AE ahoy

Let's face it, if you set out to find even one similarity between Master and Commander and iCarly, you're completely dished.

In fact the only thing they DO have in common is that neither has any business at an anime-focused convention.
But hey! Neither do I, so it's all good! Anime Evolution in Vancouver is this CONVERGENCE OF THE INEXPLICABLE. M&C and iCarly are both present in the form of my fannish BUTTONS (and some original) that you will be able to buy from the Cloudscape Comics table this weekend!

I mostly just did these because I love making buttons. I mean, I have zero audience or recognisability there but I did want to see if I could make a coupla bucks with something I enjoy. These probably won't sell hugely so even if you want to buy buttons from me after the con, you're in luck ;)

Now take a look at the little cuties, 1.25" diameter, only a dollar each and all illustrated by me.
Button bleed has been taken into consideration in the picture, so this is what's showing on the face of the buttons.

A Curious Bizzle ~ Which they say Doctor Maturin is a total beetlemaniac. Maybe if you present him with this Curious Button that you found on deck, he won't lop off your remaining arm.
iSam (turq. or pink) ~ Out of all the characters enduring the perverted, twisted, unholy and awesome adventures of a so-called kids' show, Sam seems to enjoy them the most. GO SAM.
(I've already explained my fascination with iCarly, but in case you needed another incentive -- Jane Lynch is set to appear as Sam's mom in an upcoming episode.)
Pinstripe Umbrella ~ An oldie-but-goodie original illustration.
Travel Iron ~ "I'm like a rolling stone -- that's why I have a travel iron" (An original.)
Cartoony Me ~ Well, none of my other buttons had either me or my website address on them!! Duhhh.

ONE DOLLAR. EACH.

Anime enough? & Spaaaaarrrrrk

Bear with me.



Yup. Anime Evolution badge illustrations. Cloudscape Comics is participating in the convention in August and I promised to help man the table for a while. Also, Cloudscapists were asked if we'd like to have our art on different convention day badges. Sure, there's no money in it, but I figured it was exposure for a minimal effort, since I had been planning a watercolour experimentation romp in any case. Now, I don't really watch anime or even play a lot of video games, because I'm a lame person in general, but if anime is in the convention name, I should at least try my hand at a somewhat anime-ish illustration.

Both of these illustrations were actually painted on one large piece of paper (see below), and with my crappy little scanner, I had to piece the final illustrations together in Photoshop.
Like I said I used this as a playground to try out certain techniques. What is missing is actual colour coordination, that would have required some more pre-planning on my part. But luckily I had tremendous newly-resqued-from-a-final-sale Winsor&Newton large pan watercolours that I had never used before, and they are pure power. I was much more "WOW LOOK AT THAT BLUE LOOK AT THAT YELLOW LOOK AT THAT BROWN" than "ngyaaaaare these colours gonna go together?" (Then, of course, my scanner ate the best colours. Oh well.) They're also beautiful to look at - smooth slabs of colour, it took a lot of mental strength not to take a bite out of them. Anyway, their magic qualities made my lack of planning much less evident. (Hmmm. If I DID eat them, would I develop magic powers too..?)


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Speaking of conventions and the like, I'm really considering buying a conference pass for the 2010 SPARK animation fest. Usually (well, I mean, for as long as I've lived in Vancouver, a surprisingly short time actually) I just go to some of their movie screenings. But since SPARK attracts many like-minded people from this industry, and I've always had a blast at SPARK-related screenings, I thought this pass might be a pretty enjoyable way to go out there and at the very least observe how other people network, even if it doesn't come very naturally to me yet. The sad thing is the pass doesn't cover my favourite part of the festival: movie screenings... But since I'm probably going, let me know if you want to hook up or something. (Not like that! ...Unless you're like serious nerd candy :P ) Might be easier for me to get a few words out if there's at least one familiar face.

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Oh I forgot, there's more I wanted to say! I know nobody ever looks at my blogroll, so I'd just like to bring Nathan Fowkes' and Stefan Marjoram's blogs to your special attention, they're mostly environment/layout oriented and very inspiring, especially with interest to watercolour. Fowkes is a concept artist at Dreamworks and his beautiful environment concept art is this close to actually making me want to see Shrek 4.

Gulliverian

^I heart croqs just as they are! But it's great exercise to finish them without the actual model in front of you. That's what I did back in April for schoolwork with this one. That croq is what's under the man DON'T YOU FIND IT FASCINATING I DO Just realised I hadn't posted the fleshed-out version yet and thought it might be of interest to someone.

^Regular lifedrawings from this week (with a different model from the previous picture, which I really hope I managed to show with the body type). Summer lifedrawing has been awesome! It's my happy place :)

Blast from Ze Past

If you want to see some of my (and my wonderful Opus colleagues') artwork check out our staff show, in the North Van Opus classroom. Starting... well, starting today, pretty much. It's only up for a couple of days.
Everything that I have there has already been posted on my blog though, because I haven't had time to draw anything new, but just in case you're interested in seeing it in all its lively vibrancy...

I found this when choosing lifedrawings for my bit of show wall and I had COMPLETELY forgotten about drawing it, but I found it pretty cool. This is for an old illustration homework assignment, subject "Crazy Old Zebra". This is what I scrawled in lifedrawing class:


...and here's the homework I actually turned in, which I also quite like:

Back

...to SUMMER LIFEDRAAWWWIIING! Whee! Mondays, 18:00-21:00, Cap campus, Arbutus building, room 301. (Check the lifedrawing club blog)


I had more pretty good ones than these but my scanner is so tiny, I was just too tired of compiling human body puzzles today.

Confession time

This post is going to be woooor-dy because I am drunk at the 24-hour Waves on Commercial (after a great double bill at the Rio theatre). I hate this Waves for reasons too numerous to list at the moment. But I'm too cheap to get a taxi home so I must wait till the so called "TRANSIT" system starts running again. And the wireless in this place is the slowest I have ever experienced.


My main confession, however, is that iLove iCarly. *g-daaaaasp!*
[^Above is a sketch of one of my favourite scenes from the first season: Spencer spitting out a live baby chick. Adorable! In the actual scene he was wearing boxers instead of jeans, but I felt like drawing jeans this time.]

Before you grab your pitchforks, though, you should know that I am a pretty inappropriate person. Watching things like grown men spanking each other with brooms while keeping their children locked in plastic tubes and making them watch the spanking (which btw - WARNING - I am definitely going to sketch at some point), and knowing that the show that delivers me these scenes is supposedly a kids' show, makes me very happy.
NO OTHER KIDS' SHOW PROVIDES THESE THINGS. No kid-oriented show in history is this twisted and squickly (not even the creator's previous offering, the wonderful Drake and Josh, also known as "the most heartwrenchingly gay TV show ever").

So all I'm asking is that you watch an episode before you judge me! With this amount of handcuffs, spanking, toe-flossing, swallowing of live pets, "two-foot meat sticks" and four-way "javacuzzi" sessions, I have a feeling a loooot of people I know (who are every bit as inappropriate as me) will not be able to resist the show, despite their best intentions.

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...Plus, you know, obviously, Spencer (Jerry Trainor) is the Soul Brother I never had. (No offense to my actual brother -- you're awse and I love you so much.)