A little bit of stuff from a little bit of nowhere..

Man I need a scanner...crappy camera quality really knows how to wreck just about anything..
A few sketchbook pages from recent moving around. After 4 flights and 3 jobs, I finally got somewhere I like and doing something I like with people I like. It's amazing how much difference a place makes when you like spending time with the people in that place. It can be even the biggest hole in the wall. Maybe have a permanent population of 3.

Busking and Whatnots

So I'm back down under after a lovely month and a half in..once again rainy Europe. It was a weird transition going from less than pleasant to beach weather, though that might be ending next week. Work took a while to find (took a few rather expensive mistakes and plane rides in fact) but I'm finally feeling settled and am looking forward again! The sketches here are some caricatures (5ish minutes) I did while busking one day in Fremantle, the artsy fartsy place of Perth. The vibe there is good, and for my first time out, it felt like pretty good bussiness. Sadly, one day gettin gmotivated nad making 80 bucks, and the next barely making enough to cover transport was a bit of a letdown, so I couldn't quite become my own boss.....shame. It was fun deciding when to go to work, how to work and all that jazz.

    And these badboys are a bit old...sometime in Denmark. One was from church..being not really religious, and not really speaking danish was quite boring for me, so I decided to still make my hours productive by observing what happens around me, and there was actually quite a bit! I must scan my sketchbook one of these days...have so much to post but no way to post it. : /

And as for my current upcoming projects? I'm full steam ahead with Septembuary, even more motivated this time around I'd say. My free time I'm working on new strips, an animation introduction for the comic and heaps of other things. My heart has gone right back to China, so next year I'm heading right back to all that chaos and excitement to document new oddities of life and have a full book ready to launch in mid 2015. If all goes well, I hope to launch a kickstarter campaign by then for it as well, so keep your ears and eyes peeled! I hope everyone is working hard at their own craft and happy valentine's day/singles awareness day!

I wish I had a scanner...

Some stereotypes from a town in Australia I lived in

 Because I can't really show anything of what I've been doing unless it's digital. And the digital bits are mostly boring photo manipulation or web design type stuff. This was the last couple things I managed to scan, and now with my camera completely broken I can't even manage to take photos. Hopefully, I can fix my electronics in the New Year and get back to more regular updates!

First of three paintings for a competition which I managed to win! (in the watercolor departments that is). The theme was Past, Present, and Future, relative to the surroundings of the town I was living in. I decided to focus on the degradation of nature that so many people have been talking about, due to a boom in the oil industry. My amazing partner helped me out with the concept for these three pieces and made all the frames from scratch and reclaimed materials.

Present, shiny clean, progressive

Future, a bit of an apocalyptic outlook..

Sorry for the lack of updates or explanations, but I figure you'd rather enjoy some eye candy instead. Hope to be able to put up heaps of cool stuff in the upcoming year. This year has been an incredibly well traveled one for me, and the inspiration and new things I've seen should keep me plenty occupied!

Shy

 

 

I was going to type a long rant about this one....but sit back, and enjoy this endless amount of work. Working on it over the course of the year, I'd say it took about two months of "full time hours" to finish. I hope this brings a little smile to your face. : )

Happy Easter everyone!

After hours

The juggler had an interesting choice of words if you can read my notes

 

What better time to post than at 3 AM in the morning! These are quick live sketches from Wizard World, which I was working at last week. The first few days were kind of slow business, so I observed people. But then it got busy and I had to work...so unfortunately not a lot of time to draw. Carnie people are interesting and depressing folk I have to say.  I'll have to draw a whole character lineup some time...

In other news....

I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard, but can proudly say I finished my target projects for the day! Unfortunately, I can't quite show you yet what I'm working on (telling people what I'm doing jinxes me), but my pre-trip update is going to be GRAND. Like, I'm happier with it than my portfolio, though that's just me. And it will be one of the first, if not the first, biggie projects I actually completed.

I've been listening to an excellent podcast while working called "Making Comics" by the amazing Jason Brubaker, who is both an animator and a comic artist. And he interviews a lot of independent comics artists/animators. Kind of my dream. But listening to all the hard work these people put in to get to their niche and fame really pushes me to work for...12 or 14 hours or whatever it's been this last week. I highly recommend it! A lot of useful business advice for artists too. 

So..sorry for the crummy update, but I hope you like what's coming at you next week!

Life Drawing Watercolors and Stuff

Can a pose be any more boring? Geh..I have no patience for hour long poses.

So...one month of not going to life drawing consistently (or at all) and you're right back at ground 0, dammit. I have recently made the analogy that life drawing and drawing in general is just like working out (two things I love): you stop for too long and all your nice tone and muscle goes away and you get stiff and weak. Same applies to drawing. But life drawing is more like deciding to skip exercising one part of your body for a while, so everything goes out of balance as a result. Geh..I can only imagine the downhill my life drawing will take starting in April. Anyhow...enough complaining. Lots of work to do!

Also, every person needs to watch this film: L'Illusioniste (that's the trailer and you can easily find the movie online) The neat thing is, there is no dialogue in the whole movie, and the whole story is told through action and expression. I haven't seen human emotion animated this well, so even if you're not too hot on the story, do yourself a favor and watch a few clips and just learn from them. This is precisely why I want to work in the European animation industry. Oldschool 2d still lives!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Poetry Illustration

A few of the illustrations I did for some close friends of mine to accompany a poem written by one of them.

Quelques croquis en aquarelle que j'ai fait pour mes amis. Ils accompagnent une petit poème qu'ils ont écrit.