Finals week

Well, here it is. Finals week. I've been lucky and had some time off of work to relax and work on my last few projects as well as get studying for my final exam on thur (yikes!). In the mean time I've been catching up with my friends, doing some writing, and doodling... a lot. Here I thought I was all drawn out and all I can do right now is draw, draw, draw....

So, I thought I'd share something with you guys. I had fun with it, it's extremely experimental but I felt like it was taking on the same vibe as my Gyspy and Nix piece. Myserious! ooo!!

This is my character Daerua...she's summoning...a...bright purple blob! Oh noooes! Cower! Or something.  I dunno. I found some new brushes so I was testing them out. Haha. Little over 3 hours from sketch to what I'm calling finished color. I know there are some issues (mainly the feet which are driving me nuts but I dont want to fix cause my hand hurts from clenching my pen).

Here :D

And So It Comes to a Close...

I can proudly say I am just about done with my first semester of my last year. With 2/4 projects completed, I am heading into finals week a little less stressed....key word 'little'. Anyway, I'm completely unsatisfied with the print quality from Kinko's and should probably find another place to print my stuff out...but I'm currently poor and Kinko's is right around the corner. However, I do have my eyes on two different printers to invest in after graduation.

The first is the Epson Stylus Photo R3000 13" printer. My teacher has the R2400 and it produces amaaaazing prints. Waaay better than anything I got from Kinkos and is priced at 849.99....though it's on sale right now for 649.99 and if I didn't have a car payment, I'd be all over that. The second one is the HP Design Jet 111 24" printer for 895.00. The advantage to the HP is that's it's bigger and is a roll printer, meaning I could print really long stuff if I wanted! The disadvantage is I haven't seen it print anything! So, We'll see. Maybe something will come out in the next few months that'll top even that. I still have my eyes on the Wacom Cintiq, which just got a new upgrade to HD! How awesome...but also 2500.00. PAH. So much money I don't have. Soon enough, though. Soon enough.

So, without further adieu I have some projects to fill you guys in on!

My last project for my Composition class came out shy of what I was hoping to produce. Something got lost in my vision, and I think it was stress related. Perhaps if this was the third or fourth project it could have come out better. Inspired by "When the Day met the Night" by Panic! At The Disco. This print came  out terrible. :(

 

Next, we have the final project for my illustration class where we had to pick a square or squarish format and ...illustrate! I chose soap boxes. Here are my tropical scents! I realize they're a little...bright. I'll fix that later. Also, they weren't intentionally color coordinated. It just worked out that way! As you can see, I tried something REALLY different and actually quite...mainstream. A lot of artists are taking to this approach of doing digital manipulations to their existing drawings. I used parts of old sketches, drew right in Photoshop, and messed with the layer properties to create different effects!

I really like this approach, it's really easy and fast. Haha. Plus, I still get to do some line work and that makes me happy!

Here is the one I'm not finished with, as far as drawing pictures goes. I'm still unhappy with it, unsure of how I'm going to do the hair and put more detailing into the face to match the hands. Gah, I dunno.

"Pandora"

So, that's that. I'm taking a little break and then getting back to work! Only have a few days left to finish that self portrait! Ack!

3 Weeks

It's the final countdown! Down to the last final weeks in the semesters and it seems like I'm still on schedule. Though, it's going to get a bit tighter. I need to manage my time well so that I can fit in more sleep than I did last night and not get into a habit of night-time naps.

Here is what I'm calling finished for my project 4 in my illustration class. Enjoy. (Also, that's a chunk of the moon, not a part of the earth. didn't realize it was that unreadable. I'll fix it someday)

I also hate the spot. THE END.

Project 5

Oh man, all this prep work is so much work and I'm getting so much practice. Despite that, it's still tedious and boring.

Here is some preliminary work for Project 5. I was inspired by the song, "When the Sun met the Moon" by Panic! At the Disco.

And the Color Comp of the one I chose. I'm only doing one this time, It's detailed and I know I'll burn myself out before I even get started if I do another one.

 

Not quite sold on the colors, but I think I'll take the top one...or mix them up. They're REALLY rough, I think I spent an hour and a half and that included picking colors to filling in. I also extended the border. You can tell more on the color comps than the value studies. My teacher is going to kill meeee. Oh well. In the end, it'll look just fine.

Also, I've got Project 4 all finished! Yaay!~ The print came out like crap, probably because of all the complex colors that I had used. I need to buy myself a printer. It's on my list of things to spend lots of money on after I graduate.

And last but not least, what I'm doing in my Illustration class. We had to pick a tabloid headline and have fun :D  I chose "THE MOON IS HATCHING . . . and whatever's coming out has big teeth, NASA says!" I'm pretty close to being done, I have to fill in the stars and put in other space-y things for visual interest as well as a spot illustration. Maybe of the moon just cracked, or of it cracked open with nothing inside? Haven't made up my mind yet.

So, that's that for an image dump. I need to focus and crank out these last few projects. I still have to start one for my Art History project! Gwaah! I should stop taking side projects and thinking about what I'm going to do over winter break and crank these last bits out. I'm a head in two classes and nearly behind in the other two! Better than being behind in all four, but not as great as being ahead in four! Kay, I'm done rambling.

Ready, set....GO!

It's that time again! Time is becoming limited and should be used wisely in order to pass classes and get all these projects done.

Instead of being responsible and using a rare day off to my advantage, I decided to take on a small side project. Someone asked me to draw their character. Cool! They asked me to make it a male. Do able...They also asked for me to place them in a plate suit of armor. Say what? I had a rather hard time with it since it was my first time ever drawing armor but I think it came out alright.

So, instead of school updates, I'll show you this. It took me 6-7 hours to complete, from sketching to finishing touches. :D

I'm hoping that perhaps I'll build a little clientele, do some free sketches, then begin to hone in on the skill of doing these a little faster, say 4 hours? and charge some monies! Wouldn't that be great? I sure think so. Well, anyway, we'll see what happens.

Project 4

Alright, well, that was a nice surprise. I'm nearly done with project 4 in my Composition class. It went along fairly easily with maybe 5 hours of work. I think I still have one or two more left for clean up but as of right now I am about 90% done. I really liked the feeling of this, but it's still a bit too heavy for what I had envisioned. Different,but still good. As you can see, I have some work to do on the ground.


This is a weird size... 10" X 6.6" haha. Anyway, I'm really liking the color I'm using in this one and for my final project hope to really continue to use more color variance. I haven't a clue what I'm going to do next. We'll see.

 Other than that, I've been doing some doodles with a new custom brush that I made. They're nothing impressive, just simple brush strokes. Here's an example of one. Kind of painterly in a way. I wasn't worried about proportions or anything, so I know it's off. Haha.

I also did some sketches that I have yet to scan in, so, maybe I'll get some of those up over the weekend.

Catch up...

So, I took most the weekend up to catchup on my much needed rest. By rest, I mean not going to work or working on school projects. So, that in turn, made me need to catch up to revisions and things tonight. That's alright though, cause I think I have done a really good job.

Here are the revisions for the Gypsy piece. I really hope it's not incredibly dark on your screen, I've checked it on three other screens and it seems fine, but the one in class really hated it.  I also gave you a peek at the background. Yea, I painted most of it in....that's why it took so damn long. I think I've put in 45-55 hours. I kind of lost track. Anyhoo, I might revisit it at a different time but for all intents and purposes...it's le fin!










I also thought I'd post some of my preliminary work for my next piece in Composition. It's going to be a lot less heavy in color and values, and hopefully aim more for a children's book illustration. We'll see.

This is the one I'm going with. They're not rabbits, they're a chimera I came up with(that look cute and cuddly, huh?).

  These are the other sets I had to do.

November?

Dang! I can't believe it's already november! This year has flown right by me.

Anyway, how was Halloween for you guys? It was pretty low key for me, hardly any trick or treaters came by and I was all dressed up! Boo! Ah well, it was a monday so It's kind of understandable...I think...maybe? Right, on to artwork.

So, the one for Illustration 2 came out alright, It's apparently kind of dark on some screens and I have some /more/ work to do (dies) but It's about 95% done.

Yaaaaaaaay. I kind of want to kill myself. I've sunk so much time and detail into this I dont even want to look at it anymore. All I can see are my mistakes (it's the claaaaw) and I need to finish it up by monday. Maybe I'll attack it tomorrow...or friday.

Other than that, we're already heading into project 4 in both classes with the preliminary stuff done for Composition and about to get started on preliminary stuff for Illustration. I've actually got a few sketches that aren't school related. They're not great, but proof that I do,in fact, still believe in the use of paper and pencil.

This is another sour faced Cora.This is one of the outfits she wears under her cloak...that she normally never takes off. You'd never guess she was attractive under all that frump. Not exactly thrilled with this, but it was nice to draw for myself.

I'm not really sure what the hell this is. It's a man, woman,snake...thing? I dunno, I was just doodling in class instead of doing thumbnails like a good little student. My bad. I wish I had brought my pens with me, I would have inked...it.

About doing work...

Who was supposed to be working on projects today but decided that she'd draw Rapunzel from Tangled dressed as Cinderella?


THIS GIRL! Didn't come out that great but I didn't spend a great deal of time on it, 3 hours off an on I think.

Happy Halloween~

Rapunzel is copyrighted to Disney, Image copyrighted to me...herpderp.

Project 3 update

Phew. Okay. Just about done with this, the only thing left is to do some clean up (which I already started to do). I'm pretty darn proud of this. It has a strong composition and strong embodiment of the theme (Serpentine and Arabesques) It's been pretty well received. The Gypsy one is gonna be next, I'll work more on it tomorrow and probably post it next week.

Enjoy.

Practice!

Okay, I'm about to rant like a 5-year old so you can skip this if you want.....

I was really frustrated cause when I got home because I walked into the bathroom and it was NAST-AY! I had to clean it, there was no escaping the grossness factor any longer and no one else had the decency to keep it up from the last time I scrubbed it brilliantly clean. Like, it effing sparkled brighter than Edward (/shoots self for a twilight reference). So, thinking I was done and could relax...I sat down at my computer and wanted to draw but the tablet drivers were effing up! Again! Took me twenty minutes to fix the problem. Now, with all that pent up frustration I decided I'd tackle a self portrait and work out my frustration.

End 5-year old-rant.

It worked. This was drawn from life, which I seem to do so much better at than from photo reference, and took me...an hour? Maybe less. It kept flip flopping between looking like me or my mother until I finally hit the right spot! Anyway, I think I'm close. I used variations of primary colors, red yellow blue, and I'm trying to not be afraid of color...which I seem to have been lately as I stick to analogous/monotone or duo-toned color schemes.

Whatddya think? Comments? I would love them.

Alright...here we go

Midterms come and gone, we're now closing in on the last half of the semester when things really get difficult and everyone crams projects into these last few weeks. I decided to jump into something pretty stupid, two rendered pieces at once. What was I thinking? Oh, how cool it would look in the end. Except, I'm feeling like I might be a little behind and I'm just so tired from work and school and no play!

Anyway, here is what I have so far. I would say Im 30-35% on my one for composition and 40% for my one for Illustration. I'm currently just working on backgrounds, slowly filtering in details and leaving the main figures for last. We'll see how it works, I think it's working out alright.

Composition: I'm doing this one on a creature called a Nix. They're evil water creatures that have been known to drown people as well as coexist with them. This is 11"X17"

Illustration: we had to illustrate two words. Mine was Chaotic and Trifle. I took the definition for trifle to mean knick-knack, bobble, small trinket...I know you can't see it yet, because I've been busy setting up the stage, but the main figure is going to be a gypsy whose fortune telling cards got out of hand and began to swirl around her and out of her caravan. I've been spending most of my time on this one, hoping the perspective is okay and that all the clashing colors aren't too hideous. We'll see. This is 18"X24" with an inch and a half border.

So, I'm tackling a lot of things I'm not too familiar with, water, how things react with water, perspective, fully rendered light, and a lot of elements all at once. Go me! I hope I can finish these in time, they're not looking too good at the moment. Wish me luck, I'll need it.

Weekend...what weekend?

Well, I did a lot of working and a lot of school work but not quite enough it seems. I still need to do studying, go to bed early, wake up before the crack of dawn, and then start my week. *sigh* Well, I did get to dilly dally a little and whipped up another practice. I did one last night but I was aiming for resemblance and I didn't get it. Aaaah well.

Here is this one!

I could go further, but I dont really feel like it. There is still a lot wrong, but I like it where it is right now.

Practice

I'm going to practice in my spare time to understand not only more about photoshop and how I "paint" in it, but also recognizing and interpreting form.

Here is my boyfriend :D took me 2 hours, he kept moving. This one came out a lot better than my practice from last night which I will not share cause it's ugly and scary. :D

He's playing video games, real intense face is real intense.

Project 2 class 2

Okay, so I'm really not satisfied with this but I think it's kind of unique. I had to illustrate the phrase "Thinking Outside of the Box" using flora, fauna, bugs, animals...natural stuffzors.

Full page Illustration

and the Spot Illustration

It was nice to do line work again but... I really didn't have a clue what to do beyond that. We'll see come crit tomorrow morning.

Project 2

Well, I think I'm done with it for now. It's ready for critique and i'm pretty darn proud of this piece. It's in full color and fully rendered. I keep rediscovering that I can use photoshop to create works of art and continue to learn new things about it.

Anyway, here is my Female Djinn

 

Enjoy. 

Edit: I wound up fixing a few things. You can see it here...http://nethingbutordinary.deviantart.com/#/d4chc1z

Tonight I doodled..

I tried something new out. It's very muted and subtle, but I like the color scheme here. I tried coloring in some of the lines and did a sort of messy rendering.

This is Helena, she is sad :( While I like this sketch a lot, I think the design of her might change. I envision her hair a little lighter and her eyes a different shape, but for tonight it worked as a good warm up.

*Breathes Deeply*

Okay, so I've got two projects due next week. One, I'm not too worried about, the second I wonder if i've bitten off more than I can chew.

The first one looks like this right now, but will have colored lines and probably some flat color and crazy looking bugs in it.

This next one is a fully rendered in color...the genie! ARG. I'm in the background right now (which you'll barely be able to see in the final draft) needs to stop giving me troubles. Stupid thing.

It certainly looks better than it did two hours ago but I still have a lot of work to do.  Paaaah. Ah well. I'll figure something out.

Here is the Genie. I kind of like her, specially  her colors. She of course looks better with all the clouds and stuff.

Well, that's that. I'll update it on Monday with the closer-to-finished product.

Dreamworks Critique Preliminary Submissions

I was not chosen to be the presenter for the Dreamworks Crit's, but I did manage to submit things and try. I am hopefully going to be able to go to the actual critique and see what others are doing and learn a few things about my competition and how to dress up my work and present it accordingly. I sometimes forget about presentation, although I shouldn't with how much my teacher's beat it into me. I need to come up with some sort of template that is clean and pretty.

However, that's for another time. Today I have some of the work that I submitted for the preliminary round that did not get through.

These are some color comps and character studies for my concept.

More studies for my concept, both night scenes.

These are the clear sketches of the color comps for the character on the right

 I feel like I did so much more work, but I didn't. If I had more time and had developed a concept much sooner, I could have gotten more done. It was comforting to know that my work was liked (maybe I can do this after all, y'know?) Aaany how, here are two unrelated things to fill some space! Woo! Filler! I'll probably be posting again later in the week once I get started further on the genie from last post and the lines finalized at the bottom of this one. Thanks for looking!

Matte Painting done in...an hour? I hand picked every color and used maybe two default brushes. I like how it came out.

This is my thumbnail for my second project in my Illustration 2 class. I have mostly finalized the lines but I am not done yet. Definitely will be done by wed. It's going to be a fun, successful piece.

 

 

 

 

 

Busy, busy!

I've been a productive little gremlin lately.

Here is the rough work I've been doing! Enjoy!

  

Onwards to project two! Once I have a more finalize sketch of my other project, I'll post that too! Yay productivity! <3

Sketches

I know this is totally weird but I'm posting again! In the same week! Amazing, I know.


However, I wanted to get some sketches up. I sat in on a figure drawing class today and did a few poses and was pleased to know that I can still, in fact, draw from a model. It was really challenging cause they were working with folds and he wrapped a sheet around him and all sorts of stuff. Also, I've taken an interest in pretty flowers. Woo!

Enough typing, more drawings.