Gassy Monsters and Mother Goddesses

Just a couple pieces I did tonight...

First up is my half of an art trade with Annie Hughes! She asked me to draw her OC Kara, so I drew her as Kali, because I guess the idea of multiple arms and shiny jewelry appealed to me at the time, and hey it was pretty fun to colour. I haven't done a really brightly coloured piece in a while, so this one made me happy.

Next up, this dude was done for the Sheridan Creature and Character of the Month group on Facebook. This month's theme for creatures was bio-luminescence. Here's the write-up:

"The Gassy Cave Lurkun is oft-smelled but rarely seen. Its massive size makes for natural slow movement, but this is further hampered by bowleggedness and the way its horns will occasionally grow under the front legs. A rough hide coupled with a damp environment encourages bio-luminescent mushrooms to grow on the backs of Gassy Cave Lurkuns, sometimes to the point that they become more mushroom than Lurkun. But this creature will happily dine on itself if feeling peckish, resulting in their glowing eyes and mouth."

One more day off, and then I'm off to my co-op position at Untold Entertainment! I am excited and nervous and thrilled and freaked and pumped and psyched and scared and anxious and determined and... a little sleepy. Can't wait.

Chuggin' right along...

Just a couple more portfolio pieces! I have a ton of sketches to scan and many more pieces in the works, as well. Panic sure does induce some intense creativity, I must say.

Ignore the random nameplates on these. Slowly saving all of my portfolio stuff with the same template.

Oh hey we're back!

Second year of animation has begun and I really didn't realize how freaking much I missed this place. I'm back with my little second family, meeting a lot of people I haven't met before thanks to the second year studio, and all of my teachers seem pretty damn rad.

Already swamped with homework, but as always it can hardly even be called that. Too much fun to be lumped into that dangerous category.

A few weeks ago was Fan Expo, and that was amazing as always. I met a whole slew of awesome people, did some commishes, sold some prints and buttons, and was thrilled beyond measure once again to be reminded that this world is literally teeming with wonderful geeky people whose passion and opinions and obsessive random knowledge of everything keeps life perpetually interesting.




Above is the print I sold at the con (also sold bookmarks of each sin).

For the past month I've also been working hard on The Awakened, which I have very big plans for. Aside from a refined script, the characters are undergoing re-designs. Today I was working out Tristan's design, and I threw in a random Asher for good measure.





Will be going through all of the characters as I finish re-scripting Chapter 1. I'll be roughing pages and overhauling the website after that. Haven't decided yet whether I'll be updating on a page-by-page schedule or if I'll put whole chapters up at once. Depends on how much interest is still out there, haha.

Until next time!

Let's play catch-up!

Yup. Totally haven't posted anything in five months.

Finished my first year of animation and immediately went to work full-time at Sheridan, so there wasn't much of a break from massive distractions. STILL, I have plenty to show you. In fact, I may have too much, so I'm going to break this down into a few posts over the next several days.

I'll start with sketchbook stuff. I got a new sketchbook, and made a personal vow to myself that this sketchbook would be my new baby and feature nicer work than my usual scribbly conceptual stuff (up until now I've only really used a sketchbook to messily figure out compositions, which I then draw on different paper).

So far so good! My new sketchbook is now my most favourite-est thing in the world. Only downside is the coil prevents me from scanning anything, so I'm just taking photos...


Behold, my completely unnecessary title page! This thing took me close to two weeks to complete, as I was just adding to it on my breaks at work. It represents me and my love for crazy things, particularly demon fetus balloons and the taming of dinosaurs for personal transport.


And also, thar be dragons. I've been drawing a lot of dragons lately for a special reason that I will tell you about eventually. Aside from that reason, well, I just like dragons and missed drawing them.

Plenty more sketchbook stuff to photograph, but I'll leave it at that for now. Today is a day of mourning, as I finally made it to David Tennant's last episode in Doctor Who and am feeling lost and confused. Come to think of it, you should expect some Who fan art soon as well. It is my only way of coping.

It's that time again...

FINAL PROJECTS! And what a very large and terrifying amount of them! Let's see here... What do we have on the menu.

• Ball and tail animation (it's a ball... with a tail! Bouncing and acting and squashing and stretching and S and C curves oh my.)
• Artist presentation (from what I gather we pick an artist to profile and give a presentation on them--sounds too simple. I suspect a trick.)
• Final storyboard project (yet to be assigned, called "Bird in the Hand". Suspecting more tricks.)
• Repeating panoramic background (with two characters included I believe).
• Two 9x12 juxtaposition background gouache paintings.
• Second life drawing portfolio!
• Bone drawings (9 views of vertebrae, 3 views of scapula, 4 views of pelvis, 4 views of skull, two views of arm and hand, two views of leg and foot--most of these are done already).
• Leica reel! 20-40 storyboard panels music, sound effects, camera moves, etc.
• Research paper on animal welfare legislation in Canada.

BRING IT ON!!

I've got my tonals finished for the dual paintings. I decided to go with Safety and Danger. I was going to go with Dead and Alive (zombies) versus Not Dead OR Alive (robots), but I had a dream last night showing these alternate environments and decided they were more interesting. Plus the first idea was kind of a joke. Kind of.

I also finished my expression sheet, which will be handed in tomorrow. Character Design is definitely my favourite class, and this was my favourite project so far. We had to do an animal character, and it had to be a gender I hadn't drawn yet, so it could have been annoying (not a fan of anthro characters, and I always prefer to draw guys), but I made it FUN, by making the most hideous pig lady ever. Well okay, she could easily have been more hideous. She's mildly hideous. Still fun.



And finally, I figured I would post this here, as I had requests for a copy. I wrote this Sheridan Ghost Story for my English presentation with Chelsea on whether or not hauntings were real. Everybody who screamed on cue was hilarious and amazing and made the whole thing go over really well. It was delightful.

A Sheridan Ghost Story
By Sarah Anne Davis

This story was told to us by faculty members who have requested to remain anonymous, for this story is so horrible—so gruesome—that it may in fact scare away any future students wishing to attend this once thought to be happy, peaceful school.

But Sheridan College has a dark past. A bloody past. A dark and bloody past full of darkness. And blood.

It was a long time ago. Too long now for most to recall, except perhaps Mark Thurman. A sweet young girl with massive aspirations wanted only to attend Sheridan College’s world-renowned animation program. Little did she know… her aspirations would end in tears. Bloody… scream-filled tears…

She worked on her portfolio into each and every dark and stormy night. Rotations and storyboards. Expression sheets and layouts. White piles of copy paper ran red with the blood of her endless devotion…

And then, Portfolio Day.

Her rotations wouldn’t rotate! Inconsistent lines and weights!

Her characters were emotionless and dull! Not enough angles!

Her compositions were generic!

Life drawing lifeless!

What happened to the second action pose!? Pose… pose…

…
…
…

Transfer to Art Fundamentals.

(EVERYONE SCREAMS.)

Dreams crushed, the girl went insane. Picking up a deadly camera tripod, a murderous rampage ensued. She destroyed her competition, one by one, until she made it to the top of the waiting list. But it was too late.

In her madness and despair, the girl staggered to the nearest Trafalgar crosswalk and was killed by the unstoppable force of fifty old people in Buicks.

It is said that the girl’s tortured spirit plummeted to the farthest depths of hell, wherein she pleaded with the devil himself to spare her… to send her back to the school she so longed for.

A deal with the devil was made, and in the midst of cackling laughter her spirit was sent back. But her fate was sealed. Her punishment far more gruesome than her crime. Each day, every day, her spirit would cling to the halls… repeating Art Fundamentals for all eternity.

(EVERYBODY SCREAMS.)

To this day she can still be seen drifting through the A wing, withholding vending machine snacks, knocking over stools, and leaving unwanted invitations to pub nights in every locker. If you listen carefully, you can still hear her pencil tearing away at each new sheet of paper, so desperately trying to break free of her cruel purgatory, to one day see the light boxes at the end of the tunnel and pass into the next world…