Some more Fall 2010 semester work

(I sat for a couple minutes trying to think of a good title, but could not come up with a good one. Oh well).

Here is some more work from my Tools of the Trade class I took this Fall, 2010, including a couple process-related items, too. This first piece was made after we were assigned to look at the website wefeelfine.org, which collects information from blog posts across the internet, many having to do with feelings or emotions. The blog I chose had to do with a woman who wanted to conquer a 101-item to-do list in 1001 days. All of the objects in the piece are related to items on her to-do list. Here is a link to the original blog and post:http://spooktastic.typepad.com/blog/

(Above) is the full-size version...

...and just a quick crop, to see how that may improve the composition. During critique, this was something that was suggested. I would move the health bars and some of the background elements in along with the crop, if I were to do a final version.

The following (below) are scans of an assignment involving "fashion", and with the requirement to use watercolor. I chose to depict some twigs "wearing" leaves and bark, and I tried to make use of the medium as best I could, working much more slowly and carefully than I usually do. Reference photos follow the illustrations.

The next two pieces are a diptych, created from the prompt, "human/animal", which could be anything involving humans and animals, with some kind of thing connecting the two. I just drew a human pooping, and a human using a scratching post, with an animal in the background as the master; so, reversal of roles.

Oh, and it was required to use acrylic... I chose to do a less-careful method I guess, working without really layering or cleaning my brush a ton, and mixing it often when the paint was still wet on the paper.

Delicious cigarettes

I decided to have a shorter and more eye-catching blog post title this time (which I noticed other bloggers do, so I thought I ought to try it out too :P ).

Anyway, this my final illustration for Illustration Topics, in progress. I really like where it's going right now; I'm using some elements of texture that I have not really done before, and I'm excited about the color as well (I have to give credit to Tom Garrett, and also Teagan White, for some of the color suggestions. One of these days I will absorb their color know-how into my brain well enough to think of good backdrops and line colors and such). I'm not sure how I like using the realistically drawn figure; BUT, I do like how I have it kinda surreal, with her cut off, and the floating cigarettes.. in some weird way I like that...weirdness, instead of a completely realistic illustration.

Oh, and what it's about: we had several short phrases or just single words to select from, and I chose 'Delicious' (I also considered 'Chain Reaction'...so, somehow this may be related to that, too). Anyway, it's about cigarettes and people who smoke them, and how 'deliciously addictive' they are, but then at the same time obviously unhealthy; but people for some reason like doing this unhealthy, maybe 'edgy' thing, and sometimes they even try to make it look glamorous or sexy. But in the end it's just unhealthy, and I personally don't understand why people smoke, and I think the attraction factor goes way down (in my book at least) when I find out someone smokes. So, it may be about seeing an attractive person, then finding out they smoke, and then that's all I can think about, forgetting about the initial attraction.

It MAY change in composition for the final, but probably not. There will be more textures on the smoke probably...we shall see where it goes. It's going to be a 30" x 40" print out :O

A biographical comic from Intro to Comics

Intro to Comics was a while ago (Spring 2009), but I was going through some folders and finding things I thought would be fun to post. So, here's a 2-page, biographical comic, about the war-time journalist Ernie Pyle (World War II), pencils and inked pages. The inking's a bit rough looking, but it was only my second time doing real 'comic inking'. I've always liked stippling stuff, so I like how those parts looked. Figuring out where the larger black spots and middle toned shapes should go was more of a challenge, and I think I've improved in that area a bit, but could still use some improvement (though I don't do a ton of just plain black and white stuff like this as much anymore).

New Much Better Quality Children's Book scans

Here are scans of the sheets that I have my storyboards on (now in their entirety, and scanned at 300 dpi and then merged together...I used Curves to make them more viewable, which also made the paper and eraser marks and all that visible, but oh well). One thing I'm noticing is that I need to work on line weight more, even in my sketching phase.. otherwise I like most of the page layouts. I have the writing done too, though it could change in the final version.

Anyway, here they be.

It's way later than I should be up right now, considering I have class tomorrow at 1 pm, and then night class, and will probably be tired through all of them.. :P O well, I really wanted to post these new scans.

Children's Book Storyboard Snapshots

Here are some snapshots of parts of a storyboard for our final 32-page dummy in Children's Book Illustration class. I am pretty happy with how it all turned out, even if some things may be adjusted in the final version. I just felt good making this, and even for the pages that aren't as clear yet, I still felt like I liked where I envisioned it going; it feels pretty close to the kind of way of drawing that I'd like to continue doing.

Edit: I know that the quality of these aren't too great; I was using a scanner I got off the free shelf that is in my apartment (which I don't know how to adjust the dpi on yet), because I didn't feel like walking back through the cold to the main building :P I will have better scans to post later.

Post that was meant to be a 'mobile post'

Somehow I sent a text to what was supposed to be my blog, from my phone, and it ended up as three separate, garbled messages. Oh well. Here is what the original text was:

"Giving tea a try at infinitea and watching scary costumed kids go in and out. Saw a Mario! that mom raised her son well. maybe i will get a twitter for non-art mobile posts. oh and I don't think I'm converted on the tea yet; or at least this iron goddess of mercy. (oh a Luigi maybe just walked in?)"

I did ask if I could have some honey to add to the tea, and ended up pouring quite a lot of honey in...then it tasted better. Maybe I will find a tea that I like, someday..obviously I haven't even tried that many yet.

Oh, and I will select some kind of art/sketches/process stuff to post soon...

For fun summer sketches

I ought to do something more to some of my sketches as a next step.. like color.

A Comic

This is actually "Piece 1" that I had in my Junior Review; it's the one non-Illustration piece I included, and is the earliest piece chronologically (Spring semester 2009, for Intro to Comics; the final comic), that I showed in my presentation. It is a fictional story based loosely on my experience at Anime Detour a couple years ago. Go ahead, read it.. it looks rough when you zoom in, I just noticed, which is unfortunate..I couldn't find the cleaned up version, so for now this will have to do I guess.

Junior Review - Piece 3 & 4 - "90s Shoes" & "MCadet"

Here are pieces 3 and 4 that I will show in my Junior Review. I am posting the pieces in chronological order according to date of creation, but I will probably be showing them from newest to oldest in my presentation instead. (Oh.. I just noticed it uploaded the images in the wrong order; I did the shoe one first in my Concepts & Metaphors class, and then did the mug design just this semester for Illustration Topics)

This first one, the mug one, was for the MCAD Mug Design contest. I decided to show the process work first, so you can peruse that before scrolling down to be amazed at what the final piece looks like (instead of how I did it in previous posts, where you see the final piece right away; I think this is more interesting :P )

And here I have the process work, which involved a lot of brainstorming and writing, for the beginning of the trip-tych that would be 'the shoe assignment' (they were actually going to be in book form, so a couple would be facing one another; so I guess not exactly a trip-tych?). Anyway, for the 'Review, I am just showing one of the three, which is the one about the 'shoe of the '90s', which I chose to be a Chuck. I actually attained a pretty old pair of them from an employee at a used bookstore in Dinkytown, who let me have them for free, which was pretty cool! I gave them back to him a couple weeks after I used them for reference, though, because it sounded like he may have been reluctant to part with them. The final piece is supposed to be showing a boy/teenager in the '90s, who was heading into this age saturated by 'the digital', but meanwhile kids still often had these shoes that showed the wear and tear of playing outdoors, even with the coming of computers and unfortunately a lot more staying indoors for some kids. Not sure if all that was clear (in how I worded it and in how I showed it in the art), but I like some of the new things I was doing with combining digital/traditional medium.

Junior Review - Piece 2 & Process Work

Here is the second piece that will be in my Junior Review. This was a piece I liked for its concept, which was 'what comes to mind when I think of Minnesota' (which was the assignment, but I like how I really got into this one conceptually). It's geographically divided into the different areas of Minnesota, roughly. And it's a person with a big thick winter coat on :P