F*** My Life. Artist Woes.

I found this picture and had to reblog it. It had to be done. So much truth is going on here.

Also, I looked through a bunch of people's tumblrs to see what other artists were doing for the 30 day monster girl challenge and man........ F*** my life. Talk about personal letdown! I'm very unsatisfied with my work. So much crying, the graph even says so! More practice is required!!! More pictures need to be drawn per day! Work Work Work. It's the artist woes.

Day 9......Baby Fruit Bats Are Adorable

So I didn't know very much about demons so I had to look into it a little. Apparently they are found mostly in connection to christianity so they have a lot of religious affilition. They are normally the creatures that take over human bodies. Exorcisms are used to get rid of them. Normally they are depicted as evil beings..usually fallen angels. In depictions, I noticed that the demons are normally shown as being part goat or bat so I followed suit.

I used a fruit bat as reference for this lil creature. I imagined that it was a small demon and would be very afraid of the big world around it. I'd let that little thing nom on my soul!! Lil cutie! After seeing Arvin's awesome centaur and harpy, I decided that I wanted to play with line work for this piece. Not totally successful...I was having a hard time getting the lines I wanted with my uniball...I should switched out for a .01 micron. Oh well. No Regrets!

I might get around to coloring it. Ideally I would want to redraw it for better line quality and then india wash over it. 

Day 8......4 a.m. is not my favorite time...anymore

Dear 4 in the a.m.

You do not please me. I am tired. I wish to sleep now. You are not my favorite time...anymore. Why don't you go to bed too. Here is octalady.

I feel like octopi are extremely regal. They look down upon all creatures, including ones that are on ground above them...dumb joke....I take that back.

I wanted my octamonster to feel regal and floaty and conceited. Yea, she sees you looking at her looking at you, and she don't care. Octalady does as she pleases! Including being a jerk.

There are many things I could have done better. My biggest regret....lack of contrast....and those wierd dark spots that draw to much attention to themselves. Biggest accomplishment: snooty attitude.

Also Fanart. Why The Hell Not.

I was going to wait a while before putting up fanart....but I'm feeling compulsive. It's 4 in the morning. Why the hell not?

Day 7....OH MY GOD PHOTOSHOP

SO today is day 7 of the monster challenge (by this time its actually yesterday) and today is plant monster. I was real excited about this one. Miner's Lettuce has always been my favorite plant since I was a kid. At a young age I remember playing in the patches of Miner's Lettuce on the side of the house after the rains. I loved the texture, the color, the shape, everything. They reminded my of lilies on lily pad...almost as if they were land lilies! I would imagine that there was a thin layer of water that they were floating on and that I had to wade in the water in order to find the perfect ones. They have always been a source of interest and inspiration. It's one of those things that carries me off into thoughts that make the world around me dissolve if that makes any sense. They have always been sort of mystical or magical to me even though they exist in real life. That's a fond memory I miss. Oh Jibber Jabber. I'm dreaming.

I wanted something less monster like and more serene, tranquil, surreal.

I went crazy with the brushes today and OH MY GOD PHOTOSHOP! SO worth it. I think this is my best piece for the challenge so far! I wanted it to capture the surreal or daydream like quality this plant inspires in me. I love when plants or other objects grow out of other objects (like my interest in the Shope's papilloma virus effecting rabbits, the fungus on the foot picture I did, or in this case, the leaves of the miner's lettuce out of the girl's body). I blame Salvador Dali for this weird love!!!! I want to continue making surreal art. It pleases me.

Day 6.....And I'm off

So I'm heading off to work on art with Nelson at Barnes so Imma just throw this up here real quick. It day 6 of the monster challenge which is spider monster. My spider lady is based on a European garden spider. I tried to make it look dark and menacing but.....eh.....better camera angle woulda helped.

Day 5.....Scanner Leavings

Where the hell are my monster skillz? Why don't I have them? Is my heart to full of the warm smooshies to produce work that is dark or unsettling? Not cool heart!

This is my mer...person(?) picture for monster challenge day five. Totally not a monster. Not even close. What I learned from this picture is that my line work skills in traditional media far exceed that of my photoshop skills and I should therefore sketch and ink all my drawings before putting them in photoshop. I applied what I learned from my Amethyst painting to this picture (always clean up your crappy scans! Always! Scanner leavings are not pleasings!)

Originally I hated my line drawing. It was to boring and generic....It grew on me as I started coloring in though...I added kelp in her hair and barnacles on her tail for interest.. I originally wanted to draw her with fin rot but Eric went all soft hearted and said that that made him to sad to look at lol Fin rot is like fish leprosy. Hahahaaha. (I will draw it.)

I found out in my 5 minutes of research that mermaid fish parts are actually based on manatees and dugongs....I ended up going the dugong route....except I kinda messed that up as soon as I put scales on her. Oh well. I even gave her dugong friend for kicks, but I guess since they are both part dugong they could possibly be lovers! HA!

I'm not sure why but I hate my style. All artists feel like that though right? RIGHT? *Anxiety*

Day 4....This is Crap

I'm so tired. This was not my best work. I think I was to tired to care. I didn't really get into the idea of the Naga as a monster.....And now its just a cute anthropomorphized snake. Hopefully tomorrows will be better.

Day 3....When You Think "Birds," Think "Murder"

Arg! The birds?! Why!? There are bird nesting on your roof (I'm hoping they are turkeys) and they keep scratching around early in the morning. This is the second day in a row that I have woken up early and then could not go back to sleep cuz of those damn birds!!! Murder the birds! MUUUUUURDERRRRRRRRR. GLaDOS would be so proud.

Anyways. Day 3! Slime monster. I can't stop drawing adorable things. WHY!!! WHY MUST I BE PLAGUED WITH CUTENESS! I don't think I could ever make a serious drawing.....Saaaaaaaaaad. Much like slime monster here....saaaaaaaad.

This is unintentionally adventure time style. My bad. I didn't set out for that...but it happened. I kinda just drew what came.

I like the idea that slime monster is really self conscious...Like she ashamed of her slimy texture and she tries her best to cover up her true nature. Maybe she was made fun of in school. Also, she probably smells bad...especially on hot days. Object of other children's ridicule. Poor thing.

Day 2....Hide Yo Babies

So my boyfriend hates centaurs but I did this one anyways. It coulda been cute, it coulda been adorable...nahhhhh mine's blood thirsty. It....Uh....took longer than anticipated. I started it last night but did not like where it was going at all....so I put it off and picked it up this morning....And you know how photoshop can be a jerk some times? Photoshop froze my computer when I was just about done with the piece!!! SO close!! The blood was finished and everything!!! Arg! I tried to command save but that didn't work...so I rebooted my computer and found that I had lost about an hour and a half of work. Not cool Photoshop. Not cool.

This was the first attempt. I wanted crazy...I got ugly

This was the preliminary sketch for the second run

Finished!!!! Hide Yo Babies!!!!

Drunken Macaroni and a 30 Day Challenge

So I closed the restaurant tonight and got home around midnight 30 so I was not tired in the slightest. I spent about an hour watching My Drunk Kitchen (I love Hannah! She's so cute!) and decided that the show would be a lot funnier if the audience was also drunk while watching it...and the answer is yes. Yes it is.

So after about 3/4 of a bottle of free wine, the Adventure Time game soundtrack and a pot of drunken macaroni and cheese later I started the my 30 day monster challenge. Today is day one and it is Harpy day! So here it is! In all it's drunken constructed glory! Are you questioning the pose? Why would she extend her leg if she was flying forward at break neck speed? Because I'm drunk and I'll make my Harpy do what I want. Also, as just a side note, I'm counting this drawing as my Friday December 21st drawing....since I have yet to go to bed.

I'm also including a storyboard of something that happened to me tonight at work. I thought it was funny and merited a mention in some sort of pictorial form. hahahaha

"Amber?"

                                                                          "Hmm?"

"Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

"You've dipped you're hair in chocolate"

In conclusion, I can't finish my drunken macaroni by myself. Life lesson: Never conclude anything with the opening 'in conclusion.'

Pony T-Shirts

So today should have been a hell of a lot more productive....but it wasn't. Eric and I ended up playing Borderlands 2 all day. What I ended up finishing was the gifts for my lil brother. He is a brony and I guess his fav is Twilight Sparkle and originally I was going to screen print his favorite pony onto a shirt but my friend Nelson has been too busy to set up his screen print machine. Oh well. I thought the shirts still turned out pretty cool. I hope Daniel likes then. This one I'm posting is of Twilight Sparkle reading a book. The other one I made was of Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark on the back of the another t-shirt....So that way when you wear it, it's like you yourself are Twilight Sparkle. Lol Well I thought it was a good idea.

I think this is just too cute!

Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld

I got the new issue of Swords and Sorcery today so I couldn't help put do an Amethyst piece. I wanted to show her freaking out over the new powers that she got. Ha. I like the way this one turned out. Very silly. I like that my pen work scanned in well so I didn't have to do the line work in photoshop. I suck at lines in photoshop. -3- bleh. The background took me a while to come up with. Backgrounds are always really hard for me.... Either I draw a character or I draw a location...for some reason I have a hard time combing the two!

The Wonder Corset

I recently read a web comic post that included wonder woman. It may have been "Hark a Vagrant" but I'm not sure. Anyways, the way wonder woman was depicted was angry and awesome. At one point, a villain runs away and a bystander asks wonder woman why she wont chase him down. Here response was asking the bystander if she had ever tried to run in a bikini top and high heels! Ha! I always forget that her outfit is not very functional! Imagine having to readjust your corset every time you ran a few feet. You wouldn't be able to get anything done!

This was shitty dried up prismacolors....they are getting pretty old.

Also, I'm horrible at lighting pictures....I need more practice. Consider this practice! I really do need to find a more convenient means of applying color to doodles.

Spinach

Today I was so lazy that I wouldn't feed myself. When I finally got around to eating, it ended up being spinach.....because that was the easiest thing to throw on the plate. Hahaha ohhhhh spinach.....you think you're food.....but your not.

Winter Break

It's here already! Winter break! A time for relaxation and....uh...uhm....I dunno....catching up on personal projects? I plan to get so much work done that it's gonna be like I'm still going to school. Like today for instance I sat in on a final for a professor (Arthur Scott King) I had a few years back and I spent my time sketching the students and trying to figure out their attitudes! Maybe I'll get around to posting those....just not tonight. He also made me do part of his final! arg! I'm not in your class!!! Unless your class is life!! Then maybe I am in your class! The results of the final show that I should do a thorough reading of the animators survival guide. Oh the shame!

So Wednesday was comic book Wednesday (imma call it cbw for short now) and I went all out! I bought Marceline and the Scream Queens issues 3-6 (issue 1 and 2 are out of stock! thank goodness for amazon!!!) as well as the adventure time cover art book! I can say with confidence that I got my weeks fill of Penn Ward style characters. I can't wait for the first issue of Fiona and Cake!!!

This is how I feel about break so far

Oh, and this happened while I was drawing.....I figure if I were to animate this, lil dude would slide slowly upward...stare...I'd turn and stare back....and then he would slide slowly back down. Haha he does this!!!! He so does this!

A Few Things

It's been, what, a week... two weeks....since I last posted? I haven't done much. Darn my lack of motivation! *fist shake*

Oh well.

Here's what I have to show. The tentacle and the pomegranate area art of my sketchbook for school. I'm pretty behind.....ughhhh......but probably not as behind as my friend Arvin! I still have the weekend to catch up though...it'll be fiiiiiiiiine :) These are both gauche and inking with india ink. I do love me some india ink. I dig the comic book effect that I got for combining the two mediums!

Here we have more fan art. I know, I know. I said I would cut down. But this has been sitting in my sketchbook waiting for a rainy day! I had to do it! Because it rained today. The rain made me do it. There is a wonder woman piece in the works as well. This Power Girl piece is gauche with india ink. It was originally longer as to emphasize the eye lasers....but I messed up the background so I amputated the left portion of the piece. Still looks cool though. My scanner is killing my colors! I through this in photoshop to clean it a little but I didn't come out as true to the original.

This last one is almost a collaboration with my and my sister.....if collaboration means stealing her drawing and coloring it lol. I like the way it turned out! Sadly I have a very distinct inking style so the character lost a lot of Sarah's hand. :/ Still looks cool though. Again the scanner has eaten some of the color. She's really freakin' yellow in this picture...she's not that yellow in the painting! Gauche and india ink.

Sailor Moon Kisses

Sailor Moon fanart! I really need to cut back on the fan art. I decided that I do fan art in order to 1.) experiment with media techniques and 2.) to make myself feel better. I feel as though fan art is a way to feel better about my skills because my own original work doesn't seem to be as good or as fully developed.

For this piece I started with a doodle I did the other day. Then used a mixture of watercolor pencil, prismacolor markers and white gauche. The gauche really makes it pop, especially in contrast with some of the thick dark lines.

Kale Wins

"K" is for Klassy Kale! haha

So I like to title this one "Kale Wins." This is another fan art for Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders. Kale, being the badass villain she is, has gotten a hold of the crown jewels. Honestly I spent waaaay to long on this piece. However, it's possibly the best piece of photoshop work I have so far....so yea! Practice!

I couldn't choose which color scheme I wanted so I'm posting both.
I'm  posting the original pencil for it too just because I like how alive the lines look!

I'm still surprised at the lack of fan art for this show. I would have thought that this and Lisa Frank art would have a bunch of fan made stuff on the interwebs. Oh well. I just continue to contribute.

In other news, if anyone likes Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, you should consider looking into out comic Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. It's now getting a reboot as pat of the new 52 for DC and it looks great! I like the original comic but this new one isn't bad! It's printed under the title Swords and Sorcery.  Check out your local comic book store today!

Random Pieces...

....That I happen to like. Must.....draw.....more.....need.....more....skillz..........

Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders

Who doesn't like making fan art of their favorite child hood tv shows? I know I can't resist!!! I used to love Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders! The colors! The style! Ah! I loved it! I rarely got to watch it for whatever reason (I don't think I understood the benefits of the tv guide channel...remember the tv guide channel?) I recently downloaded a few episodes and ooooooh man....that was an awful show! The writing! The characterization! The cheesey-ness! The horrible limited animation! It hurts...It hurts me so. Regardless, I have fond memories of the series and the characters. I admit to having Fallon and Gwenevere action figures (They were the shiiiiiit!). So what I've done here is reinterpret the girls in my own style and increased their personalities (can one increase personality? haha)...ok how about pushed their personalities to the extreme.

Fallon

Gwenevere

Tamara

Oh! What fun!