Wow, I Love It! Thanks!

Wow, I love it! Thanks!

Either Al or Sabrina, one of my two characters? (In response to your newest post.)

Nice, thanks for the info! I’m always interested in hearing how people shade, as I only just recently started shading my own art.

Hi! Just curious, how many layers do you typically use for shading pictures? I'm currently only using one layer for shading and one for highlights, but I may want to expand it in the future. Or not.

I use three or four layers for my more detailed illustrations. And just one for my simple drawings.

Thanks!

How long did it take you to master the art of creating backgrounds? (I ask because I currently suck at them.)

Thanks! I personally wouldn’t call myself a master at backgrounds, but all it takes is practice. It’s easy when you have the area planned out in your head or in sketches. And understanding one, two, and three-point perspective will really help! Best of luck!

About the violence in Charlottesville

First things first: Yes, I am okay. I am thankfully physically unharmed and was not near the violence that was happening in my town. For those of you who are also from Charlottesville, I hope you guys are safe, too.

Anyway, if you don’t want to hear political stuff, I would advise not reading this post—I’m going to give you the ugly truth of what happened

Now for the serious talk. As many of you are aware from the news, violent riots have broken out in Charlottesville today. All of this was sparked when the town voted in April to sell a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and another of Stonewall Jackson from two local parks, as well as changing their names from Lee Park and Jackson Park to Justice Park and Emancipation Park.

There have been three rallies about this. The Alt-Right came a few months back. The Ku Klux Klan came last month. But the most violent rally happened today, when the KKK, the Alt-Right, the Neo-Nazis, and two other white supremacist groups (as redundant as that may sound) came to town to protest.

The city tried to stop them from coming or move them to a different park, but they still came. However, this time, they came early—starting to show up as early as last afternoon. Now keep in mind that a majority of these people aren’t even from Virginia. Most of them are from other states and are trying to claim that they know better what to do with Virginia than actual Virginians, who mostly supported the sale and removal of these statue. But I digress.

The first big upset happened last night, when the Nazis started protesting on the lawn of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, a big historical landmark in Charlottesville. A good number of students were not happy about their intrusion and started counter-protesting. It took a while for the police to come and break things up, but things had already started getting violent. You can practice racist values all you want, but you do not invade our university.

Today, things escalated even more when the “Unite the Right” protest, as it was called, started two hours earlier than the permit they had to “rally.” Needless to say, the counter-protesters showed up, and needless to say, it got violent. From what I heard on local news, the riots included members of the Alt-Right throwing bottles of pepper spray and hardened cement at the counter-protesters. There is also confirmed footage of them with shields and clubs.

But the worst thing happened when some maniac drove a car right into a crowd of counter-protesters. At least one of them was killed, and many more were injured. The guy was finally apprehended, and racist fanatic Richard Spencer was also arrested by police—one of my friends who was at the rally, Damani Harrison, who some of you may remember from my “I Don’t Notice” music video, posted a picture of the police arresting Spencer.

I don’t know all the current developments, as I was only in town visiting close friends for their 50th wedding anniversary—two people who are the kindest, most loving and tolerant people I have ever known—but as you are probably well aware, I am not in support of this violence and am highly against racism on any front. I will say that anyone has the right to peacefully assemble, as granted by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but what they were doing is far from peaceful. Killing innocent bystanders and hitting people with clubs is definitely not peaceful.

Moreover, I don’t like that this is happening in my town of Charlottesville. I have lived here all my life and it contains some of the nicest people. Again, these racists coming to rally were not from Charlottesville; they came from other states. The actual Virginians were the ones fighting against the Nazis, the Alt Right, and the KKK. People who are friends of mine, who went there as an attempt of getting rid of them, who went to film and document what was happening, who closed down their stores so they wouldn’t have to serve these extremists, or simply stayed hidden in their houses for fear of being lynched, a fear that shouldn’t still exist in 2017, but here we are. And C’ville in no way endorses any of what happened today.

I hope all of you, in C’ville or simply with friends in C’ville, stay safe today.

So here’s a reference sheet for my characters, Al Roth and Sabrina Rose! I will make individual sheets for each of them soon including bios and alternate outfits.

Do you have any new videos planned for your Review channel?

As a matter of fact, yes! I’m working on editing a new one right now and will hopefully get it out before the fall semester. Plus, I have other movie reviews, lists, and Was It Really That Bad? episodes planned for the rest of the year.