Eventful and Creepy.

Well so far this summer has been very wet, very cold, and rather uneventful (lots of art and lots of writing but not so much actual... EVENTS). BUT, I took last week off and invited Annie down, and we wandered allover the city, watched many movies, and I actually got some time for random sketching. In other words, I actually have something to post here. SHOCK AND SURPRISE.

First little collection is a mix of the completely random, and then an exercise where we opened a dictionary, pointed to a word, and had to interpret it somehow. It worked... for the most part.

The second collection of sketches I've been having a lot of fun with. My mother loves to write and it was recommended that she go to a cafe at least a couple times a week to write on her laptop and listen to the people around her (not so much as an excuse to be creepy, but rather to get an idea of how different people talk). I thought this would be an excellent chance to draw a nice assortment of people and start a collection of different faces in my sketchbook (though my major excuse is that I am, in fact, pretty creepy). I'll hopefully be posting many more William's Coffee Pub Face Dumps in the future.




Oh, and a belated HAPPY CANADA DAY! And a happy 4th of July to those across the border. :B

We don't need no stinkin' surprises!

Wow! You'd think I was suddenly on vacation or something from the lack of updates...

I have been super uber ridiculously crazy-busy since getting home, but I'm really enjoying myself. The Awakened updating again has been REALLY refreshing. I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to devote time to that project again, and the practice with digital painting is paying off and I am learning oodles (yes, OODLES).

I'm also working on several business endeavors, as the summer job hunt is turning up absolutely nothing so far, and freelancing is really all that's left. I'm not quiiiiite ready for new commissions yet, as I have a couple that NEED to be finished before I can in good conscience spend time on anything new. But I'm working my tail off daily on those, so it shant be long.

I think my major problem with freelancing in the past was that I allowed too many personal commissions to come in without deadlines, and then new, larger jobs would come in WITH strict deadlines, and I had no choice but to push back the other commissions again and again until a painful amount of time had passed and though I knew there was nothing I could really do about it, I felt like a jerk. SO, as of now, ALL commissions MUST come with due dates. Even if you're of the mind: "Oh, take your time! No rush!" just... make something up! "Take your time" could mean years of I have a steady stream of work with deadlines always on the table. Come up with a number, and it will be done on that date. Eeeeeverybody wins!


All right, enough of that for now. Got a couple things to share, starting with the raffins (Gadzooks and Blimey for those who don't know me personally). I haven't taken nearly enough photos of the girls since they were babies, so I grabbed the camera the other night and photographed playtime. Unfortunately they got overly preoccupied with half of a Kinder Surprise casing and didn't want to do anything but fight over that... still cute though!

Aaaaand, finally, one of the commissions I've finished since coming home. This is the client's original character, Pasibor (kind of Cthulu like, and therefore awesome), who is looking after his ancient city.

Already?

I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that today is already the last day of school! This year has been amazing. A year ago I never would have guessed that I'd be here, going into animation, leasing a house with three friends!

I have no idea what's going to happen this summer. I'm looking for work, obviously, but finding slim pickings so far. I'll be freelancing in the meantime. Contact me to get on my commission list (though I will be finishing up a few outstanding commissions first).

Finished my last project of the year yesterday, in the form of a chair design for Imaging Systems. I of course chose a chair designed to kill people, because... well why wouldn't I choose that? Behold, The Perforator!

This is not substantial.

So we're getting down to the wire here. 7 days left until school is over and I'm moving back home for the summer! Hence the lack of any real substantial updates...

Plus it's gorgeous here! It climbed to 21'C today (roughly 70'F), so Annie, Andrea, Leah, and I skipped out of Imaging Systems early (we couldn't do any of our work in class at the time anyway--it's all computer-rendering) and we went to... yes... PLAY IN THE WOODS! We sketched, we hopped on rocks, we climbed trees. Annie fell down a hill. I fell in the creek. It was ridiculous and childish but also very fun. When you've been cooped up in a basement apartment all winter, you really just need to let loose and run around in a random forest.

The garter snakes were also out enjoying the sunshine. We saw three on our hike, and one in particular was really friendly. He continuously came close to us, slithered right up to sniff our hands. I never realized how adorable garter snakes were. There may be photos... I'll get back to you on that one.


But nobody cares about that! Yes, I do actually have some art to share. Just a few random things sketched in the last week or so. We've got a couple drawings from Good Friday, which was spent at my Grandparent's with the whole Davis clan. Andrew and I were eating our dessert in the sun room, and there was some Coffee Crisp-laden whipped-cream thing that was really good, but REALLY rich. Andrew apparently burned his throat on the rich deliciousness. And then it... came to life? I can't really explain that. Moving on.



Had to draw something Easter-related... and in a very religious family, the real meanings of certain holidays are often the subject of conversation (I almost wrote "conversion" there... coincidence?) So I drew something that is probably going to get me sent straight to hell, but I thought it made a good point and was very deep and thought-provoking and worthy of extensive discussion! Or maybe I just like to fish for reactions. Either way, don't look if you're easily offended, or have some objection to adorable crucified bunnies.

And lastly, a completely random Montague drawing. Occasionally one feels the urge to draw a Montague, and there is no sense in denying those urges. Plus his hair is fun.

Here's to the good days.

Well today was a pretty good day. When I arrived at school I was feeling a little 'meh' from the returning cold weather (and the me having to walk in it aspect), but I think Sheridan was in an overall jolly mood today, because people were smiling at me, a few held the door for me, I got a "hello" and a "how are you today?" from complete strangers, and of course that made me smile and do the same. IT'S CONTAGIOUS WATCH OUT!

My good mood affected my painting in Colour Theory, and the model even came over to compliment my work. I went happily on to 2D Design and we had some fun conversations with Parker about drawing human cadavers and body parts in jars (which I may get to go and do--awesome!) and then Annie and I won the 5:00 pool (which is a "guess how many people will be here at the end of the class" game). I said six, Annie said seven. There were seven people at 4:55 and then one girl left at the very last minute, so we split the amazing $5 winnings.


There was also a lot of sketching fun going on. Leah wanted Annie to draw her character, but Annie REFUSED (the nerve!), so Leah drew her character (Ghost Girl) beating up Annie's character (Suka), and then added my character (Sue) joining in on the fray. Leah asked how Sue would fight, and I said she would fight on a Pogo Ball, so Suka was therefore assaulted by kicking and Pogo Ball-ing.

I found this terribly amusing, so after sketching Sue, I made my contribution to the "injure Suka" theme. Perhaps I got a little carried away...

I then decided to draw Annie's other character, Ainmire, who always wears a kilt. He's all macho and badass most of the time, so of course I didn't follow that idea whatsoever.



LOVE YOU ANNIE! 8D

Time management fail...

Well that was an interesting day...

I spent the early afternoon hours playing with various blogger template generators, because I said to myself "I just don't have time to design everything from the ground up!" Well, several hours later, and with a blog I was really loving the look of, I realize that the generator I'm using (something called "PsycHo"), while incredibly flexible, was unfortunately tailored to the old "classic" Blogger style. In other words, completely useless if you need to use widgets.

SOOOOO, bound and determined to get this thing finished, now that I'd gone and designed graphics and wasted so much of my day off, I searched high and low for a good two or three hours and finally found myself at Trix Template Generator. JUST WHAT I WANTED. I basically had everything ready, so it was a very straight-forward matter of setting all of the parameters and tweaking things until I got them juuuuuust right.

And now some of you know why my blog was acting entirely schizophrenic all afternoon. Sorry to anyone who I had sent over here to vote in the poll! All is safe and sound again.

Just above, some completely random sketches from Imaging Systems (it's Leeeaaah!). And below I am linking all of my goofy little Unicreatures. WHY I decided to follow a link on a thread entitled "Ways to waste time online", I have NO IDEA. But suffice it to say, you need to click on my pets and feed/play/care for them and then they evolve or something. YEAH!

Awakened UPDATE.

No, sorry, not THAT kind of an update. But this concerns those kinds of updates!

Well I think it's pretty obvious that the comic has been on hiatus for school, but it's never really left my mind. I refuse to answer angry, snooty, threatening, or otherwise RUDE e-mail inquiries from people who feel for some reason entitled to my work, but since there is a much greater number of truly delightful people who read The Awakened, I'm going to explain the future plans here.

A lot has changed, and that is evident to me. I don't recognize the older pages of my comic. That's just not me anymore. I've dedicated myself for the past few years to improvement in both my art and story-telling abilities, and I feel that this is a story I love enough that it deserves a proper polishing.

Now, before everybody gets all up in arms and starts whining "OH GEEZ NOT ANOTHER REDO!", I recognize that this can be a major annoyance for people, so I'm going for a nice compromise.

Come May, updates will be continuing. I'm going to try for weekly updates to start, and if I'm comfortable with that, then I'll push for bi-weekly. Either way, I will be alternating each time, updating a page at the end of the comic (ie. a new page that continues the storyline), and then updating a page at the beginning of the comic (re-written, re-drawn, but still inevitably headed in the same direction).

And for nostalgia's sake, the old pages will be archived, so you won't actually lose them forever.

The website design will be updated, the forums will receive a major cleaning, the tagboard will remain down, and the store will likely remain down as far as an actual elaborate shopping-cart system goes. If products return, it will probably be in the form of simple e-mail orders.

I do plan to attend Fan Expo this summer, but not as a seller. I'm sure I've lost a great number of readers and drifted almost into obscurity, and someone else is more deserving of whatever spot I'd be taking up. Money is very tight, so I really doubt I'd make enough back to cover my table, gas, food, and lodging expenses. I will be returning to the convention circuit next year though.

And lastly... Because I've been accepted into the animation program for next term (a four-year program), and it is notorious for the heavy workload, I will most likely be continuing the hiatuses(eseses) during the school year (these may have brief interruptions during reading weeks and winter break, however).

And there you have it. Feel free to leave any questions here. Otherwise, the characters shall be released from purgatory in May!

Monster Day

Today apparently I have been following a theme... so I'm just going to go with it!

I joined a CAT swap on Illustrated ATCs, and one of the groups I'm in is "Whimsical". I chose to use the theme of Monsters in the Closet. I wasn't really sure how creepy I wanted to go, or what separated 'monster' from 'mutated compilation of random animal species', so I sketched a bunch of ideas out today, and I think I've decided on my four! But just because I'm curious, which four would you choose?

And earlier today I happened to finish colouring something I've been fiddling with off and on. My take on Frau Bercht, a Germanic pagan goddess; though I guess this would be the "ugly Perchten" variety that drives out evil spirits. The only reason I drew her at all was because of this photo and this photo, which were the most terrifying and awesome things I've ever seen! I don't even think I got close to the true horror.


I will hopefully have those monsters done up as cards veddy soon. I've also got some gravestone epitaph and hobo cards in the works! Huzzah!

Mmm, delightful!

Lately I've been wanting to experiment more with caricatures and face shapes and expressions, so when Annie suggested that I draw our group of friends, I couldn't resist.

A few weeks ago we (Annie, Andrea, Leah, and myself) went for high tea at a tea house here in town to celebrate the completion of our portfolios (and also Andrea getting into her program of choice!). The night before we had all watched a video from the Totally Rad Show, one of the "Dan Becomes a Man" segments, illustrating all of the very strict rules of high tea:



So the next day when we got to the tea house, we did our very best to adhere to these strict rules... and, for the most part we didn't embarrass ourselves too badly (there was some clinking, some biting of scones, some jammy hands, some misuse of tea infusers, and a dropped sandwich and fork). Though we were definitely the only people in the place under the age of 60. I think that shocked the staff more than anything.

Anyway, I figured that day would make for an amusing drawing, and it gave me a chance to play with PS techniques. I kinda like how it turned out:


Looking forward to going back again!

Can you feel it?

Well today is a day of exciting announcements! Are you excited? Can you feel the excitement? I should really hope so.

First up, I've been waiting for a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally long time (okay, well, you can probably cut out at least four of those Es, that's a bit of an exaggeration) to tell people about this, and finally the moment has come. Last summer I provided the artwork for a video game produced by Ponder Games, Inc. about a penguin that leaves Antarctica to experience the big wide world. Well the game has finally been released! Check out Pufu's Spiral: Adventures Around the World at Big Fish Games. You can download a demo straight away, and then you'll want to go ahead and buy it of course *hint hint nudge nudge*. It's a great game for kids, and even adults if you're like me and can't say no to a good puzzle experience. So, go! Go now!

And the second announcement is an even more personal one. I worked long and hard on my animation portfolio, and have been waiting with constant nerves for several weeks in anticipation. Today I finally found out what I'll be doing with my life...


WOOHOO CONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE! Just have to pass Fundies and I'm in for September. I can't describe to you all the joy of finally achieving this. So I'll just let this dramatic single tear say it for me.

X-Men + Boar

And I return! Wow, you think maybe portfolios were just around the corner when I posted last? Well, you would be correct in thinking that. In fact I believe I specifically said that they were. Anyway... they were handed in first week of March, I went home for reading week, and now we're all back and finishing up the last little stretch of term two before summer vacation starts. I should find out any day now whether or not I actually got into animation. FINGERS, TOES, and EYES crossed! Ow...

But you're here for art, so let's get right to that. Today's going to be an ATC-sharing day! And first up is a card I made for my friend Annie Hughes, who needed some cheering up this week. She's a big fan of boars, especially pukingly adorable baby boars, and I've never drawn a baby boar before, so I gave it a shot. Apparently someone stole her pencil case that morning, so she was in even more need of a little pick-me-up. Baby boars to the rescue! What problem isn't solved by baby boars, I ask you?

And next I've got a series of cards. I finished these on reading week, because I was badly in need of creating something just for fun, and I adore the X-Men. So 9 X-Men cards were created in the span of I think two days. I'm happy with, hmmm... seven of them. Not yet decided if I'll trade these or sell the originals at a convention.

SO! I should have word soon as to whether I'll be coming back to Sheridan in September. I really do believe the best artists in the world are coming out of this school right now, and I would be so incredibly blessed and honoured to learn among them!

The Revenge of Jimmy-Too-Fast

So those who know me have heard any number of tales about the horrible house centipedes I share my basement apartment with. I've had them up to four inches in length and they are a lufferly source of constant fear and trauma. Eventually I ended up making cartoon characters out of them, and naming them, in some feeble attempt at humanizing something so alien and scary and awful. It worked... somewhat. Though whether my changing attitude was due to my artistic efforts or just a simple result of seeing too many of the damn things over such short a period of time, well, the world may never know.

Today I'm finishing up my animation portfolio, and that involved completing two room layouts. The first needed to show a character in a room, and the second had to show the room from that character's perspective. I decided to, well... exaggerate my situation just a tiiiiiny bit. But this is almost totally exactly not really at all what I deal with every day.

I'm very pleased with how they turned out (even if it ended up being my greatest nightmare realized) so I guess I have to thank my basement for that, and all of the little creepy crawlies that pop in to say hello.

Whatever looks good...

In my quest to conquer the elusive digital painting skill, I decided to pick from the 100 Themes list that floats allover the Interwebz and paint a little scene. I ended up just starting from the beginning with "Introduction" and stuck Nenua and Fray in there. This is vaguely how I imagine they might have first met one another.


And because some friends have been asking me, here's a little collection of progress images. I know it's not really typical to chunk the painting in bit by bit, and usually I'll lay down general colours and light sources when I first get started... but for one reason or another, this one ended up being mostly layered in. Oh well... at least it worked!

I'll probably continue using the themes list whenever I'm lacking inspiration. Plus I still feel like I could spend more time learning about the Ghost of Man characters before I jump into the comic. Not to say you shouldn't expect *something* soon!

Goat Sucker

Well I never intended for this much time to pass between posts, but we're in the midst of portfolio days at Sheridan and I, like just about everyone else in my course, have been busy trying to meet that deadly deadline! Today I took a bit of a breather to really give my new tablet (his name is Julio Intuez) a proper workout. I wanted to draw/paint something completely using Julio, rather than rely on previously-sketched or inked creations.

I decided to draw a little dude I found in my sketchbook, who was born from a mask design for my 3D class (the mask is supposed to protect against a human frailty, so I chose my social anxiety; the mask completely obscures my identity and feelings and is covered in quills for that extra little bit of "NO TOUCHIE").

In the end I decided to use him as a species for Ghost of Man. One of my favourite cryptids, El Chupacabra!

I have a few sketches here and there that I need to scan and will hopefully have something unique for you all soon!

Sneaky Peeks and Fun Linkage

Test #1 was a success! And because it was a success, I will actually post a sneak peek (if it had been a disaster, well... I would have just kicked it under the beg, folded my arms behind my back, and wandered off whistling).

This is a page from the Prologue of Ghost of Man. The character featured isn't anyone super important (though certainly significant), so don't attempt to locate him hiding somewhere in the line-up below. I did a few things aside from painting the backgrounds that *should* cut comic creation time considerably, including the shrinkage of the page size from 8.5x11 to a more standard comic side of (roughly) 7x10. I also got rid of those coloured lines. Now, I'm a big fan of the coloured lines and I really think they look better in a finished piece of art, BUT, I can't be super picky. Pages can't take forever, so I'll keep the nice lines for other pieces.

So! There you have it. I enjoyed that experiment and am looking forward to painting again.


Now for something I found this past week...

Little People - A tiny street art project
http://little-people.blogspot.com/

I thought this was really cool, and suddenly I find myself searching for teeny tiny people on the street as I'm walking, just in case I miss something cool or accidentally smush them to death. The artist known as Slinkachu has set up ridiculously tiny people in ridiculously tiny scenes on the streets of London in a really unique and rather bizarre art experiment. Bizarre simply because... how many people have actually spotted them?

Check out the photos! And then be wary of teeny tiny people forever more.