More ATBTSW

And by that I mean All The Better to See With. Here are my sketches for the short's environment, the Merchant District. I wasn't sure where in the district the most focus was going to be on, so I did a quick sketch of the entire area, and then a color key to set the general mood. I really don't have a lot of experience doing environments and layouts, so this was a really good bit of practice for me; I really need to start doing more!





And the colored version of the shop I posted earlier:



And I took a stab at the villain's design. I've actually never designed a villain or a young(ish) man, so this was all sorts of new to me. Maybe I'll try my hand at the rest of him, just for shits.

All the better to see you with..

Recently I volunteered to help an old roommate do some visual development for her graduate thesis film, a steam-punk contemporary interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. I worked on the design of the little girl (named Elsie), and now I'm working on some layouts. Character design was pretty smooth-sailing, but boy are layouts something I need practice on.

Elsie sketches:






Final model sheet:



Layout sketches:





I'm working on a rough color test for the last sketch, but rendering layouts is a completely new process to me. Pretty frustrating, but a good learning process.

More sketches as they come! In the meantime, here's the production blog for the film:

http://allthebettertoseewith.tumblr.com/

It's really cool to see what the other members are coming up with, since I don't actually get to work with them in person.

October Sketch Dump

Various sketches of Kei (at various ages), as well as some profiles, commission sketches, and some fantasy scenery. I was at my desk at work needing a break, and wanted to draw some landscapes that included some of the stuff on it, like speakers and a computer mouse. Kinda silly but I liked the way it was going.

Dump?

I don't sketch nearly enough (non-work related stuff) anymore, but here's a sample of my most recent stuff:



I admit I drew the girl on the upper right after watching Ke$ha's alternate video for Take It Off. As shameful as it is, I can't help but love over-the-top outfits and crazy face paint. The picture in the middle will hopefully be completed in time for Halloween... =_=; It's been ages since I drew Kei.

July dump

In a pitiful attempt to keep my promise of updating more periodically, here's my July sketch dump:



I've been pumping out at least one colored drawing a week (mostly commissions), but because I need that fast turn-around I don't have a whole lot of time to sketch and explore each one before I lay down the final lines. The stuff on the upper right corner is for a drawing I've been working on and off for a while now, while the stuff below it is a concept for a series of girls with kimonos inspired by different fish. If you've been following my stuff for any amount of time you might be able to catch Kei, my Vespa girl, in there too.

Also, bonus picture!



Here's what the sketches on the bottom left corner turned into. It's a commission for an artist I really like on DA, so I got real excited about it <3

Sketch Dump

I had to scan a whole bunch of drawings to put into my flatbook, so I'll post some select pages here:



Some 2 minute gestures. There's this one model we have who's really good, and gives us some really dynamic poses to work with. It really bums me out when I go to a session and find the model is not him. :(



A collection of animal sketches. I'm really bad with drawing animals, so I hope to keep more of these coming. The hamsters on the bottom right are mine, and the rest are animals I saw on Planet Earth.



An assortment of Cleo sketches. Some are just sketches for fun, others are thumbnails for my animation assignments.

Commish

Here is another $15 commission I'm working on. This is just the line-art, but you can tell already that she's adorable * ^_^ *



I've been kept pretty busy with school-work, hence the infrequent updates, but I assure you I'm doing a lot of drawing. By Monday I'll have a little animated exercise to post too, so that should be pretty exciting.

Dump

Sketch dump, that is.



These should all be from February, I think. I've started leaving my pencil sketches really rough and going straight into inking in photoshop from there (the Burlesque girls are relatively detailed, but...), so it's interesting to see how different these look cleaned up.

Fanartsssss

A quick image of a drawing I'm doing on the side. She belongs to a friend of mine, who gave me the opportunity to work with his adorable characters when I was so sick of drawing fat old men. I'm going to make this one count, since I can almost see myself going through girly-drawing withdrawal.

Winter Kids

I wanted to try my hand at the french cartoon aesthetic I like so much, but I'm not sure how well I got that across. Either way, I think they're pretty cute.

Sketch a Day 12/02/09 and 12/03/09

Luigi and Major Armstrong. My interests are random and varied, but I'm trying to use this sketch-a-day to work on things that I don't usually focus on (big burly men, for example).

Sketch a Day 12/01/09

Batman's drinking a Long Island Ice Tea. No particular reason why.

Sketch a Day 11/27/09 + 11/28/09

I skipped Thanksgiving just cuz, but then the day after I met up with some friends so I didn't have time to submit my sketch for yesterday. Woops! Ergo, today I will submit 2.


I'm pretty sure K-On! is one of the cutest animes I've ever seen. It's one of the few shows where I actually enjoy all the characters, but my favorite is definitely Mugi. Also, pay no mind to what her body's doing. Pay no miiiiiiind.



Also, Haruhara Haruko. I keep trying to call her Haruhi, but that's something else.

Sketch a Day 11/25/09

I can't express how much I was affected by Urusei Yatsura as a kid. I'm pretty sure it was one of the first animes I watched ever, and it's also probably the thing that turned my tender young brain on to girly art. I mean, if there's anything cuter than Lum yelling "Darling!" while flying after that boy (who I can never remember his name), I don't want to know.




Also, I officially proclaim this week "The Girls of Fanart" week. Next week my sketches will all be some other theme, most likely animal studies. Or maybe landscape shtuff. We'll see. As much fun as it is to draw some of my favorite characters, I need to actually do something challenging for once. Siiiiiiiigh.

I can feel my watercolors getting weirder and weirder. I guess that's a good thing.

Sketch a Day 11/24/09

Day 2. I love this game so much, but not enough to be able to sit and wade through its convoluted and repetitive entirety. I wish someone else would play it for me and I'll sit and watch like a movie. Alas 3 stories was a far as I can get. I think one of my biggest regrets is not pre-ordering Odin Sphere in Japan and missing out on the limited edition art book that came with it. Sigh.



Also, just in case anyone's wondering, I'm doing these in digital watercolor not just cuz it's fast, but also cuz I'll be coloring in my layouts for my film soon. I just want to get as much experimenting done before then.

Sketch a Day 11/23/09

As part of a ploy to make myself productive over the break, I'm going to be submitting a sketch every day. Somehow something about being at home makes me lose all creative drive, and since I have a lot of schoolwork to get done hopefully this will work as a kind of "warm-up" to get things going.

Today I felt like drawing Miku from Vocaloid, who I'm still not too sure what she is, but love the design nonetheless. Also, digital watercolors are hard.



I do really appreciate the fact that since these are just 10 minute sketches I don't have to worry about trying to impress anyone. I find myself having more fun with colors and stuff this way.

Sketch dump

'Nuff said.

Vespa!

Some doodles for a new story concept. The main character rides around in a Vespa she took from her mom, so I wanted to get some sketches down. Also I have a terrible time drawing cars and mechs in general, so.

It's been a while since I had a story I felt this excited about (excluding ideas for short films) :3




They have cream colored and pink vespas. I want one so bad.



宙は実は後ろ姿が似合う子。東京にいる間はむなしさに浸る背後、ヴェスパに乗り回るときは開放感あふれる背後。結構いい子見つけちゃったかも。＊＾＿＾＊

Summer days

I've been back home for 2 weeks now, and despite the fact that that means I have 24/7 access to the best printer/scanner ever I have still failed to update periodically. For that I fail.

But here's what I've been up to lately:







I've been relatively busy ever since I got back running little errands and such, but I think I'm being pretty productive coloring-wise, don't you?

Cockatoo!

I went to this pet store while I was in Charlotte which had the most beautiful birds. They had this one Moluccan Cockatoo that was white and pink, and I totally fell in love with it. Since I can't have it, I went home and sketched it.




Sigh. It was so beautiful.