Fairy tale: The Fish and the Princess

Tamlin in SPACE

This was a project I did for my bookmaking final this past summer. It was completed in a week or two and was one of the most fun projects I got to work on. Taken from an old folktale, I set the story "in space" and gave it a few twists. Part of me would like to work more on it, but mostly I consider it done, flaws and all. ALSO NOTE: You must click on each image to see both pages on the image. Otherwise you're only seeing every other page of the book.

Some new stuff

I just wanted to draw this pose, and then couldnt figure out what to do with her face. I was trying masks but they all looked too super-heroey even when they were creepy or weird or traditional.

Zombies. Not much more to that!

Tree women :) I'll probably either do ink washes or do something digital-colorwise with this.

Teacup mermaid.

Some summer stuff

This is from mid spring, very loose but I'm fond of it.

The upstairs room of very dear friends. I find that doing this particular exercise (pick any point to start from, draw a room) is very calming, and that room is calming too.

Characters from a novel I was writing over the summer.

Characters from a scene from said novel. Really oughta work on that more when i get a minute!

This is another image from the past spring, which is almost a thumbnail for a large scale painting I'd like to do at some point.

Bookmaking: PDF Tunnel Book

I took a bookmaking class this semester, and one of the projects I had the most fun on was the tunnel book. I decided to use it to capture at least a fraction of my strange and wonderful experience going to my first burner event, Playa del Fuego. These are the panels from the book from back to front, each offering a peek of the one behind it.

more collage stuff

Really... after this week is over there will be so much from-life sketchiness. I am starved for hands on assignments this semester, it's killing me. PAINT. and drawings. so many ideas in the works!

ward 6 environment drawings

This may seem a little odd, but it's an example of one of the levels, in which the main character explores the mind of a patient who only communicates through abstract drawings in black ink. Her "world" is very 2-d, flat, and much like a really disturbing version of Harold and the Purple Crayon. The main character too appears differently in the levels, depending on how she is perceived or what role she is playing to help the patient.

These two images address the "sanity meter", seen upper left corner, which indicates both the state of sanity of the main character and also indicates to what degree the "real time" (as opposed to the in-the-minds-of-the-patients levels) world is distorted and nightmareish. There are a variety of scenes and story tidbits available depending on the level of sanity, insanity, and there are also ways to help or hinder yourself in that regard (opening a door that looks normal, picking up something that shouldn't be there, ect.)

collage in progress

Character designs for Ward 6

In my game design class, we're doing art for, story for, and design for, a complex game of our choosing. At the end of the class, we'll present the idea as if we were pitching it to a company that would possibly make it. Mine's been fun to think about - based possibly sometime in the past few decades, having to deal with "Ward 6" of a mental institution, where people who haven't been "helped" by any form of therapy or treatment have been sent, and where the main character, a young doctor, finds herself trying out a new experimental treatment she came up with herself. (Her father, a stage magician, taught her various seeeekrit forms of hypnotism, and she combines this with her more traditional training as a head dr.)

Basically, she hypnotizes the patient, then herself - and goes into the world of their minds to try and solve their problems in a more, er, direct fashion. Each of the "worlds" is different in rules, goals, and scenery depending on the mind of the patient and the problems they have. (some are puzzle games, some are action-adventurey, some are, well, dangerous.) It's possible to help each patient - but you can also choose to screw everything up, and either way you're in danger of harming yourself too. You get sanity points at the beginning of the game, and can lose them throughout, as well as having a higher chance of hurting whoever you're trying to help. This effects the ending, which can go one of two or three ways.

Anyway, I had to do a presentation of character designs, and it was due a week before I thought it was - so this was all done in a few spare hours I had 24 hours before I had the class. I'll probably make the color job more detailed, maybe.
This is the main character, the young head doctor. Yeah I know the outfit is unreasonable but it's fun! In the mind-worlds she goes into, the pendulum becomes a weapon, a light source, and a healing implement depending on the scenario. Also, before going into the mind of the patient, one can hypnotize onesself to "equip" the tools necessary. (you get clues ahead of time as to what might be necessary, as well as the "patient file" cards.
Above is patient 001, who never speaks, and does simple black and white ink paintings constantly - perhaps as a form of communication, perhaps as a form of self therapy. Her world is much like "harold and the purple crayon".

Patient 003 - obsessive compulsive, anxiety, ect. his world is one big puzzle game of getting everything in order.
Patient 009 - the pyromaniac and arsonist. He's nuts, but possibly knows more of what's going on than the good doctor herself... and tries to warn her, though of course it doesn't work.


Of course, each patient looks "different" in their own minds, and sometimes you don't look the same either - you look like a mother or brother or daughter, because it's what you need to look like to fix it all.

Tree and rock

These were done as five separate panels in a miniature folding "screen" for sequential imaging, to depict a mock "zen" story my professor wrote about a big rock and a willow tree. There was a stream in it, and it was all blah blah suffering but beautiful. These are just the panels; my final intent was to have them connected and lit from behind, which looks really interesting. I'll post a picture of that, hopefully, when I manage to get it all working properly.