More Commission Fairy

Heyyy, so it turns out when I want my digital paintings to look more 3-d and form-heavy, I just have to delete the linework and continue from there. I wish I could do that in a painting studio in real life.

Anyway, fairy in a jar! It's not done yet but it's at a good stopping showing-off point.

Yay Commissions!

So here's some linework for a thingy my buddy comissioned.

even more sketchy

So, I might actually do this comic? Like, for real this time instead of just saying that? It sure would be embarrassing if I didn't, huh?

More Sketchy Goodness

HEY. More sketchyness. And a dude this time, instead of just the chick. The story's kinda about teenaged depression (what am I talking about, it's entirely about teenaged depression) so I've been listening to the music I had in high school. Decidedly angrier than the stuff I listen to at the moment, but fun nonetheless.

I'm kinda REALLY EXCITED about this story. I get to draw emo kids. and ghosts. and creepy stuff.

New Thing

The first is for a long comic I've just loosely nailed down the plot for. The Second is half of a zip-hoodie design for Threadless. The other half will be much more interesting.

Oh, Google, why do you hurt my eyes?

So just now I was google searching "emo guy" to find some reference. I thought "hey, emo kids are usually the general shape and size I'm looking for. There will probably be a few useful pictures."

I did not know the depths to which the internet plummeted. Until now. That search is like the Mariana Trench of google searches. It's like "oh hey fish....hey plankton...hey slightly neon fish...OMFG WHAT IS THAT THING WITH THE TEETH" Only, with a lot more sloppily applied eyeliner. And boys kissing. I didn't know boys kissing was such a big part of the emo culture. Certainly wasn't at either of my high schools, far as I know.

Anyway, back to feeling like a huge creep trying to ignore a bunch of photos of 16 year old dudes smoochin.

More Comic Experimenting

Even more messing around with comic stuff. Found a way less labor intensive method of blocking out the panels and filling in the gutter, didn't have to open Photoshop to do it (which is a good thing for my poor, slow laptop).

Yesterday, my 30-day trial on Painter 12 ran out, and I immediately started to feel the withdrawal effects. I got so frustrated so fast! Painter is the best drawing program I've ever used. It makes Photoshop look horrible. It mkes sense though, since photoshop wasn't really intended for drawing, its for photos. Duh. Anyway, I immediately had to go find a real copy of Painter so I could scratch the itch.

I've basically gotten addicted to drawing every day. It's what got me out of bed at a reasonable hour today, but also what made me stay up til 4:30 last night. "I've got a shiny program to play in. No time for sleeping."

Problem, though, is that I'm having trouble drawing in my sketchbook now that I've been using the tablet so much. It's kinda sucky, but at least I'm getting a little better with the tablet. It makes things a million times easier and cleaner, and cuts out like four steps in my process.

How I Make Comic? Tell me.

Sooo... I'm really starting to think seriously about this comic thing. The above is a reeeaaallly rough test of how I'd end up doing a page. It's based on my minimal knowledge of how a comic is actually made, so it's probably crap, but it's the smartest layering approach I could come up with in the twenty minutes I took to doodle it. It started in photoshop where I used the line tool to make the panels, then I moved it to Painter (go 30 day trials!), filled in the panel layer with the grey gutter color, then just kept adding layers beneath it as I saw fit. A 50% opacity sketch layer, a 100% opacity "linework" layer (in this image, the linework is really just more random, staggering sketches), a color layer under the linework, a shading layer above that, and a word bubble layer above everything.

YAY for EXPERIMENTS!

TWO POSTS in ONE DAY? Holy crap! You're so lucky!

Anyway, would you read a comic that featured characters who looked like this?

They're kinda anime-y. I blame the sudden 5-hour D Gray Man marathons with Amber. Anyway, I've always drawn heads that shape. I'm thinking Steampunk. I like steampunk. Okay, characters, names, genre...whats missing? Oh! Story! Well, that's just a minor detail anyway, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

HEY SORRY INTERNET

Hey, so I'm not dead. I'm just...busy...yes. Anyway, tragedy and strife and malaise and malady and all that. But it's past us now! Onward, to a better tomorrow! You and me, sketchblog. You and me.

I bring you the gift of Art:



My friend asked me to make additions to the tattoo of her favorite member of the band Panic at the Disco...so that she could give it to him at the concert we attended two weeks ago in NYC. Unfortunately, when she got close enough to the stage to offer it, she looked in her bag and it was gone! Alas, Brendon Urie will never know the awesomeness that was Mary Lou's idea for his sweet tat.




The redhead is here because I don't draw enough girls with short or red hair, and I forget how fun it is.

Also! Notice how this last one, the robot, is like a million times nicer than the others? I give credit to Ryan Andrews. He is super-amazing and I just discovered him and I totally"adopted" his method of using textures behind digital art. It makes everything about 500% more awesome.

Anyway, I might get a job doing illustration for some children's books? I need to get a move on getting a real website up.

WTF, Threadless? I'm a very pragmatic person, and I thought I was my own worst critic, but 133 1's? For serious? The design was GOOD. I don't understand the rating system over there.

I guess I'll just have to try harder.

You will never recover them

HI INTERNET.

So, it turns out my friends have blogs. And they post things on them. And people read them and leave comments and tell them how great they are. Boo. Stupid livejournal and your supportive community atmosphere. I don't need you. I don't need anyone! I do this for ME!

(Lies.)

ANYWAY, I don't have anything new and good at the moment, so here's some old crap I'll be dusting off in the future.


This one's from an old sketch collage from high school. I'll be adapting it for a new project soon.

This is a sketch for a project I've been thinking about. Its the same girl as the one on the swing a few posts ago.


...........And this is my AMAZING UNBEATABLE CUTE POKEMON TEAM! COME AT ME BRO.
I beat Black the other day and swiftly assembled the cutest pokemon in the land. Of course, my real-life pokemon rival quickly returned with a troupe of ugly water/ice/ground types. Darn you Ted!

(Haha, you totally just read a paragraph about pokemon strategy. Posted by a 21-year-old lady. You can't get those few precious seconds of your life back.)

Threadless?! Yes, Please!

HEY.

Sorry, it's been a few days more than I had planned since my last entry. It's because I've discovered that the ANSWER TO MY HOPES AND DREAMS has been under my nose for the last five years.

Did you know Threadless gives you a crapload of money if you design a t-shirt and they print it? I sure didn't, but now I do! I will not stop until I have been printed!

I've already submitted this one, and it's Pending Approval:



http://www.threadless.com/submission/339654/Dance_to_My_Own_Music


So, hopefully that makes it into the running, and HOPEFULLY (not bets here, though) it gets printed. I don't know if anyone's ever gotten their first attempt printed though. And I don't think the idea is so mind-bogglingly awesome that people are gonna be scoring 5's all over it.

My NEXT IDEA, however, has a lot of promise, in my opinion. Here's a little sketch, it's not done yet, but it IS in just about all the right colors and stuff.



It's Icarus and the Minotaur! They're buddies. At least, in my brain they've always been babies growing up together in Crete. Forget what those silly books told you.

Anyway, I'm SO EXCITED. I've been thinking about nothing but Threadless for the last few days. It's an awesome distraction from finals.

Phobic Phobic Phobic is a cool word

Wanna know what I'm terrified of?

Gas masks.

I'm so impossibly phobic of them, I'm sure if I ever saw one in real life I wouldn't be able to touch it without crying. God forbid I was forced to wear one in an emergency, I would probably go insane. Even looking at a picture of one, or worse, someone wearing one...ugh.

So, why is there no sketch in this post?

Because I can't even look at photo reference of "respirators" without breaking into a cold sweat. I had an idea that involved one, not a mask, just a respirator. The kind that just hangs out over your mouth and doesn't turn your eyes into soulless black holes of death. Nope, nope. Can't handle it.

Guess I'm totally screwed in the event of a chemical apocalypse.

Just wanted to share my horror. I'll probably post sketches later? Maybe?

Hey, you, sitting moodily on a swing

The tablet's gettin' easier to manage! Of course, this is just a sketchy-sketch, but I foresee better things to come! Next thing to work on in managing space on the digital canvas. If I'm not holding it, it's like I have no concept of how much space I have to work with.

This explains the lack of feet above.

Dishwasher Shoes!!!

The BEST THING EVER came in the mail today!







DISHWASHER SHOES!

They're shoes!

That you can put in the dishwasher!

To, you know, make them clean!

I am stupidly excited about these darn shoes. I ordered them what seems forever ago, from Crocs (don't knock it, dude, they have actual attractive shoes now). They're ballet flats, which I usually can't wear because of the resulting footstink-cloud that follows me around. But not anymore! Dishwasher shoes!

Anyway, I did a little sketch, as you might have noticed. Still sucking at the tablet. It makes everything I do look REALLY line-y. I had to scrap a few doodles due to intense shame, and I usually keep everything. Not this time x.x''

I'll probably update again sometime today. I'm trying to practice Sketchbook Pro in marathon sessions, because the 15-day trial isn't 360 hours like I thought, but as many hours as you can pack in each day you use it. Suck. I hate having to buy things. Especially because I have no money and scrape by with my wit and charm alone (which is to say, I scrape by pretty poorly).

Prooooo Sketchin'

So I just downloaded the 15-day trial of Sketchbook Pro, mostly because it has a little robot on the box.
Also, because Vera Brosgol used it once or something. And I basically want to be her. Kinda.

Turns out, not drawing with a tablet for a long time makes you SUCK at drawing with a tablet. It took eighty million tries to get this going:




(Side note: Blogger, how did you manage to make inserting pictures both easy and complicated at the same time?)

I was looking for an excuse to mix birds (my favorite) with something Buddhism-y (other favorite). Google told me about a Zen thing where you're asked to imagine a little bird on your shoulder each day. He serves as a constant reminder that YOU GONNA DIE SOON 'NUFF, so you better live it up today and not be too much of a jerk. I liked that, and so a mediocre sketch was born. (Much Later Edit: Hey, turns out that Zen thing may just be made up by the guy who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie. Eh. Whatevs.)

I'll be messing with the program some more, hopefully making some better stuff. Stuff that doesn't involve the Blur tool. I hate the Blur tool. It's SO cheating.