The Hobbit Trailer

My Dad requested this image so I sketched it for him this afternoon at my parent's house and he scanned it.
Happy Hobbitses!

Next in the song bird/ monkey series

This image was done on watercolor paper which reminded me how badly watercolor on good paper scans. The previous studies were on drawing paper and scanned very well. So the debate is- better digital image or frame-ible art?

More Studies

Another Study

The cardinal/gibbon. First in a set of studies for my next painting.

The Project

Study for Jane and JC

A study for a new painting which will have two of my heroes- Jane Goodall and Jacques Cousteau. I pretty bad at getting likenesses just right so I knew it would be even more difficult to simplify them in to recognizable characters. So, step one.

Random fact, Did you know they were both born in a year of the dog?

Paintings on canvas

I like small paintings. So I'm finally doing them (these are 6x6). Mostly using a 0, 00, and a 5/0 brushes. I've been floundering all summer on what I should be working on and while I'm sure that flailing is still ahead- I do feel like I'm onto something.
I couldn't have latched onto it without having had a really good talk/ advice session from a friend at work. Which once again reminds me how much energy I draw from engaging with good people.
I'm sure much of my problem has been stagnating alone in my own brain for too long!

More in progress...

This piece really reminded me of the problems involved in scanning watercolor. Even after adjusting the levels, some colors visible to the eye just can't be pulled out by the scanner. Of course some of this can be adjusted for in Photoshop but not with the original feel... hmmm. Process...

In other news, I was thinking about posting some "comics that never were". Mainly I realized how many pieces of comics I have around that never got finished for one reason or another (mainly I got better and was too embarrassed about the old art). Still some of them have fun and small redeeming features- such as actually making it to paper. The downside is not really wanting to feature my substandard work but on the other hand documenting my evolution could be of personal value?

The mortal...

and an updated version

More progress

I actually had to photograph the original painting and paste in the skin tone because the scanner was bouncing more off the pencil and making her skin grainy.



Still tinkering with the prince but I was careful this time not to use any pencils on his face so I could avoid a repeat of the problem with the queen.



And of course the mortal girl... Here's a scan of her inks. I've actually started on her painting but haven't layered in any pencils yet.

In progress on The Queen

There's a children's book stirring around in the back of my head. This is the start of a piece for that...
I referenced a famous actress for the queen but I doubt it shows ;)

New Godzilla comic

Gene Curse progress

In progress page from Gene Curse. Back ground by Jay Slife.

Colaboration

Okay I lied. Now I'm working on my Gene Curse comic because for the time being I have managed to get the excellent skills of Jay Slife back on backgrounds. One month to SPX- it would be awesome if we could throw together a proposal by then.

watercolor

A sumie bonsai:

Zinnia ikebana (I really did have a lime green zinnia!)

This was based off a kimono pattern that caught my fancy. Its hard to see in the scan but it has some iridescent paint in the white areas. I ended up putting the little painting in one of my frame cards:

The last two are just little watercolors. They seem to be crying out for a good haiku or tanka to accompany them:

Summer Yukata phase 2

Summer yukata

Doodle and watercolor with a little photoshop thrown in. Not sure how I'm going to finish it up yet...

Now w/ words

Sumi-e Saturday

This week I felt like getting out the ol' fude (bamboo brushes) and working on some sumi-e. The smell of the ground ink was really nostalgic. I even got out my old notes from Sensei - much to the improvement of my ume painting!

I also found some interesting videos on sumi-e on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/blueheronarts. The artist is from a Chinese background so some of the techniques are a little different but as sumi-e was developed from Chinese ink painting, the essentials are the same.










I'm not normally such a fan of pink (really alizarin crimson) this set just sort of ended up that way- purple finch, ume, rhododendron...
The borders I slapped on in photoshop from some chiyogami I scanned.

http://invertedpath.com/

(Tofugu)Godzilla 2

Another quick Godzilla comic just for yucks! (emphasis on the yuck ;)

Tofugu Godzilla Comic:

So if you read Tofugu, you probably saw my Godzilla comic posted today- inspired by the Koichi's Godzilla video's.
I thought these videos were hilarious and I had a ton of fun doing this comic. So, I've been collecting some more gag ideas for future Godzilla: Kaishain comics...?

Now that it's out, I'll be adding this one shot to my comic page probably later today. And of course I hope to work with the cool guys at Tofugu again sometime!

I've been making

cards:


and I also finally made a new image for my comics page on the website:



in anticipation of some new visitors stopping by (Sat. I'll post the reason I'm expecting guests).

into the dream

Again no text on this page- but this page shows the visual transitions into dream (which at this point in the story is no secret) And since it's no secret that she is dreaming, I can have a lot fun with the images.

Surreal World

This would be somewhere around page 11. No text yet but I like the feel of the black and white for the "real life" parts.

the winning project

The project that has come out ahead, for now anyway, is Surreal World.

It took no time at all to tighten up the characters in my new cartooning style.



And now I can play more with brush inking. When I'm only accountable to myself, I'm mush more relaxed with it than when I knew it was going to be scrutinized by Mick (my inking instructor). Though, I'm sure its not nearly so tight either, but I work best when I keep things loose.

I'm a comic artist...

I'm a comic artist. I should really be planning and working on my pitch for a comic. I guess its easy to loose faith in your own ability to do what you love and flounder about on the periphery. I am also an illustrator but I studied comics, I went back to school to improve my comics, dammit, I need to think about my next comic!

Some days I can look at the comic work on my webpage and see that it really isn't all that bad. Today was one of those days. Despite the smack down my Kokoro pages got from my MFA defense, they still reflect a quality of work that I would accept/read from someone else. To me this is a good standard.

So, I have to put in some serious work planning which project to start. If anyone actually read this blog, I would definitely take a vote or requests, but this is just a place for me to put my own thoughts into words.

The contenders: Pros and Cons

Quatre C- story mostly worked out, great new characters designs, perfect for a web comic/ would be a long or serialized story, really want a background designed in studio max and it isn't getting made...

Gender Studies- successful hook, black and white, 98% finished plot/ was turned down once, would like help on the writing, would have to re-draw existing pages


Surreal World- story worked out, opportunity for variety and experimentation/ would have to re-draw existing pages

Kokoro- pitch completely worked out, sample pages done, mostly scripted/ don't feel for the characters, sick to death of it

"Sandy"- awesome, totally worked out story/ need background and tech artist partner who is dedicated

It seems one of my hold backs is wanting a partner to share the work- especially in areas I'm not confident about. I suppose if I really want to get serious I need to buck up and just learn to do it myself! All of these project will require at least finished scripting and thumbnailing... it's just, where to start?

Villa Incognito

Villa Incognito is a Tom Robbins novel I thought it would be fun to illustrate. I pulled together all kinds of images of tanuki and kitsune, references from Hokusai, Japanese legends and even Amano's art in The Dream Hunters but none of my designs felt right. One little scribble I did while planning all this was of the girl throwing up a chrysanthemum and this morning that drawing came together.

First I sketched in blue pencil- a trick I've been trying out lately to good effect.
Then I inked right over it with brush and india ink.
Next I got out my bamboo sumie brush to do the flower. Then scanned.



With the help of a few new photoshop brushes from http://chriswahlartbrushes.blogspot.com/

I'm pretty happy with the result! I think I need to loosen up more and push the brush ink and watercolor angle some more.

Kokoro Cover

Sticking with my idea for doing a few covers I finally settled on redoing a project I started in school but had to rush to finish for class. I was never happy with the final result so I thought I'd give it another shot:




I left plenty of room for text and here's an idea but I would love to see what a real graphic designer would do (typographically etc).





I absolutely love kimono and kimono patterns. Working on Ojosan's kimono was a challenge because I had to weigh the balance of pattern versus busyness for the overall image. One of the last choices I made was to go over the black outline in favor of color trapping, which I think turned out well.



Here are some of the planning sketches I went back to from the original project: