Artdump

Art has been dumped over on my all-access whining journal.  I don't believe in Friends-Only, so if you're curious, you should go take a look here.

Water Nymph

This is so seriously nothing exciting, I just needed an activity to keep me busy today.  Just a little waternymph, did several things differently from the inking style to the brushes used, but used the same style of painting I always seem to fall back on.

Just Moved!

I just spent the past week and a half moving a quarter way across the country from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Savannah Georgia to attend gradschool.  I am now 12 hours away (driving) from my hometown, a scary thought.  I've been so busy, I hadn't had a lot of time to do much of anything except move boxes and buy furniture.

I've done some drawing, but unfortunately, until my new scanner comes in the mail, I can't do any artdumps.  I have, however, just finished (finally!) the 403 error message for my eventual website.

I prefer it to my previously posted 404 message.

Although it probably isn't considered art in a traditional sense, I'd like to post pictures of my apartment sometime this week.  It still isn't finished (the studio is TERRIBLE! and my bedroom is pretty bad too, since I'm waiting on a dresser and some closet storage), but it's where I've been devoting my energies.  I think it's important to have a working and living environment conducive to creating things, and that's what I've been trying to achieve.  So please, look forward to it!

Also, I'm in the thick of not only Chapter 2 of Ready Set Go! but also a prologue!  How does that work?  It doesnt!  I'm just hoping the ten people who've read it will forgive me, and it'll all be updated chronologically on my long awaited and much promised website.  Bear with me, ok?

Its moving time! The car is packed, the cat and the gecko are buckled in, and we are off to Ga by way of FL.

Quick and Dirty Portfolio

The artist's self-representation.

My actual-factual website is currently down for renovation, and I need a quick and dirty portfolio for the time being.  This post is going to include two types of projects- single image projects, and downloadable multi-image projects that will have a sample image included in the post.  Although most of the digital single image projects have already been uploaded previously, I'd like to collect several works on one page for easy linking.

My overall style has a great deal of influence from the large amount of manga I've consumed since highschool, but I don't want my work to be thought of as American-anime or OEL.  I'm currently trying to find a synthesis between the styles typically used in manga, styles that I find very appealing and styles that are considered to be more American.  Basically, I'm trying to find my own style.  I have no desire to copy any artist's style for my own pieces, but I don't mind working towards others' specific tastes for commissions and requests.

My Japanese influences are Kiyohiko Azuma, Kaoru Mori, Naoki Urasawa, Asano Inio, Chika Umino, and my American influences are Bill Watterson, Brandon Graham, and I take a great deal of inspiration from the myriad of fellow bloggers who digitally publish their work on a regular basis. I consider myself to be quite flexiable as an artist, and I try to challenge myself artistically on a regular basis.  My preferred medium is digital, and my favorite imaging program is Photoshop, although I have some experience with Painter and OpenCanvas as well.  I also enjoy using traditional print media (linoleum, intaglio, screenprint), watercolor, markers, and colored pencils, and have dabbled in cut paper.

Digital Single Image Projects:

"Nattosoup in the Forest" 2010 Photoshop

"Dough-lita" 2010 Photoshop

"Amaratsu" 2010 Fanart from Okami, Photoshop

"Unicorm" 2010 Photoshop

"Cowgirl Remi" 2010 Photoshop

Comics and Children's Books

"Page 12 from 'Ready Set Go!'" 2009 Photoshop.

This is just a single image from the first chapter of my webcomic, Ready Set Go!  You can download the entire chapter (here).

Sample Image of "Branching Out" Photoshop

This is a sample image of the one-shot comic, Branching Out.  You can download the full size comic (here).

Cover for "The Bedtime Princess" 2009- Graphite, Photoshop

This is just the cover from my children's book, "The Bedtime Princess".  You can download the book in its entirety (here).


Traditional Prints:

"Gasmask Girl" 2009- Intaglio on BFK Reeves

"School Pictures"- 2009- Aquatint and Intaglio on BFK Reeves

"All Tied Up In Knots" 2008 Intaglio on BFK Reeves

"Salamander, Lizard" 2009 Screenprint, Watercolor on BFK Reeves

"Industrial Love" 2010-  Linoleum PrintWhite/Pearl Ink on Black Canson

"Play" Part of the Gasmask Girls Series 2009- Screenprint, Watercolor, Gouache on BFK Reeves

Header Image Uncropped and 404 Lost

The other day, when I made a post regarding the new header, I hadn't bothered to post the actual project that I cropped my header from.  Let me amend that right now:

I'm not sure how many people put a lot of thought into their headers, nor how many viewers really spend time considering headers when reading blogs, but I'd spent a little time brainstorming for my blog's header.  The idea I came up with was "artblock", and the the sketch was this.  The dragon is, of course, artblock, the girl in the castle is Remi, the main character (for the most part) of my webcomic, Ready Set Go!, and the valiant figure in the foreground is me.  It's my job to rescue my characters from their towers and to sneak them past artblock.  Pretty lame, but for a blog header, I think I'm allowed to be lame.

I was able to start inking another project today, and actually finished it only a moment ago.  It's the 404 Lost image for my website, featuring Remi, Sammy, and Julia.

There's nothing too exciting going on here, I definitely don't like how Julia is looming in the background, I probably should have kept the image just Remi and Sammy looking at a map.  I tried a different method of shading, a method that I'll continue to use for my 403 (Forbidden) image.  This will probably be the last thing I upload before moving to Georgia, and after I get moved in, I'll try to get started on drawing Chapter 2.  The website should be officially up soon, hopefully with enough content to not be embarassing, but I'll continue to update images over here too.

New Header!

It's only taken me a couple months, but I finally have a header!  I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it, but it's better to have something I'm on the fence about than absolutely nothing at all.

I started this header three weeks ago, but I've had a lot of computer problems since then, and have had to upgrade my OS and backup my files, losing several in the process.  Although this was not one of the files lost, I did lose my website banner, and had to redo it from sketch up.  I managed to knock that out in one night, but this blog header took me a little longer.

I was pretty cheap with this header, there's no new techniques involved, but really, I'm tired of working on it.  Instead of forcing myself to apply layer after layer of shading, I decided to just go with it, since the banner would be resized anyway, and the probability that layers of shading would be noticed were low.

So there you have it, a new header for me.  Let me know what you think of it, or if you have any suggestions for a new one.