Wizard People

I went to see Deathly Hallows Part 1 opening weekend and it was really great and made me want to do some Harry Potter art. I in no way feel ashamed to occasionally indulge my geekier tendencies. Can't wait until July for part 2.
When I was drawing the original for this one of my staff saw me working and assumed I was working on a self portrait, I'm not entirely sure how to take that since I'm pretty sure i'd make a lousy Ginny Weasley.

This even has two figures who are, in fact, actually touching; progress, progress

He seems like a respectable chap.

Back from my brief vacation to Baltimore, had a chance to get some work done while I was there and then finished this one up over the last few days.

Ill Lucid Onset gig posters

I was recently contacted about doing some gig posters for the local portland based band, Ill Lucid Onset, They were great to work with and gave me complete free range for the project. I have to say that I've been wanting to try my hand at gig posters for a while so I was pretty excited to have the chance, hopefully this is something that continues.

People In Places

I've been looking back at some of the ladies that I've drawn in the past and was reminded something my bud Sam Bosma said a while ago about it doesn't matter how cool a character is that he doesn't give a damn unless they're in some sort of environment, so thought I'd try to put them somewhere. Also I've been really exploring what I can do in digital. I've been working completely flat for so long that it's been a challenge to thinking about making form this way again. Been looking at the great process post by the aforementioned Sam Bosma and the always great Meg Hunt and found them to be really helpful. Really love some feedback on this one.

Also finally working on drawing some dudes.

In other news I switched my art related flickr over to here in case anybody cares.

This one even has a dude in it.

...and a background

I'm more or less settled in Oregon now and have finally gotten to get back to work (which feels pretty great). I still feel like the part of my work I like the most is the pencil drawings and I'm not quite sure how to rectify that. Fun story this started as a digital piece, with which I proceeded to get frustrated, started a painted version, which at about 5 hours in I realized that there were two sweat droplets and was abandoned (painting over gouache never seems to work) and basically started the digital version all over again. I think I miss the critique world, maybe I need to look into studios in the Portland area or just make some art friends.

New living place, less than new work

Sorry I disappeared for a bit there, I kind of moved across the country. I'm still getting things unpacked/settled and hope to be able to get back to work now, but in the meantime here's a little something to hold you over that I've had on my computer for a few weeks.

Thursday THORSday

Enchantress


Hela

For the record I still hate puns.

Thor's ladies are pretty great to draw. I'm still not entirely sure I understand how Hela's headgear is supposed to work, I suppose it doesn't really matter when you're a Goddess of Death.



Also here a quick Thor and Loki just because.

Black Canary

The guys over at Project Rooftop announced Black Canary as their latest redesign which is pretty exciting since she's a really fun character. I always really liked the old Black Canary design with the mask so that was the first thing to come back. In my redesign for some reason the first thing that came to mind was some sort of victorian/dandy feel, probably because of the character's inclination towards corsets and such, and ultimately came out with this Dandy meets Masquerade Baller meets Hipster, but alas still not proper trousers for Black Canary this time.

Amazon-ish

This is from a few days ago while I was subbing, I don't understand how teachers can watch the same video 5 times in a day and not go nuts. She makes me think of the greek or more accurately wonder woman mythos amazons.

Big week of interviews ahead, cautiously hopeful.

Trying not to be lame.

Dear internet, sorry for dropping of the face of the earth for the past month, I've been focusing pretty much exclusively on the job hunt (which is still in progress) and seemingly never ending application and now some hope inspiring phone interviews I haven't really had a chance to do any real work. For the time being I can't guarantee any sort of frequency with post but I'll do what I can.

About the only time I have to work these days is when I'm substitute teaching so here are some fashion-y ladies. I don't know where to take these but I'm really enjoying doing them.





A student saw my drawing and described them as angry hipsters, I think I'm okay with that.



The folks over at Project Rooftop recently relaunched their site and suggested that the next contest they're doing is Black Canary (still waiting for the official details) and I realized that the lady from a couple post ago was a good starting point for the redesign. I had this idea of what if Black Canary was Victorian/Dandy-ish though I'm worried she looks a little like an olde timey hooker. Also I like the old drawings of Black Canary with a mask. Also she still doesn't get pants.

Back From Holiday

Sorry for the sudden lack of posts I went on a little holiday to Baltimore to visit some folks (which after some car trouble ended up lasting a bit longer than expected). Easing back into the posts with a fashion-y girl post.

I had intended to work on the comic today but realized I had left my notes at home so that's on queue for tomorrow.

Comics Time (yes plural)

I decided to give comics another try and started a new one today based on an idea i've been throwing around for a little while. These are the rough thumbs of the layout and the text/notes which have been censored to preserve your future enjoyment.

This got me thinking about the other comic project I attempted and I've decided to offer the graphic novel from my thesis, that I posted a preview of so long ago, as a pdf download so people can finally see the whole thing. It's available here (right click to save as). It has some problems but there's are probably a few people out there who actually wanted to see it.

Gordon

Fun fact I'm sick again which is awesome.

This is my ukulele, his name is Gordon. He was named after both the Barenaked Ladies first album and Commissioner Gordon from Batman. Maybe I can play him for you sometime.

Alice Final Finally

Here's the finished version of the Alice in Wonderland piece, I was going to post the progress pics from the week but ultimately the finished version is what matters. This is basically my most elaborate purely digital piece so any feedback would be really helpful/appreciated (like even more than usual). Took a lot longer than I thought it would, almost quit and just painted it a couple of times but ultimately stuck with it.

p.s. trying flickr for the photo hosting because blogger/picasa's tendency to wash out really whacked this one out so we'll see how that goes.

I haven't forgotten the post a day pledge but I'm working on a more complicated piece (the alice one I started a while ago and abandoned) so I'll be posting a final with progress shots from everyday probably friday. You can see the first one here http://twitpic.com/zsjwc

Colored Denim Dress

Not sure the colors on this are quite right yet.

Peter Pan

Here are a few quick Peter Pan design sketches from today, not sure where these are going

Marvel Girl Colored

Bah missed my before midnight deadline by 15 minutes, it was around 10 and I realized that I only work I'd done today was something I can't share here yet so I thought i'd color my Marvel Girl from last week. Then I started tinkering with the texture work and suddenly it's later than I intended. Oh well.

I was thinking that if an X-men movie was based on the Jim Lee era stuff they should cast Christina Hendricks to play Jean/Marvel Girl/Phoenix.

Antler Girl Colored

I intended to have more than just a colored version of the antler girl today but it took a lot longer than I thought it would, still maybe needs some work (I think I want to play with the texture a bit.)

Some days it just doesn't happen

I have a fairly sizable pile of crumpled up papers next to my desk, this is the only thing from today I didn't hate. Did manage to get a surprising number of job application done today though.

Antler Girl

Busy day I have two projects in progress that I can't share yet and was teaching today so I was worried I wouldn't get a chance to post but here I am. A little close to the deadline of the end of the day but I hear that these days anything before 1:05am counts as tonight so I guess I've got time to spare.

Someone told me about a year ago that antler girls are over, I don't care. Maybe they can be vintage by now or something. I realized that these last few girls would be fun painted and put in ornate round gold frames so I may start searching thrift stores for some frames like old time-y portraits.

Another Vintage Lady

I have this amazing book about hairstyles of the world/history that I've been looking at quite a bit lately because I realized that I use a lot of the same hairstyle. I'm stuck right now in the 1700-1800 European hair section because it's awesome. I was going for kind of 17th century meets new wave/punk but I think I may have just ended up with pirate hooker.

Somewhat Georgian Colored

Spent most of the day driving around trying to find supplies and working on an assignment so here's a quick coloring of the vaguely 18th century lady for a few days ago, just barely squeeking this in before midnight. Still working on the digital color business, and there are parts that are more successful than others but a good practice.

Marvel Monday [slash] Music Monday

Around some parts of the web it's Marvel Monday an activity that I've been meaning to take part in for quite some time. So here's a quick Marvel Girl drawing (probably the best of Jean Grey's costume decisions)



Bonus here's something that I've did a while ago but forgot about until someone reminded me. I'm taking part in this project called the nomadic playlist (a project I happen to be holding up at the moment with my next addition cause I'm lame), it's a traveling sketchbook and thumb drive where a song is illustrated in the sketchbook and added to the thumb drive. This is my page for Mount Eerie's Voice in Headphones and I will update with my next one once I stop being lame.

Somewhat Georgian

Started off as a Marie Antoinette/Georgian type woman and became um... something else.

Military-esque Jacket

I need to come up with some real projects.

Shaggy Dress Girl

Still kind of mid crisis (though thankfully significantly less) and didn't have much time today to myself today so I decided to try and fix the legs and color the girl from friday's post.

Quick post before I collapse

After a total of one consecutive day of my hopefully post a weekday goal I almost missed a post because of a slight family emergency. So here's a quick drawing I did today in a hospital waiting room, hopefully more substantial posts to come but now I'm off to bed. Please excuse the club hands.

Time to make a change

It's been kind of a wild year what with grad school and moving back and forth between continents a couple of times and now doing the whole job hunt thing (p.s. if any knows of somewhere looking for a jr designer, assistant creative director, or that sort of thing please get in touch where isn't so much an issue as I'm looking to move somewhere else anyways).

So I was kind of awful at posting on a regular basis in 2009 so my biggest resolution for the year is to drastically change that. Since the goal is to make illustration my actual job it's time to start treating it as such so my goal for this year is a new post every day monday through friday. Just at least something; a quick sketch, progress shot, preferably something more substantial.

Right so lets kick this thing off, lately I've been at quite a loss for ideas lately and I realized that I've never done the illustrate classics type of assignments so it's as good a place to start as any. I've been working on this first one (Alice in Wonderland) for a week or so, restarting several times.



Some sketches trying to get the look of characters right.




Okay so I got the drawing and then decided to go straight to the coloring without inking, most because I was feeling lazy.



Ultimately I decided that was a mistake because when it came to actually doing the line work on my tablet things just looked wrong.



And I scrapped it and spent a good deal of time today inking this and plan to move onto coloring it next.


Bonus: here's another fashion-y girl drawing I realized after scanning it and looking at it again that the legs are wrong, but the parts look pretty okay on their own.