And there goes the beard ...

It's been 4 days since my 2nd chemo, and hair loss is kicking in hard. I have to admit that I didn't think it would go so fast. Over the course of a few days my beard is practically gone. Psychologically it hit me harder than I thought it would. This entire thing, this whole endeavor feels like a battle of wills. Me vs That Dragon, Cancer. It's tough to keep a positive mindset when your sickness becomes so tangible. Every time I look in the mirror I'm reminded of that very fact. Tough doesn't even cut it.

So I'll keep on walking, drawing, painting and gaming to lighten my mood. And if modelling myself after Agent 47 is what it takes to make me feel better about my hairless face, then so be it.

Anxiety

So tomorrow is my second chemo session and I must admit it's making me a bit nervous. Let's hope I handle this one as well as the first one.

So today I made another study from reference; I'm planning to do a clean line pass, and maybe even do a color version. Let's see how far I can push this.

ref: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/379357968597019259/

Rough sketches

These are more sketches from ref. I found some really nice figurines to take inspiration from. I think I'm going to keep doing these rough sketches for now, because I find it to be a really good practice. Since they don't take that long to do, I should be able to do a few a day. That is, if I'm feeling ok.

My next chemo session is coming up in a few days, and I must say that I'm feeling quite good, I've seem to have recuperated quite well from last one. I hope I can keep it up like this. 

I did have a rather unpleasant surprise though: hair-loss already kicked in. I'm really glad I've had my head shaved so the effects are quite minor. Still, it came as a shock, I wasn't expecting it to be this soon. 

More line practice

ref: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/379357968586465916/

Practicing line art from ref

This is way out of my comfort zone, I seem to handle volumes a lot better than lines. I'm going to do a few more of these, i'm intriged :P

ref: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/452048881332821060/

Half orc line sketch

I made this one to help out a friend. It's basically a rework, I gave some pointers while doing this sketch.

Building strength again

After a bad week I'm starting to feel better again. I was extremely tired, had to fight sleep, had trouble eating, but now I'm feeling waaay better. So I went back to painting, trying to work on my brush efficiency. Note to self, practice more !

I like the tree and foreground, but everything else feel a bit too messy for me. My goal is to suggest detail and to keep the brush strokes to a minimum. I'm a big fan of Mark Boedges, he's an oil painter who mainly does environments (check out his work here: http://www.markboedges.com/paintings.php). That's what I'm aiming at. Expect more landscape studies.

And then it hit back with a vengeance

Sunday was a bad day. I didn't sleep, couldn't eat, nausea hit me pretty hard. I'd almost compare it to a really bad hangover.

I'm feeling a lot better today though, I'm really glad those bad phases are only temporary. But let's not jinx it shall we.

To close off, here's a sketch I was working on at the hospital, first time I actually managed to paint something decent on my surface pro :)

2013 Archive

Probably my best year so far. There was quite an improvement on the art front, but I couldn't find the time to keep up after my second kid was born.

Sorted from new to old (so old is at the bottom), enjoy !

ref used: http://skydancer-stock.deviantart.com/art/Season-of-Yule-2013-12-22-05-421470938

Portrait of a very good friend and godmother for Jess, my second son

still one of my favourites, i love everything about this piece. This is my benchmark, this is what I compare my other work to.

ref used: http://vampire-zombie.deviantart.com/art/lonelily-400799867

random doodle, not sure what i wanted to do, I just let the textures do the talking. 

ref used: http://chamarjin.deviantart.com/art/Tenderness-15-399146853

ref used: http://chamarjin.deviantart.com/art/The-green-fairy-10-402348430

ref used: http://chamarjin.deviantart.com/art/Tenderness-12-399146744

4-armed bandit sketch, about 10mins. I love the dynamic pose of this one.

a rework on an old piece. Quite happy with this one.

portrait of a good friend of mine, and godmother of my first son, Elias :)

portrait of a school-friend. Wonderful woman.

portrait of my girlfriend

friend's dog. Just look at that attittude :)

another portrait of my girlfriend.

Central Park, New York in wintertime.

and yet another portrait of girlfriend

What can I say, she's fun to paint :p

portrait of myself and Elias, my eldest.

practice from ref, lost the link though

practice from ref, lost link

A day after chemo- and immune therapy

Yesterday I had my first session, which took about 7 to 8 hours give or take. I've handled the medication quite well; I'm feeling slightly nauseous, but nothing I can't handle.

The immune therapy was the most intense one, since it seems to have completely cured my cold. It really felt like those microbes got kicked out of my body. I experienced no side-effects either, so they were able to crank up the dose to the maximum.

Chemotherapy went well too, but that's when the nausea started. It was only mild at first, but by the end of the evening, 3 hours after my last dose, it became quite bothersome. I got some medication and slept quite well.

All in all I think I did quite well. I'm keeping a positive and pugnacious demeanor, and with the help of my friends and close-ones, I'm going to beat this thing and come out stronger than before!

...

Now back to drawing!

PS: my girlfriend made me a survival pack. Chocolate, cookies, manly care products :p She's the best :)

Port-a-cath

Yesterday this thing called a port-a-cath was surgically inserted. Still feels quite sore, the pain will probably last for a few days.

Got this from wikipedia:
"In medicine, a port is a small medical appliance that is installed beneath the skin. A catheter connects the port to a vein. Under the skin, the port has a septum through which drugs can be injected and blood samples can be drawn many times, usually with less discomfort for the patient than a more typical "needle stick"."

2012 Archive

Long overdue but here goes. All of these are practice from ref, but i lost the links :/ 

I tried out different approaches each time, ranging from setting a 30mins time limit to playing around with different brushwork techniques. 

We're back !

I finally decided to start up this blog again. My main reason was that I really should force myself to at least make one drawing a day. It's good practice! It's fun! And hopefully peer-pressure will force me to keep going !

The other reason is that a few weeks ago, I received some bad news: I was diagnosed with non-hodgkin lymfoma (a type of cancer), and I need to undergo immune- and chemotherapy. Now, this thing has a good chance of being cured, but still, that news really hit home and made me re-evaluate certain things in my life.

Anyhow, I'm going to start adding some old sketches in the coming days, and hopefully, I'll be able to do some new sketches; kind of depends on how well I handle the medication. Here's hoping !