Little Girl Lost sketch

A quick sketch and Photoshop coloring job to test some brushes I modified. Before sketch (blue pencil as usual posted below) and after (posted above) with quick coloring in Photoshop.

Pencil in Progress

One of my rough pencil explorations for a sequential art project I'm in the middle of developing. Something different than the stuff I usually do (you know -- cute, sweet, and probably something with lots of Christmas sprinkles), so it's becoming a fun challenge and giving me the opportunity to stretch my skills in a direction that I've been really wanting to do. I'm enjoying it. :)

Mermaid variation

One of the early sketches for a small project I'm doing.

Illustration Friday: Canned

Initial sketch for the latest Illustration Friday project, "Canned".

Sketches

Nothing to say at the moment, other than I'm keeping busy. Here are a few recent doodles from the sketchbook.

Pixie Dixie photos

Working on a bit of this and that...but either can't post it just yet, or it has to wait till later this week or next (personal illustration art -- more adventure bits and pieces, of course!). In the meantime, here are a couple of quick photos that I took of my mousie, Pixie Dixie. She has to be the friendliest mouse that I've ever had the chance to meet. You can see just a bit of my cat, Tabby, in the bottom photo: patches of orange and gray stripes from her right flank.

Twilight Flight

A sketched environment with the usual col-erase blue pencil (not non-photo or non-repro blue). One of several I'm playing around with in between working on other things. I'll post more later.

Practice and other Oddities

The top post is one of the scenes from an animation short that I started working on when I went back to school, and then put away on the shelf, so to say, until I found time to work on it again. The elements were built of various watercolour paintings that I cut up in Photoshop, and then composited in Combustion (with some nice Z-space) with some of the set animated there as well. I've been thinking about this old project rather alot lately. For some reason, I'm always most interested in working on my projects when I have actual paying projects that I should be spending every minute on. Ah, well.

More male portrait sketch practice. I don't create many illustrations of male characters, particularly human males, in most of my personal artwork. For me, it's simply more interesting to create a different female character (generally human) because in some fashion it is another aspect of myself that I am actually drawing. In my own little mind, I live that character as I draw it...I know what my character is thinking as well as its motivation for whatever pose or moment that I choose to capture them in. Hmm. I guess I'm trying to say I like to draw my characters from the inside out, which is why I find it more of a chore, er, I mean a challenge to draw men. Plus, the human female form is much easier to draw what with all those nice curves. :) In the face, too. And then there's always the possibility of using my own self as a reference if I need one.

Breaking in the Sketchbook

Today's sketches include some random bits that I did in my new sketchbook, (some with a reference, some not) along with a quick rough sketch of an idea I had for Illustration Friday's topic, "Forgotten" (posted above) that I'm not gonna have time to finish before Friday. I'd like to work on it another time, though. They're all drawn with the usual blue pencil although I did a bit of experimenting with my scanner and Photoshop color settings when I exported them for web posting which is why they're all variations of blue to dark gray.

The story behind it -- well, actually there are 2 stories. My first story thought was based on some childhood memories that I had from when I was about 6, and some of my experiences during the interesting traveling we did around Europe one summer. The other was a thought about that little toddler that was forgotten at the Vancouver airport when his parents were so tired and overwhelmed that they didn't realize that they'd left him behind. And, I wondered: what if it wasn't just days that it took the parents to retrieve their forgotten child; what if it was years? Like if they were traveling interplanetary rather than from one continent to another on Earth. So, my illustration story is about a forgotten child in a spaceport.

Ran out to get a new Strathmore (now Canson) Field sketchbook (my current fave) at the closest art supply store...and the pickings were mighty slim. The art supply section was considerably downsized to what seems to be a mere 10 ft square section. I'll have to start doing my art supply purchasing online like I did whilst working in-house. Just means that I need to plan my purchases, and buy bulk when possible. And if I run out of 2-H pencils, micron pens, drawing and marker pads, vellum, bristol, etc...I need to remember that the nearest stocked arts supply stores will be about 10-20 miles away. I won't even talk about the fact that the nearest comic book store is even further away these days. Sigh.

Crazy.
So later this afternoon I went ahead and did some online ordering since it takes about a week to get here with ground shipping; ordered a couple of pads of Denril Vellum (one of the things I'd hoped to pick up at the art supply store today) among other items (like a couple more sketchbooks which were about half the price). I really like Denril Vellum for tight line-work, particularly when I'm tracing over my tight pencils on my lightbox in order to get clear sharp lines with Micron inks for the final art (before scanning and coloring on the computer). It's a method I picked up years ago when I was doing multimedia artwork -- creating characters and scenes which were colored in Macromind Director and/or Studio 8 and then animated in Director (by me) and assembled in Authorware by the team of programmers. Like I said, it was a while ago. :)

Variations on a theme

After drawing a left foot when I should have sketched a right (d'oh!); I thought I maybe needed to do a bit more figure drawing practice. Plus, I wanted to do some experimenting with costumes. So I paged through a few mags I had around and looked at some stills and video of fashion shows online.

The above sketches are a minor sampling of the scribbling I did today in my sketchbook. And, it looks like I need to get another sketchbook -- I finished up that particular one with these.

Pixie Dixie

My most recent pet mouse, Pixie Dixie. At the moment, my only pet mouse, but one is plenty. She's a really sweet little mousie. When she sees me (I've had her about 2 weeks now) she'll stretch out, walk around her cage a bit, and then reach up for me to pick her up. I'll put my hand down into her little 5 gallon aquarium, and let her hop up into my palm. She'll wrap her little tail around a finger and squeak or chitter at me. I wonder sometimes what she's trying to say. I only keep her out for a little bit before putting her back in the tank -- it's much safer there...I have a couple of cats, too. :)

I get a batch of mice about once a month to feed my two snakes, Copper (corn snake) and Ghost (a Texas rat snake). Since I've had those guys about 18 years (I really didn't think they'd live that long, so I must be doing something right), that's a lot of mice that I've seen. Which is why I rescue one or two once in awhile. Guilty conscious, don't you know. Although, since I'm not a vegetarian I'm not feeling really that guilty...I eat meat, too.

Although except for sashimi, my meat is always cooked.

sketchbook: faces

Some random faces from my current sketchbook. Spent about 15-20 minutes sketching each one with my Sanford Col-erase blue pencil. I felt that I needed some practice doing realistic portraits versus my usual somewhat stylized quick sketches of made-up people.

Me Now

Well, here's the "After" or I should call it "Me -- Now" sketch that accompanies the previous "Teen -- Me" post. :)

The Dreadful Teen Years

Happened to read about the "Teen Meme" off of a couple of artist's blogs I regularly read last week, and had thought about doing one of my own...so I started mentally sketching something. And then today read over on Lines and Colors that there was actually a starting point and a collection of links. Very cool.

My own teen years were not a favorite time period. I confess that I tried to forget about it as much as possible. But I remembered enough to do the above quick sketch and some commentary.

Think that I'll do my "Imaginary Inner Teen-Self" for my next sketch, heh. Quite a bit different.

Illustration Friday: Wide

Possibly not the most comfortable way to travel far and wide, but certainly would be one of the most interesting -- held securely in the massive claws of a flying dragon. Above is the color concept, and just below is the final pencil.

The initial sketch is posted at the bottom. I had a bit of trouble figuring out how the right wing should be properly drawn when I started sketching, so I did a smaller thumbnail to help me. In any case, I think what I ended up with works fine. If (or when) I do a more finished version, though, I think I'll do a quick sculpey of the dragon first so I can see how the wings should be positioned. All in all about four hours total of creative fun!

More Progress

Here's a coloring progress of a previous sketch. I'm kind of liking the sepia-tone look of it. Has almost a watercolour wash feel with it, too; although it's all Photoshop.

And here is a sketch in progress as inspired by a recent EOW for a Woodland House Mouse...how could I resist drawing a story for a mouse. :)

For Illustration Friday: Electricity

My initial sketch (below) and the color version for the Illustration Friday project, "Electricity".

My Wild Hunt

A progress shot of one my mini-projects whilst I continue my own Wild Hunt for full-time creative employment. A 4-hour detailed sketch at this point as posted in the above sketch. In the meantime, in addition to that pursuit -- I'm doing some freelancing and, as always...still updating the online portfolio.

Undersea

A progress shot of the line-art for "Buried Treasure". I did a very light sketch of the overall character first going right to left (can see the light sketch in the face area of this particular image), and then reworked and fine-tuned with darker line-work and shading going from left to right. I'm also building elements separately for the scene because I have additional plans for bits and pieces along with the final illustration that I'm currently painting.

I'll post some more progress shots later...

In other news... Had a phone interview today and am doing an art test for another company...curious to see how that goes this time; different role, different product. :)

Rejected!

Thank you for the interest you have expressed in our art position. We were very fortunate to review your recent application. However, at this time, we are pursuing other candidates based on the best match with the requirements of the job. Please check back to our website www."_____".com. We are frequently adding positions that may be of relevance to you and your background. Once again, we appreciate your interest in "_____". We wish you continued success in your search and the development of your career.

Sincerely, "_____" Recruiting

Yay! I finally received my first official rejection email/letter after sending out 19 resume and sample art submissions to various companies for a new full-time creative position -- that I've been applying to since the first week of April. Breaking into a new industry isn't easy, that's for sure. Some of the companies I applied to would likely be excellent experiences in understanding the development pipeline, but may not prove to have long-term creative interest for me (...for various reasons) and therefore great for short-term contract opportunities. A few job openings (less than 5) were actually referred to me by people that either currently work at the companies that I applied to, or know people who do so that's hopefully a plus. Only about 30 more submissions to go and then maybe a decent nibble like in this example. :)

Meanwhile, I'm updating my website with new art including an unofficial re-launch at the end of this month (always takes longer than I plan to debug and update while I multi-task on other items: job-hunting, networking, developing projects, etc.) with additional section updates throughout the month of May. At this time, the main art sections I'm creating include:
- Concept Art
- Illustration
- Sequential Art
- Sketches

with a quad of information sections:
- Homepage/brief introduction
- Resume
- About Me
- Resource Links

I've also been contacting people that I've worked with in the past to let them know that I'm available for freelance or local in-house contract work developing concept art and/or children's book illustration.

However, I'm avoiding web design and development like the plague -- it literally makes me ill. Hmm...maybe that's why it's taking so long to get my website updated...ha. And maybe that's why these two snippets in the Eric Canette interview from the Character Design blog, had me in complete agreement:

"...From Peter Chung I learned to not work on projects that don’t inspire me; projects that don’t do anything to make me want to jump out of bed, drive an hour into work, jockey a drafting table, day in and day out. It does nothing for the soul."

and

"...Also, always, ALWAYS think long term. For example, sure you could probably do a job that will pay ridiculously well financially, but if all is causes you is stress loss of sleep, then I don’t know how much that will do for you when all it just takes away from your mental health you know? Those are the things you need to consider before taking on projects. But the reality is, when you’re first starting out, you may not have that luxury, but once you’re e in there, once you have some notches on your belt, I believe it’s worth considering the points that I’ve just mentioned."

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Some rough preliminary sketches of an illustration that I'm working on, called "Buried Treasure". Final image size should be about 14" x 20".

Thumbnails.

Initial layout rough.