Famine

Famine - Good Omens
Second last in the series (man, am I happy about that). I had the most trouble with him for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that I didn't actually have a good idea of what he looked like and that he was supposed to blend into a 90's setting (90's clothing is the most heinous clothing ever).

Pollution

Pollution - Good Omens
Far from polished (if you look, not necessarily closely, but look, you can see lots of mistakes and no-nos) but DONE. Only two more then the series is complete. Gonna go die before attempting the overhaul on Famine because he looks horrible.

War

War - Good Omens
Continuing the illustration series from a few weeks ago. I originally planned to either post them all at once or in pairs but they're at such random levels of completion that I'm posting them as they're done. Happy with how she turned out. A few iffy bits, but overall good (she better be after the shear number of times I redrew her).

Good Omens

Crowley and Aziraphale - Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet
Doing a series of characters designs from Good Omens for fun. Started off with everyone's favourite angel/demon duo and will be moving on to the Four Bikers Horsemen and then the kids if time permits. Mostly done War too at this point.
Originally I thought about having each character with their associated mode of transportation (mostly just because motorcycles are ballin' and I could clearly figure out which kind each Horseman would ride) but I'm rethinking it. Started drawing the Bentley but gave up because doing perspective in photoshop is the worst. Liking this design style for the series and I might just keep it up.
This series will basically be the most men I've drawn ever. Hack-hack-hack. That's me.

Haydee

Haydee - The Count of Monte Cristo ch.49
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite novels and though Pere Dumas’ writing is so detailed Haydee was the only one who always stood out with an obvious look to her. I think this is in part due to her very contradictory personas. In public she acts the part of a childish, dumb coquette but in private she shares her pain and desires with the Count; that kind of great characterization always stands out to me. I wanted to create something representitive of her outwards persona, the beautiful coquette, and her inner turmoil while following her description from the beginning of Ch.49. 
I have very mixed feelings about this one. I saw the best art student owl the other day that I think explains my feelings pretty well: you know it's done when you hate it. If you don't hate it yet it's not done. There's a lot I like and a lot I feel like I failed at - mostly the composition and reclining figure.

Year's End

Happy New Year one and all. Hope you had a good time last night and I hope your hangovers are not too difficult to deal with today. I've decided to do a big post to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another; the following will have bits and pieces from my backlog of art that I never got around to posting as well as what I consider the best of the year. Thank you to everyone who's visited this blog over the course of 2011! I look forward to the beginnings of 2012!

Backlog

Dec 30th 

Draw this while waiting for my plane to board. About 15 minutes, no references. I think it's pretty obvious that I had a big anime phase as a kid; her eyes are huge, haha. Clearly my favourite way of passing the time is drawing pretty ladies, because honestly, what else do people do with their time? Watch TV? Pfft.

Inspirations - an article in Times magazine

Dec 27 or 28th

While at home (Houston with the parents) I read an interesting article in Times discussing how there hasn't been a major shift in clothing over the last 20 years, which greatly contradicts the historical patterns. I have my own theories about this (including that fact that my generation has had everything handed to us on a silver platter, case in point: hipsters) but I found it interesting that no one's really tried to make a new style of clothing for the modern era. This is my take. Sci-fi infused clothing with poofy pants because skinny jeans, and jeans as a whole, need to go die in a fire. They're SO OLD and BORING. We really need a new pant style.

 

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

August 2011

A friend of mine Kat (you can find her under wkobra on dA and blogspot) had a theme drawing week where each day we had to do at least one drawing (doodle to full illustration) based off of the day's theme. I did Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander for films. Moderately successful; her mouth is off, as is the overall length of her face. Single colour and opacity on a white background.

Inspirations - birds, masks, blood
April 2011
4 layers, black background, white, two red (blood on hands and background red). I find it a lot easier to draw by thinking about form and then shaping it than line + fill. This was done by blocking everything out with white and then erasing to get the proper shape. This is related to All Hail; the mark at the bottom is one of my signatures (I go by "black koi" on a few websites).

Regina - Ghosts by Ibsen

Inspirations - taken primarily from a close reading of the text. The historical accuracy is so horribly off. Hair inspired by Wendy from Disney's Peter Pan.

January 2011

Watercolour, ink, pencil

1 of 2 illustrations for a class assignment back in January, Regina from Ibsen's Ghosts. I'm a huge fan of Ibsen, his work is so detailed and really lends itself to bold visual interpretations. The focus for Regina was that she was Oswald's "light" to save him from his venereal disease, she is, however, a child and cannot do these things for him. She's supposed to be a mild-mannered young woman, but she is easily tempted (flash of red after a certain scene). I'd like to revisit this design and make it more accurate (bustle is so off).

Oswald - Ghosts by Ibsen

Inspirations - same as Regina, Japanese kimono

January 2011

Watercolour, ink, pencil

2 or 2. Oswald is a failed painter whose primary characteristic is that his views are clouded and that he can no longer paint like he used to, at first this just seems like an artistic block but it is revealed that he's dying of syphilis like his late father. Red (lust) hidden by his artistic persona, a persona which is clouded (print on kimono). In the text he wears a smoking coat. I changed this to a kimono; they were trendy at the time. Colours to match Regina suggesting a connection between the two.

Summer 2010 - 2011

This was the first thing I drew when I started using photoshop. As I learned more about the program I worked on it more and more. I still visit it every so often to tweak things. A lot of it was just experimenting with brushes, painting styles, and the general mechanics of the program, which is why different parts are done in different methods. Painted over an old sketch from February 2010. Also related to All Hail, Alia from a previous post.

Faves of the Year

I'll hopefully be drawing some new things over the next week. I've got a week before school starts (yay!) but first I have to do some design work for my parents.

Sketch backlog

EDIT: Removed some images as they were getting a lot of hits off Goggle. I feel that they were probably being misattributed and am not comfortable with them being up here anymore.

A few sketches from my current sketchbook (chronologically). For no apparent reason two sketches, the colour swatch sketch of Rothbart and a personal favourite sketch, refuse to load. Ah well, another post.

Rothbart -  Swan Lake

Inspiration: Black Swan, masks

February 2011

Sketch done on a plane ride home from Houston after watching Black Swan. Swan Lake was the first ballet I ever saw, so it has a special place in my heart. I greatly enjoyed Black Swan - I'm actually working on a paper this summer on the costumes in it. I find Rothbart's character is the one with the most room for interpretation. Odette and Odile always have the same rough tutu design, but different facets of Rothbart's character are explored in each rendition of Swan Lake. My design follows a more Byronic style with a hint of horror - better seen in the colour swatch drawing. Full illustration will be done eventually.

Inspiration: "The Powers That Be" from Angel, Yinyang

May or June 2011

I began watching Angel a few months back. The costumes are sooo dated. Never been a big fan of 90's clothing. The designs for The Powers That Be in an early episode of season 1 are... cliche to say the least. After seeing it I thought about the concept of "Powers That Be" or "fate" or "seers" and came up with this.

Inspirations: sci-fi and steampunk

June 2011

Came into my head one night. I see her as some sort of action girl sans the stupid black leather cat suit and high heels. Her hair ties around her head in a loose loop.

Inspirations: A book on tatting on my nightstand, Chinese hair styles 

July 2011

Not much to say. Another one that just popped into my head. The left doodle is a sketch of the tatted lace that would be at the hems of her skirt and sleeves.