Notes In The Margin

Drawing Faces

2009-07-02T02:26:00.008Z

One thing I could never do was draw the human face. Due to the constant difficulty I have with getting everything in the right proportions, eyes would end up oddly spaced, the mouth would end up minuscule, the nose would be reshaped fifteen times and eventually I'd just give up and hide half the face with hair or something. Occasionally I wonder if this kind of problem is what drives many untalented people to manga-style art - it stays shit, but occasionally you assume they're just bad at drawing manga, as opposed to bad at drawing anything remotely human. In fact, I suspect that the terrible, over-the-top styles seen in such garbage as Dragonball Z originates from this kind of thing.

Nice shading on the clothes. Shame it still looks like delusional self-portraiture of Eric Cartman. If anyone ever mentions or makes me watch this garbage again I will personally wage war upon them and the TV stations which continue to spew this forth at a new generation of kids who could be watching something better. Raze the fuckers to the ground. Make them watch their own programmes on permanent loop. That sort of thing. Fucking hell, I despite this tosh.

Tosh is a good word.

I digress. The point of this post was to talk about how awful an artist I am, not to rant about how utterly, appallingly bad DBZ has always been. I've mentioned before how I basically only ever draw glorified stick-figures, and you will have noticed a distinct lack of facial features in this stuff too. Quite aside from the fact that this entire series of doodles originated from my idle scribblings in high school, the simple fact of the matter is that, through out my life, whenever I have attempted to improve my skills at drawing people, I have failed. Quick sketches to capture basic shapes - failed. Attempts to draw singular facial features, such as the nose, to improve on individual areas before putting things together - failed. Using grids to map out features and line them up correctly - failed. I just seemed to reach a point where I understood how to put shading on smooth simple objects and stopped there, unable to convincingly draw anything that wasn't a cube, cone or sphere.

Rather irritating, considering I rather wanted to be able to illustrate things and paint pretty pictures. I still get rather wistful whenever I look at one of Drew Struzan's posters. He's the guy who painted every single Star Wars poster, by the way. And all the Indiana Jones ones. EYE-KON-ICK. I want to go see the movies every time I see those posters, and when I've done that I curse that artist for making me waste more hours of my life again. His art is far superior to some of those films. That's the kind of thing I always really wanted to be able to do, but after years of 'no progress' you eventually start to give up.

I was recently told that I just suffer from a negative attitude. I probably do, but then I was pretty positive before I failed to get any better after years of trying. You try consistently failing for months on end and tell me how you feel after that. Still, I took that as a personal ~~affront~~ challange to try again. Knowing that my style is currently quite 'blocky' and a bit exagerrated and it would probably be best to start with something that fits with that, I picked up an art deco book, flicked through to a picture of a woman and started sketching what I saw. Plenty of smooth lines and harsh shadows present in this style. No focus on realism yet, just getting things to 'go together'.

I stopped again pretty quickly. Looks off, to me.

I managed to identify all the shapes fairly well.
Again, however, they're all out of proportion. Huge eye, nose and mouth too small. The shading, though unfinished all over, is actually quite close to what I'm trying to achieve (though I'll go back to the iris later, too strong an outline) but, again, mouth is wrong. Got to work on that chin, too - probably needs to be a little larger. Or maybe I'm just confused by its comparison to the mouth, I think that's throwing me off. It all looks wrong and I can't go further until I pick out what's going wrong and fix it.

See what I have to work against? Me. There are some aspects of this I'm quite pleased with for a quick sketch but proportions are really important to me. They go wonky and the whole thing gets thrown off.

Nose or the mouth. Or both. The eye's too long. I didn't even notice all these things until I got to this point, and now I'm stuck.

Bugger. Try again.

I'll let you know how I get on.

#47 - Three Books, Three Subjects, One Headache

2009-04-07T00:18:00.002Z

#46 - The Donktor Will See You Now

2009-01-03T19:30:00.000Z

#45: Hygiene

2008-12-30T16:18:00.000Z

#44 - The All-Nighter: 6am

2008-10-06T21:47:00.000Z

Lazin' around

2008-09-02T20:50:00.001Z

So, why no more posting?

Broken scanner is one reason. Taking photographs worked well for a previous webcomic but NITM looks better and is easier to edit without a load of grey wash and uneven tone everywhere. Rest assured, I'm not dropping this completely.

#43 - Drinks

2008-08-12T01:52:00.002Z

Gosh, it HAS been a while, hasn't it? My scanner broke, I completed high school and I met a bunch of new people, for whom I made this picture to illustrate a minor daft event. I decided I might as well put it here with the rest of the NITM series. Whether or not this is a new start is yet to be seen. Enjoy!

#42 - Flying Sporks V

2007-08-26T19:29:00.000Z

#41 - Maths 5

2007-07-31T15:12:00.001Z

From the distant archives of absent-minded classroom scribblings, a Maths installment! I believe this is from the dying days of Higher Maths.

Exam Season

2007-05-28T00:25:00.001Z

#40 - Oh, the pun! The WIT!

2007-04-15T01:16:00.000Z

#39 - Greetings from middle-girth!

2007-04-01T14:26:00.000Z

I know. It's a terrible pun.

#38 - Talking Heads

2007-03-27T21:39:00.000Z

Just one o' those days

2007-02-14T19:27:00.000Z

Guess who's discovered a scanner lying around her house? Mmhmm, mmhmm... no. Not your aunt. Although I'm sure her's is a lovely scanner too.

Butterflies, you say? Most jolly.

#37 - Complete with wildy fluctuating heights!

2007-01-24T19:02:00.000Z

#36 - FlyingSporks IV

2006-10-10T19:07:00.000Z

Now I'm off for a bit. Celebratory dancing shall herald my return, I promise.

In response to Anonymous.

2006-10-08T09:05:00.001Z

Last night I received this delightful little comment on my webcomic, constructively criticizing my artwork and suggesting some improvements I could make.

"You are a man-hating clit-liking dyke queer scum. Eat my ass!!!"

Wow. I just love comments like that. They say so much.

1. 'Man-hating'. Certainly not, or I would not have had a boyfriend for nearly two years now, counted a male as on one my very best friends or have said, on multiple occasions, that women should have the same rights as men - for surely, if men are so terrible, why would I want to be equal, when us man-haters should just grind them into the dirt and RUUUULE THEEEEM AAAALL?! You, on the other hand, have shown yourself to be either woman hating, lesbian hating or feminist hating, the last two being subsections of the first. In other words, you are either sexist, a homophobe or both. Whichever one it is, you should know that that makes you the LEAST socially acceptable and most backwards of the two of us. Congratulations.

2. 'Clit-liking'. Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do have a clitoris, and so to hate it would be to hate a part of myself, which I refuse to do. Nor do I have a problem with clitorises in general, as they are a natural part of most women in the world, not some horrible disease to be removed.
As we have already established, you are some sort of wanker, which means that, in addition to being obnoxious and narcississtic, you make a regular habit of lovingly fondling your penis for a period of time, like millions of far more applaudable men worldwide. Normally, to spend so much care and attention over anything would suggest that one likes this thing very much - and thus, I deduce, you are a penis-lover. Following your line of 'argument', that also makes you gay - as you like penises, in particular your own - but as a possible homophobe I don't think you'd take very well to that suggestion. If you are a female (which I don't think you are, but I'd like to cover all possibilities) then replace the word 'penis' with 'clitoris' and 'men' with 'women'in the above.
Put simply, I do not not consider being told that you like your own genitalia as being an insult, though you clearly do.

3. 'Dyke-queer scum'. For the record, I have not yet established my own sexuality. I veer towards bisexual at times, but considering the presence of a much-loved boyfriend in my life, I think that it is safe to rule out the idea that I am a straight-out lesbian. Even if I were to consider myself a dyke, then I certainly wouldn't consider myself scum - after all, I do not participate in the defining behaviour of 'scum', which is basically obnoxious and antisocial behaviour including, at the low end, posting malicious anonymous comments on a webcomic which has neither provocation nor grounding (what on earth does this webcomic have to do with sexism or lesbianism?) and at the high end includes people who actually go out and deliberately cause harm of one form or another to others - rapists, murderers, domestic abusers, playground bullies, muggers, stalkers and the current President of the United States, for example. You are expressing low-end behaviour. I hope that, at the very least, you go no further than trolling.

4. 'Eat your ass'. I'm sure you would love to do that yourself, although you may regret it later when your head gets cold due to the absence of its hat.

5. If you are one of my friends trying to wind me up, thankyou for giving me a chance to vent. Now don't do it again.

Now for a word from the artist

2006-10-02T18:24:00.000Z

Sorry about the sparseness of actual comic updates recently, I've run out of both liquid ink and gel pens and can't find any fine-tipped felt tips in the house, all of which are suitable for the comic in a way that whiteboard markers are not. Not only are they big and thus bad for fine lines and eyes, but the fumes have strange effects on me.
At least my self-caricaturing's getting better.

#35 - I'm THAT lazy!

2006-10-01T15:46:00.000Z

Yes, I know. In theory, I can do better. In practice, I'm just bone-idle. This is why I occasionally refer to NITM as 'my glorified stick-figures'.

Buy her some easy-listening music or something.

2006-10-01T00:45:00.000Z

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?

2006-09-16T15:40:00.000Z

4th place when you search the name of theis webcomic. I know it's not all that incredible, but this is the first time anything of mine has turned up on the front page of a Google search. I'm proud.

Next comic tomorrow.

#34 - Maths 4

2006-08-29T22:44:00.000Z

#33 - Anatomy Lesson

2006-07-24T16:37:00.000Z

There you go - graphitey goodness. Also, if NITM hasn't updated in ages, there is now a little corner of Wordpress where I invent reasons for the delay. I've added a link over there --->. This place will now be devoted to the comics only, and all excuses, extra stuff and so on will be in the other blog. You can also find a link to my DeviantArt spot there, so if you crave pictures to look at there are photos and stuff.

Don't worry, if anything really important comes up I'll post it here as well so you can't miss it. Such as...
I'm off on holiday for about a week or so. Whoopwoop!

(Oh, and I know it LOOKS like it says 'wind bones', but it's supposed to say 'hand bones'. Honestly.)

I will be lying, though.

2006-07-23T23:34:00.001Z

Mwezzi will have to write:

I will stop drawing offensive cartoons

Take the 'What will you have to write on the chalk board?' not-quiz-thingy at QuizGalaxy.com

And with that, I will try and get some comics up before I go off to visit the relatives. Happy holidays, one and all!

#32 - Why I draw everything on paper.

2006-07-10T11:45:00.000Z

Layout edits!

2006-06-25T14:15:00.000Z

I've widened the layout of this page a little. Contact me if there're any problems, but it looks okay from my monitor.

New webcomic!

2006-06-25T14:11:00.000Z

There's a link in the sidebar, but here's the extra advertising. Because I just found this a few weeks ago, and it has become my favourite.

#31 - Guess what day it is...

2006-05-31T10:45:00.000Z

Installment #31 on the 31st May. Spooky. For the sake of relevance, here is a birthday card I made before rushing out the door to give it to an old friend, presented in glorious blue for my entertainment.

#30 - Jumping cat bracelets!

2006-05-30T14:28:00.000Z

Resizing

2006-05-14T11:59:00.000Z

I'm going to try and resize all the comics on this blog over the next few days, as I'm aware that, even on a 1024x768 reolution setting they are actually too big to fit the screen. So if things disappear temporarily or something, dont worry, they'll be back up shortly.
I wouldn't have noticed this if it wasn't for the fact that I had to dramatically reduce my screen size recently while I sorted out a few problems. So thank my temperamental computer.

#29 - Crude, but who cares?

2006-05-14T00:18:00.000Z

Banner

2006-05-09T18:10:00.000Z

Yeah, the banner was down for a while, but I've managed to put it back up, albeit very clumsily. I'm trying to find a way to sort it so that it'll only link back when you're not on the home page. Having forgotten a lot of code, this may take a while.

#28 - Flying Sporks III

2006-05-07T18:10:00.000Z

Based on true events, that.
I know the banner's messed up, I'm trying to fix that.

#27 - Science!

2006-05-06T15:25:00.002Z

The mini-plot-series thing isn't finished yet, so don't worry about that. I just thought that, seeing as it takes a longer time to appear than every other installment of Notes in the Margin, I might as well keep posting the others so that there aren't long gaps where nothing happens. All series-related comics will appear under the title #26._ - [insert title here] and will have a link to the previous episode, so you'll know.

Update!

2006-04-26T15:23:00.000Z

I've added some more webcomics to the sidebar. A person who read through this comic told me that 'they were inspired to do a doodle themselves, then realised that they couldn't draw at all'. So the new webcomics (Toothpaste for Dinner, Natalie Dee, Married to the Sea and No 4th Wall to Break) are all there to prove that exceptional artwork needn't be a priority.

The other new one added is the only sprite comic that people should bother with, 8-Bit Theatre. Normally, I'd say no to such comics, but this one is actually very funny. And pretty well established. It's worth checking out, even if you don't like sprites.

#25.2 - It's about time, too...

2006-04-07T01:35:00.000Z

(Continued from this comic.)

Well, I'm off for my Easter holidays/study leave in the middle of nowhere surrounded by octogenarians and sheep. Enjoy the comic, and I'll hopefully have the next installment up shortly (i.e. in less than 5 months).

You may now stop nagging.

2006-02-13T00:20:00.000Z

Yep, telling me off for laziness worked before and it's working again. The next installment is being drawn. Not as I type, because a) that's pretty hard even for a multi-tasker such as myself, and b) it's twenty past twelve in the morning! All I can draw s a rather odd-looking bunny... in fact, have the bunny. I promise that i'll get to work on the sketch that I started on during a break in maths (Nikita was there! he should know!) tomorrow or Wednesday. Or maybe Tuesday morning.

And now, the bunny. Once you click on the image, you'll still need to magnify it in order to remove jagginess. You may also notice that the right-hand side eyelashes look a bit odd. That's because I had to digitally remove a huge ink smudge. Left-handed people aren't the only ones to have that difficulty, you know.

Explanation

2006-01-17T19:20:00.000Z

Basically, Notes In The Margin + normal school life = great. However...
Notes In The Margin + rapidly approaching prelims = very bad.

My first prelim is tomorrow. French. Oh, joy. Anyway, the series hasn't been ditched, it's just that right now I REALLY need to do these prelims well, but there's a distinct possibility that, for the English exam at least, I could do really badly. So I have to do work right up to the last minute to try and get as many Bs and As as I possibly can now, so that getting straight As in May will be made a little easier. I'll tell you now, I'm worrying.

Oh, yeah, sorry about the smudging. I was rushing the picture and I forgot the fundamental rule that, when working with liquid ink, you must keep your wrist away from it until it's completely dry.

Erm...

2006-01-11T00:03:00.000Z

Yeah, I've been lazy and haven't bothered to finish the next installment of the plot. I've got the whole storyline worked out, though...

Yeah, I'm useless.

Have some drawings! First one inspired by 'fly on the windshield' by Genesis, the second one by Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing'.

Merry Christmas!

2006-01-08T14:38:00.000Z

#25.1 - The Beginning

2006-01-08T14:35:00.000Z

Why the .1, you may be asking. Well, this is the first part of a small story that was made up during a maths period. This will, as the footnote says, be continued.

#24 - Babysitting

2006-01-08T14:33:00.000Z

Yes, I did do this.

I then managed to convince myself that there was an intruder in the downstairs area, and barricaded myself into the living-room for the rest of the night.

I'm a very rational person, you know.

I remembered to check that the windows were locked.

#23 - Trade-off

2006-01-08T14:32:00.000Z

#22 - Words Of Wisdom

2006-01-08T14:31:00.000Z

#21 - Perfection Incarnate!

2006-01-08T14:30:00.000Z

(This was drawn after I received a comment, now lost, from Joseph about #18. Here's the transcript:
"Just staring into Robbie's cold, soul-less eyes gave me such a fright that I fell off my chair.
I'm suing for back damage. See you in court.")

#20 - Fun!

2006-01-08T14:29:00.000Z

#19 - Small kids scare me

2006-01-08T14:21:00.000Z

Okay, I admit it. This installment is inaccurate. This didn't happen, and there is no such child (to the best of my knowledge). But it shows what I'm like around youngsters. You never know what they'll do to you...

#18 - Biology 1

2006-01-08T14:20:00.000Z

#17 - Still ill.

2006-01-08T14:19:00.000Z

#16 - I'm ill! Point and laugh!

2006-01-08T14:18:00.000Z

#15 - Fun with body-splunging.

2006-01-08T14:17:00.000Z

#14 - Warg.

2006-01-08T14:16:00.000Z

#13 - Maths 3

2006-01-08T14:15:00.000Z

#12 - Why I Should Become A Doctor

2006-01-08T14:14:00.000Z

#10 and #11 - Late Night

2006-01-08T14:11:00.000Z

Five minutes later...

Sorry about the faint image under the first picture. I photographed them lying one on top of the other, and it showed through.

No humour for you

2006-01-08T14:02:00.000Z

I always feel like this after spending a day shopping. Not an enjoyable activity from my point of view.

Anyway, as there's no entertainment here, I spent more time on the picture. Um... enjoy, I guess.

Yeah.

On the plus side, I mentally kicked this stuck up girl who made a point of staring at me in a superior manner. Brat.

Okay, maybe not such a plus.

I bet she lived in that shop. When they close at night, she hides in the clothes racks.

Which may be why she looked like a walking, sneering mannequin.

She was funny, in a way. Her eyebrows were weird. They reminded me of boomerangs. Little furry boomerangs.

I want a little furry boomerang.

It would be adorable.

Really.

#9 - Maths 2

2006-01-08T14:00:00.000Z

For those who are wondering why the third frame is drawn on a different sheet of paper, it's because I messed it up on the main sheet and I was too lazy (and eco-friendly! Save the dandelions! Recycle your children!) to re-draw the entire comic.

#8 - Maths 1

2006-01-08T13:58:00.001Z

#7 - Learn To Spell!

2006-01-08T13:58:00.000Z

#6 - Some Things Can Never Be Explained

2006-01-08T13:56:00.001Z

#5 - Flying Sporks II

2006-01-08T13:56:00.000Z

Doodle

2006-01-08T13:54:00.000Z

#4 - Organ of Lurve

2006-01-08T13:53:00.000Z

#3 - A Day In The Life...

2006-01-08T13:52:00.000Z

#2 - School Mentality

2006-01-08T13:51:00.000Z

#1 - Flying Sporks

2006-01-08T13:50:00.000Z