Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Dream Scenes

Justin has been urging me to spend more time creating full scenes and backgrounds, which is something I have never been prone to doing. While examining this lack of interest, I realized it's because I don't really know what stories to tell with my pictures. Then it hit me . . . my dreams are full of rich backgrounds, vivid imagery and completely unusual stories!! Fortunately for me, I remembered the last few of my nocturnal meanderings, especially the one I recorded a few posts down.

^On the left is a very quick sketch from a vintage Playboy. The face is odd, but still bears a resemblance the original girl. Colored it at work, without reference, with markers. I'd like to sneak one of my old Playboy's into work to draw from (cartoons and pinups, what!) but ehhhh . . . we'll see. The waterfall is from a dream this morning. Buddha is my mom's dog. The mist is airbrushed.

^I kinda just launched myself at this image with out any prelim sketch, just dashing in with the purple micron. I had to really visualize it in advance to incorporate all the elements and still keep it in balance. I am unused to rendering perspective in landscapes and stuff, so this looks a bit flat. I looove atmospheric perspective, got to see it in action when we were in the Smoky Blue Mountains. Just pretend a young lady with dark hair and her brother are standing on the path, talking to the bear.

This chronologically precedes the other dream image, tho I drew that one first. I like the contrasting moods, that's how it was in the dream. I drew her hair first, then thumbnailed the composition, then drew it with a drying copic sketch marker (brush tip). That produced some smeary, translucent marks, which blurred even more when I went over with markers. Finished it with some airbrushed black and white. I think the composition is too centered, I wish I had thumb'd it before starting!

Critique is greatly appreciated!

Monday, July 16, 2007

inspiration

I had fun with colored pencils, today!

Strange happenings happened in my trusty Moleskine (heart)

Strange the first:
Oh gosh that caption is corny :( Well it's a very goofy cartoon anyway, so I guess I can get away with it. I was up until 2 AM last night collaborating with a fella on a werewolf transformation sequence. There are people out there who will pay good money to see girlies turning into beasties, who knew??? Anyway, this was burnoff from the previous marathon :p I like blushing beauties looking flustered as they mutate into something pretty or cute, as opposed to the snarling, drooly, b-film monster look.

Still with me?

Strange the second:

This was inspired by Uncle Eddie's recent post on humorous teeth. I commented to the effect of, I like drawing funny gnashers, so when I had free time at work I sketched and colored the bust. I practiced layering skintone, and defining facial structure through shading. Then I tried to caricature the face, taking a hint from JohnK. This led to more funny teeth.


Uhhhh hope noone underage is reading this blog, tho god knows I really don't care if young people see some cartoon nakeds !! Big pink skirt sketch from life was first, I am still trying to figure out skirt folds. Then the pink fox/cat girl thing, then that green croc face popped up and he became little puppet guy. The bendy bimbo was an attempt to get more noodly and loose with limbs, but I still think it looks kind of stiff and akward.


Croc puppet makes a friend, inspired by my kitty Moses who attacks a stuffed raccoon toy. The faces were drawn at the very end of the day, in the order of: middle, top, bottom. I read Eddie saying that johnK advocates writing down the characteristics of a face before caricaturing so I made up some examples. It was very helpful, I am especially pleased with the shnoz guy :)

Many thanks to anyone who is looking at these images and reading my long-winded descriptions. I hope my naked girls and pseudo-furries aren't skeeving anybody out. I just have so much fun drawing boobies and animal faces!! And . . . combinations of the twain :o

at least the baby Jesus loves me ;_;

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Dream

Dreamed this morning that I was attending a giant video game convention, which my friend Kristin was hosting. In reality, Kristin is a stunning, curvaceous, chocolate-colored dynamo who definitely does not play video games (though she had fun with the Wii at the 4th of July party we threw). In this dream, she was the Queen of the Gamers, as a result of having set the record for beating some tetris-like puzzle game. She was up on stage, swinging a microphone and bellerin' about high scores or something. She later introduced me to none other than blogger's very own Uncle Eddie (not sure how to link to blogs, it's in my little sidebar thing tho) of Awesome Theory fame. I was happy to meet him, and even more delighted when he not only recognized my name, but enthusiatically shook my hand for a good two minutes, which made me laugh.

Later, I was reading a comic book with my husband, and one of the stories was about some hapless adventurers getting mired in a steamy, spooky swamp. As I read the blurb, we found ourselves in the swamp, as a voiceover described the mysterious visions, hungry alligators, and devilish mansion on the hill. When he said "mysterious visions" I looked over to see a wraithlike young girl with long, straggling black hair, astride an alligator. Their eyes gleamed at me as they both slowly sank below the surface of the scummy water, which Justin and I were now floating in. I begin to backpedal, noticing a hungry gator coming our way. We drive him onto dry land, where he flails and snaps and hisses. We eventually outmaneuver him, and find ourselves in suddenly mountainous terrain. Now my brother has arrived, and he tells us about a NAZI he just saw riding out of the woods on a bicycle, so we decide to trace his path. Along the way, we meet a young female bear cub, sitting in some flowers. She speaks to us, saying that she was tired of the man in the mansion (the nazi I guess) trying to keep her from speaking. We all creep up to the lavish house and peer inside. I woke up around that time.

Gotta love dreams!!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Scaley Kelly

Someone in a costuming community was showing off a wearable koi tail she designed. It has no scales as of yet so I thought to share a reference.
^ 6 yr old Kelly

My step-grandmother, a Mexican seamstress named Lina, sewed the body of that costume. My extremely talented, creative mother cut out and decorated all those scales and glued them into place. She also made the puffy-awesome hands and feet.

I loved wearing that dragon costume sooo much! It's debut was at my kindergarten's Halloween event/costume contest; there were many adorable, clever costumes, yet I came home with first place and a plush pumpkin doll. 10 years later, in a different state, my little sister won cutest costume in a community event. So it was an awesome get up, and wearing it is one of the fondest of my childhood memories :)

Anthrocon was awesome, made good money and met good friends. It is a huge, exhausting event, especially when suffering with a cold. Hollering about hamburgers at the 'rave' did not help my voice at all, and I am still a bit raspy. Glad to have gone, and am REALLY looking forward to Midwest FurFest in November. AC was in Pittsburgh, MFF is in Chicago. The first con I will be airbrushing t-shirts is hopefully gonna be Furry Weekend Atlanta in February. Mor on that later!

Gonna go visit my mom now to see how her latest painting is coming along. I would like to share her work with this audience as well, it's beautiful stuff <3

Peace!