jmBoekestein ā Aw, Iām just glad if I can help 
Dimmur ā Youāre quite welcome :] And youāre not alone, lots of folks do that.
ArtisticVisions ā Ha! I went there, I saw, and I liked. So hush you :]
Aloriael ā Aw, thanks <3 Iām not quite that tall, though. Iām 167, but nearly always wear high heels. I love high heels. My friends are all insanely tall.
Iām so honoured Iāve inspired you. Thank you for telling me.
NOOB! ā 
Lilie ā Oo, it does sound interesting :] Thanks for telling. Heh, I did get sleep in the end though not much of it. Only ārealā sleep was last night, when I totally collapsed and slept for eleven hours of dreamless exhaustion. I still feel a little knackered. Damn this strange head of mine.
Artjunkie ā :hides: you guys! Just tell me if you ever need Azzy-fur reference, Iād be happy to snap more photos. His fur texture is gorgeous in sunlight, a little like a fuzzy liāll bear.
Fooxoo ā Heheh, yeah, I suppose I do. I tried to pronounce my name the way we do up here rather than how the English and the Americans say it - which is never quite right at all. Despite of training my foreign friends, I canāt get them to say it right, heheh.
And, wellā¦ Iām sorry to say that Iām terrible at perspective. Iād love to be able to help, butā¦ wellā¦ Iāll go check your M&S entry out anyway :] Maybe thereās some bit of advice I can give.
Enialadam ā Aw, thanks :] Iāll go have a peeksie at your piece right after Iāve replied to this thread, see if I can give you some bit of help there (Iāll give it in that thread rather than here, if thatās okay :] )
Mahtan ā Thank you :] Itās been long since I read any kind of fantasy literature or similar. I stopped with those kind of books when I was a teenager, after having devoured what was honestly massive amounts of them (around four hundred, I suspect). Mythological books, which I do read, tend to be pretty heavy literature. The Iliad is an old favourite of mine. Danteās Inferno is a lovely, but intensely heavy read. The fantasy books that I remember (and still love) are Tolkienās, Katherine Kerrās and some books by Stephen R. Donaldson - a series called The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenantā¦ all of these books nice reads and far more accessible than the Iliad. If you have the time or the urge, try to pick up Eddan, old Norse stuff, very inspiring :]
Alden ā thank you :} Iām glad youāve found the Q&A informative - I feel like Iām just babbling in placesā¦ itās so hard to stick to the topic at hand, and actually nail what people are asking me about :] As for your question ā I find that I usually get the anatomy right without having to countā¦ I resort to counting when I feel like somethingās off or not working. The problem is, itās only just good if the subject is not in perspective, not sitting, not bending down or over or leaning in one direction or the other. Itās always quite difficult to get proportions right :[
Erpel ā Heheh, thanks :] Azrael is a difficult subject to catch - if I donāt do him justice, I feel awfully ashamed of myself.
Pushav ā Heh, your questions are awesome. Now, lesseeā¦
- Samurai Pizza cats? Er, I think Iāll go with Thundercats on that one.
- Pepsi Max :]
- Oh myā¦ difficult question. Iād say: The Compleat Moonshadow, Morrowind (though not so much a videogame as a computer one - if I have to name a video game, weād be going FAR back in history, to LadyBug and Mousetrap), andā¦ myā¦ cruel question. Iād have to say Nightmare Before Christmas, but itād be joined by about at least twenty others that I absolutely, completely love.
- Hahah, no, but heās learned how to type. He sometimes leaves my friends cryptic messages if Iāve accidentally left their icq windows open.
- Iām happy to say they love it, and have always been very supportive. Mom worries about the really dark stuff, and dad thinks I should just move abroad and make tons of money at it, heh.
- Nah, itās fun, but the Q&A will soon be over.
- Iāll go looksee in a minute, give you an answer then - but I think Iāll be saying yeah :]
bcairns ā Yeup, thatād be him. Very mischievous but so adorable.
Style ā Hi hi :] For fun, eh? Thatād be a long list. I read, I play games, I watch telly and movies (and for the moment, shamefully gawking at every Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, as a friend has let me borrow all the three first seasons, oh my!), I hang out with my friends, I go for walks and I go out dancing. I go shopping. I am such a spendthrift. If I am in a poor mood, Iāll go downtown and just buy stuff - preferably pretty stuff, clothes, jewellery, makeup (sigh, am such a girl in some ways). I make masks in papier machĆ©, I take insanely long baths, I read about serial killers, I surf the web, looking at pretty stuff and getting riled up by stupid conversations, and I sit around listening to music. A lot of it like pretty much anyone else, I suspect :]
Shyam ā Ee, forgot to write you, getting right on itā¦
Dead pixel ā Thank you kindly :] Iām glad the brushes are helpful, I was so hesitant about posting them first but Iām happy I did, now.
Iām not sure if Iāll ever get around to making such a dvd. Maybe one day - I think Iād like to focus more on painting, than on showing how to paint, for a while now. That is, after all, why I got into the business in the first place - to paint :]
Mosconariz ā Hahah, silly <3 Thanks though.
Akima28 ā Hi there Monique :] and thank you very much for your kind compliments. Donāt worry so much about what your family thinks about your work - my mother always finds my darker projects disturbing, and my brother hates my feminine men (ādraw real men!ā, heāll grump, ha ha). I go with what feels right, though, and Iāll try to depict whatever emotions run through me and what stories I come up with. Itās difficult to explain to someone who hasnāt got the urge to paint, themselves. Not everyone understands that without the darker moments, there canāt be any lighter ones - a painting of a happy, beautiful place is always nice to see, but the more haunting pieces are the ones weāll rememberā¦ at least thatās the way for me, I rarely recall the ones that made me smile for a second and then click and close the window, or turn the page. Just stick to your guns, draw what you love and what youāre fascinated with - your family should be happy that youāre so inspired, and that youāve found some way to convey your emotions and thoughts.
Jan-Mark ā Thankee :] Hm. Whatās important. Man, you do like to ask the difficult questions, donāt you?
I like to convey different things in my pieces. Theyāre usually some little iddy bit of me, of something Iāve felt or of something Iām unhappy about. I have a couple of pieces about the destruction of nature by mankind, as thatās something always close to my heart and always disturbing me (see my old piece āAll that I loved is goneā as well as my master and servant entry). Sometimes, Iāll paint something that simply makes me feel happy at the moment - some of the pictures are sort of exercises in design or in beautiful things, but I still try to think of a story, of a point to them, of something going on in the background. Iām not one of those people with a major goal - with something they want to scream at the world. When thereās a message in one of my pieces, itās discreet and gentle, and itās not there to slap anyone in their face: if someone wants to take it to heart, theyāll have to look for it, and itās rarely too obvious. Mostly when I paint, itās to exercise my own demons, to get some thought or picture out of my head. I rarely think, āhey, the people need to KNOW thisā, I donāt have an agenda and I rarely stop to think about how the message will be perceived - most of the time, it just flies straight by and nobody even notices. I donāt mind :] Does that answer the question?
ArtisticVisions ā Much better, thanks :] Having art education to back you up when painting digitally is about as important as it is when youāre painting in water colours or oils or acrylics. The computerās just another tool, after all. Itās nice if you know how to draw, but you can learn it either way, you know?
Orion 77 ā Hi hi :] Iām afraid a lot of my paintings turn out looking a little like me. Itās an entirely subconscious thing - I end up painting myself into a lot of my paintings. I try to keep from doing it but it still happensā¦ quite embarrassing really. I think most of my paintings show a little bit of me in one way or the other, though, so I suppose itās just natural :] This one is no more a self-portrait than A Thought Made Flesh is (another painting that all my friends tell me looks just like me). Weird, they both have masksā¦ hm.
At least those are happily geeky.
