Mother Russia

Hey! Sorry I've been hanging out on tumblr and facebook, if you'd like to see more posts from me check 'em out. I've also been selling my work at various conventions, the next one will be the Pittsburgh Comic Con.

But here's my piece for the zombie-filled, re-imagined WWII graphic novel Mother Russia, published by FUBAR Press. The illustration is cropped and in black and white in the book, full color version is best. Prints will be available.

Can't go wrong with history, zombies and red heads.

The Offering

Hey look! I finished it. Yaay. *waggles arms Muppet style*

When I originally started designing this I was thinking of a demon/vampire like monster. But when looking for ideas for the background I ran across a public domain photograph of a stone Bull's head/man beast, and I started liking the idea of tying this in with Greek Mythology. Vampires have gotten pretty lame lately anyway. So maybe she's a relation of the Minotaur. Or offering an unknown...something to him. Leaving the sacrifice unknown seemed like a good idea, and the pose and circle design is reminicent of a religious icon on purpose.

I've never taken a piece to a finish that involved blood before and getting it to look right took some time. I wanted it to have a streaky, streaming drippy-ness look and still have the gloppy viscous nature of blood, but I wanted to just leave it as a graphic element, like her dress, letting the outline do the work. Pretty happy with it now, but I was under the impression for awhile that I'd never be able to get it right...like when drawing horses. Blasted horses.

If anyone's interested in this as a print let me know, thinking of selling prints on Etsy again.

Previews

Figured I'd post preview images of what I'm current working on, since I haven't finished anything in a bit.

 I'm really hoping the one I knock out of the park and submit it to some contests. It's not the kinda work that I usually take to a finished portfolio piece level, and I'm pretty psyched for it. The next elemental is taking awhile too because I got too excited over getting it into Illustrator before I had really fleshed out the background. Sigh. Backgrounds.

Besides the two vectors here I've also been sketching out a children's book-type-cover deal, and a Vampirella pinup (wait wat, yes...Weird right?). Oh, and the Sabriel piece. Haven't forgotten about that. When I get burned out on vectoring I start sketching and that leads to more ideas which is great but also bad, because it distracts from me actually finishing the vector I was working on.

I may start trying to sell prints again. I believe my work has improved overall since that last time I attempted it, so here's hoping. Also Barry and I have a super awesome printer now, so I won't have to spend a half hour angering an Office Max or Staples employee when complaining about how bad their printers are and 'Dude, omg it's scratched the paper, I can't sell this, can you try another printer and could you lighten the file up more?' etc etc...I'm pretty sure I'm the bane of the one Staples print girl's existence.

Next update will probably be about prints, or one of these guys finished. Whooo.

Elemental Series & HP Fan Art

Decided I'm going to do a series of Elementals in an art nouveau style. Not highly original, I know, but fun, and I should really try to complete a series without someone paying me for it at some point. First off is "Fire". I have some plans for "Earth" already, probably start sketching that out tomorrow.

Fire started out with a doodle I did freshmen year of college and then did a redraw of. Nice to see the improvement. 

Right after completing fire I (of course) didn't start with the next in the series and did some Harry Potter fan art instead. Luna is my second favorite character, after Dumbledore and I've had this sketch of her for awhile.

Her design changed a bit (a lot?) once I got her in Illustrator, it kinda shows how my style keeps advancing...in a good way I think. 

I should really pick just one font for the copyright, but I can't decide. Bah. Anyway next should be Earth, but I may get sidetracked by more fan art, hopefully by the Sabriel piece I've been meaning to do.

Jellyfish

I could probably go on tweaking this for another week, but I think I'm just going to go with it's finished now. Mostly worked on it at a crap monitor and then when I saw it on the laptop it was like "woah, gotta fix that" and then several hours later I'm still trying to fix the brightness and values and siiiiiiiiigh.



Anyway it looks good now on my screen currently, which means it's way too dark on my work monitor. But I think this is closer to what would look good on the average person's monitor screen. Hopefully.

This was very fun for me because it combines my love of jellyfish and red hair. :] It's not supposed to be Ariel (though I know that's the response it's going to get but I'm okay with that) just a redhead with green eyes (not blue) who happens to be cool with existing with jellies in her hair. Cropped it because I thought it looked more interesting that way...hm.

Some process shots:





When I was drawing this I would lose track of what was tentacle and what was hair, ha. Thus the red pencil lead.

Anytime I post what I think I'm going work on next I end up lying. Not on purpose, but I'm easily distracted, art-wise. But I think I'm either going to work on a fan art of one of Garth Nix's characters, or a new goofy self portrait, or a mock up bookcover for a story I came up with off the cuff when I friend texted me asking for a bed time story with the only condition being it had to be "a fantasmical story of whimsical proportions". Yes. Fantasmical.

Long Post Is Long (Crafts, Illustration Work, Book News)

Oh where to begin? With all the social networks out there it's easy to forget about blogging. At least for me. Honestly the best way to keep up with what I'm working on is to follow me on facebook, deviantART, or Behance or just periodically looking at my web site. I should probably look more into this tumblr thing the kids are into these days.

Anyway besides illustration work I've been doing a lot of craft projects around the apartment, ranging from humongous to small wall doohickeys. I might make some "how to" blog posts if anyone is particularly interested.

Here's some shots of the bottle lamps I've been working on:



Kraken rum bottle makes a nice accent in my dining room. I need to look into some LED bulbs, as this guy heats up. Regular string lights strung up into it, after drilling the hole and an extension cord. The Fish Eye one isn’t finished yet, as I need to get a shade for it, and I have plans on stenciling some jellyfish on it. Lamp bits kit, drilled bottle with the lamp cord threaded up into it and filled with different marble things to make the base heavy enough to support the lamp part but also ‘cause it looks cool. Thinking about trying to sell some wine bottles filled with lights, but as Etsy never really picked up for me I’m not too keen on posting variants of these guys up there.



Annnnd here is the monster that took up the dining room (the biggest area I had room to work on it in) for months, as it took me awhile to gather supplies and work on it in shifts. I tend to do craft projects on impulse, and I bought this dresser at the salvation army completely spur of the moment (stare at it, I want it, grab the ticket so no one else can) and then called my sister for assistance with moving it as she has a mom van. I wanted it to be blue, and after looking on the internets for ideas on painting and tips I decided it was to be crackle paint. So a large jug of Elmer’s, giant can of Behr paint, a small can of Minwax polyurethane, one replacement knob I had to modify to fit the massive screws, and lots of blow drying and now I have a very eye-catching dresser to help contain my massive amount of t-shirts.

Since I have a good amount of that paint left over I’ve been using it on random ideas, like wall hooks for jewelry and picture frames. I still have so much.

And how about some illustrations? Here’s a card I did for Hanukkah, a Venice jester based on a photo by Robert Anthony. (Here’s the link for the ref photo and a close up of her face and also a somewhat macabre scene my brain visualized while listening to some Florence + the Machine, the "Seven Devils" song in a particular. The girl with the jellyfish is what I'm currently working on.

And oh yeah! My book was published. Yay. So I was able to post some of the work I did. You can see more of them here. And you can see the book’s site here, with my work all over it.

There’s been more stuff I’ve worked on but I’m not going to make this post any longer. And if anyone wants to hire me to doodle all day and make crafty things that would be great, as my graphic design job just laid off 40 people and I’m not exactly thrilled about my job security.

Harpies, Horns, and Graphic Design Wat.

I've fallen behind on vectoring but have continued sketching quite a lot (guaranteeing that I'll never get around to vectoring them all I guess). The deadline for this is fast approaching so I'm trying not to get sidetracked and complete it. They need monsters and I'm hoping I can get a good print of my Medusa and this gal to submit. Continuing with mythology monsters, Harpies are fun to draw, I'll have to do more...put that on the long list of arty things I want to do. Horrible photo, meant to get a better scan but then started vectoring anyway.



If anyone else in Lancaster wants to contribute to this charity event here's the info:


They are not expecting your most awesome work ever because of the deadline and the target consumer, and it doesn't have to be framed or anything.

I've recently become a graphic designer. I know, what??, right? But considering I get 40 hours a week and much better pay then my previous job it wasn't that hard of a sell. Currently working two actual jobs while working on my art...I'm going to be very busy.

In other arty related news/stuff one of my favorite watercolorists at deviantART, tir-ri, is selling prints of some of her art and the money will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross. I had to buy one, as her Wendy pieces are my favorite, and the least I could do was donate something to their relief fund. Go here, she's awesome.

See? Awesome:



And continuing the arty-things-I-spent-money-on over at miss monster's site I bought ram horn barrettes and they are fan-frickin'-tastic. I'm pretty sure I'm going to wear them non-stop.



So that's it for now, should have the finished Harpy up soon, and then I'll work on the Barbie vector/pet commissions/super heroines/Goat girls. Yeah. One of those.