Things I do in my "free" time

...and by "free", I mean opting to doodle instead of doing homework. Gotta start my finals, eep!

Rough (that was originally just gonna chill in my sketchbook. Procrastination had other plans):


...and then:

Goodness, lots to share recently. Maybe I'm finally climbing out of my semester long "why isn't anything coming out right" crisis?

Color Practice!

So.

After falling into a deep slumber/state of rest for a few days, I finally had some time/energy to do some work that was unaffiliated with school. YEAH.

I finally managed to get a few color studies done (each of these are 2x4 inches):

NOTE: The top is copied from a still in Prince of Egypt, and the second is a copy of concept work done by Luc Desmarchelier (whose excellent blog filled with work can be found here). The third, however...well, I tried my best to do an original using what I've learned! I've got...some work ahead of me.

Also, because I'm a total girl and have a soft spot for cute, pretty movies:

(Ha! Bad anatomy.)

Character lineups!

Just a bitty sample of what I've been doing in my cinematic storytelling class (redesign of the movie, Quest for Camelot):




Ooh, simplicity! :D

Brush Ink Experiments

Churned out a 3 page comic in one night, which unfortunately, got an, ehm...less than great crit. While most of it was disastrous, there are certain small things that I really like -- but these things appear only on the first page. I give thee brush inks (first test run!) and absurd (oh, goodness...) color:

"Ooh I know what'll make this fun! I'll put in arches. On a curved building! In perspective! LOOKING UP FROM BELOW."

Why, oh why.

New Brush!

Crazy things that happened recently:

1. I finally invested in a Series 7 brush (and it is WONDERFUL).

2. I'm starting to look more at Mignola, which is bizarre because only few weeks ago I was completely disengaged with his aesthetic.

3. I'm moving away from my OCD tendencies of rendering everything perfectly. After being constantly unable to finish things to the level of polish I wished, my comics professor brought up a valid point: If you're not able to finish and x amount of pages in one week, you're probably not working in a manner that is natural to you.

These few things got me rethinking my work process, and I think I'm finally onto something:

Is it more comfortable? Yes.

Is it faster? Yes.

Is this something that needs more work? Yes.

Despite my hand being a little shaky with a brush (and it probably will be for a while), I do think I have a general sense of aesthetic/theme for Friday's comic assignment. I have to start somewhere! :]

Rainbow sketchook all the way!

So, this weekend, (after 2 all nighters, much panic, and crisis) I decided to take it easy, and work on a few personal things.

One class I feel RISD is lacking, at least in the illustration department, is a course focusing on clothing and fabric studies (I've already gone ahead of myself and decided on a class name: "Let's Play Dress Up"). I'm struggling with is costuming and apparel within illustrations, as I usually draw people in sweaters and jeans, so I decided to pick up a few books and have some fun doing some studies. With some super awesome brush pens, which are excellent for quick sketching, I had a blast! Each of these took about 2-5 minutes:


I'm super exciting to keep going with this, because I've already started using elements of this clothing in sketching for assignments, and it's helping me develop a short hand way of drawing. Plus, some of the descriptions behind these costumes are so interesting: in the last image, on the bottom row, the polka dotted pants require over 90 sq. ft. of silk to make. Seriously neat stuff.

Next up: more clothing, and ARMOR.

Oh look! (Finished) work!

What's this? Something...decent? And finished? Oh my!



Color keys/environments for my "Cinematic Storytelling" class done in acrylic (about 2.3 x 3.5 inches each). They're not perfect by any means, but I feel I'm getting better ! I am most pleased with the last two as they're a real jump in my "loosening up" process, as they took the shortest amount of time (10 minutes?) and involve finger painting. I do, however, need to make the effort to extend beyond the realm of the color blue. (In my defense the purple range did not translate well during scanning...)

Needless to say, I have an excellent group and I'm super proud of how hard we've all been working!