O Jersey Swede!

Right, so. I haven't made any posts for a while. Because I'm a loser and have been letting myself get overwhelmed and sick, which tends to make taking the time to actually make a post quite unappealing!

So I thought I'd dump some pointless doodlery I've made in the last few months. Um, right.

My buddy Kat Bongard's character Danne/Dan. He's a Swedish dude from New Jersey. We did the back-and-forth-description thing where I drew him and she told me what to tweak over and over until we had what Danne looks like. ...the colors look decent on my laptop PC, but not on the Mac I'm at right now. Figures.

Okay, my attention span is entirely too distracted today. Moving on!

Horned people posin'...

More PE sketch assignments from this summer. Here are a pair of Unavisi (invite-only character race designed by Brianne Goetz). Davina Falcão's fella Atthis in graphite and pen and Amy Clark's Yew with a juvenile gryphon sketched in Photoshop.

Semi-chromatic ladies...

More of my sketchbook PE assignments from this summer...

Del Borovic's character Tain

Black ink pen, red nupastel

Mandy O'Brien's character Amile
2B and 4B graphite pencil, various colors of nupastel

Broody dudey...

Another thing from PE assignments this summer, Amy Clark's Conan. Broodin' boyo. More PhotoshopCS3, soft brushes and mucking with color.

Pirates! Arr!

I woke up today with a horrendous migraine. At first, I decided I could walk it off and started getting ready for school anyway. Biiiig mistake. After scraping myself up off the bathroom floor, I downed a few extra-strength excedrin and went back to bed, curtains drawn. I felt like crap pretty much until noon. I'm sort of annoyed because there was Stuff To Be Done today both in my Web Art class and at the tutoring gigs I do (had to call my tutorees and let them know I'd be a no-show).

Anyway, in light of that failure on my part, I figured I should post some of the art I did over the summer for the Private Exchange. The exchange(s) these were for were a "sketch" level so I didn't really get too involved with clean lineart or developing color or even using a print-quality dpi. Um. Sooo...let's start with a couple of pirates! Swashbuckling ahoy!

Daerik (left) and Jessie (right) are characters belonging to Amy Clark, aka phoenix_element. Drawn digitally in Photoshop CS3.

Aboidoodles crosspost...

Crossposted with Aboidoodles (another art/project blog of mine and my buddy Tam's that gets images this one doesn't, bwahahaha). Head over there to learn more!

Commish Wip: "Watching Over You"

I don't know what it is about coloring this one that is just MURDERING me. Ugh. I have no idea what it is at all, but it's like pulling teeth to finish it.

Commish WIP: "Watching Over You"

Something I'm working on that is stupidly overdue.

I have developed a new way of coloring that I'm much happier with, and you can sort of see it in action here. However, keep in mind that the colors seen here may drastically change before this is done (I'm going to adjust both skintones a lot, for example).

Three for the show! (Death, Presidents, and Sap.)

A page from my sketchbook in chalk pastel and charcoal, done on a homework prompt of "draw something you think is dead."






A page from my sketchbook of brainstorming I was doing for a piece involving Abraham Lincoln (whose 200th birthday anniversary is this year, wacky). ...also, I drew Abe Lincoln on a Chipotle burrito's foil wrap with sharpies, and later tore it off and pasted it in the sketchbook. I'm a doofus, but I have fun.



And some sap drawn for a friend (and partially for myself) involving her character Seville and my character Sugar Maple. They are Unavisi, which is a race and a project designed by our mutual good friend Brianne for her friends to participate in by invitation only.

Drooly wallpaper...

The hyena here is my buddy Shawna's changeling Chisulo in his animal form. The three-tailed fox is my kitsune Lark in her animal form. They are thieves and friends, and generally are an entertaining pair, that's for sure.

Because making Shawna laugh is always fun (and because she deemed "that is. so. cute." about the sketch), I made a 1260x800 wallpaper just for her, after cleaning it up just a little and messing with Chisulo's head angle a bit.

"Do not DARE drool on me..."

Lalalalala, oh whatever could Kate be up to. >_>

Wow, that is ultra scribbly and probably completely illegible. Heh.

Improving me: (#1) Movement!

Crossposted from Aboidoodles: I have a lot of weaknesses as an artist. One of them is that I don't do movement much. Action. People (or things) in motion!

So I confronted that by having Dre, in my head, stealing something or breaking in somewhere or perhaps just getting up to general mischief, and ending up having to run around and jump over things to escape people very intent on SHOOTING HER. ...naturally she thinks this is fun as all get out.

So here's a sketch of Dreor showing her athletic, trouble-loving side.

Come on, get faster...

I have been stuck in bed a lot the last couple days, and have done a looooot of homework. For a couple hours though, when I'd accomplished a lot and needed a break to keep from going hysterical, I decided to do character drawing exercises instead. I really want to get faster with my drawing of recognizable characters. In my opinion, I'm still way too slow. Part of the process, I think, has been cutting back on my realism. I love my pseudo-realism style, but it just takes too long. So finding a happy place between that style and a more cartoony one is probably the only way I can get faster AND not hate my own art. Heh.

Anyway.

Angie, from Aboideau
Cade, from Aboideau
Nutmeg, from Unavisi
Rue, from Aboideau
Kabur, from Unavisi

To see more Aboideau, check out the Aboidoodles blog! It and the characters therein belong to myself and to my partner-in-crime Tamara W.

To see more Unavisi, go to deviantART and do a search. The Unavisi are an invite-only creative project/race designed and belonging to Brianne Goetz. I was lucky to get an invite as a friend.

I was yelled at to update.

I have been...not here? Heh. Well anyway, "someone" yelled at me to update this thing, so...I'm going to do so in the worst way.

The following are a bunch of images which I shall blithely neglect to explain in any manner. Suffice to say, instead, that they are things I have drawn and/or been working on for some project or other for the last couple months. Many of them are incomplete thus far. SO THERE.



Chestnut copyright © Gaia Gandolfo
Unavisi concept and project copyright © Brianne Goetz






Lion copyright © Ruth Collins
Unavisi concept and project copyright © Brianne Goetz





Raven copyright © Elle Skinner









Timber copyright © Marissa S. Pittman











Grace Black copyright © Julie Davis









Aidan copyright © Amy










The following are images done as personal projects or as portions of work-in-progress commissions...

To plot, to plan, but when's it pan?

I am incredibly prone to planning images that never get finished. It's a fault and a frustration. I thought though, that I'd share a couple of the planning sketches for pieces I want very badly to finish for myself someday.

This one is of three Unavisi characters. The Unavisi are a concept belonging to Brianne Goetz (http://www.sacredkith.com & http://brianne333.deviantart.com), a dear friend. The guy playing the clown is my boy Mac (aka Macadamien). The other fellow, Kopek, and the little boy Huckleberry are Mac's kinda-sorta-buddy-family of a kind, and copyright Mel Miller (http://melmillerart.blogspot.com & http://anathemasremedy.deviantart.com).


This one was a plan for an image of a character of mine, Angelcita Black, and another character who shall remain anonymous for the time being but is obviously a child. I struggled with plotting the positioning for Angie's wings. Angie is a character from Aboideau, an ongoing personal project I share with Tamara Williamson (http://www.interbalstudios.com). Hoorah, pat-a-cake!

Ah, that's all for now because I'm half-asleep.

Er, obviously these are digital sketches. Done in Photoshop CS with a Wacom tablet. Yeehaw.