Art, mostly

OFF TO THE MOTHERLAND

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:24:11 GMT

FAREWELL, INTERNET-AS-ACCESSED-IN-THE-UNITED-STATES-OF-AMERICA.

I'LL BE SEEING YOU IN NIHON

... ... ...

No-but-seriously, I'm headed to Japan until the 15th. I'm going to be out of the loop except for occasional sporadic e-mail. I left Ananth with as many J*W comics as my little hands could turn out between Other Very Important Things.

I have to wake up in about three hours, so I'll be off now.

I WANT TO MAKE THIS BOOK SOMEONE GIVE ME MONEY TO MAKE THIS BOOK.
Inspired by this image set. I should've done something simpler, the image doesn't read well.

I wasn't allowed to post this picture for 7 months or so. But the Applegeeks book is out now, so I now have permission! This pinup is in AG Vol. 1! I drew it!

There is a lot more art I've been busting my ass on! But you guys probably can't see it for another 6 months.

OKAY YES NOW I AM LEAVING BYE DUDES <3
aaaa my Japanese is so bad help help this is going to be a disaster

OH HELLO AGAIN IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

Tue, 26 May 2009 05:34:51 GMT

I have not been diligent about LiveJournal. I should probably update on some current events, so here are some things that have happened/will happen soon!

• The Library of Congress thing went well! Thank you again to the people who showed up to show support, you are all wonderful. I hear there is going to be a webcast of the thing going online some time, but I haven't heard any news of it. Maybe that is for the best!

• I am going to be in Japan from June 4th to June 15th! I'm probably going to have sporadic internet access, so apologies in advance if I'm super slow to reply during that time. There will be Johnny Wander updates as usual. I'm sorry, but this is going to be an extremely tightly-scheduled trip (I'm mostly visiting family), and I won't be able to go out of my way to meet up with anyone.

• We're moving right after I come back from Japan. This summer is going to be so hectic... I've realized, I haven't lived any place for longer than a year since high school. And my book collection is now significantly larger than it was while I was in high school. =_=

• I keep on forgetting, so I'll do it now. My pal (and yours) sheepyrai is doing an excellent recap blog of the Twilight series. As a person who has been trying to keep the series at an arm's length, it is both hilarious and mystifying.

I do not have so much art scanned, but I'll share a bit! I'll try to scan in more things before I leave!

I've again been reminded that I am no good at real media. Embarrassingly so. Also, I'm breaking up with crow quill pens. We are no longer an item.
Serona has eight cats. I will name them for you in a moment.

From the top and working from left to right:
Sam, Navi, Mortimer, Matthew, Gabrielle, Ernie, Sancho, Robin. Serona has a specific naming scheme that she likes to stick to. I'm sure you can guess it.
I was actually pretty fond of this picture, so I went and made a print of this version of it. (they'll be arriving on Wednesday! 8D) But not before dicking around extensively with it in Photoshop.

I'm also terribly fond of this version of the image! But I only came up with it after I'd ordered the print of the blue version. So I guess this one's only for the web.

Then I thought maybe I'd want to screen-print it somewhere down the line and converted the image into a 3-color design.

Then I went and made the whole thing CMYK.

Spoilers for the movie. Click for the entire (totally dumb) image.
So we saw the Star Trek movie. I-- OKAY I REALLY ENJOYED IT WHATEVER SHUT UP. As a childhood hardcore Star Wars nerd, I feel a little shamed. But the Star Wars franchise has kind of imploded with Many Terrible Things, so maybe I shouldn't feel so bad. ~~also uhura was super hot~~

Today's Johnny Wander is superficially about Star Trek, but really mostly about how we're little kids and like sugar cereal and light-up toys.

Oh gosh, wish me luck.

Tue, 12 May 2009 06:42:33 GMT

Hello I am back from TCAF which was wonderful and everyone who was there should pat themselves on the back for being such great people. The shindig at the Library of Congress happens today. @_@ L-look, there's my name on this government website. What's with that.

If you're planning on going, this is what the website is telling me about how to find myself:

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Lecture — Asian Pacific Month West Dining Room C, 6th floor James Madison building.
James Miho, Bauhaus illustrator, and Yuko Ota, Japanese comic illustrator and creator of Johnny Wander, present "Japanese Illustrators Then and Now." Contact: (202) 707-0698

I am told that there will be a webcast of the event, so if you miss it you can see a video of me stuttering into a microphone in front of a room full of people on the internet as well.

I think it has been a while.

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:43:38 GMT

Oh goodness, let me post some art. I've been sitting on most of this for somewhere between months and weeks. 8O

Hay artists! Have you been paying attention to the thing that harveyjames is doing over at his journal? It's fun, draw one of his cats-in-hats girls if you have time before Saturday.

I did this girl, then realized she'd already been drawn.

So I did another.

A little while back, rufftoon asked for fan art for her comic, Water Tribe. I'm not actually certain I've plugged this thing before, so I'll do it now. Water Tribe an epic what-if Avatar: The Last Airbender spinoff comic by one of the story board artists from the show. The story follows Admiral Zhao (the dude who was supposed to've been killed in the end of the first season) if he'd survived and was taken in by the Northern Water Tribe. The comic is a good 450 or so pages long, and is excellent. rufftoon is doing a small run of the comics, but I think they might only be available at San Diego Comic Con. (do not quote me on that)

I also drew Nauja as an ink test (I don't trust my brush anymore, I've pretty much decimated the thing), and decided to put some tone on it as well.

Some doodles from my tegaki. Ame.

Lars! I have never posted a picture of him before. He's a Ariesian Soleon -- the kind that North isn't.

Splashed some halfassed color on him in photoshop. Probably not his finalized coloring.

I am a terrifying nerd for myself. someone stop me.

AAAAAAA

Connecticon asked for some pictures of Ananth and myself for their con booklet. So I drew some terrible things.

The terrible thing I drew for myself. D8

elbales was sweet enough to send me a pack of artist trading cards a while back. I finally broke out some real media stuff and doodled out a few. I drew this one while listening to the new Decemberists CD? The drawing is kinda dumb and uninspired. Also, painted entirely in coffee and whatever that broth is that black beans make when you boil them (it makes a terribly pretty Payne's Gray color).

I tried to paint in watercolors for the first time in years and years and got frustrated and decimated the thing in acrylic. This was the unfortunate result. Sorry, Pythias.

Acrylic washes! My true love. I just finished Zelda: Wind Waker, and as irritating as I found DadBoat, he had the coolest design in the game (other than maybe Ganon). I did a Wind Waker comic over at Johnny Wander a bit back, with me and Pythias standing in. It's super, super dumb. I mean, really dumb.

Now that I've done some Artist Trading Cards, am I supposed to trade them? I'm so useless about these things.

And that half-naked lady I was promising! There is not much to oogle, apologies. I did some experimenting with textures and blowing out saturation. It was super fun. 8D It is Kaia and Dhio. Kaia's husband is a giant prehistoric dog. SWEET

... ... ...

SO, RECAP:
Draw a girl for harveyjames.

Read rufftoon's Water Tribe.

Oh gosh, there's so much more art that I left out. I need to share this stuff more often, I just have a bad tendency of getting all nervous and jittery about posting. :/

One final thing: It looks like I'm going to be following Ananth to do a Free Comicbook Day shindig at J&M Comics in Eldersburg, MD this upcoming weekend. (I'm 100% not important, I'm just going as moral support. If you stop by, we can hang out or whatever.) Also, I'll be at TCAF the weekend after that-- I don't have a table, but I hear I'm halfway recognizable in a crowd! If you see me, say hello!

Makin' things, makin' things

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:04:31 GMT

I'm alive! And I'm doin' some stuff!

I updated my etsy account several days ago and decided to make some new button designs.

North face

Janus Face

Forza Face
oh gosh it looks so Miss Monster-y, I'm sorry Mel ;_;

Tristain Face

And Now They Buttons.

~~These aren't on Etsy just yet, but I figure they'll go off as a set.~~ THEY'RE UP AT MY ETSY 8D On that note, Johnny Wander recently got a Big Cartel shop. Only Phoenix Down shirts right now, and I can't promise that we currently have full stock of all shirt sizes. There will be more, though--!

In the meantime, here's a thing to look forward to for the future.

... ... ...

One last thing, it looks like I'm going to be doing a panel at the Library of Congress on different generations of Asian-American Illustrators. It's kinda terrifying, but the people seem to be very nice and not mistaken over how completely not important I am. I guess if you're in the DC area on May 12 from 12 to 1, you can see me fidget in front of a crowd of librarians. >_@

... ... ...

I promise, I'll have real-er, better art in the near future! I just hate using my scanner, it barely communicates with the scan drivers these days. =_=

the sound of SI-I-LENCE

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:27:42 GMT

Hey fellas! If you read Johnny Wander at all, you might've noticed the news posts mentioning that my computer is dead. We're pretty certain the motherboard is fried, it's hanging out with Applecare until (hopefully) some time next week. I've been listening to CD's on the walkman I still have from middle school. It's a strange experience.

In the meantime, I'm probably going to be mostly silent on e-mail, livejournal, twitter, replying to J*W comments. I've basically only been commandeering Ananth's computer when I need to scan and color a comic.

There will be some cool stuff when I get back, I promise.

A Few Dumb Things

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:28:22 GMT

I'd forgotten, I posted that useless robot design over at Threadless! Feel free to vote on it if you are compelled, it's only up for two more days.

To buffer the post:

As requested, I inked the picture of North that I posted a while back. Then I colored it! I learned a few things, cool! Although, I'm pretty bad at winging viscous liquids like blood? It's cool, no worries, he's just leaking caramel out of his hand.

Out of curiosity, I did the "MAKE YOUR OWN BAND AND ALBUM COVER" meme and the results were kinda hilarious. So I put everything together in photoshop for your amusement.

Rules or whatever:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random" or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

YES YES YES WALL OF TEXT

... ... ...

It is strange that I am freaked out about posting too much on LiveJournal and having people hate me, but do not have that problem so much on twitter. Sometimes I post WIPs over there, but it is mostly my roommates and I yelling at each other.

Art or whatever!

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:42:34 GMT

GOD THIS IS SUCH A MISTAKE. I promise I will never put a twitter feed on LJ, that's just irritating I know.

Something like ten people have friended this journal in the past two or three days! Where are all you guys coming from! Did someone link me or do I just have a permeating presence? I am curious!

I am boring, so I will get on to the art.

This is the last of the art that I did from Setsucon. There was only that sour instant hotel coffee at the shindig, and I was embarrassingly going through caffeine withdrawal. Also, there is a vague 30 Rock reference.

There was so much pencil smudging in this one, I slapped a texture on it to make it look passable. Then I half-heartedly colored it. How is metal effects formed? No one can be sure.

OH YEAH, I guess this is my Valentine's Day picture? It was done in time for Valentine's, but I always feel weird posting one thing at a time. Like I'm wasting your guys' time or something. Inspired by that music video that Everyone's-Already-Seen, but I will link it here anyway. ~~I take secret pleasure in how Sid's underwear is half coming off 8D~~

I realized that bunny ears look kinda like a nimbus! I guess that's neither here nor there.
Ananth says he looks like "Canti" from FLCL, but I'm actually not really familiar with the character... I saw the first episode back when I was in high school... It's one of those things I should probably sit down and watch.

I did this as kinda an exercise, then Ananth told me I should color it. So I did! It was pretty fun. It might get submitted to threadless?

PUT THAT AWAY, RINA.

... ... ...

I've been trying to teach myself how to use ink with a brush. I used a brush to do the latest J*W and I think it came out pretty okay? +1 TO INDIE CRED!

[EDIT:]

FRONT PAGE OF TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO SAVE THE PRESIDENT

Art post, then runnin' to Katsucon

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:28:55 GMT

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while. Ananth and I are headed down to Katsucon soon, so I'll post this as quickly as I can.

The multicultural squad, or whatever Conrad called them. >:/ I drew this at Setsucon a while back and finally got around to coloring it. I'm not great at drawing guys, b-but maybe I will be some day--!! WHO KNOWS

ROLL CALL from the top left corner: Cirran, Dhio (Jack), Taro, Serik, Sid, Noa, North, Pythias, Gray.

this is terrible and I don't know why I'm posting it. Back at Setsucon, I forgot my pencil case so was drawing with a blue pen. I later stole a pencil from Chris. But there's Forza! AWW WHO'S A GOOD KITTY

Speaking of Chris, a while back he asked Ananth and myself to do some surfboard designs for his new book. I'm so five-out-of-ten on these, but I did them in a rush, and he liked them, so that's a plus. :D

'Sup Pythias. I forgot your spines there, sorry.

More things I drew at Setsucon. (I think there was more that I scanned, but forgot to shrink it. Next time!) ZEE ♥

I finally dove into Pose Maniacs! Wow, what a great tool.
I've been trying to design North's feet practically -- they're mostly based off an emu's feet right now. I need to draw some Soleon studies, their anatomy is so wonky.
I might ink this later --

A warmup sketch I did off my PoseFile book. I am trying to form a better relationship with my brush ... IT IS DIFFICULT. Things look better when I use a brush, but it also takes about 10x as long. I love how organic the lines look as opposed to the crow quill-- it probably suits my personality more-- but I am also a stickler for control. BLEURG

I have a bit of time between projects right now, I'll be spending some of it practicing not being awful.

... ... ...

So hey, if you're at Katsucon today, I'll be hanging at the Applegeeks table ~~flirting with Jess~~ folding t-shirts or whatever. We will have Phoenix Down shirts if you want them.

I should mention, at NYCC last weekend (o-oh yeah, I was there too), Ananth and George and I wound up chilling with the Oni Press dudes for a bit. Charlie (who is a fantastic photographer with a KILLER CAMERA) took some great photos of the weekend. Check out his flickr! i-it is like we are in a movie

And then DC collapsed upon itself

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:08:07 GMT

OH, so the lot of us went to inauguration on Tuesday! It took me a good two days for my body to get over standing in the cold for so long, and I spent all yesterday doing the final filler comic for Applegeeks, apologies that I didn't get these up sooner.

Ananth, John, and Conrad

Ananth, Conrad, and WHAT, WHAT IS THAT FACE

It was something like 10am and it already looked like this.

I think this was the one decent photo I took? I'm a solid foot shorter than John, so he took most of the photos.

Biden was arriving, so everyone was waving their Obama-themed flags 8D

The man of the hour!

You can't really see the snipers on the roofs, but there I counted at least six from where I was standing. Crazy stuff. You can see how far away we were from the jumbotron, hahaha.

I could not believe that there were people taking video of the jumbotron! But there a lot of them!

I love this shot. Good job, John!

After the actual swearing in, everyone was dispersing to head towards the presidential parade, which we wound up skipping.

Photographers standing on top of the portapotties!

I think that's one of the Smithsonians on the left there? I love the WRONG WAY sign with the bee swarms of people. You can see some marines(?) directing traffic over on the right.

That dude in the middle of the photo. How intense.

Can't have a party without party poopers! They were raining down fire and brimstone and largely ignored. We were disappointed that they didn't go the extra mile to get a god-themed vanity plate.

... ... ...

I was at Setsucon this past weekend and drew a lot of things! I will scan them in later.

My dad is hilarious sometimes

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:59:14 GMT

Me: Hello?
My Dad: I NEED YOUR FAVOR.
Me: You need a favor from me?
My Dad: I NEED YOU TO DRAW A PICTURE.
Me: Okay, I can do that.
My Dad: OF A MONKEY.
Me: Okay.
My Dad: RIDING A DEER.
Me: Sure.
My Dad: CARRYING A JAPANESE FLAG.
Me: Okay..
My Dad: ... BEING CHASED BY A BAD MONKEY -- YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT REALLY BAD
Me: Uh-- okay
My Dad: AND IT HAS TO BE CARRYING A BASEBALL BAT
Me: A monkey carrying a Japanese flag, riding a deer, being chased by a bad monkey, carrying a baseball bat.
My Dad: YES.

My dad is going back to Japan and will be visiting an old friend of his from middle school, who lives in Nara now (Nara is famous for its deer shrine -- I've been there once, it's not as cool as it sounds). Apparently back in middle school this guy had a nickname 'monkey' (or probably 'saru' or whatever). My dad is the "REALLY BAD MONKEY," he was a bad seed when he was a kid, also he liked baseball.

My dad's something like 68 now, how is he still in touch with people from middle school. And why does he still act like he hasn't aged since then. XD

WHAT THIS IS STUPID

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:15:59 GMT

I should preface this by saying that today in the New York Times Dining section, there's a lengthy article about eating squirrels. *THUMBS UP*

I started writing this entry last night when I heard a huge crack and suddenly all the power went down in the building-- a large branch had dropped on the power line. Haha, if it's not the water going out in this place, it's the electricity.

Goodness, it's been a while. Sorry, I'm still doing that if-it-doesn't-have-pictures-don't-post-it-publicly thing. Hope your respective New Years went well! My family did its usual traditional feast shindig, and it was wonderful. I feel odd, it seems like I'm doing art constantly but don't have anything to publicly show for it. There's J*W, I did some stuff for the Applegeeks DarkHorse book that I can't show, there's other comic work stuff that I can't show, O-OH I didn't mention that I'm subbing for Hawk at AG for the month... I, ah, I'm not really all that familiar with the characters so I'm going off Ananth's original descriptions of his characters which isn't really how Hawk draws them. A few fans are complaining that they can't recognize people. What can I do, I guess. ._. no-but-seriously it's not a big thing.

So a few days ago, nedroidcomics did this awesome thing on his journal which naturally turned into a meme. I chimed in a few times. >_>

The thing is, that day I was stuck at Ananth's folks' place waiting for my old car's carcass (ah, pun not intended) to be picked up for donation. It was supposed to be picked up at or before 10. It was picked up after 3. So I had this indeterminate chunk of time to wait with the knowledge that the tow truck would come at any minute. So I made this atrocity.

(original by Artemisia Gentileschi, it's easily one of my favorite paintings)

Seriously, go through the comments in the entry, they're all gems. XD

I feel weird posting only o3o faces, so here is the latest applegeeks comic without the text:

And a doodle of a cat on my ink test page:

art and other useless things

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:04:38 GMT

BEFORE I GO ON, THIS NEEDS TO BE SHARED. The lot of us went to the mall yesterday primarily so we could go into Hot Topic and look for it ~~so I could give it to Megan for Christmas and ensure she never speaks to me again.~~ (thank you iatro XD )

So, I was thinking some about the god system for that one world I have whose gods I draw a lot. All of the gods are self-realized prehistoric animals (ojeez it sounds so stupid when it's said out of context). In any case, this is what Dhio actually looks like. He's mostly based off a Hyaenodon gigas. (they had really big faces ♥ )

I should mention that I'm no good at BSing weird positions for animals, or, y'know, anything.

Doggyface, from Tegaki. The teeth weren't big enough in the previous picture, I fixed that.

TEGAKI HAS OPACITY NOW? CRAZY

I love you, North <33

You sure do, buddy.

SO THERE WAS ALL THIS ACE ATTORNEY CRAP FROM FOREVER AGO ON TEGAKI THAT I'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT? It's all really dumb, apologies in advance.

conrad complained that he hadn't seen these guys yet so apologies if you've already seen them

It's over, you can come back now.

I've been dicking around with brush pen as much as possible lately, we are now on vague speaking terms.

GOD PLEASE SOMEONE PAY US TO DO THIS SERIES I WANT TO DRAW THESE KIDS ALL THE TIME D*8

... ... ...

CLOSING REMARKS: While we were at the mall, I had to leave the Under Armour store because I was laughing so hard I started crying.

[EDIT] Today's Johnny Wander is super Yotsuba. I can't say I'm not proud.

CHILD'S PLAY and other things

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:33:21 GMT

This year, I was asked to join in with a Webcomic Holiday Card Fundraiser for Child's Play, so I drew a thing. You can buy these guys bundled with cards done by people more popular than I am. XD

Er, you probably don't know Joannah and Caroline. (I didn't feel comfortable drawing pictures of myself and my roommates for the card...) Hopefully that will be remedied soon.

We went to the zoo a few weeks ago and I forgot I drew these. LET ME SAY NOW THAT RED PANDAS LOVE TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN.

Ah, those last two weren't from the zoo. I think I drew that at a convention. Hopefully the gal on the right will get her moment in the spotlight too?

OH MAN GOTS TO GET COOKIN' FOR HAMSGIVING 8D

I really should be drawing comics right now

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:53:38 GMT

We have this totally awesome paper monster face taped on our front door from Halloween. We put it there just before Halloween as a hopeful invitation to trick-or-treaters to knock on our door. Unfortunately, there is a Real Neighborhood with Real Houses right next to our shoddy apartment complex, and all of the kids went over there.

Perfect transcription of neighbor's comments directly outside our door from Just Now:

"And like, check out our neighbor's door. It's like, what's the point."

Whatever, ladies. Just wait until we have our construction paper hand-turkeys out there, then you'll see.

... ... ...

In any case.

I had this silly idea for an easy artistic/writing meme today. Character Post Secret. Write/draw out secrets from your characters in a Post Secret style. It doesn't really matter if it entirely touches the heart at whatever they're feeling, you can't get the whole story with a real Post Secret message, either. Just, y'know, make it as though they'd made it.

... ... ...

Eldred familyyy
I've been wanting to do a sexy pinup of the two of them like this for a long time. But this is not that time and also not that pinup. It will be much sexier when I do get to it.

... ... ...

And to further implicate me of SHAMING NERDLYNESS, Ananth recently picked up the first volume of Tezuka's Black Jack and I'm hooked. The guy was House before House was House and probably a good majority of the inspiration for Ginko from Mushishi. I've been spending my evenings trying to find episodes of the many animes that were based on the books. If you like really silly medical dramas about badass dudes who can't dress themselves properly, this may be the series for you.

INTERNET BUSINESS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:00:27 GMT

Due to a mix of popular demand and peer pressure, the etsy store has been restocked and updated! 8D Now with international shipping!

There are pin/magnet sets again, new prints and bookmarks, and another thing Ananth and I are giving a shot at: We are now taking preorders for the Phoenix Down shirt. A lot of people have been asking about them and we're going ahead and doing a small, limited run. The preorder window is probably going to last about a week to a week and a half? We're going to try to get the orders out before Christmas.

(you might remember, this design.)

In other news, I did a pinup for Applegeeks on Thursday or so? I think it came out pretty rad!

Ananth asked for a mock band/fashion pinup sketch with the female cast and gave me some clothing ideas. I, ah, might've gone overboard? Afterwards, he made a wallpaper out of it (which is currently both of our desktop wallpapers XD ), which you can grab over here if you want!

... ... ...

I got an etsy note the other day from a woman whose husband was named after the original Adama from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series. SO ADORABLE. ♥_♥

Blargl blargl art

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:05:35 GMT

Thank you to everyone who bought stuff from the Etsy store! :D I sent out all of the pin sets yesterday except for one, whose payment hadn't gone through yet. I'll be replenishing the stock some time at the beginning of the week. Since I have the store set up, is there anything you would be interested in seeing from me? I mean, there isn't much I can do in bulk -- I don't have amazing screen-printing skills nor can I make cool things with yarn, and I don't have the time to put together things like small paintings at the moment. I have some leftover oversized postcard prints on hand, and the bookmarks, but that's really about it. I'd like to do small t-shirt runs in the future, but that's a bit off in the distance. Thoughts?

Since I seem to be plugging other things, I should mention that there's a livejournal RSS feed set up for that comic I'm doing these days. (thank you again, Mal. :D )

I don't have much impressive art to share, I'm sorry. All of my effort has been going into work-related stuff these days. Or that aforementioned online comic. I'll work harder in the future!

So, when I use the crow quill, I try to do a warmup doodle before I ink something Actually Important? I've started taking requests from Ananth -- he specifically requested Sid in a soccer jersey, because "The ladies love a man in a soccer jersey." In his case, it's pretty true.

More ink warmups, I threw that construction paper scan in the background. I realized I'd never drawn a sleeping maw before. Corrected! Hay Pythias, 'sup.

Another warmup doodle -- further implicating me of my unhealthy obsession with beatonna. To my credit, I did this one right before SPX, and I was pretty excited over the prospect of meeting her.

Last of the ink warmups. An Aresian Soleon, but she's lookin' kinda scraggly. Usually they're meatier than that. Also: kitty.

I got a sable brush? I'm pretty miserable at using it. ._.

I think I was at a bar with my roommates or something. I drew some fat animals to keep myself from getting too nervous around all the strange people.

A silly dragon I drew on a coaster! I actually did this during Bryan Lee O'Malley's panel at SPX -- not out of boredom, but because they put pens and paper in front of every seat in the room and I seriously could not help myself.

The fellas at Anime USA asked me for a bio picture, so I doodled one up. It looks more like me than usual to make sure that people didn't think I was a boy.

It's over!

I do not think I can properly explain in words how much I want to own this shirt.

I made a thing!

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:24:00 GMT

I had all these buttons left over from con season, so finally Ananth got on my case to make an Etsy store. If you fellas want some buttons and/or magnets, I might be a person to buy them from!

http://aidosaur.etsy.com

including but not limited to those dang BSG buttons

I'll eventually put some other designs and maybe prints or eventually maybe paintings up? But that day is not today. We'll see how this works out! :D

I HAVE A WEBCOMIC AGAIN

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:02:10 GMT

So hey, one of the many private projects I have going went live today! Essentially, Ananth and I are doing eclectic journal comics. For the time being. Super super thanks to Conrad, who practically pulled an all-nighter making our terrible website a reality.

>> JOHNNY WANDER <<
tuesdays and thursdays

(check out the archives, there's a few comics in there)

This is all coming just in time for Anime USA this upcoming weekend, which for some reason I am a guest at. I'll be selling nearly the same stuff I was selling at Otakon, and I'll be just as timid about it.

SPXXX

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:34:34 GMT

I, ah, should've mentioned: SPX is this weekend. The shindig's right down the road from our apartment and we all have weekend passes. Anyone also attending/selling? I would like to see you guys!

I did some small paintings to give to a few of my Favorite Artists From the Internet. I scanned them in before I handed them off.

Fat Napoleon atop Fat Pony for beatonna -- she drew Teddy Roosevelt for me! :D
I was mostly of the mindset that if East Coast US people are super nice to her, she will do more East Coast US conventions and I will have another chance to woo her heart. Word on the street is that she lives in Toronto now, so maybe that is not so far fetched.

Salamander for the lovely Hope Larson. She's actually given Ananth and me some fantastic advice in the past and we've never really gotten a chance to properly thank her. I took some liberties to make Salamander look a bit more like a salamander, I hope she didn't mind.

And Kim Pine for Bryan Lee O'Malley. As anyone can tell you, our apartment is pretty much a small shrine to Scott Pilgrim, so it was only fair.

Painting is hard! D:

GUYS CHECK OUT MY HOT NEW ICON

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:49:35 GMT

(icon made from beatonna's comics-- you need to read them if you haven't)

S-sorry, I wanted to have this done for the weekend, but there was more artstuff than I'd anticipated. Watch out if you have a slow connection, there's a lot of images here.

I completely forgot, I went to the Smithsonian Natural History museum in back in March and doodled a bunch! I found the sketchbook and scanned in some of the less terrible pages.

Dinosauurrrssss

I think this was from around Otakon? Playing dress-up with Serona-- she seems to like pinks and browns. I've started putting that chop from the Forza picture on some of my finished pictures, I-- I THINK IT MAKES EVERYTHING LOOK REALLY COOL (it also gives me street cred for being a Real Life Japanese Person XD )

Ananth requested that I color this one, I had no idea what to do with it. I wound up not liking the colors, so I blew the whole thing out. XD (NOW YOU KNOW THE PROCESS)

n-no questions about her conveniently missing hand.

An Almas and Joannah, Rina, and Serona drawn in a Scott Pilgrim Book 1-ish style. Sh-shut up, I can stop nerding any time I want.

Joannah with wonky legs and Some Chick, I've Never Seen Her Before In My Life.

I recently got some new bristol and needed to do some ink tests before I worked on anything Actually Important. A maw and Joannah.

I... I just really like dressing up girls. ._. *Probably Not Gay Maybe*

Colored version of the previous inkdoodle. (note the infamous Brown Paper Bag Scan!) I mentioned it in the comments before, but I'll mention it here: when I'm coloring something that has lots of stray pencil lines, instead of cleaning it up manually I'll occasionally drop it on a texture instead. It's kinda lazy, but it also saves a lot of time.

FFFDFSGS, I LOVE THOSE TWO :X

Josephine! I haven't drawn her in a long time. I doodled this out to figure what she looks like underneath her clothing (since she's supposed to be a dandelion seed). It... still makes no sense to me, I pretty much have no idea what's going on with her body. >_> (this was dropped onto a scanned piece of fading yellow construction paper)

BLOOMERS ♥

Another character I Really Shouldn't Be Talking About! :D Cool! (likewise with the construction paper texture)

Story time!

So, this fellow named Thomas Herpich did this beautiful illustration for the New York Times Dining section yesterday. (You can see it here on the NYT site for the time being) I went NUTS. This guy does gorgeous stuff and has beautiful pallets and pencil lines.

I have a shaky relationship with real pencils-- I've been drawing solely with mechanical pencils since high school. So, ah, I gave it another shot? I'm really 5 out of 10 on how everything turned out, but it was cool to work with different hardnesses and strokes again. BUT REAL PENCIL SMUDGES SO EASILY BARGL

I drew a picture of Pythias reclining underneath a tree about 8 years ago. It was pretty terrible, mostly because I was like 14 or 15 years old and only really knew how to draw dragons. I dug out the old image file and gave it another shot yesterday. This one's better, at least. XD (n-no, I'm not going to share the original. I know it's on the internet somewhere, you can go digging if you're really curious)

brush pennnn

Fifteen minutes and a ballpoint pen! MAWS MAWS MAWS MAWS

OH HAY, thank you to the people who made Spore Maws and shared them with me! XD It makes me giddy to see my critters around. :D

Gave a shot at emulating old-style Tarot cards. I wish I hadn't drawn this in my sketchbook, the paper is really poor quality and it can't take ink very well. :/ Otherwise, I would've inked it as well.

Forza's name and aspects of his appearance are based heavily on the Strength card, which I've also always associated with Pythias. Now you know!

I think the texture here was also the scan of the construction paper.

OH OH OH, I forgot about this-- kiey posted a scan of the sketch I did for him at CTcon. He asked for Toph, but I couldn't really remember what she looked like or what her costume design was? I, ah, I think I did okay, all things considered.

Sorry for not asking permission to yoink, Kiey >_>

All our transactions are completed, so I'm going to assume it's safe to post this. :D A commission I did for ksilebo of a hexadragon. I'm going to say this preemptively: I don't usually take commissions unless under very special circumstances.

I hope it's okay I'm posting this, tell me if you want it taken down, Ksilebo! :D

I also forgot about this one--! My pal Mike has been working on a new comic, Eros Inc.. I TOTALLY DIG IT, so I drew his protagonist, Mot. :D She's adorably deadpan.

... ... ...

Argh, I'm so sorry to do this, but I'm going to turn off anonymous posting for a bit. Spam bots have been getting onto my journal lately, hopefully this'll dissuade them. :/ I'll turn it back on in a few weeks and see if it gets any better.

I just turned on the 'human testing' option. It'll make things harder for anon commenters, but hopefully this'll get rid of the spam bots.

[EDIT] ~~WAUGH, I think I broke the server ;_; kreggan help mee~~ Ee, fixed! :DD

I'm not dead! D:

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:19:37 GMT

I realized I've only been making friends-locked entries lately. S-sorry, the only interesting stuff I've had to talk about lately have been work-related (I make a point of never publicly talking about any job), various-private-project-related (one of which will hopefully be less private after next week-ish?), or have no art (I don't like to make public non-art posts). I didn't realize that anyone even cared until I got a sad comment from redhotpangalin the other day. (sorry I didn't mean to leave... ;_; also, pangolins are pretty great.)

I spent yesterday evening scanning in a bit of art from the past month or so, but I'd like to splash some color on some of it before I go posting the lot. Maybe over the weekend?

In the meantime, I colored something! As in colored-colored something. This hasn't happened in months.

Over the weekend I said "HEY, I REALLY WANT TO DRAW FORZA."

So I did.
(I realize he looks more like a bull than a lion these days.)

Then I went and spent the past two days coloring him in my free time.

I love his big dumb face and his tiny dog-feet with their little glowy pads <3

I've never really tried to try and put semi-realistic colors on live fire/embers, so this was kind of a challenge. ~~Especially considering I was too lazy to find reference.~~ The composition wound up having a very Asian feel and movement, so I brushed out a fake chop for myself (I have a kinda boring looking name) and stuck it in the corner there. Somewhere at my parents house I have a real chop, but it's a bit childish looking. Some day maybe I'll commission a new one.
(Protip: about a year ago, I scanned in a paper bag. You would not believe the mileage I've gotten out of this one texture.)

detail. (I have an intense love for the film grain filter.)

... ... ...

I unfortunately do not have Leopard installed on my computer, so I can't run Spore. BUT for a short period of time at the beginning of summer I was living with yenian (hi, Mike!), who has a gaming PC on which I played the hell out of Portal and the free version of the Spore creature creator.

He just got a full version of Spore, AND HAS BEEN KILLED REPEATEDLY BY TRIBES OF MAWS AND DEWINS AHAHAHAHAHAHA

Youtube links: tribe of silly looking dewins || getting killed by maws
(they all have ghetto'd out wings because it was the free version and wings were not available)

JANUS 8D. I only figured out how to make digigrade legs much later, so his legs are all wonky in an attempt to make them look superficially digigrade-ish.

DEWIN (that species that Pythias is). Turned out pretty okay despite the lack of wings!

MAW AHAHAHAHA oh man I love how doofy they look XD They are seriously my favorite thing that I made.

Thanks for the screenshots and the video uploads, Mike! :D

STUFF I'M SELLIN' AT OTAKON

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:28:57 GMT

PREPARE TO BE MILDLY UNDERWHELMED

MY DISPLAY
Comprised of: one cookie sheet, one cute knee sock, one DVD display stand, one dry erase board bought from CVS for $1

I have button and magnet versions of everything. Depending on what stock I have leftover, I might sell the surplus online...? I mean, the Adama joke won't last through November.

The BSG buttons I wound up making. Again, let me ask that no one spoil anything in the comments. D: AND IF I GET ANY SPOILERS AT THE CON I WILL BE SO DANG SAD

The other buttons I wound up making. (most all based on old t-shirt designs I did)

I found this old faux-indigo dyed fabric I bought a few years ago with hiragana characters on it, and realized they looked pretty great on the 1.25" buttons. Most have no mylar on top, which makes them look really awesome and have a cool texture, but probably less durable.

I'm pretty thrilled with these guys.

OH MAN, NEW BUSINESS CARDS. I've never had full-color business cards, let alone double-sided glossy ones. OH MAN, SATURATION AND WEIRD LOOKIN' BIRDS YESSS

The One Single Fanart Print I produced this year. This was a doodle I did nearly a year ago that Ananth found and insisted I finish. So I did. Breeeech

The other two prints I'll be selling this year can be found here and here. I've been wanting to do a bookmark of the cats fighting for nearly a year now, and the Aesop thing I wanted to do for myself because I can't imagine much of a market for them at an anime convention. XD

Hawk put some pictures up of me from Otakon. If you're lookin' for me in the artist alley, I more-or-less look like this. (Plus or minus 10% awkward.)

... ... ...

HOW SLEEPY AM I

SO SLEEPY

I OBVIOUSLY CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING SERIOUSLY

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:38:41 GMT

OH MAN HI PEOPLE WHO WERE AT CONNECTICON IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU! :D Sorry if you were looking for me, I was holed up in the hotel room doing work for most of the con. S--sorry I didn't put anything up publicly about my going, I mostly helped at Ananth's table when I was at the convention, and I knew I wasn't going to have much of a presence. I will be at Otakon though! And for some reason I have a table, that's suprising!

On a selling-things-at-Otakon note, we've been watching Battlestar Galactica lately at the apartment, and we're up to the beginning of the third season. (p-please don't spoil anything in the comments ;_; ) I've finally put those buttons together that I've been itching to do. Feel like helpin' a gal out?

alternate variation of the first button. Any thoughts on what I should change? Any preference of button?

[ETA: requests/changes]

psychoprog suggested something akin to this. I'm down. XD

Better version of the 'space makeouts' button.

I have every intention of printing the 'space makeouts' button, just because I want it for myself. I might put ADAMA'08 at the bottom of that one because that is the joke. I'm also thinking of making a plain button with just the battlestar/obama terrible hybrid logo? What do you guys think?

Sorry for the bizarre sizing, these were periodically taken screencaps I took from illustrator. I'M GETTING ALONG WITH ILLUSTRATOR, THAT'S NEW

... ... ...

I'll do a post with the prints I'm doing for Otakon later. XD I can't promise much. :/

GUYS GUYS DON'T RUIN THE END OF AVATAR FOR ME

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:37:27 GMT

Hey, guess who has an internet connection again! :D

The move (oh yeah, we moved-- I think I failed to mention that one) went pretty terrible and rocky, but we (and the tomato plants!) made it! We're more or less settled into the new apartment. I might friends-only post the new address, if you guys want it for non-creepy purposes.

There's not much to mention from the past month or so that I'm really at liberty to mention. Although my paid account apparently ran out, so I'm down to six random icons and my journal doesn't have its cool maw background anymore. =_= If someone wants to pay for a year-plus-icons, I'll draw you an icon...?

Also, this happened:

AHAHAHA you guys are awesome. XDD

My scanner's pretty busted until I figure out how to force it not to run through Rosetta, so it's been hard to scan things in. I do have some art though, if you're into that kinda thing.

That have-a-conversation-with-your-younger-self comic thing that Katie Beaton came up with. I was late-and-not-even-fashionably-late to the party, but I figured I'd share my contribution. It isn't all that clever, and you won't get it unless you know who Pythias is.

Fun fact: I used to draw him in a blue polo shirt all the time. Now all he gets are grandpa sweaters. Sorry, man.

Height Chart of Randomly Chosen Characters! I mostly wanted to draw Pythias and North (who never goes by his first name) next to each other. Because I somehow got two Really Tall Dudes with Long Red Hair and it humored me.

North is real lanky in all forms. He also has Zhao-chops. (It was hard to make him look like his beast form!)

Kaia (Kaijyu, whichever), Dhio, and North: two gods and the captain of the guard of their temple. (And Círran laughing at them) I'd love to do a comic about them. If I had an OT3, it'd probably be them. <33

Next page of that Alphabet Meme. Here, let me tell you about my various level-10 barbarians.

M: Maw (species). Those stupid demon crows that I draw all over everything. They don't have much of a purpose, I just like to draw them and they seem to freak people out. They have long tongues and tiny human hands and like to eat bugs and make murmbling sounds.

N: North. North's full name is Ajax North, but I just wanted to have the pleasure of having a character named Ajax without ever having to call a character Ajax. He's a Coronal Soleon-- Soleons are kind of like the Altaedean version of a gryphon. (There are two subspecies, the Coronal and Ariesians-- Ariesians are larger and have ram-like horns.) North is the quiet captain of the guard of main Eastern temple, which is also a moderately large city. He is easily flustered by ladies.
He's supposed to wear clothing/armor, but I like to show off his crazy anatomy as much as possible.

O: Oberon. One of my older characters who I never drew all that much. Oberon is kinda the code-name for the insane clone of a dead god. Ah-- I'd go on, but this sounds real dumb when it's said out loud and out of context, so I'm going to end this one here.

P: Pythias Eldred. Hey, this guy looks familiar. It's that one dude I draw a lot. Pythias is the son of Illia (who was 'I'), the husband of Kosame (who was 'K'), and the father of Quetzal (who is 'Q.') He's really tall, is also a fire dragon, and has also been around for kinda-forever. He's not such a bad guy once you get to know him.

Q: Quetzal Eldred. Quetzal is the daughter of Kosame and Pythias, and Erros' Best Friend In Crime. Depending on the timeline you're looking at, she has a son and a missing fiancé. She's pretty much smarter than everyone, and has never dated anyone taller than her.

R: Riana Agalia. Rina is an adorable slacker-punk. Her hobbies include showing off her tattoos and beating up boys.

I'll work on this one more when I have time between projects. :D

... ... ...

That's about all I got. Here, let me quickly reiterate everything everyone's been saying on LiveJournal: Wall-E, Dark Knight, Dr. Horrible= very yes.