31: "In the Birchwoods"

Stone lithography, drawn with grease pencil and scratched with a razor, etched, and printed in an edition of 12 on Reeves white heavyweight paper.

30: Vulturoo

It all started with this guy. In Mr. Kovach's illustration methods class, we were to design a narrative sculpture, creating a character or scene and a schematic to accompany it. Admittedly, I was rather frazzled at the time it was assigned, so I chose two guide words for myself and went with it: Kangaroo vulture.


Since it had to be narrative, I decided to give the newly dubbed Vulturoo some prey, which was initially a rabbit, and evolved into a sort of springhare-sparrow to fit the mammal-bird theme.With the final schematic on display, I set about making a wire and foil armature, sculpting directly onto it with Super Sculpey and gluing it to a wooden board for support. I didn't get any photos of the sculpting process, unfortunately, but here's a few of the final sculpt and the primed sculpt:
good movies

And here we are all finished up! It was painted with acrylic paints accompanied by loads of matte fixative, a dash of pastel, a small portion of nail polish, and some moss I found at Michaels. The vulturoo's coloration was based on a king vulture and a tree kangaroo while the springhare-sparrow was based on a white-throated sparrow.


This was my first real attempt at full-blown sculpture, so it was very much a learning process. Things could have gone a lot worse, especially considering I had no idea what I was doing with the wire armature supports, so I'm thankful the entire thing didn't break under its own weight!

Vulturoo wouldn't be smiling anymore!

28: No Rhyme or Reason

I don't post enough anymore, do I? Here's a mishmash of (more) school project concepts and some personal doodles. I'm working on a fairly ambitious sculpture project for my illustration methods class, for which I'll make a separate process post once it's complete.

The lowdown on my printmaking situation: As much as I love looking at woodcut prints, turns out I'm kind of awful at the process. And 18 credit hours overloaded me like woah, so I bid an unfortunate goodbye to relief printmaking. Thankfully, I recently managed a solid grasp on the lithographic printing process, and just in time for mid-terms next week! I need to have another photographic transfer plate and a traditional lithograph stone drawing completed fairly soon, so here's the concepts I've been noodling around with for those:
Trees and reptiles are the thing now.

A silhouette of this guy was another option, but it still seems strange to make numbered editions of a personal character no one cares about.







And on an ending note, here's an experiment from illustration methods; a traditional and digital collage. The end product is a bit...garish, and is another example of a project I wish I'd had more time with, but the process was very rewarding. I definitely need to try something of the sort with more personal projects.

16: Escapism Nonsense [Not doing enough homework]

This post is filled with escapism and markers.

I think I was in Disney-mode. Definitely hacked some of my roomie's markers to finish this. Marker, ballpoint pen, and colored pencil.
Here's some scribbles of Llok, the mother goddess of my Insuti people. I quite liked them, so I finalized a few in the uppermost image. She was an alien-looking humanoid before, but I'm kind of liking this...bird/fin thing. Could always go the ~*shapeshifter*~ route...


This is a completely nonsensical, feel-good picture. The guy's name is Poldi, and for some reason he's in contemporary Earth instead of my alternate universe 20's-ish world. Ha...More marker/colored pencil stuff.

OWLS. That is all.

An in-class assignment for advertising and graphic design; we had to design a Target gift card. This would've looked better if I wouldn't have had to repaint it three times due to RIF file corruptions. -frothing at the mouth- This was done in Corel Painter.

14: Schoolin' Once More

My second finished project for Illustration methods class, "Lammerguyer", 9x12 in acrylics on illustration board. The assignment was to create a human-animal hybrid (hehe) and use good lighting reference to make it look realistic. I based mine on a lammergeier, or bearded vulture. There are things I did decently and things I did flat out incorrectly in this piece, but I consider it my first successful acrylic painting! Here's the graphite value study I did beforehand.

The school gave us these cute little planners with toned paper covers. More of my dragonbeastie!

My figure drawing instructor had us use charcoal on watercolor paper for an hour-long exercise. Definitely going to try this more often...In real life, you can see the awful smudgy grays created when badly using white and black charcoal together, and I plan to be more attentive next time.

13: Initiate Sophomore Panic

THIS year is going to be a crazy one. Quick, have some art while you still can! Of course, now that I'm fully busy again, the idea to start a webcomic has bitten me in the ass. Why couldn't this have happened, y'know, during the summer? Experimental, fun junk as such is what summers are FOR. Various diptych ideas are twirling around in there as well. So hard to stay focused!

On an unrelated note, I made a post over on my Livejournal highlighting a bunch of nice art I've found over the past few months, with links to the artists' galleries and whatnot: Good Arts 1

The proposed webcomic would be about this little guy. He's one of my fictional race, the Insuti. I suppose I'll tell the rest of the story later! Nibs and india ink.

We have a sketchbook to fill for illustration methods class! I drew my lamp to fill the 'ellipses' quota. Brush pen, gel pen, ballpoint pen. Pen pen pen.

Junk like this takes up probably 85% of my sketchbook.

My latest illustration methods class assignment is to create a portrait of a human/animal combination. Couldn't focus in one of my ad graph classes today, so these are my first concepts: Three kookaburras, a markhor, a babirusa, and three lammergeier men. I had far too much fun with the birds, so they're likely to make it to the final cut.

A thumbnail on packing paper [classy!] for a trade with one of my good e-buddies, Persnickitii. Doesn't this character design rock? Her art is very inspiring on that front, and we have a mutual love for animals with people-faces. I think I'll attempt this piece in acrylics or maybe even slap down various media on clayboard to see what happens.
Quick digital thing which I ended up liking quite a bit. This is an old character of mine, Sherowkey. He first popped up in my seventh grade science notes. You can tell he's mine because of the big doofy nose, huge fuzzy ears, and horn [no seriously, all of my personal characters have these things in one form or another]. In a more serious situation, he's a guardian 'spirit' of winter, though he's completely flesh and blood. Still haven't figured out how that works...Corel painter

12: Before School Starts...

This came out of nowhere and it's pretty close to my heart, as cheesy as that sounds. Completed in maybe 2.5/3 hours in Corel Painter.

11: Pre-Sophomore, la de da

Quickly colored half-angel man.

This is what goes on in my sketchbook.

Digital still life attempt...something or other. Corel Painter.

The two siblings of my personal mythology. I'm thinking of expanding their family tree a little in the near future. Nothing but a vignette today, but I like how this turned out, being a small doodle and all.

Fanart: Good for the soul. These were also gifts to my little sister, who watched the first two seasons of Avatar with me.

A friend suggested I draw a cockatrice/basilisk during a live streaming session, and it turned out decently! Hopped like mad between photoshop and painter for this guy.

Another portrait of Nopu standin'...trying to get a handle on this inking/watercoloring style so I can use it for quick commissions to pay for internet accessimeanfood.

On a more serious note...I need to re-learn how to draw people, as I've come to realize that I dislike how it 'feels' to draw them (when I'm not drawing my angel things and insuti people). Just recently picked up a few comic compliations and instruction books by Will Eisner, and I'm working on basic stuff, like gesture, at which Eisner rocked socks.

7: Artslam

HI, BLOG, I FORGOT ABOUT YOU. Summer has been both amazingly lackluster and exceedingly busy at the same time, probably due to my horrid time management. I participated in an art challenge over on Livejournal called "Artslam", in which you choose a topic and draw at least one sketch related to it every day for one, two, or three months. A few days back, I finished up the first month, but I've decided not to continue due to the lack of time I had for other projects!

That being said, here's a link to my Artslam album on Flickr for easy viewing of the whole project: http://www.flickr.com/photos/38971743@N05/sets/72157624193002228/ I'll stick a few of my favorites below.

My focus for the month was on my badly named Bongo people. My creativity knows no bounds, I know. They originated in 2006, when I was unabashedly obsessed with South American cultures and smashed them all together...with an African antelope. Fourteen year olds make SENSE! During the challenge I tried to move them away from being South American mash-ups, but didn't get very far in the end. :/ There's always the future!

A guy wrangles a young, wild male Korino. The Korino are huge dino-vultures which the bongofolk use as mounts and for draft work. The male here is tiny; females, pictured below, could kick everyones' asses if they weren't so submissive due to domestication. Female wild Korino are feared by pretty much everyone in bongoland. Corel Painter 10
Here are two domesticated female Korino varieties next to a bongo man and woman for scale. The skinny one in front is for speed messaging and recreational racing while the powerful bird in the back is bred for mountain draft work. Their stance here is awkward; they usually only 'stand' as such for running or pulling. All fours is preferred for grazing or walking. Corel Painter 10

For part of the week, I used reference images of trees from the Olympic National Park to create environments for my bongos. Scale was completely ignored, as this bongo would be about a foot tall if those trees were the right size. ;) Corel Painter 10

The anatomy is hilarious, but coloring these two was a blast. Corel Painter 10.

My final entry for the month. I was feeling very, very down when I sketched this, thus the lackluster expression and composition, but it was nice to challenge myself; I used only watercolors, and not my usual watercolor and gel pen embellishments.

An early sketch drawn with india ink (my new love) and colored with watercolors, gel pen, and marker. This ink is so exciting, you guys!

I'll post some non-artslam, ridiculously scribbly junk in a few days. Hopefully my productivity will pick back up!

6: Not Much

My art drive DIED over the last week. All I have to show aside from energetic (though well intentioned) scribblings is this digital muckery. I wanted to draw a deer/satyr/whatsit/person and it needed to be a girl. With sideburns. And no boobs. Obviously, I still need practice in the girl-face department. It was inked traditionally with nibs and gray ink, scanned in, and colored in Photoshop. That leg's wonky, but that's what I get for never using reference.