More Snooker stuff

So here is a sketch I made of the logo. This is like my 2nd or 3rd shot at it and Im still not sure if I should use a font or make my own letters for it. So far Im really happy with the Zombiness of it...but am still a bit under about the biohazard sign. I like to think of it as a little 28 Days Later shout. I might put some sickly veiny things in the Zombie part once I add color. The other is another sketch of Snookers. I need to stop playing around and get a little more focus. This weekend will be Hell work-wise, but I think Id liek to have secondary characters out by the weekend if possible.

a dream

One morning I woke up at the end part of a dream I was having and wrote it down..then later sketched it. The part in question went like this "...As I walked through wild growing vegetation, I came to a clearing and in the center was a small stone fountain. On the fountain were a small group of birds that were a pale blue and had large saucer like eyes that were yellow. sharp teeth protruded for their beaks. From the fountain they were gorging on these red insects with legs that were long, segmented and barbed. When they saw me, they flew at me and then away. When I went over to the fountain and picked one of the bugs up it was growling at me and staring straight out with its one eye. A voice from behind me said it was an evil cellphone..."
And then I woke up. What am I smoking you ask? Not a damn thing!

swimmin like an alli-gator

So I was swimming laps yesterday afternoon and I was using long flippers whilst keeping my arms at my sides. They (flippers) gave me such a kick that I was able to cruise through the water with speed and keep my head above it the whole time. I was the only one in the pool and it was dead quiet except for watery sounds...there was a mist that came off the skylight and if you looked, all you saw was gray sky and the naked limbs of trees.
So of course (like anyone else) I imagined what it would be like to be an otter or a gator, cruising effortlessly through some swampy channel with only the calls of birds, frogs and the twisted reflections of mangrove roots as company. It was niiiice :}

Ce chapeau, c'est pour Judith

So I'm in french class this evening and as I glance at my watch I have 50 minutes to go. Things actually got fun after that. We were giving imaginary hats to each other.
So this here is the first doodle/sketch of a character I recently created that I like. It's based on the adventures of Snookers the Zombie Turtle and Im thinking of creating a short story that I would then submit here to see if they might like it and want to serialize it.
Since the type of publication is Manga, Im not sure this design really fits, but I also see they are interested in different styles and such so.... I think I might study briefly the anatomy and skeletal structure of turtles so what I draw makes some sense...Im not sure if they have ribs like humans..but WHO CARES right? It's just for fun! Stay tuned for logo designs and maybe more character art. For now I may have to put OvenLand on the back burner but thats ok. Whatever I learn from this exercise, I can apply to that.

Streck Beast

I originally created this concept for a contest I saw mentioned on ign.com for XSEED games. They were looking to have someone design a monster for their upcoming title Little Kings Story.
I found out so late I only had about half a day what with work and all. This was last Fall btw.
Anyway I was contacted by the fulfillment company
and told my art would be featured in the game but I still do not know in what capacity : P
I tried to make something that looked like it could have split personalities with one side being fierce and growly and the other side being sweet and purry...though I think the 'nice' head looks more like part of the costume still. I enjoyed doing the horns and chest/gut plate. I might go back to it at a later point and give it a more finished look.

um....GRAAAA?

Werewolves have always been my favorite movie monster...sorry Alien™. Anyway, here is a particularly nasty one. Pen and ink and design marker.

Strip Post # 4

Ugh...ok this is the last post for now and Im getting really annoyed at the fact that I cant get this shit to align the way I want it. The first image is a top down view of the Oven Land map. The grease that used to splatter off of the stove and oven is the lifeblood of the whole place and was used for everything from food and homes to skin care and luxury items. Grease, fat and heat are 3 things that are of paramount importance.
On the right is a classic multi level dwelling. Comprised of fossilized grease, the smaller pods near the top follow the basic design of stove top burners and have heat coming out of the top all the time.

Strip Post #3

From left to the right: Queen Krumm. She is the loud and domineering Queen of Ovenland. I might actually change this design to of all things...a hairless rat that perpetually have pink little babies hanging off of her front, nursing all the time. Presently, both the Queen and the Guard are Oven Frits...small lizard like beings that thrive off the hot splattery environment.
Next is a Palace Guard. I wanted to make the armor reminiscent of a pot belly stove but Im concerned they may look a bit Shirow - esque.
The last is Snookers the zombie tortoise. Initially, I wanted this and other characters (maybe a hamster) to be the end result of past pets that Lili has owned who for one reason or another escaped and perhaps, died behind the radiator or something. Brought to Oven Land by scouts or guards and re-animated into zombies, these characters perhaps serve as guards themselves or other type of servants. Still up in the air about this one though.

Strip Post # 2

This is the main character. I might change her name but I call her Lili for now. She is in her tween years and stuck at home doing housework during the Summer time. In the process of her cleaning the oven, she discovers a hidden passage that she falls down and ends up taking her to another world that is inhabited by mysterious creatures the likes of which she has never seen.

Ovenland is/was comprised of homes (and a Queendom) occupied by creatures who until recently, thrived off of the grease and crumbs created by the fatty , fried foods Lili's mom used to cook.

Now that mom is trying to live a healthier lifestyle, the creatures in Ovenland dont know what to do. Lili must find a solution so she can get home before becoming their next meal!

Strip post # 1

So last year I got on to this other blog where we would all do comic strips and post updates every week or so. I made a start with the best intentions but soon got distracted by life and other assorted crap. Recently I decided to try again..this time in earnest. Ultimately my hope would be to create a book or other such compilation in the end. In the meantime, I figure I would use this blog as a place to post about my endeavors, triumphs and frustrations associated with this process. Its embarrassing to think after all these years I havent focused my efforts enough to have some finished body of work by now, but better late than never I guess. Over the past year Ive read various books and other blogs that talked about best practices as far as creating internet cartoons, but in the end I decided i would get the most out of this process if I simply went at it the way I felt was best, (even if it turned out to not be the most efficient approach. ) and kind of made it my own journey. This is the story of a young girl lost...otherwise known as Malice in Oven Land.

cyber chicken?

ok I dont know how or why but I've had this image in my head for the last couple of days. Had to get it out.

Pet Fusion

Yeah I know it's been like 4 years, blah, blah, blah...

Anyhoo, after seeing this clever Photoshop composite of a Hamster and a Pomeranian, I was
inspired to do my own fusion pocket pet. I proudly present...the Pit Ham!!1 Now you too can have portable fierceness for a marginal fee.

A jaunt in the woods

Ok..here is my latest post.

It's not finished yet as I am stuck in the trees so to speak and having a hard time deciding how to complete rendering them. I finally got tired of always just having a subject matter floating in space (or water for that matter) and decided to shoot for straight terra firma.

The young rider is Kenth and he is aboard his trusted Lorse. Kenth is a messenger and though young for his years has become a messenger in the hopes of one day finding his family in the stratified clumps of family tribes living amongst the war torn tracts of the Jungle Forest. The nasty customer in hot pursuit is a Trell Beast and typically roams the rolling plains of the grasslands that border the Jungle Forest on almost all sides. I'm not sure why he would hunting in this unfamiliar territory...perhaps hunting on the plains was too sparse to sustain him. In any case, by the look of things this may end up being his last attempt at any meal.

I was inspired to mimic the hide of the Lorse from the skin of the dangerously toxic poison frogs of the South American Rain Forest. In the case of the Lorse, in the wild these creatures are also toxic. Raised in capitivity however, they are rendered un-poisonous due to the type of diet they are fed. Perhaps the look of one alone would be enough to deter most predators from taking one on. In captivity, they are also trained in a special martial art that makes them potentially lethal when confronted by foes.

I am most concerned by the value range of this piece, and whether or not the subject matter is adequately set off against the background. The trees have been the strongest sticking point as I am at a loss as to render the details without making them more noticeable than the main subject matter.

...I will continue to work on this piece and hopefully come to a solution as to how to finish off the Jungle Forest background....sigh.



rough rider

OK i know it's been awhile but....

What can I say? Work really picked up and the holiday season was a living nightmare...okay so it wasn't THAT bad...but i WAS busy. The image posted below is one that I decided to pick up after a long while. I had it scanned in as line art for awhile but never colored it. So here is the final result of my experiment.

This young lady belongs to the Anti-Gravity Skating League : Team Belle. The skates she is holding work with magnetized spheres. I don't know why she is walking into the ocean...maybe she lost her last race? I'm starting to notice a pattern of having water in my drawings and think maybe I need to break out of it and just do a background on solid ground already. I AM pleased with the way the water looks tho.

I decided to color this in one kind of anime coloring style; bright flat colors and very little blending or soft edges...it took less time than doing all that smudging and the results were more clean and sharp.

The logo was an afterthought and I'll probably re-do it later. As it stands the face in the logo is actually composed of Katakana that spells "be-ru" or Belle in english. I decided to give it a distressed, beat up look.

So there....see? I have been doing stuff!



skateGrrrl!

Whew...tryptophan finally wore off!

Well...no art to post today.

been getting over too much turkey and a nasty cold to boot. Still going through the sage teachings of the book I mentioned below. I also FINALLY came up with a simple template for the site that will hold my finished and best works of illustration. Nothing fancy...but I figure it wouldn't do good to send a potential employer to a place like this with nothing but experiments.

Also need to get back to Conceptart.org and start reading the threads and taking part in daily assignments and critiques. That was a really good piece of advice given to me by a good friend and former co-worker Sean Murray. BE sure to check out his site...his work is awesome.

It's here!!!

No art for today. But a good thing...I got my copy of Digital Character Art Design and Painting by Don Seegmiller. I found this book online and it seemed the best suited for my nefarious purposes...hihihi. I don't expect to become a world class illustrator from reading this book, but I do appreciate the fact that it's loaded with great info about lighting, color theory, how to best treat scanned sketches, sample textures and brushes (on the CD) and a bevy of other useful information. It's nice to have all that info in one place in a simple, easy to digest format. Nice quality too! I think this book will be a great tool in helping me learn new techniques to enhance the quality of my work.



cover image

What the hell izzat?

To be honest I don't really know either. Some kind of insect. This is a detail from the warrior pic that more closely shows one of the creatures that was perched on a rock in the background. I guess it's some kind of lobster bug. These cuddly critters come up out of their watery homes once every 800 years at dusk to lay their bright orange, roe-like eggs.

Actually, they're not harmful to humans, just kind of gross to look at....or beautiful if you prefer. In the final version of this piece there will more of these creatures under the water but they will be barely noticeable except for their glowing eyes.



Warrior_2_detail

Returning to the scene of the crime...

I went back recently and starting adding more to this piece. Initially, the trees were more of a reddish brown but for some reason I felt like the main focus of the piece was not reading well at all... It wasn't until I went outside that I saw the solution. Trees in this painting had as much red hue as the character and the two were "fighting" for attention. By making the trees a more bluish-grey I think I have been more successful at getting the woman and her horse to pop out.

The swamp she is riding through will pose a challenge to me as I still don't feel like I know what Im doing when it comes to rendering water. I am currently thinking of how I might approach this challenge to lend the appearance of stillness and depth to the swamp water.

The sky is a lavender to orange gradient.


Warrior_2

The Land of the Lost

Posted on this page is the result of my first attempt at painting a landscape. I guess it might seem weird to have only one cloud in the sky, but I am rather proud of it as it is only the third one Ive ever painted digitally and not half bad. (albeit a trifle cream - puffy) I feel that working in a digital medium is best for this kind of experimentation because it's so easy to keep track of your steps...or delete them if you aren't pleased with your results. For me. it's more tempting to experiment with color schemes and approaches that I would be more hesistant to try on a nice piece of water color paper. I got a basic tutorial on how to do clouds here:

http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/cloudtut.html

It gives some good simple techniques to do fluffy clouds primarily...a nice way to get started.

The ground in the pic is also the product of something new. In the end it reminds of some flat, barren expanse of dry stoney land. I originally wanted the stones to look more man made and polished..like round, flat cobble stones with simple patterns etched into them. While I was painting though, it seemed to evolve of it's own accord, so I just went with it.

I created the sky as a gradient. Then I did the cloud using many of the ideas form the tutorial above. Then I did the ground..first creating a light peach retangular fill and then drawing the lines over that in light purple with the paintbrush tool. The rest was a combo of paintbrush, airbrush and smudge and burn tools.

Soon I will post my first "water" experiment.






Duststorm

Warrior Girl

Some people may look at the name of this blog and wonder, "Why is it called First Steps if she's obviously been drawing for some time?" True, I've been drawing for a long time. But lately I've been wondering if I've been short changing myself by not putting more effort into developing my passion..in this case...fantasy art with subject matters that often include characters of African American origin and other ethnicities. So there you have it...on with the show!




warrior girl