Pizza Pinup!

So yeah, I finally finished one of my food pinups I've been planning to do for like...6 months. I found this penciled, underneath a MOUNTAIN of discarded sketches and other papers. The Prismacolor Markers are truly showing their worth, and for this I am very grateful.

Later I will post more Kith and Kin stuff I did with Breena the other day. We had alot of fun, and crossed over some of our characters!

Until then, Nerds!

Rages, Pages, and Stages.

Rages: The girls and I wanted to make a trip to the Oakland Museum's Pixar Exhibit. Nowhere on the site does it say that this event is a possible Sell Out kind of thing. Most museums design an exhibit to be circulated through so that it can get the maximum amount of traffic possible. Well. HA. We get down there, 10:40...only to find that we can't get into the exhibit. It's sold out. Nothing online warns about this, and we were not the only people in line who ONLY came to see it. SO. RAGES. MANY. MANY RAGES.

Pages: Thanks to people adhering to my wishlist, I've gotten alot of great reading material. Concept books, comics, the like. It actually made me want to pick up a book, or work on my written story. I did do some drawing for my written story to get the garb of the characters together. Since Misael is my main character, the focus is on him right now.
Pyrea gets some attention, because I'm still figuring out her personality and hair.


Stages: I enjoyed my few days off, regardless of my best friend's awful ills, and my own mucus filled body. I've never been that big about buying into the while New Year's Resolution. I realize now that they are really just statements you make to test your self control. I'm going to really make that attempt this year. No red meat is one. This will kill me, but hell, I just DON'T need it. It always makes me ill now. The other is an art resolution. A comic page a week. Doesn't matter for what, and if I do 2 or more in a week, that doesn't count for the next week or weeks. I'm only gonna get better doing it. How can I tell people to just start drawing if I forget that I have to do that too?
And now, for your entertainment, Zombie One Panel comics.

Princesssssss.

Amy and I saw Tangled AGAIN today. This totals me at 3 times. MOMSAIDSHEWANTEDTOSEEITTOOSOTHATMIGHTHAVETOHAPPENTOO. EEEE!!!!! But anyway, it has inspired me to take this time while PL is down and pick one of my comics to redo. The Keanes *Both Claire and Glenn*, have provided amazing character design and storyboarding. Enough that it makes me want to refine my storytelling in panels. The Ass' Skin is easily one of the worst comics I've done. As a test to see if I could handle retelling my favorite Grimm fairy tale, it was a failure. I have an opportunity to do it again, better, and with the aid of the Cintiq. So fair I've begun reworking the princess, giving it more time and attention. This first panel is from the one that I have already done.

While I do love the facial expression of the princess, I see that I was lazy, and in a mad rush to complete it. I used paintbucket, and of the 4 panels on each page, only ONE was colored. I know...COME ON RACHIE.

Even just the sketching I did in photoshoppe today has more heart and depth, with only an hour of time. Properly planned, and completed entirely digital, I may be able to prepare myself for The Man in the Bear's Skin. When Nick Jr. was amazing, they had an animated MitBS. If you wanna watch.....!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2HOV1GnX2M

More Cintiq doots!

For some reason, I was on the theme of Disney and/or Witches. Lina Inverse is technically a sorceress, but I honestly never knew the difference. And Shego, well, shoots green toxic burning shit from her hands, so that's witchery.

From that image I did, I fell in love with my doodle of me and Rapunzel. It is currently my facebook profile picture.

I really enjoy how adorably it came out! Hopefully my sketchtimes later!

Paperlinks Cover!

Normally, I don't post the covers anywhere else, but! I really really really like this one! Alix was in charge of coming up for a theme this month, which was Imaginauts. I have to admit, it was certainly challenging to come up with an idea for that. Thankfully I went to the planetarium recently, so that helped me figure out a background! AstroNAUT, imagiNAUT, close enough. The rest was just interesting thoughts. Ru suggested a fish, and we had been watching the Mimic Octopus videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygh1-ul6E94

If you want to be AMAZED, check that shit out! My friend Chris was also telling me that they can solve mathematic equations, and are very smart. Due to their short lifespan, it doesn't really work in their favor.

The princess drinking tea just seemed fun, but the Giraffe is still my favorite. We noticed at APE last year, Amy and I, that Giraffes were very in. Giraffe pattern bags, fine art paintings, prints, comics...it was so crazy! So, since it is the year of the Giraffe, I give you a December Giraffe.

Kith and Kin Character concepts and Page ONE!!

I've been drawing pretty hard lately, for a change! Usually the winter season doesn't allow for much of that, mostly because it's so damn cold in the apartment that my hands frost over.
Thankfully, that hasn't stopped me from producing work, and I owe alot of that to Disney's Tangled, which has provided me with mad inspiration and thoughts of strong success. This first set is a bunch of doots with Carlotta. Mostly expressions, and all drawn directly in brush pen. (Alix introduced me to this pen over a year ago, and I'm just now getting back into it hardcore.) The Wolf is Breena's character, who is nameless for the time being. He's a bit of a chickenshit but Lotta is setting him straight. "Get ready, because things will change." Oh sage cat woman.

This next set is a character concept sheet I did in like, H pencil, then markered and inked directly over it, which is my new process for coloring concept work, as long as my markers decide to hold out. Clay and Carlotta are making similar faces here. I enjoy his mustachio.

I may also have to make some more watercolor work for this story and ink it after it's dry like the marker work. It's turning out beautifully, like this tiny willow concept wash I did.

I didn't think they would scan well at all, but it seems I have been proven wrong. The scans are really fun and full of great texture. This pleases me greatly!
AND FINALLY, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, THE WORK FOR THE FIRST PAGE. This took alot longer to complete than originally thought, but honestly, it turned out really well, and I am very proud. Papercraft has taught me that hours put into something really pay off. I usually bust out work very quickly, so I'm super proud of the time I took here.

Good lord, I'm tired just looking at this steaming pile.

It's a Rottie kind of Christmas!

Every year my mom has me make a Christmas card that she has printed out and mailed to the family. I decided I'd jump the gun this year and have it prepared, ha! It's kinda nice to actually have it out of the way!

Credit where credit is due! Amy actually sent me the gouache brush tutorial, originally from this link!

http://freakshow6.deviantart.com/gallery/72673#/d2xwthy

Rottie in the Snow is DONE!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I finally finished that goddamn papercraft!!

I also got my TATTOO TODAY!! SO AMAZING. It is my first, and I love it completely!


THAT WAS MY BEAUTIFUL SATURDAY OFF! SOOOO Productive!

PUH PUH PAPERCRAFT UPDATE!

I've finally been able to start working on this silly little project!

Scrapbooking paper was the easiest way to do this. I used cardboard to raise up parts like the muzzle. While I think that Brittney Lee would have done and AMAZING job, I'm very happy that I decided to take this on myself. It's taking forever though! My friend Nicole and I were up all night watching Season one of Hoarders. Man, if you EVER feel like NOT cleaning, watch that show. YOU WILL CLEAN YOUR HEAD OFF.

So, after 6 hours of Hoarders, I managed to get the main parts of the Rottie's body done, as well as the snow details that are on him. I'm especially happy with the paper I picked for the snow, since it's slightly iridescent!

More updates on this tedium later.

Disney Princess Pals!

Taking a little break from other projects I need to get down, I hammered out a sketch of Breena from the Disney Museum and made it a legit work! I'm super enjoying it, and I think I may frame it, so that Breener is always with me! HETERO LIFE MATE!!

I think I may have to do a series of these for all my close girl friends, because I since I'm having so much fun with it!

Fanart Finished!! WOO!

I finally completely my fanart for 6th Circle! Paperlinks will also be hosting the next 5 pages of Xtra Large Gal as well! It's going to be quite an amazing thing to get to 50 pages! I guess I should actually start, I dunno, WRITING IT OUT AND BRAINSTORMING...HURHURHURHUR...urh...

Anyway! I am finally coming up on ending the first chapter of my STILL unnamed sorry. Since the capital city is a giant compass, I may have to check out how to include that somehow, as well as work on the Kith and Kin stuff for January. I figure the new year will be full of new projects, such as the rekindling of "One Child", a comic idea I've had in the works for YEARS. Hopefully, with my improving skills, it can actually get off the ground! But for now, I shower and go to work.

Walt Disney Museum

Breena, her friend Yvette and I when to the Walt Disney Museum! I took some time to draw some amazing stuff! Working directly in inks is really fucking hard!

Rottweilers on ICE!

Inspired by Brittney Lee, I have decided to do my own papercraft work! It's really a pain in the ass, but I'm grateful for stores like flax that are diseased with colored and textured papers. It's going to make for a really wonderful winter project.

The head was probably the most complicated part, but now I have pieces that I can use as stencils for the real thing!

The body was also really fun to do, since it is fat and delightful. Rottie coloring also allows for the placement of heart shapes, which I think makes it especially endearing.

The feeties are going to be very fun as well, but very detailed and a HUGE pain in the ass.

The Millar Family has always had rottweilers as the breed of choice, so I wanted to do a tribute to them, and to my Grandpa Gordon, who began said tradition. His wonderful photography spurred my interest in this incredibly awesome (SUPER TIME CONSUMING) undertaking.

I will dedicate it to him, and Hilda, the first Rottweiler.

COMICS COMICS COMICS COMICS

Well, my comic book shelf is slowly getting overrun with amazing reads, but these titles are the ones I feel the need to share, as they are AMAZING.

1. Erstwhile all fur written by Gina Biggs and illustrated by Elle Skinner
2. Dar! Volume 2 by Erika Moen
3. Green Monk by Brandon Dayton (A new artist I met this year at APE! He is especially wonderful!)
4. Sketches of Brandon Dayton
5. Koko Be Good by Jen Wang
6. Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks
7. Movies R Fun! By Josh Cooley
8. The Hunter written by Richard Stark and adapted/illustrated by Darwyn Cooke
9. Funny Misshapen Body by Jeffrey Brown
10. Little Things by Jeffrey Brown
11. The Anthology Project put together by Joy Ang and Nick Thornborrow
12. Prophecy Failed Volume 1 by Sara CcCardle-Blunk
13. Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz
14. Hey Derby Girl written by Jeanne Beacom and illustrated by Elle Skinner

As I work through these next few days of drawing, I will use any or all of these titles to procrastinate! WOO!

6th circle art and business

I met some awesome local artists at this year's APE that stop by my job quite a bit! The world of indie comics is a small one! I'm very excited to be doing fanart for local peeps! Anyway, I have taken a liking to 6th Circle's character, Reina "Rayne" Rodriguez! I did one fanart of her that I never did scan, but that's all good! I've done a pin up that I am posting her unfinished, until I get her tattoo information! woo!

I really enjoy doing beachy pin-ups! This was a challenge because Rayne is a tomboy all the way. I put nail polish on her because it's my right at a girl and artist. Her token hoodie is still there, but cuter, and rolled up, and her awesome red streaked hair is windswept and fun! "She like fire. A lot." is the last sentence in her bio, so I decided to adapt her bathing suit into an awesome amazing FIREKini.

I'm super excited to color it!

Also, XtraLargeGal pages are in the works for this month, as well as my written story, and a few other things. A dear friend has lost a leading man in her life, and I am proud to say that Paperlinks will honor his memory by accepting a piece he had written. Father of a kind, wonderful person, I sure the excerpt submitted in his honor will be extraordinary.

"Good night, sweet prince. May choirs of angels sing thee to thy rest."

LADIES AND GENTS. It was such an incredible weekend of mayhem and madness! The gang and I went to the Alternative Press Expo two days in a row, to really get the feel of everything! I am positive I still managed to miss some really cool stuff, but there is always next year!

I did a really cool project with a pair of sneakers, but I am going to wait until they are completely finished before I share that cool post!

For now, I'm drowning in comics and inspiration from other artists. I'm way more interested in working on my own story, and working on my stuff with others! Breena is coming over tonight after I get off of work, so hopefully we'll be able to have ENTIRELY too much fun drawing and watching the HILARIOUS 30Rock.


The art post for today is Carina, and her character expressions sheet. Crysta's story and character, my interpretation. I had ALOT of fun with my Winsor & Newton watercolors here.

I drew her once before, a while back. She is actually a werewolf that can shift at will, so her clothing choice is pretty practical. Her nails are like dogs nails. slightly dulled and black. She often ends up dirty or muddy, as this older art of her would suggest.

The next up is Cory, who is the main character. The drawing is red penciled and inked, but I still need a splash of color! Hopefully I'll have it up in the next few days!

Having fun with the Cintiq some more!

I drew some pretty crazy stuff in my day, but getting jazzed up for APE, I decided that I wanted to makes some sexy creepy pin ups! Orangina is one of them!

Jfish's show Monsterbation really inspired me to create this little darling! Hopefully I will be able to use her in a story!

MORE Kith and Kin progress!

This is Clayton's post tragedy look! Much scruffier than his more mild mannered curly mustache look. He will have to serve time with a guerilla outfit. They may actually BE gorillas, lole. But in this time he will become alot more serious about fighting. Early on, he really only knows how to fight with a foil or saber. THIS young man you see above knows a bit more about fighting. His scholarly backgrounds makes the understanding of basic warfare much easier, and when the battles are won, he will head back to his home, in hopes of finding Carlotta. Not to mention finally getting her to say yes to marrying him. Procreation be damned, he loves her!

Kith and Kin progress!

So, I'm continuing to work on my story for Kith and Kin. It is going slowly, but that also means I'm going to try to have...GASP, legit backgrounds instead of just white or black colors. I'm working on more breakdown information for my characters.

I've settled on the names Carlotta and Clayton.
I'm working on a Clayton post-tragedy portrait, but for now, here is Carlotta's.

She will have lost an eye protecting her band of 10 misfit children.

Right now, the short version is, Carlotta comes from a family with money, wants to be with Clay, but doesn't wanna marry cuz they can't have children, (HUGE PLOT SPOILER TRAGEDY INSERTED HERE) they get separated for a long period of time...like a yearish. She lives in the forest with this group of city children whose parents were lost in (HUGE TRAGEDY)and becames a mother to them all. Very much like Wendy from Peter Pan, but I assure everyone that it won't be so cheesy as all that.

Yes. I know, you're thinking "FURRIES, COME ON." Well, I tell YOU to come on. It's time that they are made a little less creepy, and WAY less about people who WISH to be animals. Anthromorphic creatures date back to ancient Egypt. THEY ARE COOL. DEAL with it.

Back to writing once again.

I haven’t had a chance to work on much due to the fact that my mother has been having some health issues, but it’s true that having a creative outlet can save you. I have rediscovered myself as a tentative writer, and jotted this down in hospital.

***
Mom is going in for an angiogram tomorrow, but she has one more night at the hospital before then. Her new roommate is here now, and she is a sad story indeed. She cries out for help, begs the nurses to get off of her, and calls out to a God that just doesn’t hear her. My observation is more about Don, her faithful husband. The nurses ask him many things, and he answers with a sweet little story for each question.

"How are you affiliated to the patient? "

He smiles softly and looks at the shriveled woman in bed. "She's my wife. We're separated, not divorced." As the nurse continued to fill out the paperwork, he continued, "We drove each other crazy, so we separated to get our own places, but still only saw each other exclusively. It really saved us."

With callous, the nurse continued down her list on the medical form. "She doesn’t have earrings? They need to be removed for Chemo, but she is not wearing them."

"No, I took them out for her at the last hospital when she threatened to just throw them away. They were my 10th anniversary gift to her. We went to Hawaii, and I got her some genuine pearls." He slowly looks down, as if he can go back 15 years, but to when she was happy, and healthy.

"Any other things we should know about?"

"Oh, she has upper and lower dentures. Her teeth were knocked out in a car accident when she was 11."

Small things like that don't seem like much, but he says them like each one is held close to his heart. In the silence of the room, he turned to me sadly, asking me about mom. I told him the details and he nodded, smiling.

"I'm glad for you. That’s not too bleak. I'm going to lose my wife of 25 years in a month." No judgement. No hard glances. No anger or hatred in his voice. Just stating a fact. He looked genuinely happy that I would not experience the same daunting situation he was in. I didn't tell him about Dad.

He told me that she had that huge tumor, and that she was here because she broke her hip tripping over her oxygen tank. She had been feeling better, dispite the debilitating chemo. She insisted that they go to church. She fell hard onto the concrete, and Don brought her right to the emergency room.

In 4 nights, he had gotten 6 hours of sleep. With his wife situated, he came over to me and whispered, "I'm going to go home and get some rest. I'm sorry if she makes alot of noise. I promise once she's asleep, she will sleep through the night."

As he gathered his things, he turned to her and whispered again, his voice thick with emotion.
"I love you." He wiped his eyes on his jacket's faded sleeve, and walked out the door.

And she will continue to cry out for help, or for Don, or for god's help. And I will hear her, and be ready to call the nurse is she needs me. I can do that for you, Don.
***

I think that I will make this a comic, since it is such a powerful story, and almost fits with the PL theme for this month. We will see. If I do, I'm going to have to take my time, and make a tribute to anyone who has ever lost a great love.

Vidja games

I had fun during one of my all nighters making this little comic about the games I play most on the Wii.
It is definitely still in progress, as I play several other games. I may actually try to make the next one more epic,and not small panel comics. ANYWAY. Life has been coming at me fast! Paperlinks is getting harder and harder to get out, but that's ok, because it is a challenge as an artist to get my work done by the deadline, or at least close to it. The bummer is that I was totally unable to finish my theme comic for this month. I got as far as page 2! Oh well, this is it. I may still try to finish it, but not soon.
I not going to beat myself up over it too severely, due to the fact that I finally made a comic that went longer than 10 pages!! YAY Xtra Large Gal!

ALL NIGHTER ART!

There is more to come of this later, but for now, I have a comic that really shows the darkness of my character. The story is written on the thing itself, so you can see it there. I was up late drawing small panel comics about video games, and was able to shift into this one. It still amazing me how much faster is is to work on a machine like the cintiq.

Business Cards!

WELL. I certainly had a hard time designing this today. It is my first step towards being a "professional" illustrator. The quotations can be removed when I have a degree in fine arts. (don't hold your breath...ha...ha ha.) But that's alright. I'm branching out, meeting new people, and really getting a chance to put myself out there with Paperlinks. The next task now is really about making a comic that I can, GASP, sell for profit, and use it to promote PL's program. It is quite an endeavor, especially with all the other things going on in my life, but EH. I think I'm gonna pull through.

Paperlinks fun time!

Well, alot of really fun things have been happening in the past few weeks. I was able to hit up Zinefest and see my friends I know there, and make some new ones! Thanks to Stephanie, I get invites to really cool local soirees filled with creativity and hilarious times! The whole thing is ever so inspiring, and makes me wanna come home and art HARD. The Cintiq has opened new doors for me comic wise, and I'm very excited about the kind of work I'm able to produce with such a wonderful tool!

This is for the stand alone story I'm working on for this month's paperlinks. Before, a page like this would have taken me probably 6 hours to complete. I took only 3. As I get better, I'm sure I will get faster. I really want to create an almost storybook like feel, but with adult characters and themes. Hopefully my studies of Mary Blaire's work will help me get a feel for simplistic beauty. I may have to find some brushes for Photoshop that will really give me that gouache look!

CINTIQ CINTIQ CINTIQ!

Well, I am certainly having fun with my new toy, the CINTIQ! It really is a wonderful device! It makes digital coloring so much easier! Not only that but Xtra Large Gal is now going to make the leap to digital work! Painting is still proving to be interesting, but I really think that I'll be able to do some great stuff soon! My first real experience with color was this drawing I did for Luis' birthday!
Also, Ru, Breena and I have finally started discussing the comic we will be doing together, which was BRILLIANTLY named Kith and Kin. YEAH RUTH, YEAH THESAURUS! It is going to be our attempt to bring Anthros and People together in a comic! It's gonna be awesome. I did some concept art for my story's characters in that world!

Hopefully, I'll be able to post my first part of my written work as well! Misael's chapter is going to come together soon, and edited by Hayley, if I can seem to get it going on time! More later~~~! Thanks Mom. <3.

XL GAL spoiler fun!

XL Gal and Abigail with be friends! She wants to be cool with all the people she battles eventually. She is just a winner that way. There are going to be a few more to this collection, like Dr. Hipstein of Broman fame wearing a "I'm fat, let's party shirt", And a Jagerbomb battle with Bro Ho. I really enjoy page breaks! It is time to get working on other things tho!

(on a side note, I realized that Abby is actually from another comic I did. She is just a little girl in the first comic she appeared in with her sister, Tina. I've decided I will combine these two stories, since it just makes it fun!

Dark Earth, a comic I do with Louis and Breena, needs to have it's next installment done. Sketched out and ready, hopefully it will take to the presses September 1st!

There is also Curious Theatre at Avian Park, which is the story I work on with just Breena!

SO MANY COMICS. It is very unfortunate that my Horror Comic Shorthand did not really come into it's own, but there is still time to work on it. I am trying to decide if I'm going to change what exactly it is. I really like some of the art I did for it, like this promo work.


AND FINALLY. Battle Against Boredom is back! I shared this with intimate friends, but the BAB comics are quick drawn, straight to pen comics about my experiences in City College of San Francisco. It's the public school experience I never had. It is quite LOL worthy. I'll try to start posting up those here soon! OFF I GO.

Working on fun projects!

So many fun things are coming up for paperlinks, but I'm also working on other things, like an amazing project for Jason Fischer!! He writes this amazing webcomic!!

http://www.studiojfish.com/darkrainbow/ch01/pg001.html

I'm working on a guest page right now, but I'm thinking it may end up being a warm up. I wanted to much to throw myself in the world, that I did!! Hur hur. I'm doing it all in COPIC markers...and it's depressing. One, because I miss doing marker coloring, and Two, because one out of 3 is almost dried out. They are so expensive...I'm thinking that I may have to just go back to using Prismacolors, which is what the amazing Jason uses for all of his work!! Incredible! Check him out, and this is the teaser for my page!

More Character designs!

I love Pyrea. She is probably my favorite original character right now! I did a bunch of sketches for you. She was homeless as a child, and is taken in at a brothel at a very young age. She doesn't hold it against herself, and she is SUPER smart and manipulative. I just adore her! Amarion will be the only man to really get her, and the only man that she really wants.

XTRA LARGE GAL!!!

I'm going to have the next installment of XL gal up soon! God, I have WAY too much fun with my hefty heroine, but what the hell, I adore her ass.
In other news, check out Paperlinks.org to see the BEAUTIFUL collab cover that Breena and I did for this month! I really think I may have to have a print made! It took me about 4 hours to get that thing colored, haha!

DRAWING PARTY WITH THE CHILDRENS!

Christine hired me to come and entertain the kids at her daughter's birthday party! The theme was DRAGONS. SO AWESOME. They did some really neat stuff, for sure!
I had little jewelry boxes from Daiso that I never worked on, so I brought them with me, along with Mini Frames and the little keychains that you can change the pictures in at will. I gave the birthday girl the one with the Mortal Kombat dragon! So fun. The kids did some really great dragons, and even Reagan (Christine's husband) drew a dragon that apparently eats children!

There was much mayhem, but the kids had a good time, and I had fun working with them!