Bring it on Christmas! I'm Ready.

Oh yeah. I can take you.

This mood is mostly fueled by hormones and an unhealthy dose of coffeenog (coffee with sugar and Silk soy nog) but I feel I can take on the holidays. I almost finished two of the paintings I'm giving as gifts, and still managed to work on the vector for Pocketful.

Vector so far:



One finished present of my adorable sister when she was a babything:



Retail and the pressure to paint things my relatives will actually want are not getting me down, thus the triumphant mood. I can do this guys. Totally. I even don't feel worried about the illustration series my mind decided it would think up at the busiest time of the year. Even if I don't proceed with the series at least I have one cool idea sketched and ready to start vectoring after Christmas. More on that idea later.

I have pretty full shifts of work for the next couple days so hopefully my next day off will be this productive and if this mood wanes it will return. The holidays almost always get me down, but this year will be different, I'll spend little to no time at home, but still be able to see relatives and hang with my sister and the whole time I'll have my significant other with me which is the best way to keep my mood up (when I'm hyper I tend towards run-on sentences, sorry).

So, in conclusion, bring it holiday mood disorder, retail craziness, family gift pressure, I'm ready.

Nautilus and Ragdoll

Whooo. Concept for "creature" turned out well. I picked the naiad (or nyad) character from the book The Lightning Thief. I did like 10 different ideas, only one had tentacles....and the class liked that best. Works for me. I actually visualize the character to be more bubblely and part of the water but this was more fun. So here's the turnaround character sheet:

See it bigger and better here.

I based her on a Nautilus, and it was quite fun. This is what they really look like:



They are awesome. Funfact: they can live to like 20 years. Poor octopi only usually live about 3 years.

Annnnd here is the color final. Haven't had a crit on her yet, but I'm pretty happy with it so far:


Bigger and better here.

For my children's book class I'm doing an information book on squids and octopi. So far turning out well, have one finished spot illustration, and it look nice. Might have a scan of that up soon.

Oh yeah. Halloween costume turned out well:


Cheapest halloween ever. Dress was like 2 dollars at the salvation army, and most of the fabric my roommate let me have for everything else. And I handmade the doll. Her name is Susan. :P



Bleh. Slow day in Sr Illustration. I'm ready to go onto learning about the new project, but yeah....this class is rarely on schedule. Lunch time though! Es-cap-e!

Children's Theater Pamphlets

So here are the finals from my illustration studio class. My favorites is Red, but I like Aladdin as well. Watercolor and some gauche.






Even though I wasn't too happy with being one of the students stuck with Raggedy Anne and Andy (no one wanted to really do that one), I think mine turned out well. Bob liked the concept a lot. Plus, it gave me the idea for my Halloween costume. :D Going to be a rag doll, and haven't decided how beat up it's going to look. Or how bloody. Went to the Salvation Army and bought a good dress to start messing with.

Anyway, these watercolors, along with the rest of the classes, are being sent to a theater and they will pick 11 to use for their pamphlets. Not getting my hopes up, but I'm feeling mine are just as likely as anyones else's to be chosen. We may know by Friday....

Robby the Robot is Fun to Paint

Been awhile since I posted...figured I should, what with the possibility of being booted out of art school and all. Okay, that's not entirely true, but all the Jr.s had to submit a portfolio to be judged. The fine artists had to have a crit, with things said directly to them about their work. Illustration majors don't get that. We just drop them off and listen to the rumors and stress out until we come back from break (the 9th of January). That's a long time to stress about being riped to shreds under the guise of a helpful critique. I'm not saying most of us don't need a kick in the pants to really hanker down and care about our art, but I'm just not looking forward to 6 of my best and favorite pieces being deemed as trash.

One of the things we're hearing is that we are all terrible editors. None of us picked our best pieces and some of us put in too many (6-8, but some of the 2 there apparently sucked and dragged down the whole portfolio). Um. I only submitted 6. What does that mean for me? Probably nothing good, that's what. And those were my best. If I have to resubmit a portfolio I don't know what I can show...those are my best, I didn't not include anything. So I'm screwed. Oh, except for one watercolor painting, which wasn't finished in time to put in the portfolio:


It was the final for my illustration class, the genre being 1940s Sci-Fi. (weird flash on this photo, btw) I grew up with these movies (so I didn't need extensive research and re-watching of these films in the limited time we were given to do this painting combined with all the other classes that a certain teacher seems to think doesn't exist, take that Fowler!) Sorry. The man irritates me extensively.

I told myself I wasn't going to think about the portfolio review over break, but what with the nightmares and all it's kinda hard. Anyway. On to other things. I'm getting 40 hours at work this week, yay. Today I have a day off and I have plans after 6:00 today, but for now I think I want to work on some of my unfinished watercolor pieces (some featured in one of my previous blogs). Like the Frodo one. Hm. More coffee and I think I'll get on that...

Oh yeah! Saw the Golden Compass. Not sure what to think. It was pretty and all the actors seemed to fit. I thought the girl who played Lyra did wonderfully. But the script for the movie seems to be making all the characters black or white...but really a lot of them are a mix of good and evil. Like Lord Asriel. They ended the movie before you could see a major character twist. He's not a good guy, he just happens to be on the "good" side in the pursuit of knowledge...But it's his obsession, he'll do anything to achieve his goal...and they ended it before we get to see the fate of Roger. Which makes me wonder if they're just not going to make the characters have any real depth, besides Ms Coulter and Lyra. Like the Master of Jordan College. They didn't have him being the one to try and poison Asriel, because he's one the "good guys". Well that just makes it kinda boring doesn't it? The world is full of gray, and especially in a movie based on such a controversial book series about sin and free will, you'd think the characters wouldn't be so plain. I just hope the next one follows the book just as much, but includes the depth and meaning.

In-process, In-Studio & Purple Hair

Thought I'd put up another incomplete piece, this is due tomorrow so it won't be unfinished for long. We had to paint either George Washington, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa in a weird position/place. So we have here George rocking out. The color scheme is still giving me issues. Bleh. It's watercolor, and when everything is painted it will have ink outlining.



And here's the limited palette, colored-pencil piece I talked about in my last post, I'm very proud of it. The best I've done of Robin ever. He even said so. Heh, poor Robin he's used to seeing crappy drawings of him from me. But now I have a colored-pencil piece to put in any portfolio. Yay!



Went to the Guitar Store yesterday, did a sketch of one of their Halloween displays. Might put that up later, if I do another sketch dump. I should take better pictures of my last two sketches that I put here too, sigh.

I'm trying to dye my hair purple. So far the top layer has a purple sheen to it, but that's it. I'll be working on my painting tonight, but maybe tomorrow after I give Tandy a bath and before class I'll try to get to the rest of my hair. Once all the under layers are finished I think it will show up more. I hope. I have light brown hair so I don't see why it's not showing up better...but I do have a lot of hair...Guess I'll have to make sure I get all of it. This idea started while I was at work, and I asked if I could spray my hair purple for the day (we're selling those cheap hair color sprays) and my boss said I could, since the sale signs were purple. So he sprayed my hair and then the assistant manger's hair too (it showed up better on his, he had less hair and it was lighter). It made my hair feel like spider webs. -_- But I liked the color. So I bought the nice dye stuff. Here's my hair with the crappy stuff on it:



So far the nice stuff looks better, and not like my hair is crappy cheese-cloth. Must get ready for class now, and find out what grade I'm getting on this blog. Dun DUn DUN.

Watercolor Work

We need to have 8 pieces of our illustration work on this blog, before this coming Monday. I should start doing that, shouldn't I? This post will contain finished watercolor pieces. I hated that medium throughout most of my life, but starting last year I began to appreciate it more and more. I've also gotten marginally better at using it. :P I think. Hmm.

This was an in studio piece from last semester, that I liked even though it's very...pink. The model is River, from the awesome (but sadly canceled) Sci-Fi series "Firefly". She has red hair here. Dunno why, but the painting decided it would be all girly.

This is another in class piece, from last week. I think the teacher wants more work on it, but as far as I'm concerned it's done. Ding. Pull the turkey out of the oven. I like how it turned out, and I picked the reference photo because of her expression.



And more in studio work! Though this was from a live model in my anatomy class last year. Extreme shadows going on here, the lighting was really kooky.



This is from an Illustration assignment last year, of a Civil War artifact. It had to include text. I like how it turned out, to me it looks like it would be in a children's picture book.

Watercolor with ink. And salt. Mmm. This was from the last day of school, and I was very hyper but had no one to goof off with since they were still in class. So I ate a lot of raw mushrooms (not the hallucinogenic kind, I just like raw mushrooms) and then 4 hours later this was completed. I'm very proud of it, as you can tell by looking at the top and bottom of my blog.

I think that's it for my finished watercolor work. I have more stuff, but they aren't exactly "illustration work" finished stuff. I'll show another in class piece though, it was just to experiment with watercolor techniques and masking-fluid. This has ink in it too.



Well, my sister really likes it. :P That's it for now, gotta get ready for Materials &Techniques at 2:00. I'll probably put up some ink work next.