Proper Victorian Ladies

Its' a double post! What does it meaaaan!?
Breaking up the class paintings with some sketches.

Here are some sketches from a story I've been working on with a friend.


Not sure why I wanted to draw them in their undies but corsets are pretty fun to draw. Layla is fighting off baddies with a steel pipe and Zelphia is complaining about the lack of appreciation for her job. On the left side is part of a scene where Layla has finally punched through a wooden board (hence her knuckles are bloodied). Hugo promised that if she punched through it he would teach her how to fight. She finally did it.



Zelphia sketches! Her hips keep getting curvier and rounder the more I draw her :P I'll have to keep that in mind when doing her turn around sheet. I finally got her nose down. Doodles with no refs so proportions are off.


Part of a scene where Layla has been abducted by sky pirates and held for ransom. She is fiercely angry and giving those lousy pirates the 'what for'.

More art to come soon!

Brushes and Sunsets

School has once again picked up and I find myself again very busy. But I have some homework paintings, and a few photographs to share!


Self portrait from today. Something about it seems off to me so I may revisit it later but I doubt I'll have time. I've been feeling a bit 'off' today so that may have carried over to this.


My awesome friend Michelle posed for me while decked out in sweet lolita. My room mate T.Yates painted her too. So cute!


Here is another portrait of Michelle but in day to day clothes. We have to come up with a concept for a series of paintings that we'll be doing during the second half of the semester, and use these homework paintings as experiments leading up to that series. I want to draw portraits of people as they are 'everyday' and as their alter egos, or expressing other sides of their personality.

Here are some paintings from class. I still have to get some photos that I took with my room mate's camera.






Here are some photos I've taken over the last few weeks of sunsets here in Richmond. I love all the colors that sunsets bring, and I love to watch them. They change the sky so drastically even for the few minutes it takes me to take photos of them.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Chiara Scuro

I went to Dr. Sketchy's yesterday with some friends. We the drew the lovely Chiara Scuro as princess Nuala from Hellboy 2. I really hope they keep getting cosplayers, they are really fun to draw. Although next month we get a contortionist! :D Here's my sketches from the day.














The prompt for this one was to draw the model as the love-child of Princess Nuala and Hellboy, even though it wouldn't happen :P All I could think was POOR ABE :(





These were really fun to do! Enjoy!
Now its' back to work for me!

Painting and Cookies

Hey guys! I've been busy as usual this week with school work. Here's a painting before I go to bed.


Oil paint on gessoed Reeves BFK paper. Self portrait done for a homework assignment. I'm pretty proud of it. I have another painting I did of my dad that I still need to photograph.



Also cooked cookies for movie night tomorrow. My friend's boyfriend is going to restring my Ukulele for me so that it will be left handed. These are the payment. Plus we're gonna watch 3:10 to Yuma (remake) so I'm pretty excited. I saw it in the theater and really liked it, but its' been a while so it'll be good to see it again.

Off to bed for me, I have an early class and a full day tomorrow, including SOCA so hopefully I'll have something to show from that. Also Dr. Sketchy's is this Saturday so I'll have an update for that too.
Bye for now!
<3

Today's Painting

I've been busy working on an illustration project but thanks to my awesome room mate Rekul I was able to take photos of my painting from class today. Our instructions were 'just paint' so I went with it. Made some mistakes and learned from them (don't wipe paint from a painting unless you're doing it to get texture! If you make a mistake, just keep painting over it.)




Close up of 'face.'

Also still learning how to 'read' colors and the colors that make them up. I think I'm getting better at it.
More sketches and illustration work on the way!

Classwork and Photo Exploring

Hey everyone! Today I bring you a media exercise from my Projects for Illustration class. We basically had to do some experimentation with media by drawing a face. I chose to draw a bald man so I could focus on the shape of the head, even though hair is fun to draw. I found my reference via Coribis and got to work with some brush pen action.

I used the Pocket Pentel Brush Pen so I could get fine detailed lines as well as bold areas of solid black. This was originally just a study but it came out as a nice drawing on its' own. Even my teacher liked it. Which means a lot to me.

But then... my pen ran out of ink. And I had no refills on me (that'll learn me). So I switched to a 0.05 Staedtler Pigment Liner and sketched a bigger drawing of the face, with cross hatching. Needless to say it took the rest of the period to do. And it paid off!



This is the whole page from my sketchbook so you can see the size difference between the sketches. The clown-looking one was me mapping out the planes of the face roughly. As for feedback I got on these, I'm doing well as a draftsman, and I need to keep drawing from life. My teacher said it'll help me with my comics the style I use for them. I agree and I'm glad I'm on the right track.

Now have some photos!

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.
Cupcakes I made for Sarah's birthday.


Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.
Photos I took at the Honors Studio where I was lurking with a friend, and at my bus stop as the sun was going down. Now that I have batteries again I've started carrying my camera with me just in case I see something worth documenting or capturing. I'm taking a leaf from T.Yate's book with the photo slide shows here. I think it helps to keep larger batches of images organized.

Until next time!

Scanner Resurrection

Hey everyone!

GREAT NEWS! I wrote an email to Mustek, the makers of my scanner, and they sent me a link to a program to use with the scanner, and now I can scan things! YAAAAYYYY! So here are some things I scanned.

Notes for my figure painting class. I drew my teacher.


Doodles at movie night. My friends and their rabbit, Clover.


Oddball from Kelly's Heros (via movie night), and the office of the Com Arts department. I was there for most of that day...



Some of my friends during lunch break.


I haven't had a lot of spare time lately, especially time to sit and draw. Hopefully that will change soon.


My class work from figure painting for today. We start a new painting on the same canvas every day. It's a good exercise so I make sure to take photos.



Figure Painting class work from Monday.


I'm really enjoying my figure painting class. I've been thinking today about people who's painting work I really look up to. I decided on Frank Frazetta and Eric Powell, creator of 'The Goon.' I think it's only fitting that my painting heros are also comic book artists <3 I'll be trying to channel their greatness while I paint in class :P



I've also been taking lots of photos lately but I'll save those for the next post.
Goodnight and see you all later!

Scanner Woes- part II

Hey everyone!

You have noticed things are a little slow. Classes are in full gear, and unfortunately my scanner has stopped working. It refuses to work with my iMac and my iBook. I've tried everything I can so I've written an email to Mustek in hopes that they can perform some miracle to make it work again. It seems not to like Snow Leopard, and is fighting with the iBook even tho it actually worked on it a few weeks ago :/

I also have a scanner on my printer but its' much smaller (and I have big things to scan) but it doesn't seem to be working either :/ The scanner gods are angry. And so am I! Hopefully I can get these things fixed, and get the small scanner working at least so I can scan sketchbook pages. I'll also have progress photos from my painting class coming in soon, and I might be showing some digital comics I'm working on if I can get some more pages done in the next few weeks. So things are being done, I just need to work extra hard to show them.

Stay tuned! Hopefully more work will be up soon!
-Fran