Fluff and Jujubees

Birds, Rats, Tree

2012-01-24T11:41:00.000-05:00

A rather unimaginative title I'm afraid. I think I might rename it "Black versus White" when the time comes. heh.

The Fox and the Hare

2012-01-16T00:04:00.001-05:00

Part of me really wants to cut out the hare and the fox and put them on separate sheets of glass in a 3D frame, with the background behind them on another piece of glass. I'm not sure if that'll look silly though. I think I sold my old 3D frame too, which is a bummer. Only now do I realize I could've used half the stuff I sold before I moved across the country. Derp.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T13:29:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Walls

2011-08-01T18:27:00.000-04:00

This will be the last post for a while, as I journey across the country to a new life in San Fran. Kinda wish I had better artwork to share really.
I really dig the recent fad of adding painted things to photos of real places. I wanted to go for the fake-grafiti look with some sketches on real walls with people nonchalantly leaning against them. Unfortunately I have no good photos for that. I should go out and take a few photos of people I know against fun walls, then apply some potatoshop painted ladies. I like the concept. We'll consider this just a rough idea pass then.

Distractions...

2011-07-28T13:54:00.000-04:00

Cinderelly

2011-07-20T15:38:00.000-04:00

Sidewalk Coffee

2011-07-20T15:34:00.000-04:00

Harvard Natural History Museum

2011-07-09T18:21:00.000-04:00

Went sketching at the Harvard Natural History Museum today with a bunch of folks from the Boston Sketch Meetup group. I'll tell ya, dead things are far easier to draw than their live counterparts. That llama stayed still the WHOLE TIME. Hahaha.
Bengal Tiger:

Llama:

Indian Fruit Bat:

Grant's Gazelle (yeah I got bored of rendering the horns, so I wandered around the rest of the museum instead):

Tomorrow I'll be photographing LIVE animals at the Southwick zoo! Woohoo!

Volume IV bookplate

2011-06-16T21:23:00.000-04:00

I should start a mass of these...accidentally greek inspired! :D

Girls Drawin Girls Volume IV!

2011-06-12T13:46:00.000-04:00

Hey guys! As I mentioned in a previous post, Girls Drawin Girls has a new Volume IV book coming out. Pre-sales are now LIVE! Visit this link to order a copy of this fabulous book! It's going to be awesome - full color, hardcover and 174 pages! It's got 83 super talented artists' work in it. Pre-sales include free shipping AND a free bookplate designed by a GDG member! Go forth and buy! :D:D

New Website Additions

2011-06-05T13:34:00.000-04:00

My website address has now changed to kat.kafal.as. Up there you can find a new reel and illustrations from the latest games I've worked on - The Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Zoo Kingdom, as well as concepts from a game currently in development. Check it out and let me know what you think! Thanks! :)

Poison Ivy

2011-06-05T13:29:00.000-04:00

Girls Drawing Girls will soon release an awesome book chock full of fabulous flora-related illustrations. I was lucky enough to participate in it and for it I chose to do Poison Ivy. No, not the Batman baddie....the actual plant, you know the one that makes you SO ITCHY.
Here she is!

I'll post up info on how to get your hands on this book later. Enjoy!

A Touch of Crochet

2011-04-05T17:34:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to build up an army of crochet cuteness. >:] Slowly does it!
Teabag and cup:

Dimple Bunneh:

Green fruit thing that refused to be something real:

The Dad Dance

2011-03-23T08:12:00.000-04:00

Everyone's dad does something silly and quirky that's unique to them. My dad does a silly dance that we all love and rib him for endlessly. We even do it ourselves now! So I made him a diagram of his own dance, for kicks. hehe ;)

Janelle Monae

2011-03-16T23:37:00.001-04:00

One of my friends recently got me into Janelle Monae's music. Amazing stuff, she's super talented and my favorite thing of all (this makes my inner feminist absolutely delighted) - she doesn't need to prance around in her underwear to be awesome and sexy.
Thus I drew her in her rockin' 60's tuxedo glory.

I really tried to give the illos more 'tude, but being a person without 'tude myself, it was a tough sell.

The Search For Spock

2011-02-09T21:18:00.000-05:00

I love that scene at the end when the planet blows up in a big ball of lava and the Klingon bird of prey skoots out of the way JUST in time.

Tronification

2010-11-14T18:50:00.001-05:00

Now, I'm a fairly nerdy person and so I am VERY MUCH looking forward to Tron Legacy when it comes out in December! In anticipation I downloaded some wall papers and thought I'd do a little illustration to celebrate my love of glowy blacklight gaming movies. Hur hur.

Girls Drawing Girls 2011 Calendar

2010-11-14T18:30:00.000-05:00

I recently snagged the opportunity to create a illustration for the Girls Drawin' Girls 2011 calendar. I teamed up with seriously talented artist Kassandra Heller to create an illustration for the month of April.

Here's the initial sketch of our composition.

And here's the final product!

If you want to see (and own!) more awesome GDG artwork, then grab the calendar before its sold out! Quick, like bunnies! You even get free shipping and a free button before the 18th :D

Inbound 5

2010-11-14T18:15:00.001-05:00

Hello blog! I haven't been on here for ages, but I promise I HAVE been doing stuff. Lots of stuff actually.

Remember the cat comic I made a while ago? Well, it's now on sale as part of the Inbound 5 Boston Comics Roundtable Anthology! Ta Da!

There's a lot of really smashing stuff in the book, so I recommend you click here to go to the BCR shop and snag a copy before they sell out! :D

Anniversary Birdies Part Deux

2010-08-15T19:43:00.000-04:00

So I abandoned the cut-paper-on-canvas thing after finishing it and varnishing it. I just suck at cutting things out really small and without tiny details the whole design sort of fell apart. Even with the pretty paper. ::sigh:: Oh well. Better luck next time!
In lieu of having nothing to give my grandparents for their 60th anniversary, I remade the bird idea in Illustrator and printed it out on heavyweight matte paper. I reused a frame I got from a yard sale (two for 8 bucks! what a deal!) that had some really ugly faded 80's artwork in it. I've never reused a frame like that before...screws and wire and fancy brackets! Fortunately I managed to screw it all back together with my new artwork in it. It's small, but it works! Here's hoping it'll stand up to being in my suitcase. I'll pad it EXTRA carefully.

Anniversary Birdies

2010-08-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

Here's a new project I've set myself: a paper collage on canvas for my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary.
So here's the sketch I came up with in Flash (background scanned from the actual sheet of scrapbooking paper I'm using)

And here's how its going so far. Only the background is glued down, figured I'd get all the bits and pieces in place before finalizing with glue. I'm going to try painting over a glossy varnish when done, just to seal it all in place properly (here's hoping that works). I've never tried paper collage to this extent before, but I must say its a wonderfully different feel from paint and digital. It also makes me realize I'm using the oldest cutting mat in existence and the manliest exacto knife evah.

Back With a Comic!

2010-07-17T19:27:00.000-04:00

Dear blog, I apologize for leaving you alone for so long. I can only hope that this comic I've been working on for the last month can make up for it a little bit :)
love,
Kat

Shiny

2010-05-06T21:50:00.000-04:00

I must admit, I've gone a bit head-over-heels for this photography thing lately. I promise I will get back to sketches soon, but in the meantime you can head on over to my flickr page and check out my latest photos.

Butterflies

2010-05-02T21:13:00.000-04:00

Why hello dear blog! Sadly I have no new drawings to show, but I did recently purchase a Canon T1i digital SLR which is FAB and I positively drool over it whenever I take it out of the bag. So here are some of the first photos I took with it last weekend.
Jason and I went to a butterfly sanctuary out in Chelmsford and took photos for a friend. I busied myself trying to capture butterflies and tried to focus on getting good color shots. The lens I was using was good for closeups, but I would prefer something with a slightly bigger depth of field as most of my shots came out too blurry - with the focus of the picture on the leaf IN FRONT of the butterfly I was trying to photograph. >.<;

Now, I really wish I'd gotten a better shot of this one, as the pink behind the butterfly (which was someone's shirt) really nicely contrasted the butterfly itself (which was also moving).
Here are a couple non-butterfly photos. I found a house that had these great lion statues outside their front porch. So I made them black and white and went for that aged look. Could probably look better in Lightroom than Photoshop.

Potholio

2010-03-16T19:24:00.001-04:00

Although, I suppose after this last four-day rainstorm, I guess the best solution would be to get in a boat and row yourself over it.

Armless Couple in Color

2010-02-28T22:53:00.001-05:00

Final color for the armless couple...think I'm going to call this one Tea At Two.

Holga photos

2010-02-28T14:31:00.000-05:00

First photos from the Holga came out pretty good! Night photography's going to be tricky...I think the Holga rocks the blue skies and colored flash indoors.
See more holga photos on my Flickr account! Go here!

Wolfboy and Bearded Lady

2010-02-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

More Freak Show pieces...both watercolor and pen on watercolor paper. Wolfboy is actually quite tiny at 5x7, since I ran out of 9x12 paper >.< He also ended up more hip-dj than I had intended, but I think it works well. :)

Totally 'Armless

2010-02-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

Here's what will eventually be a watercolor painting for an upcoming show about freaks and sideshow acts. If they let me in that is.

Three Dee

2010-02-07T19:06:00.000-05:00

During this past week I decided I'm going to teach myself how to use Maya, since knowledge of a 3d program is pretty much mandatory if you want to land a job anywhere in the animation industry these days (sigh). So, after a few days of dabbling, swearing (why must there be so many hidden menus?!) and a lot of "oooh that's what that does", here's what I managed to slap together.

I'm rather proud of it, despite that it looks totally noob-tastic...it's my first real foray into the wide world of three dee! I managed to make my own texture map for the mushrooms...though you can't see most of it because of the deep shadows (I loooves me some high contrast lighting..its like working in charcoal!). And I managed to shove my own background in there too. The earthen surface was a texture jpg I got off texturez.com, a great source for free textures!
In all in all, it's definately opened my eyes to creating things in 3D, though my heart will always belong to 2D! I'd forgotten how much fun it is to learn new stuff! Weee!

60's Three

2010-01-31T18:36:00.000-05:00

Here we go...all three finished paintings. Acrylic on canvas.

Plaid and big hats

2010-01-24T13:31:00.000-05:00

Another 60's inspired gal. Acrylic on canvas...and prismacolor marker for the outline because I didn't have a small enough brush.

Sticking Plaster

2010-01-18T22:38:00.000-05:00

My brother and I both love Tintin comics, so in celebration of this (and the forth coming film!) and the fact that tomorrow is my brother's birthday, I made him this card! It's actually an accordian card in real life..but reads as a strip anyway. I used potatoshop for coloring and text.
I'm quite tempted to do more Tintin fan art...who knows, maybe there'll be a blog dedicated to Tintin fan art in the near future (or is there one already?), just in time for the movie release!

60's Glam and Go Go

2010-01-16T22:06:00.000-05:00

I've spent the last week toggling through the Sartorialist's blog and various vintage flickr pages for inspiration. Voilá! Sketches aplenty! However, after a stressful last couple of weeks, all I wanted to do was some mindless copying of reference photos. At least that way you don't have to worry about composition and rendering and stuff. Anyway, I'm not going to post those, BUT they did inspire me to do an Illustrator painting...which unintentionally turned out to be a go-go Mary Poppins. And in fact, I have at least another two 60's style sketches in the works.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!
Here are a few paintings I did for christmas. First, a 'history of cameras' set for my friend who is into photography. Acrylic on acrylic board paper (it's actually really nice to paint on!). Probably should've done these in gouache, but seeing as the price of gouache has spun wildly out of control recently, no gouache for me. Stupidly, I took photos of the paintings when they were in frames and had a hard time getting around the reflections...so the colors aren't exact. >.<;

A digital painting for my future aunt and uncle-in-law! This is the church where they got married about 5 years ago.

Christmas card

2009-12-07T18:37:00.000-05:00

Despite feeling like this for the last few days:

I've actually managed to complete my christmas card for this year. Now I have to print them out and mail them...

Audrey Charcoal

2009-11-22T22:36:00.001-05:00

Finally! An Audrey Hepburn that looks like Audrey Hepburn! Compressed and vine charcoal. 11 x 14" framed. Done for a christmas present for my friend who is also obssessed with Audrey H. ^_^
Next on the to-do list: a Snowy painting for my brother! Bring it, Christmas!

Fotografia

2009-11-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

I don't have any artwork to share this week, since all of it turned out crappy...three pictures of Audrey Hepburn and I STILL can't get her right! What a mysterious woman.
Anyway, since I've always secretly wanted to be a professional photographer, I've been absorbing a lot of Holga and Diana photos recently and that classic vintage-vignette look. I'm hoping to get a Holga for christmas so I can endeavour to take some authentic artsy shots without having to resort to photoshop to fake it. I think its more fun to get the effect from a manual process rather than through a computer. There's something almost magical about handling clunky equipment from 40 years ago, its all so hands-on. And the end result is always a surprise! Funny how that also happens to my stuffed animals when I make them...hah.
So here's some photos from my last trip to California back in June (yeah I know that was like five months ago). Most of them are not vintagey - although two of them I shoved vignettes on and a bit of blurring in PS.

Ok, so the one below is just a picture of a really neat tree, check out that hole!

Audrey Hepburn

2009-11-02T23:42:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I really have to fix her face so she LOOKS like dear Audrey...but that costume? how can you NOT draw it?? :D

My First Crochet

2009-10-25T10:56:00.002-04:00

Sounds like a children's book doesn't it? Actually, I spent last weekend teaching myself how to crochet so that I could make this little guy:

from this book. It's not a bad little book, once you've youtubed how to the heck to do a single crochet stitch...although my stuffie turned out rather larger than the pictures in the book imply...I think my stitches are a little on the large side. erk.
Projects that are now on my plate: Crochet a hat. Crochet a scarf. And today's project is making a Max hat from Where the Wild Things Are.

Kittinger

2009-10-18T13:21:00.000-04:00

Inspired by the phenomenal free-fall of Joseph Kittinger (he parachuted from SPACE pracically!), I think I may be starting an animation about him. Here are two rough sketches....look/feel sort of things. Haven't got the whole thing worked out yet and a lot of it is still undefined. But...maybe I can pull this off! Of course, I'm going to have to relearn After Effects (it's been a while!), but I'm pretty sure I can do that. The secret is to not feel pressured...otherwise it'll all blow away like dandelion seeds in the wind.

The Bus Stop

2009-09-30T23:07:00.000-04:00

Now, I commute in a car, but I've always had a soft spot for public transportation. The people are just fascinating. Any time you want character inspiration, just jump on a train or bus and the muse has you! Of course, drawing on actual said bus/train presents its own challenges...being jostled and whatnot.
Anyway, somewhat but not entirely unrelated: I decided to do a bus stop series. Because, well because I just drew it and that's what came out. Sometimes having no plan when you draw, you accidentally stumble upon one! hah!
Also in lieu of having to draw the same background over and over and over for the past two weeks at work, I've REFUSED to do a background for these. So there. Enjoy!

Basement neighbors

2009-09-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

My friend told me last week that she had discovered a couple randomly living in the basement of her apartment building. I thought it must be quite alarming to walk down to the basement, about to do laundry, and suddenly find someone was LIVING there!
"Oh...er...hi. Er...I'll...I'll just go then shall I?"

Teen Titans Space Tea Party!

2009-09-21T00:28:00.000-04:00

I read a really awesome Tiny Titans comic this weekend. It's gotten me back into Teen Titans! woo!

Potatoshop coloring

2009-09-17T22:55:00.000-04:00

I saw this woman walking past me while I was stuck in traffic going home. Thought her outfit was cute! I hurriedly made a mental note of what she looked like and where she was...I also definately didn't try to sketch her while I was driving (ok - it's not like I was moving! I even put the car in Park! That's ok right?!?). 9_9;;
Based off this guy's style.

King Richard's Faire paintings Part II

2009-09-13T23:08:00.001-04:00

The second set of the King Richard's Faire paintings. The princess was actually wearing a pink dress and had BRIGHT red hair, but I thought she looked too much like Kirsten Dunst from the Spiderman movies (shudder), so I made it yellow. haha.

King Richard's Faire paintings

2009-09-11T08:05:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I went to King Richard's Faire. I went for the "suave photographer" look with the intention that I'd do what the Sartorialist does and take brilliantly lit perfect portraiture/fashion photos...unfortunately, most of them were useless shots (also I got written up for using an oversize "canon" wah wah waah). BUT! I managed to take a bunch of semi-decent ones of the various people dressed up in their ren faire garb, enough to at least make these paintings of them! Here are two paintings I inked and painted last night. I actually did two more paintings, but they're waiting to be inked so I'll be posting them at a later date. Enjoy!

K-Waddell-Dot-Com!

2009-09-04T17:32:00.000-04:00

Completed in all its shiny-new glory! Click the image to go there!

After an Absence

2009-09-04T17:08:00.000-04:00

I haven't been on here much in the last few weeks. My grandmother passed away two weeks ago. Last week I went over to England for the funeral and stayed around a couple of days. Can't really say I helped out much - there was much to organize, but being an ocean away, it's hard to get involved. My mum was a complete champion through everything, she's really the strongest and most wonderful person I've ever known.
While I was there I managed to do some drawing (really just to focus on something). This first image is an amalgamation of drawings from the various airports going to and from Britain - Washington, Logan, Heathrow. Airports are the best places to people-watch - people are usually so absorbed by their own activities that they never notice if they're being sketched. They also tend to hold still for longer (particularly if sitting at a gate)!

And these are a few doodles of my cousin Ellie, dog Lilly and my brother pulling a fishie-face (also known as the Twerpy Beak!).

Some sketches and a painting

2009-08-09T23:37:00.000-04:00

Sketches of some of my friends at a party last friday.

And here's a couple from Boston Common on Saturday while waiting for a shopping expedition! I tried drawing the fire truck first, but halfway through the sketch the firemen got in and took off in it! Guess I have to learn to sketch faster...

And finally here's a watercolor painting I did the other day. I based it off a magazine clipping from my secret collection of fashion mag reference.

SUNscreen

2009-08-04T15:21:00.000-04:00

Moral to this comic: don't go to cape cod thinking you can survive without sunscreen. You'll turn into a lizard. For SERIOUS.

Japan and Jazz

2009-07-29T23:24:00.001-04:00

It's late, but I have these to share before I go to bed. Inspired by Kevin Dart's new book, Seductive Espionage. And by McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR.

50's cars

2009-07-27T23:28:00.000-04:00

I had a sudden urge to draw some 50's cars today. Not entirely sure where said urge came from, but apparently if you google 'rusted chevrolet' you get some nice results, including some seriously awesome flickr photos. So I copied a couple photos and embellished with pen, colored pencil, brush pen and prismacolor markers. Weee!

Jewelry

2009-07-26T15:37:00.001-04:00

Blerh. Its too hot to do anything! Except upload some jewelry I made this weekend for my cousins! Enjoy!

Astro-self!

2009-07-20T22:32:00.001-04:00

Here's me as an astronaut - made for my new website which will be up VERY shortly (I'm so excited!). It's going to be in wordpress, so the whole blogaroo will be part of it! Fancy that! And yes, even in space I shall drink tea! ;p

Some watercolor sketches

2009-07-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

Throwin' some rather crappy watercolor sketches on here just for kicks on Sunday. Trying to get the hang of watercolors again, its been a while and I'm a tad rusty! Thought I'd start with flowers as they have simple shapes and bright colors.

More Sock Animals

2009-07-19T11:18:00.000-04:00

Three more stuffed sock animals for the collection! Actually I think two of these are going off to my cousins in Britain. I should probably stop getting attached to them so I can post them off sooner! haha.

Above is Hector. He's a rather nervous fellow and dislikes small enclosed areas, so he always has to be high up on a shelf so he can see everything going on around him.

This is Billy, he's a Scaredbear - a subspecies of bear that is absolutely terrified of everything. Cat's? Terrifying! Cardboard boxes? Horror! Lint? AHHH! On the plus side, he's rather soft and huggable! I made him out of an inside-out argile sock, which actually looks way cooler than the "right" side! ha!

And this is Sir Claude Pompier, cousin to The Great Zambini. He's french, stuck up and likes to wear thick jumpers and berets while puffing on a herbal cigarette. He likes to ask Mr. Zambini when he's "going to stop faffing around with little wands and hankies and get a real job".

Where the Wild Things Are Part TWO

2009-07-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

In continuation of my last post, here are my finished Wild Thing stuffies! (and much better photographed, thanks to Jason's camera!)

Also, here's a photo of the official super-awesome printed Harvest comics sold at MoCCA! My star wars fan-comic ended up being the first page in And Don't Forget the Droids (which I believe is the third volume?) Hurrah! They look really spiffy all printed in full color, Shelli put a LOT of work into these! Well done Shelli!! By the way, they're still for sale online, so if you love star wars and want to support comic artists go buy some!! (I suggest buying all three volumes!)

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-07-05T23:34:00.001-04:00

I've recently been very inspired by a blog all about Where the Wild Things Are. There, guest artists contribute artwork based off the children's book! Each contribution has its own style and atmosphere, they're all really wonderful and imaginative pieces! Check it out here.
So I spent most of today creating Wild Thing related art...

And because a Wild Things post wouldn't be complete without its very own stuffie:

Unfortunately my camera has decided to take only BAD pictures of things...so that explains the rather atrocious lighting quality.

Superheroes

2009-06-07T22:36:00.000-04:00

Even thought I mostly grew up with Marvel superheroes like the x-men, I do have a soft spot for some DC characters; Batman and Catwoman to boot! I think my favorite superhero of all time is probably Batman - maybe because he's awesome even without powers. That said, here's a little timeline for the dear old Bat.
Youngin' to old'n. (in that last one he's supposed to be being pushed by Nightwing - although at the time I couldn't remember what Nightwing's costume looked like!)

And here's a FAT Wonder Woman! Believe it or not, there's actually a whole blog devoted to Fat Wonder Woman (here)! It has many renditions of Wonder Woman once she's let herself "go". Hehe!

Rabbits and bags

2009-06-01T08:24:00.000-04:00

Rabbit, assistant to the famed Great Zambini, lives! Here he is, complete with newsboy hat!

And here's a bag I made out of some pretty awesome fabric I found at Joann's the other week. Although the amusing thing was, while looking at inspiration on etsy, I found a bag with the exact same fabric choice! hah. What are the odds?

Beach Combing

2009-05-18T22:22:00.000-04:00

Mr.Zambini wrote me a lovely email tale of crabs and pirates and beach treasures. I was inspired to do a mini-painting (mini 'cause I did it at 72 dpi, who knows what possessed me to do that).

'Cuz James Bond is cool...

2009-05-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

Two posts in one day! I'm on a roll...

Star Wars Comic

2009-05-17T17:06:00.000-04:00

Colored, finished comic. Not sure I'm too happy with this one...

Comics and Magicians

2009-05-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

Hello Señior Blog! How have you been? Thank goodness my mental art muse decided to come back from vacation, cuz boy was I stuffed without her! Two weeks of terrible, terrible art. But now! I am back in action! ZZING!
Here's a Zambini picture I made for mother's day.
My mum's set up a Zambini gmail address, so now we're going to email each other from the Great Zambini. Who knows, maybe it'll spin into something worth publishing as a little book! Hehe!
In other news, I've been invited to do a one page Star Wars comic for a fan book called "Harvest is When I Need You the Most" (here). So far it looks like this:
Very much in-process, but at least in Illustrator with all the lines done. Now to tackle color!

The Amazing Yavin.

2009-04-05T19:09:00.001-04:00

Sadly, I had to abandon the oil painting from my post a few weeks ago. I do not own oil paints! Although really that's no excuse not to go get some. I finished this one in illustrator and photoshop - using a photo of the oil painting to trace the character and flame. I was quite chuffed with it! :)

Who ya gonna call?!

2009-03-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

Ghostbusters!! That's right! If Dave Perillo can make illustrations of movie characters, why the devil can't I??

Oils and kittens!

2009-03-15T14:15:00.000-04:00

This week I forayed into the world of OIL PAINTING. Woah. I must say, it beats the pants off acrylics! Altho this was my official First Time painting with oils, I had lots of fun! Being able to put paint on your canvas and NOT have it dry in about ten microseconds is a blessing! That said, I did realize that I paint FAR too anally and need to loosen up a whole bunch. Need to not focus on creating something decent, but relax and let the paint lead. As such, I'm not really diggin' the painting and need to get it done and see where I stand then. Maybe I'll just gesso over it and start again.
While I was painting (oil paints and space to paint in all graciously lent to me by Nichole! thanks!!) I realized that I was using oils exactly like acrylics, which is probably not the best way to use them. I realized that when I mix colors on my palette I tend to mix every on top of each other...mostly because when I do this with acrylics, everything has already dried. Miraculously I managed to NOT get a big puddle of mud on there. heh. So this is Yavin The Fire-Eater:

It's been such beautifully warm weather this weekend, I finally had a chance to reopen the sunroom! Needless to say, the kittens are very happy about it. Skittles has already spent many hours sleeping in there and even managed to entertain a fly around the room! Somewhat documented it:

And just because its fun, here's Butter:

Sock Animals

2009-03-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

I was productive this weekend and made a couple sock animals for my mum and my nan (belated birthday presents). After making them on saturday, I decided I needed to add an illustration to each of them, explaining their professions.
The Great Zambini: Magician!

Yavin: Russian Fire Eater! (that's eating FIRE not Russians)

Also, that snow by the windows in the photos? yeah, that's on the INSIDE. It snowed on the INSIDE of my sunroom. Friggin' New England. >.<;; Also Yavin's illustration isn't done yet. Sketched, but not computerized. Phooey.

Planning paintings...

2009-02-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

In lieu of possibley/maybe/hopefully getting a gallery gig, I realized that I haven't done any actual REAL physical non-computer art for a long time! Shame on me. So I've decided to start a couple pieces and maybe dabble with the long-forgotten gouache paints!
Here is the return of the Adventures of Skittles and Charlotte - color studies for their Great Bank Heist (cuz really, how else can you afford to travel around the world and visit Butter in space??).
I'm thinking possibly getting some long, smooth boards and painting on those. Or maybe just some nice paper. I'm not sure. I kind of want a little texture in the backgrounds - probably just something I can get with a dry brush...altho the thought of collaging is tempting...and using the grain of a funky wood would be cool too. Anyways, I need to find somewhere that sells 12x5 boards...>.> home despot? pearl?
Ok, now I must go play with Butter, before he meows his little head off for neglecting him. Oy kittens are demanding.

Robot Love

2009-02-12T20:55:00.001-05:00

'Tis the time of the season..for crazy robot lovin'.

The last days of winter.

2009-01-31T16:06:00.000-05:00

(I wish!)

Experimenting with heavy texture...

2009-01-29T21:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I discovered another wonderful artist to admire and draw inspiration from: Matthieu Forichon. Here's his blog. His style is almost reminiscent of Galaxy Express 999, but FRENCH and awesome. I think he does most of his stuff in photoshop with varied brushes and texture overlays...at least that's what I've gathered from his blog (its all in French and I can only understand about 2 words - the ones that look most like english words! haha).
Also helping me understand more about texture was a making-of video I saw yesterday. The making of a short film called The Tale of How, explained layering textures and video (which is totally something I've never thought of doing before!) footage together for a very organic look and feel, even for 3D. I think it mentions having over 300 layers of stuff in a single scene! holey moley!
Anyways, I decided to do my own Forichon-texturemania-inspired piece.

For posterity's sake, I'll include a step-by-step sort of thing, so you can see what it came from! teehee!
Ok, Step 1:

Sketch! I do thumbnails as tiny as humanly possible - i think this is about an inch by 2 inches. >.<;;

Step 2:

Illustrator-ma-fy it! Penned around all the shapes and did the character with different line color so I could distinguish all the bits and make it easier to fill them later.

Step 3:

Fill with color! I started with a palette from kuler, but the colors sort of had a mind of their own and went all red-bluegreen on me. hehe. Put some transparent shadows in there to get some abstract forms going in the background...

And then I plopped it in photoshop and added about three different textures to it at varying degrees of 'mulitply' and layer opacity. As well as some yellow brush work for the windows 'glowing' - I LOVE glowy effects...I dunno what it is about it, it just makes it look so much cooler. hahaha. And viola!

Holiday Shopping

2009-01-15T23:24:00.000-05:00

It's never too late for a Christmas illustration right? Here's a quickie (well not really that quick >.<). Based this illustration off a photo my mum sent me of a cute girl in a department store standing around with two little santa-outfitted dogs. I added mischief! And textures!

Mr. Christmas Post

2008-12-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-11-20T22:35:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-11-13T23:35:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

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...

2008-11-10T16:12:00.000-05:00

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

England-Land

2008-11-02T17:47:00.000-05:00

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

2008-10-05T16:53:00.000-04:00

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...

2008-09-28T18:56:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-27T22:41:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-09-25T16:50:00.001-04:00

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"

2008-09-22T20:49:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-20T18:53:00.001-04:00

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

2008-09-14T23:37:00.000-04:00

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).

2008-09-09T16:31:00.000-04:00

Rainy

2008-09-06T20:48:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-28T15:57:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-20T22:54:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-17T21:22:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-14T22:23:00.001-04:00

splash!

2008-08-13T22:47:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-07T20:48:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-07-31T17:08:00.001-04:00

Illustrator doodle-of-a-day...

...shhhh >.>

Webby

2008-07-28T22:09:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-23T21:31:00.000-04:00

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...)