[Illustration Friday] Round 4: Adrift (missed)

So, yes, this is one of my old Illustration Fridays that I missed and thought 'oh well, I'll finish it later and it'll look awesome'. Yes, well, apparently, I need these Illustration Friday submissions for, like, marks. WHOOPS.

SO, here is Adrift:



Oh no! A rare sky-jelly has been knocked astray from his cluster! Poor little guy!


*ahem* There's a bit of an embarrassing story behind this, as I was all set to use a nighttime city background to make it look like he's drifting high above the earth, but not having any on hand, I hit flickr. I realized that this was one of those things I'd need permission form, but I am way too shy, so I asked 'is it okay to just use this if I link back?'

It was one of those moments where you realize you're saying something really, really stupid the moment you open your mouth, and you can't stop yourself - you can only listen to yourself ask that dumb question in glorious slow motion. I'd like to say I was tired or desperate or something at the time, but ehn, no excuse. God, I felt dumb that day.

Yeah, no, you can't just use stuff and credit without asking. This isn't DeviantArt, after all.

SO YES, don't worry, with all the extra time I got after missing the Illustration Friday deadline, I had time to scrounge through some old pictures of ours and found a blurry .JPG of Toronto at night that we took from a hotel one of the years we were at Anime North. Good times!

Actually, with a little tweaking, it worked. It kind of looks like a city street or something, right? I mean, technically it is, but it looks like it's from real high up right?

... Yup, and thus begins post one of the post-a-thon today. (Why yes, today is my last day of class, how could you tell?)

Illustration Friday [Round 11: Dip]

As usual, after sitting and ho-humming (I think that's a verb now) over some design or another representing my deep insecurities, two ideas collided in my mind as I tried to figure out a better interpretation of the 'dip' prompt on Illustration Friday. Then I started going through definitions, and somehow, these all connected in my mind:

1) The Super Dictionary, from DC comics. I wish I could tell you more, I wish I even knew where to start linking, but the best I can do is link you to a Google image search like a pro and pretend I accomplished something.
For the link-phobic, essentially it is a dictionary for children with definitions illustrated through various DC superheroes. Needless to say, er, more than a few of these definitions seemed a little oddly placed, scenario-wise, or downright confusing, but overall, hilarious (Forty cakes, anybody?).

2) The Dip, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. You know the one. Paint-thinner, designed to kill your favourite cartoon characters.

... Okay a little melodramatic, but you get the idea. But how could I use the dip for illustration Friday?

This somehow ended up with idea three. Remember that bit of original art I posted a few weeks ago?

Well, she's technically a superhero... and in her story which I haven't elaborated on before this moment includes something like a cartoon character come to life, so...

Well that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word

And... yes. I am awesome and apparently picked a colour theme for my characters that does not translate well to the web at all! Woe is I. I... Will fix this somehow later. In the meantime!

Yes, the one on the left is supposed to look like a ridiculous anime-character. See, in-story, she is... Well, she's a thing that based her form on someone's childhood imaginary friend. The girl on the right, actually. Also known as the Animator. She controls ink. Together, they fight crime! Kind of. Fascinating story, really.

And yeah this is typically how they interact on-screen, at least in non-plot-significant situations; with Ari the anime-thing making hilarious off-the-wall comments and pop-culture references, and Annie over there trying to hang lampshades and criticize the typical stunts and situations of the superhero genre. Genius!

Though I will admit, I usually don't go as overboard with Ari's hair. I was just having so much fun drawing this though, I didn't want to fix it. Honestly!

... Though something's bugging me about the word balloons, but I guess I'll just have to agonize over that until I am awake enough to make good decisions again.

So, yes, because the dialogue looks a little cluttery to me after staring at this project for a few hours, here is a smaller version sans text:



Tadah!

Which reminds me, I swapped out my header for one with Ari in it, since she's in this week's IF post and all, but I'll switch back to the dragon-guy, or maybe someone else. See, I originally intended to have a rotating header bar, but, uh, ehe, I only had one header to use at the time. Now I have two!

And yes, I'm sure you'd love to read more of my lovely and eloquent writing, but I am very tired right now so I am going to bed. Thank you for reading and stuff, the usual!

Assignment [Ride for Cancer Research Postcard]

Yup! The idea here was to draw something nice and post-card-sized to hand out to people for donating to the Ride for Cancer event, and make it something that someone would want to post up.

For about a week I was waffling on using some terrifying huge-eyed cutesy character congratulating someone for making a donation, but then as I was reading something with my brother, we somehow got to talking about this achewood strip, and I was struck by a brilliant new idea.

At least I think it was the achewood strip. I'm not sure now, but if I were to put money down, I'd say that's where it came from.

ANYWAY

The idea behind this postcard is a bicyclist making a ridiculous jump across a huge canyon, an 'awesome' move, much like the recipient of this card donating money to a good cause.



I drew this entirely digitally, so no rough sketches, though I did muck around with the text placement. Originally, it was on the lower end of the card, but after leaving it for a few hours, I reopened the file and realized that the text was covering up and filling up the nice little canyon I drew, and decided that the sky was less important than the depth of the canyon. Soooo I moved the text.

The original:




And because I like it so much, the card without the text:



I think the canyon's edge might be a little sharp in places still, but I was having a heck of a time trying to get those corners blunt and still looking good. Eeehn. I kind of still like it like this, though, so there.

Assignment 2 [Storyboard: Trace]

... Yup. We'll just... pretend... this happened a month ago.







My younger brother was the model for this shoot, though I took some liberties with his hair (it's brown now), height (a little taller), and clothing (wearing a coat; not in track pants, clothing colours). I wish I didn't have to make him take off his awesome glasses, but alas.

So that's enough embarrassing my brother on the internet. I kind of blanked out on the background. But... For practice (not for anything I'd ever post seriously, though), I should trace some photos of mine sometime - just doing this helped me figure out the clothing fold thing a little better. And also the legs I've been sketching have been looking a little out of whack lately...

But enough trying to distract from this!

Original Stuff

As I vaguely said in my post yesterday, I AM going to post something today, be it schoolwork or not-schoolwork. As it happens, it is the latter. *cough*

Well, okay, technically, this was still for school, but this is a character I created on my own and sketched prior to the project she featured in. The project in question was a laptop skin, and this was the main image, with a bunch of panels showing scenes from her story as the background. Maybe I'll post the whole image someday! But this was my favourite part off it:



The short story behind this character is that I asked myself what I'd look like as a superhero. Then I got bored in class and drew her a lot and then came up with a plot and personality and so on, and now she's an original character in a Superhero story I'm totally going to write sometime. PS, her name is Annie Matterson. Her hero name is Animator. She did not pick her hero name.

... Of course, part of me thinks it might be bad form to start off original-character posting with a blatant self-insert, but I was having trouble picking which characters and sketches to start with, and this at least looked finished, so I'm starting with her.

... And, self-critique time:
Art-wise, the shading is very basic and could probably stand to be more detailed. Also the pen's shading/highlights look kind of weird. And her right leg looks a little odd going into that boot. I'm not so sure about her arms, either... I don't know, what do you guys think?

[Illustration Friday] Round 9: Expired

Yes I know it's a little sketch, but darnit, I'm going to submit something for Illustration Friday this week!



Originally I had a page of comic planned out and half finished for this prompt, but, er, then, you know, other projects came up, the usual. But, determined to submit something, I sketched out what was basically the main punchline - this guy, the main subject of the page - and that tag. ... It was pretty much the first thing I thought of when I saw 'expire'. Well, that and some convoluted way of connecting it to the patchwork pirate since I wanted to draw him again...

I went with this partially because the concept was clearer here (Pirate was going to uncover some ancient treasure with an expiry date, so), and also because I like zombies. ... Yup! Not much else to add!

And for those of you tuning in from class, especially if you are marking me, I will have not one, but TWO postcards tomorrow (or Saturday, because let's face it, it's me), and then... MORE!

Yup! I mean, aside from the catching-up things, I have been itching to post some non-school related art, and hopefully I will get to do so this weekend! So mark my words, there will be a post every day this weekend! Or at least tomorrow and Saturday.

See you then!

[Illustration Friday] Round 8: Subterranean

Iiiiiiit's that time again! Illustration Friday!

ahem

I can't remember when, but somewhere through my childhood, I picked up one of those books full of fun facts about various things. I think this one was called 'Bugs That Go Blam', as it was centered around bug trivia. There was a ton of weird stuff in there (that, looking back, might be inaccurate in parts), but one thing that I remember as kind of jarring was this one fact about the Cicada: Some types can spend up to 13 or 17 years underground, before they crawl out as adults. I think the part that struck me the most about that their long lifespan - there were bugs out there older than I was! - and the illustration depicting a teenaged Cicada larvae chilling in his underground home and watching TV. The fact made some joke along the lines of spending most of their life just eating and living underground. I think part of me was unnerved by how much of the insect's life was spent underground, while the other part of me kinda wanted to be that Cicada.

... Well! Now that I have the rambling story-set-up, let's get this trainwr- post rolling! :D

You ever have one of those days where you don't feel like getting out of bed?

Tadah!

I think I was originally going to do something with molepeople (Sam and Max or The Tick, pick your inspiration), but then I remembered the cicada and its crazy life cycle, and decided to go with that.

I seem to work better/more reliably with non-digital media, and this time 'round, I used these bright Staedtler markers I had lying around. I felt they suited the brightness of the cicada's wings and eyes. Though, now that I'm looking at it again, I think my scanner did something odd to the colours. Hm...

Initially, I was also trying to stick with colour combinations that are likely to happen in real life, but then I started having too much fun drawing the little cicadas having their waking up party. Also this was going to represent some deep-seated anxiety of mine or another but then I was too amused by the little pouty cicada faces to get into the right state of artistic depression. Lookit them! Heh heh heh.


And to make a long post longer, news!:
- Finished Storyboards to come soon, possibly a missed Illustration Friday.
- Will try to upload some non-school stuff, or at least non-portfolio-class-stuff. Will just have to pick the best of the lot.
- Also, you know it's bad when your own mother is telling you to stop being so self-depreciating and act more professional. *waves* Hi mom!

And that's all for now, folks! See you next random update!