End of a Semester

At 11:59 P.M. Pacific time tonight, this semester is officially over! It has been a great ride and I learned a ton, but I am excited for a nice long winter break. Bring on the Christmas cheer!

Last assignment I worked on for this semester: A revamped "Pull and Be Pulled" animation...now with a butt crack! Enjoy.

Hogan

Here is Hogan. He is property of the Academy of Art University as well as my model to toy with. I think I was suppose to do a "normal" walk cycle for homework, but I came up with this. I think it's kind of normal. This is probably how I walk when it's time to do homework or laundry or sleep. Considering that it's almost always time for one of those three things at any given time, I'm probably ALWAYS walking like this...making it a very normal walk...for me...and zombies.

Corel

I have decided I am going to obtain Corel Painter 11 or whatever version it's on now. My awesome dad just bought a Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet and it came with Corel Painter Essentials 4 which I have been having a blast with while visiting for the holidays. Yes, it is similar to Adobe Photoshop in that it is digital painting, but Corel actually makes it FEEL like painting, the strokes you make LOOK like pencil marks, and it is just satisfying as a whole.

Corel Doodle funness!!!

Last 2D assignments of the semester

Previously just a pose test, this animation was a ton of fun to animate. It would have been even MORE fun if I hadn't put it off until tonight. I don't mean to procrastinate, honestly! Ok, sometimes I do, but I actually have an excuse this week. My computer pretty much died from some strange virus. I had to reformat it, losing all my wonderful stuff. Thank goodness I had an external hard drive full of my important files already! So yeah...anyway...I spent 3 days with practically no sleep trying to remedy my computer and install all the programs I need back onto it. One of the three days was very emotional because I continually got the blue screen of death, even after reformatting the darn machine. It was no fun. But, alas, after the battle of girl and machine, I won out....at least for now. I'm still paranoid my computer will crap out again just to spite me, ha. Silly technology. We share a complicated love/hate relationship.

Anyway, back to the animation stuff. Here is the animated "lifting groceries" assignment that I promised a week or two ago. Sorry for the delay!


And here, my friends, is the very last 2D assignment of the semester for me. It is a walk cycle. The character is a hunchback werewolf kind of dude. I like it very much, but there are a few things I'm sure the teacher will say need to change. Feedback is good even when it doesn't make me happy at the time. I need to improve.

Awesome Life Drawing Resource

Today I discovered a wonderful resource for practicing life drawing, warming-up before getting into a project, of even studying different animals. (Thank you Gerald_Chong for the links!)

Seriously, check it out! You decide how long you want a picture to remain on screen before going to a new one 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes...there are lots of options. I am totally in love with it and I think you will be too (if you like to draw and improve that is).

Humans: http://pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html
(warning: there are nude images)

Animals: http://pixelovely.com/tools/animalgesture.html


Here are some of the sketches I did from these sites. I tried 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and 2 minutes. 30 seconds was my favorite overall, but when I came to a great pose or picture I wished I had it on the 2 minute setting.

Lifting Groceries - Pose Test

It doesn't look like much now...but next week it will be EPIC!! (hopefully!)

Sorry about that last post!

It was pretty crazy. I was so tired I hardly even remember writing it. From now on I think I should take some advice and avoid blogging while drinking...I mean, while being super tired and in a seemingly drunken state.......you know what I mean...I hope.

Anyway, after reflecting on my fatigued vomit of words from the other night, I got to thinking of all the embarrassing moments people experience in their lives. Sure, some people have more embarrassing moments than others, but I can't imagine anyone having NO embarrassing moments. One thing I have always worried about is being caught in a most vulnerable state...in my birthday suit! I wonder who HASN'T had that dream where they go to school naked or without pants or something.

The irony of my "being caught without certain articles of clothing" fear is that I have never been walked in on like that, but I have walked in on other people not expecting company! I think it scarred me, as well as the victims of my inability to knock, for life. Images of them won't leave my head! ...See?? I even draw the horror when I let my subconscious take hold.

I Copied this Post From My Deviantart Page

How do you like the title of my post? I think it's lovely. It's funny because what I am typing right now wasn't copied from my deviantart page. I hope that doesn't make me a liar because that would make me sad. Just to be safe, I'll stop typing and paste the copied stuff from deviantart now. Enjoy the briefness:

"I bought some new books the other day. They are full of beautiful landscapes and miraculous colors. They make me want to improve my landscape painting skills. I haven't slept in 2 days. I'm going to post this on my blog now. Exactly. Like. This.

...and then time for sleep and getting back to normal. (and eating less cake...it makes me weirder than usual)"

Post-Apocolyptic Design

This is my 95th post!

Yesterday I got a really cool little gem in the mail - my smudge guard glove!
It makes me look like a ninja and I love it. I'm hoping it'll help keep my tablet clean and prevent the sticky sweat that makes it harder to draw. We shall see soon enough!

Also I got Camtasia Studio 7 in the mail the other day so I should be posting some time lapse videos soon!

And lastly...here is a Fifth Element/Fallout inspired design I finished this morning.

UFO's Explained!

All those UFO's people are seeing? Yeah, they are really dinosaurs.

I have had my tablet for a little over 24 hours and have already just about destroyed a pen nib! I wonder if I said that in my last post....I haven't slept much since I got the thing. Maybe I should take a break from it, but it's so darn enjoyable!!

New Tablet, Yay!

I got my new Intuos4 wireless tablet today! At first I thought I couldn't use it until I got my bluetooth adapter, but it also works as a plug in tablet so I was able to use it as soon as I realized that little fact. Once it was up and running, I couldn't stop drawing! Ah, I drew so much junk that doesn't even look like anything...lines, scribbles, squiggles, dots, and circles....lots of circles. Do you think I draw circles more than anything because I think in circles? Maybe it's because circles remind me of cookies. Who knows. Anyway, I had a ton of fun and didn't even realize it was nearing 5am until I took a blog break. Out of the mess of doodles I have one drawing that actually looks semi-polished. It's a ladybug ready for the beach! :D

...or is it a lovebug on her second birthday thinking of how much she loves her mommy and daddy and wondering where her favorite doll with curly blond hair and dimples is?

Maybe it's both!

Pull and be Pulled

The assignment was to create a pose test demonstrating the animation concept of "pull and be pulled," however it is possible that I may have animated it a bit more than I should have. The completed smooth animation is to be finished and turned in by next week...so we shall see the difference then.

Crimson Clouds

I love to look at the sky. Maybe you do too?



Ok it's not really a sky...just a drawing of a sky. I imagine it would look lovely as a large oil painting over a comfy sofa.

I was trying to do a pose test for homework in TV Paint animation software, and I noticed some paintbrush tools! So, as usual, I found a way to get distracted from what I was doing. It was fun though! So yeah, I still have a ton of homework to do, but at least I had fun not doing it. ...if that makes sense.

:D


...and like in many of my posts it's nearly 4 A.M. and I'm starting to ramble. Time for bed and hopefully for getting back on normal people hours...schedule...ness.

It's Alive!!!

I am loving animation so far! We haven't gotten into anything complicated yet though, so we'll see how long I love it for. ;)
(Hopefully I'll love it FOREVER!)

Here is some homework that is due tonight. A heavy ball with a tail falling from an invisible cliff. I call it Tenta-tail.



This one is a bouncy ball with a mouse-like tail.



Here's another one that I had alot of fun with! The assignment was to make a ball come to life or have personality. I have always been scared of storms so I guess that's where the inspiration came from. They are awesome and beautiful but scaaary!!!

Weekend of Fun-ness

What a weekend so far. It's 3am and I'm still awake (but about to pass out!). Just wanted to throw up a new work in progress...yet another Stracraft inspired digital doodle. This time we have a Protoss unit about to do something malicious like turn invisible and slash your drones into nothingness.

Oh, and BSU WON TODAY!! WOOHOO GO BRONCOS! YEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH BOISE STATE YOU RULE! *uncoordinated victory dance*

Yay for weekends full of good friends, good fun, good games, and good food.

Mmmm...food.

New Post Overdue

Wow, I am a lazy blogger! I have been having so much fun back at school everything else seems irrelevant...but everything most definitely is not irrelevant!

Hmm...I don't really have anything interesting to update, but you can look at my first animation assignment if you like!! Woohoooooo it's really short!



That was fun, wasn't it?! :D

Alright, enough of my craziness. Here's the real scoop:

It was an eternally dark night in the hills of a small post-apocalyptic settlement. This was no ordinary darkness, no, it was the kind that you feel bearing down into your soul like a malicious ink seeping through your skin, drowning you in the night's agonizing emptiness.

Ok, sorry, I'm still messing around. I needed to practice my mad writing skills.
Now that I've got that out of my system, here are some WIPs that I will probably never get around to finishing.
First one is of a Zerg hive. I was going to have some Dark Templars attacking at first, but maybe it'll be an all epic Zerg scene. (Starcraft 2 characters and architecture (c)Blizzard Entertainment)
Second is of a cheeseburger having a nightmare or something. At first I just had one regular sized cat hugging the burger to death but then I thought it'd be more funny with a bunch of cats crawling all over it and hanging off of it. My sis re-introduced me to http://icanhascheezburger.com/ the other day and I was so filled with lolcat happiness I had to do a tribute. Maybe I'll clean it up and finish one day when I'm done with homework. I think I'll draw a cat inside of his mouth sitting on the lettuce tongue too...we shall see.

Time Doesn't Wait.

I had planned to get to bed by 10:00pm tonight and wouldn't you know I end up staying awake till 3:30am. I'm pretty tired so I will leave you with this: ...Chisel-tip thick Sharpies are pretty sweet for caricatures.

Oh, and also...I love cheese, bread, and milkshakes.

That is all.


(Yes, you guessed it...Sketchoholic.com marathon entries from today. I'm officially addicted.)

Topic: Siamese Twins

Topic: Nerdy Lifeguard

Another Praise

Once more I must express my love for sketchoholic.com. They have been setting up "Marathons" every day this week and it is so wild how much you improve contest after contest. After doing 5 one hour drawings in a row, you can really see changes! I love the intensity!

...and today I WON! I still can't believe it...I'm so excited! I look forward to the future of sketchoholic and being a part of it every step of they way. Bring on the marathons! :)

Monkey King!

Yesterday's CHIUstream was so fun! The Monkey King topic made for quite a lot of variety in entries. Believe it or not I spent most of the allotted hour on the background. Yeah, it doesn't look like it. Either way, I enjoy how it came out despite the unfinished feeling. :)

Magical Parasol

It's about time to start drawing again. I've been so busy house-sitting I haven't been in the mood to draw! All I can think about are the animals and wondering if they need to go potty...
Now that house-sitting is coming to a close, the desire to draw is slowly seeping back into my fingertips, and just in time! There was an INTENSITY CLUB happening tonight on sketchoholic.com and I was lucky enough to catch it. I know there are many other projects I need to be working on, but sometimes you need to get back in the art groove before you can get into the serious business.

Here is my fun intensity club entry for today. The young boy is holding a magical parasol which turns rain into coins (I'd like one of those!). It was so refreshing to work with different digital brushes again. I had forgotten how nice they feel!

Art-less-ness

CHIUStream, learning, sleeping, eating, spending money. This is what I have been doing. Sorry for the lack of art/posts! Hopefully my sis and I will get a collab project going and get pumped.

Here's a chiustream entry for a few weeks back. Big arm vs. big head.

Icky Color

I started doing this "daily doodle" thing on my facebook yesterday and hope to keep up with it. I need the practice. Anyway, here is today's! I liked it before I added color. Actually...I think it started going downhill when the dragon came into the picture. I blame it on fatigue. Hopefully it can be salvaged and I can turn it into something stunning one day!

Facebook Fan Page!

I jumped on the fan page bandwagon and made one for myself! It is fun. You can find a link to it on the right under the slideshow. I hope it helps more than hinders...so far I've spent too many hours on it that I could have used for drawing.

I've gotten an amazing swell of support from it though...over 100 fans in just a few days! I still can't believe it. Thank you everyone who clicks the "like" button! It means more to me than you know!

Nothing amazing to post today...just a doodle! (which can also be found on my facebook page! :P)

More Junk

Sorry for the junk posts. I'm having major art block and concentration problems and need a place to dump the sorry remains. It's how I vent my artistic (<-- or lack there of) frustration.

That said...can anyone tell me how this...
...becomes THIS?!


Commitment issues, that's how! I try to do something serious and then I get bored and scribble everywhere. Fun times.

doodle dump

Looking for jobs is draining. All I can find is boring stuff that any high school kid could do. I know what I want to do for a living and it ain't no 9-5 job! Unfortunately, everyone says I need something for support right now. Also unfortunately, everyone is right. While I look for jobs I'm going to secretly be building up my super awesome artist powers to get the job I want. Boy, will all the naysayers be surprised one day! (At least I hope they will be!)

Oh yeah, this stuff is just a dump of stuff I've doodled in between looking for jobs. It's part of my super awesome artist power build up plan. Draw draw draw! ...and draw some more! (even if the drawings don't make any sense)

Wonders of the Universe

The other day I contacted a children's book publishing company for the first time to inquire about employment. I was super excited to hear back from them even though I knew my portfolio didn't exactly portray "illustrations of kids." I love that some publishers let you contact them through email because you get such a quick response...but I almost think I would have spent more time refining my portfolio to the specific market if I knew I'd have to wait forever to hear back. Wouldn't want to waste all that time wondering on an iffy portfolio!

Needless to say, they don't require my services and put me down gently. Either way, it was super exciting to finally get guts enough to contact someone about work and I can't wait to get a proper portfolio together for books and whatnot. My computer still dies randomly so that discourages me a bit, but I'm going to have to get on the ball VERY soon. Like now.

Ok...I got on the ball and this is what I did. It's not done but I'm tired. Malamute puppy and universe.

5 a.m.

Sleep comes at all the wrong times these days. Not to say that I ever had a healthy sleep schedule before, but now it's just wacky. I've been zoned out like a zombie in front of my laptop for hours while recreating episodes of Legend of the Seeker in my head. I've been in such a slump lately I haven't had motivation to do anything productive which in turn makes me feel worse. I'm sure you all know that story! Anyway, it's 5 a.m. and my boyfriend came in to tell me I need to sleep. He's right...but I have this mysterious face gazing at me from inside my computer that I want to discover. I guess it will just have to wait till tomorrow. I hope I don't lose the zombie out-of-body drawing abilities I seem to have right now. Actually...when I wake up I'll probably look at the picture and wonder what I was thinking. Not sure!

Ok, time to sleep.

Etsy

I just made an online store at etsy.com! My sister inspired me to do so. She had her first sale there yesterday! Yay! Congrats, Ash!

Oh, by the way...I don't have anything up for sale just yet, but I'm working on it! If you've got any requests let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)

Mine @
www.hollywade.etsy.com


My Awesome Sister's @
www.noomx.etsy.com

The Mutant Tooth

Ok, so I went to the dentist a week or so ago and found out I have a tiny little mutant tooth! By that I mean I have an extra tooth..but it's really small and cute and makes me laugh. I'm just thankful it's not visible when I smile. Anyway, you can think it's gross or cool or weird, but I'm going to stick with..."unique conversation starter."

Now...here is a sketch of how I interpret my boyfriend's personality. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Post Taken Directly from Deviantart Because I'm Lazy at the Moment :D

Today on www.sketchoholic.com Bobby Chiu interviewed Alessandro Carloni (who happens to be head of story for Dreamwork's "How to Train your Dragon"). It was an awesome interview coupled with an awesome contest! This was my entry. It did not win, but I had a great time making it and trying to get it in before the deadline.

My favorite part of the whole experience was that my sister tried her hand at it for the first time today! I think we both had a great time and I hope she continues to participate in future CHIUStream's and sketchoholic interviews!

Extra side-note not on deviantart:
I realize there are many parts of the image that need work...such as his front left foot! (the darkened one...I forgot to bring out the shape of the claw...oops)
Also...the rock he is on seems to have no cast shadow!
These little things annoy me, but I wanted to post exactly what I entered. Maybe I'll revisit this drawing later and kick up the quality! Woohoo!

Quick Post

I just wanted to post this sketch here since I've posted it pretty much everywhere else. This is my sweet boyfriend reading his Terry Goodkind series at 3 in the morning. His head is shaved.

Sea Monster!

So today I got on sketchoholic.com to check out CHIUStream #40 and decided I'd participate! If you haven't heard of it, anyone who wants to challenge him/herself as an artist has about one hour to complete a drawing/concept artwork of a random topic picked by Bobby Chiu himself at the beginning of the stream. During the hour, Bobby paints his own concept of the topic while also discussing intensity, taking skype calls, and sending good karma vibes to everyone working hard to be a better artist. At the end of the hour, everyone is encouraged to upload their drawings which are then voted on by all the peeps hanging out in the stream. After voting is complete, the top 3 illustrations have a chance to win their respective artists the very painting Bobby worked on during the hour. Bobby browses through all of the entries, enlarging the ones that catch his eye, and then decides his favorite of the top illustrations.

I would recommend that any and all artists with an hour to paint go check out CHIUStream when it happens next. It is a real challenge! I'm not sure when that will be, but you can see where it all happens here. There are tons of great things going on there so take a look when you have a chance!

This is what I got done during the CHIU hour. Yeah...not very good at all, haha! I was so confident that I could whip out a masterpiece but the clock crunchin' away on your time can be a real mind trip. I didn't even get it uploaded in time for voting (and I'm kind of thankful for that because it's embarassing!). Anyway, I can't wait till the next CHIUStream...and until then I'm going to keep trying new hour long paintings!

Interactive Lecture

Woohoo! I'm getting back into the Flash groove and decided to make the animation an interactive lecture instead. My client seemed very excited about it. :)

Click me for Parathyroid vs. Bones

When did I become a medical Illustrator?

I'm working on an animated diagram of the endocrine system for another professor at the College of Southern Idaho. She just wanted an illustration but I decided to animate it while my laptop is still working. I hope she likes the finished product!

This is the thyroid gland thingy that resides in your throat. Fun!

Medical Illustrations

Well, these are a little more animated than most medical illustrations, but I was told the class enjoyed them! I did them as a tiny favor for the wonderful generous mother of my boyfriend. She is a nursing teacher at the college here and wanted specific images for her powerpoint presentation that she would present the next day (which was today!). It was kind of exciting to get a request that I only had less than 24 hours to complete.

The request was for an elderly man and an elderly woman with specific organs and body systems illustrated.

My eyelids are heavy

I'm sitting at CSI (College of Southern Idaho) waiting for Dust to get out of class and trying to doodle but getting very droopy eyed. I noticed I sketched my hand haphazardly and decided I wanted to post it! It is in no way a spectacular feat of the arts and the thumbnail isn't right, but I want to update the blog and no one can stop me! Muahaha. Enjoy my chubby hand. It appreciates your time. :)

Commish #2

Phew! I can't believe I got this done! By some amazing miracle my computer decided to not die after being turned on. I think leaving it alone for a month really helps it. I'm not sure what the problem is, but as long as I don't use it much it's ok...I think.

Anyway, this is my second commission since graduating and...I never want to work the tight again! I hope to enjoy a much looser style in the days to come. Sketchy inking and colors outside of the lines. Yeeaaaah!
The poster is not official yet, so I may have to change some stuff before they print it, but I figured I'd post it in celebration of its unofficial completeness. Yay! (I hope the College of Southern Idaho people like it)

Big Love

Phew! Sometimes I bite off more than I think I can chew, but luckily I have a strong pair of chompers. Over the weekend I found myself rushing to finish a huge project I agreed to months ago for a church's winter youth camp taking place in less than a week. After weeks of email tag and frustrating space "situations", I found myself at the end of the deadline and pressed for time. While there are a few things I would change about the first painting, I like how they both turned out overall. I've never taken on a project quite this big and am really proud of myself for getting it done in time like I promised. Each painting is done in acrylic on 6.5'x11' pieces of black fabric. Each one is taller than I am!

Ok, I guess I'm better off than I thought

At the time of my last blog entry, I thought things were pretty tough; no reliable computer to work on, no job, money doing disappearing tricks.
Turns out, none of that is really too bad! Ok, disappearing money and no steady income is a little scaaaaaary, sure, but it is no tragedy. I have been blessed with two freelance projects that will hopefully work out and get me through another couple months.

So yeah, things are pretty darn nice. Not having a computer of my own has actually been a bit freeing! I haven't painted with real water and paint in forever. To be honest, I have never enjoyed traditional painting...mostly because I was always really bad at it...but something has changed. Without a computer I was finally able to sit down with paints and just play. I finally understand my illustration professor's advice and passion for the darn stuff. FINALLY! Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. I feel kinda lame for never trying while I was in his class. Oh well!

But yeah...I'm an acrylics noob so my work is pretty basic, but I like it. I think I want to illustrate a children's book about snow...maybe the next Christmas Classic! WOoHOo!

Hard TImes

Computer problems and nightmares. That is all my week has contained it seems. Dustin has been having nightmares, too. We both have nightmares about me. They are scary.

With my computer on the verge of never turning on again, I've had to spend my time on Dustin's. It's not the same, I miss my tablet. It gets the job done though. I'm hoping the drastic change in computer lifestyle is the cause of said nightmares. I just want them to go away.

Since I can't very well post without a picture, here's a hastily drawn one from my boyfriends computer. (There probably won't be many more posts until I can afford a new computer...and who knows when that will be?)