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.

12 Faces

Today I've dug out a bunch of unfinished digital paintings and am working on trying to get a few of them closer to completion. Too many things to finish, too much work to finish them all... :P

In the meantime, here's 12 female faces. I thought I'd do the "100 faces" meme a few months ago to help me think about how people's faces differ.



These were done from various random photos I've come across since then. Some I've changed substantially from the photo, some I haven't. I plan to do 50 female and 50 male. It might be interesting...

Bunnies

I feel bad for neglecting the blargh this week. But not too bad, because it hasn't been a good week for me. I HAVE been filling the sketchbook, I just haven't bothered to scan and clean up. I should have a few more things to post later in the week, but in the meantime, allow me to wallow in my perfectly normal and healthy rabbit obsession.

The Easter Bunny:



Plus, I promised to post a link to my old comic if I continued to update it, and five updates is me doing well so far. It's not a great comic, but I never really intended it to be -- in fact, I intended it to be a throwaway mini-comic, which ended up turning into a year's worth of weekly comic pages. Anyway, if anyone's interested, it's here. It's the story of three anthropomorphic rabbits and their troubles in a new home.

And with that, I'm off to sleep.

Tulips

What I've been working on lately:



Done from a photo I took at the Muttart Conservatory a couple years ago. Pencil crayon on dark green paper, 5x7 inches.

I think it turned out well, except for the blotches in the background. The paper wasn't all that great, and by the time I'd decided that I wanted them toned down there was too much wax piled on. I couldn't really lift much of the colour off, and I couldn't cover it up with the indigo blue, so I had to live with it.

I might try toning the bottom-left leaves down a bit before I hang it up.

Figure Studies

I made it out to another figure-drawing class. I'm not sure I did all that well this time around. The short poses were more loose, which was good, but I think the tighter poses weren't as great. I did bring a bigger sketch pad this time, though.

The highlights:

3-minute pose:



5-minute pose:



15-minute pose:



30-minute pose:



Anyway. It was a good session, although there were more chatty people there this time. One was sitting beside me, and it became difficult to concentrate at times. I like it better when it's quiet.

Inspiration Monday

And while I'm here... today's inspiration was flying fish.



Baron von Catfish? "Cat" Addams, the flying ace? Whoever he is, I like him.