The Bane of My Existence...Plus Muffins!

I've been working on inking my friend's comic for a while now. This is the 3rd issue. I'm not sure if this one has taken me longer than the other two to knock out....I don't think it has. I believe he gave me the drafts at the beginning of summer. That last issue I think i had in my possession for over a year....so yea! I'm getting this one done quicker! I just have a hard time forcing myself to sit down and work. It's been an unfinished project for a while now...looming over my head.....reminding me that I'm a bad friend...taking up light box space. Ack! Unfinished projects! The Bane of my existence! Lucky for me I'm 5 pages from finished!

Also, I spent the morning before hand making muffins! Yea pumpkin muffins! My co-workers re so spoiled!

Martinez...My New Favorite Location

Ohhhh Martinez, how your are my new favorite place! There are so many cool things to see and draw! Why, just look at that bridge thing? Is it for pedestrians? Is it for workers? Who knows! Well...I'm sure someone knows. Anyways, its just a fascinating place to stare at! Kudos to you Martinez and your fine factories!

Week 2 - Cryptids

So for week 2 we looked into cryptozoology. I was reeeeeeally picky when choosing a cryptid. I really wanted to do a rodent or critter or bird but I found very few and when I did they were either dinosauresque or humanoid...and I didn't want either of those. So I went with jackalope! Here are some interesting facts that I came across while researching my lil guy:

-Jackalopes are aggressive
-They are said to be "common" in the midwest plains esp. in wyoming
-They fight with antlers
-They can imitate noise esp. humans and become most voical before and during thunderstorms
-You can catch one by leaving out whiskey (they like them some whiskey) and once drunk they are             slow enough to catch.

SOOOOO besides that as research I looked into some more real world characteristics that jackalopes may have. For example the most common rabbit of the midwest is The whitetail (and blacktail) jackrabbit. The antlers a jackalope may have would be closely related to the pronghorn antelope (also indigenous to the midwest.) As far as habitat goes, this animal would be living in open grassland with no trees and little shade, therefore, it would have to sleep in the brush and short shubery.

Jackalopes are not real! It has been confirmed! It's a hoax! HOWEVER this urban legend may have originated from real rabbits with a real problem! Some rabbits in the wild (especially the cottontail rabbit) develop the Shope's Papilloma virus (a semi cousin of the human papilloma virus) which causes the growth or hardened tumors out of the infected rabbits heads and faces in disturbing ways. They are often shape like horns. Normally these rabbit die of starvation since the tumors grow in such a way as to get in the way of chewing. Seriously, if you want to be haunted by some sad images, look this up. No joke, its heart breaking.

This is my piece. I found that I often rely on my line work as a crutch....especially in this case. I am not pleased at all with the values. I was kinda going to a salvador Dali gradient thing with hard sharp shadows. This was a fail. At least I got practice!

And for funzies, heres a location study of the shell refinery, Martinez CA.

Photoshop Portrait Gone Wrong

So I tried to color a blind contour drawing I did of my friend in photoshop. The result is a person....just not her. Ha! If only I had a better reference picture to work from. Oh well. Also, I was aiming for more of a realistic style but my proportions were to exaggerated so the result is a more cartoony portrait.

Harley Quinn....Fixed?

I dunno, what do you guys think? I eliminated the top shadow. I think it looks better.

It's Gross When You Think About It...

I had this idea the other day while flipping through a massage encyclopedia of mushrooms...if a mushroom is a type of fungus, what if untreated foot fungus grew into clumps of mushrooms? Haha I like to think that if someone had some nasty foot fungus and never wore socks, foot mushrooms might start popping up in the affected area. Ha. Gross. I tried to make the background seem grimy to reenforce the gross factor....Not quite as successful as I wanted but it is a cool texture!

Teh Scribbles

You know what's better than writing up a draft for a presentation? Fan art!

Here is a Harley Quinn I just did. I wanted to play around with Harley's poses because in the Batman the animated series she's just so adorable and childlike! Also, I wanted an excuse to scribble in photo shop. It took me a million (cough...cough...one full) page of gestures to get this pose and I'm not satisfied with the foreshortening at all. Meh. It will get better with practice. I dig my blue green squares though!

Happy New Comic Book Wednesday!

That's right! I'm so excited! It's new comic Wednesday! Gaaaaaah! I've been looking forward to this since last Wednesday! Oh, also, here's a photo of my rabbit whom just received an orange mohawk!

Location Studies!

I finally went out and did a location study today. Ooooooh how I've missed my factories! *pines for factories*

Here is Pg&e in Antioch.......It's alright....My lines could be a lot better. There's a lot of mess going on with the texture of the short smokestacks. I like my crane right there on the left. He's pretty cool....Don't make eye contact with the tall smokestack on the right...he's mad that I drew him so lopsided and ugly. It felt good to sit back and relax in my car while listening to the hum of machinery and the calling of trains! sigh* It was an awesome sunset, even though the sun was out of my view!

For kicks, here's a drawing of Mt. Diablo from a few weeks ago....ignore the blatant chunk of missing drawing down the center!

Week 1 Fantasy

So here is my stab at the weekly drawing thing we have going on.  I wanted to do a wood nymph...I just always kind of liked them...I dunno why. So I went online and did some research. Nymph's originated from greek mythology and were considered divine creatures that brought nature to life.  They are normally depicted as young, beautiful women who dance and sing. This, however, was not the only kind of wood nymph I came across. Apparently there is a breed of butterfly known as "the common woodnymph." It's a rather plan and ordinary looking butterfly but I decided I wanted to combine the two ideas.  I knew I wanted the character to be singing with a bird so for an extra challenge I picked a real world area for these characters to originate from.  Since the "common wood nymph" is indigenous to north america, I thought it would be fun to depict a wood nymph that could exist in the Sierra Nevada. Lets make it local, right?! I then looked into common songbird types that exist in the Sierra and came up with the mountain chickadee. I also looked into different types of mushrooms that exist in the area. Overall, I like the piece.  I'm not sure how effective those green shadows are but I thought they were fun to experiment with :3 I wish I used a yellow light as a light source, not a white one. oh well.

Dishonored Concept Art Video

My boyfriend found this video via Kotaku.com yesterday and I just had to share it.  This is a ten minute video on the conceptual art and design of the for the new game Dishonored.  In it you'll see Viktor Antonov discuss the influences that helped shape the game universe.  There are various game snipettes and some awesome conceptual pieces throughout the video.  I find it real interesting that Antonov's art background is in Industrial Design.  At one point he references Syd Mead's influence on his art work.....and who doesn't like them some Syd Mead? Am I right? lol I'm so jealous of the Industrail Design skills these guys have!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5DtsstCyBE

Financial Aid

FINALLY!!! The government finally came through for me! Oh man. I've never felt so poor in my life! I've spent so much money in cash on tuition and spent so much on credit for the rest of my expenses! Now I can pay it all off and have free time instead of working 9 hour shifts and getting 5 hours of sleep every night! YESSSSSSSS! After it's all paid off I'll finally get my roller skates! Bwahahaha! Roller skates! >:D So exciting. I will finally sleep well tonight!!!!!!!!!

The Mighty Smoosh

Love him! As I love him!! >:3