Funny Cute

New drawing and new postcards for sale

2012-01-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

I made this drawing in Photoshop for fun, and ended up kind of liking it.

The original sketchbook version is always better though, at least to me.

Anyhow, I thought it would look cute as a little print, so I got four more drawings together and made a postcard set that you can buy on my Etsy shop. Each one is shiny and colorful and about 4" x 6". Here are the other ones...all stuff I've posted before, but tweaked to be more "print worthy."

I am making larger prints of some of these that will also be on my Etsy store shortly. I'm also working on some new Skadi prints.

You can click this drawing to go to the shop! Thanks!

Also, thanks for all the encouragement on my last post. I'll definitely be posting more drawings from my hill folk project soon.

Unfinished, unnamed hillfolk comic

2012-01-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

So I've had this comic idea that I've wanted to do for a few years now, but I can't seem to get it started. I have the three main characters more or less figured out, but I can't seem to get the story or style nailed down.

If this comic actually existed, it'd be about three girls living in the Appalachian Mountains, sometime around the year 1900. I guess it's kind of inspired by all the things that they sing about in old country songs...religion, heartache, murder, mental illness, etc. All my favorite things.

There's Cora, a fire and brimstone fanatic who cuts her own hair and sometimes does bad things, like set fires to stuff. She's basically good though. And the most fun to draw.

Her "friend" is Shah, who lives alone in the mountains making moonshine and fighting off the inbred cannibals who live nearby. Shah likes animals and shooting people.

The third character is a mysterious girl with no memory of her life before being found on a riverbank by Cora. She goes by the name Everlovin' and has a sweet and naive personality, but also some pretty weird habits that suggest her life before half-drowning was shady.

It feels a little foolish to even share this stuff, since I haven't done anything besides doodle the characters. I have a very convoluted outline written out, but it's definitely not really a real "thing" yet. But I guess I'm sort of attached to the characters anyhow, since I've been drawing them for a long time now. And maybe sharing stuff will inspire me to get off my butt and make something.

The style I draw the girls in keeps changing every time I draw something new. I don't know which direction to go. The ones above are only a month old or so, and this one below is a few years old.

Teeny little sketchbook hillies.

The story I want to tell is a little darker than I'm used to, but I also like light-hearted things, so for a while I played with the idea of doing separate little comics that had the same characters, only as possums.

I like how ugly they are. I did some of them as different types of animals too, but I like the possum ones better.

So, that's all for now. I've got tons more drawings hidden in boxes all over my new apartment, so maybe if people are interested in this idea I'll get them all scanned and maybe talk about the characters a little more. I'd love feedback on this. I'm really not sure if this is the sort of thing that only appeals to me, or what. I still want to make this a finished thing, even if it is.

Thanks for coming back! 2012 is the year for getting back into drawing! A two year break is too long. No more lazy drawing for me. I hope.

Watercolors, French girls, sociopathy

2011-10-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, some new stuff. Here are some girlie watercolors I did tonight.

I've been in a big drawing rut for a while now, but forced myself to draw while I watched this French 70's movie, "Don't Deliver Us From Evil." I've wanted to get away from just drawing girls, but the two main actresses were too cool looking not to draw. Here are some Post-It drawings of Anne (Jeanne Goupil), a long-limbed sociopathic school girl. She's not always this deadpan in the movie.

Also, a warning- while this movie is interesting to watch, I had a hard time getting through it because of some disturbing themes, and some really horrible treatment towards animals. I really don't deal well with that type of thing. So if you're sensitive about that sort of thing, maybe skip this one. Part of me would like to re-watch the movie and do some more drawings of the other main actress as well, but I'm not sure that'll happen anytime soon.

Here's one more watercolor, which I saved for last because it's pretty sloppy and I didn't want it at the top with the other stuff.

Thanks again for coming back!

Old and new

2011-10-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, some new stuff.

A seaside-colored girl.

Cora, being dreary.

I've been drawing a lot of models lately. I think these ones are from the Urban Outfitters website and America's Next Top Model.

Here's some sketchbook stuff I had posted earlier, before my blog crash. First are some criminal man heads.

Renaissance faire girls.

Johanna and Klara Söderberg from the Swedish band First Aid Kit.

Thanks for coming back! Don't forget to check my Tumblr from time to time to see drawings and doodles that I don't always post here. ^u^

2010, "Let The Right One In" sketches

2011-09-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

Whoops! I totally lied about posting new stuff. I actually DO have new stuff, but I totally left out a sketchbook when doing my recent archival blog posts. So here are some drawings of Oskar and Eli (mostly Oskar) from the Swedish horror/romance film "Let The Right One In." I love this
movie.

Eli is really hard to draw. Originally I was more inspired to draw her because of her incredibly unique face, but Oskar ended up being my favorite.

There's an American remake of this movie called "Let Me In", which I haven't seen yet. It looks good, but if you haven't seen either one, go for the original first. Or read the book! The book is cool too...

New stuff soon.

Photoshop boredom

2011-09-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

When I'm not inspired to draw, sometimes I'll pick a drawing and clean it up in Photoshop for fun. I had posted these right before I lost all my blog content, so sorry if this post seems repetitive or boring. The next post I do will have actual new drawings.

I wanted to do a short comic about the girl above, but never got around to it. :/

The above drawing was an unused design for an animated pilot.

Again, next post will be new stuff! I'd better get drawing...

2010, sketchbook #6

2011-08-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Finally back from out of town. Here's more sketchbook art...
New art coming soon, I promise!

2010, sketchbook #5

2011-08-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

I'm nearly done with re-blogging all my old art! A lot of stuff was left out, but I got most the stuff I still kinda like. Anyhow, here's more sketchbook stuff from 2010.

I like how the two girls in the bottom corner came out on the one above.

These ones are kind of hard to see, but they're unfinished drawings of this feral little girl called Genie. Her story is really sad. Google her if you're in the mood to feel really shitty.

Cats.

Forest girls- one of my favorite things to draw besides hillbillies.

Highschool friends. I still want to make some comics about the dumb stuff that went on back then, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it for real.

More coming soon!

2010, Sketchbook from Brandy

2011-08-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

My good friend Brandy gave me this beautiful sketchbook that she got from the Renaissance fair last May (at least I think it was May), and I vowed to only draw wood nymphs and forest girls in it. I have yet to fill it completely, but here are a few of the drawings that I have in it.

Here's a photo of how cute the sketchbook is.

More soon!

2010, sketchbook #4, plus Freaks and Geeks

2011-07-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

These are just some pages from one of my 2010 sketchbooks, including a few Freaks and Geeks drawings I did. I love that show.

There's Millie...

...and there's Kim, with a few weird Sams on the side.

I like these pages.

I cleaned up a lot of these drawings in Photoshop not that long ago. I'll probably put them up in a post soon. I'm almost done archiving all my old art!

2010, Lord of the Rings sketchbook drawings

2011-07-19T22:51:00.001-07:00

More nerdy fan art. I think when I originally posted these Lord of the Rings drawings, they were all cut up. I'm just posting the full pages this time, without cropping out the crappier drawings.

Hmm. I'm thinking it might be time to watch the extended versions of these again. And then watch all the extras. Then watch them again with the commentaries...

2010, How to Train Your Dragon sketchbook drawings

2011-07-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

Even more fan art. I thought the designs in this movie were really good. Maybe the best CG people to date, in my opinion.

Ok that's it. I'm outta town for the weekend but I'll get back to posting on Monday. See ya!

2010, Harry Potter sketchbook drawings

2011-07-19T22:41:00.001-07:00

More sketchbook fan art...this time it's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Ginny. Sort of.

I love Professor Slughorn.

I know not everyone's a fan, but I love this stuff. I'm gonna draw a bunch more from the last two movies soon.

2010, Conan sketchbook drawings

2011-07-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

I love Conan the Barbarian. I've really been in the mood to draw more Conan, and maybe some different barbarians. Anyone want to recommend some barbarian movies that would be good to draw from?

Baby Conans.

Valeria and Conan's mom.

There's a Subotai, some Thulsa Dooms, and my favorite, some Thorgrims, played by Sven-Ole Thorsen on this last page.

2009, sketchbook #2

2011-07-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

Just more sketchbook stuff. I think this is the last 2009 post.

Next up are drawings from one of my favorite movies!

2009, sketchbook #1

2011-07-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

So here's when I started carrying actual sketchbooks around, instead of drawing on loose leaf paper. I think it unintentionally created a change in how I draw. On loose leaf paper, I could do a drawing, say "Oh, this sucks, I'll throw it out", and then start over. But you can't really filter in a sketchbook, unless you want to throw away the whole book, or rip pages out.

In other words, it becomes less about "performing" on paper, and more about just drawing for yourself, which is a lot more freeing in a way.

The drawings above were me trying to figure out a design for a mini-comic I wanted to do. I never got around to it, though.

There are a lot of drawings of little Appalachian wall-eyed waifs in my sketchbooks. I think they're cute in a pathetic and sad way.

High school friends. I also always meant to do a comic about these people. I have a bunch roughed out, but I never finished them.

Happy Christmas!

More soon!

2009 Post-it drawings

2011-07-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

2009 was another year with a lot of post-it drawings. Post-its are great for drawing because they're incredibly non-threatening. No one expects to draw their next masterpiece on a post-it.

These next ones are characters from a personal comic project about hillbilly girls that I've had in the works for years now. I've got tons and tons of drawings of these guys, but I don't want to show too much until I've gotten a lot farther on the actual comic.

I love drawing these girls.

I look forward to being able to post more stuff from this project and getting real feedback from people. Anyhow, moving on to me and Luna.

2008, Women of Star Trek post-its

2011-07-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

There's this amazing photo set on Flickr that I stumbled upon one day called "The Galactically Hot Women of Star Trek", and it inspired a ton of post-it drawings. Here's most of them, in no order.

I sure drew some weird eyes around this time.

I was selling a poster that was made up of these on my Etsy store, but ran out of them. I wonder if I should reprint some? I need more stuff for my shop.

Anyhow, thanks once again for coming back. I'm getting closer to being done with these posts of old drawings, which means new art should be up soon!

2008, Mis Pas Touche fan art

2011-07-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

To any French comic fans out there, if you haven't read Mis Pas Touche by the artist duo Kerascoët, I recommend that you do! This comic really influenced me a lot, thus all the fan art.

Barf. I'm still sick. But more art on the way soon anyhow!

2008, Harry Potter fan art and post-its

2011-07-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of fan art and drawings on post-its in 2008, apparently. Here's a bunch of Harry Potter fan art, a lot of which (witch?) are on post-its.

There's Hermione (Emma Watson)...

Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave)...

...and a whole bunch of Ginnie Weasley (Bonnie Wright).

Luna Lovegood, played by Evanna Lynch, is one of my favorite HP characters, so I drew her quite a bit (and named my cat after her as well).

Here's one of Bellatrix, played by Helena Bonham Carter. (Boooooo!)

I have more Harry Potter fan art, but I did those a couple years later so I'll post them separately.

2008, random drawings

2011-07-19T21:16:00.001-07:00

Random stuff from 2008. I like these little Halloween people.

I cleaned up a bunch of these drawings on the computer. Maybe I'll post those eventually, but first I gotta find the files...

Gish sisters.

More still on the way...

2008, Freeway fan art

2011-07-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

I really like that movie "Freeway". I saw it for the first time in 2008 and did these drawings of super young Reese Witherspoon. She's really cute and funny in it.

Bleh. I'm sick today. I'm gonna go back to sleep. More drawings soon...

2007, hillbilly and animal drawings

2011-07-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

Drawings of some of my favorite things.

I still like these, even though they're kinda old now. I anticipate more Appalachian inspired drawings in the near future.

2007, random drawings

2011-07-19T20:31:00.001-07:00

More from 2007.

I think I was referencing a Russian mail order bride website when I drew the girls above.

Eddie n' Marlo.

More coming soon! Phew!

2007, Ye-ye girl drawings and post-its

2011-07-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of drawings from when I went through a 60's Ye-ye girl phase. I did a lot of them, so they get their own post.

France Gall.
Sylvie Vartan.

Francoise Hardy.

None of these are that accurate, but the Francoise Hardy drawings look especially off to me now. She's very beautiful, but I didn't really capture it. I ought to give it another try.

Oh, as an extra, here are some you tube links of these girls. It's fun to hear France and Sylvie say "poupee" over and over again.

France Gall - Poupee De Cire, Poupee De Son
Sylvie Vartan - Jolie Poupee
Francoise Gardy- Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles

2007, cleaned up drawings

2011-07-19T20:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a bunch of cleaned up drawings from 2007. Unfortunately I'm missing a few of these. I ended up selling them without getting scans of them all. Smart!

The one above makes me want to try water coloring again.

2006, random drawings

2011-07-19T14:05:00.001-07:00

Ok, here's the 2006 batch, my year for only using Japanese fashion magazines as drawing reference.

2007 coming soon! There's a lot of it!

2005, random drawings

2011-07-19T00:21:00.001-07:00

A lot of these are from way back when I first started my blog in 2005. I hadn't looked at these in a long time! Oh, I put up a new banner and link buttons. I might redo them eventually, but for now it's just nice to have something.

Nothing too terribly exciting. 2006 coming soon!

2004, random drawings

2011-07-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's the first batch of old art I'm putting up to make up for the posts that are gone now. I'm hoping to do a post every couple days, so that I can be back to posting new art in a month or less. These are all from 2004, so they're actually from before I even had a blog. That means this is mostly unseen stuff, as primitive and weird as it might be.
***Edit
Neat, I found a couple more that I thought were lost.

Ok! Thanks again for sticking with me and coming back to my poor broken blog. Drawings from 2005 and up coming very soon.

Hooray...?

2011-07-14T14:27:00.001-07:00

So, as it's probably pretty plain to see, all the art has been taken off my blog. I had a little mishap with Picassa (Google's new photo organizing software), and unintentionally deleted everything- not just off my blog, but off my computer's hard drive as well. I was pretty devastated when happened, and as dramatic as it may sound, I felt like a little piece of my artistic identity was gone. Luckily I had most of the drawings backed up on a separate hard drive, so only a small amount of art has been lost for good.

The reason I'm writing a blog entry about this is because I'd like some feedback from the people who visit here sometimes to let me know what they think I should do. My plan right now is to redesign the blog, and delete all the old, broken entries, and start posting new stuff as soon as I can. Or would it be better to try and fix the old entries that can be fixed?

Anyhow it makes me sad to not have my older art online somewhere. I thought about making a separate portfolio site to show older drawings that I liked, but then had the idea to just archive it myself, on here. So for a while all my entries would be older drawings that may or may not have been seen. It might be a boring bunch of entries for a while, but at least it would make me feel a little better about having lost all the old ones. It'd also be better organized than before.

I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to start fresh and anew, and I'd love to hear anyone's opinion on what they would do with a six year old blog that suddenly went kaput. I apologize for this wordy post, but my blog keeps me motivated to draw, and it's important to me.

P.S. To anyone else who is as hapless as I am when it comes to computers...be careful when using the new Google+ and Picassa. I had no idea that messing with them could make me lose so much art.

P.P.S. Here's a Photoshop doodle I kinda scrapped before finishing. I should at least post something to make up for all this text! Thanks for reading, guys!

Down for repairs

2011-07-11T22:19:00.001-07:00

Be back soon!

Petting Zoo Comic

2009-05-17T02:37:00.001-07:00

I finished it early! That means I do studio work all day tomorrow. AND I learned that it takes about 5 times longer for me to color in Photoshop than it does in Flash or with marker. No more Photoshop coloring until I learn how to do it the easy way.

Anyway this comic is a true story!

Em swears she didn't say "I'm not responsible for this!!!" but I totally remember hearing it, and since it's funny to me I kept it in. I'm sure she'll chew me out later.

Some more fun: here is the photo taken of Em, 6 seconds before she got yelled at and fell off of the poo barrel. I wish I'd taken one of the aftermath, but I was pretty flustered.

Don't kill me, highschool friends!!

I'm tired...goodnight!
U__U ~~~~~ z z z z

Inking

2006-05-01T13:54:00.001-07:00

Lots of people have been asking me about inking lately, so I'll try to remember what I learned about it a long time ago and post it here. My first job ever in animation was inking, and there were so many rules to follow that they all had to be written down on a 2 page memo for all the inkers to post up in front of them. I wish I had those now, cause I'd just post them!

So anyhow, here's a picture of the pens I like to ink with best:
Those black and white pens on the right are "boldliners' made by Eberhard Faber (that's what they're called, right?). I'm pretty sure they don't make them anymore, which is awful because they're the easiest inking pens I've ever used. They're cheap marker pens with felt tips. They're good because when you start out using them, they have nice sharp points, but after a while begin to get mushy at the end, making it easier to put pressure on them to get thicks and thins. There are other felt tip markers you can get, and they work alright too. Then I use Microns for small and delicate lines, and for fixing up any wobbly lines that the boldliners made. The white out is my best friend when inking, because I tend to put my hand right into the wet ink and smear it all over the place.

I had to ink an older drawing a couple of days ago for a poster, so I took a few pictures to show the ink in progress. I don't know if it'll be helpful to the people who asked about inking...I hope so!
I always start with the thickest lines first, and leave any details for last.
I think that the head on the right girl has nice thicks and thins, but the rest of her body and arms need to be made more consistent...right now all the lines are the same thickness and it's not as interesting looking.
Here's the finished ink, which turned out alright, even though there are some things that could be better...for instance, the place where the middle girl's hip comes too close to the right girl's dress. The lines get all mushy in there, so I'll probably have to fix it later. It's hard to avoid tangents when inking something crowded like this drawing, but I think I avoided some that were in the original drawing.

So here are the rules I remember from when I inked for money!

-Use nice thicks and thins.
-Thick lines are for larger shapes and shapes that are closer to you.
-Thin lines are for smaller shapes and details.
-Details within the drawing, like smile lines or clothes wrinkles, should help to describe the larger shapes that they are a part of.
-Try not to ink inside or outside of the lines, but stay on top of the original drawing.
-Make sure lines follow through. For instance- if I took away the instrument that the girl on the right is holding, the lines on her body and arms should look like they would connect.
-Floating lines, like smile or cheek lines, should go from thin to thick to thin, with the middle being thicker. It looks meatier that way!
-Lines that end should taper to a nice pretty point.
-Pay attention to subtleties in the drawing, and try not to dumb them down when inking over them.

Highschool

2006-04-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Whew, this is gonna be a long post!! It's probably going to get me in trouble, too! Well, anyone that knows me knows that I'm very (maybe annoyingly) nostalgic. I actually really enjoyed highschool, and really miss it. I had it really easy...I somehow managed to pass without ever turning in homework and ditching half my classes to spend my afternoon at the lake. No responsibilities at all!! I want to go back!! Anyhow, this above drawing is supposed to be me and my friend Em when we went as Sailor Scouts for halloween.

More Em!

Here is realistic Emli. She's fun to draw because she has real-life cartoon eyes- the kind that are huge with lots of shines and long eyelashes! I like her because she is smart and funny and good at a lots of things.
A little more cartoony...this blonde one above is "Cancer Victim Emli." At least that's what my mom called her when we washed the bleach out. I thought she looked cute though!
These are drawn from memory, and the little dinky doodles are about a year old. I had wanted to do some comic type projects involving some of my old buddies, but I never finished it because I figured no one would think it was funny except me.

Kacy

Sorry Kacy!! I don't have that many photos of you...and in the ones I do have, your hair is in your face!
Little cartoon hippie. Kacy is a really good actress and the best singer I know.

Christine

The first one is always too realistic...Christine is a really good painter and illustrator!

More cartoons from memory!

Megan

Realistic Megan...the ears are for real though!
Megan is a more pleasant person than the rest of us.
Cartoony-from memory-drawings. Megan looks like a pretty woodland creature come to bestow some elf magic on you!
A nice past time is playing the keyboard with a friend and writing songs about food.

Christine and Megan draw pictures too. I'm pretty sure they failed highschool art class as miserably as I did. We must've been doing something right...Megan and I were asked to paint a mural for the school...we had to recreate one of those Unicorn tapestries with a million little details. We painted it alright, but we also made sure to defile it by putting little weiners on all the animals. Next time I go to visit my parents I'm going to try to find it and take a picture.

Here's where they live:
http://misswithers.blogspot.com/
http://devicat326.blogspot.com/

Kathryn

Kathryn plays the bassoon. I haven't heard her play it since school though. I've heard she's really good.

By the way, don't bother asking me for any of these girls' numbers, ha! I'm pretty sure they all have boyfriends or girlfriends, or they're out of touch with me anyhow. Sorry!

Here's some fun that will get me yelled at...try and match the photo to the drawings! Don't expect hair colors and styles to help you though!

Here's a little bit more fun...my own highschool portrait. I'm being nice to myself!