Monday Monday Monay

Here are some of the things I've been working in school lately. The first two are for a my printmaking class, Intaglio. It's done on copper plates and you put a wax over the plate, draw into it, then put it in an acid bath. The acid eats away at the exposed copper, the lines of your drawing, and the you ink up the plate and run it through the press. It's a very long and laborious process but it makes some neat images.

This one is for my drawing class. This here is Banjo Rat. I doodled him up one day and fell in love with him. I just love his relaxed smile and his noodley arms :D He lives in the bayou and just plinks away one his trusty banjo. It's been a lot of fun developing his story, he's got a cousin- Mariachi Mouse and his best friend is Trumpet Muskrat. He' a laid back lil' feller but if you say anythin' unkind about banjos, he'll have to kick your ass.

Fun stuff this week, makes me happy as an artist :)

Slightly Belated Monday Post

Whoops, missed Monday :P This weekend was crazy! I got to see The Lion King at the Capitol Theater on Saturday.  I have wanted to see this show ever since it came out in 1998. I know it sounds ridiculous, but The Lion King has actually had a huge influence on my life as an artist.  It got me drawing animals all the time, I continually go to it for inspiration, and it really got me into digital art. So seeing the play was just a bounty of creative energy that I had to use.

So here's a little doodle of Simba and his mom, Sarabi, cuddling. It's very sketchy and is riddled with anatomy flaws. I fixed it up in photoshop though :)

Here's the final product, I'm pretty happy with it 

Pretty big difference.  I know it's silly to be so inspired by a kids movie, but I love it and I'll take what inspiration comes to me- in any form.

Another Monday, another post

For this week we have the progression of a drawing from original sketch to finished product.  It starts off with this old gypsy lady I doodled one day. I wanted to focus on character design and push my comfort levels. I usually draw animals so I wanted to do a human, and old people are more fun to draw. So I did a giraffe as a warm up and then just had fun with it and doodled away :)

Then I came back to the old lady in a more realistic style. I was drawing her while talking to some of my friends and they started talking about Brazilian bulls and I drew a picture of one so they could see what they looked like. Having the old lady and the bull there, it just clicked, and I thought of her story. She's on old Hungarian Gypsy and wanders around leading her old zebu ( an ox that's commonly found in Myanmar) I also decided that for the final piece I would do it in watercolor pencils so I was playing around with them a little too. ( and a naked lady just because they are good space fillers ;) )

This is the thumbnail for the final piece, working out the character design more and the composition.

When I went to start on the final piece I couldn't make the woman look right with the watercolor pencils and after much frustration I just decided to go back to my strong point and just do animals. I was really happy with how the ox came out so I just decided to draw some oxen floating around.  Since they are from Myanmar I gave them so colorful facial decorations. I was going to do stars with white acrylic, but when I showed it to my drawing professor he said I could go in with glitter. I absolutely love glitter and for a professor to suggest it just made my day. So there you have it, from Old Hungarian Gypsy Woman to Magical Flying Space Bulls in four easy steps :D

Happy Monday!

Alrighty folks,

So here we have some sketches that I've done and their progress thus far in photoshop. First we have a creature I made up, a Corse Hat. It's really just a horse and a large cat smashed together. I was drawing with my friend and I said the only things I can draw without reference are horses and big cats. She suggested I mix the two and this was the result. I really like how it came out. Inventing new creatures and playing with their anatomy is really fun.

Next we have a drawing I did of a dragon. I use to draw this guy all the time in high school and I was going through my old sketchbooks and decided to come back to him. So here's the sketch and the progression in photoshop.  I use to always use Corel Painter, but my computer crashed and I lost the program so I'm trying to teach myself to be more proficient in Photoshop. It's slow going but it's not too different from Painter. Clipping layers rocks my socks

So it's all rough sketches and in progress work this week, hopefully I'll have more finished stuff next week.