Just some sketches

My boss was out doing meetings and I was waiting for him to get back this afternoon, so to fill the time, did some sketching, because...well, that's just how I roll.  

I was watching Skins and it was depressing and full of pretty teens with tragic lives.  I doodled Freddy and Effy: 

I went over to Posemaniacs and did a bunch of 30- and 60-second gesture drawings.  Then, I went back and made the sketches into more filled out characters.  

These are some: 

That is all. 

Frustrated blurb

I spent my lunch hour fighting with hand-drawing type on the drawing I'm working on.  Over the course of the hour, I drew and redrew and redesigned and reconfigured and made 0% forward progress at all.  Except I saw more things wrong with the drawing that I started off liking in the sketch phase and think is more of a disaster with each successive day.  

ART!  GRRR!  

I hate never being where I want to be, in terms of skill.  It is incredibly frustrating.  

On the other hand, if you have ever wondered what kind of pen aficionado you are, you can follow that link and find out.  

Back from CA, giant sketchdump post.

Just a quick post of all my crazy sketches from my CA trip.  

Here’s a whole page full of random:

Then, on the last leg of my last flight, my computer’s battery was all out of battery juice (known to some as ‘electricity’.  Weird.) so I could neither draw on my tablet nor listen to more Cabin Pressure.  I was sketching in my sketchbook, and trying, without success, to find something decent among the in-flight stations to listen to.  It was frustrating and annoying, and I was cranky and not having art fun, and then I remembered the sage advice of Mr. Neil Gaiman: 

(It wasn’t even good country music…I don’t think there is a music genre I hate without reservation…but this was just bad music AND country music and I was not amused.) 

The next day, I went to my friends’ wedding, and it was hot and miserable and I didn’t know a lot of people and those I did I hadn’t seen in a long time and had very little to say to beyond ‘yeah…so I live in Pittsburgh now.  Yep, graduated.  Graphic designer.  Gee it’s hot out.’ So I made a friend drive me to get my sketchbook (which my bff had insisted I would not need) and lounged around the backyard and doodled, again with Mr. Gaiman’s words in mind.  And then a conversation with bff#2 caused Doctor Who silliness: 

The next stuff is just a bit of randomness.  Random Ra is random: 

This was playing with value and cross-hatching and composition.  And then some rough figure doodles and a sketch of my reaction to the awful coffee in the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport: 

More random sketches…a girl riding a moose drawn by someone who does not know how mooses work.  Devil’s Butt Brand coffee, something I have encountered, sold under many other names, far too often lately.  I think I may make a print or a shirt or something.  People need to know.  And then, me being tired and representing it visually. 

When I got home yesterday, rather than sleeping, I went to a friend’s house and hung around all day.  And doodled some Sherlock and John.  I really like the second Sherlock and first John.  The second John is really really bad.  I fought with it for ages and finally we were going to dinner and stuff so I stopped.  

And that's all, folks!  

I'm off to see Brave!  I hope! 

California Week!

This week I write to you from the great state of the ocean and movie stars, though I am actually in the part of the state with fog and redwoods and the golden gate bridge...still have the ocean though...even if I have YET to convince anyone to take me there.  That better happen before I leave town.  Just sayin'. 

Anyway, after my last entry I managed to follow that week up with a week-long anxiety attack (oh, chemical imbalances are FUN), which eventually resulted in a hospital trip at which they did all kinds of comforting tests and also prescribed me anti-anxiety medication which is not so much a day-to-day function drug as a tranquilizer that will knock me unconscious if I start just totally freaking out.  So there's that.  

Luckily, I got all of that dealt with in time to get home and finish last-minute pre-trip work and then spend the rest of the evening fighting more with character design.  And on Friday morning, a shuttle took me to the airport and I got on a plane that took me to California (well...with a stop and a plane change).  Aside from dodgy internet (see: pretty much none) in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and a failure to run into Benedict Cumberbatch in an airport and make him somehow fall in love with me, the trip was really pretty excellent.  Delta has good coffee.  On two different full flights I had an empty seat between me and the other row occupant and on both, had multiple attractive dudes in my vicinity.  And I spent pretty much all of both flights drawing and (finally) listening to Cabin Pressure. Which is awesome and hilarious.  

Since being in town, I've been dividing my time between trying to form cohesive plans with flakey Californians, working on freelance, and hiding away with my sketchbook and doodling.  I have a bunch of trip sketches but, though I've posted a few smartphone pics on tumblr and twitter, they just aren't really quality, and I want to get proper scans...so I'll post pics when I get home.  

Also, I was unable to resist this amazing art book at the fabulous Japantown bookstore:

Basically, it is the sketchbook of this excellent tattoo artist and painter (Gunnar), and it is tres inspiring.  

Also, as a side note on things that are inspiring, my friend Beth introduced me to this guy's YouTube channel where he a) demonstrates art techniques, and b) just shows off his students' awesome sketchbooks.  I can't watch it without wanting to lock myself away and draw all day.  FABULOUS. 

I haven't been doing daily warmups this week (I have been drawing daily, but not doing studies) but I do have last week's.  I decided that, as I'm not great at feet and legs and shoes, I'd work on those with varying degrees of success. 

I also accidental a fan art of two.  

Oh John, you're such a BAMF.  

Anyway, that's the news from Lake Wobegone. 

Today I am getting dragged out on an adventure of mystery.  All I know is that it will start with a promised sushi dinner and that I'm to dress casual.  I think I will wear my ReaperSun tshirt with Sherlock and the Dalek.  Because I live in geek shirts.  

Until next time, remember not to giggle...it's a crime scene.  

Week from purgatory at least

So no new updates on my squid woman.  About whom I continue to have rather mixes feelings.  (I think I WILL finish her just to see where she goes, but I'm not sure it will be somewhere good...on the other hand, look at her.  Are you surprised?  Clearly some Elder God ancestry there.) 

Anyway, between freelance, life and life kicking me in the reproductive organs, I have not had time for personal work this week, which sucks, as I am, of course, having a week where i'm brimming over with ideas and just want to sequester myself in a coffee shop and draw what I want all day (the always Sherlock fan art, and personal art, and fan art of the Lizzy Bennet Diaries and thanks to spending yesterday afternoon watching The Hobbit production blog, all kinds of Middle Earth goodness!).  

*oh, also read this GREAT post on fan art that I just LOVED.  So I'm posting the link.  If nothing else, so I know where to find it. 

Instead, I'm working on the next stage of my Super Awesome Giant Freelance Project...with questionable success.  I am on to character design and aiming for a particular aesthetic, but attempting to reach the level of stylization we want without going over into 'it just looks awkward and anatomically incorrect'.  And then there has been life, doing it's darndest to keep me from concentrating.  

On Monday, a headache snuck in, festered quietly all day, and by the time I was ready to buckle down and work on freelance that night, had reached 'your eye might just be oozing down your cheek and you should probably go check that' proportions.  I didn't get any work done that night.

I woke up the next day thinking it was gone, but it was just waiting until I was alert enough to properly appreciate it.  So I countered with max strength Excedrin (well, store brand equivalent) and it was super effective.  But, whether due to the wicked headache, the cocktail of pain-killers running through my blood (I took like, 8 aspirin in a 10 hour span, before the successful vanquishing) or an anxiety attack that I thought I felt kicking in but was too busy being in pain to be sure about, or my bad eating habits over the weekend or all of the above...I spent the whole day feeling shaky and off balance and out of sorts.  But I felt better by that night and got some work done.

And then last night, my laptop freaked out on me.  Which resulted in me freaking out and getting the ex to help me with tech support over the phone from NZ, and almost crying to the IT guy in Atlanta and possibly promising him my first born when he miraculously fixed the problem.  I got a little work done last night, but due to the stress chemicals in my veins, I don't think my head was fully in the game.  GEEZE.

But tonight I detox with some Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller livecast closing night of Frankenstein.  Even if I can't be in London to properly appreciate it, this is a close second.  And those who saw the flipped casting last night said it was amazing.  Possibly expect some Frankenstein fan art.  

 Speaking of fan art, I made a couple quick and dirty Doctor doodles: 

Eleven and Ten: 

A quick color sketch of Nine: 

...and this week's warm-up theme was girls and horses.  Not all of them were winners, but I feel that yesterday and today weren't bad: 

Anyway, with that, lunchtime freelance awaits.  Later, skaters.