Flying

I haven’t even gotten around to drawing last week’s Illustration Friday theme, “germs” (I really wanted to do that one but I probably won’t) but I’ve got something old-ish for this week’s theme, “flying.”

Probably a better title would be falling but…I drew this image after reading Rogue Planet (a Star Wars book) by Greg Bear. Anakin is about 12 or so, getting sort of bored with the Jedi life, and seeking adventure. In one of the opening scenes he finds out about an underground race that takes place I think in the sewers of Coruscant, using these sort of winged jet-pack things. It sounded like super-enhanced hanggliding. It really just needed to be drawn.

I went for a sort of Icarus feel for the composition, and I was happy with the result, particularly the perspective. Unfortunately I rushed the background and kind of ruined it. It does have a nice raw feeling, and there is a sense of motion, but it’s just too messy to be very effective. Maybe some day I’ll cut out the surviving sections and start over.

Fan Girl (me)

On Sunday, Matt and I went to see Neil Gaiman reading at Cleveland Public Library. Amazingly, this event was free. I mean, I would have paid to see Neil read, but free is fantastic. Our libraries rock.

Anyway, Matt is wonderfully supportive of my fan-girl-ness. It probably helps that he is also a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing and comic books.

I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of crowd. I figured either, yeah, it’s Neil Gaiman, so they’ll be lining up around the block (this is what actually happened) or this is Cleveland, so no one will find out about it, and there will be fourteen people in a huge auditorium yelling, “we love you Neil!”

There ended being over a thousand people, all radiating happiness and hero worship. Neil’s fans are an odd assortment of hippie-craftsters, goths, metal-biker types and general misfits, most of which are much friendlier than they look. The book worm connection probably helped. Matt, who is usually by far the social one in our pairing, accused me of being a social butterfly for once.

It’s just easier to talk to people who are a bit batty over fantasy and such. Cult audiences are so much fun. Also, yes. A real bat got into the building, which seemed fitting.

Neil is super friendly, which didn’t surprise me, but he is also rather adorable, which did. The grim visage he carries around doesn’t really translate in person.

We got to hear the first ever reading (I think) of Odd and the Frost Giants, a short novel he wrote for World Book Day, which I’d never even heard of until yesterday (the day, not the book, but actually, I’d never heard of either).

Apparently authors and publishers put out 100 page books for free, children are given book tokens and get to choose from (I think) 9 books. I’d never heard of it because it’s the world OUTSIDE of the US. Shame, it sounds like a good idea.
Neil and his undead army. Actually they’re Oberlin students, and I had a brighter picture, but I liked the zombie look.

There were enough people that not everyone fit in the main room, which I think held about 700 people.

Another few hundred peopel were shuffled into an overflow room across the hall, where I suppose they watched on TV screens. Still more were turned away entirely. Matt and I got there just before noon, and managed to get great seats in the middle. During the question and answer section, Neil made sure to gett a couple questions from the overflow room, which was cool of him. He also took a few questions from kids, (there were quite a few in the audience) including “do you remember signing a girl’s foot in Portland?” which was pretty entertaining.

He got a standing ovation, which is predictable these days, but I’d say he actually deserved it, which is less common. He’s a fantastic speaker, and of course most of his fans already know he’s a wonderful reader. I’ve listened to his audio books before, but I was still sort of amazed at his vocal range with characters, particularly reading Odd and the Frost Giants. I really did feel as though I were a little kid again, listening to the bear voices in a faerie tale. Afterwards he signed books and possibly feet.

Actually he’s a saint. He signed for everyone that wanted something. I’m not sure what time he left, but Matt and I finally made it out with our signed books at about 6 pm, and I know Neil was supposed to leave to catch a plane at 4:30. So yeah. Saint.

In high fan-girl fashion, I drew Neil a picture, hoping I’d have a chance to give it to him. I’d planned to draw something from one of his short stories, but I couldn’t settle on anything so I ended up doing a caricature of Neil. As he put it: “Oh it’s me! Beekeeping! With a 3 headed Cabal!” So I think he liked it, even though my friend Jack told me I was being creepy.

I made his head too big, and the dog’s body is a little confusing (but I suppose it would be) and actually the front dog head looks like a Corgi, which Cabal certainly is not. And don’t even ask about the futuristic bee hive.

I wanted him to be grabbing something out of the air, and I eventually settled on star anise. I tried to think of what an idea might look like, and this seemed like a good representation: half seed, half star.

His cloak of course is a nod at the Sandman‘s getup, and I was trying to make his hat look a bit like Odin’s cap, but honestly that’s pretty much what beekeeper’s hats look like anyway, so I’m not sure I succeeded.

It was an amazing day and I got to give Neil my drawing, and we got some books signed, and hear part of a new story, and get a teaser about what he’s working on now, and generally hear him talk about what he does and what it’s like. It was an unbelievable way to spend a day, especially sharing it with Matt. Even if I didn’t get to eat more than a cookie and a half between waking up and 7 pm dinner. I’m still a bit giddy, and emotianlly drained from being giddy all day yesterday. Totally worth it.

Pattern Recognition

This week’s Illustration Friday is “Pattern,” and I had an old piece that fit too well to resist. I’ve never posted it on this blog, but I posted it last year some time on Living in Space.

The title I gave this at the time was EmpTV. The style is much more simplistic than I usually do, playing more a comic-y effect, and appropriately, experimenting with pattern. I like the result, though I probably won’t repeat it often, since I’m sort of obsessed with line and detail. Another piece that I found a bit more interesting was this one:

The theme for this was “zoo,” can’t remember if it was for IF or something else. I was especially happy with the squiggly patterning in the bushes in the back, and this piece, far more than the TV zombie piece, ended up being a directional piece for my style. The blog logo for example, was absolutely drawn with this piece in mind.

Finally, since both these pieces are old, I figure I’ll give you a sketch I did this week: (don’t have a scanner, so a photo is the best I can do)

This was drawn yesterday at a Caribou in some Chicago suburb. Not exactly sure where we were, but you can rest assured, if there’s a Caribou in the area, Matt and I will find it.

Normally when I sketch in public I concentrate on people, but since I’d like to do more finished drawings involving cityscapes, industrial pieces, and in general, less organic subjects, I took the opportunity to make myself draw the whole room. It took a shift in perspective to say the least. I started with the fireplace, and though it was relatively easy to estimate the size on the page, I was surprised at how small everything was. I’m hoping this will also help my background staging in general illustration since one of the criticisms I’ve received with my artwork is that backgrounds are a bit stiff (I AGREE). You can see what I mean here:
This is part of a comic I created (ignore the implication that I finished it, I only inked 5 pages) called Messenger of the Gods, to show at Wizard World a few years ago. (More Messenger of the Gods pages in my Gallery)

I’m hoping if I keep practicing drawing settings they won’t feel so much like, well, backgrounds.

(Note RE: a couple other crits I got on these pieces – The character looks like a boy because… he is a boy… who happens to have long hair. The character looks like he has a black eye because he… wait for it… has a black eye.)

Infinite

When I heard the Illustration Friday word of the week, “Infinite,” the first thing I thought of was the silly philosophy question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

I’m pretty sure at least one of the answers that came out of that was “infinite,” but I could be thinking of “is Hell endo or extothermic?”

Of course there are other ideas about the pin question…

“Firstly, angels simply don’t dance. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that marks an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don’t feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none.

At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.

So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of arguement, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one.

Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They’re of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance.

And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren’t bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.”

- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I haven’t decided yet whether to develop the sketch into a portfolio piece… I like the concept but I’m not sure if I’m actually managing to draw the pins successfully.

Tangled New World

I don’t post on Sugar Frosted Goodness nearly often enough, but this week’s theme (and last) was “New Work” and I realized I DID actually have some things that might sort of qualify. In fact, I realized that my favorite portfolio piece (which does not yet appear in my online portfolio because I have not yet gotten around to updating it) has never been online.

As I was working on putting together all the odds and ends of graduation this spring, the Editor of the Vindicator asked me to do an illustration for an inhouse ad. She left it pretty open, but asked for something that illustrated diversity and interconnectivity. This is what I came up with:

They ended up flipping the image for the ad. I’m not sure why I decided to center the image around knitting, but I liked the idea of having all the cables work as yarn, and, you know, the craft movement is HUGE right now, so it kind of works. For any geeks out there, take note of the OLPC.

This is sort of the direction my style has been tilting lately, with the interplay of color and lots of white space. It’s far more contemporary than the stuff I did in college, but still lets me focus on my technical strengths (I think). That’s not to say I’m not doing any more black and white, but I’m trying to incorporate a similar feel in my new ink work. Anyway, comments and criticism welcome. Sometime soon I really will redo my website, and there should be a couple new things in there.

Close up:

Mech Tree

I know, it’s been weeks since I’ve posted, and now I’m just giving you another drawing, but this is all I’ve had time for lately!

The most recent Sugar Frosted Goodness was “sketch” and I was excited because I figured even when I’m busy I can find time to do a sketch. I was mostly wrong, the category was last week’s, but I figured I might as well finish it anyway.

*I’ve been interested lately in steamer-punk art and sculpture. I realize I’m coming a bit late to the trend, but I’m completely intruiged by the combination of industrial elements and victorian ornament. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of drawing in the style, but the elements of steamer-punk; archetectural and mechanical, are exactly the kinds of things I don’t have experience drawing. I’m far more comfortable drawing people and organic objects, so I figured instead of leaping straight in, I’d take a lesson from Mattias and steampunk up something I was more comfortable with. (If you haven’t seen Mattias’s Baroque Star Wars I highly recommend it, particularly the Death Star.) I’ve done this before on a small scale with a metal lobster (not to be mistaken for a rock lobster), but a tree was a much larger undertaking.

It took for freaking ever, possibly nullifying the time benefit of doing a “sketch.” Most tedious were the “leaves” which were inspired by Solio portable chargers, which are sort of flower or leaf shaped, and being solar chargers, do in fact serve the same purpose as leaves.

For some reason I wanted the roots to include wheels, and they are therefor obviously not rooted at all. Matt insists that the wheels make it a car, and he’s probably right, but I don’t see why it can’t be a tree as well. Now that I’ve got it on the computer I can see that I’ve left a few areas unfinished (trailing wire, needs extra wheels, etc.) so maybe I’ll post the final version once I finish.

The visual charm of steamer-punk for me is that it has aspects of both design and art. Steamer-punk drawings remind me of the da Vinci sketches of crazy flying bicycles.  At some point I’d like to start making show type art (as opposed to illustrative art) which exploits that design visual. It probably won’t be steamer-punk, but playing with that style is a nice way to stretch my skills, and also much more satisfying than other kinds of practice, like say, still lifes. Bleagh.

*Click on main image for larger version.

Drifting

It’s been a while since I’ve done Illustration Friday and I wanted to participate this week. The topic is Drifting, and I came up with a number of things I wasn’t too enthusiastic about drawing and a few things I though I’d like drawing, but really didn’t have time for right now. I finally settled on a view of a tree from below, with leaves drifting to the ground, but then I thought, laying under a tree is MY favorite place for mental drifting, so I did a quick drawing of just that. Click on the images for a larger version.

While I’m posting drawings I figured maybe I should post some of the old (OLD) sketches I’ve been meaning to put up for a while. One of my blog friends, Mall, has been posting some of her recent work which had a character in it that reminded me of some of my preliminary sketches of my novel characters, even though Mall’s work is finished and, you know, beautiful. 

I did these drawings back in college, maybe 2003, when I was first trying to imagine the story. They are no longer particularly relivant to the novel. To be perfectly honest I chose my character’s fantasy features based entirely on things I’d like to have: wings, horns, fangs, tail. I ended up getting rid of the tail because it just didn’t fit, and also, a cat or monkey tail would have been a little bit too Dragon Ball Z if you know what I mean. Expression studies.

As Promised

Nothing hugely amazing, but I need to get back into the habit of sketching wherever I happen to be.

The drummers were great fun to watch, much more active than I captured in my drawing.

A couple little girls started dancing nearby, very cute.

Until Further Notice

Duh, I’m an idiot. Sketches that I meant to attach at the end of previous post will be added sometime tomorrow instead. Maybe I’ll even fix a few of the typos.

Breezy

This week’s Illustration Friday is Breezy… I had several finished pieces I could have used, but I decided to put up this unfinished piece instead:

It’s a bit dark, and so overworked I’m not sure it’s salvagible, but I’m very happy with the intensity in the woman’s face, and the way her skirt falls. That’s graphite with ink in places.

Sheila Schwartz‘s Book Launch/Memorial tonight at the Lit.

Next week Matt and I will be in Chicago, so I probably won’t be posting much, if at all, but I will be twittering.