Dreamcatcher

First Interpretive assignment of the year... mostly, Interpretive will just be a thesis thing, but this one was a (vague) assignment, about the topic of Good & Bad. So I decided to play with the idea of good and bad dreams, and a dreamcatcher, which is meant to trap nightmares and allow only good dreams through.

Postcards from Trafalgar

First finished assignment of the year! A thing for narrative class, where we took a trip and then somehow retold it in a series of 3 postcards. Mine was a walk down Trafalgar road.

This thing was a major experiment, and my feelings about it are mixed, to say the least. Overall I think it tips slightly in the direction of not quite working, but isn't a total failure. So that's something.

Also, on the off chance anybody reads this blog who doesn't actually know me (not likely...) the girl on the cards is me. Haven't done a self-portrait in ages...

I got nothin'.

So I was looking through Dani's sketchbook and was inspired and uh...



Yeah, I don't know either.

Queen of Roses

So, uh, that whole weekly challenge went down in flames, didn't it? Since then, it's just been happy children and animals for Junior Jetsetters all day, every day - and it still is, more or less, but now I'm back to school! A couple of small things...


Painted this with my (AWESOME) new portable watercolour set at a friends' cottage. (I had a portable watercolour set before, but this one is far superior. It has a mixing tray! Sponges! Eeee.) One of my friends' young cousins dubbed this the Queen of Roses, and it's as good a title than any, I suppose. Mostly, it embodies the need to draw something uncute. Like seriously. I am going to break out in unicorns any day now. It may be contagious.


And this is even less meaningful. Doodled today between classes, with pencil, ballpoint pen, and a bit of black watercolour. Some colour slapped on in Photoshop to see how it would look, and I approve. It's nice, I think. I mean, for a doodle.

Since I can't show any of my Jetsetters work until the books are published, and time for personal work is still rare, hopefully I'll have some schoolwork to slap up here soon enough. Time shall tell.

Week 6 Challenge: Band

A band! So instead of doing a bitchin' performance scene like Mike did, I went more the poster route. Yes, their name is Buttonville.



Buttonville first made an appearance in my NaNoWriMo novel a couple of years back. They would probably never actually be on a poster, as their main point was that they're terrible. Next week: whatever Mike decides on, because he's indecisive!

Week 5 Challenge: Modern Myth

Playin' with ink again! My feelings on this one are iffy, but overall, I think it's okay - I'm not a great inker, but I'm learning and learning is good.

The theme was modernized mythological characters, so here's a faun reimagined as a street musician.



Observe as Mike goes all anime. And awesome. (Also, he did this adorable comic about us and a dancing robot. And it actually happened. But it has nothing to do with the challenge.) Next week: a band!

Sarah

Went downtown with a couple of friends last weekend, and when we stopped in Second Cup for a bit, I sketched my friend Sarah. I liked it enough to mess around in Photoshop a bit - I actually did this before the Fire Maidens one in the last post, and it was kinda closer to the look I was going for with that, but didn't quite get.

Week 4 Challenge: MST3k Titles

The challenge this week was to do stuff based on the titles of movies that were mocked on Mystery Science Theatre 3000... I chose Fire Maidens from Outer Space and, uh, man this went somewhere weird. It looks like stained glass... in the weirdest church on earth.




Mike's is cooler. Next week: Modernized Mythological Creatures! Or something like that.

Week 3 Challenge: Epic Mounts

Epic! Is it a giant badger ridden by a normal-sized child? A normal-sized badger ridden by a very small child? The world may never know!

I was worried about the fur, but it turned out that the metal was more my undoing. Also, my weak understanding of badger anatomy. On the whole, though, Kim is happy.

Badgerbadgerbadgerbadgerbadger.

See Mike's truly "epic" mount here. Next week: MST3k episode titles!

Week 2 Challenge: The 1920s

True story: When I suggested this theme for the week, I was thinking I'd do something girly and innocent to offset last week's leather wonder.

But then I found a picture of a 1920s motorcycle. A beautiful, beautiful 1920s motorcycle.



So, yeah.

For those who've known me online, no, I didn't just title this picture after my former-and-sometimes-current online name. It's actually called an Ace. Eeee.

Here's Mike's shot for the week. Movie poster ahoy.

Next challenge, as selected by Mike: Epic Mounts!

Week 1 Challenge: Demon Girl

Through some bizarre twist of fate, my friend/summer roommate Mike and I ended up with the same co-op job - drawing cartoony kids and animals for Junior Jetsetters. Because this is kind of outside our own, normal styles we decided we'd do a weekly challenge, for kicks and portfolio pieces. This was the first challenge and, although he doesn't know it, it's all Jesse's fault. Really.



It's weird for me to draw something so unabashedly sexy; that's usually not my thing. But every once in a while, it's nice to make friends with the tropes I usually battle against and just do something fun.

Oh, and the eyes? Well, if I didn't bite the trope that feeds me and try to subvert at least a LITTLE, well, I wouldn't be me.


Check out Mike's shot here. It's a bit NSFW. Week 2 challenge? The 1920's! GO!

F Train

I've been promising my animation for how long now?



The music is the song F Train by David Usher, and I really wish I could have done the whole thing because it's such a beautiful song.

(Fun fact: The guy in the video isn't really supposed to BE David Usher, but I can't deny the influence.)

While I'm iffy at best on how I feel about the animation as a whole, I'm really proud of a lot of the images I did for it. So since they're tiny and go by in 0.2 seconds, here they are bigger, for your enjoyment and my own validation. Think of 'em as bonus features. Some of these were based, loosely or heavily, on people I've actually drawn on the subway or the GO train or the like.

I was a teenage meme

Something late and thoroughly ridiculous for that meme. Probably can't submit it now, even though I drew this like the day the meme started... I just finished inking it today, because I'm, uh... I believe the word is slow.



Yeah, it's... silly. The ink style might look like it came outta nowhere, but that's only because I haven't uploaded my end-of-the-year animation yet. Did I mention I'm slow?

Now for something completely nerdy

I do have some big stuff to post - my life drawings from the year, my animation and the art that went into it. I'll catch up on posting things here in the next couple of days - c'mon, it's not like anybody reads this anyhow, except maybe my parents. (Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!) Go ahead, prove me wrong.

So for now, take this drawing of my friend's D&D character.



It's her unnamed gnome illusionist of questionable morality and even more questionable gender. (It's nice when I can put my natural inclination towards androgyny to good use...) This character is so undefined that last I checked, she was writing the backstory as a choose your own adventure. Seriously. I think it might have been my idea.

Beards are Hard to Paint

More digital lifedrawing - the last of the year. Hopefully I can do more of this next year, since I finally feel like I was really starting to get it.

A Fresh Perspective

Y'know what I've got to work on this summer? Perspective. I'm better than I used to be, but it's still painful to botch an image I'm otherwise pretty proud of due to the fact I can't draw mechanical objects of any sort with any level of detail. I spent a good chunk of last summer doing endless anatomy studies; maybe this should be my goal this time around.

Case in point:



I'm not what you'd call a car person. They all look kind of alike to me, and boring at that. The exception to this is most cars from before about 1930 or so, which are utterly gorgeous. The one referenced for this particular image is the lovely 1915 Dodge Bros Touring Car, which I managed to mess up completely. I'm not sure she'd even fit in that car.

That aside, I'm quite happy with the rest of this picture, which was intended as a new front image for Otherskies, and may still end up there if I can crop out the worst of the perspective sins. But if I need a goal for the summer, that should be it: do a picture with that car in it, and do it justice. I've been concentrating on people too long. Now I should give 'em something to drive.

Excuse to See Naked People

Uh, ignore the title. Sims 2 reference. Couldn't help myself.

Anyhow, more digital lifedrawing. Warning: nudity! Obviously.



I'm really enjoying this; shame the year is just about over. I haven't done much proper digital painting all year, due to lack of time, and at the same time I've been angrily struggling with acrylics in lifedrawing class. My analogy is this: if media were friends, digital painting would be that old friend I've known forever. We're totally comfortable with each other, enjoy hanging out, and even after all these years we're still discovering new things about each other. Watercolour would be that kid I always saw around in high school, but never really talked to... and years later ran into again, and realized we had so much in common. Wondered why on earth we weren't friends before. And acrylic?

Me and acrylic are like the cops in a buddy cop movie, except at the beginning, before they're friends and they band together to stop the bad guy. You know, "I don't like you, you don't like me, but we have a job to do, so I guess we're gonna have to do it."

That said, give me a couple of weeks, and I'll try to have a couple of my acrylic paintings from lifedrawing up here. But don't say I didn't warn you...

Illustration Friday: Homage

This is an older piece from last summer, and it's already up on my website, but I'm reposting it for this week's Illustration Friday topic, "Homage".



A homage to one of the most outlandish scenes of one of my favourite shows, Torchwood... as well as an homage to the old-fashioned pulp covers that it reminded me of, and that I really love. While I'm not a huge fan of reading this sort of old school sci-fi, there's something about the sheer freedom and excitement of it that I just love.

Post Post

I said I'd post some of the stuff I did during my short internship at the National Post. I did not lie! Here's most of it - I also did a lot of maps and graphs and things, but since they were done heavily from Post templates, I doubt I'm meant to put 'em up.

First, an ARMY OF LEPRECHAUNS:


This was a photo illustration about IMAX's current troubles. It was made from a single strip of film and a photo of Superman, with a whole lot of Photoshop warping. I kinda miss doing this kinda stuff...


An illustration on "Cloud Computing":


Some buildings on Bayview avenue, a part of a larger thing:


A diagram of how the Canadarm2 on the space station operates and walks around. This was actually the first thing I did at the Post. It was a small part of a much larger, much cooler full-page thing - the version of this that showed up in the final was modified slightly, but this was as far as I took it:


And finally, this little pilot dude was an extremely tiny part of a much, much larger thing, but frankly, I happen to like him:



All in all, it was a really fantastic experience, I got to meet and work with some great people, and, well, seeing my stuff in a newspaper was beyond cool. I do love being an illustrator. =)

Digital Lifedrawing

I've been ungodly busy lately, just coming off an (INCREDIBLE) three-week co-op at the National Post, and I still ought to post some of the stuff I did there. I think I'm allowed to do that? And now I'm catching up on 3 weeks of schoolwork, which is... tiring.

But until I can get any of that up, here's a two-hour digital painting from life. I got sick of acrylics and dragged my laptop and tablet to class today.

The proper version:



The AWESOME version:



What can I say, I thought he had kind of a comic book supervillain look to him, and wanted to see what I could to do exacerbate that.

Scam Email Is Fun

Our latest project had to do with those Nigerian Scam Emails, except mine wasn't Nigerian at all because I chose one about a Scottish lawyer. I'll be honest, I think I just wanted to draw his moustache. The result:



Going for a bit of a British-gangster-caper-film look; I think it worked okay. I was trying to use the same style from my Perfectionist piece that people seem to like so much, dunno how much I succeeded, but it's different, at least.

Sprout

I did this weeks ago, but only recently got it back and had a chance to scan it - some friends and I did a thing for the student gallery on the theme of tattoos, and this was mine. It has its flaws, but it's the most advanced thing I've done in full-on traditional media thus far, especially considering it's just watercolour and gouache without chucking anything else in there, like I usually resort to... so THAT'S okay.

Canadians. From Canada.

A recent project based around the idea of "recipe" - this was my "recipe for a Canadian". (This be the version without the text, since I didn't, uh, like the version with the text much.)



I somewhat regret adding the case of beer, because other than that, it has kind of a cute, childrens' illustration feeling, but come on, it's Canada. I think I'm learning to use watercolour decently, finally!

Houston, we have a site

Otherskies is live!

My portfolio is finally up, yay. No new art to show, because everything I've done recently is either in progress, in my locker, or too big to scan and my camera is broken. Excuses, excuses. But there's a load more on the site than there is on here anyhow, so check that out instead!