and so the two became intertwined in ways that I didn’t even thing were possible.
Now, with a new perspective, she’s grown to be one of my favorite characters. Through the years, she lost her name in favor of something a little more elegant – we now know her as Tias Macase. She was once a beautiful, sexy lady – the envy of men and women alike. Not quite what we know as a supermodel, but more like someone with a classic and timeless beauty, like paintings of women from the renaissance. However, the country that she resides in is in great turmoil. There is a huge movement against the oppressive government, and in turn the political figures retaliate with brutal force. Civilians that are caught speaking out against the government are detained and subjected to horrific and often disfiguring tortures. Macase was one of those individuals – detained for being seen at a street parade handing out pamphlets speaking out against the same torture that she was subjected to. She had sulfiric acid thrown in her face repeatedly. The results of this was quite tragic, and she is very deeply ashamed of how she now looks. So, in an effort to hide herself she wears masks where the only part of her face that is visible is her eyes.
So, the point I’m getting to is that I really feel like all of us tend to ‘mature’ our characters as we ourselves grow and mature. I know this is awful rambly, but I think it’s a very valid thing to think about as a creator, artist, or writer. And who knows – maybe it’ll make you think too!
Jul 12th
Recently I’ve come into possession of a copy of Paint Tool SAI, and so I’ve been trying to work on doing some digital artwork. It’s gone very well, in fact I’ve finished two pieces in as many days and I’m quite happy with the outcome!
One of my favorite tools that SAI offers is the option to make ‘Inking Layers’ – that is, a layer that behaves as a vector layer that you can actually draw your linework on, and then hold down shift, ctrl or alt and be able to move the lines around, reposition them and even straighten them out with a point-by-point movement. It’s really amazing, and cuts down on the inking time so much that… well, I can’t think of anything to compare it to!
So, at any rate – definitely check out SAI if you’re into doing visual art. You’ll love it!
Jun 29th
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve really been itching to do some sewing. I’ve had loads of fabric piling up, and so I finally pulled it out and picked a couple favorites to try and make something out of. I finally decided on a lovely white with cobalt blue flowers.

Cute, huh? Honestly I’m very proud of it, considering I didn’t have a pattern at all and just sort of threw it together.
Jun 26th
One of the biggest problems that I find myself in is that I constantly have so many projects going on that I simply overwhelm myself with them. It’s so annoying, because I have all these ideas that I know I could finish if I could simply find the time. More often than not, I don’t even know what I have on my plate on any given day and so all of my ideas just trickle away, forgotten.
So, in a effort to keep myself straight I think I might start posting about all the little things I have going on that are in various stages of completion. Heck, maybe I can take progression photos and do some sort of tutorials. Either way, I think it would be very beneficial to just get it all down on paper. Either way, here’s the short list of what I can think of at the moment:
Anyway, that’s all I can think of for right now. Hopefully being able to reflect back on this list will help me get motivated to finish some things before I start a thousand new projects!
Jun 19th
Today I’d like to talk about one of my favorite reference sites: PoseManiacs.
Drawing from life gives some of the most valuable lessons that we can learn as an artist, but unfortunately a lot of the time you just can’t find a life drawing class nearby that suits your schedule. That’s why I’ve selected this site to share today; the variety of poses, angles and inserts that are offered is outstanding. Almost all the figures are completely rotatable, and you can enlarge each of them to be full screen (however they are just a little pixelated).
One of my favorite applications on PoseManiacs is their 30-second gesture drawing program. Basically you can set a time-limit on how long you’d like each random pose to be displayed, and after that set amount of time it goes on to the next. Anyone who’s spent any time at all in a life drawing class knows the value of being able to produce quick, clean gesture sketches and this tool can really help you hone your skills without having to pay tons of money.
They also offer several other features, including a negative space simulator which I find particularly useful. Even if you’re just a beginning artist, definitely look through this site for some awesome reference material.
Jun 7th
I really want to talk for a moment about something that I think is integral to every artist’s development. That’s right: Crayons. But not just any crayons; oh no, what I’m talking about are Crayola Crayons (not those knock-off brands like you’d get in a restaurant that have such a high wax content that the color flakes away nearly instantaneously).

That’s right, those are the ones. Now, if you went to school in the United States any time in the past 100 years, more than likely these lovely little tools were on your list of supplies. For most, if not all artists these are the very first tools that we can remember using – and quite a few of us thought we were pretty darn good with them (even if we didn’t always stay inside the lines)! Still to this day one of my favorite things is the way a nice fresh box of crayons smells, and I dare any of you to challenge me on that.
So, anyway, as I was reading about these wonderful sticks of awesome, I found this chart that shows the range of colors provided by Crayola, from the 1900′s to the present day. I remember a lot of colors (I think they went up to 128 sets when I was a wee kid, but I could only ever get the 24 box because we were pretty poor. One of the best things about being an adult is that I can buy the 64-color box of Crayolas and not have my mom tell me it’s too expensive), but certainly not this many!

Woah! Look at all those colors! But, do you ever wonder about how all those amazing colors come to be? Maybe, if you’re from the same generation I am, you’ll remember our favorite Neighbor talking about how Crayons are made. It’s funny, because I remember that as a child I was fascinated by this entire process, and now at 25 I still find it completely enrapturing.
So, if you’re feeling crafty and you have an old box of crayons lying around you could even recycle them into your very own mixed color crayons. Pretty awesome, and I’m definitely going to be doing this myself with all the little bits and chunks I’ve accumulated in my bins.
Jun 6th
Today I went to a class at the Asheville Art Museum, titled “Writing a Children’s Book – A How-To”. It was hosted by Lester Laminack (a children’s book author) and Judy Love (a children’s book illustrator); it was very informative and actually very entertaining as well! I think that a lot of the information I came away with is helpful, not only in the world of working with publishers, but in the fine art world as well. Thinking about how they talked about working with publishers really reflected what I know about working with gallery curators and so on.
I also found a really neat store that we popped by, called Earth Guild. They carried a really nice variety of wool batting, so I got some nice colors so that I could start a new needle-felting project. I think I might end up doing a whole series of my little dragon monsters, since they’re quite enjoyable to make and I think they have really nice personality. I really need to look into finding a nice supplier of glass doll eyes, because I think anything else is sort-of degrading to my work. Oh well, I’ll find one eventually!
Jun 5th
Today was the Southern Highland Craft Guild‘s ‘Clay Day’, which was pretty neat – they had a whole thing on Raku pottery, and so Kas and I made some little pots. His came out nicer than mine, which is regrettable since he doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Oh well, now I know what not to do!
I finally broke down and signed up for classes again; it’s been nearly five years since the last ones I took. So far, it’s been quite nice and I’ve been doing well so I’m very pleased. =) I just need to get off my rear and get all my credits transferred down here to the local community college, so that I don’t have to worry about driving all the way into Asheville. Oh well, just another task to put on the to-do list!
In art-news, not a whole lot has been going on. I finally finished something that’s been sitting in my .PSD folder for a few months. I’ve been wanting to do an updated self-portrait for a while, and so I finally sat down and started working on one. Of course, it’s a little different than what I really look like; I’ve portrayed myself as a Sathari. But, what is that? They’re the humanoid inhabitants of my little world. Not really a whole lot different from us, only with funny eyes and noses, and very pronounced cheek-bones.
Other than that, life has been pretty quiet. I’ve been toying with the idea of possibly doing some sculpting sometime soon, and have a very neat idea for a work. I’ll probably save up some funds in the next couple of weeks and get started on that (I hope)!
May 14th
2010 was really supposed to be the year that I buckled down and started regularly updating with sketches. I guess we can all see how well that’s gone along, can’t we?
I’ve really been getting into making ACEOs and experimenting with new styles and mediums. Just a couple for now, but I’m sure there will be many more in the future.
I haven’t really been doing too much else aside from random scribbles in my Moleskine. I’ll probably scan in some more bits and pieces in the next couple of days so that I have something more substantial to update with… For now, enjoy these few sketches!