Madre D'Agua

In honor of Melody Gardot's birthday, I drew up this little tribute piece inspired by her song "Iemanja" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs2URbQ7k2s ).

Music is so, so, so important to inspiration, and I'm forever grateful I have artists like this I can listen to that inspire me to think and to feel on a deeper level.  I'm still working on it, but someday I wanna make art that can at least come a tiny bit close to being as beautiful as music like Melody's!

Also, since Blogspot allows for a more natural way of posting more pictures and because I know no one will likely see this, I'd like to take a little time to delve into a few of my inspirations between this work, besides the song itself of course!  No piece is created in isolation, research and reference is important!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the full version of the illustration on the left, but this is the general idea.  This is a piece by Chizu Hashii, an artist I've been a fan of for years!  I love the overwhelming purple in this scene and the mood it creates, but also the simplicity.  These are certainly things I had in mind with my illustration, I wanted a limited palette that was simple and quiet in composition.

The gorgeous piece on the right is by Victoria Ying.  I'm fortunate enough to own a print of this, which was an excellent last-minute decision on the last day.  I have it sitting in my room now to be hung up, and since I've done most of my art in my room since we moved, I had it right across from me while I was sketching!  Again there is a simplicity to this and also a brilliant sense of elegance that I was definitely working with on my own illustration.

Other parts of the illustration comes from an instinct about oceanic decor from my many, many trips to Michael's for supplies and general perusing haha! Also, research into the song lyrics...  Iemanja herself is a Goddess in Brazilian culture, she's Queen of the Ocean and the spirit of the moonlight.  This illustration comes both from the factual research and the feeling you get from Melody's lyrics and the mood of the song~ One of the lyrics is "little bitty boats set out on the sea", which is a reference to the offerings the fishermen send out to Iemanja for the New Year.  If you look closely, you might see one :)

Janurary Throwback Thursdays

So I decided earlier on in January to start doing Throwback Thursdays, but instead of posting pictures, I wanted to post old scary artwork!  And instead of just posting the art, I also decided to do quick re-dos of each drawing!  I'm going to try to make this a tradition throughout the whole year and I'll post them by month here on Blogspot (and weekly on Twitter and Tumblr!)

The original is from around 2005-ish I think?  I think it was a fake Pokemon design too

The original on this is likely 2006.  One of my first original characters!  Unfortunately I didn't have much interest in doing original stuff back then!  

The original on this was 2010.  I actually don't like this redraw too much either, humans are still hard for me but I'm much less hesitant to draw them at least!  And I've really really been trying to kick that darn anime style since 2010 basically, I'll get there someday...

Well I'll see you in February!  It's Ritzkrieg's 5th anniversary this year so I'm gonna try to do Ritzkrieg redraws every Thursday if I can!

Benny's Evolution

Well I just made a quick but new reference today for Benny Bantam, my retired 1920s boxing 'toon!  He's going to be modeled and rigged in 3D, which opens up a lot of possibilities if I do it right (my first model and rig was.... interesting to say the least... I'm gonna work really hard to make this one turn out the way I want it)!  Real quick, here's the new ref for me to break up and use with Maya:

But the real reason I wanted to make this post was because doing this got me looking at and thinking about the older pictures of Benny!  While his design is pretty much exactly the same, the stylization has changed quite a bit!  Here's the very first (mildly) "polished" verison of Benny from summer 2013:

By winter 2013, when character sheets were due for this original character tournament, he came to look more like this:

Well lots of doodling later and many, many comic pages, it seems that he has evolved into what he looks like in the very first image!  Sadly I think he has lost some of his 20s cartoon stylization, but drawing him so much has led to me understanding his personality a lot more and drawing him probably more accurate to "who he actually is" as a result!  Seeing those old pieces makes me want to use thicker lines though...

Oh and Happy New Year's by the way!  Whoo 2015!

Christmas Sweater Round-Up!

Ah once again long time no post, I've been on break since about mid-December and, trust me, I've been using that time to almost full advantage (I had a day or two that I just had to sleep, eat, and doodle minimally to be honest ;w; ).  I started an OC sweater project where I designed an ugly Christmas sweater for as many of my original characters as I could, the idea being 1) to have fun and celebrate the holidays, but 2) to design an outfit that says something about the character's personality.  Closer to Christmas, I decided to make it my annual/official big friend gift art too!  It became a photo finish, literally doing the last touches early Christmas day (you know, that 1-4 am time of day that I just love to work the most xD ).  Without further ado, the results!

It was a fun character-exploring project and it always feels wonderful to give back to all my amazing friends this time of year <3  Since I finished this, and a little before actually, I've been working on comic pages for Ritzkrieg chapter 7!  As I type this, I have started page 5, I'm really happy the comic is still going... 

Happy New Year's!  Here's to a year full of art and experience in 2015!

Holly Jolly Silkie

Apologies for the long time with no posting!  It was my intention to make a big 'ole CTN post, probably still will, but school also happened and it was busy... but now I'm off for break so I'll likely be drawing tons and tons more!  First, the illustration this post is titled for:

Because nothing quite says "Merry Christmas" like a silkie chicken right?  Actually, as much as I love chickens myself and might do this anyway, my reason for making this was because my mom is feeling a bit under the weather and she loves silkie chickens, so I thought this might be a nice surprise.

Since the season hit and school started to let up bit by bit, I've been drawing tons, and especially tons of holiday things... Here's a few of those doodles:

If you want to see more recent doodles, head on over to my tumblr http://www.spiffychickenart.tumblr.com or my twitter https://twitter.com/SpiffyChicken1

Happy Holidays!

Hollywood Baby!

Well, CTN sure is getting close!  As I work to build my portfolio up more, I've been working on more concept art for Ritzkrieg.  I may be 6 chapters in, but it's never too late to do visual development!  A lot of the pages were done under a rush and in black and white, so there's a lot of potential for further development and design, which I'm quite excited to explore!

This is the Ritz Theater!  This is the location where our star players, Fredrich and Evalyn, first meet!  It's also a part of the title, so as you can guess, it's a significant location!  The theater itself isn't the biggest in 'ole Hollywood, but it's still a popular choice for premieres.  Its limited seating makes it exclusive for big events, but they happily welcome in 'all the little folks' for regular screenings!  

I got my inspiration from the actual Ritz Theater in Hollywood.  It first opened in 1939 as a newsreel theater (but it wasn't called the "Ritz" until the 80s)!  The version of the Ritz Theater that appears in Ritzkrieg is fictional, so my Ritz is much older, but it just so happens that the story begins in 1939!  Other inspirations for my Ritz come from the Chicago theater and other old movie houses around Los Angeles!  

Next, this is Eva's suitcase and all the non-clothing contents.  This suitcase first appears on the second page of chapter 1, and acts as the physical manifestation of Eva's past.  She hasn't had a consistent home in a long time, so her whole life is right here!  She keeps a frame that holds a picture of her parents, a mysterious locked metal box and key (it looks pretty old too!), and her favorite book that she's had since she was a little girl.  Eva absolutely loves stories, and so she also loves to read!  This particular book is her favorite and was also a gift from her father before he left for Germany.

So that's all for this post!  I have quite a few more environments I want to work through (the bridge, the park, Fredrich's apartment) as well as costume designs (reworking and showing Fred and Eva's outfits from each chapter).  That stuff should be up... soon! :D

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  Try to avoid Gilda though, she's a prankster and you might end up getting your candy stolen or a pumpkin thrown at you!

I've got one more Inktober drawing, then I'll be working to get them scanned in and put together in some form over the following week!