Hello! I am still alive.

Hi everyone! Wow...I've been gone a year...a whole year! I don't believe how much time goes by so fast. Feels like when you are a child, time just crawls by so slowly and when you grow older, it speeds up much to quickly. I am sorry for my sudden departure from my blog, but I am back. I've missed you all so much!

I guess I needed some time away while I thought about my art, where I'd like it to be, where I really want it to go and generally to sort my whole life out. And I finally think I'm ready to tackle tackling the whole art business seriously, because, I realized during my working days at my day job, that it's where I truly want to be. So, I have been around the interwebs on various social sites that are my regular haunts, and trying to improve my work. I think I am finally getting better and to a place on how I want it to look.  I am totally looking forward to sharing that progress with all of you. *big Internet hugs*

So! I guess you could call this illustration my first after a whole year away. Looking at it, it has turned out to be a turning point drawing where I feel I've changed so much.

 

 

 

This little lady is called "Bewitched". She was for an October auction on Facebook last year. I am happy to say that she found a lovely new home. One of my first successful sales in a long, long time.  She was done with pencils and white ink on Deleter Art paper. She actually took nearly three months to finish! But, that was probably due to a hectic work schedule at the time.  When you work in florals, you come to dread the holidays. *laughs*

 

 

So again, so happy to be back! I hope all of you have been well? Cannot wait to catch up on lost time. See you all very soon! Cheers!

Tangled-Plus a NaNo and PiBoIdMo update

Oh hi there! My goodness, December already, where on earth has the time flown to?!  November was so crazy busy, but I feel that I got the most done out of all the other months past. Yippee!
I'll start with this drawing here.  I finished this actually close to the end of last month.  She's done with pencil and white ink again, as I'm running very low on my watercolour pencils and the like.

She's inspired by one of my favourite, and a little rare, Grimm fairy tale of  three women who are turned into flowers and only one can return to her good husband at night.  They form a plan and he rescues her from her enchantment.  It's such a sweet little story, and by little I mean very wee.  It's barely a paragraph long.  I wanted to illustrate something that might go along with it, so I hope I did it a fair enough composition.  Hmm, it might also make for some lovely writing paper.

I also participated in NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo this year as well.  It wasn't a challenge juggling the two as much as I thought it was going to be.  For NaNo, I managed to make it just past the 20,000 mark by the end.  Which I think is still quite good for my first try, since I didn't quite know what the heck I was doing in the first place. *Laughs*  But, I have a super awesome start (finally) to my first middle grade book.  It's all very exciting to see the characters, settings and plots come to life.  I'm still writing strong and have a goal to make it to almost 50,000 by this month's end.  (I'll try my best at least, so no biggie if I don't quite make it.)

And I totally completed PiBoIdMo! Woo to the Hoo!  I have about 40 ideas written down for a children's picture book and I've narrowed it down to five ideas now.  I've two really rough manuscripts started and I'm currently noodling around with some rough concepts for the illustrations.
It's a brave new world and experience starting for me and I'm very much looking forward to see where that sails me to.

I never knew at first that I would start to head in this direction of children's books and writing, until last year I took a serious look at just who I was reading out there in blogger land.  I was very surprised to see it was mostly mums who were writing, illustrating and crafting, but the largest majority was children's writers and illustrating.  That actually surprised me, as I've done comics for so long.  It's weird how you don't always know yourself, isn't it?  So a change was in definite order.  The thought of being able to one day inspire a little one (maybe one of own one day too), fills me with a joy I never got from doing comics. I just can't wait to get started!

Oh no! I'm rambling...I'll be quiet and leave you to your lovely tea! *laughs*

I've been doodling a lot lately.  More so than getting to finish pieces, really.  This one here, "Forest Elf"  is for my middle grade novel.  She's a lot nicer looking than she really is, so don't  be fooled too much by that elegant face. *wink*  I'm almost done with her, I just hope my colours will last long enough for me to finish.

And one more sketch to show you...

This again is for my middle grade book.  I'm calling her "Empress" for now.  She doesn't show up until the end of the series, but I wanted to draw her so I can flesh out her details in writing a bit better.  She a very nice young elf lady and has a twin.  I'm going to have to use pencil for this drawing, I wont have enough colours left after I finish with another drawing.

How was all of your Thanksgiving my dear American friends?  Did anyone dare to go Black Friday shopping?  Omgosh, I never do that kind of shopping, I'd like to keep all my limbs intact, thank you very much indeed. *laughs*  This is why I'm very grateful for having Hanukkah early this year.

Wishing you all a very merry and candy cane coloured week! Cheers!

Captured Butterfly ATC

Wonderful evening to you everyone! Man, it's super foggy out tonight, the fog horn has been going off for quite sometime now.  At first I thought it was the movie I was watching, only to poke my head out and realized it wasn't. *laughs*

So, this has to be one of the smallest drawings I've done...ever!  It's on a 4" x 4" square card and I used a mechanical pencil and white ink.  I did this for a reader challenge call, "The Faces Of Mixed Media", over on Cloth Paper Scissors.  I have to get the original mailed off, but, if it doesn't make it in time I went and shared it on their reader forum today.  I had originally titled this, "No One Suspects The Butterfly"....buuuttt...I wanted something that sounded a bit more ethereal.

This one was done close to the beginning of this month and took about a week from start to finish.  I can't believe I forgot all about it sitting in my closet until I was tidying up and it fell to my feet. *laughs*

For a little size comparison:

Thank you all for the wonderful comments you guys always give me....I love reading them and they always make me smile. I've been feeling a little more up beat this week and I can't wait to feel like myself again.

So that's it for tonight....I wish you all a lovely creative and happy week! Cheers!

The Little Prince

Afternoon all you little wonders out there! The sun is shinning, it's a beautiful day and the crisp fall air is deeply tangible now....ahhh..and, I'm getting very excited for November to roll around. I'm sitting here all giggles and smiles, but I can't tell you yet what it is. But I cannot wait! I feel like an impatient child with a brand new dress, but not allowed to wear it just yet.

So, leaving you with that cryptic message, let me introduce you to another lead character  for my middle grade novel.  Of which I'm just starting to plot out...it feels kind of daunting and scary to plot, but I've got a number of books out to help that path along smoothly.  It'll be awesome to see where it leads to.  Then, I'll move on to the actual writing part....which will be very messy and I'll have to learn to not edit as I go along.

Anyway, this young man right here is Nemo. (Again, I'm going to be mean and not mention his last name...because I love doing word play that incorporates the story) The male lead and is Sandy's closest companion in her strange new world.  He's not actually a prince, he kinda looks like one though in his white and gold finery.  He is twelve years old and has been in this other world for so long that he no longer remembers what his last name is, how he got where he is and only partly remembers where he's from.  (Shh, just between you and me....he's from Cornwall, England. *winks*)  He loves battle games, sweets and stories.  He enjoys being a bit of a joker and playing pranks on certain people that scare easily.  He's headstrong and very independent after needing to fend for himself for such a long time.  But also he's kind and gets great pleasure of helping those in need.  He becomes very protective of Sandy and will stop short of dangerous heroic acts to aide or save her from harm.

All that black hair of his came out slightly more Emo than I thought, *laughs*, so I hope that aspect will somehow work out in his favor, a young man that's already unusually stylish.

I used watercolours pencils from Faber Castel used dry as they give a wonderful air brushed look along with a colourless blender to smooth things over. In all took about three weeks to finish.

Currently I'm working on a drawing for a friend.  He runs a comic called "Reynard City", which is so cute and zany to read.  I'm making for him a decorative writing paper drawing:

 

Colouring is about halfway through. Yay!

 

That's all for this week my friends, I'll leave you now with some words that I hope will inspire you all to go for your dreams!  I saw this in a car ad, I believe and it got me so charged up, I cut it out and stuck it in my inspiration journal.

Wishing you all a very happy and wonderful week! Cheers!

Life From Decay

Hello there, Happy Monday! Like promised here is the drawing I did for the auction over at Femme Thou Art June auction on facebook . The auction ends today at 7 PM.  We're already deciding on next month July auction...can't wait to see what it will be!

Oh man, this took me three weeks and four days from start to finish.  I'm a slow artist, so something this detailed takes me a super long time.  I put everything else I was working on aside to get this finished.  Next auction I'm doing only a very small, Art Trading Card size work, which will take me far less time than this one did.

I used a mix of my trusty watercolour pencils, which I always use dry on Deleter paper, because it gives this wonderful airbrushed look. I also used some gold pens to finish off her beads and then pulled the finished work onto CorelDRAW and added in the butterflies, moths, assorted flowers, rocks and ferns. The final file was huge!  I'm glad I saved along the way as my laptop kept crashing on me due to its hatred of my art programs. *laughs*

I am not sure if I handled the theme right, but, my original thought for this was a beautiful spring fairy emerging from the decay left behind by the melting of winter snows. A fairy that brings life to all she touches.

So, can anyone spot the squirrel hidden in the trees? Or the bunnies...oh, well they're pretty easy to spot. *laughs*

That's all for now my lovies.  Wishing you all a creative, brilliant week! Cheers!

A Fairytale Splash

Hello dear friends, my...how has a whole month and a half gone by so quickly?!  Well, sadly I haven't gotten much done lately due to working the Mother's Day rush at work and then getting the flu, so my short fairy tale story is yet unfinished.  Good news though, I did get the drawing for it done and this long weekend I'll be working on the fairy tale again.  And I'm sad that I haven't had the chance to start the blog for my book yet, so that's really delayed.

I am now Open For Commissions!  My laptop is just about toast and before it dies on me completely, I want to replace it. But I need to save up a little bit more to get another one that I have my little eye on. Just email me if any are interested and I'll send you my price list, then we can talk further from there.

So this drawing here was a little tricky in deciding which colours would look best.  I wanted something with a vintage look and feel to it, sort of like one of those watercolour illustrations from the 1900's you'd see in old fairy tale books.  The Mermaid's hair was so hard to colour *laughs* as I had put in way too many strands of hair in the ink drawing.  I wanted to look a little more blonde, but I added in a little too much brown highlights.  At least with the water added she doesn't look like she's floating in space anymore.  The prince looks rather crow like with all his black plumage on his helmet and his big black cape.  The gold accents didn't come out so well in the scanner, and they almost completely disappear on his cape.  I wonder if taking a picture of this, those would have shown up better. But I love this nonetheless.

Anyway, I look forward to getting part two of the story up to share with all of you. I'll become a much better blogger, I swear.  I wish you all a happy, creative week. Cheers!

The Prince and The Seamaid: Part One: A Fairy Tale

Hello my dear friends! Like I promised from an earlier post, here is the first part of the short Fairy Tale story I've been working on. Now, I've re-read this over I don't know how may times and have done some revisions, but I think it may need some more tweaking here and there, so, I would love to hear any comments or critiques you fine readers have. I have a fairly thick skin when it comes to critiques, so be as open as you like.  I'm working on part two, and this drawing...which I couldn't resist doing for this short tale.  It's going rather slow though, as I'm moving out of my current apartment at the end of this month. And things are in a bit of chaos.  I'll have part two up soon.

Here is part one:

Once upon a time, in a land very far from here, there was once a little prince and his name was David.  Now David was just as any good prince should be.  He was noble, courageous, and very kind.

    The little prince loved to listen to the fairy tale stories his mother would tell to him as he lay in his bed at night.  He would lie back on the many soft pillows imagining the all the beautiful sea-maidens as they combed their long, long hair, and sang their enchanting songs.  The more he dreamed of these mermaids, the more the longing to have one for his bride grew inside his heart.  This longing grew so large that it began to keep him from getting any sleep at all, and, he grew ever more restless.  The little prince thought if he could just grow up faster, he could go out into the world, where, it would not be so long before he met with some wonderful adventures and meet his very own mermaid.
     As days and years rolled by, the little prince became more man than boy and he grew more and more handsome.  Many eligible women in the town pursued him to be their husband, but he turned them all down.  None was good enough for the young prince, for all he wanted was a mermaid for his bride.  Soon, the quiet of his father’s castle and his mother’s sea tales did not please him at all anymore.  So, he took his leave and started on his journey across the strange seas, and kept wandering on further and further, for it mattered not to David, which way the seas lead him.
     He went on till at last he came to an island where he spied four sea-maids sunning themselves on a large rock.  After looking at them for some minutes, the deep longing he felt since his childhood came over him and he dove into the waters after them.  The ship’s crew, astonished, exclaimed after him: “Your highness! Oh, he actually jumped! But, he cannot swim!”
     The prince plunged down ever deeper into the clear waters, panic never coming to him as he searched desperately for the mermaids he had seen on the island above.  Now, the sunning mermaids spied the handsome young prince and fell in love with his beauty.  They watched with cold bemusement as he leapt into their waters after them, failed to come up to the surface again for air.
    “Oh!” Cried one of the sea-maids, “A human has fallen in here! And what a lovely looking child of man he is too.”
     “He is mine!” Laughed another.  Then, they all dove in after the young drowning prince to rescue him.  David had reached the sandy bottom, not knowing how to kick back up to the surface, he lay there, despairing, for his last remaining breath was about to escape him.  He began to wonder if he had been chasing illusions all these years and if the stories of the sea-maidens that his mother had told to him were true at all.  With these many thoughts and doubts, the young prince’s lungs began to fail him and the underwater world in which he found himself surrounded, began to grow dark and fade away.
    As he was about to let go of his final life giving breath, the most beautiful of women filled his eyes.  Her golden spun hair floated about her like an aura and her strange colourless eyes were warm and so very kind.  All manner of weird and wonderful jewels and gems lay artfully in her hair making the water sparkle and dance about her.  She smiled shyly at him as she pulled him towards the surface, to air, to life.  Taking in big gulps of air, all the pain in his lungs was relieved and he felt quite well and strong once more.  When at last he opened his eyes, he saw the young sea-maid near him, taking him towards his ship.  On the surface of the waters, her skin was as white as snow and as bright and lovely as the sun, so much, so that he found himself dazzled and rubbed his eyes to try to clear them of this strange vision.  No sooner had she brought him back, then, she made to turn back and leave him there with his own people.  The prince reached out taking hold of her slender arm, he said with urgency: “Wait!  Do not go away yet!”  The mermaid stared at him perplexed and the prince went on: “I have searched for you my entire life, I have dreamed of nothing else than finding a mermaid to be my bride.”
    The mermaid at first just looked silently upon David, her eyes wide with wonder and then sadness darkened her face.  Very gently, she shook her head, causing pearls of water to spray like diamonds from her hair.
     “I am afraid I cannot be your bride.”  She whispered, “Your world is not mine to live in.  I have brought you back to your people, now go.”
    The prince tightened his already firm grip and pleaded with her: “I am a prince from a wealthy and powerful kingdom in the north, if you become my bride, you shall become the adored queen of millions!”
     Full of joy at hearing where the young prince hailed from, the maiden agreed to go with him and become his wife.  Upon her word, she spoke a song of magic and traded her lovely fins for a pair of dainty human legs.  Greatly amazed at the prince’s good fortune and blessing in such a rare find, the ship's crew helped the maid board the ship where she was clothed in rich and luxurious fabrics. When they arrived back in the prince’s kingdom, they were greeted with great ceremony and celebration, and a magnificent banquet had been prepared in honour of their new princess.  So the kingdom in the North was bequeathed with a new queen and their marriage was to take place in the evening under the nighttime blanket of stars.  On the hour of the wedding, a splendid carriage drawn by ten white horses drove up to the palace doors.  They had white feathers on their heads and elegant golden harnesses trimmed with lace and red velvet; their hooves shone softly in the moonlight as they trotted off with the prince and his bride.

To Be Continued!

 

That finishes part one.  I hope it reads well.  It was actually fun writing in this kind of prose, you can be descriptive with very few words. I want to try a lot of different writing styles in order to find my own voice. So this was a lot of fun to sit down and write.  It's a bit of a twist on the Hans Christian Anderson's tale of "The Little Mermaid".  I'm hoping the ending is going to take readers by surprise. *insert evil laugh here* 

 

That's all for today my friends.  Have a merry, creative week! Cheers!

The Gilded Lady

Hello my munchkins!  How have you all been?  Man, I really hate having a laptop that's half dead.  I'll be opening up commission slots here soon to help up my funds for replacing this old one of mine.

But, in the mean time, I have been steadily working on what now has become a middle grade book, these past months.  I had to up the age of my two main characters given what they are now faced with in the world created for them. I will be sharing all that I can with you lovely people...I'm working on a blog for it that will feature maps, characters designs and profiles, city profiles, the language of the world, short fairytale stories and so much more.  All that is still a work in progress, but I have the banner for the front sketched out and ready to colour.  I'm aiming for the end of March or April to have it up...so I'll just cross my fingers in hopes that I'll meet that deadline....if my laptop holds out.

Anyway, this is one of the characters from the story.  I'm not going to reveal her name though, as it gives away too soon what the story is all about, but, for now she'll be known as the Gilded Lady.  She's a very essential part of the book and she won't actually been seen until the end.  Her gold bonnet there, (those aren't horns on her head. *winks*) though holds a clue to what she is though, and she's not exactly human.  Okay, my lips are sealed for the rest of it though. *Evil laugh*

She's done in my usual way, watercolour pencils, used dry, sepia coloured inks and a little clean up editing done in Coral DRAW.  She took a fair amount of time to complete though, as I was doing the Christmas rush where I work, which took all my energy and left me super lazy after. *laughs*

On a side note, I've moved my giveaway to next month, seeing that I missed The Our World Our Art blog even because of my failing laptop. *sigh* Ah well, there will be other events to attend right? Yay!

So, that's all for now my luvies.  I was wondering though, I have part of a short story written out and I would love to share part of it with all of you, so I can have a feeling for how my writing practice is coming along.  Would you guys like if I posted it here for you all to read?

Wishing you all a happy, wonderful and creative week! Cheers!

Illustration Friday: Wings

Yay!  Laptop is working and the little bug on my blog that was not allowing me to upload pictures has been fixed. Woot...good Sunday!  I hope you all are having a good weekend, my lovelies. 

So! I have finally managed to join in on an Illustration Friday topic, taken me months to get on the ball with that again as it takes me a long time to finish a drawing sometimes, so, I tend to miss the topics most weeks.  I decided to go with a bit of fan artwork for the current topic of Wings.  I picked the character Stocking from the anime show "Pantie and Stocking with Garter belt".  Which is about two angels that come to earth to kick all sorts of evil bum. *laughs*  It's not for kids as it full of nasty humor and situations, but, thoroughly enjoyable in the hip animation style and it's well written.  I like Stocking best as she fights with these two Katana swords that are actually stockings she wears on her legs, plus she has gorgeous dark purple, almost like a deep blue, and pink long flowing hair.  I also chose to go with her transformation sequence look, as she's really pretty in it.  Which is a bit jarring when you see it for the first time.  It goes from super hip chibi style animation to something you'd see from Satoshi Kon (The Director of "Tokyo Godfathers" and "Paprika").

I used my trusty watercolour pencils, which I use dry, sepia ink and gold jelly roll pens just for some highlights.  This took me about a week to do and was done at the beginning of this month.  I know it's nothing recently new, as I'm so engrossed on working on my book and the illustrations for it that I couldn't find enough time to fit a new drawing in, but, I really wanted to participate in Illustration Friday this week.

On a side note,  I wrote a short story in November and actually sent it off to an anthology press to see what would happen and I just got a reply back last week. The story didn't make it into the book, but, it was the best rejection letter I have ever gotten in a long time!  I haven't done a submission, a writing submission, to anywhere since 2006.  So it's encouraged me much to keep plowing on with writing and try again and get stronger with telling a story.  I think I'm finally on the right track this year. Yay!

Well, my mum's needs the laptop while it's working, I'll catch up with all of your lovely posts and creative awesomeness tonight.  Love you all and have a super brilliant, creative week my wonderful blog friends. Cheers!

Small Facebook Button Drawing

Wow...I had trouble with thinking up a post title for this. It's not what I wanted to blog about, but, for some reason blogger wont let me up load anything from my picture file....which is really frustrating.
Anyway, I did this a little while ago, hmmm...maybe October, I wanted a fun, pretty button to put on my blog that would link to my facebook page instead of just having a plain link instead.  This took me only two days to finish as it's very small.  I guess you could say it kinda of represents myself as I do have really long hair, (down to my waist) and have to wear glasses when I do my art, and, I absolutely love rams horns. *laughs*  Though I am glad not to have any in real life....that would be strange. Oh! Let's not forget the lovely roses, another one of those things I can't resist drawing.

Oh man, it's so nice to be on my blog today!  How was every one's holiday?  Have a good New Year's as well?  My New Year's was very quiet, had one very delicious chocolate beer and that was enough to knock me out all evening. *laughs*  My neighbours across the street on the other hand, sounded like they were having a total blast!  I wonder if any of them remember it at all.  I'm hoping for a good New Year for 2013.  A year of new starts, of actually getting the chance to do what I long to do in this little life of mine...which is to write some young adult novels and to get the opportunity to do some illustrations for children's books.  I want this to be a year of wish and dream fulfillment's, so I'm going to get my rear in gear to make it happen...this year I will do it! Yes!!

For starters, a new laptop is in order to get going.  Mid-December my current laptop started dying and I've been having major problems in keeping it running, as it will only stay on for no more than 2 or four hours at a time and even when does work, other major problems crop up.  I've been working hard at trying to pinpoint and fix it, but I've found out that it's a hardware issue.  So, all I've been able to do it pull everything off of it for now and hope it lasts just a bit longer.  I've missed being able to get online and do my blog though.  I never knew just how much I've come to rely on the Internet until now. *laughs*   I've been shopping around these last few weeks for a new laptop and from what I've seen, I'm super excited to get an upgrade to something new and get blogger to work better. Woo hoo! 

Whoa, I better dash before I ramble on too much and bore you all. *laugh*  I hope I can upload a drawing I have waiting soon, can't wait to get it on my blog!  I'll be having another giveaway in February, so keep you eyes peeled for it.

Well, my dear wonderful friends, I am wishing you all a great, wonderful and art filled New Year of 2013!! Cheers!

A Little Bird Once Told Me...

Hello, my dear friends!  Wow...it's almost the middle of December already?!  The malls are getting pretty crazy now, so, as good measure I'm trying my best to shop early in the mornings while people head off to work...which makes for a little better experience as I tend to shop like a man. *laughs*  I made the mistake two weeks ago of going to Wal-Mart on a Saturday (that was not smart!), and I left quite surprised that I was still alive! Yay!  Tonight is the first night of Chanukah.  Aaaannnddd, that means lots of Latkes, doughnuts, chocolate gelt coins, fancy coffees, songs and lighting candles. Yummmm! I love this time of year.  Walking around the neighbourhood to see all the twinkling, festive lights and smelling all the wonderful spicy smells of Christmas. *sigh*  Hmm, and I've just realized that I have not done any holiday art work...uhhh-no...

Okay, so on to some art.  In my last post I posted up some sketches.  I have two of them done, but I have to still scan one in.  This is the Dryad with the small bird.

As you can see, my scanner doesn't like my gold pen too much. (laughs)  After completing this, it gave me another spark for doing another Dryad for my story, so, I've been working on a couple of really rough sketches to flesh out some ideas.  I really wanted her hair to look like bark, but I think I overused the burnt red a bit.  Does anyone have any tips for creating bark?  I'd love to get a bit more of a  realistic feel.  I'm still so happy with this all the same though.

And I wanted to thank all of you for such sweet comments that you all made!  I really wish I could fully express my gratitude and awe for getting to know such wonderful artisans yourself....you have no idea the smile you all gave to my heart!  You make me fly!

Wishing you a wonderful, happy, creative and festive week!  Eggnog Cheers!!

From My Messy Desk:Sketchbook Sketches

Hellooo! Yay, I'm having no connection problems today!  The RAM on my poor laptop is quite low, so I've been having all sorts of issues in getting my computer running.....and I've been dying to blog for the past two weeks. So this has resulted in a lot of yelling at an inanimate object, which really does no good, but, does make one feel much better after. *laughs* I've done some major cleaning up file wise, which has help enormously in getting a better performance.  I cannot wait to replace my old laptop!  Still saving my pennies for it.

Anywhoooo, I thought I'd share of quick drawings from my sketch book, which really isn't a sketch book but rather a book of tracing paper.  I like working on tracing paper best, as if I really like the look of a particular drawing...I can then just use my light box to make an inked drawing later.  Plus it saves me from ruining perfectly good art paper if things go wrong. And I use my eraser....a lot!

So I'll start with this one, which is already finished and coloured(you'll see the finished piece in a later post.):

As I haven't thought of a name for her yet, I've just been calling her "Tree Woman". *laughs*  As you can see I love using quick rough lines to flesh out an idea I usually scribble down on another small idea book I keep.  This was originally meant for Illustration Friday's topic "Tree" last week. But totally missed the deadline. *sigh*  Maybe the little bird is giving her a message from another tree or telling her how much he appreciates having a place to rest his tired wings.  I really played with hand gestures here, trying figure out what would look nice.  I always pick my lines as I'm inking, so a sketch always ends up looking slightly different in the final drawing.

Then there's this one, which is a fan art of Stocking, from the anime "Panty and Stocking with Garter belt".  She is at this time, halfway coloured:

I'm using this piece to sort of focus my mind on the book I'm currently working on to generate some ideas...so it's been very meditative and relaxing to colour this one. I don't normally do this kind of brightly coloured hair, so it's been nice to do something different...and I kinda like it.  Panty and Stocking are two angels that have fallen to earth and kick all kinds of demon butt on earth.  The animation is so very stylish and full of raunchy humor.

And I'd like you all to meet one of my character's from the book I'm working on; his name is Nemo:

He's around ten years old, but I wanted him to look just slightly older than his years due to the kind of situation he has been in.  He's the companion to my main character, Sandy.  I plan on making him the guide for the readers and for Sandy in the world which I'm spinning as there is some very wacky things that are going to be happening. So, he's very wise, strong, but I've stuck in a few faults that he'll have to overcome by books end, changes that will surprise even himself.  Oh! And that is a sword that he's holding, *laughs*, with talons on it just to up the coolness factor.

As you can see I also avoid any sort of ruler use too, so I always have wobbly lines.  Well, currently that's all the sketches I have scanned in for now.  It's not a whole lot, a peek at best.  I'll share more when I get more scanned in.

I'm looking forward to seeing "Lincoln" on Tuesday!(Tuesday is cheap day at the theaters)  I haven't been to a movie in ages, it's going to be a real treat from what I've seen from the trailers.  And! I'm super excited about "The Hobbit" that's coming out next month. Woo hoo! I love that book.

Anyway, my dear friends, it's always so nice to share things with you.  I wish you all a very happy, creative week ahead. Cheers!

A fresh Start, some blog changes...oh, and a wine lable too

Hellllooo my lovely fellows!  Sorry to have gone on a rather impromptu hiatus since last month without letting any of you know.  Shame on me or what?! *laughs* A lot of heavy things have been going on in my life lately, and I needed some time away from the Internet world to sort of get my head together, get my emotions back in check, and think about the direction of my life and where I really want to go and how to get there in the first place. *laughs*  I've been working on a small business plan, which has required an insane amount of reading at the library. Wow...so much to learn!

But first, I want to talk about this lovely little lady you see here first.  I've been working on some wine label designs lately....thanks to a very special man in my life right now who thought it was something I could try and from a another nice woman on face book who thought the same thing...plus my mum.  So, I couldn't ignore all that commotion.  Here's one of my first attempts at it.  I took some figuring out first by heading down to the liquor stores in my area to have a long look at what professional labels look like, then pulling out some books on Mucha...I had a look at what he created.  I've had on old sketching sitting around for ages, that has gone unused, and I've been looking for a reason to use the sketch for something.  I gave her a more updated look though and browsed through some manga books for some ideas on how to do up her hair.  After doing another rough, I inked her in with my trusty sepia fine liner pen and added colour with some coloured pencils, and I must say....I LOVE the new gelly roll gold pens I bought!  They add such an awesome effect.  She took a bit long to finish, about a week and a half.  I usually love to add a lot of little details, but I really wanted to have a de-cluttered illustration for a very clean and hopefully professional looking finish.  I'd love to hear any suggestions on what I could do to make any other improvements to this and I'm more than open for a critique.

Okay, I know, I know...this is a monster of a post already, *laughs*, but I'm making some more changes to my blog here and I want to know what you lovely people want to see in a blog.  What makes you want to return to certain blogs again and again.  I want to make my blog an easy and fun read for you lovely readers.  So talk to me, do you like seeing updates once a day, once a week, do you like seeing works-in-progress shots, having a look behind the scenes at studios,  everyday life stuff, tutorials, give-aways....or anything at all that you can think of that'll make this a wonderful and inspiring space to visit.  My ears are open to any suggestions, and you have my sincerest thanks in sharing what ideas you have with me. *big virtual hug*

Oh man, if you've read this far...you deserve a giant cake! Have a great and creative week dear friends...cheers!

Illustration Friday: Lost

Wow! I didn't think I would make it for this week's Illustration Friday theme. But, Phew, made it just in the nick of time.  It's amazing that I could get this done in a matter of three days, given the fact that I'm in the middle of moving chaos.  I was really inspired by this weeks theme and the moment I saw the word "Lost" on IF...the image of a little lost enchanted doll in a dark forest popped into my mind.  I didn't even do much of a rough sketch first either, I just sat down with the image in my head and drew it out in full.  Which I never do, as I'm trying to improve my composition skills, so I like to play with sketches before I go to a final drawing.

I used watercolour pencils, sepia inks, jelly ink in pink gold and a little bit of CorelDRAW for the background.  Which is a watercolour wash with digital salt.  She only took three days which is awesome!  But then again, there's not too much detail. Ha ha!

Speaking of lost...I'm quite in that state now.  I'm moving to a new province at the end of this month...and just about everything is in utter box mess!  So, all my art things are now packed up.  Ha ha, oh my, I shall get cranky if I'm left without my supplies too long.  But, I shall leave all this for another blog post before I hit the road to my new province. *wink*  Enjoy the drawing and have a wonderful and creative week my dear friends, cheers!