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!

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!

Illustration Friday: Suspend

Woo...blogging again after last night. *laughs*  Blogger is working much better today...which is awesome.

Anyway, this is for this week's Illustration Friday's topic, "Suspend".  I love looking through what other artists have contributed.  I decided to take a character from one of my mangas I'm working...this fellow is Dorian...and I hung him upside-down.  Looks like he likes that with the little wink on his face.  I don't know how well this goes with this weeks theme, but it was fun to create and I haven't submitted to an IF topic for a long time now.  So, I really wanted to do this weeks theme no matter what.

I haven't done screen tone work for about a month or two now, and I can't wait to get back to this comic so I can do more.  It's so great to work with them and being covered in little tone bits and dust.  I highly recommend every artist to at least experiment with it once.

Have a great, creative week my dear friends...cheers!

Illustration Friday: Vanity

Blogging again so soon...I'm so happy!  Doubly happy too...I just managed to get this done in time for Illustration Friday's topic this week. Huzzah!  A very quick ink sketch that was all done in three days, which is fast for me.   If I had added any colour at all, it would have taken me much longer to finish. (Psst...sorry to my lovely lady readers out there, that the poor girl on the left has nothing on.) 

It's been a very long time since I've done a straight black and white illustration.  I mostly stick to using a sepia coloured ink and leave the black just for comic work.  So, this was a fun deviation to do. I also had a lot of help from Coral DRAW...I'm getting addicted to touching things up digitally now.

I might as well explain some of the symbolism I've used here.  I wanted to incorporate the idea of twin vanity goddess', though on the surface to appear to be beautiful and their lips dripping with honeyed words of how gorgeous the person they are dwelling in is, they are actually ladies of the underworld.  They stand ready to wither away the most tender hearted of people.  The two mirrors that each of them hold distorts the viewers perspective of how they see themselves, to the point of despair. 

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, stands for the impossibly too thin female figures of the fashion magazines.  Thus, why some of her bones show through her pale skin and she wears little or no clothes.  On her top hat, much like the Mad Hatter's, display the numbers of the so called ideal dress size of 2 and 0.  Though, Aphrodite's mirror, not matter how thin the on looker to this mirror gets, will always lie, showing the figure of a pig instead. 
I hope her hungry looks gets across on her face...I really wanted that to show.  This idea for Aphrodite came from the movie "Devil wears Prada", where the model's never eat or eat a cheese cube to keep from passing out.

Narcissus, the goddess who loves only her own beauty, has much of the same effect as her twin on those who dare look through her mirror.  They love only themselves, and cannot tear their gaze away from their own visage that they waste away or begin to indulge in risque relationships.
I got this idea from noticing a young teen aged girl on the bus, who spent the entire trip looking at her self and preening into her small hand mirror.  She even managed to walk down the street after she got off, still looking in her mirror.  I sort of laughed at that...what teenager doesn't do that? *giggles*

Well, that was rather a dark trip wasn't it?  I'll post something a little less, um, dark next time.  I took a lot of inspiration from Takaya Miou , who is one of my favourite manga illustrators of all time.  I tend to visit her website and blog a fair bit.

That's it for now.  Thanks for coming by and paying a visit my lovely friends, I wish you all a creative week!

Illustration Friday: Scary

Okay, okay doesn't spark any terror does she? *giggles*  Aw shoot, I really liked the theme for this weeks Illustration Friday and I wanted to give it a try.  But I find that I just can't do good scary art...in fact, the only thing that I find scary is the "dream magic" I tried to put in her left hand there. Must find books on how to illustrate magic spells next time.   I hope this is still acceptable for IF this week.  This is Queen Mab...the dream faerie.  In her left hand she holds good dreams in the form of a hummingbird and in her right is her nightmare stick, ready to wave over her poor sleeping victim. Mwahahahacoughcough....Anyway...

Quite happy with the outcome of this little drawing, was meant to be just a pen sketch but I decided to add some colour and it was a good chance to practice painting a sky, not something I do often.  I'm still amazed that the bluish colour of the sky complements the rest of the colouring on the drawing...I love those happy accidents.

So a little bit of a ramble here, sorry to have been gone from my blog for a bit...yikes.  Time passes too quickly.  I did have a special post today on a tutorial about screen tones, but I can't find it anywhere on my laptop at the moment.  My crap-top ate it and is now laughing at my futility in trying to find where its hidden the file.  I think this thing is my friend...but oh no ...it's not.  I think it enjoys giving me grief all the time. Grrr... As soon as I find it, I'll post it. 

I hope all of you had a safe and fun Halloween on Monday.  I went out and bought some of the treat bags of chocolate bars on sale today. Yay!  There was fireworks going on in my neighbourhood till 2 am,  so didn't get much sleep at all that night, but it was fun to watch all the cute little kids go up and down the streets with their bags of treats.  Brought back lots of good memories of when I was little and dressed up as E.T. for two years in a row. I loved that costume till it fell apart, literally. *giggles*

Happy creating everyone! My love to you all.

Illustration Friday: Mesmerizing

All right...made it for this weeks illustration Friday challenge.  Usually it takes me at least a full week or two complete a drawing, but this gal here only took two days.  So, I'm quite happy with the end results. 

I have way too many fashion magazine clippings than I think any normal person should or would have. *giggles*  I am more than notorious for being a paper pack rat.  Though I can still manage to put my hand in my somewhat disorganized stash of reference papers and pull out what I need.

This lady here was inspired by a fashion clipping I have.  I loved her face so much I couldn't resist getting the chance to draw my own interpretation of it.

Hope there's cooler weather for you out there in blogger land, or at least for some...a little less rain too.

Have a great week!  I hope I manage to actually stick to my day planner next week...I was more than too lazy last week...felt like a squirrel desperately looking where it buried it's treasure.

Illustration Friday: Mysterious

I almost forgot to post this for Illustration Friday this week!  I was doing something else, but, I'm not going to get that done in time. So I thought this would do very nicely.  This is the Black swan, Odeil, from Swan Lake. 

I don't normally do digital work, as I'm not all that comfortable with it and still just getting my feet wet with working with a tablet. I do think this came out all right though.  Started off as a traditional drawing then took to CorelDRAW for some alterations.  I just love how her eyes came out.

My gosh, it's hot in Vancouver to day!  Our late summer has finally decided to arrive. Now all those poor students who went back to school on Tuesday will miss out on this nice weather. *giggles*

Have a good day!

The start of something new

Hello out there!  Been wanting to start something like this for quite some time now.  I'm here to share my love of art and share my own artwork with everyone here.  I am very taken with Alphonse Mucha, so a lot of my own art reflects my passion for the modern Art Nouveau movement that has recently been taking place among the Manga and Illustration artists that I have met.

I am not currently a published artist, but I am currently working hard to change that.  I am working on my very first short illustrated manga based on a short story by the Brothers Grimm.  Haven't yet decided weather I'm going to approach a publisher or to just go the self publishing route; or try bother for that matter.

Anyway...I hope you enjoy looking about here!


Below is a drawing I did of Aubrey Beardsley.  One of my Favourite illustrators! Done in Black ink and watercolour pencils. Took me about a week or so to finish.  I personally love how this came out! Also I did this for Illustration Friday under their topic for Influence.  Because he had been a major influence on my art life.

 And one more!  This was done for Lauren who works at Lush.  She was so awesome and sweet and she just so totally made me fall in love with all their soaps at the store...that I just had to do this for her to show my gratitude .  Done in Watercolour pencils...took me two weeks.  It's still one of my personal favourite illustrations I've done!  And Lauren loved it...so that makes me very happy indeed!