Between quarters

Before I started, I was so excited that Abe and I spent a day at the zoo taking photos. And for the next quarter we have to pick an animal to focus on. So here are some drawings of the tapir.

And here are some of the crummy photos I took. It's not easy, man. They have one of the older areas and the only view is through some old dirty glass. Plus this guy was running around like a nut.

Mink Skull

We could choose from a spotted skunk, muskrat, or mink skull. I liked the teeth on the mink and this little guys was missing some teeth. Looks like the two front teeth fell out during cleaning, but his right incisor is closed in with bone, so I think he lost that in life. Pretty cool.

Gestural drawings

Measured line drawings

Graphite value studies

Gouache and colored pencil

Seattle Aquarium

On of our class days for Zoological Illustration as at the Seattle Aquarium. This was pretty darn fun.

Grumpy fish and a dogfish (which is really a composite of many dogfish)

Cuttlefish! No way to capture their entire cuteness

He really sat there for about 15 minutes like this just looking at me and everyone else walking by

Coral that fish were swimming around.

seahorses and stuff

Here are some photos I took.

Cuttlefish! I watched for a while and they kept changing color

This harbor seal just sat the for like 15 minutes. Looked like he was posing for me.

They got a new octopus and he is much more friendly

Sea horses!

Starfish eating a clam. Nom Nom

Squid

Here's my watercolor of a squid. If I have time, I am going to do another one. I am not super please with this one. I really need to learn patience with watercolor. We all got a stinky raw calamari to take home. Pat said to take photos and draw sketches quick because it wouldn't last through the weekend.

Looks like he's dancing.

Close up of his mouth.

Angel squid

Measured line drawings

Sketch for teh painting

Gestural drawing, including a closeup of the mouth/beak

Final watercolor.

Burke Museum Bird Day

The page of sketches I did from Bird Day at the Burke Museum.

Sketching

We were supposed to try doing 20 minutes of sketching a week for our Introduction class. I do not think I did because by the end I was so busy with homework, but here is a couple from farmer's markets.

Chicken skull

Chicken Skull Time! This was a fun project. Susan said they don't usually come with the hyoid bone (which is our adam's apple, but attaches to the tongue on the chicken) nor the sclerotic ring (which mammals don't have but is a protective bone over the eye. They are also usually cleaner. These had a lot of dried fleshy bits left of them, which isn't super gross, but makes them harder to draw.

Gestural drawings

Measured line drawings

Graphite value studies

Ink drawings. Upper left is stipple and the rest are contour lines. This was the actual final assignment for the chicken skulls

Gouache and colored pencil. This was my favorite technique I learned in the whole class and was not for an assignment really

Posting

Phew! I gotta get posting. Now that Abe has a job, I think I need to start scanning my own art in. :| So lazy. He will still have to photograph the color ones for me though.

Amy Farrah Fowler from last weeks show. Her head and body are out of proportion, but let's say I did that on purpose. Almost none of the gray scanned in either. Bah.

I got an awesome new fountain pen - Noodlers. It uses a plunger to refill from a bottle of ink straight into the nib. Crazy. I love it. I got blue-black ink, but Abe scanned this in black and white.

This is an image Torrid posted on Facebook, I think. Someone's "nice" look from a naughty and nice contest. The gray didn't scan well.

I also posted a Nadine and Cob drawing on Ink Tub, so don't forget to check there.

Blacksad

Blacksad, written by Juan Diaz Canales and art by Juanjo Guarnido
Published October 20, 2010

At Stumptown last year, Abe picked up Blacksad from the Darkhorse booth. The lady there gave it such praise, he couldn't resist. And it was worth him having to carry another hardback in his backpack for hours.

The art is by Juanjo Guardino, who worked at Disney in Paris for a while, and you can telll. Amazing art in the great classic-style Disney illustration. I kept thinking of 101 Dalmations because of the style and the actual setting. Subtle watercolors add to the nostalgia. The characters are all animals with people bodies (essentially).  And Disney animal faces they are. Those expressive eyes! It was a little disconcerting to see my childhood-memory style used for such adult themes, but damn it looks good.


The book actually contains three stories that follow the cat John Blacksad. His life kinda sicks, bu he does help some people. The characters are all essentially caricatures of themselves, in a good way. Seems like a method that Eisner could get behind - the animal heads are like shorthand to the type of person we are dealing with.

The only negative I had is that the women were less animal than the men. I often couldn't tell you what animal they were supposed to be. I can always tell with the men. The women also had earrings where their human ears would be instead of on their animal ears. But these are minor complaints even though they really bugged me.

Anyways, by the end, all I wanted was more. Warning, though. These guys pull no punches and really use this animal shorthand to discuss some painful topics from that era (and now unfortunately), like racism and war crimes. Like Maus, the animal metaphors are a good way to soften teh blows into more easily managed chunks.

I assumed based on the date of the publication that I shouldn't expect more. That would be too much to ask, wouldn't it? NO! There is another one that came out this July. I will definitely be grabbing it when I can.

I like it enough, I drew a little bit of fan art.

I also did some practice by copying some of the faces in the book. Seriously good stuff - I am not that good.

Nadine practice

Ah, good version of some of my COB drawings.

 There you can see the blue! That the scanner erased.

She looks a bit stoned there, I think.Ooh, you can see the blue pencil lines...

Superhero Woman

So here is a sketvh dump, a bit. Now that Abe has a job, it is harder to get him to do my bidding, so I guess I will have to scan in my own art. Though if I want good ones of my color art, he will still need to do it.

 Here is a first attempt at drawing Superhero Woman and Sidekick Dog, a pair I made up in high school or junior high. I liked the idea of super heroes, but the only ladies ones I knew, I didn't like. Wonder Woman was too scantily clad and I only knew the movie version of Batgirl. So I made up my own. It had a much more literal style. Less violence and darkness. Superhero girl was me, der, and Sidekick Dog was my dog, Patience. Their nemesis was Madame Nutmeg (or something) after my mom's cat. Not that I had anything against poor Nutmeg, but we needed a villain. I even made us outfits with blankets for capes and cut up old socks for masks. Her name wasn't Patience for nuthin'. She also had little shorts and I wore my converse. We would run around our property all dressed up. Not much because it is kind of cumbersome to run around the woods in a blanket cape and Patience did have a limit.

Here's some standard fare Sartorialist drawing. I keep trying for more cartoony style. It is difficult.

 And some practice for the story I am working on with the working title COB. This is a scan of copic markers, so all the light blue is gone, but there was some sky in the window.This is definitely at least one of Nadine's outfits for the book.

And here is Nadine all dressed up for fencing. I think I will change the skort thing up a bit. And the copic marker blue is so much darker than that. But I think I will add some gold embroidery along the blue edges of the skirt instead of black and give her gold buttons instead of black. As you can see, I also haven't decided on an eye color yet. Her hair will also be more yellow than red. Boy copics scan weird.

Not feeling well.

Some drawings from the week. I wrote a post about commas for work that included a Batmower.

 This is actually from my head. I saw a girl sort of dressed like this the other day. Not the hat.

And I think I have a bit of food poisoning after eating out today for lunch. But it was kind of ... slow... so I played video games on my tablet while I waited. :S

Steampunk and stuff

Some drawings from lately. First up, from The Sartorialist.

 Some practice for my first big story. There's more tree, but whatever. I was testing the paper because it bleeds really bad with a nib but seems fine with a brush.

 More practice for a different story. I'm not really going to say much on that...

 Practicing steam punk ladies from images on Deviant art. The top row is based on images from DestinysGarden and geoectomy. Second row is from crimson-shirou and voluptas-designs.

 This one is by Leder-Joe.

And finally one from MADmoiselleMeli.