Thursday, December 17, 2015

Picture Book - Adding Some Color (pages 5-6)

Time for some more Kitten in the Orchestra Pit illustrations! We're going back to page-by-page format, and as we progress the pictures get less finished...



I think these frames came out alright, if a bit heavy on the black. I love the gold color the harp ended up with, and I'm happy the clarinets are somewhat distinguishable from their chairs. Next time: Reworked timpani and a kitten close-up.

Mixed Media - Charmander Christmas

Title: Charmander Christmas
Size: 5 by 5 inches
Here's a quick piece I did as a Christmas gift for a friend, starring a fire pokemon in a santa hat and crooked calligraphy. It was fun to take a quick break from drawing so many kittens, and I like how the charmander came out. Especially the contrast of the blue eyes and orange skin. :)

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Picture Book - Color at Last! (pages 1-4)



Well, I've finally started coloring frames. It's watercolor outlined in pen with a bit of supplementary colored pencil.

I decided during pages 3 and 4 to add purple to the floor, and I think I'll continue that for the next pages. The instruments have been turning out pretty well, and I'm excited to finish some of the percussion and woodwinds. :)

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Picture Book Update - pages 6-12

This week we get even more picture book drawings. Hooray! This should be the last set of pencil sketches, so next picture book update should have some watercolor on it.

I'm trying a bit of a different format today, combining text and illustrations. So here's pages 6-12

There were chairs again, topped abandoned trumpets and clarinets. One even had a bass clarinet.

But no Amalie.


He looked by the swirling-tubed french horns and spindly trombones. He even checked behind the tympani.

But still no Amalie.


Where was she?


Tired of searching, Maas settled next to the tuba and blinked back tears. Where was Amalie?


Slowly, Maas drifted into sleep. He dreamed he was chasing Amalie through the pages of a concerto.


He woke suddenly when someone picked him up.

“There you are, you silly kitty.”

It was Amalie!


“I’m so glad I finally found you!” she told him, scratching his ears.

Maas was glad too.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Picturebook Update - pages 1-5

This week I have some drawings in the new style for the picture book. They'll eventually be in pen and watercolor. :)






Saturday, November 14, 2015

3D and Acrylics- Pinewood Derby Cars

    
Title: Pinewood Derby Cars
Size: 7 by 1 and 3/4 inches
My little brothers have a pinewood derby coming up and asked for help designing and painting their cars. The ideas behind the two cars were "Gryffindor" and "Yellow and green with swirls". I don't normally work in acrylics, but I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoied them (and how quickly they dried). It was a lot of fun to work on a project with my little brothers, using their suggestions and efforts to make something cool, and now I'm hoping I get more opportunities to collaborate on projects. :)


Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Mixing Mediums - Vin with Soonie Cub

Title: Soonie Cub
Size: 11 by 6 inches
Here's a fun little piece I did. It features little Vin cuddling a giant stuffed dog (which happens to be named TenSoon). This piece is watercolor outlined in pen with a bit of colored pencil on top for texture. I wanted to try something a little different for this piece, so I used more muted colors and took out the background using pixlr. :)

Friday, November 6, 2015

Picturebook -- Kitten Concept

This week I've worked on my kitten character for my picturebook, as I realized that my previous style may have been overly complicated. Also, I wasn't really sure what color my kitten even was.

Title: Kitten Concepts
So my first sketch shows a simplified kitten. Soon that progresses to several simpler kittens.


After that there was the matter of color. I decided to go with coloring for a Siamese/Maine Coon Cat mix. My final color concept is on a cat that's a bit too old to be the hero of our story, but I feel I've finally nailed down the look (color, fur length, etc.) that I've been looking for. :)

Friday, October 23, 2015

Halloween Costume - Vorin Havah


Title: Vorin Havah
Halloween is coming up, and with it the wonderful excuse opportunity for cosplay. This year I'll be going as a brightlady from Stormlight Archive, and I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to expand my sewing skills and blog repertoire.

I'd like to start by addressing the sleeves. Yes, one is longer than the other, and yes, this is on purpose. This dress is my interpretation of an in-book costume called a havah. Vorin tradition dictates that a woman's left sleeve be long enough to cover the left hand (called the safehand) for the sake of modesty. On the other hand, (cough*bad joke!*cough) it's perfectly acceptable for the right hand to be exposed.

I think the hardest part was designing the dress. It was an interesting mix of fun and frustrating, as there's nothing quite like it. After reviewing the descriptions in the books, what I had in mind, and dresses that already exist, I finally decided to base my dress on the Vietnamese ao dai. The ao dai's skirt is slit up to the waist and worn with loose pants underneath, which I thought would be perfect for horseback riding, action scenes, and whatever crazy adventures cosplaying brightladies might get into.

The dress isn't quite done yet -- I'd still like to do a bit of embellishing -- but it's been a really fascinating project. I had a lot of help from my mom and grandma to turn this project from an idea into a reality and I'm very grateful I've had the opportunity to work on it.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Taking a Mental Break - Shadows of Self Cast

Well, I've been working at my picture book for several weeks now, so for fall break I'm taking a break from dialogue and storyboarding.

So, presenting this week's project: The Shadows of Self cast.


Title: Shadows of Self Cartoon Cast
Size: 8 by 12 inches
Brandon Sanderson's newest book, Shadows of Self, just hit the shelves last week, so now I bring you the cast. Alright, so admittedly this isn't the entire cast, but I think I've got pretty much everyone important (except for Innate. And Saze. And TenSoon. And-). Well, either way, I'm happy to have these guys drawn out. SoS was an excellent read, so I did my best to bring the characters to life using the descriptions in the book.

This project was pretty fun, as I got to spend plenty of time checking my sources for accuracy -- "What's that you say? You don't remember Marasi's hair color? Better re-read that passage again, just to make sure you didn't miss it." (And I promise constable-general Aradel isn't DI Lestrade from BBC's Sherlock. Really, where would you get an idea like that?) I imagine I'll come back at some point and rework this piece with color, but until then, happy fall break to all, and to all a good night.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Picture book drawings - page 1


Title: Kitten in the Orchestra Pit - page 1

So here's the official start of my picture book. A fluffy kitten peeking around the door.

I'll be back later with more.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Picture Book Text - Kitten in the Orchestra

So! I've finally decided that I'll be doing my 'kitten in the orchestra' story for my picture book. I've rewritten the text so that it's shorter and more straightforward. 

Ahem. This is Kitten in the Orchestra featuring Maas the kitten and his friend Amalie. Please take your seats and enjoy.



Maas poked his head into the dark room. It looked empty. Where was Amalie?

There were all sorts of interesting things in the room. Bouncing across the floor, Maas found something long and smooth. A contrabass.



He walked further, finding sets of smaller, similar instruments.

Groups of cellos. Several violas.



An entire forest of violins, with a scattering of woodwinds on the border.

Where was Amalie?



Soon Maas came to a towering, graceful harp beside a huge piano. He batted at the strings, and the resulting dust made him sneeze.
(page 5)


There were chairs again, topped abandoned trumpets and clarinets. One even had a bass clarinet.

But no Amalie.



He looked by the swirling-tubed french horns and spindly trombones. He even checked behind the tympani.

But still no Amalie.



Where was she?



Tired of searching, Maas settled next to the tuba and blinked back tears. Where was Amalie?



Slowly, Maas drifted into sleep. He dreamed he was chasing Amalie through the pages of a concerto.
(page 10)


He woke suddenly when someone picked him up.

“There you are, you silly kitty.”

It was Amalie!



“I’m so glad I finally found you!” she told him, scratching his ears.

Maas was glad too.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

New Collage - Timpanogos Temple Drawing

Working Title: Mount Timp. Temple Collage
Size: 8 and 1/2 by 14 inches
After my success with the Shallan Collage last year, I've decided it's time for another collage project. This time I want to focus on using paper with interesting textures. So far all I've got is the drawing, but I think it's going pretty well. :)


Here's my reference photo:

I'm so excited for this project!

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Picture Book Sketches (part 3)

Title: Maas and the Abandoned Orchestra
Size: Each frame is 4 and 1/2 by 3 inches
This week's picture book features a kitten named Maas and his adventures through an abandoned orchestra pit. Writing first worked so well last week that I decided to try it again. My sister suggested I write a story that included plenty of instruments, so I decided to use an orchestra.

This story was fun to draw because of all the proportions. It's one thing to draw an instrument, but another to try and make them the right size. I also enjoyed looking for reference photos of kittens. :P

Friday, September 25, 2015

Whimsical Watercolor - 18th Century Owl

Title: Eighteenth Century Owl
Size: 7 by 5 inches
This week I wanted to do something a little more whimsical. It's been a while since I did something a silly piece. And so I bring you.... A burrowing owl in a powdered wig!

I think where this piece came from was my visit to an aviary earlier this week. It had me thinking about owls, and I really wanted to do a burrowing owl. I've done doodles of animals in different historical clothing before, so when I was looking at pictures of owls I thought "hey, that one looks like he's wearing a cravat and waistcoat" and thus this was born.

I think I like doing goofy little things like this because it's half in your head. I added a powdered wig and some shoe buckles, but the rest I just enhanced. Some of these owls do look almost like they have a necktie, and the way their feathers fade could almost look like an inversely colored vest and trousers. Add white leg feathers to knee high socks and poof! Enter eighteenth century owl.

When I started this piece I was having a lot trouble with defining lines. The whole thing looked kind of muddy. After I decided to switch this piece to be a mixed medium piece, rather than just a watercolor, things started going better. I used black and red pens to help define some boundaries and used some white paint to clean up the highlights (there's no white in watercolor).

Thursday, September 17, 2015

More pencil drawings - Meeting Brandon (part 2) and picturebook sketches

Title: Meeting Brandon Sanderson
Size: 10 and 1/2 by 12 inches
Here's the finished version of the pencil portrait I was working on last week. It's my parents and I getting our picture with the most amazing fantasy author of all time: Brandon Sanderson. It was pretty fun to finish this up, and I like how it turned out.


Next up is some storyboarding for another possible picturebook.
































Working title: Never Lose Your Seven League Boots
Size: frames are roughly 2 and 1/2 by 4 inches
After last week's plot-less story, I decided to start writing first this time. Theoretically, so that I'd actually have a plot this week. I forgot to take into account the fact that every time I try to write dialogue it immediately turns into plot-derailing banter. Every time. So that's why pretty much every frame is of talking.

This plot took some work to come up with. After consulting multiple online plot generators and then ignoring most everything they said, I came up with a story about a grumpy, pen-stealing sprite named Quinn who loses his winged seven league boots. He and his (human) friend Johanna go on a quest to get them. Also, there's vanishing spells and Latin. So yeah.

I think I like this story better than last week's, seeing as there's a plot, but I would have to cut out an awful lot of banter to get anything to happen. I do like the characters though. Banter does that to me.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Starting Pencil Drawings - Picture Book Sketches and Meeting Brandon

Working Title: Meeting Brandon
Size: 11 by 14
This is a drawing I've been wanting to do for a while. It's the time my parents and I met Brandon Sanderson (my favorite author of all time). I decided to draw out where things go, and then start filling in the spaces, like a coloring book. A black and white, non-color coloring book. :P

I decided it would probably be for the best if I started by drawing (filling in? shading?) myself, as my drawing talent usually needs to warm up a bit and only gets better as I go longer. Unfortunately, the picture I'm working from is rather blurry, so it's unclear where exactly my hair ends and my shirt starts. Yup. That could be a problem.



These next pictures are from my sketchbook, and are an experiment/rough draft for a picture book I'll hopefully be creating later this year. I'll be playing with several different storylines over the next few weeks, so this is the first of a series.











Working Title: Adventures of Harper - Rough Draft
Size: Each frame is about 2 and 1/2 by 4 inches.
...So the story behind this story is that I wanted an excuse to draw a wombat. And I wanted my protagonist to be a toddler. Those were literally my only criteria. ...Which is why this story currently has no plot.

And the wombat hasn't even really shown up yet.

Anyway, for any and all humans interested in my plot and worldbuilding, this story takes place in southern Australia. My little toddler is named Harper. One day Harper was going on a walk through some (Australian!) woods with her parents when she got noticed a lizard. (A tiny, baby monitor lizard that will one day grow to be somewhere between 8 inches and 10 feet long depending on the species). Distracted, she is left behind by her parents.

Theoretically, next she'll make friends with a giant wombat, and pass the time with him until her rescue.

What will happen next?! Will Harper be lost forever? Will her parents come back looking for her? Will the wombat ever make an appearance?! Tune in next time to Adventures of Harper to find out!

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Woodworking Project - Rocking Horse


Title: Wax in Wood
Size: 34 inches tall and 50 inches long
Here's a rocking horse I worked on for a few months in my woodshop class. It involved a lot of sanding and work on the bandsaw. :P

I ended up naming my horse Waxillium Ladrian, after the main character in Alloy of Law. Waxillium goes by 'Wax'; therefore my project is titled Wax in Wood.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Sidewalk Chalk Figures - Three Avengers


Title: 2D Sidewalk Assembly
Size: 36 by 42 inches
This one's pretty straightforward. Just a sidewalk chalk drawing of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. Overall, I think these turned out pretty well.

Iron Man was an interesting challenge, as there's not really "red" in sidewalk chalk, just dark pink. So I used dark pink against light pink and white to try and show the armor, which worked surprisingly well. There's also a bit of yellow and blue in there...

Thor nearly killed me. If there's not really red in sidewalk chalk, then there is definitely no grey. Okay, well admittedly you'll run in to a grey piece of chalk every once in a while, but it just doesn't show up on sidewalks. Which is why Thor's armor ended up being white/purple/blue/brown. I put extra orange in the cape and extra blue in the armor to help contrast them better.

And Cap? He was nice. Gave me no trouble at all. :P

Monday, August 3, 2015

Updated Project - Agents of Shield Pencil Portrait

Does anyone remember my unfinished pencil project from Art 1? Well, I finally finished it. :D

Title: Jackets on Agents
Size: 6 and 3/4 by 16 inches
Here's the cast of Agents of Shield, as of the start of session one. It's done in pencils, and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Although trying to finish up Ward was a pain (I'm still not completely satisfied with his face), I think the effect of the completed piece is rather impressive. Even if small bits of it look off, this is a huge hunk of paper with a lot time and effort on it. And it feels really good to finally be done with this piece. I've always intended to finish, and now, coming up on the one year mark of starting, I did. ;)

I think that's just about all I have energy to type. Merry summer to all, and to all a good night.

Character Drawings - Elsecaller and Owl Angel

Hello folks! Today we have a double feature - two pen and colored pencil drawings I finished recently.

Title: Elsecaller
Size: 9 by 9 inches
This little drawing was a short project - a portrait of an Elsecaller (from Stormlight Archive). It's outlined in pen with colored pencil filling, and had been sitting unfinished in a sketchbook for a few weeks. What really made this piece fun was the large number of sources I used to try and get it right. Going into this drawing, I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted it to look like, so it was more a matter of translating that vision onto paper than anything else. :)

In Stormlight Archive each order of knights (magic users) is associated with a gemstone of some sort. Elsecallers are with zircon, a stone I hadn't previously been acquainted with. Although zircon comes in a variety of colors, I decided to focus on the stunningly clear blue. So that's why the glyph in the back and the stormlight wisping around my knight are both blue.

Speaking of glyphs, attempting to write them correctly is insanely difficult. I suppose it's mostly trying to keep the line width even on both sides that's killing me at this point.

The shardblade she's holding is, of course, one of the blades illustrated in Words of Radiance. Some day I'll get the hang of designing my own blades, but as for now, I'm just going to recreate other blades... :P



Title: Great Grey Angel
Size: 9 by 9 inches
This was another drawing sitting in my sketchbook waiting to be finished. It's pen and colored pencil. I'm not really sure how to describe this piece briefly, so prepare for the long version.

Several months ago I had been playing with the idea and visual of an angel - as in 'a person with wings'. It had always seemed odd to me that they didn't have tails. How would they maneuver in the air? These thoughts, combined with my fascination with owls, led to this picture.

The idea of an owl-angel became almost a story to me. All those feathers would make for quite the disfigurement, which would, of course, lead to seclusion from ordinary people. So a secretive angel. Owls are silent fliers, thanks to special feathers on their wings that break up the sound of their passing. This added to the persona of my owl-angel. Those special wings would make an excellent tool to a taciturn do-gooder.

So there you have it, an explanation of this picture.

This angel is based off the great grey owl, one of my personal favorites. I was amused to see that the huge yellow eyes fit surprisingly well with the style - I suppose anime eyes (which I've always felt were overly large) could just be called 'owl eyes'.

Oh, one last thing. By some twist of luck, the angel's pose works well for taking off or landing. Looking at it, I can't tell if she's trying to pick up speed to get in the air or if she's alighting at her destination. I thought that turned out really cool.

To anyone who actually in read this entire giant post, you have my regards. I have a tendency to ramble.  ;)

Friday, July 24, 2015

Sewing Project - Sock Bunny

Title: Mr. Bartholomew Lump
Size: 11 inches tall
This piece is a stuffed rabbit made out of socks. It doesn't really portray anything profound; it's just a sock bunny. :P

I'd like to think Bartholomew here counts as an art project, but I really don't know. It's a fabric craft. I used my artistic talent. Can we count this one?

This project was a collaborative effort by my sister and I. We used a pair of brown crew length, one pink anklet, pink embroidery thread, two blue buttons, a gold ribbon, and beans. Pinto beans, to be precise. (They were used as filling.) Why am I telling you this? Because I normally can say, "oh, my medium was watercolor" or "yes, my medium was pencil", but I used a rather different medium today: socks.

It was certainly interesting working with fabric as a medium. I normally stay well within the boundaries of two dimensions, but it was fun to get into something a little more... substantial. (Not to say I won't be back later with more drawings, because I will.)  :)

Close Up Watercolor - Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Title: Ruby-throated Portrait
Size: 14 by 11 inches
This is a piece I did for my friend's birthday; she requested a hummingbird and, rather than paint the typical image of hummingbird (paused before a flower with wings beating), I decided to focus more on the detail of the feathers.

Normally I'm not fond of doing larger pieces (more than a half sheet of paper), but recently I find myself creating them more and more. For this painting, I think the greater size worked together with the texture, so that was good.

...And now that I'm posting this, I realize that this painting will match my blog's background rather nicely. Enjoy the in-theme moment! :P

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Facepaint - Windrunner and Dustbringer Glyphs

Title: Windrunner and Dustbringer Glyphs

Here's some facepaint fun! In this picture my sister and I have painted glyphs on each other's faces. The blue glyph is the symbol of the Windrunners and the red glyph is the symbol of the Dustbringers. Both are groups of magic users from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive.

The face made for an interesting, if unconventional, canvas. I wouldn't mind doing more facepainting in the future. ;)

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Pencil Portrait - Brandon Sanderson

I was sitting around, doodling, when I realized that I should update my blog...

Title: Read and Find Out
Size: 8 by 6 inches
This is a pencil portrait of Brandon Sanderson, my all-time favorite fantasy author. It was kind of funny, I actually drew this while listening to an audiobook of Warbreaker by (guess who!) Brandon Sanderson. A few things I love about his writing include the well developed characters, the thought-out magic systems, and the mind blowing plot twists.

Summer's been nice. Although it's still odd to have so much time on my hands... I'll try to update again soon with more art from the free lands of summer. :)

Friday, June 5, 2015

Final Project - TenSoon Portraits (part 3)

Title: TenSoon Portraits

Here we are! All three portraits together at last. Those shapeshifters get around, don't they? I think these portraits' subjects all look fairly different from each other.

Today, I will be focusing on my "True Body" portrait, as I barely finished it. (It's the morbid looking one).

Title: True Body
Size: 9 by 5 inches
...So this piece was my delightful attempt at drawing a skeleton within translucent skin that was done much too quickly because I woke up late. Let me start over. 

For these portraits, I'm focusing on TenSoon, a shapeshifter from the Mistborn series. He's a kandra, a type of creature that can mimic any sort of body. There's a catch though: they need a skeleton to work around. Kandra don't have any skeleton of their own. Anyway, when kandra are in their homeland, they wear artistically crafted bones instead of other's bones. To show off these "True Bodies", they make their bodies translucent. So this is my painting of TenSoon in a True Body. I'm not sure of my feelings towards it yet. I don't know what I was expecting, so it's hard to form an opinion on the finished piece. 

Unfortunately for this piece, I slept in this morning. About 10am, I'm sitting in bed when I realize I have a portrait due in three hours. Yup. Excellent motivation to start scrambling.

One thing that was interesting with this piece was trying to draw the skeleton. Drawing how bones fit into a body is a rather different matter than just drawing the body. So that made for a fascinating, if rushed, portion of this painting. I'm thinking that, if nothing else, I'll at least go through and pretty up the background. I don't know what it is about watercolor, but doing abstract with it is significantly harder for me than with oils.

Anyway, it's been a wonderful year of art classes. Thanks to everyone who helped make them that way! :)