Some Dude on the Internet

Look, I'm posting on a somewhat regular basis!

I've spent the past couple days with a case of the congested stupids. That is, I caught some kind of cold from Joshua (who had it on his birthday, poor guy, now I know why he wanted to just stay home that day). It has my sinuses in a funk and took most of my brain with it. I guess that's what I get for wearing myself out helping friends move on saturday, and sustaining myself on the beer and junk food they provided.

It was good though, I'd been lonely and desperately needed to spend time with people I could talk to without feeling strained. Once the trucks were emptied into their new place we all hung around for a few hours talking about whatever and I felt a lot better for doing it, even though the congestion started that night and has not yet let up.

School starts back up tomorrow. There were about a million things I would have preferred to do before it started, but 'getting well' trumps all that. Though I think I am feeling better today, if only a little. I've started going through the boxes in my office, throwing some stuff out, trying to organize others. That's always a good thing.

The old stomping grounds...

This image was part of a project I did last quarter. The project was a get well card with a die-cut. This is the front, except the dinosaur guy was cut out and visible through the back of the card, with the text "The old stomping grounds..."

On the inside, you can see the rest of the dinosaur, and his raised foot is in a cast and he's crying. The inside text reads "they just aren't the same without you. Get well soon!" I came up with the concept and the illustration, and talked to my Pop about the caption, since I knew he'd come up with something good.

Been getting in some illustrator practice lately, but I still feel like I need lots of work with it to get comfortable and fast. Part of my problem is I'm still thinking in terms of lines that are colored in, when Illustrator really shines with shapes. Practice, practice.

I'm close to done with La Luna for Joshua. The moon, roses, and characters are basically done; I just need to finish the sky. Omg its so pretty. It stayed in this really ephemeral blue/green/violet range. I caught Joshua staring at it and drooling a couple times yesterday as I worked. Not really, he mostly played Diablo3 and watched Will&Grace, but he's been a little under the weather. We did go to PF Chang for his bday dinner, though. It was basically the only place open. Good, but overpriced. Oof.

Here, let me recap last quarter at least.

Finished my 4th quarter at the Art Institute. Only two classes, so I wasn't quite as stressed as the previous quarter. Maintained 4.0 gpa... probably have an unhealthy obsession with perfection. I did try to enjoy the projects I had, and ended up with about 2.5 projects that I was legitimately proud of. (OH! Here's the ".5"... I cringe. But look at the little flash comics. And like, the stuff I wrote. I think that part is pretty good.)

Moved 1.5 times since my surgery. Just moved in to a great place with Joshua where we plan to stay a while. Cool neighbors, too! Nice little part of southern midtown sacto.

Oh, Surgery has been healing well. I'm still kinda taking it easy on the physical stuff, and there is like residual chest pain, most of which is from a type of scar tissue that should fade within the 6months-1year range. I'm just past 3 months.

The last 5 weeks of school I was biking regularly, averaging probably 12miles/day 4days/week. I've been kinda slack since break, but I imagine I'll get back on that once school starts back up next week.

I had 5 of my 6 sessions with an awesome creativity coach I did some graphic design work for in March. She caught me saying something like, "if only I didn't get on the computer first thing in the morning..." and we worked out a plan where my computer automatically shuts off every night at 1am, and I don't turn it on in the morning until I've done at least 15 minutes of drawing (or coloring/working on a personal project) for me.

What's the difference? I used to try and feed my artistic soul on commissions, telling myself I was having fun with them. And in most cases, I was, but the problem was, I was pursuing someone else's ideas, rather than finding my own passions. There's a subtle but profound difference when you consistently have a little time to work on whatever it is you LOVE.

Autumn

That's where this one came from. It started with the intention to take up no more than half the page, with the character at the bottom. I got frustrated with the drawing and set it aside. The next morning, I went wild, adding the birds and the sun, fleshing out the trees a bit and adding the cat. I'd started having fun with it. The next day I was delighted to discover a playground in the back, and I started to flesh out the leaves. Bit by bit, it became a finished illustration. I fought a lot with the blue. I really wanted it to be more more monochromatic warms, but the blues and purples just fought their way in there.

I forget how much fun illustration can be, when I don't do it for a while.

This is a WIP for an old commission for bencoon. This morning I randomly had an idea for it and decided to just go for it. I'm actually a little further along right now but I'd scanned it and decided to share.

Spent maybe an hour sketching and refining, and then inked it... Spent 20 minutes picking out THE EXACT TWO MARKERS I WANTED and then spent about 10 minutes absolutely terrified I was ruining it with said markers. The paper is dark grey to begin with, so I had to use REALLY saturated blues. (Copic B16 and B29 to be exact. You can see them on the tape!)

The bit about the terror got lost in that last paragraph. I could barely see my lines, after the first layer of the lighter blue over the whole thing, I started slopping on the darker blue fast and dirty. I've done this enough times to know that's way more effective than doing it painstakingly. I'll be cleaning it up later, and this is the best time for happy accidents. But it feels like riding a roller coaster, but instead of death you fear ruining this piece of artwork you've been working on for a couple hours.

Breathe. That's why you got a high-res scan of the line art, right? You did do that, didn't you? This time, yes.

And of course it all turned out okay. And it is shaping up to be lovely, too!

Ask me questions about art!

I did this thing for Fauxpaw. I like it. =]