Glitchy new header

Hey. I was going to wait until it was 100% finished before I posted it, but I was too excited. My blog has a new header now, paying homage to the fantastic Japanese vegetable juice commercial Po Pi Po. I wanted the BG to be transparent, but I couldn't get it done without a halo. (If anyone can help me with this, please let me know!) Eventually, I want to have icons scrolling on either side of Azrael like in the commercial, but I can't think of enough things that represent me. (If you can think of any, again, please let me know! So far I have the Watkins logo and the Batman signal.) I also need to draw Az bouncing a bit at the end of each po-pi-PO.

Here's my old banner for posterity...

and of course, the immortal Po Pi Po...

Penny Arcade

I really owe a lot of gratitude to Jordan Bickimer, who's teaching me to make game sprites for this calendar project. To say thanks, here's a sprite of his character Penny, the star of a self-titled graphic novel which will hopefully be leaving development hell soon.

This attack comes from a scene where she throws a shirt over her dad's head and beats his ass. It's super effective!

Sprites

Hey, all! Sorry I haven't updated in a few weeks. I was busy trying to have a life. Anyway, I'm in Illustration 3 now. Wanting to do something different for my first assignment, I decided to try my hand at pixel art!

These are my first attempts. They're character designs for a calendar done in the style of retro video games. Each month is a different level, as it chronicles the year-long quest of Super Jones to save his kidnapped girlfriend, Princess Amelie. On the far right is his evil doppelganger, Mirror Jones.

And just to show you I'm still thinking about the Little Mermaid, here's a sprite of Azrael, for kicks...

Book dummy

My Little Mermaid book dummy. It's scribbly as hell, but it's mostly just to plot out the main story beats. I'm kicking around the idea of turning it into a polished graphic novel.

 

Class ends

Here are my spreads, as they appeared in the Illustration II show. This may be the end of that class, but it's certainly not the end of this blog just yet. I have more Little Mermaid stuff to get out of my system, so stay tuned. :)

Music from and inspired by the book

Expect to see this case displayed alongside my stuff at WWaGoT. I decided to make a soundtrack listing for my book, and whipped up a cover to go with it.

Meet your match

Spread 3 rough

Rough cut of my final Mermaid page, when Azrael shows up at Hipsterland with an assload of valentines for Jones, much to the chagrin of his fiancée.

 

(as always, you can click the pic for a bigger version)

That unicorn in the background is part of a mural on the wall. You can't really tell, but Jordan gave me some advice on making it look more like part of the wall and less like there's actually a unicorn in the club.

Zooey Deschanel

Well, I guess it's time for my weekly blog drawing! I have to finish up my last Mermaid page for class, make a poster for GD3, and design my friend's film logo in the next seven days, so time is a little tight right now. So, here's something I sketched up in about an hour. It's a mediocre portrait of Zooey Deschanel! Or possibly Katy Perry. Same thing.

Bonus:

Liefeld challenge

Hey all. I thought I'd take a break from mermaid stuff for this week's blog, so I don't go crazy before I can do the final spread and clean up my book dummy next week. Instead, I decided to take the Rob Liefeld challenge. Basically, you take an especially weak drawing from famously bad comic book artist Rob Liefeld and try to fix it up. I don't consider myself a great artist by any means, but I think I can outdo our old pal Rob, at the very least.

Here's the original drawing, from an issue of Cable...

And here's my attempt to clean her up a bit.

 

As you can see, I've fixed her proportions a bit. She no longer has her legs on sideways, nor is she standing on her toes for no reason. And that... column thing next to her is shifted so that it's clearly behind her. (In the original drawing, it seems to be in front of her, even though her arm overlaps it. Total mindscrew, eh?)

This was fun. Maybe I'll do more in the future.

Guest drawing from Jordan, new colors

Three blog posts in a week. O_o Kind of excessive, but I had to post this. My kickass friend Jordan Bickimer gave me a sketch card he drew of Azrael today, and it is sweeeeeeet. Thanks, dude!

As for my book, I'm revising the colors on the first page. Trying out some new brushes, trying to make everything look more "painted". I want to retain the black outlines, though. Probably. I may color them.

 

Oh, and here's a finished version of spread 2. By "finished" of course I mean that I'll only change it ten more times.

Fanart

Wow, two updates in a week? Well, I had a couple of hours to kill tonight, and decided to draw some fanart for a few of my friends in Illustration. Please forgive the low quality, but they're really just doodles.

First up, J. Edgar Prufrock, after he meets his untimely fate. Hey, at least he finally got a mermaid's attention.

And here are our three resident action heroes making a daring zipline escape.

Inkheart

I drew half a picture and Aaron drew half a picture, and we stuck 'em together.

One night only! It's the Little Mermaid vs. the Little Match Girl! Watch them battle over the tome of Hans Christian Anderson, each hoping to revise the sad ending of their respective stories! Watch our sketching process at this link!!

She's got legs

Here's the rough version of my second "Little Mermaid" spread. Any critique on how to make it less sucky would be adored.

I'm going to work on the coloring and maybe the composition, so it looks more "magical". I'm also going to put more sense of motion between the figures so you get the idea that they're stages of movement, and not just four copies of Azrael.

Also, I'm compiling a soundtrack to be posted with the finished pictures. In the meantime, here's Fuckis's theme song. Just imagine him singing it, Disney villain style.