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.

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.

An Influence and Examples

Whenever someone asks me who my favorite artist is I kinda blank out. I don't have one. I have a lot who I admire, but not one in particular that I can honestly say is my favorite. For this blog assignment I have to put an illustrator who inspires me and has influenced my work. So I went on a mental journey to trace someone who has influenced me. I've always claimed that I wanted to be an artist when I "grew up", and that came from my mother's side of the family, particularly my grandfather, who is a painter. But there's something else that heavily influenced my younger self onto the track of drawing. And that's cartoons.

To this day I'd prefer watching an animated movie to an Oscar winning live action flick. Some of my favorite movies of all time are animated (such as Titan A.E., Spirited Away, and Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame). So in picking one "influence" I thought about particular movies that captivated me when I was younger, and who I still admire today. And so, random passerby, I present Don Bluth. http://www.donbluth.com/

Bluth worked with Disney on Sleeping Beauty (he was uncredited for it however) Robin Hood, the Rescuers, and more before leaving Disney to form his own rival animation studio, taking other Disney animators with him. His first feature-length movie was The Secret of NIMH. Other early work of his is Dragon's Lair (an arcade game) An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Rock-a-Doodle. One of the things that fascinates me about Bluth's work is his ability to humanize animal faces, to the point of which it is difficult to think of the character as a mouse, or a fox. The range of human expressions that his animal characters show amazes me.



Bluth's other movies featuring human characters (or human-like) loses none of it's charm for me. Thumblina was a favorite of mine when I was younger, and his next big hit was Anastasia which grossed 140 million worldwide. Titan A.E. followed (and is my favorite of his work) but soon after FOX studio cut their animation studio that made both films, even though the studio was one of the only Disney competitors worth watching (in my opinion) at the time.



PCA&D had a school trip to New York (for the communication arts majors) and at a discount Asian book store called Book Off I found "The Art Of Anastasia" which I bought despite my budget plan. It is full of character sketches by Bluth, which I love to look at, and feel jealous of. The man is too freakin' talented.

Some Titan A.E. Images. <3



I hope to see more movies from Bluth soon...*crosses fingers*