I've been a productive little gremlin lately.

Here is the rough work I've been doing! Enjoy!

I know this is totally weird but I'm posting again! In the same week! Amazing, I know.


However, I wanted to get some sketches up. I sat in on a figure drawing class today and did a few poses and was pleased to know that I can still, in fact, draw from a model. It was really challenging cause they were working with folds and he wrapped a sheet around him and all sorts of stuff. Also, I've taken an interest in pretty flowers. Woo!

Enough typing, more drawings.

I've been working on school projects for the past two weeks and I have to say that I've learned a few things about myself and the way I tackle these projects.

The first project for my Illustration class started out shaky as ever. I didn't really have a clear idea of where I wanted to go and where I wound up was far from were I thought I'd end up. However, I do like the outcome and I feel it represents what I like to do far more than my first version. I still have some work to do but I do not have any time tonight and right now I'm motivated to submit a blog post dammit!!

Project 1 for Illustration 2: Editorial piece on the article http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6e1e2ad90e2d94b12b6258b7e9c5b33d.611 I focused on the medical uses for this pretty amazing piece of technology. The big one is the full page illustration, and the small one is the spot illustration, Again, I still have more playing around to do and will upload the final image at a later date. The lines are done in Sketchbook Pro and the colors are done in Photoshop.


Project 1 for Composition was a more open subject and I was able to select my own body of writing and illustrate it. I chose the song Cosmic Love by Florence + The Machine http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/florencethemachine/cosmiclove.html.
 I took a much different course for this piece, doing a highly rendered digital image. This has given me so much grief I couldn't even begin to tell you. Not only were there issues with the file constantly changing sizes, but the resolution and random artifacts that kept popping up drove me nuts. Also, I went to print this version and the size is different than the first run through, so the matte I had cut is now wrong. Woo, -10 pts for me. Ah well. I do enjoy the way it looks and it proves to me I can somewhat render in Photoshop/Sketchbook Pro. I had  a lot of layers on this piece.

Okay, so my crit for my Illustration 2 class was that I was on a boarderline. I either needed more or less with how I rendered on said project(which I will upload after I revise). So, I've been thinking about my process and how I go about creating something from start to finish and I realize what has possibly been holding me back.
...
Too much work. I am thinking too long on each piece that I "set out" to finish. So, this time...I just did it. I didn't think too much except for if my colors made sense, the light made sense, and her perspective made sense.

So far, I think it's successful(minus some problems with lighting and possibly color harmony I was actively thinking about it though, so I think I need to do some more studies.). We'll see.
About 2 hours time...

Perhaps, I do in fact know how to use color and "paint" in Photoshop after all. I wonder what clicked. Anyhow, here is a new character of mine, Cora. She's a sour-faced, revenge bent, shaman. She's got a lovely personality :D

So, I went on another hiatus mostly because I forgot about this blog and I had been busy with vacations and not wanting to do anything. While I was on vacation, though, I decided to start a project of anthropomorphize sea animals with half naked hot chicks. So far, I've done 7. Here they are! They're very Art Nouveau inspired, I <3 it so much.

 This one is the basic Fishtail "seamaiden" as I've coined them.
 This is my faavoriiite! This is an Octopus hybrid.
 This is my third favorite, the Leafy Sea Dragon
 I like the tentacles of this, Jellymaiden~
 This is probably my least favorite, it got all squished. A Sharkmaiden!
This is an eel. I had a heck of a time with that pattern~!
This is an Angler fish adaptation? I dunno, they're ugly ass creatures so I was struggling with this one. Also, the scan didn't come out so great. Boo!






Yup, so now I'm in classes that make me draw all the time so I'll begin to update those as soon as Im finished with them. They're mostly going to be digital so I have no excuse for scanning things in!

Okay, so I know I promised to be more on top of things, and now I look like a liar, but a couple of really exciting things happened.

First exciting thing that happened was Anime Expo! 4 fantastic days with no mishaps. It was kind of a miracle.
Second exciting thing that happened was buying a few new programs! I got Sketchbook Pro 2011 and Manga Studio Debut 4! They're complicated but fun programs and I've been doodling constantly! No finished products because I'm still figuring out how the programs work.
Third exciting thing that happened, happened yesterday! I am now a proud leaser of a Ford Fiesta! I absolutely love driving it!

So with all that out of the way I am going to try and produce something good to post. I've finally gotten one of the designs for my Cosmic series I plan on doing and I am in love with it! I did Earth's Moon and she's just adorable.(not sold on this face, but it's the general look of her..done in Sketchbook Pro)


So, that's all I have right now :/ Also, I need to remember to keep important names and passwords somewhere safe cause I can NEVER seem to remember things. Man, I'm horrible! Also, Im gonna have to get my wisdom teeth pulled. Booooo! Okay, that's enough. Ta-ta.

Like I promised... I will upload the chalk drawings I did! They were a lot of fun and I wound up spending about 4 hours outside. My fingers hurt so much from blending I should have found a towel to do the dirty business.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. "

Scott Adams

Well then, summer has finally settled into my bones and I've become lazy. I am a little upset at myself because I've had plenty of time to keep up with my goal of updating once a week and here I am, almost a month later, not having posted for 3 weeks.

What have I been doing then, if not drawing?
Well, I have been brainstorming. I have been analyzing who I am and what I want to do and how to accomplish it. I have been feeling scared to death that I am not good enough to get into the work I want to. I've been dying at the sight of how much graduate school costs (roughly $68,000 without tax or supplies) and contemplating forgoing the experience. I have also been writing and creating in my head, brewing ideas that will hopefully soon come out into this blog and stop tormenting me!

To make a paragraph short, I've been gathering information over the past few weeks. I think that I've finally gotten enough to begin to create again. The other night, I worked on a piece that might be starting a series. It's more like a prototype because it's not at all how I want the rest to look like and in that I discovered a little better how I want it to work. With all this free time, I want to do finished drawings. I want to build up my portfolio with things outside of my schooling so I can feel better about my own skills and my own creativity.

Thus, this series I want to start is what I'm calling my Cosmic series. I want to anthropomorphize our Sun, Moon, Planets, Major Stars, and maybe even Galaxies. I'm starting with the Sun and the Moon. They'll probably look the most different from the rest of the series, but I think it'll be good.


On a side note, I'm very excited for Anime Expo! It's the one weekend out of the year where me and my boyfriend can geek out together. This will be the first time I'll be participating in a big group "cosplay" (Costume play, or dressing up like a character) and it's going to be great! We don't have any roommates this year so we only have to worry about ourselves. What a nice change.This bout of sewing has sparked a new sense of wanting to do crafts so I have been creating fabric flowers and other hair accessories. Everyone says I should make a bunch and sell them. Maybe. I have to make a bunch first.

I think I'm going to do some chalk drawings today(found a whole bunch of sidewalk chalk yesterday while cleaning the backyard), I'll take pictures and update it by the end of the week. Hopefully Sunday. 

So, I started this thing two weeks ago and have been thinking about what I want to do with it over the summer. I figured It would become a sort of journal and provide motivation for me to keep up with drawing.


So far, It's working. EVerytime I pick up my sketch pad or look at old drawings I think about what I want to draw and show on here.

Without further adieu, I present Hyacinth. One of my many, many role playing characters.

This was inspired by the great Art Nouveau artists Mucha! Also, the pose was grabbed from a vintage nude that I found absolutely stunning and fit this nymph character perfectly. She is holding water hyacinth flowers....they're much easier to draw than normal hyacinth. I am thinking about digitally working into it or something but for right now I enjoy this graphite sketch very, very much!