Art Show!

Hey everyone!
I've finally got the information avaible for the art show that I'm putting together for my fellow VCU Com Arts seniors. The show will be on April the 30th, at RealiTea from 5pm to 8pm.
Here is one of the posters for the for show draw by Erin C.



So if you're in the Richmond area feel free to stop by, grab some tea or snacks, and enjoy the artwork! Maybe even take some home with you!

Classwork Catchup

Hey guys!

Things are getting busy again but I've managed to gather up some photos from work done in my painting class. Click to see the images at full size. Enjoy!


Experimenting with conveying softness of flesh.


This was a from an in class exercise where for every brush stroke we put down we had to mix a new color. It was certainly interesting.


My first two day in class pose. Done on gessoed paper.


Part 1 of a two day pose. I have the painting drying in my dining room. I'll post the finished photo later.


1 Day in class pose.

Zombie Fran

This is me for the next three weeks.

Fall 2010 Update

Hey everyone! Now that my work for issue #1 of 'Kale: Lost & Found' is over I can finally get back to school work and preparing for Nekocon. And did I mention midterms this week? Heh, yeah. So before I dive headfirst into studying for midterms I want to share what I've been doing all semester. I'm gonna split this into two blog posts to avoid spamming; one for school work and one for personal art.

+Game Design
For my game design class we're all working on our own video game that we're doing concept art for. Mine is a free roaming mystery where you play a military scout exploring a newly discovered island that your kingdom hopes to conquer. But your team mates go missing and you explore the island to go find them. I'm trying to make the island a character of it's own and eventually create an unsettling environment from the sunny landscapes to the dark underground. I'm also trying out watercolor for the concept art with some colored pencils mixed in. It's good practice but I need to look up tutorials too.





(not complete, I still need to go over it with some colored pencils)






+Senior Portfolio

For this class we have four projects to work on that we get to choose. (We're still on the first one and its' technically midterms so you can tell I'm feeling antsy). Aside from those we've also been working on logos, letterheads, invoices, and now we're starting business cards.



Here is my logo.

As for the 1st project I am redesigning the album art for Blind Guardian's 'At the Edge of Time.' I really don't like the over CGed, and frankly bland feel of the album art so I'm hoping to do something worthy of them. To show just how hard I'm working, here is a collection of thumbnails I've been doing for the project over the last few weeks.




I am SO SICK of thumbnails. But its just as well since I'm now starting the actual project. Here's what I have so far of the pencil drawing. The concept is that I have a Norse goddess of virtue (Snotra) having triumphed over a tyrant ruler. I listened to the album and read the lyrics and one of the reoccurring themes was of a united people overthrowing a ruler or government. I also wanted to keep the subject matter somewhat rooted in fantasy because of Blind Guardian's influences and past album covers.

For the goddess herself there wasn't much I could find in the ways of art for her (as posed to Athena who I didn't' want her to look like). So I researched viking women's clothing and based her clothing on that. My reference before that was a toga-ish robe that I constructed from a bed-sheet and wrapped my room mate up in but that still helped immensely with the draping. I'm finding that the more research you do for something the more rooted in reality it is, and the more real it feels. Its' something I've been told by teachers recently that I need to do more of. I completely agree and now that I'm putting it into practice I'm finding it works ever so nicely!




Stay tuned for my post of personal work! For now I have some homework to do :P

Jar Paintings

I'm almost done with a big paper I have to write for my painting class and while going through my studies I decided to scan the paper paintings I've done for my final series project for the end of my class.

These are oil paintings on gessoed drawing/watercolor paper. They are done from photos I took of jars of colored water with different lighting situations. The whole purpose of these was to learn to paint light.




The photo for this one was blurry but I think it gave it an abstract quality.


This one had red and blue light in the photo that gave the jar a mish-mash of blue, red and purple light.

These last two are my favorites of the paper paintings.

I like that the light is more subtle in this one. It's surrounded by darkness but the light is dimly shining through.


This one is the biggest of this series and my favorite of them. I layered so much paint on to this to get the lighting as close as possible. I think I still ended up making it too dark but honestly I'm glad it, and the others, turned out not to be mirror images of their photo counterparts. Straight up copying photos isn't' much fun, and I learned so much from these. I look forward to painting lots of strange and fun things in the future.

Paintings and Photos and Finals, OH MY!

Work on finals is going well, better than expected actually. I've just got to make sure not to waist time this week and get things done. I worked on my painting over the weekend and today, so here are some progress shots:


When I brought it home.


After working on it at home.


After working on it today.

I think its' come really far and is feeling more warm and life-like as I work on it. It's not as photo realistic as some of my class mate's work but I hope it meets a satisfactory critique. It's the biggest painting I've ever done and its' a huge undertaking but I'm pretty happy with it. It's one big step towards getting better with oil paint.

Painting Progress

I finally have a nice photo of the Bastet painting I did as practice painting #3


And the newest progress shot of my final painting. It's really coming along now C:

It looks really green because of the wall behind it :P

And tomorrow is portfolio day for the department. yay? Not really but I got my disk of photography work that I posted to my class flickr account done (didn't have room for hundreds of other photos I've taken for the class so far. Too bad). I might throw in a personal sketchbook from when the semester started but I'm not sure yet. Anyway, back to work for me!

Foxy Painting

I finally finished my first oil painting! It's a practice painting so I could learn how to paint fur in preparation for my final painting in my Illustration class, which will be my fiance' Ryan dressed as a Frazetta-ish viking. I say 'Frazetta-ish' because I'm not oiling him up or having him scantily clad or anything, that would just be strange to explain, especially on critique day :s

example
I love seeing his brushstrokes. Hopefully I can see some of his work in person but for now high resolution jpegs will have to do. I'm going to keep researching his work in hopes that I can improve my paint work by studying him. Maybe I can find an art book of his or something. We'll see.

But first, here's my painting!



Painting with my hat <3 I'm looking forward to the weather getting cooler so I can start wearing it again.

No classes means more work

So I emailed the people at Poictesme and they said they don't normally take comics at submissions but I could send them to the art director and see what he says (I don't really have anything to send, I just wanted to know so I could work under a deadline). But they also offered to see some of my other work so I might just do some pen/ink illustrations for now. Could be good practice plus I really want to publish something while I'm in school. I'm still kicking myself for missing my chance with Shoujo Phonebook.

Otherwise I've been sketching away in my new Moleskine sketchbook which I now love like a child. I've also been coming up with tidbits of story for a Spork Bunny mini comic. I'm still not 100% sure if I'll actually do it. I've also been planning out some promo/cover images for Clockwork Queen but really I think I should start doing some more sketches of the world and vehicles and things in it before I try to handle the pages again. I've also decided to use pigment liners for inking, I'm just not skilled enough with the crow quill yet to do the whole comic with it. I'll keep practicing though.

Clayton Chronicles is on hold, I haven't been working on it at all since coming to school. But it won't stay that way, we still plan on publishing that baby, even if it takes a while. After all, Lord of the Rings took Tolkien 14 years to write. I want everything to be perfect (or as near as possible) when we start publishing stuff. I'll probably have to realize I cant' do that but I'll wait till then!

Or Maybe Not is doing okay, I've done some work on it since coming to school but not lately (within the last two or three weeks).

All in all I'm feeling good and my weekend is pretty open. I have some figure drawing homework but I can do that in a day. I also have to study for a math test for tomorrow but that's really it. Meaning more time for drawing! I'll be sure to get off my lazy butt and do more drawing (and maybe finish coloring those bookmarks!).

Have a great weekend everyone! I'm off the gym!