Kelly's Art Blog!

Wagh!

2011-08-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

For shaaaame! I have not updated since May! In my defense, some of my projects have been NDA or not-yet-published, can't post them for a bit. But still! I have been drawing! I promise. I have come forth from my freelance batcave to post my painting of Ser Barristan the Bold from Game of Thrones (awesome books + show!) that I did for funsies. Done all in photoshop, start to finish.

Doing this piece and a few others made me realize that I never really knew how to finish or polish anything for the longest time. He's definitely not 100% finished but it's a lot less messy than a lot of past digital stuff. I did 20 illustrations for a young adult fantasy novel this past month and a half, and I think soldiering through all that painting has helped me learn to render a little better.
Anyhow, for anyone who wants a little glimpse into the process for this guy, here's a breakdown of my four major increments:

Also, here's some stuff I was working on for a personal project, just developing the look of it a bit. I feel like my rendering has already gotten a bit less crappy since painting this guy 2-3 months ago, I was super terrified to break from completely lineart-based stuff. I'm so used to separating shapes with lineart and not value relationships.

Oh and also? Critiques from friends are the best! They will only make your art better. The best thing I learned at AAU was to always accept critique freely. You don't always have to follow it, but you never know when they'll suggest an improvement that you wish you'd thought of. :3
[edit] Whoops! I hope I don't sound like I'm fishing for critique/comment on that last part, hahah. I mean that the critiques I get voluntarily/arbitrarily from friends/peers/my boyfriend are always valuable, even if sometimes you're like, grumble grumble more work grumble grumble. I thought I'd give them a shout out. :)

Man with furry ears

2011-05-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

I thought this guy was a nice stylistic departure from my normal stuff. The only part that stinks is that I can't seem to duplicate it at all on any other characters. Isn't that always how it goes? You get an awesome fluke drawing and then never reproduce it? :p Ah well, did it once, I can do it again! Right? :)
This guy was probably 5-10 hours sketch + colors, I think he might be the first completed painting I've done on my cintiq.

chars.28-30

2011-04-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Finishing out my Very Belated Month (year? D:) of Characters with these three celtic characters. Invented a little narrative in my head about a tribe of irish celts reacting to the spread of christianity, that's why there's a priesty guy. Might be fun to do something with these characters sometime! They were a few hours in photoshop each.

In other news, I've been trying out one of my coworkers' Cintiq lately, he's selling it, and I'm really leaning towards buying it. I thought it was one of those totally superfluous toys - I'm really not a fan of gadgets and phones and iWhatevers, but I can spend an entire evening working on the Cintiq and it doesn't bother my wrists, which have been acting up lately. Since my wrists are basically my career I think it's a good investment. Working on a Cintiq forces you to draw from the shoulder, and lately I've been able to do a lot more freelance work because there's no strain. I guess that makes me a believer! The one I'm using is an older model coming at a good price, I'd recommend folks check out gently used Cintiqs on ebay, you don't have to have the newest model to reap the benefits.

Char.027

2011-03-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

Gehhh. Almost to 30! Here's a semi-finished guy I was working on. Supposed to be kind of a fancy villain, likes his fancy shoeses. Still messing with rendering, I'm not super fast at it. I've always done more linear/graphic stuff than rendering. First time for everything! Few hours in photoshop.

Char.026

2011-03-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

Whoops! It's been like a month since posting. Busy busy busy! This guy's not really an original character but it's a take on King Midas that I was doofing around with at work last week. Few hours in p-shop.
Been trying to build up some freelance work/clients now that storyboarding is over. Been contributing some concepts to a neat iphone game project my friends are doing, feels good! Too bad I can't tell you about it. 8D

Char.025

2011-02-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

The lady counterpart. More sure of herself. Her face and gesture didn't come out as independent/strong-willed as I was hoping, but the costume was fun. I don't like it as much as the last one. But she has nice gloveses. :B 3 hrs photoshop, approximately.

Char.024

2011-01-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Character 24. Sort of a revamped character from a steampunky western comic idea, extension from character 22. The idea is that he's a very educated doctor who ends up stuck on a frontier planet. I still can't decide whether i want to go a more linear route with my work, or stick to rendered/painted, but I'm happy with how this turned out. I think slapping a watercolor texture over the color adds some interest, and the pose was way fun to work out.

Char.023

2011-01-19T14:12:00.001-08:00

Char 23. Flying valkyrie bird lady. I was inspired by some of the final fantasy tactics costume designs. I was actually looking at photo reference of a girl sleeping on a bed in this weird pose, and it looked like she was swimming or flying. :) Maybe 5 hours in photoshop.

Char.022

2011-01-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

Character 22! This guy is kind of a firefly inspired space cowboy. I suppose he lives in some cold system that requires him to wear heavy furs, I drew them to add some interesting texture. He's a scruffy down-on-his-luck Han Solo type. :p Sketch took about 30 mins, scanned and spent about an hour laying some rough colors down.

Char.021

2010-12-28T00:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I guess the title of this show is changing from "Character a Day" to "Character every so often". At any rate, here's another - she's a spring/forest elemental of some sort. She was supposed to be the spring counterpart to the Autumn girl I did previously. She was about 3 hours in photoshop plus an hour or so in sketch form.

Char.020

2010-12-17T23:53:00.000-08:00

Character number twenty. I scrapped so many character beginnings today, just wasn't at the top of my game, but I came out of it at least with this little pikeman dude. He's a bit sketchy and he's kind of vomit-colored but I dig the pose. About 2-3 hours in photoshop.
I feel like i should add some environments to my portfolio. I was thinking of doing an environment a day after I get to character number 30, but that also might drive me insane.

Char.019

2010-12-17T01:35:00.000-08:00

Decided to do a revamp of Gazib, who was an anthro gazelle character in my webcomic in highschool. He was not at all african-looking before, which made no sense, so in this version he's kind of a combination of a Masai warrior and a Kudu bull. Definitely had fun revisiting my old character - might do that with some of the other anthro characters I used to draw :B About 3-4 hours in photoshop, based on a pen sketch.

Char.018

2010-12-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

Apparently I can't count. My redo of 13 totally threw me off. Without further ado, Char 18. She's a lady version of this HoN character by my coworker Bruce. Might take her into 3D. Took maybe 6-8 hours from start to finish, but there's also a back view. Might post a more finished version later. Woot.

Char.017

2010-12-11T03:07:00.000-08:00

Yikes! 14 characters in like 20 days. Trying to get back on track.
Here's a sort of arabian/north african warrior guy inspired by the character Jaffa in Hidalgo. Am fascinated by all things arabian/turkish/persian, but not so much in a crazy bepierced Xerxes kind of way. He needs a little detail or pattern or something, not sure.

Char 13 redux

2010-12-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

Decided to paint up one of the previous C.A.Ds. Trying to get better at stylized rendering. Took about 3 hours to polish, i think, in photoshop.

Baaaaaah

2010-12-07T17:19:00.001-08:00

UGH! I know, I know, I have been bad about posting...I've been drawing, trust me! Anyway, here's a sneak peak of an illo i have spent a week or so on, it may or may not be related to a graphic novel coming soon :3

we'll be right back..

2010-11-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

Took the weekend off from character-a-day, still shaking off plaguey remnants. Might start posting concept material every day instead of characters if I decide to pursue a graphic novel project. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Char.016

2010-11-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

Number 16. Sorta more western cyberpunk than steampunk. He's like a cross between Van Helsing and Captain Harlock. Fear his redness! About 2 hours sketch + color in potatoshop. Tried to ink this one like some of the first characters but it kind of lost something in translation. I wonder where this experiment will lead me. :p

Char.015

2010-11-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Is the one i messed up from yesterday. Still pretty sketchy, but I think i'll end up spending way too many hours on it if i try to detail out all the tech. She's got some kind of crazy propulsion device. Anywayyys. Did like a 30 min thumbnail and then spent an hour sketching over the top of the thumbnail.

Char.014

2010-11-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

She's an armed escort! Get it? Nyuk nyuk.
A different steampunk char was taking a little too much time, maybe i'll post her tomorrow, so instead tonight i did this doodle of a steampunky redheaded western brothelgirl, kinda based on an old character. Took about an hour in photoshop.

Char.013

2010-11-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

Okay! Back in the game. Here's number 13. I decided this week is steampunk week. I figured if one of them went really well i might submit it for the latest CHOW over at conceptart.org. But steampunk is just fun anyhow.
Tried a cooler palette and didn't ink over my digital sketch. Yay!

derp

2010-11-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

Brief haitus to finish some freelance storyboarding. Characters back soon.

Char.012

2010-11-07T23:20:00.001-08:00

He's kind of a rich philanthropist guy with a tinkering hobby :p And a fascination with minerals. I was inspired by the inventor/uncle character in Young Sherlock Holmes. Wanted to mess around with some different body types. About 1 hr 45 mins, all in photoshop.

Char.011

2010-11-06T00:55:00.001-07:00

Char 11. Generated by seventh sanctum's deity generator - he's the god of keys! 30 min sketch, 1 hour inks in photoshop.

Char.010

2010-11-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

Char number ten! Inspired by Seventh Sanctum prompt and also an old catguy character I had. The prompt was like, a confident anthro-cat spaceman. Mine looks more skittish, meh. Took about an hour and a half blue sketch + photoshop. I think my line quality is finally starting to go somewhere, although I don't like this one as much as the last two.

Char.009

2010-11-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Number 9! He's a snooty victorian man. Inspired by my Eyewitness book on Costume history. I think he needs some checkered pants but I'm kind of lazy. 1-2 hours sketch + photoshop.

Char.008

2010-11-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

Number 8! She's a half-demon soldier. Guess I went the more friendly-demon route. Generated by S.S. Took about 1.5 hrs for sketch + inks. Pencil and photoshop. Trying some different things with line weight.

Char.007

2010-10-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

If Puss 'n Boots were El Gato con Botas :) Apologies for any inaccuracies or stereotypes with the costume, I know nothing about authentic mexican costume/culture :< Inspired by a book of fairy tales at borders. 1 hr spent sketching a few poses, maybe two hours inking/coloring in photoshop.

Char.006

2010-10-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Still one char behind. Autumn girl! Inspired by....autumn! Just a rough sketch, maybe 1 hr in photoshop.

Char.005

2010-10-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

Elizabethan man riding a Utahraptor. With a raptor. Lols. Generated by S.S., photoshop, took approx 5 hrs. Had to rush this a little, I'd really like to go back and detail this one out and render it out real nicely. Yay dinosaurs!

Char.004

2010-10-25T23:48:00.001-07:00

Number 4. Half-kitsune hunter. Generated by S.S. Sketch and photoshop, approx. 2 hrs. I like her hood!

Char.003

2010-10-24T23:16:00.001-07:00

Number 3. He's kind of a punk rock bard. With David Bowie eyeshadow? I'm not sure. Generated by S.S., took about 3 hrs in potatoshop.

Char.002

2010-10-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

Half-griffon dragoon. Description generated by seventh sanctum. 3-4 hrs in photoshop. :) Whew! Almost missed the deadline.

Derp

2010-10-22T13:23:00.001-07:00

Trying to shake the artfunk. Been busy since graduation and have generally been neglecting personal projects or non-work stuff. That said, having a job is great, moving back to sonoma county is turning out to be better than i thought, and having a lovely boyfriend that I can sketch with is also quite excellent.
Anyway, to shake off the crud i'm going to try to do one character design every day. Anything from a refined sketch to inks to full color - will try to really polish one per week - but it's just my way of staying practiced. A good way to get random character or beast ideas is by using the generators at Seventh Sanctum - they have everything from weapons to story generators to catboys to evil animal minions. Here's number one - she's a half-elemental warrior :p Hour or two in photoshop.

Where has teh Kelly been O_O

2010-08-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Oh man. I'm one of those horrible people that doesn't post for a year, and then wonders why no one pays attention to my blog. Hahahahahah. Well, I graduated, so, busy busy busy. I got myself a jorb-a-jorb at S2 Games as a texture painter, doing some storyboarding on the side, got my own place, livin' the life, etc etc. I just finished my online Character Design class today with Ryan Woodward, which I HIGHLY recommend. Anyway, here's a few of the stuffs I've been working on in the last few months (read: semesters). I'll try to be better about it :/

Character turnarounds + facial expressions + lineup

Leperchaun dude

Caricature homework

Inspector Guy. I seem to keep drawing this same generic red-haired guy, maybe I should make a comic about him.

gigantic crap filled post of crap and stuff and art

2010-03-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

Or, "what I've been doing for the past few months while i was not posting blog updates". First up, stuff from the second half of CF3 with Chuck Pyle. I am sad not to have anymore clothed figure classes :( :( :( :(

If you're on facebook and the link doesn't work, try clicking here. Don't worry, there are no nekkid folks.

Next...stuff from 3D modeling for games. The bald guy is a highpoly mudbox-sculpted model, and the lady is a lowpoly game model, like 2k or some such amount. I am not cut out for 3D modeling.

Next...Advanced perspective stuff from this semester! Samurai, Geisha, and Noah. This class rocks my worlddddd.

My favorite perspective HW so far:

And here's my final for ill 2. It's an illustration from a Russian folk tale called the Fool and the Flying Ship.

And here's a poster for an upcoming play about a peace corps member who accidentally summons Ares, god of war:

ILL 2 is the shit!

2009-11-26T01:58:00.000-08:00

For you old people, that means that it's really really cool. Let me tell you why!
I had never tried watercolor before, and Camille makes it AWESOME. She's helpful because she has such a strong technical knowledge of the medium, and she's really encouraging. She makes me feel like my pieces are never as bad as I think they are, and she always has suggestions on how to make something 100% better. So, I thought I'd share some of the stuff our class is working on.

Exhibit A: We had to do a natural light study and an artificial light study. I kind of made my sister look like an alien but otherwise they went alright!

Our first mega-huge assignment was our illustrated store bag. I chose a bookstore, so I thought a bunch of famous literary characters would be fun. Poor Othello, no one recognized him! Oh well. By the way, I painted this on a HUUUUGE piece of paper. I forget how massive, like 30x30" or something. Admittedly, it's really helpful when you're doing something like painting a bunch of tiny heads. But the sheer amount of time it takes to lay down a glaze....just, no. Don't ever do this!

We did an exercise in class the other day where we all took a scene from Goldilocks and the three bears and illustrated it in less than an hour. I had the first part. I like that it's a lot looser than my other things - gotta learn to relax, I guess!

And lastly, we had our animal project. It started with a realistic rendering of an animal, and then a cartoony/animated version with one color painting and 2 inked orthographic views. I still don't quite have a handle on this medium so it was a little rocky, but I learned a lot.

This semester has been INTENSE. Grahhhhhh.

CF3 dump

2009-10-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

Ohmygossssh. Haven't updated in so long. Took the summer off and all that. Majorly sorry about lagging interaction in the AAU blogosphere - everyone on my blogroll has been producing some awesome stuff, I can hardly keep up! Anywayyy, thought I'd post some work for the first few weeks of Clothed Fig 3.

Week 1

Weeks 2/3

Week 4

More stuff coming soon from Illustration 2, Eccentric Ill and Modeling for Games!

Blah Blah Finals

2009-05-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ill1 final, book cover

CF2 final, dressing a figure

Digital final, greek theme w/palace of fine art stock

I should just start calling this Kelly's Clothed Figure Blog

2009-04-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

We had vampire day in Lisa's class. Fun times. Very ehhh...Resident Evil-esque? Hahaha. Some longer drawings (clockwise from top left: 20, 30, 20, 40) we were encouraged to work more with tonal shapes and designing frames and shapes to enhance storytelling. My vampires are a little too broody but I think some of the girls in the class didn't mind 'em :P

Oh also! We're starting our final composite project for digital. Gotta be something related to greek/roman mythology for the most part and we are supposed to use the reference we took at the Palace of Fine Arts yesterday when we went there on a field trip. Maybe it's a touristy place but it sure is pretty :) Here's a pic I took, can't wait to work on this project:

These posts used to have names!

2009-04-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just another illustration/cf2 update. Sorry art comrades for my lack of commenting; life is very very busy right now...and...FARRK the spring show is coming! Bahhh!

Mucha Day in Lisa's CF2 class:

Editorial about canadian seal hunting:

More recent stuff yadda yadda

2009-04-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my illustration 1 Myth/Story project. I took a scene from the Great Train Robbery. Hopefully I get a B or better on it so I never have to paint in gouache again. ...Sorry, Chantal - gouache and I are not gonna be BFFs.

Some more Clothed Fig 2 stuff. Love love this class. Mostly Conte, mostly 20's and 40's.

Pic of some comic boards for the Bold Riley story I'm illustrating for my friend Leia Weathington. I need to get my ass going on those pages.

Clothed Figure = Love

2009-03-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

HOW MUCH do I love clothed figure 2? Thiiiiiiiiiiis much! I feel like Clothed Fig 1 did a great job preparing me, and now I'm moving on to more fine-tuning of my drawing techniques.
So, today we had this model I haven't drawn before, Robert or Bobby or something, he was great, and we played with a mobster kind of theme, and I had a lot of fun drawing him. I probably mentioned this before...but I think today was similar to the pirate day where it's easier for me to have fun (and therefore, draw better) when I really get into the character and storytelling. Also? LOOK AT THOSE HALF-LOCKS. YEAH BITCHES.

Okay, I really shouldn't be that excited about a fold. But do you ever just get that ridiculous rush when you finally "get" something, or when a particular technique "clicks"? Yeah. I dunno.

Also, we got our first largish Clothed Fig 2 assignment handed back today, which was to take clothed figure reference and turn it into some kind of character or creature. I took pictures of my buddy Mark (who must be tired of me soliciting him for help with my art school homework) and drew him up like a leperchaun type guy. Who makes shoes. Leperchauns make shoes. I read that somewhere.

Also, have managed to hit up a *few* workshops so far this semester. I'm really bummed that I can't make it to Bill Sanchez's clothed figure workshop on Fridays, but well, I work Fridays, and I need to eat. Sorry Bill, you'll miss out on my occasionally awesome halflocks for another semester. Tragic.
But here are some clothed and nude quickstudies pages. They need some work but I think I'm gradually able to add more detail in a shorter amount of time. Gettin' there.

I feel like I blabber a lot more on my blog than on any other ones I've seen. Hrm. Well, for me it's a breakdown of my learning process, not just a place for me to vomit out my latest work. So, deal with it. :P

HAPPY SPRING BREAK EVERYONE! I'm off to Sonoma County, I hope everyone has a restful break.

ETA: Insane spring schedule situation resolved. Talked to the folks about it and they said I could take classes part-time and finish anything else up in the summer after graduation. Huzzah!

Some Ink and Some Weirdness

2009-03-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Quick post - my two returned ink projects from Illustration 1. They turned out okay. Wish I could spend an entire class in pen and ink!

And if you haven't read about it in Petur's Blog, he and Ed and Emerson and me all had a round-table sketch game thing where we each drew for a couple minutes, passed our sketchbooks in one direction, and kept drawing. Sometimes it's nice to step back from the seeerious business illustration student lifestyle for a while and goof off.

Speaking of student business...Can anyone offer any words of wisdom on this? I just learned from my advisor that I might be graduating a year from now, that is, Spring 2010. Not only am I mortified and feel like I should be a lot better for someone who's about to be a senior, (I'm not fishing for encouragement, I just honestly feel terrified) but in order to graduate in spring I'd have to have some insane semesters. My Spring 2010 term would be like Illustration 3 plus Advanced Perspective plus Senior Portfolio plus some other illustration class by advisement. And that's even with me taking classes that summer after I cross the stage. Insanity!

I'd rather take fewer classes next spring and slow it down...
Thing is, my family and I are a bit tight on cash at the moment (who isn't?), and they'd really REALLY really like me to be done ASAP. What the heck do ya do? I know it's important to take your time with learning this stuff so I can maximize my chances of getting a job without burning myself out...but...such is life, right?

And yeah. I know it's kind of early to be worrying about all this...but I just got a total reality check with my appointment with my advisor and I'm freakin'. A lot.

Yarrrrrrh!

2009-02-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

Pirate day in Clothed Figure 2! Rock on. I think finally at week 3 I'm shedding a little but of the rust I accumulated over break. Also switched from pitt charcoal sticks to conte crayon - I forget that the pitt charcoal really seems to just exacerbate my heavy-handedness problem and leaves my drawings rather dark and disjointed and clumsy. Seems to take a month for me to remember that every semester!

All twenty minute poses below. Love clothed figure! I learn so much in these classes. Probably because the thematic/illustrative/characterization element makes it a little more enjoyable than the standard figurative charcoal class for me. I like that stuff.

Oh, everyone? I'd like you to meet Engelbert. I created him during an inkwash exercise in Chantal's class. He's really excited about Illustration 1.

Off to Blick to spend my savings on Illustration 1 supplies. It's COLD!

Random Post is Random

2009-01-29T00:01:00.001-08:00

Basically, just catching up and posting a few odds and ends before I get engulfed by the new term. First is my printmaking portfolio; it's kind of sad that this little quilt of prints represents SO SO MANY HOURS of toiling in the printmaking labs. Especially etching. Etching is my favorite printing method by far, but also possibly the most pain in the ass process in terms of time and mess and elbow grease. Anyway, I'm glad I took it. :)

I should throw this up too even though it's like quadruple-posted. It's my interior figure for Jason Bowen's class. It hadn't turned out particularly well at first but after a classmate of mine showed interest in it, I spent some more time on it, and I ended up selling it to her! My first painting I've ever sold. Hurrah! I think it has a nice narrative quality. Got to have a little steampunk/fantasy fun. And I got to march around in goggles and a dress for a few hours.

Here are the only character drawings I got done before spring term started :/ I did a pathetic amount of practicing and drawing over break. Ahhh well.
On the left is a drawing of Bold Riley, a character in a story written by my friend Leia Weathington - I'm illustrating a chapter in her anthology. In the middle is a werewolf from a 40 minute werewolf draw-off with Ed and Petur. He's like, mid transformation, or something. And then the last one is this angry monk dude with a scowl and a weird phallic sword. Yeah. Drawings. Word.

And last but not least, this is a comic I did for an exercise today for my first day of Comics 1 with Dan Cooney. I had fun with it, heheheh.

Hopefully the next post will be filled with more polished, finished-type things...

Extremely belated update...

2009-01-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

Wow, I haven't posted since midterms...lame! D: It's been a flurry of projects since then, I can't quite clearly recall most of the events of the semester! Suffice to say, it ended well. I think my final project for FA:Heads and Hands shows marked improvement in my figure painting, though I really need obvious improvement on color variation, incorporating more chroma, and keeping my colors from getting too muddy. Steadier range would be nice. And there are some small proportional issues. But hey...you can at least tell it's me, right? ...right?

why, yes, I did give it to my parents for christmas. Hey, I'm not a cheapskate! D:

Detail of my lovely visage (lolol)
I'm not the best in the world at head painting, or painting in general, but I sure enjoy painting portraits. I took some photo refs of a friend I'm going to paint just for fun, and I got a commission for a double portrait! Wow! (albeit, from my aunt ;P) Also setting up a commissioned still life that has to be done before february, ackkk! I'm a busy lady! What on earth has possessed these people to want my paintingssss...gah.

Check out that moustache...!
This is the detail of my portrait assignment for Intro to Fig. Again, plenty of issues with it, but I was really happy with my effort! The likeness is like...70%...but I think at the time I was finally beginning to comprehend skin tone a little more.

I'll post again soon with some more illustrative updates as soon as I get home to my tablet and scanner. How I have missed them! D:

Midddddtermaganza

2008-10-20T16:11:00.001-07:00

Oh my crap! So many projects! Bwaghfh! Between Heads and Hands and Figure Painting I'm gonna die for sure. Oh wellll...at least I'm learnin' things! I think the combination of classes is really forcing me to get used to using planes in my work and to also be more consistent with my proportions. For your viewing pleasure, I have here most of my Heads and Hands drawings from this semester. The upper-left is the beginning of the semester, going to the lower-right, which is my most recent portrait. They go newsprint, drawing paper, 2 newsprint, 2 charcoal + white pencil on storm grey tone paper, 2 sanguine + white pencil on velvet gray paper. Most of these are all day (5-6 hours?) drawings, except the 4th, 6th and 8th drawings which are three-hour workshop drawings.

I'm also throwing in 4 of my least ugly paintings so far, also going from earliest to most recent. I am still struggling with this color and value fusion thing, but I think I've improved my paint application throughout the semester. 1st painting is 6 hours, second is a 3-hour workshop painting, third is an hour head study, fourth is a 6-hour portrait.

I still struggle with my various drawing and painting problems, but I've found that it's gotten to the point where it's really fun to work out all the puzzles and problems when I'm making a piece of art. It's a cool challenge trying to make sure your proportions and everything match up alright, trying to find subtle darks and lights that will punch out a portrait, etc. And the reward is learning how to avoid making the same mistakes in the future! Woot.

Kind of wanted to go on the summer Italy trip, but I don't think it'll happen because of my dirt-poor-ness, and my folks want me to work during summer so I can put some money away. My vegan-ness might also make things difficult depending on the housing situation there. Alas! Maybe next time :(

Gonna bust up some bitches!

2008-10-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

Ufhghhghg god I have SO many paintings and drawings to post...but they're all scattered between Sutter and Federal and my apartment. Will post later on.

Just a quickie, though - I took a five minute sketch I did at Monday's Quickstudies workshop and turned it into this groovy guy. Colors hopefully coming soonish. I think Heads and Hands is really helping me with my facial geometry.
And my painting at workshop didn't suck too badly - I'll have to post it if I can manage to get a photo of it that isn't totally washed out.

Character Design fun time

2008-09-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

In light of the extremely-helpful character 360 assignment from Chris's clothed fig class, I've been doing some three quarters front/back designs of some of my characters. It's a good exercise for making proportions consistent and drawing clothes onto figures. They're sort of for fun, but they'd also be cool to use later for like a senior project or something. They could use some tweaking, but I'm happy with the result so far. Couple other characters on the way.

The guy on the left is Joseph, he's uh, an angry, hairy type who likes to hang around the saloon a bit too much. The guy on the right is Dodge. He's a civil war surgeon-turned-outlaw. See, he has a suave manpurse full of goodies. With lock picking tools and weapons and crumpets and such.

Figure painting hurts my brainmeats...

2008-09-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Episode 4 of Kelly-arts. I'm here to report, happily, that the first week (and a half?) of school were a success! I am enjoying my classes (even math!) and all my teachers are awesome, as usual.
First I had Intro to Printmaking, which I have on Friday with Termeh. Here are my first two lino-cut prints - apologies for the photo quality! Many of these are taken with my cell phone as I can't take all of them home while they dry.

Then on Mondays I have Intro to Figure Painting with Jason Bowen. I already had him for Intermediate Fig so we already get along and I know how he teaches, kinda...but I was NOT expecting to be awful at figure painting. I am awful with plane changes and my color is all wrong and I'm like temperature-blind and just BLUGH. The only thing I've done right so far was the still life homework which isn't even a figure. Woe! Ah well, I'll just have to go to tons of workshops. Here is my still life homework, and week 1 and week 2 in-class paintings.

Tuesday is Fine Art Heads and Hands with Tomutsu, which has gone swimmingly so far - pretty small class, it's really nice! I think I'm really going to grow this semester with my head drawing. Anyway, hopefully I can post some HH pictures later on, as well as some character designs I've been doing on the side when I'm not working or crapping homework assignments.

Direct drawing, continuous line...and pirates!

2008-07-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

Sooo in Clothed fig today we did continuous line drawings, and I actually had a ton of fun with it - direct drawing was not as painful as I thought it was going to be, so I guess I should have tried it sooner, it's very liberating, and my drawings are a lot cleaner. Anyway, blah blah, we had the Baron today - those are him in the first picture there. Below that is two pirate drawings from a week before. Also our big last project of the semester was Joan of Arc! Giganto historical character project.

This pirate was actually a young woman but I made her into a greasy old pirate. Awesome.

This is the second part of my clothed figure project, the 4 action poses + expressions. So much work...but it was funnnnnnnn times.

Springy bits and Summer stuffs

2008-07-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

Yay! Thought I'd upload some figurative stuff I'd been meaning to upload. Clothed figure is awesome, it's really helping me with my charcoal technique, and my line weight, and my gestures.
But I thought I'd throw in some anatomy drawings first - I took Intermediate Anatomy with Brandon Smith during spring. The drawing on the left is from the first day of the semester, and the one on the right is from one of the last weeks. I think my 5-value rendering has gotten a lot less crappy lately - I think I'm slowly developing better control over my shading. Whoo!

These next ones are from Clothed figure, from the last week or two, and some are from our midterm drawing test. I like that we're encouraged to really push storytelling, and to feel free to change the model over completely as we see fit.

Doing these gives me some neat ideas for character designs and such. Now, if I only had some damn time to work on personal art...

Such a lemming

2008-07-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Truth be told, I've just been meaning to get a blog for some time...apparently everyone at AAU has one, so...hey! Here it is. Like the title says, it's all about the journey, and it's a way for me to chronicle my progress and my AAU experience. Learning is awesome.

So without further ado, I'll go ahead and start with my first clothed figure 1 assignment. We do a bunch of nude studies, choose one, refine it, and do a costume overlay. After I turned it in I scanned it and colored it for kicks. It's this neo-crusader guy from a science fiction story I'm kind of developing with a friend for shits and giggles. Lineart in graphite, colors in potatoshop.