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starbolt22
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Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:53 pm

Hi friends! So basically, this is my thread for talking about things that inspire me when coloring, because sometimes I just wanna gush about it, but I don't want to make a huge long text post in the middle of the thread.

So I guess it'll be kinda like a coloring journal sorta? *shrugs*

I'd let you comment in here, but I feel like it would break up the feel of text posts about my inspirations and stuff, so I think I'mma say please don't post in here~ If you have any comments or anything, or just want to talk to me, you can pose them to me in-thread or in a PM~ whichever way suits you!

So I think that's it. I'mma start off with a general post, and then go into a dragonset I've wanted to talk about all season.

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:33 pm

General Info about Star/I guess my story?

Hi! I'm Starbolt22, but you can call me anything that relates to my username if you'd like!

I'm 17 years old and a senior in high school. I've been on Gaia since I was 9, when my sister made this account for me because I wanted a Gaia so bad so I could be like my sister!

I got into B/C pets around the time I started out digital coloring, which was when I was 12. My first legitimate program was Artweaver 0.5.7, so that was when it was still, like, a beta and it was completely freeware. I spent the whole year being a newb colorist and attempting to apply to to places that wanted more than flat coloring with a little accent.

Here's a couple samples of my early work. As you can see, they're not very mind-blowing or experimental with colors. I don't even want to show you any early edits because I was terrible at blending with the shading template.

Around April of 2009, Sietyna's Realm opened hiring. Except, it wasn't Sietyna's Realm. This was way back when it was DragonScales, under the original managers and just a few months after the lineart auction that the lineart came from. I was actually originally rejected* from moving past the first stage, which was to provide samples from other shops/applications. It wasn't until about a month or two later that DS contacted me and told me that they were giving everyone an equal chance on the lines, and if I was still interested, she would provide me with an adult female template and an egg. Of course I said yes.

That was around the time my great grandpa died. We went to his funeral, and his coffin had flowers all over it. We all were allowed to take a flower(or something, I don't know how we all got a flower), and I got a carnation with white-edged petals. It looked at it for awhile as we went on, and when I got home, inspiration struck. It took me a few hours to color all the scales, and I was so sure I was gonna get rejected because she didn't have super epic intricate designs on her.

That dragon is the reason I'm here today. If I hadn't been given a chance on the lines, I might not even be on Gaia today because this shop pretty much anchors me to the site.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve 2009. I got work and coloring to do, I'm almost done with it, actually. That day, I had just been finishing up the Tinsel dragon's stages when it was about time to come downstairs and spend time with my grandparents. So I do all that, eat a tasty dinner, and then presents come. I couldn't believe it. A brand-spanking new tablet and a copy of Photoshop CS4. It was all I wanted that Christmas. Actually, I had opened the tablet and thought that there was no way the next gift was gonna be PS.

So then more time passes, and then I got to high school and then I got involved in things. I discovered marching band. I discovered what it felt like to truly feel the music and buy into what I was doing. It was the greatest feeling.

This was about the time that the shop started being alive in the summer and not-so-alive during the schoolyear. Somewhere in the timeskip I became the certist too. My skills evolved as time passed.

The only problem was that I was unable to do art in my room anymore. I still had the computer, but over the summer I got used to using Photoshop. Artweaver felt clunky and wrong. And my computer only had a CD drive, so no Photoshop on there. So I just stopped coloring on my computer.

That problem wasn't solved until this past summer. One day, I got home from school or something, and on my bed there was the box containing the computer I have now. I hooked it up, installed my art supplies, and started cranking out more original art as well as no longer having to wait for a turn on one of my parents' computers for Photoshop.

So now here we are. When did I start writing my story? xD

I take a lot of inspiration from nature and music, along with just fun color combos. My colorings tend to be very themed; it's hard for me to do a really abstract coloring. It needs to have some sort of theme or pattern I can follow, or else it doesn't turn out all that nicely. That's one thing that hasn't really changed. Meanwhile, my coloring style has become more exploratory and I'm not too afraid to use orange and blue together anymore.

*I actually whined about it in my Gaia journal, which DG saw and told me exactly why my coloring sucked. I appreciate every word of it today.

starbolt22
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starbolt22
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Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:19 pm

A Dragonset about marching band

So here's the set I really wanted to talk about.

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This is the first dragonSET I've done about marching band. This is the first individual dragon I colored about marching band. These won't be the last about marching band though. Around fall of 2013 or summer of 2014, you'll see a huge dragonset about marching band and things that have left ideas in my head. But that's not for this post!

Anyway, the dragonset. The dragonset is based on the second movement of our marching band show this year. The show is titled "The Ascent" and the second movement was "Shelter Under the Stars"

UPDATE I FOUND IT
the whole show

Each dragon is based on an aspect of the movement. The purple egg is based on the colorguard flags, which were honestly the prettiest flags I've ever seen in my life. The dark egg is based on the concept, taking shelter at night under the stars in some mountains. Finally, the light blue egg is based on the music and drill(the pictures we make on the field).

The purple egg is not an exact copy of the flags at all. It only takes ideas from it. Stars, purple, gold, and swirls are what I got, so I implemented it and added my own take so as not to infringe upon the intellectual concept and make something new and interesting. Probably the easiest to explain because flags are a visual thing.

The dark egg is basically letting me run wild with mountains, stars, and the sky. I decided to make a little sunset over the mountains on the wings(dragon) so that the mountains would stand out more and to add some extra color into the dragon. I did the stars as glowing dots because I like that better for stars than using any of my sparkle brushes. >_> Gets me some practice on the glows. The black markings on the leg armor is supposed to be little cave mouths like in snow or something. The legs are just more on the whole 'stars' theme.

(dragon)The light blue egg is my visual interpretation of the music combined with the drill. The color scheme comes from the fact that the music sounds very clear to me, and I associate clear with like, a light color. The theme of straight lines and arches on the legs and going to the tail are from the drill. Same with the lines on the ends of the wings. At the climax of the movement, we made two arches, and then backed into two straight lines as we ascended through the notes when coming down from it. On the subject of music, the dark green lines through the back scales are like staff lines, with either circles or whole notes(up to the interpretation of the viewer) in them. Finally, the pattern in the leg armor is the feeling I get from the music. Which is also why the end of the drill theme ends in swirls. The music feels very swirly to me, along with being just very beautiful.

From the shows I've been in, I've seen two types of ballads: ballads that are just beautiful and build a little, and ballads that are beautiful but also build a lot. This years ballad was closer to the former, being focused on just being beautiful, but also high impact when the climax hits and the flags come out. So I tried to focus on just making super pretty dragons, rather than try any experimental color combos/patterns.

Welcome to Gaia! ::

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