fangirl rehab

sketchbook tidbits

2012-03-01T19:19:00.002-08:00

Just a few things from my sketchbook. I think I may finish a few of these for an artbook or something.

quickie

2012-02-29T21:07:00.002-08:00

A surprise self portrait from a drawing challenge on Tumblr.

2012-02-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

Had you been driving down Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, Georgia at about 4:50pm on Wednesday, you may or may not have seen a woman in a minidress and heels rocking out to her iPod completely off-key while stuffing her face with a greasy gas station sandwich.

2012-01-25T22:34:00.000-08:00

And then I drew some cats.

Superwhoositwhatsit

2012-01-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Whoops, I sort of let this blog get away from me. My bad.

I had hit a major slump with my own work somewhere in October and I was feeling pretty blah about art in general. Then I got in to Supernatural and it really inspired me. I took a break to try something different, and I really think it helped me in the long run. I started doing more caricature and from-life drawing then just cartooning from my head. I think my comic and original work look better for it, too. Here's some samples.

Deep South Love

2011-09-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

Finished up that Rogue/Gambit picture. Man, I love these two so much.

Rogue/Gambit

2011-09-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

A quick Rogue/Gambit sketch. Gonna try to expand this and finish it, but it'll have to wait until I'm caught up on other stuff.

Distillum, LoK and other sketches

2011-08-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Some more art history sketches. A concept for a story about a tailor, plus a girl with horns because dangit I wanted to draw a girl with horns.

And a little Soul Reaver. I really love Raziel, he's such a great character - and a real challenge to draw emoting, seeing as how he only has the upper half of his face. Also a minor Distillum characters... and maybe a spoiler? Or maybe not. I'm not telling.

Distillum Benders

2011-08-13T23:04:00.001-07:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sometimes the best part of having original characters is getting to insert them into other universes for fun.

Recently binged on all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Love that show. So I thought "Hey, it's 2am, I wanna draw something different." So this happened! It was actually sort of tricky. I looked up YouTube videos for each martial art that the bending types were based on (Northern Shaolin kung fu, Baguazhang, Tai Chi, Hung Ga kung fu) and tried to draw poses from that. The Baguazhang (airbending) was the most difficult to emulate.

Cosplay Props Part 1

2011-08-11T19:17:00.001-07:00

So for this year's Dragon*Con, I'm going to be cosplaying as Princess Mycella from Samurai Legend Musashi. This means making her staff, a prop that only appears twice in the game. I had to scrounge up some YouTube videos for reference. The staff I'm making isn't entirely correct to the game model, but I'm pressed for time and on a tight budget.

Supplies: So for my supplies, I hopped over to Michael's Arts & Crafts. They had everything I needed! A 1x36" wooden dowel rod, wooden napkin holders and discs, wooden letter "y"s that had nice curlys, plus some paint and glue. Not including the materials I already had at home, total cost was $26.

First I took the curly Ys. I lopped off the serifs on the straight ends with a hack saw and sanded the edges a bit. I then put the straight edges together with wood glue to form what will be the top decoration on the staff.

Once they were stuck well enough, I took one of the small wooden napkin holders and set the Ys inside. I used Delight modeling compound to fill in the gaps. This compound is super light weight and dries to a soft flexible plastic.

Next I took another napkin holder and glued it to the bottom of the first one with wood glue. I also put in a few wire bits to give more stability and finished with more glue. Using the dowel rod as a mold maker, I filled my bottom napkin holder with more Delight. Once I removed the dowel rod I was left with a perfect shape that I'll be able to pop right on the top of my staff when it's done.

For the bottom of the staff, I used the same method, only this time I glued a domed disc to the bottom of the napkin holder. Since I used the dowel rod as a mold and didn't mess with it afterwards, it should be a nice tight fit.

And that's it for tonight! I want to make sure everything is completely dry before I paint, so I'm letting this sit until Saturday. Then a bit of blue and gold paint and poof! I have a staff! :D

Code Monkeys and Prince of Persia

2011-08-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

Got quite a few sketches today. Most of these were done on the train to Otakon! Why yes, Code Monkeys is one of my favorite shows. Don't you judge me. And the prince is there because, well, he's so expressive that he's perfect for practicing faces. The Ray Tracer redesign was taken from the Guado of FFX.

And a Distillum commission I did at Otakon. I'd been wanting to draw this picture for a long time. :3

ReBoot: Bob concept sketches

2011-07-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

A few quick SAI sketches of the evolution of Bob. From left to right we have: Normal Bob, web degraded Bob, Glitch Bob, and Restored Bob. This was sort of inspired by Matt Rhode's take on ReBoot.

There were a few things about Bob's design as it changed that I didn't fully agree with - mostly his lack of awesome scars in his restored form - but WHATEVS, right?

Matrix and AndrAIa

2011-07-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

A sketch of an in-progress pic. I think I'll just ink this and leave it be.

I ship them. Hard.

ReBoot sketches

2011-07-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

Some Matrix/AndrAIa sketches in ballpoint pen. Why yes, I do ship them. Also the updated image uploader is a bag of dicks.

More art history sketches

2011-07-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

A few more. Working in ball point pen this time so I would just doodled instead of obsessing over making a pretty image. Which I do far too often.

Coffee shop and History class sketches

2011-07-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

Title says it all. Turns out I can sketch and listen in my art history class. Good times!

Otakon!

2011-07-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a map showing where I'll be at Otakon this year. Hurray!

Steampunk Link

2011-07-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I had this awesome dream where I was watching a steampunk Legend of Zelda game. The premise was pretty cool - Hyrule had begun to lose faith in magic and the master sword in favor of new steam technology. Even Princess Zelda had been reduced to a figurehead with no real power. The entire steam movement was, in fact, a plot by Gannon's underlings to dissolve the old magic and set the dark prince free from the shadow realm. Enter Link, the talented son of a well-known steam mechanic, who must set out to find the relics of the old world, restore the people's faith in the magic of Hyrule and keep Gannon in his prison.

I have really vivid dreams. Might finish this later.

Chapter three in progress

2011-06-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what my digital roughs look like? Here you go. I'm trying to remember to do my underdrawings so I don't end up with awkward poses.

Outfits!

2011-06-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Trying to decide what Kavitha should wear in chapter three. Went to some online stores, browsed around, sketched. Thoughts?

Danny Phantom scribbles

2011-06-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm a huge Danny Phantom fan, which shouldn't really be news to anyone, and I've had a couple of folks tell me that my style could translate the show well. I had my doubts, but I really admire Butch Hartman's work, so I thought I'd take a stab. Not terribly successful here - there's a balance to be found between what still reads as the character, but still looks like I drew it. It would take work, but that's something I don't have time for right now. Sadface. PaintTool SAI, ten minutes.

Apartment Exterior 3D model

2011-06-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

A quick 3D model of the exterior of Rob and Jamie's apartment building. Based on a real building on Gaston street just east of Forsyth Park, the actual building is even wonkier than this. I simplified it for my own sanity, and this is unfinished as of now since this is really all I need for chapter three.

Mamee

2011-06-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

New Distillum Character! What comic would be complete without a simple grandma that's a lot sharper than she comes off as being? These are just some preliminary sketches, still working out the finer details of her design.

ART DUMP

2011-06-25T18:03:00.001-07:00

Phew! Spring quarter was really hectic. It would've been smart of me to post these as I made them... but who says I'm smart? Several of these are photo reffed, all from my inking class.

And have a Jerri Blank caricature for good measure.

Sidney's House 3D Model - Interior

2011-06-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

Just the first floor, since that's all I'll be showing in Chapter Three. I didn't finish the kitchen area either, since it won't be seen. But I'll get to it eventually. I had to make up most of this based on random images I found of Victorian style homes/furniture. Also? If you ever make a 3D model with bay windows, prepare for frustration. A LOT OF IT.

Sidney's House 3D Model - Exterior

2011-06-12T20:57:00.001-07:00

What I've been doing for the past couple of days. Since I lost the original model I made when my old computer died, I had to make a new model of Sidney's house. It's based on a great old house I found near Forsyth Park, though not entirely accurate (and missing a metric fuckton of detail). I made this because, well, look at it! I don't trust myself to not forget all those windows and details for the billions of times I plan to draw this thing. Made in good ol' Google Sketchup.

HeroesCon Sketches!

2011-06-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

A few of the $5 sketches I did at HeroesCon! These were super fun and I got to draw a lot of things I wouldn't normally draw. Especially the wonderful couple that asked me to draw them! THEY WERE SO CUTE. I'm missing a large number here, either because I forgot to take a photo, or the flash ruined the photo. But that's okay! I really look forward to doing more of these at Otakon. :D

Whoops

2011-06-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry this blog got really quiet, y'all. I've been pretty bogged down with schoolwork - to the point of missing out on my daily sketch routine. I'm going to try and change that, though. This summer some friends and I plan to meet up for an hour or so Monday-Friday to go out into the city and sketch people. Hopefully that means this blog will get really active!

If you're going to HeroesCon, come by my table and say howdy! I'll be at SP-23, it's a corner table right next to Indie Island. :D

CHARLSTON CHEW

2011-05-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

This blog keeps getting away from me. I have a giant stack of work to scan and post. Sorry, guys, Editor's Day is this Friday and I'm a little alkdfsl getting ready for it. Have some tomfoolery from my most recent Livestream.

Sketch Dump

2011-05-01T17:43:00.001-07:00

Whoops, I got too busy and forgot about my blog. My bad. Have some sketches! Sorry they're kinda crappy scans. I have a really super light hand, even with a ballpoint pen, so there's usually only so much I can do to make them visible.

Kavitha in progress

2011-04-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

My pencils for an inking assignment. The sari is photo ref'd, as is the bird. I need to ink this with a brush AND a quill, so this should be interesting. Scanning my pencils in case I totally ruin the drawing with the inks (a la Fuck Yeah Art Student Owl).

Ink Sketches round 1

2011-03-30T10:04:00.001-07:00

One hour drawings for my Advanced Inking class. These were fun! Six more to go.

Finished maquettes

2011-03-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

The final maquettes. I don't think I did too bad, considering I've never sculpted before. Jira's face was slightly burned in the oven (I sculpted and baked it separately), so that's why the clay is a different color. I think it's funny - he looks like he forgot his sunscreen.

This might be the last of my Dragon's Mail updates for a while. I'm done with Concept Design, and I have to put this project on the back burner until I have time to really work on it. Hopefully in the next year.

More Melea

2011-03-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

Melea's age progression. I like to think she'd be a very doting mother.

Melea final render

2011-03-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

My final render of Melea, for Concept design. I had difficulty figuring out her color scheme, since she was designed in black and white.

A little preoccupied right now. Finals combined with the situation in Japan have left me a little dumbstruck.

Run Dragon Boy, Run

2011-03-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

And here's some Jira action poses. His were much more fun. Leaving them rough because I wasn't told I had to make them perfect.

Hipster Action Princess

2011-03-08T20:59:00.001-08:00

Inked action poses for Princess Melea. It's going to be a late night.

Random Rob Sketch, maquettes

2011-03-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Oh hey there, Rob in a future chapter. I drew you during thesis class. There's a teeny spoiler in this image, betcha can't find it.

Oh yeah, and I worked on my maquettes some more.

Tree Practice

2011-02-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

Just some super quick scribbles of tree silhouettes. I took some photos of live oaks and ran them through the cutout filter in Photoshop, and it's really helped me figure out how to portray them in high contrast. I think I still need some fine tuning, but these are better than my first few attempts.

random fanbratting

2011-02-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

I had to appease the fanart gods tonight, lest they smite me. But it's not like I'm obsessed with Detective Conan or anything SHUT UP YOU. Will color eventually. I hope.

Jira emotions

2011-02-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

My little dragon boy! D'aww, someone done made him cry. And rage.

More maquette progress

2011-02-19T06:24:00.000-08:00

Coming right along. The eyes are the creepiest part.

Maquette progress

2011-02-12T19:50:00.001-08:00

WOOO, THEY'RE STARTED! Pretty crude at the moment, hopefully that will change. Super Sculpy and EpoxySculpt.

Hipster Princess

2011-02-09T19:40:00.001-08:00

Oh hey, a facial turnaround! Meet Melea, my hipster princess for my children's story :D I'm making a clay sculpture of this. I'll be posting progress shots! Let's see how close I can get my sculpture to match my drawing.

TINY DRAGONS

2011-02-04T21:15:00.001-08:00

An age exploration of the main character of a children's story I've been messing around with on and off. Meet Jira. He's one hell of a daydreamer. For my concept design class.

HOLY CRAP IT'S REAL.

2011-01-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

No fake. It's totally real and it's GLORIOUS.

Words can't describe how awesome I feel right now. Maybe my hand can.

OH SHI--

2010-11-28T18:15:00.001-08:00

Excerpt from a page currently in progress. I love how Jamie's face came out.

Sketches

2010-11-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

OH HEY I STILL HAVE AN ART BLOG, DON'T I

Have some random sketches from my sketchbook. Man, I need to get a softer lead in my pencil if I'm going to draw on non-white paper. I have a notoriously light hand.

Body Studies

2010-11-13T22:01:00.001-08:00

Have some naked people.

Holy crap someone get Rob a sandwich, a small breeze is gonna knock him over.

Rob + Cello

2010-10-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch I did in class today. Rob plays the cello! And quite well, actually. But oh god, don't look at this cello. And don't draw musical instruments without reference, seriously. It's ugly.

The nice, corrected, cleaned up and colored version is here!

It Gets Better

2010-10-24T19:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight I drew a picture that means a lot to me, for various reasons.

This is an important step forward, for all of us. Visit It Gets Better Project for more information.

More Infrared

2010-10-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

A few more shots I took today for some extended testing. It's been so windy lately, which makes infrared almost impossible due to long exposure times.

Life in IR

2010-10-20T12:58:00.001-07:00

I have a new hobby! Infrared Photography. I got my Hoya R72 filter in the mail today, so I ran out real quick to test it. These shots are really grainy and horribly underexposed (it can be tricky getting your settings right, you essentially have to guess every time), but at least I know the filter does what I wanted it to do! Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to take some better shots.

a bit of proof...

2010-10-17T20:37:00.001-07:00

...That I'm working! Here's a sneak peek of the beginning of chapter two.

Thank god for the parking garage that I climbed to the top of to take reference photos of the city for this page. I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS FROM MEMORY.

Mid October ALREADY!?

2010-10-12T19:35:00.001-07:00

Good grief. Time is flying right by me.

I feel so incredibly guilty that chapter two of Distillum isn't out yet. Really, I do. But this quarter has been my most intense quarter ever. I'm swamped with assignments just about all the time, and when I'm not, I usually crash because I'm exhausted. I have it almost entirely thumbnailed out - I don't want to start until it's all planned, so I can address any storytelling/continuity errors now, before I back myself into a comic corner.

I was afraid this would happen. For those of you patiently waiting, I thank you. This grad school shtick is wearing on me something fierce, but I'm trying, I really am. In the mean time, have some sketchbook excerpts, including some Distillum characters not yet introduced!

More 3D

2010-10-02T12:17:00.001-07:00

A model I made of Rob and Jamie's two bedroom apartment. They won't be in here forever, but long enough for me to need a reference.

Fun fact: This is also the first apartment I lived in when I moved to Savannah, with a few tweaks. :3

IT LIVES

2010-10-01T21:10:00.001-07:00

IN 3D!

Wow, it's only been forever since I touched this blog. But I come bearing art. Well, sort of. Here's some 3D models I've made of environments for Distillum - they're locations that I'm going to be using constantly, so having a 3D reference will really help make sure they're consistent. I used Google Sketchup, and today was my first time ever using it. It's amazingly simple. I've never rendered in 3D in my life, and I got the hang of it pretty quick. Here's the coffee house:

And Sidney's house:

Phew! Only one more interior to make before I can get drawing. I'd highly recommend this method - it saves a lot of time, headache, and perspective grid drawing. And to clarify, I did loosely base these on actual locations, but they've been altered enough to be called original. (at least I think so.)

Page in Progress + Livestream

2010-08-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

YA RLY.

Here's something I did while Livestreaming today. It was a lot of fun, and I really dig having people watch me draw. It helps me focus. The recordings are up on my Livestream site if you didn't get a chance to watch live.

Guys, I'm two pages away from being done with Chapter One of Distillum. That is so exciting, you have no idea.

D:>

2010-08-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no art today. I feel really bad about letting this blog get dusty, really I do. Things have been crazy liek WHOA. I just moved into a new fully furnished place, so we had a lot of stuff to move and then there was already stuff in our new place and we had to figure out what to keep and what to give away and we're not even half done and GAH.

Because of the move I got behind on Distillum pages for my Studio II class. So that's my excuse for not having any extra drawings or anything to post here. I've only had time/energy to draw Distillum, and even that hasn't gone exactly like I'd planned. Sorry guys.

Hopefully I can catch up soon and be back to posting.

FFFFFFFFF

2010-07-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

HEY GUYS REMEMBER WHEN I USED TO BE A COLORIST

Yeah neither do I.

Just a quick doodle of Musashi. I wanted to put Mycella in there giving him a cute look to explain the blushing since he's totally the least shy person in the Universe, but I was getting to the point of hating the picture as a whole. He's such a crazy fun character and I love this game to pieces. I know a lot of people can't stand it, but it's one of my favorites. (Also I know the anatomy on this is whack - it's actually canon. No really, check it out! Everyone has noseless faces and hands the size of their torsos.)

I've been really bogged down with Distillum lately. I got behind by one page at a critique and it destroyed my work ethic. I'm not terribly far behind now, I'm well within the means of getting everything done on schedule, but I feel like I've run out of steam. For the first time, my comic is feeling like work. Oh well. This always happens when you're almost to the goal - You want to put away the crayons and play something else, but you have to stick it out.

So! Onward, etc.

Some FFIX busts

2010-07-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

'Cause I needed to take a break from drawing Distillum pages. Twenty minutes in SAI.

Stress relief doodle

2010-07-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

Would you believe this is a semi-self portrait? I used myself as reference and drew Rob. He's looking all mopey because I'm a little mopey. My drawing mojo seems to have taken temporary leave of me - which kinda sucks. Oh well. Ten minutes in SAI.

Zidane and Steiner

2010-07-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture we did in class for a 90 minute sketch challenge. The goal was to take our favorite fictional character and draw them sitting across a table from their least favorite person at our favorite restaurant. Since I've been playing FFIX, I drew Zidane and Steiner at Leopold's Ice Cream. The perspective is a little wonky, but whatever. This was fun.

Totally Goddess Material

2010-06-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

A quick sketch of Kavitha. I saw some art on DA that reminded me of Arslan, and I wanted to draw something with lots of flowing fabric and crazy jewelry. I might finish this later, I can't decide.

Zidane!

2010-06-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Not the headbutting one. Man, I have the biggest hankering to start a new game in FFIX, you have no idea. It's my favorite Final Fantasy ever.

edit: After posting this, I totally did go start a new game. I'm using it as incentive to finish my daily work at a decent time :B

BOOM HEADSHOTS

2010-06-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

...lol. Just some sketches. An instructor asked me to talk to some students about character design, so I whipped these up to illustrate how to make unique faces when creating characters.

I spent several months creating these designs, actually. I needed to make sure they were distinguishable even if the hair, color and details were removed. I think it worked out alright.

And now for something sort of different

2010-06-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Experimenting with a new drawing style. Y/N? I do like this way of drawing noses, though. My inspiration came from tastemybrain over on DA :D These are just random folks except for Reno in the upper left corner.

Axl in progress

2010-06-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one. I like the linework, but the coloring phase always gets me. I used to be really comfortable with color, but I don't seem to have the patience for it anymore. Oh well.

"I think I just had an apostrophe."

2010-06-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

"...I think you mean an epiphany."

Yup, I sure did. A small one, but it made me realize something about myself and how I draw. See, when I get hardcore into fandoms, it tends to set me back a bit in the art department - especially if said fandom is anime or anime-based. Today I figured out why this is: My brain is utterly determined to make my art look exactly like the canon. This is a silly thing to shoot for, really. I've developed my own style (sort of), and trying to go against that is pretty tough for me. So I thought to myself, "Why don't I just try to make a representation of the characters, instead of breaking my brain trying to make it perfect?"

So for today's exercise, I took a favorite anime character of mine -Yamato of Digimon 02 - and tried to draw him in my own style. I tried to stick to the idea of capturing just the few key elements that make Yamato look like Yamato (particular hair style, angular eyes with small pupils, effeminate). The sketches are numbered by attempts; by #3, I felt really comfortable drawing him. I'm not going to put too much work into this since it's just fanart, but wow. I feel a lot better about myself artistically now :D

(also, don't mind the silly little Taichi in there. he didn't work out so well, but I tried.)

He's reading Chaucer.

2010-06-10T20:31:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure why I'm obsessed with drawing Megaman characters right now. They're very difficult for me, since their designs are often perfectly symmetrical and very exact. I'm determined to learn, though.

Marino and Cinnimon

2010-06-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday today, so have some ROBOT GIRL ON GIRL ACTION. Haha, just kidding. In truth I think these two are just adorable. Wish I could've spent a bit more time on this, but alas, I had only 30 minutes to crank this out.

I think I really made this blog to give myself a reason to sketch and doodle every day. So far it's working!

Quick Gatz doodle

2010-06-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

Anyone here played Megaman Legends 2? I did, and I loved it. Especially this guy. Ten minutes in PaintTool SAI, click for full size!

SO IT BEGINS

2010-06-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

HAI GUYS. Here's my crazy blog type thing. I'm going to use this for fandom ramblings, fanart, sketches and general stuff. I'm a crazy fangirl, you know.

Peace out!
<3 Pickles