Mr. Christmas Post

Happy Holidays to all!
I've been ridiculously busy making christmas presents for the past few weeks (gosh it feels like forever!)...and I still can't believe christmas is tomorrow! BUT finally everything is done! PHEW!
Anyways, further down are some photos of the stuff I've been slaving over. Every year I've been slowly trying to step up the professional-ness of the things I make. This year everything has neat tags and cards and was all printed cleanly from my good friend Mr.Adobe Illustrator. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the printing knowledge down pat yet...as many things looked fuzzy on the paper I used. Oh well! I'll know for next time!


A small framed illustration for Jason's dad, who is a trucker and a musician!



These are Snow Bunnies! Small, stuffed to perfection and each with their own unique mini-scarf! yay! I named them all and safety pinned name tags to them (which isn't shown), the one above is named Maki!



My friend Nichole had the brilliant idea of using calendar cases to hold recipe cards. So we both set about making some! I only managed to do 8 recipes per pack, but the designs came out quite nice I think ^_^ Good ol' kuler for color-schemes, really can't beat that website! Also, don't try to laminate stuff at Staples as it takes THREE days to do it apparently! >.<;; Yea my cards are SO not laminated...makes me wish i'd printed on heavier card stock.
I'm off to a yankee swap now, where my recipe cards will debut! Hope they like 'em.
Hope everyone has a great holiday!! :D

Jewelry

In lieu of the dreaded shopping-of-christmas, I went on a jewelry making spree today. Actually more like an earring making spree, as those seem to be the only form of jewelry I can crank out decently. I found wrapping things in silver wire to be deceptively satisfying. Once I started, I just couldn't stop! and now I have lots of random beads wrapped in wire and awaiting some sort of thing to be attached to. I think the next thing I'll give a whirl is ribbon necklaces with hanging beads!
I've also decided to make plush robots this year...have a design floating on paper, but have yet to create a prototype/pattern. The problem is a) deciding who will actually appreciate made gifts and b) being able to make enough of them in time...
In other news, I finally got my first pair of stylish specs. I went to an eye doctor on saturday and he told me pretty much what I already knew and thus a tiny prescription was given. Hopefully I can get them in a week and start seeing the world ANEW. Altho the coolest part had to be seeing pictures of my own optic nerve!
Anyways, enough ramblings. Here's a photo of said earring-mania.

El Monk Italiano!

I've been struggling with this commission for a while now, debating what mediums to use and how best to crop the picture. All until Jason (genius that he is!) suggested I try it in charcoal! When I got the original picture in the mail, I sighed: a 5x6 magazine clipping with multiple creases showing a very, very dark picture. Now, as artists, we all wish our clients would send us sensibly lit, fully realized reference pictures...but alas this is not always the case. I really didn't like the picture at all before I actually put pencil to paper and started sketching it out, haha. But! Once I started the process, I had a rather nice time doing it! Plus it was very much fun to get back into charcoal, which I haven't touched since college.

So, here is the work-in-progress shot. I used pencil sketch to start off on this random super smooth paper I found lying around my studio. Then layered down some vine charcoal to get a good middle ground and topped off the super darks with compressed charcoal (my favorite!). Boy that sounds like a recipe! mmm, dammit now im hungry. haha.

And voila, finished piece! I was impressed this only took about 3.4 hrs to do! Charcoal is one speedy medium!

Wheel of Time

Here's an illustration I popped out today, just 'cuz it was fun to do! I've been really into Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and am most of the way through the second book. Albeit there's thirteen books in the series >.<; The story must be rather epic. Anyways, here's my crack at the second book (because lets face, this would make SUCH a better cover than the one on this book right now - they made Loial look like Spock for cryin' out loud!).

Espana con queso!

I saw a show on wednesday about Gwyneth Paltrow romping around Spain and eating lots of delicious food. A) It made me really hungry and B) it made me want to go to Spain! Alas, I can no afford such a thing, but here is what mr.internet inspired me to do...
Also, a newly discovered fabulous illustrator of 50's style art is Derek Yaniger, his webby is here and has lots of fabulous prints!

Mo' animation

Because I haven't done any at work for a while now...plz to click ze link Its really big and i don't know why...

My day...

Click the image to view.
blogger really doesn't want to let me embed swfs...stupid piece of stupidness.

England-Land

Been a while since I posted last, so here's a bunch of stuff from my recent (and fabulous) trip to England! I visited all my family there, which was obviously the best thing about the entire trip :D Plus got to visit quite a few museums and standard britishy type places.

After spending most of a week in Birmingham and then traveling down to the south coast to Paignton, I discovered my sketchbook was rather empty. So in order to make up for lost time, I plastered page after page with random people drawings, beach scenery, doggies and various family members.

We traveled around and about the south coast a bit, exploring Devonshire. In above picture: Left top and right bottom sketches are from a Tea garden in Bovey Tracey...whereupon I DEVOURED a cream tea nom nom nom. I swear my cholesterol must have risen a good 20% on this trip from all the fried food and clotted cream. ^_^


More sketches from Bovey Tracey inside a pub. We also discovered my cousin has a knack for winning at gambling machines. heh.
Sadly those are all the sketches I did on the trip. On the plus side, I did rediscover the joys of brush pens and how quickly you can get down movement and shape with them. Hurrah! Mayhaps I will share the artsy industrial photos I took over there (lots of heavy rusting equipment and such) in a later post. I was actually fairly surprised most of my photos came out, being that my camera blurs every other image. But for now I will make dinner and collapse on the couch.

Faire and Paper

Here is what I worked on today. A group of us are trying to cobble together a little xbox live game. I think our hope is that it'll be entertaining enough to play online with many players...maybe not for profit, but its a fun side project nonetheless. So far I've done character designs, character animation, prop designs, level designs and a whole load o' concept work (thats in the past like...year). Jason's been doing fabulous level designs as well! I'm kind of dying to see it on the tv. Note: animating at 60fps? Kind of a bitch. >.<;
Yesterday we went to King Richard's Faire, which was quite fun. I spent most of the time oggling all the fancy costumes people were wearing (spectators and faire employees alike!). Some of them were really well done! Also there was a very convincing Jack Sparrow wandering around and a 'dark' knight for the joust that vaguely resembled Robert Downey Jr. from a distance.
I tried sketching, I really did. But nothing particularly stellar came out of it, so I'll spare the crappy scans. Also, the mini sketchbook I was using is crap and should be outlawed. It's like drawing on tracing paper! Don't know WHAT I was thinking when I bought it! I have to go get a proper moleskin sketchbook again...and one of those fabulous pens I adore...sometime between now and next saturday. Lots of sketching will be happening in England!
Ok, time for a movie and cuddles with the poor neglected cats...

Sharing...

Browsing through the internet a bit tonight, I found (amidst looking for pictures of pond snails and snapping turtles) this:

Which I thought was quite neat and features some art inspiration (or involvement) by Andrew Jones - whose art (I also found today) is really cool and can be found here under 'Android Jones'. His use of images of people and things as repeating patterns reminds very much of an artist's work I once saw in a San Jose art museum, but can't for the life of me remember what his name was. Makes you feel like you could just sit and enjoy a piece of art for a long time, working in and around all the forms and such. I love art that makes you stay a while, gets you involved.
Anyways, I'm going to stop doing work now, because a) it's a sunday night and b) I require sustenance!

Little Mermaid

Yea, I totally just watched The Little Mermaid. And it was great ^_^ But what if Ursula had won??

...and she'd had a kid and lost a couple pounds....would she still be really, really evil?

Squeeee!

I have just learned of FLASH CS4!! And let me tell you: It. Looks. Fabulous.
View a demo here.

"Take a Good Look Around You"

Tonight, most bizarrely enough, I was inspired by A) my kitchen, and B) the book I just finished reading this afternoon - Girl, Interrupted by Susana Kaysen (highly recommended - great read). And thus was born: Kitchen Monsters.

Now, I'm not exactly sure why my kitchen decided to prod my creative juices into action, but I found something inspiring about its tacky-sixties feel and vomit-yellow tiles (sorry, there is absolutely no other way to describe that color!). Although none of these sketches are in color right now, I plan on doing some illustratory things with them I think. Certainly the above sketch begs some serious dramatic lighting. And that font? How perfect could that be? Weeee!


Susana Kayson's book actually isn't about monsters or anything to do with kitchens...it's more along the lines of a trip into the insane. Literally. I thought it was all very profound and provocative when she talked about reality and our perceptions of it with regard to different people. Each person's reality is different, so who's to say whose is right? What is the definition of a 'normal' reality? I've always wondered if people see the same colors as I do - artists are all attracted to different sets of colors that they use in their art....so maybe the copper-red you use looks more maroon to me. We'd both be right according to our own realities.
I could probably waffle on and on about that sort of thing, but its late and I have to watch Heroes (woo season premiere!). So I shall say that the ending of the book is absolutely fabulous and really gets your mind going, so go out and read it if you haven't already! :D

North End Part 2

Coupla sketches from today's escapade to North End (version 2.0!).

As luck would have it, there was some strange group of people all wearing headphones and mp3 players who would do random acts (presumably according to instructions through their headphones). They all froze for a good 7 minutes in rather nice poses - Sweet! I thought and started sketching them all. teehee.

Old dude in a wheelie-chairy thingie.

North End/Wharf

Big news this week: I became a UNITED STATES CITIZEN! Finally! Officially! For the first time in my life I have all the rights every other U.S. citizen takes for granted! Watch out Election Time, I am SO voting! Of course, there's something to be said for the naturalization process - the phenomenal amount of hoops you have to jump through and dough to fork over just to become part of a 'free' nation.
But I shall not complain! Instead, I shall move on to this week's sketches: Yesterday I spent a fabulous day out in the North End. Whereupon I rekindled my love of sketching architecture *_* I've always loved perspective and designing buildings. I'm planning on going back there next weekend to do some longer drawings, pending the weather forecast. These were done so quickly because I was with a bunch of very nice photographers, who of course can capture an image within a fraction of a second- while I'm sitting there frantically pencilling away. Also I think I'm going to try using darker pencils, the F's are just not working for me anymore (either that or just straight out use pen)....it may have to do with cheapo paper I'm using too (yeah $7 sketchbook from Barnes and Noble, haha).

Rainy

Kind of in a foul mood tonight. Nothing like having one of your future in-laws grind down your self confidence to nothing. Yup, fabulous.

Anyways. Went to the MFA and saw a really lovely Winslow Homer exhibit today. I had no idea his chalk and white watercolors were so brilliant! He could really make you feel fabric and form. I suddenly realized that his paintings have a lot of dark, dark tones in them, with small use of brilliant bright light as contrast. There was one particular piece that I liked because it sort of invoked an uncomfortable feeling when viewing it. Three kids laying/sitting in a field with a pretty puffy clouded sky above. It wasn't rendered in particular detail or anything, but the interesting thing was the way the light played on the figures and the background. The figures looked like they had been painted at noon, with strong light coming from directly above, while the background looked like dusk - dark shades so you could barely make out grass and trees. It was such a bizarre effect, and yet the painting held together to give off this anxious feeling for the kids. 'Get home quick!' I thought, 'before the night comes!' The blurb to the right of the painting kept waffling on about the innocence of youth and all that, but mentioned nothing of why he used such dark tones all the time. Guess he just liked painting in the dark!

Oh! One thing that did inspire me at the MFA was a wonderful installation I'd seen at the ICA a while ago. A glass case with mirrored glass bottles in it! It's hard to explain. They're reflected to the nth degree, everything reflecting in everything else to give you a sense of inifity in a closed space. Like viewing a hundred tiny cities. I wanted to take photos and use all those beautiful green and blue and grey colors in a painting.

No art of a worth-while nature to share today unfortunately. Been doing crap artwork this week. On the plus side I joined a boston group of comic-creators. So I'll have to put an ad up with them looking for a writer and maybe I can get a comic going and get it printed up all fancy-like!

Lordy, its oppressively hot tonight. Good thing I don't have A/C, that'd be totally refreshing right about now. >.<;

Mer-MAN! ::coughcough:: Mer-MAN!

Here's a teeny post before The Great Moving Weekend of Doom begins. My work is so fabulously understanding ^_^ Also the above title is a Zoolander reference for all those who haven't seen that movie. Go see it!

Could it be? Did I use TEXT in that sketch?? QUA?!

Le French

Inspired by the Amelie soundtrack, I drew some frenchy-flapper-esq sketches.


Maybe the caption for this one should be "when the hell am I getting married??" Ooooh how true. >.<;;

I say poe-tay-toe, you say poe-tah-toe

Here are a few photos of a quick sweater-fixup I did in the last hour or so. Took one of Jason's unused rather nice looking soft sweaters and shaved it down to my size!


Really all I did was sew a new body line through the torso and sleeves and then add button details to the shoulders (buttons that I'd taken off a pair of trousers! Mwahaha!). Woo new sweater!
Also, yesterday some guy stopped me in a restaurant and said, "I could tell by your accent, are you from Oregon?" To which I stared rather dumbly at him and replied, "er. no." It was pointed out that I was actually from Britain and the guy apologized and hurriedly delved back into his meal. A good laugh! I've never even been to Oregon! But apparently they sound like Americanized Brits over there...maybe I should check it out some day...perhaps LAIKA will hire me!

Alejandro the Fat Mexican

splash!

Here's an update on the webby: a splash page! yes, it definately shouts "i've just found the textured illustrator brushes"...but meh..it appears to work...ish...I dunno, what do you think? I pretty much fleshed out the other pages for the site, just have to add content illustrations, redo the reel and slap some floaty character animation swfs in there...and who knows, maybe it'll magically work.
I've been slowly inspired to do more stuffed animals recently...and the other day I endevoured to make a cupcake stuffie from a pattern I found online. Unfortunately the result was a bit...erm...sad...possibly the fattest, ugliest 2 inch cupcake ever. Oh well, maybe one day I'll get it right. I'll have to try marshmellows next, they're a nice simple cylindrical shape...
Also, we have a new apartment! hurrah we won't be homeless in two weeks! I've discovered the way to make an apartment feel complete is to put lots of pictures on the walls...most people never do this and thus their places are somewhat lacking. Altho, PACKING said pictures up and moving them will be a bit of a challenge...I'm hoping a big uhaul truck won't cost an arm and leg. Oops, missing project runway now!

Apparently I have been bitten by the Mosquito-us Vampiris...seriously, my elbow swelled up and all the muscles in my arm hurt. Hurrah allergic reactions >.<;;
Minor work on the webby so far, nothing really worth posting. Think I just watched one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a long time....the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai...an all-star cast and a tripped-out script. Lets see if the internet has lasted long enough for me to post this!

It's time to go home!

Illustrator doodle-of-a-day...

...shhhh >.>

Webby

Here's a quick mockup for the redesign of my (ye anciente) website. I need to update it PRONTO. >.<;

And now...to hastily vacuum the apt before people see it tomorrow....

Cats and fancy-do's

So I went to the grand reopening of the local Petco today. Snagged some goodies and about half their stock of cat food ::rolls eyes at pudgey kittens:: In amongst the loot, I found a Petco Bandana! And guess who got to wear it?? Yup that's right! Mr. Buttersworth himself! MWAHAHA. And now I present to you: Butter showing off some Petco Pride.

He was really mad at me and kept trying to hide in a corner. I told him to take it like a man, but he pointedly ignored me ^_~
Anyways, back to some art: here's a color comp of that illustrator sketch I uploaded like 3 entries ago. Not totally sold on the color palette (as I'm not a huge fan of bright purple, however my friend likes those colors and seeing as it's for her...)

Deep River Muster

Geeked out this weekend with a Fife and Drum Corp Muster down in Deep River, CT. I didn't actually play anything (since I'm still pretty craptacular at the fife), but it was fun to listen to the corps and watch the phenomenal amount of white trash wander around drinking beer. Got a few sketches down when the 'f' troupe started (that's the big jam session at the end of the evening).


By the time I decided to stop trying to sketch drummers (the fifers were hidden in the mass of drummers!), it was getting a bit dark. I soldiered on though! Started sketching my surroundings instead. Here are a few drums and tents in the background.


This sketch took me a while to realize that as the music crescendoed behind me, I was more and more frantically scribbling! I had to consciously slow myself down for fear of my sketchbook bursting into flames or my pen flying out of my hand. haha. It was at this point that I really wished I'd brought some paints (and a big floodlight to paint under!) because this food stand was lit with brilliant yellow-orange and white light - while everything else around it was dark green-purple. Maybe I should try a color sketch in photoshop. We got photos of it, but I find photography annoyingly unsatisfactory - since the colors never look the same as they do in real life.


Also been trying to get a handle on some more animation. Teaching myself the proper way to do a walk cycle from The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. Fabulously informative book with great writing and humor. Having a hard time switching back to keyframing versus straight ahead animation (which is essentially what I've been doing successfully for the past three years). Oh well, its like switching from digital art to paints, just requires a mental tweak. All this reading of animation techniques and looking at other people's work makes me realize how much of a gap there is in my animation education. Guess I gotta fill it with knowledge from books and stuff now!

Bit o' animation

It occurs to me that I haven't shown any animation on this blog yet. That said, here's a quickie I did tonight...link!
AND I watched Batman: Gotham Knight, which is awesome and on the whole, a heck of a lot better than the Animatrix. Hurrah for animation!

Hot, with a capital H.

That's right, it's hot. And humid. So damn hot in fact, that all productivity has come to a rather sweaty stop. Instead, I lie on my couch and bemoan about the stifling heat while succumbing to my ultimate nemesis: The Telly. Yes, that huge black box has hogged many hours of my life recently.
BUT! I've managed to do a little sketch for a friend and am currently in the process of coloring it in the computer. Here's the outline form from illustrator (it looks like a mess now - shapes are blocked in line form and will be filled later!):


I recently trekked up to Maine for a mini-Fourth of July vacation, which was fabulous (including perfect weather!). We swam and did some archery and cookouts and I tubed for the first time! Also rode around in a speedboat for the first time! Which oddly enough made me realize how well animated Elastigirl and kids were in the Incredibles when she turns into a speedboat and has Dash whizz them off to shore. Anyways, it was amazingly fun and I tried to sketch a few things and failed miserabley...possibley because there was so much other stuff to do...
Poor Skittles is lying underneath my fan, I don't think she's quite got the hang of standing in FRONT of it yet to get maximum cooling. Heh, poor hot cats.
And now...off to the only airconditioned room in the house! bleh!

Midnight

I wonder if I can upload these illustrations before its midnight? Here goes!


Slight tweak to the Germany illustration....added detail to the trees so it gives it a mite more complexity.


Egypt! I'm not happy with this one....I didn't have a clear color scheme from the beginning, except that I wanted it to be nighttime...which I'm not sure if that works well or not. Yellow and blue just aren't cutting it here. Neither is the cropping...it was originally skinny, but I made it square when I colorized it....seemed to need more space somehow...maybe I just need to add more detail to it or more pyramids...-_-


Ah HA! Paris! This one worked out well I think! I stole some colors from a Shag painting. :D And now....to bed!

One last post today!

Okay, one more post for today!

Char and Skittles in Germany!! YAY!

Citizenship!

I am now -> <- that close to being a citizen! I passed my citizenship test with flying colors (all red, white and blue of them hahaha), so now I just have to wait 'til September to take the official Oath and I'll be all squared away and truly American! Hurrah. While waiting in the waiting rooms, I sketched like a maniac....mostly to stem my own nervousness...thats probably why my lines are strangely more wiggly than usual!


Above is a shot of Government Center before I set foot in the building where my test was. It was very windy! but beautifully colored...not for the first time do I wish I'd carry markers with me.


In the waiting room before the civics test.


Having passed the test, I waited in ANOTHER waiting room for my interview. This took far too long and I eventually got so nervous I just stared at the wall - one of which had a rather nice quote from Clinton on it.


I endeavoured to draw everyone in the waiting room...but was afraid they'd turn around and see me drawing them..which would've been awkward. hah. I drew them anyway!

Cali Sketches

Finally got around to scanning some sketches from the California trip. I didn't do nearly as many as I'd've liked to....I was hurried off to new places every time I sat down to draw! I suppose thats the drawback of going with lots of people who aren't artists...they don't understand that insatiable desire to draw everything you see. We still had a good time though. (all comments are now below their respective pictures...easier to read this way i think!)

Above is a sketch of Coronado, the little beachy resorty place in front of San Diego. Rather nice, 'cept I got shat on by a pidgeon.


And here's a very rough sketch of these awesome fallen tree trunks in Muir Woods, it looked like a huge organic robot heaving itself out of a river bed! I might have to do a photoshop painting of it...


San Diego Zoo was fabulous. Although zoo's always make me feel bad for the animals (being cooped up in cages all day), the ability to observe their habits is great :D I found these hippos just floating underwater next to each other....one of them would put one foot down on a big rock underwater and just float there! hard to think such massive creatures could float so well!


Monkeys, cats and bears. All the animals had a habit of putting their backs to me. humph.


Koalas and Elephants! I could have stayed at the elephant enclosure all day, I must've stood their and watched them wander around and feed themselves for about 25 minutes. Their trunks are just incredible!! so big and powerful, yet able to pick up the tiniest piece of straw! I wish I had a video camera to record it and do an animation off it. ::sigh::


A real pen drawing of my parent's lovely back deck.
Those were the hilights. We did a lot of driving and snapping photos....mostly driving.