Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Midnight

I wonder if I can upload these illustrations before its midnight? Here goes!


Slight tweak to the Germany illustration....added detail to the trees so it gives it a mite more complexity.


Egypt! I'm not happy with this one....I didn't have a clear color scheme from the beginning, except that I wanted it to be nighttime...which I'm not sure if that works well or not. Yellow and blue just aren't cutting it here. Neither is the cropping...it was originally skinny, but I made it square when I colorized it....seemed to need more space somehow...maybe I just need to add more detail to it or more pyramids...-_-


Ah HA! Paris! This one worked out well I think! I stole some colors from a Shag painting. :D And now....to bed!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

One last post today!

Okay, one more post for today!

Char and Skittles in Germany!! YAY!

Citizenship!

I am now -> <- that close to being a citizen! I passed my citizenship test with flying colors (all red, white and blue of them hahaha), so now I just have to wait 'til September to take the official Oath and I'll be all squared away and truly American! Hurrah. While waiting in the waiting rooms, I sketched like a maniac....mostly to stem my own nervousness...thats probably why my lines are strangely more wiggly than usual!


Above is a shot of Government Center before I set foot in the building where my test was. It was very windy! but beautifully colored...not for the first time do I wish I'd carry markers with me.


In the waiting room before the civics test.


Having passed the test, I waited in ANOTHER waiting room for my interview. This took far too long and I eventually got so nervous I just stared at the wall - one of which had a rather nice quote from Clinton on it.


I endeavoured to draw everyone in the waiting room...but was afraid they'd turn around and see me drawing them..which would've been awkward. hah. I drew them anyway!

Cali Sketches

Finally got around to scanning some sketches from the California trip. I didn't do nearly as many as I'd've liked to....I was hurried off to new places every time I sat down to draw! I suppose thats the drawback of going with lots of people who aren't artists...they don't understand that insatiable desire to draw everything you see. We still had a good time though. (all comments are now below their respective pictures...easier to read this way i think!)

Above is a sketch of Coronado, the little beachy resorty place in front of San Diego. Rather nice, 'cept I got shat on by a pidgeon.


And here's a very rough sketch of these awesome fallen tree trunks in Muir Woods, it looked like a huge organic robot heaving itself out of a river bed! I might have to do a photoshop painting of it...


San Diego Zoo was fabulous. Although zoo's always make me feel bad for the animals (being cooped up in cages all day), the ability to observe their habits is great :D I found these hippos just floating underwater next to each other....one of them would put one foot down on a big rock underwater and just float there! hard to think such massive creatures could float so well!


Monkeys, cats and bears. All the animals had a habit of putting their backs to me. humph.


Koalas and Elephants! I could have stayed at the elephant enclosure all day, I must've stood their and watched them wander around and feed themselves for about 25 minutes. Their trunks are just incredible!! so big and powerful, yet able to pick up the tiniest piece of straw! I wish I had a video camera to record it and do an animation off it. ::sigh::


A real pen drawing of my parent's lovely back deck.
Those were the hilights. We did a lot of driving and snapping photos....mostly driving.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Photos from the Depths of Childhood

My mum's been on the hunt for adorable kiddie photos and thus sends me the cream of the crop! Here to prove I once was a little itty bitty artist:


And here I am with my brother dressed up as She-ra and Heman! Mwahahahaha!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Shag-like Illustrations!

So my new favorite artist is Shag! In light of that, Nancy and I came up with the idea of doing some illustrations of Skittles and Charlotte in Shag-style! It'll be a travel series where the two pet-friends globe-trot! Here are the prelimary sketches:

Paris!

Italia! Still not pysched about the composition for this one....needs some work...i think the perspective is screwing me up since I used a fish-eye lensed photo for reference.

Germany and Neushwanstein (dunno if I spelled that right). Really wish I'd been there...

Egyptian dance!

And finally India, sipping cocktails! that's the life, eh?
I have more ideas for more places they can visit. I have a few mini thumbnails for New Orleans...but nothing's settled yet.
And what, you may ask, about Mr. Buttersworth? WELL. While Skittles and Charlotte are gallavanting around the globe, he's up in space having adventures of his own! The little sketch of him in space i posted a while back gave me an idea to put him up in a space station. He'll be disgruntled, but thats what you get for being a trouble-maker. More to come on him sometime in the future! :D