hal

the swordlily combo attack involves sword fighting hand to hand on the ground (her legs transform into. well swords). the finger gun (optional) signals lily to shoot using his gun arms so it looks like sword is shooting people with a regular finger gun. august and akeno also used to do this. there's a whole action sequence my girlfriend has thought about too

i feel like the month is way longer because im doing august august instead of playing video games and scrolling social media which is good i think. this month i'm the drawerrrr

i couldnt have done this without taking photos of myself for reference otherwise the perspective was going to mess me up so bad. i think it could use some work but definitely better than if i tried to do it without ref. also the buildings are supposed to be overgrown and stuff but i'm not sure if it's obvious. i had to fix em a few times so they're not too distracting or flat but its hard. i think they could have a bit more depth ngl

the lore reason for the overgrown buildings is that there was a big war against space beasts that wiped out most of the population on the planet, so a lot of places are abandoned or almost completely vacant

OH i also had a different idea for the colors which was way more dramatic (purple and yellow only instead of a regular day) but i think this would be business as usual for swordlily, so it's mostly just the lighting that makes it a little dramatic. because its like. the last thing youd see before they kill you

i did blue and orange yesterday too but i'm letting it slide because ive had too many orange drawings

my friend was saying (jokingly) "i wish i had your power" when i asked them which ones they'd want as a card.. my august august strategy is:

• draw small on a big canvas. dont zoom in a lot or else i WILL focus too much on small details. something like this (but i draw with a gray canvas so my eyes dont hurt):
• coloring is the fun part, mess around. i've been playing around with a lot of complimentary/near complimentary colors (blue and orange) or some kind of group of warm colors
• time limit (even though i dont follow it most of the time) because a time limit is better than none at all.. if i give myself unlimited time i think i'd get too ambitious or just Not do it at all because it becomes way too daunting. this kind of ties in with the "draw small" because it makes me feel like im doodling on a sticky note
• prompts (from my girlfriend) for what to do for the day, usually given the day before so i can think about it passively on the day itself
• compositions aka vaguely estimated rule of thirds
• references for perspective, but try not to directly copy any images (unless its photos of myself). ive used some stock photos to help with perspective and getting started (ESPECIALLY DAY 10) but once i get down what i need from it (hand reference, perspective, etc) i just close it and continue on my own
• for backgrounds, especially emptier ones like the sky/water, i mess around with close colors and different brushes for a bit of texture, like in today's

sorry it's long today i like talking about how i draw. this also mostly applicable to my style but i hope it's still something!

ive always wanted to do some kind of shot like this with characters eating at a bar. one of my main inspirations was the limbus company liu ishmael art (click for the image), where she's also eating noodles at a bar. ALSO who knew perspective with bowls would be so hard. i spent 2 hours alone on the lines which is. way too long. and then another hour was spent on the coloring + shading.

i dont draw august smiling enough, i need to do this more shes so cute. theres no specific noodles, i was vaguely thinking of buldak noodles when drawing this because my girlfriend and i had some last night. i wanna build my spice tolerance up again. also akeno is not here but he would also have high spice tolerance like august, but he'd overreact to the spiciness for the bit