Grannies and Sketches

 Hello! Woot, update as promised! Here's a collection of sketches and loose ends from this week and a few weeks back. Saw some older ladies battling it out over a bag of stolen vegetables at the wet market. Both got dragged off shouting by police officers into a dodgy white van.

A quick sketch of a hairdresser from around town. His hair and outfit were quite  something. One of my students saw this sketch and noted I got the shoes all wrong, as they usually wear very shiny Sicilian mafia shoes.

 And my current pride and joy! My granny model! She is still faaar from being finished, but I wanted to show some of the idea development (there wasn't too much, but still) Her clothes and hair still need loads of modeling, and now that I have got a hang of working with skin, I want to properly colour all of it. The crocish shows I am quite happy with, but the hair is still bugging me. She also has a few props I need to learn how to model. Loving how much learning is going on through every new project in Maya! It is such an incredibly extensive program!

 Some head desing I did for her originally, and the body model I am more or less using as reference. She has a pretty big hump on her back but her arms fold nicely under it.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Let's Get the 3D Party Started!

Left - Photo based lighting and Mila Subscatter Skin, much more realistic! Right - Sun and Sky lighting and general photoshop painted texture plugged into Maya. Looks kinda lifeless and plastic I think!

Hola! Long time no see! My lovely boyfriend pointed out that I have really been neglecting my blog-and I have absolutely no excuse as I now have a scanner and much art to show you. Now it's just come down to pure....laziness of scanning. Yikes. But I think my biggest problem is I have a TON of new art to post, but it's all over the place. And I really like organized pretty stuff. So I'll post it little by little as more categories work out.
Today's stuff...its finally time to come out of the 3D closet! I am still a complete novice, and it has been a very frustrating journey learning Maya on my own, but I do have to say...it is SOOOO much fun! (at least till you hit a problem google doesn't have an answer to and it takes you 3 days to solve it!) The first piece is my current WIP of a little old lady. The side by side pics show different materials I tried. The one on the left is a properly rendered skin, and on the right was my first pass, which looks quite plastic in my opinion. It's far from done of course (I need to learn a whole new program to texture that bob of hers) but I am finally getting the hang of working with colour and light in Maya. Woooot!

This second piece was done partly for fun and just to test my progress back in February. My boyfriend, who is studying marine engineering had to design and create a product with a small group, and being a viking of course they had to create an automatic beer machine. He asked me to draw it out, and after getting really annoyed with a perspective grid and a lack of space to do a good job, I made this thing in about 6 hours. Am still quite proud of it! (and I know the glasses look like glass and not plastic...still have to figure that out!)

 The last piece worth anything is this little guy. He was my second project in Maya, all through tutorial and he is still unrigged, hence the boring pose. I was a bit stuck on texturing his overalls, so for now I gave up and left is a boring blue, but I think I will try to fix him up with some proper jeans soon!

Thanks for reading, and I will be back to uploading weekly, even if its just a life drawing dump!

When toddlers go Walking Dead

I asked a few of my students to make all sorts of faces, and took a bunch of pictures to play around with on the weekend.  I found 2 amazing little art shops tucked away on a small street while biking around and of course decided to blow a bunch of money on art supplies I definitely did not need more of....anyhow. Trying out some watercolour paper I got I started off with this cutesy cotton-candy-funfair sort of feel....

...and then I remembered how much Walking Dead I have to catch up on. My lineart was still in the same style as the one above. I just went nuts on the shadows. Amazing how easy it is to change the mood with one colour...

 

Walking Dead, the Toddler Edition - Coming soon to an IMAX near you!

Some Watercolour Studies

Line Wash - Bouxwiller, France. Nothing new in this style, my usual sketching watercolor go-to

I had an amazing vacation around Europe with my better half and some of my family this summer, and even though I have a rubbish little camera, the scenery itself made for some amazing pictures. (most of which I took with the intentions of drawing and using as art reference anyways of course!) My new watercolour set arrived a few weeks ago and I finally had time this week to play around and make a few study paintings.

This one was fun and something completely different for me, "negative painting". I basically started with a very primitive sketch of what will happen on the page and with every layer of paint kept painting the background and omitting the new shapes. My trees need a lot of work but as a new project this was fun.

And a quickie of one of my students and our ridiculously fun giant rubber animals which they can bounce around on.

Long Time No See!

好久不见！Hao jiu bu jian！A phrase we actually took from China more or less.
So...it has been quite a long while! I was expecting not to post during the summer but this was just getting plain lazy.  It's not that I haven't been doing art, just....life sort of throws moe and more things at you and you end up neglecting your beloved art blog.
So..I am officially back in China! And this time for a farily long 2 year haul. : ) I'm in a new city, Shunde, which is home to Bruce Lee, one of the best cuisines of China and an amazing proximity to just about everything. It's bigger and much richer than my previous city, so I will have plenty of new experiences and contrasts over here. (for example I have not seen buttless pants or tuk tuks, which to be honest I sort of miss) I've been here now for over 2 months and am in love. I can see myself spending a lot longer than 2 years to be honest. My job is fantastic and inspiring. I am teaching wonderful little 3 year olds not just english, but everything from manners, to cooking to sports and art. Expect to see a lot of toddler art in upcoming posts...
I'll be diligent with uploading new stuff every week, even if it's just a few sketches. Enjoy my life from the Middle Kingdom once again!
Oh, and I still don't have a scanner so....bear with the quality while it ships its slow way to me from Canada....

No Dramas

I was taken to a sheep farm where I noticed a single llama. I asked what his business there was. They said llamas are very aggressive and protective and are used to keep the foxes away. Obviously they'd be brilliant bartenders as well. : )

Real First Names Are for Pooftahs (pardon the language)

 

The Whole Population of Carrabin

I'm back in the land of internet! Nah, just kidding, I'm still in Australia (where you can actually buy airspace as well as land), but managed to get my hands on a little signal, so decided it's time for a nice big update. Proud to say my sketchbook is nearly full (it's been a while since I've successfully gotten to the last page before smearing everything with food and coffee stains) though I've been more focusing on specific projects, rather than random sketches (so its not so fun to look through).

The Regulars of Westonia

Morning Coffee

Farmer Boys

Truckies

My Mining Boys

First off, I had the not so brilliant idea of drawing everyone I met in Australia (since January) who's had some sort of contact with me whether good or bad. It's turned out to be a rather sour endeavour after the first few drawings...quite amazing just HOW many people you meet when on the road! But those involved seem to love looking at themselves and their friends, and as I promised, I'm posting them now. No, I still have no scanner, hence the over exposed pap smear quality. I do have plenthy more where those came from...but I figured one location would suffice. Only 20 zillion to go!

Finally a cover image for my comic, Septembuary!

 

Also, I hope those of you following my work have been checking up on my other blog "Septembuary", as I do regularly post new comic strips there. And here's a bit of news that may come as a surprise, I'm going back to China! I've gotten a pretty good job this time round (helps when you know what you're looking for) with heaps of perks, paid holidays and all that, so I can manage a life between Asia and Europe. : ) Partly I'm going back because the money is much better than back home at the moment, partly because I felt horribly guilty for not devoting time to learn the language, and mostly because I want to continue compiling my comic book, for reasons I will disclose in a future post.

Yes, Australian News seem to breeze through any actual IMPORTANT events while spending countless hours on exaggerating useless things, and adding a whole soap opera thing to almost ANY story.  No, I have nothing against the little prince. Yes, I have major beef with certain news stations. 

And now back to Aussie land. Having worked in remote areas for the last few months (as in no tourists) I've been getting a really neat and different feel for the country this time around, and my partner suggested I should write down my ideas or do something with them. I've been wanting to explore different styles and such and this little side venture (cause I definitely don't have enough of those) gives me that chance. Plus, the inknig takes waaaay less time than Septembuary! Here's a little teaser for ya.

A few more weeks left in this beautiful and incomprehensible place and then I'm back to the Northern hemisphere where seasons and temperatures make sense, and the internet is free, plenty and functional. See you then!