Mirroring the Moon

Update post, random drawings

2011-11-13T12:08:00.001-08:00

Quick doodle that popped into my head and I drew/inked in like 20 minutes at work.

Two of the main characters in the story I'm working on for NaNoWriMo. I just wanted to get an idea out of my head what they both looked like - not completely happy with it but kind of amused.

This is an image that popped into my head after being introduced to a great cover of Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark", and also an exercise in different ways of using texture and contrast in inking, because of a particular series of drawings i have a mind to do.

Here we have a meant-to-be-silly comic! I've been doing more and more little comics to work through various thought processes in my life. Not all of them will make their way here but I liked this one.

Here we have a character from my webcomic, doing a sort of fan dancey thing.

Ads, banners, buttons

2011-09-23T11:18:00.001-07:00

...for my webcomic :)

Contestant Moonshine

2011-08-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Standoff

2011-04-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Haven't seen these guys in a while! Another ballpoint pen sketch that I just felt like giving a little color to.

Sketchy sketch

2011-03-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

I often find that when I'm having issues getting into drawing mode, or if I'm being too perfectionist with a pencil, it actually helps a great deal to take up a shitty old ballpoint pen. Not easy to erase, so it makes it much more important to pick your lines correctly, and to commit to a given line on the paper. It also lets me take my self less-seriously enough to get stuff done! Who knew.

Halflight cover

2010-12-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

Will the real page 002

2010-10-29T09:44:00.001-07:00

...please stand up?

linear jumping beans

2010-10-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

008 and 009

2010-10-21T07:52:00.001-07:00

two new pages - 006 and 007

2010-10-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

I think I may be proudest of these pages so far, with what I was experimenting with/trying to accomplish

005

2010-10-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

03 and 04

2010-10-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

Comic project 001

2010-09-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

elvses under a tree

2010-09-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

Luis - Rowan (b&w)

2010-09-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

The black and white version of my next tree art, which, I think will more likely trend the rest of them? I don't know. I keep having dreams about rowan trees and I've never even seen one in person!

Rowan - Luis - the second letter of the Celtic alphabet.

Spoons

2010-09-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

The inspiration for this is a long and vaguely convoluted story, involving an article wherein spoons were a metaphor, and a friend's story about gambling desperately for laundry quarters, all topped off with a rather desperate weekend I had not yet long ago to make me feel comfortable with it.

Nonetheless, I'm happy with the result.

Max character art

2010-09-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Character portraits (line em up!)

2010-08-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

Character portraits for a story I'm working on. They're all fairly major characters. I am having entirely too much fun with this!

Sketches update - August

2010-08-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

(from mexico!)

Birch -Beith - Beginnings

2010-08-14T17:54:00.001-07:00

The start of a new series of paintings. Still tweaking this. This is basically a dryad series - sourced in the ogham alphabet and drawing inspiration from the symbolism therein.

So, tree spirits. Lots of that.

Max story sketches

2010-07-10T23:40:00.000-07:00

Quick sketches I did when the idea for a story struck me on vacation.

Colored beachpeople

2010-06-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

beach sketches

2010-06-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sketchy unicorn girl

2010-06-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

Something done for fun while working a particularly slow shift, then finished at the bar. Yes, I do art with my beer, what?

4th project

2010-05-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

TCCoSC -inkwash

2010-05-03T20:46:00.001-07:00

Village scene - In progress

2010-05-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Part of a larger project, definitely still in progress - I haven't worked for more than five minutes on the grass/ground bits. Also, uploading things to my blog apparently desaturates them by 50% or so - wtf.

Tunnel scene finished

2010-04-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

more in progress work - char sheet

2010-04-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

Tunnel wip

2010-04-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tunnel work in progress. This is the background for the next piece I'm working on. Just the initial first hour or two's work! And again, a little while later, with "greening" added - this belongs to one of the two major projects I'm working on. I'm pretty pleased with it so far.

Character design WIP

2010-03-29T22:28:00.003-07:00

In progress design for a character belonging to the green city environmental drawing a few posts ago! I'll post them all as a set when I'm done, probably.

Panels from a project

2010-03-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

This is an in-progress project I've started working on that's sequential and will possibly put together later into a comic style.

2010-03-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

Warrior

2010-02-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

wip - environmental - greencity

2010-02-21T21:16:00.001-08:00

Creative process

2010-02-18T06:36:00.001-08:00

Just showing a little of the process I usually go through to make my art. I never used to thumbnail, but I find it incredibly helpful to working out composition and value.

Thumbnails for a project I'm doing this semester based around a story I wrote last November - these are somewhere between storyboard and chapter illustrations. I'm torn on whether to do them strait pen and ink, or pen and ink with flat color.

Fun little project

2010-02-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sketch of silver

2010-02-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Woot, I want those blades!
Also it's kind of neat what simply using the inverse tool does.

Snow meditation

2010-02-05T12:01:00.000-08:00

I started this yesterday and today it's snowing. :) Go me.

Poison druid WIP

2010-02-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

Something I've been playing with recently.

Character study (expressions)

2010-02-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

Just practicing this sort of thing.

people

2010-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

These are from new years, using my friends' toddler's mixed-together little acrylic paint set, and a pen. You can't see from the scans, but there's random swaths of glitter unintentionally involved, as it was mixed in. I tweaked the color a little bit, but no other alterations. Mostly an excercise in drawing people I know in a recognizable manner. With silly backgrounds. Except for the last one, because I ran short on time. Cheers!

Fairy tale: The Fish and the Princess

2009-11-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

Tamlin in SPACE

2009-10-08T19:56:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-24T21:43:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-15T11:17:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Character designs for Ward 6

2009-03-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-13T22:43:00.001-08:00

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.

More sketches

2009-02-03T08:34:00.001-08:00

Passions assignment

2009-01-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

This was from last semester, in concept art, a nontraditional "passions" piece in gauche.

Sequential la de la

2009-01-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

I've been addicted to audiobooks lately, and so I thought to get something useful from the experience; expect more of these quick drawings, they're fun. I'm drawing the mental images that stand out to me the most when listening to the books, then refining them.

Robot cards

2009-01-19T19:22:00.000-08:00

One of the projects I redid at the end of last semester.

Dances of dorkdom

2009-01-17T15:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, I am a big dork.

ew, soda

2008-11-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

"Billboard ad". Stayed up till 5 am working on this, but only because I finally got an idea for it. There are a few problems, I'll probably fix and repost.

sketchy sketch

2008-11-17T18:51:00.001-08:00

Just some recent sketches/doodles for me.

Concept art - Game design project

2008-11-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

Not 100% complete, since I still want to add words/images to the newspapers and posters, as well as a few other changes after critique today I'm sure, but I am pleased with how this came out. Well, to a point. We were not allowed to use digital media for the final piece, and our choices were ink or gouache. I've never used gouache before, and after this lovely first time, I don't know that I like it much. I prefer working digitally anyway, it's much easier when you have control over everything to get a piece looking like what it is in your head.

Scanned in in two pieces (even with the god-scanner, it was hard, piece is something like 15x18 inches or so) and touched up in photoshop a bit to push the values - the scan really nommed on them and the black was never dark enough for me.

Cheers.

assignments

2008-11-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the pictures I've done for concept art class and some from digital drawing. Not happy with all of them, wish I could put a few more hours of work in, but alas.

the original file size of these two is pretty big, and they look better that way. We had to design our ideal studio/gallery space, and it was a project I was burnt out on and loathing far before the final pieces.

This was a quick piece I did to the prompt "pick a fairytale and change the ending". Stuff about the original drawing bothers me, but i'm not too unhappy with.
REALLY quick piece I did for a tutorial of how to color/draw digitally. I made up a story about it while doing it but have now forgotten it.

Part one of a cover for a dvd portfolio design for digital art.

Part two! Even though the top one was done based on a dream when I first moved into the dorms and the second one is my bed at the moment. oh well!

Next time: sketches and doodles and process work. Cheers.

rainforest dryad finished

2008-09-08T22:57:00.001-07:00

Because after a 13 hour day of classes after very little sleep, the only way you're going to do work for yourself is if you do work for yourself.

That aside, I'm pleased with how this came out.

process and experimentation

2008-09-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

What did I create this summer? Well, a great deal of doodles. And some interesting sketches. Lots of brainstorming, certainly; but pretty much no finished pieces. The semester has given my brain the kickstart it needed however, so I'm posting some process images here - a sketch I liked, and how I'm coloring it. Some stuff I like leaving lines on. I decided to push myself in a direction I don't often use this time, though.

This is the original sketch, a rainforest dryad - the concept was of a tree person, and I didn't want to use human proportions, so I made it very stylized. I drew... a lot of tree women this summer. The trend seems to be what's gripping my art right now.

And this is part of the way through coloring the skin properly after blocking out color everywhere else.

Above is a detail shot from a bit later in the picture. It still isn't finished - will post when done.

Some drawings and stuff!

2008-05-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

None of this is terribly recent, it's all from this semester and most of it is from my figure drawing in context class. Just the drawings I liked, really.

Greetings from the Madwoman

2008-05-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hello. I've been encouraged to start one of these; I think it's a good idea. Here we are: me, currently a student and working my way towards a degree in Communication Arts... more specifically, Illustration. This is going to be a place for me to post my art and sketches, and blather about it. It probably won't get personal in terms of text content, but art is a personal thing.

I'm finishing up my Sophomore year. It feels good. I feel like I did learn - in ways I wasn't expecting, maybe, but learn I did.

My DeviantArt is here. It has some older stuff and some much newer stuff, some of which I'll be posting here.

For now, I'm just glad I thought of a title.

Have some art.