Fabulously Fancy Okapi [wip]

To start off this update with something entirely unrelated to the title, I have recently discovered Welcome to Night Vale, a podcast that can be downloaded/subscribed to entirely for free through iTunes (and some other site I can't remember off the top of my head). I've just finished episode 10 and it's only been two days, hahahaa. It's a good thing it's a podcast so I can work on stuff without being distracted.

That being said, though, now that these things have been posted in the Magic Box centrifuge, I decided to go ahead and store them here, as well. A few Okapi studies, the painting I'm using as a reference and my color comp for my fancy animal painting.

Berthe Morisot with a bouquet of violets, by Edouard Manet

I'm hoping to finish it within the next week, but, knowing how busy I am DURING the week with work, we'll just have to see if that actually works out or not. 

Semi-related, I'm also trying to find a decent sketchbook to use as my "professional" sketchbook. I really like how sketchbooks were 'organized' in this tutorial I found on DeviantArt and, although I'm waiting until I get back to Georgia to shop for one, it'd be nice if I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for. So if anyone knows of a specific sketchbook that sounds like 'The Legit Shit', please pass it on. c: I would very much appreciate it. 

I think that's all for this go-around. 

Side note: If you're looking for a feel-good book, I would highly recommend My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger. I've just finished it within the past week and I would definitely store it somewhere in my top-ten books. It's also put me in a determined state of mind to find Mary Poppins uploaded somewhere on the internet, but I have had no such luck thus far. Ah, well. It'll turn up somewhere. 

Until next time!

August Update Thingamagoop

Sorry for the severe lack of updates this summer. Things have been a bit weird and I've been pretty busy and exhausted with my job. I've been struggling with, of all things, a fear of drawing or something. I don't know, I guess just a severe lack of confidence. But, here're a few things I've doodled over the past 2 weeks or so.

Real quick sketch for some pals who were blue one evening

Sketch for a friend because it was her character's birthday

Pencil sketch of Rose (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Another pencil of Rose

Drawing for an Ib-themed AU roleplay I'm doing; not my character

Detail shot since on tumblr it wouldn't resize correctly

Hopefully I'll finish some more things before the summer's over. DeviantArt doesn't appear to be letting me upload anything no matter what I do with Chrome (weird), so, this and tumblr seems to be my only means of posting art. I'll probably keep things over here.

Also I've started watching Attack on Titan, so, that's been slaughtering me emotionally. I'd draw things for it, but the fandom is so full of talented artists, I just... don't know what I'd do. <xD Ahgh.

Quick painting - Rose Thomas

Sorry about the lack of update last week! With crunch and finals week coming up for this quarter, I've been a bit of a busy bee.

This afternoon, however, I found myself doing a quick painting of Rose Thomas, a character from Fullmetal Alchemist. This was my first time drawing her and also my first time using some painting techniques I've learned from Chris Oatley's "The Magic Box".

Spent maybe an hour and a half on it? Not quite sure. Just wanted to mess around with the tools and stuff.

I also sketched this a few nights ago for no reason.

More of a 10 to 15 minute thing. If even that. I just wanted to mess with the half-tones tool.

That's all I got for now! More things to come once the school quarter's over.

Ballerina Scribbles

Augh. Today's update isn't going to be as nice as I'd hoped. I had the misfortune of deciding to pick Supernatural back up today and ended up spending most of my afternoon flailing at the computer screen.

But! I had promised an update involving my soon to come senior film for next year, so, I'll at least give you what I have. I was going to post some marker tests, too, but my scanner totally ate the colors. If it wasn't so late I'd fidget with it some more, but, I'm exhausted. Until then, have a few scribbles towards working out my protagonist's design.

More as far as story coming soon. And there will definitely be more elaborate concept art as well. But for now, it's just been a bunch of pencil doodles and scribbles in my portable sketchbook.

Sorry about the lack luster update! Hopefully next weekend I'll have a bit more substance.

5 minute gestures and some sketches

Alright! I've been really excited to get this blog up and rolling, but I wanted to make sure I had all my ducks in a row before I so much as burst from the starting gate. I think at long last, I'm finally ready to see how this goes.

I hope to use this blog to not only give me a weekly goal to strive towards (such as some sort of weekly project or something to keep me making things), but also to sort of journal my progress, thoughts and document new things I want to try out or learn from. Other things, too, I'm sure. I won't bore you with a giant introduction.

So let's start this out with a small bundle of 5-minute gestures I've done throughout this last week.

And now a few other sketches that I've also done throughout the week both in my Strathmore sketchbook and my smaller moleskin sketchbook. 

Harpie sketch (profile)

Harpie sketch (three-quarter)

Big Daddy* scribble by memory (2 1/2 inches tall)

Thumbnail concept for senior thesis film

Yep! Here's to finally kicking off this little blog and hopefully I can keep on some kind of an update schedule.  My goal is to update it at least once a week, Saturday or Sunday at the latest. But it can be anything, from concept thumbnails to gestures to possibly spending the week on some sort of bigger project. So long as something updates.

Over the summer and fall, there will probably be a lot of concepts towards my senior thesis film.

Thanks! :)

*Big Daddy (c) Bioshock series