Thursday, February 23, 2012

Fluid - Oasis

Fluid. What is the first thing you think of when you hear that word? Well, if you participate in Illustration Friday, it means a quickly approaching deadline and hours spent in deep contemplation over what exactly the word "fluid" (in all of its potentially disturbing glory) means to you. And if you should happen to meet that looming deadline, it also probably brings to mind visions of pageview spikes and comments galore. You know, because we of the artistic persuasion don't like our art getting a little attention. ;)

My first interpretation of the word "fluid" was actually for fluid movement. But because I'm not nearly creative enough to come up with an image for that, I defaulted to my second interpretation: water. (I know, I'm super original) I did a quick sketch in my sketchbook of the first image that came to mind when I thought "water", scanned it in, and went to town. Here is the finished product:

It has problems, I'll admit, but because it is the first thing I've actually been able to have fun working on in a while I still like it. In fact, since I did it on Thursday, I had to rush through a lot of it, so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out all considering.

In the event that any of you are art fans and were curious to know, it was done in Photoshop CS5. The initial sketch took about 15 to 30 minutes, while the actual digital part of it took (I'm guessing) about 5 1/2 to 6 hours.

I would also like to mention that the camel is dedicated to my mother. I think the two of them would get along quite well. :D

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

To Scribble or Not to Scribble

This is just a quick post so that I can pretend that I am motivated. By looking at it you sate my artistic need for attention.

Behold! The very quickly scribbled reference drawing that I did for an animation project. It is a kid, unnamed as of yet, who will be visiting a rather unusual Carnival. :) I may post more on that later, but for now:

I know. Your mind has been effectively blown by my reference image. You are welcome.

But seriously, the views are appreciated. :D

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Puppets from 2011's Past

As I was digging through piles and piles of old, dusty and forgotten bits of computer data today, I rediscovered some old puppets from early 2011. Sadly, being made up of nothing but 0s and 1s, these are not the type of puppet that you can wear on your hand (nor were they made out of old and somewhat questionably-colored socks). These are Toonboom puppets!
(Toonboom is an animation program, similar to Flash.

Despite not being made of socks, this type of puppet is fun to make. Sadly, I think my puppets are on par with sock puppets, but hopefully they still amaze and entertain

The Gypsy Puppet (first attempt at a digital puppet):



And her ship (my favorite part):



I also grabbed a screenshot of a puppet I made for a 49 hour animation competition (as the name implies, 49 hours to go from nothing to animated short). The theme? Public speech gone wrong. So we animated a little girl who shows off her pet monster. This is Sally:



As fun as sock puppets? Probably not. But digital puppets are still pretty fun. And a LOT less smelly.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Dueling Banjo Pigs

The first thing that you may be thinking is, "What on earth is a dueling banjo pig?" Well, I'm glad you ask! Dueling Banjo Pigs is a blog for anyone who likes to draw, or anyone who has an unholy obsession with either pigs or banjos. Anyone can submit a banjo pig, so you should go check it out:

Dueling Banjo Pigs
 
For one of my classes I did five sketches for potential banjo pigs, and I finaled two of them. One had to be a woodcut-style banjo pig, and the other one was any style. Because I normally do flat colors with lineart, I decided to try something different and did more of a cutout style for my second pig.

Woodcut Banjo Pig:


Detective Banjo Pig:


I'll be honest, I'm not really one for woodcut-style images, they aren't really my thing. I do, however, think that my second pig turned out kind of cool (albeit a bit too... blue?).

My pigs are dueling. With banjos. Are yours?

Scribbles, sketches, and lineart, OH MY!

Phew... Time to dust off my blog and start updating again. (Is it sad that when I read this blog title, the only image I have in my head is George Takei? Oh Sulu, where would Trek fans be without you! But I digress...)

My only excuse for not updating frequently, like a good little blogger should, is that the end of 2011 was brutal. And I do mean BRUTAL. The last few months of 2011 decided to chew me up, spit me out, and stomp me into the ground as far as sleep deprivation, projects, and time commitments go. Somehow I survived, but I'd be lying if I said that I was ready for 2012 to start my year back up again. Luckily I spent most of January drawing illustrations for a class on children's illustration. Drawing for two and a half weeks? Yes please!

The following is sort of a "how I did it" sort of thing. If you have an irrational fear of educational children's books, I suggest you stop reading now. If, however, you would like a crash course in the ABCs, written and signed, read on. (Yes, this book includes the sign language alphabet, so you should totally try out a few.) We only finished one spread out of 10 spreads (plus cover), so most of the pages are only in colored layout form.

Thumbnails:


Layout Sketches:



Layout Colors:
(For now I'm just going to put the colored layout for the finished spread)


Final:


And there you have it folks! My only regrets for this project are that a) my scanner decided it REALLY disliked the colors green and purple, so try as I might to fix the colors it still doesn't look quite right, and b) I didn't get to finish the rest of the pages. I'll probably try to finish these up at some point, but who knows when I'll be able to work on them again.

And for those who want to know, I used prismacolor, artmarker, and blick ink pens for the colors. Because nothing can make the people next to you cringe like the smell of 20 uncapped ink pens in an small, enclosed workspace! ;)