Senior Thesis Finals

I think I posted one of these in progress...? Well, these are the finals. The only final pieces I have coming out of my first semester--though I did seven pieces' worth of work. The first three, you see, I drew, digitally painted, made backgrounds for.... and then scrapped everything except the linework. I wasn't happy with the way they were coming out, and knew that for both my portfolio and myself I needed to be truly proud of the finished work. So I started over. I used the same lines, but the second time through I treated each creature to a lot more hand work. I did all the rendering with a pencil and a magnifying glass--no lie! They're all fully furred where appropriate, it's just hard to see at this size. The prints are gorgeous. The backgrounds were completed on separate pages, also in pencil, and then everything was compiled and given flat colors in photoshop. The result? Something I'm proud to call my work.

Illusionism Final

This is a companion piece to the one I posted before I fell off the earth, which I completed as my final project for Illusionism. Usually I only go through a few sketches before I find the piece I want to finish, but this was a special case. The composition and idea came out in the first sketch, but it took 23 pages of drawing before I got the pose down to convey what I wanted through body language. Thankfully, if anyone in my class didn't get remorse from the figure, they didn't say anything.

Finals: Seminar

WOW, I'm terrible at updates this semester! Due to it coming to and end, though, I finally have time to post all the things I've been neglecting to post. First up will be all my finals--these are my business card, short bio, and letterhead designs from my Senior Thesis Seminar. I'll be uploading all my finals work over the next few days, so keep an eye out!

Further Illusions

More from Illusionism! The drawing on the left was a one-night in class exercise about the appearance of volume, in preparation for this week's model session. Mine got picked as one of the ones that looked most round, though I kinda cheated by picking a real light source.




Next, the two week drawing that proceeded it. While doing the Dallas Allegory for homework, this trompe l'oeil was our in class work. I themed it around Meg and my anniversary, which was coming up with gleeful speed when I started the drawing. Both of those are graphite.

So this week, the homework was to start a piece that contrasts illusionistic volume against something else--so I thought to myself, what is the absolute opposite of shaded, volumetric drawing? The answer was obvious. Nothing can be flatter than flat vector cartoons. Nothing. So this is the halfway point; the flat is done, and the space is there for a volumetrically shaded Dunny toy in the foreground! That'll be my task next week.

Dallas Allegory

This new tablet (Intuos4 Medium) is amazing. And it's really late at night. And that's all I have to say right now, ask specific questions if you want more and I'll answer them when I'm awake again.

I am not the walrus

Waistcoated Walruses Walloping a Wastrel.

Quick getting-to-know-eachother assignment for The Illustrated Book--create and illustrate an amusing 4-word alliteration. Hooray!

I actually don't have anything more to say about this piece. Watercolor and graphite, still planning to tweak a little in photoshop to push the bricks back, but overall I'm very happy. I think walruses should always have mutton chops and waistcoats.

Mantyger/Satryal Sketch

First sketch for Senior Thesis! My plan is to illustrate ten (for the semester) of the craziest creatures in medieval heraldry, working on two digital paintings for each three-week block. I'm also working now on the Enfield Beast, but I don't have a sketch I'm happy with yet for that one, so I'm letting it sit on the back burner while I finish out this guy, who I'm totally crazy over. Going to lightbox him to a tight pencil drawing, then scan that in to spend many many hours paying digital homage to the image. The plan is full color figure, but no background--in the sensibility of the naturalist drawings of the 1700s. Fun times?

First Illusionism drawing!

Ah, September. Time for classes! I'm really excited about all my classes this year, but Illusionism is the lucky class to have the first finished drawing I can post, so I'm talking about it first. It's all about fooling the eye; making things look real, or right if they're just not real. The first thing we did was spend 4 hours drawing ripped up pieces of paper, which I won't post, but then we got to apply the skills to a more interesting assignment for homework. We had to take a drawing we already had--in my case, a sketch I spent some time finishing, since I don't do many physical media drawings that would work for this--and make it look interrupted and/or disturbed in some way. I chose Edo-Period Kyu because I like it, so there. There are no actual rips, folds, or disturbances of any kind in this paper. Everything that looks wrinkled was drawn in, painstakingly, with a pencil and a brush of graphite powder. It's a completely smooth sheet of paper, I promise.

Fun stuff? Check it out full size to see the effects up close. (also, in the upper left, an unflattering sketch of Zach without his glasses. He's as blind as I am without them)

Enfield Beasts and Pilot Dolls

Just some works in progress, really... But at least progress is happening? First, the logo/tattoo design? for a sort of mini-project I've been dreaming up, called Pilot Dolls. It's really more of a steampunk and costume design concept than anything, but if Pilot Dolls were being marketed, this would be their logo.

Then, in preparation for thesis, I've been doodling Enfield Beasts at work. The original sketch is about 1.5"x2.5", and then I digitally inked it in Sketchbook Pro 2.0, which is a beautiful little program. There's another one in the composition, but for now I wanted to post the one I do have inked.

Moonface WIP

My work always slows down over the summer, even when I try not to let it. I won't be posting much, probably, but I want to do what I can. As seems to happen a lot, my inspiration is my muse/character, whom I call Moonface. Her head/face are generally the same, and she has the same feeling, but I don't know what her real anatomy is--she started out as just an odd girl with antlers. I like to draw her, for whatever reason.

And if there's one good thing to come of the "Mijn Schatje (real name Marie Blanco Hendrickx) is an unoriginal lying art thief" issue going on now, it's that it makes me want to work more in illustrator to prove that people who aren't crappy rip-offs can do some cool stuff with the program. So far, so good? I'm really learning a lot about the program, and that's saying something, because I think I already knew a lot about it.

The drawing also includes her lower body and legs, and a balloon with a fish in it, but I haven't finished overlaying the basic shapes for those. Bonus! A closeup of the face and hand, both of which I think are done. Might add a couple extra colors.