Art Dump (boy, that sounds awful)

All of these came from Instagram, so you're welcome to follow me over there.

More hand inks

Pod Loves Me

After learning Simulation 2 will be available next week, I can’t help but sit and daydream about my POD.

www.bodymindchange.ca

Happy Halloween!

More Women & Hats

Women & Hats

Since I can't seem to find a book that has those amazing black and white photos of people from the 1950s posing for what has to be advertising, I bought myself a book called Women & Hats to draw from.  I bought myself a nice little sketchbook with cream coloured paper, some sepia colour ink and a new brush to go with it too.

These two ladies are the first I've managed to capture.  Trust me when I say the women don't look this shocked and confused in the book.  Bored, maybe.  These two just turned out like deer in the headlights.  Maybe that's telling of my state of mind when I drew them?

Actual Ink on Paper!

Sitting at a one day con this past sunday I had some time to start a new little sketchbook I bought.  Of course, I default immediately to some girls

This one I drew in another sketchbook with the intention of inking it with some colour.  My brain is so trained to work in vectors that doing something freeform like working with flowing ink is damned hard.   I'm still thinking with hard edges.  My goal for this summer is to get out of that habit so I can produce some art that's not on the computer.  Just draw, ink (maybe) and forget it.  Then move onto the next one.

 This dude was inspired by the Brutal Legend video game art book.  He's not nearly as creative as some of the designs in that game but it's a start for me because HE'S NOT A GIRL!

Sparks Nevada Fans Part 1

I couldn't help myself.  When inspiration strikes, you sometimes have to ride it out.

It's what got stuck in my head after listening to many episodes of Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars back to back.  He's from Earth.  I also have the theme song stuck in my head.  Each quite brain moment I have is filled with it.

I'm planning on getting this coloured because, mainly, I just want to see what it looks like in colour.  I also have a different idea for the text but I'm too lazy to fix it in the sketch.

Beyond Belief!

So I follow Nathan Fillion on Twitter and he tweeted a link to a radio show podcast he performed in.  Being curious and bored I followed it along only to discover The Thrilling Adventure Hour podcast.  And now I can't believe I've been without it for as long as they've been doing it.  It's like the old 1940's radio serial shows but with the most amazing and surprising cast.  You MUST check it out.  They just had a super successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a graphic novel, a behind the scenes web show AND a DVD of a performance!

My two favourite shows are Beyond Belief and Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars.  The other shows are tied for a very close second.  Yeah, you have to hear it to get it.  After listening to the "Vampire Weekend" episode of Beyond Belief I KNEW I had to draw Frank and Sadie Doyle, the martini loving couple who see ghosts.

I have great plans to get this coloured with some nice 1940's colours and text if I can find a few moments here and there.

So do yourself a favour and listen to this podcast.  It's brilliant.

It's Wrestle Time!

"You got your Adventure Time in my WWE!  And you got your WWE in my Adventure Time!"

That's pretty much what went on in my head one recent Saturday morning.  That's CM Punk and Paul Heyman, if you don't know.

FanExpo 2012 Wrap-up

So this sketch pretty much represents my feeling for the FanExpo.  Me being the girl, my art being the cat.  It was a bit of a bust.  Don't get me wrong, there were thousands of people walking around, there were some pretty big corporate displays like Lego, Marvel and Ubisoft with displays and demos and freebees, there were some pretty amazing A-list celebrities, but all of that didn't add up to a great weekend for us in Artist Alley.

The organizers moved Artist Alley from one long wall along the back of the room to a shorter wall along the side of the room.  We were 3 rows from the farthest corner of the room.  The main feeling was that once people started at the opposite end of the Artist Alley, got to the half way point, they either got tired or ran out of money so they turned around and didn't make it to the final few rows where we were.  We were also quite close to the CTV area (a TV station here in Canada) so I think people saw that and figured 'Boring, I'm here for comics not TV' and turned around.  We were also close to one of two giant TOWER OF T-SHIRTS! towers so people saw that and probably figured they'd seen one, they don't need to see another.

So overall it just wasn't as successful as last year's FanExpo.  I would like to thank those who did stop buy to chat or buy, especially those of you who remembered us from past years and always seem to buy something new from us.  Thank you!  You made my weekend.

Something else I think messed me up was autograph hunting.  I haven't been the one who goes out for autographs from the celebs, I sit back and watch the table while Andrew does that.  There's never been anyone who I just really, really wanted to meet.  Until this year.  Yes, I scraped up the courage from somewhere and got Alan Tudyk's autograph on my Tucker and Dale image.

I was taking a walk and happened to see he was there a day early so I thought better do it now before I lose sleep with anxiety and anticipation.  So I got in line and the volunteer announces that the line is now closed.  I was the last one.  What?!  So I joke to the guy in front of me, 'Does that mean I'll be the one he remembers out of everyone today?'  And he says 'Yeah, when he's lying in bed tonight he'll be thinking of you.'  WHAT?!  And the volunteer jokes that I should toss my hair and be all flirty.  Double what?!  Like I needed all of that to make me any more nervous.  But he was very kind, shook my hand, seemed to be amused by my piece (I gave him one with my autograph on it :P) and signed it as well as the photo that I got for the price of the autograph.  As I walked away I thanked him for not cancelling to which he smiled and nodded a 'You're welcome' kind of thing.

I also got Norma Reedus and Jon Bernthal (from The Walking Dead) autographs for my Mom since she's a huge fan of the show.  That should be a fun addition to her birthday presents!  Sarah Wayne Callies who plays Lori just showed up out of the blue at Norman's table while I was lining up but I didn't have enough money on my for her's too.  Talk about awkward.  She's twiddling her pen as I'm standing there waiting for Norman, NOT getting her autograph.  But she did compliment me on my owl t-shirt.  

So all that autograph stuff had me on edge for three days.  Right now I'm suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.  I keep flashing back to how much of an idiot I may or may not have made of myself.  I haven't even looked at the few photos I got of me and them since they were taken.

So that's sort of it in a nutshell.  We hung out with some convention friends (Ghoul Friday and Mummy's Little Monster, I'm looking at you!) I bought some great new art to freshen up our art wall.  I'm not quite inspired to jump back into my own art right now but I'll give it some time.

I have a lot of merch left over so I'm planning on opening at etsy.com store.  I figured people might trust that more than just buying directly from me.  Worth a shot I guess.  I also might try the tumblr thing and start one of those.  Like I don't have enough places to update when I have something to update with, but what's one more, eh?

My Artbook is DONE!

Finally!  I got off my butt, then back on my butt in front of my computer to get this artbook sorted out and done.

BOOM!

There it is!  You can find it at Lulu.com.  If you want to find it AND buy it, just follow this link here.  It's 75 pages of art I've done over past 10-ish years in full colour.  It's not in chronological order, that would have driven me a little nuts, but you can probably tell the progression of my style just by the art.  I know I can.  I should also add that they often put codes for discounts and deals on the front page so check that our first before ordering anything.

I'll be selling this at the FanExpo this August so you can get it from me there.  I'll even do a sketch for you on the inside if you're so inclined to want one.  I'll also be selling leftover books on my own, so if you do want a sketch but can't make it to the convention I'll post the how-to of going through Paypal.

Tucker and Dale VS Evil

Fan Expo recently announced that Alan Tudyk is going to be one of the celebrity guests this year so I was inspired to do a Tucker and Dale VS Evil sketch.  I'm planning to get it coloured.  And if I can muster the courage (I'm shy!) and he doesn't cancel at the last minute, I'll get a few printed so I can give one to him and get him to sign another.

Pizza!

Been drawing a lot of pizza and pizza related things lately.  For some reason I wanted to give this one a quick Photoshop colour.  Not surprisingly to me, I am not craving pizza now.

Killer Fangirls

So I'm trying to get back to where all my pinups kinda started and come up with something for the big FanExpo in Toronto this August.  My first idea was extra curvy versions of our favourite movie slashers.

This sort of worked.  I did this Leatherface one, thought it was pretty good, then tried a Freddy.  Well, 12 pages of erased sketchbook later I still couldn't get it to work.  I couldn't even visualize a Jason or a Michael Myers.  So I scrapped that idea, which was hard, because I had gotten to the point of just redrawing the same thing over and over thinking I was drawing something different.  Anyway, this is what came out next.

This is more like it!  I've already coloured them and I love them.  I don't want to give too much away by posting the finished once already so I'm going to sit on them for a little while longer.  I'll be selling them as single prints, 5"x7", at the convention.

I tried to think of other classic slasher but I think I covered the main ones.  Then I thought of Ash.

Now I think I'm in the swing of things.  She isn't coloured yet but I'm not sure she's a fangirl or a slasher.  She's kind of the female version of our favourite anti-hero.  Or she is a fangirl since she seems to be flirting with her evil hand.  Either way, I'm hoping to get this one coloured too.

A little bit of crazy

Inspired by watching wrestling last night and crazy little AJ.  She may look tiny but I'm sure she could kick my butt without losing her breath.

Illustration Friday: Heights

This one's a quicky for Illustration Friday.  The new sketchbook I'm using really eats up my pencil!  But I hate to waste a book since I bought it.  I found 3 blank sketchbooks in my tub of supplies so I have to keep telling myself "Don't buy sketchbooks!".  "And tuna!"  I have enough tuna in the cupboards too.

Illustration Friday: Puzzled or "Velma"

I've been watching the new Scooby-Doo cartoon Mystery Incorporated (thanks to Andrew) and it's the first time I've ever enjoyed the show.  Ever.  Scooby-Doo just always annoyed me.  But this new version of it is pretty good.  It's got some good story lines, some great in-jokes and a fun "I know that voice" kind of cast.

So I started sketching out some Velmas to see where it took me.

And here's where it took me!  What's funny is this week's Illustration Friday word is "puzzled" so it's like fate or something.

Flashback

So looking for inspiration for something to draw, I thought I'd try revisiting some of my previous work.  I did that a while ago with some old pinups (my pirate, cupid, mad scientist, spacegirl) and it worked out well so here's my revisiting, gulp, Lucha Babes.  Yikes!  That was 2004!  8 years ago, 8 YEARS AGO, when I wrote, drew, inked, lettered and published my own comic book.  Every one was doin' it so I wanted to see what the big deal was.  What a crazy kid I was!  Seriously, what was I thinking?  There was SO much work involved.  It really gave me a huge new respect for those artist who go it alone.  Good on ya!

Then.  Hand inked!  By hand!  With real ink!

Now

I still have a soft spot in my gut for my drawings, dated as they are.  It was actually pretty hard to capture what I remember being so easy to draw back then.  And to think I had 8 masked female characters!  I'm please how Desnuda's (I remembered her name!) sketch turned out so I might colour her in sometime when I'm bored.

Illustration Friday: Vocal

Oh boy, it's been a long time since I tried an Illustration Friday word.  Apparently they had some problems with their mailing list server so I hadn't been getting their words for about 3 months.  Out of sight, out of mind.

It's also been a LOOONG time since I did some sketching in the morning before I start work.  I miss it and want to get back into it.  So this is my attempt.  Not my best but, whatever.  The word is "vocal" so I pictured a hippy yelling in protest at something.  War, I suppose.