Tried to come up with a Tablet pun. Failed.

Haha, stole that while googling and trying really hard to come up with one. Well, I've now had my drawing tablet for 2+ weeks, and what do I have to show for it? Tools don't improve talent, they allow it to improve itself. I dunno what I think of the art I've made, almost all of which has been Star Trek-based, lol. But one thing is for sure: the more I use it, the more I understand it. There are left-side of the brain thinkers, and right-side (or at least that's what Facebook tells us--) I def believe myself to be the logical, analytical side over the artsy, musician side - so maybe I'm not meant to be a great artist. One of my personal goals in life is to kinda be okay at all skills that interest me. Like fencing, water polo, or Sail-Boating!

A website I'm a member of is DeviantArt, a place for people to post art they make and get critiques. Panda actually  introduced me to it back in the day when she would send me there to see her art all the time (I wish she'd draw more!) But I on RARE occasions used it to post doodles I really don't remember how I even photographed. The image most viewed by people actually was the Haunter-pumpkin I made last Halloween. (Pokemon fans make up a big part of the site I would say.)

That being said, my interest lately has been to be a'ight at drawing or digital art. One thing I like to do is take a minor part of Star Trek and explore it. For example, one character was a Betazoid -- a telepathic race from the planet Betazed, and even though a main character was from here the show never really explored the race's culture - and we never saw a written language! So while initially testing out my tablet, and just scribbling for fun I made up a written language kinda based on a combination of Japanese and the fact that p, b, q, and d look so much alike!

See, with that it's kinda the same four shapes flipped around in various ways. And/or modified with simple dashes or two dashes. Simple, easy to make. I also don't like how some alien languages on Star Trek look really detail-intense and complicated, that seems to me like it's not a very efficiently language. You should be able to make any single letter in only a few strokes, cause otherwise it takes forever to write! The Ferengi language for example does not look like something that would naturally evolve by writing it with a pen...

Moving on. Doodling another day, I decided after seeing a commercial for a Egyptian special on cable "Hm, we've never explored their culture at all - whether alone their ancient culture. I kinda mentioned a hieroglyphic version of the language on the first doodle-image, maybe..." then more playing around, I got this:

Which I thought looked great! Ironically the first major thing I drew with my tablet... was a tablet! (buhdum, psh.) Haha, I figured the logical language had to come from something similar but different. Here ya go! Some kind of tablet from 2,400+ years ago! The Betazoid article on a Star Trek wiki mentioned that the books (not considered official by the show) gave the planet 3 moons, so I through that in there. And since they are telepathic, I thought the weird circle around the person could mean that in some way. I dunno.

Well the next day, I was doodling again! And tried to draw another one, and I didn't really like how the texture on the outer edge of the first tablet came out. So after drawing and coloring it, I messed around with a bunch of options in the art program I'm using: Coral Painter Essentials 4. (Which is confusing, cause another program right next to it is called "InkScape" - which doesn't use ink of any kind...) Anyway, more experiments with texture got me:

Which I declare the coolest drawn image of mine yet! That looks so texture-y! I can't believe I drew that n.n ahh, even if its not good I'm proud of myself and that's all that matters. This one's got texture, lighting, still gotta work out a way to make the cracks look more realistic but I like it! And now he's on a Boat, m***********. (I'd also like to note that I've just watched that now for the first time...)

So we'll see where my artistic efforts take me next! Stay tuned =D Some interesting statistics from my DeviantArt account:
 

AJHalliwell has 1,026 pageviews [[times people looked at my profile, or an artwork]] total and his 23 deviations were viewed 860 times. He watches 16 people, while 3 people watch him.

Overall, his deviations received 19 comments and were added to deviants' favourites 17 times, while he commented 332 times, making about 0.14 comments per day since he joined DA. This means that he gave 175 comments for every 10 that he received.

His deviation [[their term for an artwork]] with the most comments is Haunter Pokemon Pumpkin with 7 comments, and it is also his most favourited, with 10 favourites. His most viewed deviation is Haunter Pokemon Pumpkin with 221 views.

9 favourites were given for every 10 comments.

Every 101.4 days he uploads a new deviation [[this is an average]], and it's usually on a Tuesday, with 9 (39%) of his deviations.

His busiest month was August 2010 with 13 (57%) of his deviations.

The majority of his deviations are uploaded to the fanart gallery (8), while his favourite category was drawings > scifi with 11 deviations.

Comments per deviation: 0.82
Favourites per deviation: 0.73
Views per deviation: 37
Comments per day: 0
Favourites per day: 0
Deviation views per day: 0.36
Pageviews per day: 0.43

Song of the Day: "Last Friday Night (TGIF)" by Katy Perry. This is a very average song, like a diet toned-down "Tik Tok" but I still like it. A good follow up to her next big single off "Teenage Dream" - likely "Fireworks" followed by "Peacock." Still, I like it, been trying to listen to NOT Lady Gaga lately to average out my crazy play-count on iTunes, lol. Katy Perry's new album is growing on my a lot actually! This, Pearl, Fireworks... Oh, and towards the end there's a random sax solo that reminds me of Step by Step or Urkel or Full House or something. Haha, I wonder if that ref is intentional... TGIF...

"...Think the city towed my car
Chandelier is on the floor
With my favorite party dress
Warrants out for my arrest
Think I need a ginger ale
That was such an epic fail..."

OMG! That reminds me I wanted to go check up on Txts From Last Night which I haven't checked in MONTHS! Yay something to do for the next few hours at work, haha.