Anime/Game Woodburning
 

Seeing as how I am an ex-college student, who cannot go to school yet and am too late in the season to try and get a job (I've tried all over town... damn them for filling all seasonal positions so quickly -_- ) I need something to do to pass my time.

The other day me and my mother were talking on the phone about random things, and she suggested I find some kind of craft to get into. She was forced to quit teaching when she had my baby brother, so she sits at home, and when she's not chasing the 'terrible two' year (^^; he's a handful indeed) she hand-makes chairs out of PVC pipe and sells them on EBay. And makes quite the killing on them.

So she suggests that I try to do something like, since I have nothing better to do with my time, plus it is a possible income. I agreed, and after having her name off some things, I decided on the art of woodburning.

She bought me some wood, and a brand new woodburner pen to get me started, both of which came in the mail today. The question now is, what do I burn?

Her suggestion, since she knows I'm an anime/game freak, was to draw characters of anime series or games onto the board and burn them. So that's what I'm trying.

Not five minutes after having the thing, I had already burned myself when I was stupid enough to grab the wrong part of the pen to readjust my grip. I tried to do a picture of Kirara from InuYasha as my first attempt at this rigorous artform, and needless to say, I need a lot of practice :( I've decided to try on my second attempt another of my favorite animals, a Chocobo.

What I need is a just a few suggestions of some simple characters to try out while I'm still learning, and if there happen to be others out there who woodburn, some tips would be nice :D

Thanks much ^-^

Well, it sounds like a pretty cool idea you've got going there ^-^
Although I well and truely suck at woodburning (I spent half my time seeing how long it'd take for the tip of the pen to burn through the wood, so to speak), I think something like, I dunno, a Mog, or a chocobo (as you're already doing) would be good.

If you want something simple, you could always try smiley faces.
Like, more detailed, anime smiley faces.
Sure, just to start out with, of course. ;)

I think I might be moving to a Mog pretty soon.... despite the easy design of the Chocobo, its the outlining that is really killing me. Since the outline as to be the darkest part, you have to hold it in place for longer, but when you do that, the lines become... choppy so to speak. With choppiness, it's hard to get in the finer outline details, like it's feathers and such.

I've found a way around that, but it still takes a lot of time to go back and fill in the outlines to be dark. It works a lot better though, and I'm not looking at stupid mistakes from leaving the iron there too long anymore.

[Infected by Casual RP disease]Do a chibi Deedlit![/Infected by Casual RP disease]

How exactly do you do woodburning, anyway?

*snickerfit* ^-^ Waiwai chibi!!

Anyways, what you do is you have this piece of wood... just about any kind will do, just so long as it is sanded smooth. You lightly sketch what you want to do on the the piece of wood. You then get something called a woodburning pen (or iron, most rather like to look at it as a pen) and burn out the outline, followed by shading it in, etc. What it is, is the woodburner has these metal tips, and when you plug it in, it becomes so hot that you can scorch the wood and burn empressions into it. Its taking a lot of practice and accidental burning of my fingers to learn how to do this ^^; *shows muliple bandages on fingers already* I've really got to learn not to grab that little metal part when adjusting my grip....

Ouchies, I really burned myself once while burning a Japanese design into a piece for my mom. My finger tingled and throbbed for days.

Although this may sound stupid, Pokemon are a good way to start. JigglyPuff, Diglett, and Pikachu all have easy and large designs with not a lot of detail in them, so it's good practice. You could also try to make up your own designs and see what different designs and textures are made by leaving the pen in place for longer or shorted periods of time.

I haven't really done anythign else along those lines for awhile. I've done some linolium carvings but that's it so I'm not really an authority on the craft. Good luck with it though.

I truely suck at woodburning, I tried making a picture of a bulldog and it looked like a melting ice cream bar. And I know how you feel, I grabed the wrong end of the pen once, luckly for me, I just plugged it in and was still warming up.

Sounds pretty neat. I might actually buy one from you ;) I could think of a lot of anime/video game characters but they all are pretty detailed. You could always try chibi characters as a start since anyone with artistic talent can draw them halfway decently. They don't have a lot of involved design in them.

It may sound strange, but I'd recommend any character from the Pokemon series. They are all a mix of boxes, circles, and lines and none of them ever wore anything flashy.

When you get real good, could you hammer me out a wood burn of Vincent from Final Fantasy 7 and Chloe from the anime Noir on the same piece of wood? I always thought they would make an awesome team.

Good luck with your endeavour :)

Day Two of the Woodburning Adventure...

Well, I decided to stick it through with my Chocobo. Besides it taking God-awful long to make sure I do the lines just right and dark enough, it seems to be going okay. I've got it's head and neck outlined, and hopefully before the end of the day I can start shading him in.

I don't know why I didn't think to do Pokemon... That's how I was first pulled in to start learning how to draw in the anime style in the first place...

Vince and Chloe... I think I could do something with that ;) I could at least get a picture draw up and ready to go for once I get this stuff down. I've already had a couple of friends ask for things when I ran the idea by them, so I've already gotten the reference pic draw (my cousin in law wanted one of Gunner Yuna from FFX-2... That one will take a while with all the detail on it... @-@) But yeah ^^ I think I could at least have the pic ready to go... cause once I start getting this down, I'm going to begin posting them on EBay... possibly have a store on there where people can make requests too...

Hate to break it to you, Batgirl, but if you really want to do a good job in something or try to hit boundaries that will get you 'bonus points' you have to learn how to do something that may seem a little childish or dumb to do. You have to do it all the time in Theater.

But youre right, it would be good practice.

My tips are trying to learn how to do the simple shapes as well as the complex ones (thanks to learning how to do the hair, I can draw Tohya Miho from Megatokyo fame in many different poses and with different clothes... just gotta work on the face and the eyes)

Are your difficulties from the drawings themselves or the actual woodburning?