Christmas Presents

Here are the Christmas presents I did for my family and friends this year. I'm sorry the picture quality is terrible. I had to use my mom's snapshot camera to take the pictures (I left my D40x back in Sarasota). Needless to say the camera's ISO breaks down at 200. Strange I thought to have that much grain at 200. In order these were are (in the first picture): cupcake and icecream (Tiff), ring-tailed lemur (Jack), unicorn (mom), red panda (SJ), sea turtle (sister Erin), pig (sister Aileen). I hope you guys enjoy these despite the rushed paint job and picture- taking. ;)

More sketchbook stuffs

Drew some birds last night in my sketch book. LAWLS. Secretary birds ftw. sketchy sketch sketch.

Senior Portrait

Alright, so here is the progress of my senior portrait. This is how I work in Corel Painter. First, I start off with my drawing in photoshop. I tweek it to my liking. Then I take the image into Corel and start rending using the artist oils and soft blending stump.

Thesis Turn- Around

This is the final female turn- around for thesis. Currently, I'm working on creating 2 male character sheets! Should be interesting. This is my main character. If you are wondering about the dress, I created it using 2 different lolita clothing brands' dresses and my own color palette. I will be sewing this dress for senior show.

Tata Gala Submission

This is my submission for this years Tata Gala! If you don't know about Tata Gala you can check it out here: http://www.tatagala.org
It's a non- profit show in Sarasota, FL that raises money for breast cancer. I painted a skateboard in acrylic this year. The show is going to be held this Saturday, November 14th, so come check it out!

Senior Poster Ideas

I'll take these down later, but these are some mock- ups for the 2010 Senior Ill Show. All of the textures and frames are high dpi and royalty free. Taken primarily off of cgtextures!

Thesis Process

So, some people have been wondering how I work and although I wrote up earlier how I do it, I decided that it would be clearer if I took pictures of the process.

First, I find really good reference. Sometimes I take it myself, sometimes I use stock photos on deviantart.

Next, I work up some sketches that are about 2- 3 times larger than the final print. I then scan those in and print them on watercolor paper.

I then paint in the flat colors and start to render. You can see a finished rendered piece behind my cup of water. The turn- around in the front has only the flat colors. I'm painting these in gouache.
Then, I go in and render some shadows and highlights in and re-scan in the painted pictures.
After scanning everything in, placing all of the images into one document and resizing everything, I add a textured background.
The final step is adding the line-work, doing some touch-ups, and adding textures! I will put the final piece up shortly!

Finished Commission Work

I actually finished these before the last piece uploaded, but here are the finished pieces. 9" x 12" watercolor and gouache.

Character Design

Here's another one for thesis. I've been working on a lot of anthro work and doing some freelance on the side as well. I'll probably upload those later on.


These are actually really challenging for me as an artist. I start off traditional with gouache and watercolors (painting over a photo- copied on watercolor paper) and then proceed to scan all of the "finished" pieces into photoshop. Afterwards, I arrange everything in photoshop and add a textured background. I then go in and add back in line quality and tweek anything I really find that's not quite right (this includes shading, highlights, placement of things, or pretty much whatever needs to be fixed). Then I add in the shadow.

Overall, I really like the way these are looking and each one keeps getting better and better. They just take a lot of time to do, unlike my other character sheets I've done in the past and am currently doing on the side.

Commission Work

These are the tight sketches I've been working on for a 3 part commission. It is a Halloween themed anthro snow leopard woman. I'm really digging these.

Beginning of Thesis

You can see my progress of this. Originally started digitally, then in gouache, and finally a little bit of both. This is the beginning of my thesis. Would love a lot of crit. on this. (will upload on DA)

More Sketchbook Stuff

Really just felt like drawing birds lately.

Anthro Work

Some character reference sheets I've just completed. More to come. Digital.

Classes~!

Classes start tomorrow for my senior year! Expect more art to come here in the coming weeks!

Projects

Since the majority of the year is spent in Sarasota with the hustle and bustle that is school, I never really find time to relax. Being home this week all by myself, has given me time to relax with my pets and work on projects (some of which I've been putting on the back-burner for years). This included sewing, learning how to make synthetic dreads and yarn falls, and doodling. While I was in Japan, I went to the fabric capital of Tokyo. My friend semi dragged me along, as she is a fashion major in Phili, but I really enjoyed the experience. I found some really cute fabrics. I turned this gingham fabric I found into a lolita dress. I also found Sailor Moon fabric and turned it into a cute summer dress.

I didn't have enough of the fabric to make a full dress with it, but I used fabric found in America to make it work! ^_^ I also made two pairs of matching bloomers. White and Black.

I am also doing a clothing trade with my friend Lisa (who is much taller than me). I made her this skirt and she is making me a crocheted panda hat!

Here's my first try at falls! I used purple, lavender, and red auburn Kanekalon hair for the dreads. The rest is wavy yarn that I found that has all three colors combined in it

Pokémon! My top 6

Alrighty! I have several mild obsessions in life. One of which, is cute, adorable things. Pokemon falls into this category (except for the bug pokemon... most which are just creepy). So, my friend Sara, decided for her open assignment at the end of the year, she wanted to draw herself with her 6 pokemon (should or could she ever be a pokemon trainer). After seeing the outcome, I decided this was a more than fantastic idea and wanted to do my own drawing, with me and my top 6! In order my top 6 are: Vaporeon, Dragonite, Suicune, Ninetales, Rapidash, Alakazam.

Here is the preliminary sketch:
Final painting (10"x 10" Ink and gouache):

Eggs in a basket!

Yes, my addiction to V has gone completely off the deep- end. Just a sketch scanned in from my sketchbook. Pen and Ink and Watercolor.

Japan Panoramics

These are panoramics taken while I was in Tokyo. Will post more later one. None of these were taken with a tripod and were constructed in Photoshop CS3. 1st one @ Meiji Jingu Shrine. 2nd one in Kamakura. 3rd one @ Mad House Studios.

Japan Land

Well... I've been having way too much fun in Tokyo and the surrounding areas for the past two months and it's about time to come home. I'm dead broke at the moment, using my credit card to pay for groceries, already borrowed money from the parents, and just generally feeling the burden of how bad our economy is doing compared to that of Japan. I've probably lost around 200$ just in conversion and fees since I've been here. It sucks.

Anyway, besides problems with money, I've loved my time here and I feel blessed to be back in Japan. I'm looking forward to Tex- mex, seeing my family, boyfriend, and animals, and being back in a country where I fluently speak the language, but I will miss Japan dearly. I'm highly considering coming back to take an intensive language program for 2 years or so. We'll see what happens.

Reference Sheets

These are the finished reference sheets for my final project in my Anime and Manga class this summer! Enjoy!