Family Matters

Hi everyone!
I thought I'd drop in and post a WIP sketch of a digital painting I'm starting as a personal reference of Alencia's family. This will be of a painting that is hanging in Alencia's family home. I want the painting to point out how Alencia looks nothing like her family as well as input symbolism and possible foreshadowing for each family member.

This image has been in my head for at least a year or two so I'm pretty stoked to even get this far in getting out and on 'paper.' Aside from this and a sketches I've also done some world building for Alencia's stories so I'm feeling really good about it. I have some ideas for the elves of her world and different 'human' races, as well as Alencia's origins and family history.

Sketches and Scuplts

Hello everyone!
I'm snowed in today so I thought I'd take some time to post some of what I've been working on lately.

Sculpting:
I started working on a replica of the Amulet of Dibella from Skyrim. I used two different kinds of sculpy this time in hopes of painting the 'jewel' to look more realistic as I didn't have one that looked right. In the future I'd like to use metal clay and real stones to create a more precious version of this.


The uncooked sculpt.


After being cooked.


Some sanding and priming to the 'jewel.'


The jewel was then painted, and the rest of the amulet was painted for metallic and aging effects. Now I'm on the look out for beads to make it look as accurate to the game version as possible.

Sketches:
While on the subject of Skyrim I've also been doing some sketches of my characters in situations that arise in the game. My dad is currently borrowing my scanner, so I have more that need to be scanned, but in the mean time here are few new sketches.

Merion got separated from Onmund while defending the city of Whitefun, but after fruitlessly searching for his body she found him safe behind the city's walls after their victory. It's hard to loose a follower when you're so used to having them around.


A traveling mercenary marking Merion's map to show her the job she was going to do. It's not much fun to talk someone into giving you their job but then you have so many places marked on your map you have NO IDEA where they just indicated they were going. That's why she looks confused/annoyed, she has no idea where this woman has pointed to.


Sky-gazing is popular in Skyrim and I can see why. There's just so much to absorb and take in, especially after being cooped up in underground dungeons for days on end.

Be sure to stay tuned, I've got some more news and artwork coming up!

Exsocism by Tears

I lost my main job today (the one that actually gave me hours to work). Just as emotions swelled and overwhelmed me I painted this. And I honestly just feel so much better.

Watercolor, graphite, conte' pencil, ink pen on watercolor sketchbook paper.
5.5" x 8"

Watercolor Practice

A small watercolor painting I’ve been working on and off since the holidays. My character Alice from a comic that me and Ryan want to work on in the future. It’s not hugely important for us to get done soon so it might pop up in the next few years. Otherwise I’ll just keep drawing her for fun. I tweaked the colors to be brighter and more vibrant since my scanner ate them. I also forgot when I painted it that I wasnt' going to give her a pink nose anymore. Awell. It was fun to work on and I learned a lot from it.

Cold Press Illustration board, Mechanical Pencil, Watercolors, Colored Pencil, (8 3/4”x5 1/8”) 2011-2012.

Hearing Colors

Hey everyone!

In my illustration class I'm working on a collaborative project with some classmates. We're working on a comic about two people with Synesthesia and the friendship that developes from it. Synesthesia is a neurological condition where some of your senses will be crossed and interact with each other in ways that they normally would not.

For the sake of the class we're only doing priliminary work for it but I'm really enjoying it so far. It's really growing on me since I have synesthesia myself and its' allowing me to share my experiences with others. I've been wanting to do some paintings of what I 'see' when listening to music so this assignment allowed me to play with how we would show it in the comic. In our story there is a girl who can 'hear colors' like I can, and a guy who can 'taste words.' I did a few small paintings today of what I see with certain songs as preliminary work for figuring out how to show this in the comic.

This painting is what I see when listening to 'Derezzed' by Daft Punk from the new Tron OST. It was done in gouache and acrylics.


This song is 'Faraway' by Apocalyptica from their album 'Apocalyptica.' It was done in watercolor with a little bit of gouache and acrylic.

This painting is 'Battery' by Metallica and the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra from Metalica's S&M album.

I'll be posting more work from this project as it progresses.

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.

Kamikaze Girls Book Cover

For my Projects and Illustration class I've been working on a book cover illustration for Novala Takemato's 'Kamikaze Girls', also known as 'Shimotsuma Monogatari' (Shimotsuma Story). I really enjoyed the book, loved the movie (meh on the manga) so I decided to redesign the cover for this project. Old designs: Hardcover Paperback

My design:

For those not familiar with the story it is about a selfish Lolita named Momoko (lolita as in the japanese street fashion) and a biker Yanki chick named Ichiko who become unlikely friends while searching for a legendary embroiderer, Emma.
I used watercolors, ink, acrylic paint, and colored pencil on smooth Arches watercolor paper. I really enjoyed using the paper and watercolors and I will definitely be using them in the future. It was also my first time stretching watercolor paper for use and it worked well. It all went smoothly thanks to advice from my good friend Erin. She's doing a really cool series of illustrations; she's making up a monster for different periods in art history using different media. Check it out at her blog!

Next up: Dr. Sketchy's sketch post, comics, and more!

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.

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!

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!

Water Color Comic WIP

Finally went back and finished water coloring this comic. Next I'll clean it up and add text, then post it to DA. I'm also planning to experiment more with water color and comics this summer.

More class work

I'M DONE WITH SPRING SEMESTER! 8D JOYOUS JOY!

Tomorrow I'll be hitting the pavement looking for a summer job. Hopefully I'll have paypal up soon so I can start taking commissions online. In the meantime, here are some photos of a few of my finished paintings for the semester.



A fuzzy photo showing all of my work laid out on the rug. I wanted to have a rough idea of just how much work I've done. It's fuzzy because I was using my room mate's SLR Nikkon camera but I didn't know how to focus it properly until the end of the 'photo shoot.'


Eye painting.


Ear painting. I really like this one a lot.


The nose/mustache profile painting.

I'll scan in the other water-color studies I have later this week.
Man I'm tired. More art later.

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.

Water Color Studies 1-6

In preperation for my summer class I've been instructed to do 30 5"x5" water color studies of objects to think about color and how to use a square shape. This will help me to harness the use of color and composition. I've having a lot of fun with it so far and learning to re-appreciate water colors.



I'm using lots of pinks, I'll have to swap around to other colors.

Progress & Projects

School will be ending here in a few weeks (about six now I think?) so we all know what that means. FINALS. I'm hitting it into high gear and getting more work and studying for school done. I have some assignments that are kicking my butt but it needs to be done. I'm also determined to keep my grades up so it's officially crunch time. So in the meantime here are some things I've been working on lately.

+Kale
So far I've had time to finish page 15. I'm also making progress on the villain chibi picture.



+Free Time Art

Loli Fran Pink by ~Spork-Bunny on deviantART
My fursona in a Lolita dress. It was a great stress relief. Ruffles have a calming effect on me.


Holo ATC by ~Spork-Bunny on deviantART
ATC of Holo from Spice and Wolf. Didn't take long to make. I was looking up S&W season 2 trailers and merch.

+ATC Trades

WANTED- DEAD OR ALIVE by ~Spork-Bunny on deviantART
My half of a Steampunk Trade with my good friend SirO. I also have another trade with a friend of mine but I won't post my half until I give it to her~


+Class Work

Painting studies. Oil on gessoed watercolor paper.




Some glazing/light practice on the experimental canvas (used for class work, then we usually wipe it out at the end of the day). Here's the painting next to the photo I took for it. The whole point of the series will be to examine light being diffused through jars of colored water. I spent the weekend making little panels to paint the final series on. I'll be doing that soon along with the paper paintings.


It feels like I haven't gotten much done but looking at my stash of work here on my desk (and even unscanned sketches piling up) I have been able to do some work that makes me feel good. I do have to buckle down more in these next few weeks, and I will. College is serious bizniz.