Monkey King!

Of course I forgot his tail!

Giraffe-fashionistas!

I love animals!  I loooooooove-ish fashion, but being a lazy bum I'm not totally up n up on current trends (besides easy comfy ones like big baggy sweater, leggings, boots, DONE).  So, in this little animal world I'm developing I came up with a giraffe who's all about colorful outfits and is ~totes~ trendy!  Well, in my universe this is 'trendy'.  I just put random stuff together and hope stylists with actual taste don't run away screaming in a fit.

If there's anyone still sticking around blogspot, kudos to you!  I haven't given up on it despite the death of Google Reader (oh, Reader...why...I thought we had something special), though maybe it's a futile effort reviving this little blog.

If you're looking for a good GR replacement, I recommend Feedly!  It's similar in functionality to Reader AND it has a cute little mascot.  Really that was the selling point for me :)

Bunbuns!

Wowza!  I've managed two complete posts in one year!  A personal best!

I'll try to do better next year.  There are a few stories that I'm pretty keen on developing, one of which involves this little fellow below.  He's still fairly early in development, thus the sketchines, and he hasn't got a name yet, so we'll just call him Mr. Bunbun for now.  He works as a librarian/archivist at a library that's affiliated with a law firm.  He'd be more fond of his job if he could burrow beneath mountainous stacks of books to read than tend to fussy customers.  He tries his best to be meticulous about his job, but he's a very small rabbit in a very big library packed with very large books.

"Mommy, where's Timmy...?"

Timmy's goin' for a ride, y'all!

A birthday gift for one of my besties! I...owe so many friends birthday gifts, it's sad. OR awesome that I have so many friends! Too many frieeennndddssssssss!

Brush Your Teefs

The little girl, Angie, who was featured in my first blog post makes another appearance! This time in color! I'm preparing a portfolio geared towards children's publishing (picture books, educational workbooks, magazines, etc.) showing little kids doing little kid things. Like brushing your teeth! That's very important, especially when you eat as much candy as Angie. This was originally a simple color comp for a watercolor illustration that got a little carried away.



Dalmatian sketches! One or two of these may make it to the watercolor stage. It'll be fun splashing down color against the white and black spindly little bodies.

GONNA KICK YO' FACE IN

_{Kung Fu Panda © Dreamworks Animation}

I've wanted to avoid falling into the fanart pit here, but some movies are simply too awesome to not pay tribute to! Kung Fu Panda came on t.v. last night, which got a friend and me started on some KFP doodles. I got Tigress and she got Po (who is so ADORABLY fat and roly poly!).

I was seriously all in Nico Marlet's* face, studying his way of designing, figuring out what details he'd include and how everything flows together to support one idea. A lot of my characters (and drawings in general) could use some focus, so this was a great exercise.


*_{If you don't know this guy, CHECK HIM OUT AND WORSHIP HIM. He's a designer's designer's designer!}

One of These Things Does Not Belong...

Every year for my Grandma's birthday, I make her a painting. This year I imagined how her lifelong love of elephants came to be (her house is overrun with plush pachyderms and ceramic... c..c...you get the idea). As a little girl, she worked on a farm feeding the chickens, caring for cows and such. One day, perhaps a particularly exotic animal snuck out of a traveling circus and sought refuge at her farm...

Giraffey Taffy

WOWZERS! Two posts within the same month? What sorcery is this??

Giraffe! It's chewin' and chillin'. I had a block of hot press watercolor paper lying around, untouched, because I HATE hot press paper. Cold press is my one true love, but I've seen so many artists who are amazing at using hot press that maybe it doesn't actually require black magic and baby's tears to make good art with it.

It was really tough at first, but I managed to adapt to it and have fun! It's a different, misunderstood monster from cold press. I didn't give it a chance. Anyway, had some fun with watercolor, acrylic, ink (that bled in places), and colored pencils. Next time I wanna get looser and let the colored pencils stand out a bit more. We'll see!

Red pandas go RAAAAAAA

Red panda! I need to add more animals to my portfolio and red pandas seemed like a pretty good place to start. Messin' around with simplified lines and shapes and muted colors. A part of me feels complete now that I've introduced Payne's Grey in the mix. Oh Payne's Grey where have you beeennnn all my life. Mixed with Cadmium Yellow it makes the most pleasant greens (far better than the scan implies) mmmmm~

I need to get out more, haha.