A Bird in the Head

Casey Costumes

2012-02-10T22:50:00.006-05:00

After this post I'm going to have to set Spooky Spencerville aside for a bit --I keep giving myself the heebie jeebies while researching (actually, it was that damn animated Korean horror comic that gave me nightmares for two days. If you've seen it, you'll know the one I mean) so I've got to take a breather on it.

Here's Casey in a few costume changes. Casey's the lead character, an 11 year old girl in grade 5. She'd like to join after-school soccer, but her mother works late, so Casey has to go straight home to look after her brother, Calder.

I like her little round head and button nose... Couldn't figure out a winter look for her. Will come back to that later...

Trio

2012-02-08T13:20:00.002-05:00

Costuuumes!

2012-02-07T09:56:00.007-05:00

Kind of got on a Spooky Spencerville kick (which is a terrible thing to get on when I'm working from home, because I invariably start researching urban legends for it, and I invariable wind up reading Japanese ones, and I invariable wind up so jumpy and scared that I have to hide in a corner until The Boy gets home...It's safer to just watch Supernatural while I work) and wanted to try dressing up some of the cast... Here's Terri-Lynn

Looking back at this, I think I'm going to change up her winterwear to include boots... This mild winter just had me confused enough to wear ballet flats for a lot of it.

Bear Gets A Wife

2012-02-06T10:04:00.001-05:00

Quick Terri

2012-02-05T11:06:00.004-05:00

I liked yesterday's drawing of Casey so much I decided to do one of Terri-Lynn in the same style (I like drawing the girls better than the boys, heh). She came out a bit ganglier than I usually like, but these are just for fun, and I need to update more, so here she is.

Terri-Lynn is Jake's older sister. She's 14, in the seventh grade, and goes to the junior high near the elementary Casey, Jake, and the others go to. She mostly stays in her room messing around on her computer. When she does emerge she makes fun of Jake or argues with her mom. She's a mysterious teenager and the other kids are a bit scared of her.

quick Casey

2012-02-04T23:31:00.006-05:00

I'm lame and never update. I'll probably never get ahead in the world as a result!
Decided to spend the evening doing something nice for myself (something I don't think I've done since... uh... university?Oh dear...) and wound up making a quick sketch of Casey (Spooky Spencerville). I'd probably make more personal art if I took more personal time... I need to balance my life.

Anyway, here she is. I guess she's gonna hit a lightswitch or something?
(EDIT: click on her to see her lightboxed. looks better)

Guest Post: Sur La Lune

2011-09-22T11:15:00.005-04:00

I have a guest article on the Sur La Lune Blog today! A review of Panna a Netvor (my favourite movie!) written for Fairy Tale Film month. Check it out, and please leave a comment! I crave the attention.

"At first I was a little skeptical about the whole "Man-Hawk who talks to himself" thing, but after watching him hunt down, trample, and rend a young doe....(Claps slowly) okay Movie, you got me, you got me."
- Revseth, Youtube

Ride 'em cowgirl!

2011-09-06T20:22:00.002-04:00

Concept art for an animated e-card that should be part of a packet going live sometime this month. I watched something like 24 episodes of Digimon 02 while I animated it... Might link tot he content later if the company-that-shall-remain-unnamed is cool with it.

2011-09-02T16:23:00.004-04:00

So, I recently agreed to help a friend out with some products he's promoting, and wound up in a video:

That's a terrifying preview frame, I know. And why does Blogger chop videos in half, anyway?
There are other interviews with artists and the like here at BlackFly. I actually do really, really love this laptop case. I'd totally recommend it, even away from cameras!

2011-08-08T13:24:00.004-04:00

So, I spent the weekend doing our lovely Post-Sheridan Manimation Challenge, courtesy of Ashlyn Anstee. I love OP sequences more than just about anything, so I wanted to make one for a project I've been playing with. Mostly straight-ahead animation in Toon Boom Studio, with loads of help from (cough) youtube. The export and upload are a bit glitchy and seizure-tastic. I can't decide if I'm done with it or if I might clean it up!

Pearl

2011-07-21T09:52:00.003-04:00

Was cleaning the basement and found myself struck by the urge to paint! I'm pretty pleased with the results...Is this a year of bottled-up wanting-to-paint on the canvas, or could I do it again? I don't know!

There's actually a hole punched in this canvas, but I patched it pretty well. I used to work at Curry's and I would buy all the damaged canvases for five bucks a pop. The result is, I don't feel guilty working huge, and I have a basement full of blank canvases.

Rough Reel

2011-04-30T20:16:00.004-04:00

Well, after a long winter, I emerge with a precious little bundle of animation cradled in my arms. I'm afraid I won't be posting the finished film online for some time, as I'd like to get it entered in a few festivals, but I've uploaded the rough animation below!

The Birdman- preproduction stuff

2010-10-13T10:17:00.004-04:00

Preproduction art for "The Birdman", which has since been canned... And it's a bit of a relief! It was avery ambitious project. I'm still a little in love with this pair of characters, though, so we'll see if I come back to them later. Keep an eye open for materials from my new project, soon-ish!

Record of the Wind

2010-10-04T16:01:00.003-04:00

I was painting with my mother while visiting a few weeks back. She's decided she wants to learn, and I thought it would be fun to do together (that is, I'm not "teaching" her anything, persay, but I'm painting alongside, in case she has questions. Totally hands-off!). We bought some small canvases, cheap brushes and acrylic and a few knives. Then, we dug out a couple of my ricketiest old easels and set up in their kitchen. It's kind of fun to work without a set-up sometimes -- cutting boards turned into palettes, the counter became a tabouret, so on and so-forth. It was a lot of fun! This is the first painting I produced that day. It's not very big, and was done with acrylic and palette knives... Now if my poor mother can figure out e-mail attachments, I'll post the rest of our work sometime soon!

Inspiration and Influences!

2010-09-30T01:48:00.005-04:00

This Influence Map meme has apparently been going around the internets (I wouldn't know, having retired from the internet some time ago!). I think it's a brilliant idea. Admittedly, I didn't follow the template instructions exactly, but it was fun to sit down and think a little bit about the artists who have had the greatest impact on how I draw, paint, and think about art. Here's my map, down below....

Bill Watterson: I worshipped the man as a child. My father and I shared a love of Calvin and Hobbes books. I can remember being six years old, crouched on the floor beside a nightlight, trying to read "Attack of the Deranged Killer Monster Snowgoons" without getting caught. I was always baffled as to why a man who could so clearly draw "real things" (birds, trees, etc.) was allowed to spend his time cartooning.

Chris Sanders: Chris Sanders has this great soft, supple, loose feel to his drawings. Everything seems to have wet sand inside of it. His work, and the Lilo & Stitch art book I bought at fifteen, was one of the things that pushed me into animation.

Arthur Rackham: have you ever met anyone who didn't love Arthur Rackham? I'm not sure if it's his thin, wispy lines, or the fact that fairy tales seem to pervade all of his work, or maybe the ability to bounce between poignant and humourous, that makes him so enduring and appealing. Soft, earthy washes on top of brittle, fragile linework... There's something lovely and unearthly about everything he draws.

Rien Poortvliet: I basically want to grow up to be this man. I discovered Gnomes when I was ten or so, and spent the year making imitations about all sorts of animals and supernatural creatures. SInce then, I've been really very lucky in my thrift-store finds, and have several of his other books. My favourite is Dutch Treat, which is just an extended, illustrated journal of the artist's life in rural Holland. His love of minutiae in animals and people alike makes me fall in love with the whole world.

Kay Nielson: I don't know as much about Nielson as I do about a lot of my other influences, but when I think of fairy tale illustration, I think of Nielson's iconic, willowy, doe-eyed princesses, and the strangly ominous surroundings they find themselves in. I love the illustrative sensibility here. They remind me of classic fashion plates, and watching Labyrinth over and over again... and make me wonder how I forgot to put Brian Froud on here.

Hayao Miyazaki: Miyazaki is on here for two reasons. One is his medium, the other is his subject matter. I admire Miyazaki's loose linework in the same way I admire Chris Sanders'. I'm very influenced by the quick watercolour washes found on many of his designs and rough boards. Also, I have always been in love with the attention to quiet detail found in Ghibli films, and the attention to every day matters. No one is "acting" in a Ghibli film. They don't burst into song, or telegraph, or swashbuckle (much -- Porco Rosso and Lupin excepted!).. instead, they go about their business, and if you want to stay and watch, all the better.

Gustav Klimt: As sure as I am that Klimt was a dirty old man, I can't help being dumbstruck by his painting. The boldness of his work -- texture, pattern, gold leaf , the works -- is staggering. The skin of his voluptuous women just glows. Sex and death, birth and rot, bucketloads of symbolism! The whole cycle of life just gets mashed up there, crammed onto the canvas, like the nearly-hatched chick curled inside the egg. I want my work to be even a quarter as passionate as Klimt's.

Alphonse Mucha: I'm drawn to Mucha's subject matter, just as I'm drawn to Rackham and Nielson's, but I also love how Mucha handles his lines. The juxtaposition of fine line alongside bold border is very eye-catching. The iconic nature of his work seems at odds with how complex and correct his figures are, in both anatomy and drapery. He's a master of iconic composition.

Toshihiro Ono: I pored over these comics as a young teen. They were were the first real manga I had gotten my hands on, and I was dumbstruck by the detail of the backgrounds, and the consistency of the designs. I found out years later that my books had been heavily edited, and that the only other work Ono had done was all porn, but it was too late. Ono himself is certainly not the greatest example of manga-ka, but because I found him first, he sticks with me.

MATO: Mato is the best of cartooning to me. Her characters are compact, emotive, simple and charming. They resemble dolls or game sprites, and that hold-it-in-your-hands cuteness is my cartoon ideal. I know I'm still mimicking her. It breaks my heart that her series was handed off to a far inferior artist after illness left her unable to draw.

Ken Sugimori: The man who designed Pokemon. I blame it all on him.

Ted Naifeh: Ted Naifeh's Courtney Crumrin series inspired me to begin pushing dramatic darks and lights, and to take inking seriously. In his place, I could have equally placed Jeff Smith... hm...coin toss here. Might have to revise!

Charles Schultz: Again, the compact, simple design of very early Peanuts strips just wows me. I'm so charmed by the proportions of the characters, by how iconic they are, and how their motions and emotions are boiled down until they are nearly symbols, that it's almost confusing. I scoured used bookstores for "really old" snoopy book when I was small, because I loved the artwork (before Schultz' hands began to shake, I guess?) and found the earlier stories funnier, sweeter, and less...disturbing? Whatever. Peppermint Patty was a pain.

Folks who could also have made the list:

Brian Froud

Bernini

Jeff Smith

Lisa Medley

others....? It's late now, and My brain is fuzzy, so I may edit!

2010 portfolio pages

2010-09-13T23:05:00.012-04:00

Gotta update it! But figured I would post (most of) last year's portfolio ages here, since I never did get around to that!

Vikings!

2010-05-21T23:28:00.003-04:00

So, in a team of 11 we spent eight months crafting an animated short about opera-singing vikings. Below are some of the clips I animated. I'm not posting the finished film. It didn't survive the editing process, unfortunately (a bit like expecting a baby, but instead having potato salad)...but I've certainly learned a lot this year.

Animation was pencil on paper, scanned and processed in photoshop, coloured using digicel flipbook, and cobbled together using adobe premier. Thanks to The Boy for compositing insane things like hair animated of different levels. Love.

Painting

2010-04-04T21:15:00.005-04:00

My latest painting! I did this over the March Break, in one straight go. My roommate Olive and I finally got the basement converted into a studio, so we christened it with a mad, Elvis-fueled painting marathon. This painting took twelve hours, and now it serves as the headboard to my bed! It's about four by five feet, I think, and I stretched it myself, with Olive's help (I'm out of practice, and she used to make money back in uni stretching canvases for folks, so she has all the equipment). Acrylic and uzumaki paper on primed canvas, with metalic gold accents.

Painting is really cathartic for me. It's a bit like purging all your negative emotions, or doing a sweat lodge. I just go downstairs and grab my butchers tray and my poor mangled brushes, and belt out songs as loud as I can, and hopefully, when I emerge again, there's something new to grace the walls of our house.

I had a lot of trouble with painting back in university, mostly because I was afraid of cutting lumber and stretching canvas (we were required to build our own, since Windsor has absolutely no art supply stores. That in itself is a story...Also, canvas making is the way I wound up meeting Olive in the first place), but also because I had nothing to say, and wasnt at all in touch with myself. It took three years for me to create my first "real painting" , and to begin to communicate with myself (or maybe with my muse?), but since leaving university, painting has become something I really, really want to do. Unfortunately, the stress of college really eats up my time, and various miserable living situations before this year really murdered my desire and ability to create. If I'm painting, it probably means that I am feeling good and balanced!

Anyway, so, I'm really, really happy with this at the moment, and looking forward to experimenting with more textures and patterns this summer!

The Birdman

2010-03-10T02:05:00.005-05:00

Well, here's the first official mention of my personal film, The Birdman. If all goes according to plan (and here, I laugh sardonically) this animated short should be wrapping up production around this time next year... Right now, my energy is in roughing out designs and getting the story settled, but I have a huge fondness for posters and promotional material, sooo.. I stayed up until two making this teaser!

This is also my first major photoshop project on the new laptop. It's so much easier to use than the old one. Super fast, responsive to my tablet, and with an up-to-date version of photoshop installed... I'm in digital paint heaven! I feel like I could actually learn to paint properly in CG with this machine... Hmmm.... Anyway, I'll likely be posting up a lot of work from various things as this film progresses. Hopefully, I'll be as optimistic about it a year from now.

You're so Scary...

2010-02-20T20:05:00.007-05:00

Shelley is a favourite character of mine to draw -- a chubby, bombastic, sexpot bride-of-Frankenstein type. I think of her as a voluptuous Betty Boop.

This sculpture is made of wire, tinfoil, pins, screws, and super sculpey. I really enjoyed making this. I want to do more of these and get better!

Heart failure and other surprises

2010-01-25T20:19:00.003-05:00

So, I just got the message that I have an interview with Pixar Animation tomorrow.

Please stand by while I have a massive heart attack.

Beauty and the Beast boards

2010-01-23T23:27:00.004-05:00

you'll really have to click to enlarge these! I needed some boards for my portfolio, as co-op hunting time is fast approaching, so I boarded out the first dining room sequence from my ongoing pet project, an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast".

The dialogue isn't in place here.

Beauty and the Beast

2010-01-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

brush and ink on Canson comic book paper.

Peppermint Green

2010-01-09T11:30:00.005-05:00

Over the summer I ran a comics-and-manga workshop for a group of local teens. I drew up the most cliché girly shoujo character I could, gave her a really, really nondescript sidekick, a nonsense title, and then drew up model sheets, fake pages, a fancy cover and an inking guide. It was interesting to watch the work that the girls (it was mostly girls) produced.

The cover was watercolour on Canson comic book paper. I did this while I was in Europe, and I had to buy the paper there... Why did I spend, like, 30 euro on a pad of paper that's twelve bucks at home?

I think that Deca is some sort of enamoured, but not very feminine hedgehog. A lot like Bulbasaur...

I actually really like inking when it goes well. Toning is fun, too.

Not the best rotations ever (really, not at all) but it was quick and fun.

Hot Noodles

2009-12-21T19:04:00.004-05:00

Made for Sheridan's 24-hour film festival. I animated it in two twelve-hours blocks (ie- CHEATING!) because I am a big fan of sleeping at night. I'm doing my best to focus on timing and spacing right now, because I am prone to mushy inbetweens...

Hot Noodles is based on a scenario by Rory O'Connor.

What do you think, internet? Should I clean this up a bit and include it in my portfolio? I'd really appreciate critiques.

Kokowa Dokoda

2009-11-05T15:26:00.003-05:00

I've received a few concerned e-mails about Kokowa Dokoda, the old geocities-hosted Mewtwo archive site (Oh, geeze...ah ha ha...). Unfortunately, with geocities gone, KD is gone, too. I may have some backed up files somewhere, but I can't be sure of what was archived and what wasn't. I'm sorry, folks.

I did find a few backed up versions (circa 2003) of the old Kokowa Dokoda (geocities.com/soulofaitwo), but the "New Kokowa Dokoda" (http://www.geocities.com/kdmewtwo) that went up in 2007/2008 or so, seems to be lost. If you happened to download or backup any content, do fire me off an e-mail. Otherwise, I'm happy to answer questions or provide resource material, but I can't afford the time or money to reestablish Kokowa Dokoda on paid hosting right now.

Now, if anyone wants to help me, that might be another story....

more vikings!

2009-10-16T22:49:00.002-04:00

Moooore viking child concept art! I realized when I was done that the little boy looks like Tak from the Thief and the Cobbler. I think it's the hat.

Viking children

2009-10-15T22:05:00.002-04:00

We're working on a short film about a viking father and his children, and we're trying to get our designs together, so I'm posting a bit of the concept stuff here. The kids have been, variously, a little girl and a baby, a boy and his little sister, a teenage girl and a little boy, and, currently, a young girl and a slightly younger boy. They are nameless, but in my head I call them Herring the Red and Valkyrie... *grin*

The Lamplighter's Daughter

2009-10-09T13:07:00.013-04:00

Here are some quick snapshots (click for a better look) of a painting I did this summer -- acrylic on canvas, gallery style, 2x3. I started a few like this, mostly inspired by the wonderful articles at Endicott Studios. I adore fairy tales, and I love books like Bettelheim's child psychology text, The Uses of Enchantment, and Marina Warner's The Beast to The Blonde. This painting is called The Lamplighter's Daughter.

It started out as something to do with Red Riding Hood, and gold leafing, and wound up somewhere else. I had a particular painting in mind while working on it (I think it was in the Uffizi gallery... Andrea Mantegna? I'll post it if I can find it.)

2x3-ish acrylic on canvas, Megan Kearney 2009

EDIT: I was wrong! The artist I was thinking of was Gentile da Fabriano, and the painting was adorazione dei magi.

Pen and Ink, Perdue

2009-10-06T10:14:00.005-04:00

I practiced inking this summer, when work was slow. I use a pentel brush pen ($18.oo) and canson fanboy comic book paper (I paid 22 euro, which is ridiculous, It's about $12.oo here at home). Sometimes I threw some india ink and watercolour brush in there, and on at least one occasion some sort of fine liner.

Perdue is the book I published back in 2006-ish. It burns my eyes to look at it now, but at the time it was a big accomplishment. I think I may come back to the story again some day when I'm strong enough to carry the art. For now I just make pin-ups for practise, and to see where the characters are now.

These are photos taken in my non-eco-friendly lightbulbed house. Apologies for the fuzzy and the yellow.

Date Fright Leica

2009-10-06T09:36:00.002-04:00

The leica for a (very) short film I'll be animating pieces of this semester.

Iron Giant WIP

2009-10-01T23:10:00.004-04:00

Here's a work-in-progress shot of a piece I'm doing as a submission to Labyrinth Books' The Iron Giant Project.

The Iron Giant is one of my all-time favourite movies. It's simple, brilliantly executed, and resolutely unflinching. It's a story that could have been ridiculous, and instead is both brutal and genuinely touching. When someone says "family movie", I always hope they're talking about The Iron Giant, because, really, how many films are there that every age group can find something for themselves in?

I like to work mid-to-oversize when I paint, so this waaaay exceeds their size requests (C'mon, though -- he's a giant, right?). When it's finished, it should be a five foot gallery style acrylic on canvas (also, it'll be for sale. e-mail me for details). I'm kind of predicting that I'll be the only person working in a sort of abstract-impressionist style...hm. Submissions are still open, though, so maybe someone will prove me wrong.

Local Colour...

2009-10-01T18:39:00.004-04:00

Here's Morin and I at the Trevi Fountain, in Rome. Yep, more Italy snapshots! I'm weeding my way through about 800 pictures, trying to choose ones that are actually interesting (sometimes failing due to tourist). Anyway, here's a few shots of some of the local colour around Rome.

The Trevi Fountain really is pretty cool. I love how the seahorses (seahorses? Hippocampus, I think, actually) have little flippers for hooves, and the mermen have two big fishy tails for legs.

Poseiden says: stay out of the pool!

A bridge outside of the Vatican City.

I think this was actually indoors. Two buildings got so close they just built a courtyard in.

Trattoria.

This is so cliche´ and Italian...but it's so cool! There were more vespa on the street than cars. everything felt so classy.

Can you spot the lion?

I'm amused and enamoured with street art and scrawls. I love this little verse. I wonder if it's from somewhere, or if the artist just scrawled it up. I kind of want to name a book after it.

Campo de Fiori. The Flower square.

street shot. There are going to be maaaaany more pictures. It's nice to see how much I remember about each one...We were in Rome only briefly, but it definitely has flair...and tourists. Lots of tourists. I've done my best to omit them, but they always sneak in (I'm a hypocrite! Hurrah!)

Vacanze Romane

2009-09-16T11:22:00.014-04:00

I spent a couple of months in Italy this summer, drawing, painting, and traipsing through every church in Christendom. It was pretty amazing, and is also my excuse for not updating this blog. As excuses go, I think it's a pretty good one.

The trip was good for me. I study animation during the year, but my background is in fine art. I got an excuse to get back to that, both during my trip, and after I came home. I've been painting, sculpting, and making some mixed media works. It feels great.

I'll be uploading pictures of my trip over the next little bit, some for artistic merit, but most for the "I went here and did this, can you believe it?!" factor.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took on my first day in Rome, at all the must-visit tourist sites.

Yeah, it's pretty much expected to have at least one picture like this, right? I mean...how could you NOT?

The Colosseum. It's...pretty colossal. The wooden floor that would have been in place back when the building was used has been stripped away, and you can see the catacombs down below. As with most of the ruins in Italy, once it would have been all covered in marble. That facade has been stripped away over the centuries, and only the bare stone is left.

You don't see much press about Palatine Hill, but it's just down the street from the Colosseum. I loved it. Make sure you go!

Apparently, this was a pool once. They say that the design is patterned after an Amazonian shield. I like the idea of swimming through all the little passages...

Rose bushes at the centre of the labyrinth... it would have been an organized garden at one time.

I thought this fellow was pretty neat when I took the photo, but another two months of studying sculpture had taught me that he's nothing special. The sculptor was uncertain, and so he left the stone between the legs to support the rest of the figure. I'm pretty sure this isn't his original resting place, either.

This enourmous fountain was amazing. The moss that had begun growing inside it had become enourmous, and you couldnt see the origin of the water. wild lillies were growing on it, and you could peek in behind and see that there was a very deep recess.

...and inside it were fishies!

I believe this is part of the Roman Forum, which borders Palatine Hill on the other side.

..and that was just the first day! I'll do my best to be selective with pictures. I took hundreds. *laugh*

Work, work, work!

2009-06-29T12:00:00.003-04:00

An artless post, I'm afraid! lots of new work in progress, though.

I bought a handful of new copic markers I'm itching to put to the test, so I have a nice ink piece underway. I'm also working on a new mid-size painting called Red Riding Hood: The Lamplighter's Daughter. I've been away from acrylic for so long, it's strange for me to try and make it work for me again.

I'm teaching comics and manga workshops down at the store. The first week-long session was successful, and all but one of my students is back for another week of activities, along with a few new ones. If this workshop keeps up its popularity, I'll turn it into a weekly thing, and then put together a booklet of all the student work at the end of the summer. I'll get the display pieces I made for each project scanned up at that point, too, and put them here.

Writing continues. The main body of my current "beauty and the Beast" project is all but done, but side characters and beginnings are still giving me trouble. I'm still not sure just what Beauty's relationship with her sisters is, and whether she and her father are on good terms. I'm very happy to just keep editing and exploring for now. We'll see where they wind up.

I've been making masks, inspired by all of the artisan shops in Venice. I promise photos of those, since I'm feeling verrrry prideful about them (please don't burn down, apartment building!)

Back to the Gypsy...That I was...

2009-06-16T13:19:00.005-04:00

I love Stevie Nicks.

Whipped this up super quickly for a portfolio thing today. Wish me luck, children! My "real" job has me pretty cranky lately and it would be nice to maybe work somewhere where I have some control, or, mayhaps, receive some respect.

Also, I'm back from Italy! Photos eventually.

Bye Bye!

2009-04-26T23:51:00.004-04:00

No updates for the next little while, I'm afraid. I'm going to be off in Italy, studying painting, for a few months (Gosh, that sounds really fancy when I type it out. Very posh indeed). Hopefully, I'll have an interesting travel journal when I come back, and lots of fantastic paintings. I really need to do some serious work.

So that this isnt just a personal entry, here's a little more work-in-progress on that Victorian lady I posted a bit of earlier. I've just been messing around in photoshop during some of my classes.

house

2009-04-24T00:33:00.002-04:00

Healthy healthy!

2009-04-14T20:55:00.005-04:00

So, my hand pain is back, along with it's good pals, hip, knee and ankle pain. I waited five months to see a specialist and learned nothing, except I'm too white to have lupus (Lupus was a posibility?)

I'm on brand new meds , which seem to have had the exciting effect of giving me cramps and making me feel sicker, rather than better (at least, I hope that's the meds doing that). I have to keep a pain diary in order to find triggers, and I have to go to the hospital for a bunch more tests.

Pain diary for today: My left knee hurts so much. Feheeeck.

On the bright side, I'm going to Italy to study for half the summer, and my manager at work just gave me full-time hours for the other half, on top of the art classes I'm teaching (hooray! also, I will be exhausted...)

On a brighter note here are some rough concept sketches I did as a favour for a friend. Maybe They'll wind up on some product out there. Maybe not! *shrug*

Amy and Renard!

2009-04-13T22:33:00.003-04:00

Romance Through Hypnosis

2009-04-08T15:24:00.005-04:00

An exercise in human lip sync. Unfortunately, much, much darker than I intended due to the number of layers... More to come soon. ^^

digital painting

2009-03-15T11:09:00.004-04:00

I only have a rudimentary grasp of photoshop. I'm taking a class in school right now, and it's hard to remember all the tricks we cover. This is my first try at being painterly in photoshop... even though she has no hands and only one eyebrow, I'm kind of proud of it. ^^

Amy&Renard

2009-03-06T15:28:00.003-05:00

I actually like a lot of things about these two pages.

Amy&Renard

2009-02-23T08:02:00.005-05:00

I've been having a rough time lately. I was having a bit of a rough time when I started drawing this, which is probably why it's so simplistic. I wanted to draw something about a place that was secure, and people who were good. I wish my life were as sweet and safe.

Amy and Renard!

2009-02-08T09:56:00.005-05:00

Yes, they have faces.

There are a lot of art problems with this comic. This is largely because I drew it while leaning on a low counter, in between cashing out customers.

Hey, dollface...

2009-02-01T17:37:00.009-05:00

This is my first BJD project!

I made this doll as a gift for my mother this Christmas. She began life as a second-hand Goodreau doll (she had obviously been mixed and matched with other dolls --she had a Rumour head, an Independant Lolitia outfit, a Gothic Lolita wig, and was in a playtime box) I was nervous, since I had never worked on a ball-jointed doll before, but I think she came together well. I replaced her eyes, lashes and wig, and stripped her faceup. Now she has full body blush and a new faceup. My sister styled her wig, and I sewed her clothes.

My mother asked that the doll be made to look like her grandmother. We only have one photo of her (I think it's a wedding photo) and my mother admires her. The poor woman lived a tragic life, but, by all family accounts, was brave, kind and cheerful. I'll post the photo for comparison if I can find it anywhere.

My Materials:

short-handled crafting brushes
Windsor & Newton brush cleaner/restorer
Testor's dulcote spray
Nupastel
Liquitex acyrilic
Tri-Art medium
Tri-Art retarder
lots of paper towel
faux lashes
synthetic fibre wig
haiiiirspray

Originally, she looked like something this, but extremely blonde

I really enjoyed the process behind this project. I would love to do more faceups, and I'm playing with doing some sculpt modding...If anyone has a doll they'd like somethin' done to, I would love to try my hand at more...OR, if anyone would like me to purchase and customize a doll for them (to look like a family member, cartoon or original character, etc.) please leave a comment about it, and we can talk models and prices! ^^

Amy&Renard

2009-01-17T15:22:00.006-05:00

I've decided to post the comic I drew at work this summer. It's not anything professional looking, but it was fun to do, and passed a lot of slow hours. I'll be posting pages from this until they run out. I may or may not pick it up where I left off. Because this was just for fun, there are quite a few homages in it, though I don't know if most people will catch them. Anyway. Let me know what you think!

Watch This: There She Is!!

2008-12-27T16:23:00.003-05:00

There She Is!! is a series of five short Korean flash videos concerning the romance between a cat (Nabi) and a rabbit (Doki). While the animation is not noteworthy, the simply told story is. What begins as a cute, throwaway short in the style of Pepe LePeu evolves into a surprising story about intolerance.

Each video is under five minutes in length. The first three are pretty stand-alone, and the last few build on the foundations laid by the earlier videos. The limited use of colour and texture, and the near complete lack of dialogue mean that the story has to support itself on symbols --which it does amazingly well.

Whether you interpret this story to be about race, gender, religion, or nothing at all is up to you. But do yourself a favour and spend half an hour watching this simple love story.

http://sambakza.net/amalloc/tteotta_main.htm

Nothing Too Good for a Cowgirl!

2008-12-23T09:12:00.006-05:00

Beth Shinigami was looking over my review of FMA , and said that initially, she thought the comic excerpt was mine. Nope, unfortunately. Buuuut...I actually have had a short manga story published!

Cowgirl のためによい何も余りに! was published in a Digimon doujinshii collection called To Japan With Love back in 2007. It was sold at a few Japanese comic events, including (I think) Comiket.

I can't really confirm how it came out, because I never did get my hands on a copy. I guess that's good, since I usually want to destroy most of my work about a week after I finish it, and having things out there and available makes me nervous as heck. But here's some spot-art from it, and the interior title page, anyway. I guess I am a little bit proud.

Digimon: Digital Monsters and Digimon Adventure are copyright Toei Animation and Bandai Entertainment

This Is Not My Mother: Comic Rhetoric in FullMetal Alchemist

2008-12-23T00:03:00.007-05:00

Note: This excerpt is read right-to-left

Excerpt: FullMetal Alchemist, Volume 11, chapter 43: River of Mud, page 74/75. 2007, Viz Media. Scans retreived from Onemanga.com.

Fullmetal Alchemist, by Hiromu Arakawa, is published in North America by Viz Media.

Originally published as Hagare no Renkinjutsushi, in Monthly Shonen Gangan.

Context:

FullMetal Alchemist is a manga that does not stray too far from its core themes, but it does have a bit of sprawl to it. The backstory, that brothers Edward and Alphonse committed a sin against God and nature when they tried to revive their dead mother and paid a heavy price as a result, is always present in the background of the narrative. In this volume, however, some of the basic beliefs characters have long held are questioned.

The above pages show the climax of a scene that disrupts a key story pillar, taken for granted throughout the past eleven volumes of manga. The "thing" buried in the Elric's backyard is not, as previously believed, the failed resurrection of Trisha Elric. The costly experiment that produced this sad creature left Edward crippled, and Alphonse completely separated from his body. They (and the rest of the cast) believed that this was due to the law of equivilent exchange, which demands that something be sacrificed in order to create something new.

These facing pages sit just before the scene's climax. They illustrate the weight of events of Edward, and also develop his character by showing him laid bare and vulnerable. In pages leading up to this, we have seen Ed's physical weakness (complaining of aching joints, weak knees, vomiting) facing the gravity of what he has done, but here we see emotional backlash.

Rain disguising tears is not a new device in any form, but in this case, the reader is reminded of the Funeral of General Hughes in the fourth volume, In which Colonel Roy Mustang denies that he is crying, and informs Lieutenant Hawkeye that it is raining, though he stands under clear skies.

Edward's eyes are drawn much larger and wider than is usual, with the pupil set in the center, framed by the whites of the eye. The eye drawn with the pupil framed by white is most often used to illustrate surprise, fear or insanity, and we derive a sense of Ed's mental state from this. Granny Pinako's eyes are not shown at all, keeping her, at least insofar as the reader is concerned, rational and impartial.

Granny Pinako is a character who serves as a touchstone for the boys. She cared for them after their mother died, until they left their hometown to study. She runs a successful prosthetics business with the help of her mechanic granddaughter, Winry, who is also an orphan. Pinako is drawn comically short and rotund, but is a character whom the reader trusts. This is partially due to her no-nonsense attitude, but also because she is a character that comes from the "before" portion of Ed and Al's lives. Edward, Alphonse and Winry trust her, and so do we. Knowing that Pinoko is a mother figure, a mechanic, and that her children were surgeons, we accept that she knows what she is talking about when she examines the exhumed remains.

This scene gives the reader the chance to re-evaluate the relationshiop between Edward and Pinako. Where previously Granny Pinako has been a parent-figure to Edward, we are given visual indicators in this sequence that something has changed. Edward is placed above her in panels, and waiting inactively for his verdict. Because Edward's key character quirk is his inability to deal with being called short, any scene in which he is shown to tower over another character is notable.

This volume also marks significant alterations to Edward's design, giving him a more defined jaw line, broader shoulders and narrower eyes. Narratively, Edward is now two years older than he was at the start of the series, and these changes to his design, however subtle, remind the reader that he is no longer a child. His absentee father, Van Hohenheim, has accused him of running from his mistakes instead of owning up to them. Edward letting go of childish guilt and fear is the impetus for this grave-robbing expedition. This is also the first time siblings Edward and Alphonse have spent the bulk of a volume separated, developing apart from one another.

Formal Elements

The panel setup is somewhat irregular in these pages. Page 74 is broken up into three tiers, with a haiku of boxes laid out, two-three-two. There are wide gutters between each tier, but the boxes that sit side-by-side have very narrow gutters. in the top and bottom tier, boxes bleed off the page, as though the moments they depict can't be properly contained.

The top tier shows us two perspectives. First, looking on as the shovel hits bone, and then looking up into Ed and Granny Pinako's faces, as though it is the reader who has been unearthed. This is a clever device as it allows us a beat to see the reactions on the characters faces without revealing what has been been uncovered. It is also a subtle foreshadowing device: later, Alphonse will recall seeing Edward through the eyes of their creation after his body was taken as toll.

In the second tier, we are given an extreme closeup of Edward's stricken face, marked with mud, rain and sweat, which quickly cuts to his dirt caked hands drawing a tiny scrap from the ground, and then draws back, showing a large pail of water in which Edward dunks whatever he has found. The slender gutter space between panels lets the eye gloss quickly across this tier, lingering a little longer on Edward's face, with it's white space, than on the busier successive panels. This sequence could be considered action-to-action or aspect-to-aspect depending on how it is interpreted by readers.

In the final tier of page 74, the first box bleeds off of the page from the corner and base. We see Pinako's back, and Edward kneeling at the pail. Due to the setup of this panel, the reader is drawn in, as though standing just behind the characters. The frame of this panel plays well against the truncated shape of it's neighbour. Pinako is pictured in the final box on page 74, looking serious as Edward's speech bubbles frame her head. This panel is small and compressed, leaving a large white space below it. The reader pauses in this space longer than is usual, building a sense of suspense and giving the top panel of the next page a greater effect

Page 75 delivers a wonderful kick with its layout, artwork and breaks in formula. In a lovely full-tier frame, blocked in only on one side and one base, we get a dramatic closeup of Edward and the little clump of hair he has pulled from the grave. He is framed by empty space, save the dashes that represent rain and the speech and sound devices. Crosshatching beneath Edward's exagerrated eyes suggests distress, and we cannot tell whether it is rain or tears streaking his dirty face. While the use of space hits us, it is the depiction of Ed's slightly deranged, emotionally wracked face that lingers. He seems to make eye contact with the reader, who is once more placed within the scene. Also notable is that Edward's automail arm is not shown once in this climax. It is his surviving left hand that is used to rob the grave, and to hold aloft his discovery. The prosthetic that has earned him the name "fullmetal" has no place at the burial site of his sins, nor in the happy past.

The gutter beneath this top tier is double even the exagerrated gutters of the previous page. There seems to have been some length of time passed between tiers, as the next panel shows us the contents of the unmarked grave, with Granny Pinako calmly measuring the femur. The gutter break across what would otherwise function as a single image makes the eye linger a little longer, and also allows the panel above to retain it's impact.

Below, Ed and Pinako share a panel, neither shown fully. We see Ed from his shoulders to his brow, and Pinako from eye level upward. Again, white space holds the reader's attention for a moment, before the eye travels to the darker and more detailed contents of the next box.

Speech and Sound Effects

Edward's heartbeat ("th-thmp") plays over all the images on this page in tiny sound effects bubbles, overlapping gutters and frames. These thumps turn the series of panels into a single event, taking place painfully slowly. On page 75, Ed's heartbeat sound effect takes up the whole height on the top panel, punctuating his discovery. By inserting the sound of Ed's heart, the reader is placed inside the character's head, living the moments slowly and with great tension.

The sound of the shovel entering the ground is a great resounding "SHNK" that bleeds onto the page from above, as if it were the blade entering into the page. Visually this works well. It does not intrude on the artwork and also gives a sense of the direction in which the shovel has traveled, reinforced by the speed lines in the background.

On page 75, sound effects are used to great effect in the first panel, and then are conspicuous by their absence. The "Shaaaaaaaa" that sprawls across gutter under the top tier reminds us of the rain's presence. There have been no "rain effects" up until this point, and their sudden intrusion visually separates the "before" from the "after" of the scene, almost as if the most intense point of the storm coincides with the climax of the dig. This use of rain effects will be repeated two pages later as Ed reacts to his discovery.

When Edward, off scene, speaks to Granny Pinako in the last panel of page 74, his speech bubbles are drawn with rough edges, which look strange and unpolished compared to the gently geometric shape of Pinako's. On page 75, as Ed holds up a fistful of dark hair, the size and shape of the speech bubble is markedly exaggerated, and the font is bolded and several sizes larger than usual. These visual indicators increase the impact of Ed's statement, and also give us the voice in which they are said. The use of bolding, italics and exclamation marks is worth noting, as all are used sparingly throughout otherwise. By the second-to-final panel of the page, Edward's speech bubbles have regained their usual clean edges.

It should be noted that the sound effects and lettering are altered from their original Japanese here. The artwork has been altered to better accommodate the roman alphabet. It is Viz's practice to replace sound effects with their English equivalent, Other manga translators have various ways of dealing with sound effects, sometimes including a glossary, or a footnote rather than altering the look of the original page. The scans used here are not the ones referred to throughout the article, but rather "scanslations" from onemanga.com. The official English-language release of FullMetal Alchemist is published through Viz and available at most comic book stores, and major book chains.

Oh, My!

2008-12-22T20:59:00.002-05:00

...hee hee hee.

Leica - Collection

2008-12-22T16:11:00.004-05:00

Here's my finished leica reel for "Collection". Boarded by hand, tinted in Photoshop, and assembled in Premier Pro. My inner perfectionist is very unhappy that I used such scrappy looking storyboards, but, hey. That's how storyboards are SUPPOSED to look!

The Branni Bunny was originally a marketable Pikachu/CareBear hybrid, but that got the banhammer due to copyright infringement. *eyeroll* Purposes of parody, anyone?

sketchdump

2008-12-17T15:25:00.013-05:00

Filled up my last sketchbook, so here's a mess of scans from it! A standard 9x11 hardbound sketchbook usually lasts me about two months. Most of this stuff is in blue cohl erase pencil, mechanical pencil, pentel brush pen with india ink or pilot G-tec pen.

Dead critters. I like to go and draw at the Museum. The hall of wonders! The little Bride-of-Frankenstein girl is named Bridgette. I'd like to do a comic or something with her in it.

Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairy tale. I'm puddling away at a painting, and a bit of a story. Lots of BATB drawings as a result.

Bearadactyl. BRAAWWWK!

fanart. Eh heh. Heh... I want to be a pokemon trainer when I grow up.

Moue

2008-12-06T23:42:00.002-05:00

Learned a new word today: Moue. It's pronounced "moo", and it means pout. I like it.

breadmaker

2008-12-03T00:35:00.008-05:00

Old comic trying out different style and feeling. I was ripping on zinesters and autobiographical comics, but mostly House of Sugar...Set in my dear old apartment in Windsor. Now I live in a shoddily run apartment building near Toronto. It's soul drowned when it flooded, I think.

Why am I posting all old work? Well, I deleted something that, apparently, my scanner/printer needed. After a few weeks of pestering, and a tandoori pork dinner, my Mac-savvy roommate is taking a look at it for me. Fingers crossed!

Also -- Look what Ritabuuk sent in!

reductive drawings

2008-11-23T11:14:00.003-05:00

Bodice. Sepia and white conte.

Russell in the rain. charcoal and white conte.

I promised San I would post these. Reductive drawings like this are done by applying an even scrub of conte, chalk pastel or charcoal over the paper before beginning. From there, light areas are lifted away using a kneadeable eraser. Once the midtones are established through use of the existing tone and the eraser, you go back in and scrub the darker areas again with your conte or charcoal. These steps will likely be repeated several times until the composition starts to come together. The last step is to apply white conte or chalk for the brightest highlights. It's a very simple thing to do, but the results are always surprising. It requires a whole different mindset than traditional drawing or painting, and for that reason can be both relaxing and challenging.

Sassafras Lift and Toss Animation

2008-11-17T22:56:00.004-05:00

I forgot to upload this! It's flawed, obviously, in many places, but it's the best animation I've done to date, and so I'm very proud!

The little bird is a chickadee character named Sassafras. If I can find her model sheets, I'll upload them here later on.

Royal Winter Fair

2008-11-17T22:29:00.005-05:00

Sketch collections from the Royal Winter Fair (a very large annual agricultural convention). I went with my class on Friday and again with my Sweetie on Saturday. We ate a lot of very fried food and spent quite a bit of time staring at the back ends of cows and sheep. It's nice to sketch the animals, but it can get so crowded! We brought folding stools so we could hang around the barns comfortably. My goal this year was to learn how cows work, and I think I made some serious progress. They look less horselike than ever! The little watercolour people were mostly spectators at the dog show. The little boy in the blue stripes, and the beaded guy are my two favourites.

paintings

2008-11-14T23:50:00.005-05:00

Kakurenbo - 2006 - Acrylic on Stonehenge - 3x4

Miss Step and the Bears - 2006 - Acrylic on Canvas - 3x4

Shamblers - 2006 - Acrylic on Stonehenge

A few paintings from University. I think they're mostly 3X4 feet. For anything bigger than a regular notebook sized sheet, I work in acrylic. I prefer to work on stretched canvas (Miss Step) but both Kakurenbo and Shamblers were done on soaked and stretched stonehenge paper. Despite soaking, it still warps, but not to the extent most other papers do. All three of these paintings were done using cheap, student brand acrylics, and only using red, blue, yellow, brown and black. I like to work in watery layers and build up my colours, rather than going for a flat, straight-from-the-tube look (though my paints come in tubs, not tubes...).

Of the three, Miss Step and the Bears is my favourite. It has some serious flaws to it (this photo is quite bleached out, I'm not sure how evident they are) but conceptually, it's an important work for me. Art is the partnership of design and concept. Right now, my studies focus almost singularly on design and technical skill, which suits me very well. At the time when these paintings were created, however, my studies were entirely on concept. Miss Step was a my first real success in self-expression through painting, without exluding design entirely. I'm more confident today than I was two years ago -- I don't feel like I'm constantly performing on a tightrope above a pit of indifferent but hungry bears anymore (just some of the time!) -- But it was this painting that helped me to work out those feelings and present them. By making that constant neuroses known to myself I was able to better come to terms with and deal with it. By presenting that feeling as an art piece, I was acknowledging my anxiety to a wider audience and therby diffusing its power over me.

Technical artists --illustrators, animators, commercial artists, etc. -- often scoff at fine art (ESPECIALLY modern, post-modern and abstract art). This is likely because the technical arts are focused on creating something for a wider audience, whereas fine art, in it's modern sense, is about the exploration and expression of the inner world: the selfish, the personal and the egocentric. Fine artists, of course, often show a disdain for the more mundane, everyman's art, dismissing it as purely illustrative, plebian and common. It's hard to find a balance between the two, especially when commercial art can be so commercial and the fine arts can be so wierd. Don't get me wrong -- I love 'em both and I hate 'em both. I know that the more technical art field is the best place for me, but I sometimes miss being able to cast pop cans in wax, throw them at a grate, and call it an installation.

Back on topic -- I don't do a lot of large scale work anymore, but I'm hoping to get back into it over the Christmas break. I have three unfinished paintings sitting around: An unstretched 3x4 in the same style as Kakurenbo has been almost-done for the past two years because I can't get the face right. I began and abandoned a triptych this summer, and have just not had time to work on my Beauty and the Beast piece since classes began.

I love painting, but when I'm on a roll, I can't stop. That's good, unless you have other deadlines looming. I feel guilty doing personal artwork when there are other responsibilities. I think that once I'm working this will get easier, since there's a more distinct line between home life and professional life (am I right?).

Poorly Built!

2008-11-04T00:21:00.005-05:00

For the last year or so I've had a lot of trouble with my right wrist. It aches, my fingers hurt, and sometimes the pain goes right up through my arm, all the way to the shoulder. I get little bouts of it in the left wrist as well, and the pinkie occasionally goes numb. It began around the same time I started taking animation seriously. At that point, we had a physiotherapy training program with a therapy centre set up on campus. They diagnosed me with thoracic outlet syndrome -- essentially, the clavicle and upper ribcage crushing nerves, and causing pain and numbness -- and carpal tunnel syndrome. I went for therapy every week for the rest of the semester, though the pain continued.

Early this year I had another bought of trouble with it. My Sweetheart convinced me to visit a local walk-in clinic, who in turn referred me to a neurologist. After a two month wait, I went in to have my arm looked over. The doctor said I had surprisingly advanced arthritis for my age, illustrated by the curvature of my fingers, and then they electrocuted me a bunch. That pretty much ruled out TOS and carpal tunnel, but they sent me for blood tests and x-rays (pansy that I am, I had dodged a blood test earlier, because needles scare the bejeebers out of me).

Today the doctor called me (during life drawing!) about my lab results. She said she was somewhat baffled by a positive test for nerve disease (she didn't say exactly what) and was referring me to another specialist. I was initially calm, but in the end I left class to call my mother and cry a bit. It seems likely that it's some form of rheumatoid arthritis, which my mother informed me runs in the family. My grandmother, who is a million years old and could heft a cow if she so desired, has apparently had it all her life, and does pretty well.

I just wanted to write that all out so I can stop making it seem scarier than it is. It could still be a lab error, and even if it is some sort of rheumatoid problem, it's probably a very minor one (though, reading up on it, it looks like it can take on a lot of different forms, and some are really nasty.). My wrist has been feeling pretty good for the past month or so, even with a heavy workload, so getting all worked up is kind of pointless. It's better to know than to wonder, I think.

On a brighter note (and so this keeps being an art blog, and not a pity-party), here's the rough doodle that wound up becoming the faux cover image I posted back in October. I totally drew in in my sketchbook in pen, and Renard's not even in it. Trees and rocks!

Rock fish

2008-11-02T10:56:00.004-05:00

My first and only attempt at stoneworking.

Birds of Paradise

2008-11-01T00:18:00.004-04:00

This is a photograph of the painting used in the current blog banner. It's called Birds of Paradise and was painted and sold back in 2007. It's a 2x3 foot acrylic on linen board. I painted most of this outdoors at my old place in Windsor. I didn't have a studio at the time, living in a one-bedroom flat in an old converted house on the river, so this painting was done propped up on a laundry rack (I didn't have a dryer, either) on the half-rotted wooden fire escape out back, overlooking the alley. There were all these baby squirrels living in my yard (which contained, among other things, a claw-foot bathtub, a pile a rocks, and my home-made laundry lines) and I'd keep an eye out for stray cats while I painted, because baby squirrels are kinda stupid and like to sunbathe.

I have a lot of good memories of that apartment and that period of my life, but I would never want to settle in Windsor, and I would never, ever give up what I have now. I live in a city that's much more polished and fake, and I kind of loathe it for that, but I guess you learn something from every place you live.

Anyway, Birds of Paradise. It was kind of an experiment, trying to bridge my abstract work with something more representational. The original is much more vibrant, of course, and sharper. I still like acrylic, but I'll probably never work on linen board again. I hate how stiff it is, and how easily it warps. I was just cutting corners, since I didn't want to buy lumber, spend all day using power tools, which scare me, and then stretch and gesso the darn thing myself (Windsor has no real art supply stores, and the bus system isn't fabulous). Honestly, though, canvas is they way to go. Don't mess around with boards if you're looking to do a proper painting. Either get/make a nice stretched canvas, or soak and staple a good sheet of stonehenge to some plywood.

I don't feel like this is a terribly successful piece, but I did manage to sell it without any trouble. I learned a few things while working on this, and that's all you can really hope for.

Joy!

2008-10-24T21:59:00.001-04:00

photographs

2008-10-20T14:39:00.006-04:00

I did a semester or two of photography back in university. I don't love darkrooms or chemical washes, but I sure do love takin' pictures. These are from a European deli in Windsor.

An old pub near my apartment in Windsor.. Windsor is a dirty, decrepit city, but it's aware of that, and somehow, that makes it endearing.

I love how the paint was just slicked on over the cracks.

All the Pretty Little Horses

2008-10-05T23:26:00.004-04:00

We took a trip to a riding stable nearby to draw horses. Horses are HARD to draw. I actually wish I had borrowed my sweetheart's horse encyclopedia to study beforehand. Horses are built like big rabbits -- they're group-oriented herbivores. They can't throw up. They flare their noses when they find something interesting or alarming. They have big dark eyes and long lashes. They are mostly belly. I find the chest and neck the most confusing because it's such a different structure than a human build. I have the same problem with big cats and dogs.

Anyway, some of my less awful drawings all scanned up together. Click 'em to see 'em big.

Bunny Bun Bun

2008-10-05T11:08:00.008-04:00

Amy&Renard

2008-10-01T12:31:00.014-04:00

I've been doodling this comic strip about a little girl and a little fox who live on a nearly-uninhabited island. I find it therapeutic to do a simple story about being a child, and being able to rely on people.

Amy is probably seven or eight, and lives with her father on a small island. I think her Dad is probably a writer or a naturalist or something. Because she's an only child with a single parent, Amy is a little stubborn and bossy, and could really use a friend to play with. She spends most of her time tearing around the forest.

Renard is a strange little fox that Amy find in the woods one day. He's a younger and less self-assured, so he likes Amy's decisiveness and kind of goes along with whatever games she comes up with. I want to play with the two personality types and kind of examine why the kids are the way they are. I'll probably post some of the comics here later, but for now, here's some model sheets and stuff.

,

Introduction to Art Markers

2008-10-01T12:02:00.005-04:00

I wrote this handout a couple of years ago for a class I taught in marker rendering. It was accompanied by some images and a hands-on lesson, but I thought I'd post it here, anyway, along with some links to photo-tutorials. Sorry, I haven't got any pictures at present! I might edit them in later (but I doubt it!)

Marker Materials for Drafting and Illustration
Markers are your friend! They are used in everything from illustration to fashion design to technical and mechanical design! Learning to use them can be tricky, but here's a good basic layout of the skills and material you will need!

1) Alcohol-Based Markers - Popular brands include Copic (best, expensive) Tria-Letraset (good, not too pricey) and Prismacolour (OK, and cheaper!). There are other brands out there, such as Neo-Piko and Touch, that are serviceable as well.

2) Fibre-Tipped Drafting Pens - Make sure they have waterproof ink! Popular brands include Koh-i-Noor (pricey, but last forever) Staedtler and Sakura Microns (affordable, sturdy tip, high quality ink)

3) Brush Pens - a good alternative to actual brushes. Sakura Micron makes serviceable brush pens, but they tend to fray a bit. Fabre-Castelle seems to be the best disposable pen. Pentel makes as few different refillable pens with very nice synthetic tips.

4) Marker Paper - Some paper is better than others for working in inks and markers. You want a good paper that won't bleed, but also that wont suck up your ink! Bristol board (rough side) and cardstock are good because they can take a lot of ink, but that also means they can sap your markers dry very quickly. Some artists prefer a rag paper or marker vellum, like the kinds produced by Letraset and Staedtler. If you're just starting out, heavy copier paper should be OK to practice on.

Accessories:
You might also find useful...
white vinyl eraser
masking liquid
White gel pens
white paint
coloured pencils
opaque paper
lightbox

Purchasing Markers:
When you buy your markers, consider first what you want them for. Illustration? Design? Drawing adorable bunnies frolicking in grassy fields? What you plan to draw will determine what you need to buy. Think about your palette. What colours do you most like? What colours do you most often use? what colours are at the base of your work. A good collection of greys, browns and skin tones is wise if you draw people, animals and nature. If you work with machines, you'll want synthetic tones, like reds, blues and metallic greys. For every colour you purchase, be sure to buy it's "sister colours" -- that is, colours of the same quality in darker and lighter shades. This way you will be able to illustrate convincing shadows, folds or curves later on. For a beginner, I always suggest buying a pair of browns, three varied skin tones, several hues of blue and green, a pair of cool greys and a pair of warm greys. Any other colours you buy will be dependent on your tastes and ideas, but this basic palette will serve you well.

How-To: excitment with ink.

While there is no one "right way" to use art-markers, there are some basic steps that will do away with many of the technical frustrations. I'll go over these points thoroughly in class, but hang on to these notes in case you get muddled when you're working on your own.

Get Set Up
before you start, make sure you have a good work surface, something absorbent and smooth under your paper, and all of your materials handy. You probably won't want to stop in the middle of your project, so it's best to have everything within reach. If you need music, or background distractions, get those ready, too. This could take a while!

Think before you ink!
Begin with your drawing. When you are satisfied with your pencil work, you will either want to ink over the lines, or create a copy to work with. Photocopy ink will not dissolve with alcohol-based art markers, but printer ink will. If you decide to ink your original, just remember that your paper quality must be high, and your graphite marks must be erased completely using a white vinyl eraser, or else you'll have smudging! Don't worry too much about your line quality here. You will probably want to re-ink much of it when you finish anyway.

You may prefer to begin with a kohl-erase drawing in non-photo blue, rather than an inked piece. The waxy kohl-erase pencils are much less likely to smear or stain your marker tips than a traditional graphite pencil. You can be much more loose in your colouring if you start with only rough linework. This is a good way to work on colour concepts before leaping into a fully conceived image, or just to make quick, fun drawings. You may or may not want to put ink linework over your pencils afterward.

Laying down the Bases
Before you actually colour anything in, choose you palette and set those colours aside for later. On a separate sheet of paper, try them side-by-side and layered to see what effects and colours will best suite your piece. Now, choose your base colours. it is wise to start with light colours. You can always make something darker. You can't lighten things up easily. Begin to fill in the base areas with a flat tone, working quickly in small circular motions or strokes. Don't lift the marker off of the paper! Try to work while the ink is still wet to avoid patchy colour.

Thinking about Shadows and Highlights
A brilliant (but very creepy) artist once told me "find your darkest darks, and lightest lights". He was talking about working in graphite and charcoal, but his rule still applies. The darkest darks and the lightest lights are what everyone looks at. But you don't want to jump right into dramatic shadows. You have to be subtle. Start with light colours and gradually work up to the darker ones. You can achieve the impression of shadow by layering the same base colour several times over, and then accenting it with a darker tone. Remember to choose a light source and stick to it! You may find that adding layers of grey over coloured areas gives them a uniform shadey feel.

Be Bold!
Don't be afraid of layering and darkening. The best art happens when you push yourself into new territory. You might have a nice, even, mundane drawing that you don't want to tamper with, but when you're bold, you'll wind up with something really eye-catching...whether it's a masterpiece or a trainwreck! So go for deep shadows and brilliant white shine. Just be sure to blend things together for a natural effect, unless synthetic is your goal.

Last-Minute Touchup
when you're happy with your drawing and feel that it shouldn't be pushed any further, it's time for the fun bit. The icing on the cake! The big finishing number! The third encore! grab your technical pens, brush pens, gel pens and pencils. Now is the time to make your linework nice and clean-looking with your sakuras and brush tips, to add glare on lips, eyes, bumpers or chromey goodness with gel pens, or to add an organic feel with gentle coloured-pencil shading and overlaying. If you're computer savvy, you can also tweak things using photoshop or illustrator.

There, you've created marker art. Let your drawing along for a day or so and come back to it to see if there's anything you missed. Try something new the next time until you find the best way for YOU to use art markers. Markers are a great tool and can be used in many ways for many effects. Check out the links below to see how other artists advise using materials, and have fun. slap a good CD in, make a giant mug of hot chocolate, and settle in for a few hours. Markering is bliss!

Useful Links:
Most of these use anime-style art as part of their instructions. Art markers have long been a popular medium for Japanese artists and manga-ka, while they have been used almost exclusively by professionals and draftsmen in the west. The basic rules featured here, despite being illustrated on catgirls and the like, are applicable in any medium.

Aerinl's Marker Tutorial

Finni's Guide to Colouring with Copic Markers

Ran's Marker Tutorial

Gwennafrans Cel-Shading Tutorial for Beginners

Zhenoa's Mini Marker Tutorial

NoirMalediction's Basic Marker Tutorial

Mopekons

2008-10-01T00:58:00.007-04:00

When I grow up I want to be a pokemon trainer.

I modded these sprites over the summer, when I was supposed to be doing something much more important (I'm not sure what. I think it may have been writing lesson plans). The original sprites are from the diamond and pearl generation of Pokemon gameboy games. I just tarted them up into characters from the first movie for fun. I think Sweet/Neesha turned out pretty well, as did the sitting Nurse Joy, but I can't decide which Ai/Amber icon I like best.

La Luna

2008-09-10T22:32:00.004-04:00

I'm going to be uploading some older work here as well as current projects. I think it will help to create a context for my work. This piece is from last winter, done for a painting class. It's a small piece, probably 81/2 by 11 or so. Gouache on cheap watercolour paper.

Gouache is not only hard to spell, it's hard to paint with. It's kind of like the lovechild of watercolour and tempera (I think tempera might actually be a type of gouache). It can be watered down for a vibrant watercolour-y look, or applied thickly. It dries superflat and fairly bright, with a kind of chalky texture. The main difficulty in working with it lies in the fact that it is SO sensitive to water. you cannot apply colours over dry areas without reactivating the layer beneathe, and you cannot match that colour, no matter how hard you try. Even dripping on a dry area will result in obvious marks. It's very finicky.

This peice, La Luna, is the only one I've ever done with gouache that I consider succesful (more or less). It's pretty simple and naive, but I acheived some colour gradiations that would have been impossible for me when I began working with the stuff, so I call that a reason to celebrate. The obvious orientalism here if offset a little by the little child herding her chicken-dogs up the path. She was inspired by Appalachian and Peruvian folk art. I'd like to explore more about that.

As always, scanning and jpeg-ing has bleached this picture out dramatically. I wish I could fix that.

The Wolf's Bride

2008-09-08T08:40:00.005-04:00

I love markers SO MUCH. Unfortunately, I kind of overdid it with this drawing. I was really proud of the subtlety of the girl's dress and the layering of the wolf's coat, but then I blew it all with those darn pink walls. *sigh* Markers are not suited for large, flat areas. I've been wondering if using straight-up inks might be more effective for expanses like this. The colour was good in a small sample...not so good for a whole background.

I used Sakura pens, Neo-Piko markers and Copic Ciao markers for this. It's drawn on Neo-Piko manga paper. I used some photo reference for the girl's pose. I'll definitely be trying this theme and style again, hopefully with more success.

Pirate profile! Yarrr.

2008-09-07T20:01:00.007-04:00

Just to keep the ball rolling, here is the pirate icon I created for this blog. She was actually part of some roughs for a banner advertising Curry's Fine Art Supply for the 2008 Fan Expo in Toronto, but we wound up using a different image. either jpeg-ing this image, or uploading it here has really bleached it out...does anyone know how to avoid that?

Speaking of pirates, in high school I had a pirate crew. By that I mean we made up absurd pirate names and occasionally played a board game called Pirateer on breaks. I was Cod-Slappin' Bonnie, the captain of The Lusty Goat. My crew members had names like Two-Fisted Linda, Saucy Wench, Chum-Bucket Jane (The Effeminate Cabin Boy) and Grog-Swillin' Millie.

Aaaaand since we're on the subject of Lady Pirates already, graphic novelist Ted Naifeh has a wonderful all-ages book out from Oni Press. Polly and the Pirates is a one shot (for now) and all of the artwork is done in gorgeous black-and-white ink washes. It's really fun to look at, and the story is amusing as well.

The Introduction

2008-09-07T10:17:00.006-04:00

Okay! Time to hop on the bandwagon and maintain an art blog! Apparently these are a good career move, and also handy in impressing others. That probably means I shouldn't post emo poetry, pictures of myself taken in a mirror, or cat memes. This may be difficult.

The introduction

My name is Megan Kearney, I'm twenty-two, and live in a scuzzy apartment building with two rabbits. I've been drawing since just before I turned two (this first identified drawing is entitled "Horse Jumping Over a Fence" and is drawn in red ballpoint on a post-it note). I'm a second year animation student at the top-notch Sheridan College. Before beginning my BAA in animation, I earned my BA in visual arts, along with a minor in English, from the University of Windsor. During that time I also worked as a freelance illustrator, providing covers and interior art for a number of language instruction books from EZFSL and designing for several books from Black Moss Press. I love comics of all sorts, and have self-published two books of my own, and had stories featured in several small magazines.

In addition to comics and illustration, I enjoy painting. I've had work in two gallery shows, >PLAY at the Lebel Gallery and The Common Ground Gallery in Windsor (2006) and Square Foot at the AWOL Gallery in Toronto (2008). Painting is more of a hobby than anything right now. I don't think I'll ever have a show of my own, but I like to submit things to group shows now and then.

Now that the bragging is done, it's time to make good on all my claims to glory, and produce some art!