So I chose to draw some Disney girls. Here they are.

This one I drew last night. The next one I drew after dinner today while listening to my awesome new roommates say silly things (which were also awesome). This is also the first time I’ve ever drawn Snow White.

First time I’ve ever really drawn Belle, also. Belle is, of course, my favourite Disney “princess”. I can’t think of a better role model (in the Disney pantheon) for a young girl than her, and even when I was little “The Beauty and the Beast” was one of my favourites (second only to “Dumbo”). I used to love the idea that looks totally didn’t matter. I also love reading (though I’ve been slowing down on it a lot while doing the college thing, bad me). Right, that’s enough comments in parentheses (no, really, I know they’re annoying).

Anyway! Blah blah. Drew these with blue pencil, “inked” them with HB pencil. Dennis says I should colour them, so maybe I will. =) Hope you like!

I apologize for the terrible lighting. My mum wanted to see some pictures, so I had to work with what I had.

I got a package in the mail today with a bunch of bead supplies I ordered from a warehouse down in the states. Even though their selection and prices were excellent, I’m not sure if I can justify the extra $25 duty/customs fee at the border on top of shipping and everything else. I might have to find a different solution.

Anyway, I made the last two pairs, the white one and the brown one, tonight. The purple pair has amethyst beads as their centre-piece, the white pair is howlite, and the brown pair is tiger’s eye. The other two are just plain old glass.

Hope you like them!

Oh, and contrary to what I said in my last post, they are now being sold for $20 a pair as opposed to $15. I re-calculated the costs, and I’m sorry I had to raise the prices. Anyway, if you’d like a pair, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Osama drew the first two panels plus the guy in the third, and I did the rest. So much fun.

This was the result of an experiment. The carousel horse on the right was drawn and inked with a brushpen a few weeks ago. I drew the dog back then too, but only just got around to inking it today; with an actual, honest to god bottle of india ink and a paint brush! (Can you tell any difference?)

I’m so excited about it. I’d love to do more with brush-inked lines. The dog was a fun experiment. Obviously I need to practice a bit with it, work on keeping a steady hand.

Here’s a sketch of Donald Duck I drew without reference, also a couple weeks ago. I think I’m getting better!

Watched “The Big Sleep”, which of course had me drawing 1940-style Private Dicks and saucy ladies.

More ladies. Film Noir ladies are hard, for some reason. Anyway, still had fun sketchin’.

That’s it!

Are you ready?

Comic!

Drawn while watching the amazing Evan Dahm of Rice Boy make some art one night on Ustream. What to do when you’re watching someone draw? Draw, of course!

True story! I still have a ways to go with these “comic” things, but I think I’m getting there. I think I’m only hindered by my own laziness, which is more than evident in this comic. Still, I think it came out pretty well, considering I’ve never drawn an inside of a bus like that before.

Oh, and the song is “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads, if it’s not immediately apparent. I apologize if I got the lyrics messed up, it was hard trying to fit it all in there. Man, sometimes I love the Vancouver transit system, especially the antics of the #99.

Hit the cut for more; I’m going to spam you with some thumbnails, hope you don’t mind!

Right! And then a little while ago I got together with Osama, am awesome guy who works at my local craft store, for some epic drawin’ times. We drew some comics together. Here’s a mash of thumbnails for you.

He drew most of the panels on those; the majority of what I drew was in his sketchbook. It shouldn’t be too hard to tell whose is whose, since he has such awesome expressions in his drawings (and a darker pencil). The basic premise was that we’d draw a character in each other’s sketchbook, and then we had to make a comic around the character given us. We ended up switching back and forth a lot though, adding more and more frames. It was so much fun.

I’m going to spam you now with more (yes, I’m sorry) thumbnails. These are random maps/landforms I’ve started drawing at school waiting for classes to start. It’s a fun and relaxing sort of stream-of-consciousness thing, where I just let my pen go and see what happens.

Some of them turned out neat, so I thought I’d scan them in case anybody needed a random map for a story or a roleplaying game or something and didn’t feel like drawing one themselves. Anyway, I’m going to stop yackin’ and just post them already.

I dunno, what do you think? Think I should keep making these and uploading them as a random map-ish resource for GM’s or writers? I figure people can mix and match different land forms that they like, or alter them how they see fit. I’m a big fan of wiggly coastlines and random islands and inlets and some people might not be into that so much.

Anyway! Stuff. Let me know what you think of all the latest comic-y goodness. The maps, too, I’m interested to know what people think about those. I love doing them, and it would be nice if perhaps others could make use of them too.

Foot jewelry! (Or “barefoot sandals”, but for some reason that label bothers me, hehe!) How did this happen?!

My family and I went for a vacation down south to Oregon when I was younger, probably around six years old. Somewhere down there my mum bought this beautiful pair of foot jewelry, similar to the green pair I made in the picture above. I remember I used to think they were so pretty, and mum would just wear them around the house for no real particular reason at all, other than they were pretty.

I went to stay with Mum this past weekend and she dug them out and was going to give me. Her excuse was “Now at least you’ll be wearing something at Wreck Beach!” Har har. But then she stopped, looked at them, and said “You know, I bet you could make these.”

A couple trip to Michaels and a lot of money in initial supplies later, and I had the first six pairs in the next picture made in less than two evenings.

It was a total SBI (Spontaneous Burst of Insanity), I swear. I’ve never touched bead jewelry before (dozens of pony bead geckos when I was ten don’t count!), so all this was new. The wire, the clasps, the findings, the beads, the pliers, all of it. It was just one crazy idea that suddenly lead to members of my family wanting to buy them from me as gifts to their friends.

So, I guess I have a mini business going on?

These were the first two pairs I made. (Only one of each pair is shown in these photos to save space, but they’re pretty much identical.) The gold one has gold-coloured freshwater pearls in addition to the glass seed beads, a rectangular shaped glass bead above the pearl, two wooden accent beads on the “straps”, and metal spacers. I think the chain is just bronze patina’d stainless steel. The green set is similar, except the big green bead in the centre is aventurine (supposedly; not sure I trust random beads from Michaels). Anyway, I’m not going to be this detailed in describing each one, I promise. The gold pair was actually made with a good friend in mind as a recipient, but I’m not sure she’d like this sort of thing, so instead it’s going to the step-sister who ordered a bunch from me.

These ones are made of glass beads with metal spacers, pretty simple. The only difference between the first two and the rest are that these have wooden beads to cover where the toe-loop attaches to the main wire of the jewelry as opposed to glass ones. I found that trying to ream down the holes in the glass beads to make room for the metal loops of those spiral findings was destroying my cheap bead reamer, so I switched to more maleable wooden beads for the task. =) Oh, and these (as well as the rest) have silver-plated stainless steel chains and lobster-claw clasps as opposed to the bronze patina ones.

I actually really like the pink and gold one. Even though I’m not a “pink” person by any means, there’s something about the pink/gold colour combination and the design that I like a lot. I’ll be sad to let go of that one, though I’m sure I’ll make more similar ones with the beads I’ve got. (And there’s something that bugs me about the design of the red one, but I can’t put my finger on it.)

These were the last few I’ve made so far (excepting one green pair in similar design to the two blue ones; it was a gift for a good friend). And even though I really like the pink one, I think the purple one in the middle in this photo is my all-time favourite so far. It’s got a beautiful dark-purple amethyst bead as it’s centerpiece, and I love the look of those stainless steel spacers. It’s a shame I’m starting to run out of them, hehe! The only problem with the purple one is that the design runs a little high; it’s a little uncomfortable for me to wear since it sits so high on the top of my foot, it rubs a little. So it’ll probably have to go to somewhere with slightly bigger feet. Aww.

Eh, I’m learning stuff. The two blue ones were done because I was feeling I was getting too complex with my designs and wanted to simplify them. This design is indeed very simple, and pretty too. And they’re all comfortable to wear.

If you see something you like, I’m selling them for $15 CAD a pair. (I expect I’ll have an Etsy shop up and running pretty soon.) All the ones in these photos are already sold, unfortunately, but I can always make something of a similar style. Colours are restricted to the ones you see here, since beads are expensive and I haven’t made enough of a profit on these to add more variety to my repertoire. Still, I think I’ve done well so far with what I’ve got!

I still can’t believe that I’ve been spending my weekend making these, though. I’m honestly not a fan of bead jewelry (I’ve always found them to be rather tacky), but there’s something about these “barefoot sandal” things that I really, really like, and that I find really beautiful. They’re comfortable to wear, and pretty too. They’re excellent to wear at the beach, and like my mum used to, they’re also nice to wear around the house/backyard, just for fun. But goodness, I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d be making them. Or that I’d make them without any help or instruction! It was really rather straightforward, actually, though I’m sure veteran beaders are cringing at my “technique”.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I just had to show off what I made before my mum takes them home to give to my step-sister who ordered five(!!) pairs. I’ll have to get busy making more.

I do have more arty stuff to show off, mainly just sketches and comics made with an awesome new friend, but I’ll get around to those eventually. I hope you find these pretty to look at, even if it’s not your thing. =)

Too lazy to scan, so you get a terrible photo until I’m not so lazy. I really need another couple of lamps or something.

Drawn just after that last Shaintar comic. A random bear, a sketch of Polly smoking, and a random cartoony chick who unfortunately doesn’t have a proper face. Poor girl.

A bit of a sketch page filled with little mice sketches, since a good friend of mine asked me for some. Unfortunately mice are terribly hard for me to draw (they don’t have boooones! Or… don’t look like they have bones…), so these aren’t all that nice. Still… mice. Oh, and some ladies too.

A close-up of the woman in the last page. I liked her a lot. Sometimes I have to remind myself that, yes, I can draw semi-human looking things. I still have to practice noses, though.

Aaaand some puppy sketches. There were done without any references (can’t you tell?), and are for that project I’m working on to do a series of dog/cat breeds on postcards with watercolour. That corgi is actually the next card and is all transferred and inked; I just have to finish painting it. Man, I need to start practising canines again… And cats. Yuck. My problem with cats is the same as with mice; they’re like bags of jelly or something, and for some reason that’s really hard for me to draw!

A quick sketch of a girl I saw… somewhere. Didn’t end up looking anything like her, but I liked the sketch.

Just a very small and silly little self-portrait.

And last but not least for now, some fanart of T.O.E. and Rice Boy from the comic Rice Boy. It’s such an absolutely excellent comic, one that I own in real life now thanks to my awesome sweetie. You won’t regret reading it, it’s one of the best webcomics I’ve read yet, and in such an interesting, original world…

Right, now some sketches for my illustrations for the Open Game Table project:

And:

These are illustrations for a couple articles in the up-coming book. I’m currently in the middle of inking them. The OGT is a really neat project, I’m glad I’ve had the chance to be a part of it; I just hope I can get these done on time, yargh!

Anyway, yes, that’s it for now. I haven’t really been drawing much, despite my best efforts; things have been rather hectic. As always, I hope to do some more drawing soon; we’ll see what happens. Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Oh gosh, I forgot to post this one!

Drawn at the local burger place (Moderne Burger; mmm) on their oh-so-handy blank white paper place mats. Suggested by Dennis, who has all the best suggestions. He also suggested a whole series of sketches of strange people with appropriate dog breeds as noses, which, who knows, may become a reality on future visits? Hehehe.

I love the weird stuff the most.

I’d like to say thanks to the awesome Teresa of Lost In Wonder for the wonderful advice she gave me on DA. Of course this is just a small practice painting, but I am new at this, and her advice really helped me decide what my next step was going to be. Please give her blog a visit, she’s insanely talented, and I absolutely adore her paintings. You won’t regret it!

For sale, if anyone’s interested! Originally offering for $5, but feel free to make an offer if you’d rather pay less. It’s 6″x4″, postcard sized, has a postcard address/stamp layout on the back. Front is pretty much just as you see here, except without the website watermark.

Keep reading to hear me ramble about the process and what I learned. =)

Differences from the previous WIP are: I deepened the shadows a teensy bit with a purple hue, though over top of the yellow and the previous shading it got to look a little muddy. I think it still added a bit more life to it than leaving it the way it was, so it was a positive change. Then there are the obvious additions of the background and shadow.

I actually really like the blue background, but I think I need to learn again how to stretch my paper. I had a lot of warping occur along the sides, which prompted me to do a lot of lifting excess water with paper towel to struggle to keep it even. I think it turned out pretty well considering the warping problem, more even than I expected! Yet it still has enough uneveness to keep the background interesting, and has that watercolour look about it, which I like a lot.

Once I had finished the painting I struggled with coming up with ideas for how to finish it to tie it together. I finally decided on adding the “Pomeranian” label/title on there, which might fit with the rest of the breeds if I decide to make it a series. I dunno… I think next time I’ll have to come up with a more interesting font, and spend more time on it.

Anyway, on a whole I am satisfied with it, and I had a lot of fun! I can’t wait to start my next one… but what breed should I do? Any suggestions?

I actually defied my law of procrastination and sat down and started one on Tuesday. Here’s how far I got:

Now I’m looking for suggestions/critiques/advice/what-have-you. I know very little about watercolours, really only the very basics of how to use them, and I still have a long way to go.

What I’d like some advice on if you’ve got any:

Shadows: Should I add another layer of shadows, possibly in a purple colour? What areas do you think would benefit the most from this? How stingy/generous should I be with this to really make it pop?

Background: Simple gradient, simple shadow on the ground, something more elaborate…? What colours do you think would work well in a background? Should it fill up the whole rest of the paper, or form a smaller rectangle/oval around the subject? Should it have hard edges or fade into the white of the paper? I’m pretty stumped here, actually!

Pom detail: Is there enough detail on the pom? Too much? Should I attempt to do more, and if so, what would you suggest? It’s kind of hard to see from the crappy photo I provide, but I did try to lift some of that yellow off the edges of the fur and in certain places to make it seem lighter. I also went in once with a darker orange colour and added some little swipes with that; blah blah.

Right. So, basically, I suck at colouring things. I have very little practice, and a lot of the time my coloured pictures turn out looking very preschool-ish. Since colour in watercolour paintings is so important, I thought I’d ask for advice; and any technical advice/critique you have to give for now, and for the next one would be so welcome!

Thank you in advance for any help you’re able to give; and if not, I hope you like the look of this (poorly drawn) pom. =) My internet was down when I started drawing it so I couldn’t look up refernces; I hope it’s recognizable. If not, I’ll do better on the next one!

Anyone interested in purchasing this for $5 when it’s done, or others in a series like this?