A Truck in the Mirror

This one takes some explaining.

I keep a whiteboard marker near my mirror so I can write down to do list items. Every now and then, I'll draw on the mirror. Usually it's some kind of Chris Sanders-esque character.

But today I was sitting in the living room and I had this RANDOM image of a truck driving over a cliff pop into my head...

...so I got up, went over to the mirror, and drew it.

Christmas designs already!

I know, I know. Actually, no I DON'T know why it's too early to start with Christmas...so I'm starting! Haha anyways, in my egregious amounts of spare time, I'm working on a Christmas card design. Here's one small part... :D

A Quick Character

Soooo I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now. So WHY do all these new ideas keep flooding my brain and begging to be sketched? It's just not fair. (Maybe I should stop perusing Francisco Herrera and Chris Sanders art during my breaks? Nah...)

Anyways, here's a new character. Just for fun:

Finally, art again!

I haven't posted anything in a while, but it's definitely NOT because I haven't been working...
I recently got two illustration jobs for two books. One is a children's book, one is a young adult book. They're super fun and I'm really excited to be working on them, but of course I can't post most of what I do here, since it belongs to my employers.

The other consequence of doing art for hire is that I haven't had any time lately to do any art for myself. School has just started up for the year this last week, and so has the activity with my campus fellowship. All this together means I've almost forgotten what it's like just to DO art.
I've been coming up with all kinds of ideas for projects, paintings, drawings, layouts, etc, but all the thumbnails and sketches just get shoved into the "to do later" pile.

I was thinking about that the other day, and it made me really, really sad. Today is my sabbath, so I set aside a big chunk of time to just do art...for the sake of doing it.

Today I fished an old sketch out of that pile and developed it. It felt GREAT!

Wedding Dress

A friend of mine wanted me to do a sketch of her sister in a wedding dress (yes, she's getting married!). I did 2 sketches--one princess style and one more modern. She chose the modern look and then I drew it in Photoshop. Fun fun fun!

...I was looking a lot at Brittney Lee and Elsa Chang for inspiration.

Sketchbook: Church and fashion!

This morning during church I got inspired. I've actually been sewing a caftan similar to the ones below out of old bedsheets I got for free a year or two ago. Free clothes, Woo!
Anyways, these are just some of the ideas bouncing around in my head. Enjoy!

Brother Bear and Man v. Nature!

Will likes to use layouts and paintings from Brother Bear often, since they're just darned good. I was looking through his packet of art and was thoroughly inspired by the epic looking man v. nature themes.

SO I drew a group of thumbnail ideas for snowscapes--with a lonely snowshoed traveler. Of course, when I showed them to Will he pointed out the egregious even spacing that was littered throughout most of them, but hopefully I'll be able to correct some of the proportions on these and (maybe?) bring them a couple to paint.

Something Slimy

I drew a couple tentacles yesterday.

...Will would be pleased, and vindicated.

Pride and Prejudice Sketches

I love the new version of Pride and Prejudice...it's just a visual treat.
I did a few quick sketches of some scenes with nice composition.

Cow Sketches

I borrowed Ken Hultgren's book "The Art of Animal Drawing" from a friend, and it's been amazingly helpful! So helpful, in fact, that I went into a cow-drawing frenzy!
Anyways, here's a slightly peeved cow. Enjoy!

...Whoops! One of them's missing something :D

Grandpa's Kite Dev Process

Now for some film studies from Kung Fu Panda, for composition inspiration:

...and some thumbnails, based on specific film studies chosen from those above.

More Fashion

I've been drawing a lot of inspiration from fashion magazines, Padme's costume designs, and my own wardrobe recently, and have come up with a dozen different designs I want to paint. I've started out with these silhouettes...
More to come!

Birthday Girl Sketch

My best friend just turned 21...in Seattle! Since I couldn't be there for her birthday, I got a picture of what she wore on her birthday and did a quick photoshop sketch to commemorate it.

This sketch was inspired by the amazing art of Elsa Chang, who does these cute, clean little fashion sketches. I've been wanting to try out the style for a while now.

Padme Inspired Fashion Sketches

As you can tell, the amazing art of Star Wars has been on my mind a lot lately--especially that of the amazing Iain McCaig. After perusing my collection of Padme concept art, I got inspired to do some fashion sketches of my own. Since I'm thinking of sewing my own clothes this summer, some of these might actually see the daylight, especially this first one:

 Here's a dramatic evening gown for Padme, complete with a couple of potential hairstyles to match:

Here are some experiments with shape and texture:

See this amazing sketch by Dermot Power (A Star Wars concept artist)??  --->

It inspired a slew of dresses based on a similar shape, some of which I might try to sew:

Kung Fu Panda and Tangled...

Hey y'all.

I recently bought both Kung Fu Panda and Tangled...what excellent movies! I love how, in both of them, you always know what each character is thinking even when no one's talking. Great animation, great boarding, great art!

Anyways, I did some expression studies of my favorite characters, using toned paper and a couple different pencils to get a feel for the volume of the character's faces as well as their expressions.

Back, with a Space Pirate!

After a 2 week sabbatical (which really only lasted one week, at which point I got crazy and started being productive again...), I finally drew something :D

She is a space pirate. That's right. This morning my mom, sisters and I went to a used bookstore where I found "The Art of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" for only 8.50! What a steal. After buying it (and spending hours drooling over Iain McCaig's delicious designs) I got really inspired to try a character design of my own.

Here's the final design sketch:

I started out with a basic body and posed it, then I added the clothes, which are heavily inspired by McCaig's egregious use of sweet hoods, awesome hairpieces, and general billowy-ness of fabrics...

Sigh. Someday...

I'm thinking about trying some digital coloring on this one. You may or may not see that, depending on whether or not it works :D

Learning time!!!!

Oh yeah, and this morning I had a dream in which I was wearing a very similar costume to this one...probably a manifestation of my desire to wear a sweet pirate outfit around! jeans suck.

Mouse Sketches and Prop Designs

Did some mousey mouse sketches (Oh my gosh, mice are so cute!) and tried fleshing out my ideas more...

Maybe the mice are mummifying Pharoah using toilet paper and elmer's glue? Perhaps...

Maybe the mouse restaurant is built from an overturned croissant box held up by broken bottles. What would mice use to make their buildings?

Anyways...

Ragneau in the Kitchen...Dum dum duuuum!

I knew I wanted Ragneau deep in the heart of the kitchen, surrounded by precariously perched clutter (knives especially!). I did a few thumbs and then whipped up this rough drawing just for fun. I'm probably going to have to fix the perspective and pay more attention to the character and the props, but this is the feel I'm going for...

Except that Ragneau has somehow become a short, angry guy who looks like he could have stepped out of the mafia, or the KGB.

"What, you not like my soup? Hand me knife, I will show you somethink..."

Scary! Well, here he is, adding vodka to his fried eggs:

Ragneau Designs

Soooo I've been working on those Cyrano de Bergerac character designs in an attempt to get more comfortable constructing and playing with character and shape. It's been going ok. Here's some sketches I churned out for the fat baker, Ragneau.

Tom also told us that we're going to have to place our characters (or at least one of them) in an environment--ie Layout time! Lol so I started doing some prop designs for Ragneau's kitchen...What if, I thought, Ragneau is fat and short, but everything in his kitchen is tall and skinny? Maybe it looks like he'd break everything just standing in there.

Character Studies

Sooo in light of my new realization that Character Design is my weak point...I think you'll be seeing a lot more of this...Expression studies (or in some cases full-blown character studies).

Basically, you pause the movie and capture the character's gesture and expression. After doing 300 it's supposed to help :D Lol I enjoy it, too. It's easy to tell if you're doing it right...because you ought to be able to recognize the characters. I labeled them, though, just in case.

Anyhoo, enjoy. (PS click on it them use the magnifying glass to zoom in. This image is way small!)