24 Hour Comic

I cheated my way through 24-hour Comics Day by making a tiny comic out of index cards. 24-hour Comic Day for people who like to sleep!

Bus Stop Girl

An inked version of the sketch in the previous post:



Hopefully this image keeps working. I'm having some upload problems with Blogger.

Again with the Bus People

A cleaned-up version of a bus sketch I did back in June. I plan to ride my bike this winter, but I'll still ride the bus a couple of times a week.



A rougher bus sketch, from September. This girl was sitting at the stop just outside my bus window.



Actually... now that I look at them... they both have the same expression. The first woman was reading a book, while the second was talking to her friend... but I think I managed to catch her while she was texting someone. Weird!

Sketchdump

I'm about to finish another sketchbook. This one was quite fat 'n' sassy! Here's a few faces I should've been posting as I went along:



The girl on the far right was my idle take on Faye of Questionable Content. Pointy-eared girl may be the main character of some future comics.

I also went to another life drawing class last night, so I should have a few more things to share on the weekend.

Tablet

I've been thinking about t-shirt designs lately.



Also, I bought me a 6x8 inch Intuos3! It's... interesting.

Bloodsuckers

A quick something I threw together for a jam while sitting at the loading screen in Bioshock.



Mmmmm. Bioshock.

Update

Phew. What a busy month it's been! The work server was starting to get unreliable at about the same time I got a few good plugs for my webcomic, so I had to set up my own site two days before my vacation. Thank badgers that I set up my old site in a way that allowed me to just zip the whole thing up and plop it elsewhere without too much fuss. Also -- I love ISPs that give you shell access. I'm going with nearlyfreespeech.net, and they're also great because you only pay for what your viewers use -- which means you can spend just a few dollars to keep a small website running.

The whole process has been much like moving out of one's parents' house for the first time. Suddenly I can put whatever I like on there -- but I have to pay the rent.

Then I went to BC for a couple of weeks, which would have been all right except we apparently despise driving and I caught a cold on the second day after arrival.

Just a few days ago I discovered that my comic has been accepted to one of the bigger subscription sites (although I've chosen to continue providing it for free -- I think building an audience who will eventually buy merchandise will probably work better for me in the long run) -- so transferring the archives over is going to be a metric buttload of work. Also, I will be on a webcomics panel at a tiny sci-fi convention here in town in October. It never rains, but it pours! Really, September is a terrible time for change. In about a week, I will have a hundred students lined up at my door, looking for help. And -- AND! -- I've got Bioshock to play. Why does everything all happen at the same time?

But there, I shouldn't complain. Here's a speedpaint I did today, in the finest spirit of procrastination:



I was experimenting with some brushes I downloaded. Done from a reference photo I took while on vacation. Kinda blobby, innit? Maybe I should dig out my ancient copy of Painter and see whether I can re-do it with more natural-looking brushes.

Chalk Flower

I saw a little brown paper sketchbook at the art store yesterday and picked it and some pastel pencils up.



I'm not sure about the chalk pastels. I think one of the pencils is all busted inside. However, the sketchbook should work just as well with pencil crayons.

Don't Run with Scissors

Just a marker & pencil crayon doodle on some cardstock. I was leafing through my old sketchbook and he looked like he might go well with green marbled paper.



Creepy dude says "don't run with scissors!"

More Colour!

I coloured the line-art for the forum superpower cartoon. I like it quite a bit better this way.

The Ultimate Wool-Bearing Mammal?

If there's one thing that seems to remain a constant... it's that I'm not very good at painting.

I bought some cardstock remnants to play with, and thought I'd try to re-do Rabbit Sheep. I dug out my old acrylics (haven't been used much since I took a studio course in 1998) and gave it a go:



Cute, but lacked a certain... oomph. I threw on some hasty digital inking to see if I'd like it better with an outline:



And I do think I like it better with an outline, but the sharp line just contrasts too much with everything. I think I'll find my pencil crayons and see what I can do with those.

Hey -- imagine what kind of wool we could get if we bred these with the Nepalese Llamayak!

Final version:



Also... I was perusing the Dream Shapes blog just now (there, on the side bar) and it reminded me about the dream I had this morning. I don't remember anything, other than one of my co-workers telling me (in an aggrieved voice) "I'm sorry, but these sheep are NOT my responsibility! And neither is sex."

It's probably just as well my husband woke me up. I don't think the dream was going anywhere I really wanted to be.

Forum Superpowers

Occasionally, arguing on forums makes me want to shoot beams of destructive energy from my eyes. Maybe if I squint my eyes and scrunch up my face really hard, I'll eventually mutate into some kind of forum Godzilla. Except shorter, and with snazzy red socks.



This is a lot like my Supervillain picture near the beginning of my blog -- except better of course. About an evening's worth of screwing around.

Panel

It seems like the comic is all I work on these days. And sometimes I wonder... is it worth it? I've spent a year and a half on a project whose plot I thought up in a weekend, and hardly anyone reads it. By the time I'm as good an artist as I want to be, I'll have been dead for 10 years.

But then I look at how far I've come, and I feel pretty happy.

Maybe I'll post the occasional panel here, just so I still feel productive. Ones that I'm particularly fond of. Like this one:

Linden Trunk

There is a row of mature linden trees near the building where I work. I had some time free on June 23rd due to a network outage, so I sat on a bench with a cup of tea and looked at the texture of their trunks:



Mosquitoes found me before I was quite done my study. When I got back to work, I dug up a laptop and discovered that someone had at least brought the wireless up. I should get in to work early so that I can take more breaks... :)

Schtuff

My production rate has slowed considerably this summer. Actually, that may or may not be true -- however, my scanning rate has gone right down the toilet.

Speed sketch I did today when I got tired of stippling my comic:

Illustration Friday: Camouflage

Something based on some rabbit sketches I did last weekend:

Charming

Goofing around with a woman's face from some random photo:



I quite like the expression on her face. It's an ambiguous smile she's wearing... What was she thinking?

Green Apple Pie - The Move

Click for bigger image:



I've been kicked out of my old digs. It was a sad occasion.

She Hunts Pies

A couple weeks ago my husband got Lord of the Rings Online, and I caved in. Now that I'm playing a MMORPG again, I need a sig for my guild forums. Here's a speed-paint of my hobbit, Takha Pie-Hunter:



The colours took about an hour so far. The linework was a lot less.

Green Apple Pie - The Internet

More Green Apple Pie. Click for the bigger version:

Cartoon Girls

I've been using the sketchbook a bit more in the past week, so I have a few things to post. The three silly girls came from a very, very boring meeting during which I was trying to channel Katie Rice. But of course my normal style is completely different, so I can't do goofy in such a charming way. Still, some of these came out pretty well.

Spork punk girl:



I just like saying the word "spork". Much like "moo" and "mukluk", it's a funny word to say. A scary, vapid would-be celebrity girl:



And a grumpy country girl:



And now, just to cleanse your eyeballs, a not-goofy-at-all lady:

Painting Practice

I went out to paint a bit this evening. It's been a hot weekend, but the evenings are quite lovely -- if you can stand the mosquitoes. They're quite bad this year.

Anyway, I painted my yard while the sun was setting:



I'm not really all that happy with the painting -- it's difficult to paint a mass of plants, do it fairly quickly before the sun goes and have them all look distinct! I much prefer painting overtop of inked lines, I think. Still, any practice is good practice!

Green Apple Pie - Sketchbookoholism

I'm still doing the occasional journal comic. I'm going to bind them all together into a comic diary when I'm done. The only way that I can do this is if I don't clean these guys up, so you'll all have to live with my crummy lettering and occasional bad line. I will remove inky thumbprints, though.

Click for full size:

Sketch Weekend

Here's a sketch from Saturday's sketch crawl. I went to West Edmonton Mall, one of the biggest malls in the world. I hadn't really planned on any specific destination (next time I plan to catch a random bus somewhere and see what there is to see on the bus route). My brother was visiting, and I asked him what his plans were for the day. He had planned to go shopping, so I came along for the ride.



West Ed is not a bad place to sketch. No one bothered me. There are so many people that it's easy to sit somewhere and sketch people without them noticing you. And there are some interesting things inside.

Anyway. Here's something from Sunday, since I was still in a sketching mood. My aunt-in-law's cat:

Catching up on Bus People

I actually moved my butt and went on sketchcrawl yesterday. I will have some new stuff to post soon (I'm planning to drag my sketchbook out today, too). In the meantime, I've been cleaning up some older pages from January-March:

Stickies

I just re-discovered a couple sketches I did on sticky notes and stuck into my old journal sketchbook. Both are from my in-laws' house.

A cup and spoon:



Their tea cups are very cool. They're round and have a map of the globe etched on them.

And their small, geriatric dog, napping:

Lamp

A lamp I sketched out in a local restaurant. Crummy pen on index card:

Meeting Sketchies

It's not that I've fallen off the face of the Earth... it's just that the Earth is spinning too quickly and it's flung me off. Stupid Earth.

Here's a couple sketches from Tuesday's meeting. A coworker whom I've probably made more frazzled-looking than absolutely necessary (I think she was starting to suspect that I might have been staring at her for a reason):



And when I got tired of squinting at people out of the corner of my eye, I victimized my shoe:



So, yeah. I still have a backlog of sketches to post, I just haven't had the time to scan them.

One Day Off

Okay... I honestly thought it was Monday yesterday. I don't know where Monday
*actually* went. Maybe I don't want to know.

Inspiration Monday

Hot Bathing Suit

The result of this week's inspiration.

Fiery children and swimming don't mix:



You can try this at home, but you'll be overly warm AND soggy, at the same time:



I kinda like having a topic but not going straight for the obvious interpretation.

I feel bad about neglecting the ol' sketchblog, but doing a weekly comic is a lot like having homework to finish every week. Between that and Kung Fu and getting the labs ready for the spring semester, I barely have any time to relax. I did get out this weekend for a bit of outdoor sketching. (I only managed 20 minutes. It looked warm and sunny outside, but the wind was just evil.) I'm hoping to throw some watercolours on the picture once I get a few minutes of free time.

My time on the bus is just about over. My bus pass ran out yesterday, and I'll be biking again starting either tomorrow or Thursday. I have a few more bus people to scan, but after that there will be no more until October. I still plan to get out and sketch from life, though. It'll just be a little more difficult to find opportunities to do so.

He Doesn't Look Happy

My husband, from a photo I took on vacation:



He sure doesn't like to have his photo taken.

Lobster Overlord

Green Apple Pie #3

Hey, remember that four-panel comic I've been procrastinating on for months now? Well I finally buckled down and got it finished.

Click on the image to go to the bigger version on my deviantArt page (you may need to full-view it on there):



I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It's no Copper or anything, but if I could pull one of these out of my rear end once a week, I'd be closer to a published comics collection than I am now. :P

Oh well. Back to the drawing table!

Inspiration Monday

This week's inspiration is Scribbles. It's a fun challenge to scribble down a squiggle and see what you can turn it into.

I did these on paper first, and inked them digitally for clarity. My scans were pretty terrible.

Scribble 1:



turned into a woman with long hair:



While scribble 2:



ended up a flamingo:



I'd have done more, but I ran out of bus route.

Calamari

Another girl off the bus. This one I had to memorize and sketch out in PS at home.

Brush Pen

Another woman I sketched on the bus. I did this one without an underlying pencil sketch.



Her hair could be better, but I think I got the face down pretty well.

Spring Ladies

The weather's been warming up, but I've been burning out a bit. Concentrating on comics has made me a little less keen on sketching in general. The long weekend may have had something to do with that too. Four days off, and I didn't get anything done.

Still, there's always something hanging around I haven't scanned in yet. Here's a couple girls from late March:





Last week wasn't the best week I've ever had, either. But the weather is finally warming up (barring all the snow falling in the past week) and hopefully I'll feel more like wandering around town with my sketchbook when it's dry enough to bike.

Inspiration Monday

Okay, it's not really an official Inspiration Monday, but I'll post an idea up anyway: a goblin wedding.

I drew a flirtatious Mother of the Goblin Bride for the "A Face Only a Mother Could Love" Drawing Jam:



It's surprisingly difficult to draw ugly ladies without making them look like men in drag. I may do a few more wedding guests and whatnot later in the week.