Happy Pa's Day!

A silly drawing of my daughter and father duo, Goldie and Pa (I never... named him? Aha) for Father's Day. There was a lot of ideas I was originally going to do but drawing these two came a little more naturally. I listened to a lot of bluegrass while drawing this, even though they're not really country folk but circus folk. Anyways, hope ya'll enjoy!

I felt like the world needed to know I drew this insane bob cat. For those who never played the game, this is Bubsy. He's never rabid in the game, but I was having a fun time playing with it. I could have probably done a better time with the pose, but whatever.

Can Fan Art Have a Positive Impact?

Good morning, everyone! I hope everyone's having a great day; its bright and sunny here, and I decided to sit down and work on a character design I've been wrestling with in my head for along time.

I wanted to talk about how fan art can be a positive impact on devolping you're own style, and I think Diggy here is a great example of this. The reason why I wanted to discuss this was because a few weeks ago, a fellow artist I looked up to made some negative commentary about fan art. But I don't believe this is true. I've been sketching fan art for fun since a young age, and I would argue that its had a more positive impact on me then a negative one...!

Sure, I could discuss how fan art makes you more "popular" on the internet. This is a positive marker because it can get your name out there. However, I don't really draw fan art for popularity; although, I did dedicate some of my time years ago drawing other artists' characters to get on their radars (and honestly, knowing other artists who can help you down the line in your career is better then having 1,000,000 page views on deviantart...).

I digress. I wanted to talk about how different character designs can have an impact on your character.

Diggory is my mole character; I made him around the time I was really into Harry Potter and discovering I really liked Redwall, so the name influence is from Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter and... well, moles from Redwall series.

Anyways, here's the most recent development on his character.

I really like this character design, because its not usually normal for me to make such a top heavy character. I don't think I would have had the confidence to make such a design if it hadn't been for fan art I've been creating. Particularly, the Banjo Kazooie series. I've been doodling BK fan art for a while now. I'm really fond of drawing Jamjars.

Now, Jamjars, and his brother Bottles, are short characters. They barely have legs, so I changed that a bit when I sketched them....

This image is obviously trying to stay with the canon shape and size but adding my own twist to it. See, when I create fan images, I'm allowing myself some leverage to do what I want, but on the other hand, I like to keep in "canon" (or official) what the studio's designers might have done. You can see this mind set down in a lot of my fan characters as well.

As you can see, I'm trying to focus on the unique characteristics and shape the character has. I felt rather uncomfortable at first giving a character short legs, but longer arms - it looked weird to me! I think if fan artists did this, instead of trying to mold a character into their own style, they can learn a lot. Drawing unique characters shapes and trying to analyze what makes a character really helps a lot. All characters aren't going to look the same.

Observing from what you see means to not only take in real life, but understand what art masters and other artists are doing to. That's the importance of drawing fan art, I think. Its not just about how many Bugs Bunny's you can draw, but if you're really obtaining the information Chuck Jones is giving you when you draw it. If that makes any sense at all.

Until next time!

San Antonio Zoo Gesture Drawings

Oh hello. My friend and I went to the zoo today so we could sketch some animals.
Here is a little snake hanging off a branch. He was peaking around his fat body and I thought it was cute.

I was rather fascinated with how much flexibility is in the flamingos neck. They were quite loud and quite beautiful. 

The mother and its baby got really close and so we sketched them a few more times before they moved.

I really enjoyed trying to break down the structure and sketch them as shapes but I'm not sure if it was going the way I had planned it to. But I'm sure there will be plenty more where this came from. 

My New Etsy Store!

I finally got the guts to post something on my etsy store! http://www.etsy.com/shop/ameart

Utopia

Here is a piece I did last year as well, but hadn't posted on the internet until now. We were asked in my drawing class to make a concept for Utopia, and this is what I produced for it. I'm not sure what was going through my head at that moment, but I still rather like the concept. I think I was trying to make my own representation of Mother Earth/Gaia? My professor did ask me why she was crying, and I wasn't really prepared for it, but I quickly replied, "Well, even though she's suffering, she's still happy to make the sacrifice for her children." I think that still holds true.

I'm not really happy with how I handled the balancing of the Sun and the Moon, nor with the UTOPIA on the top; I still do think the Goddess is pretty. Maybe I'll return to this some day.

Creating The Lost Girl

I meant to post this last October, as I worked very hard on this project and was happy to be able to finally present a piece of my own at my community college, so sorry for the wait. I did post the final image on my deviantart page, but I wasn't very clear what it was for.

The piece was created for the "Dia de Muertos" show. For those who don't know, it is widely known as a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1 - 2, to remember beloved ones who passed away with altars. The yellow flowers in this mix piece were to resemble marygolds, used in tradition to honor the dead.

I didn't put a real description around the little girl, allowing those who passed it to interpret at their own will. However, the little girl's conception was in honor for my own lost sister, who died at birth. She would have been ten years old last year; because there was no real images of her, I allowed myself the liberty imagine how she may have looked.

For some reason with the coming of 2012, I had a bit of a brain fart when it comes to drawing. I ended up scripting a lot, as well as being close to finishing some commissions, but school crept back on me!

At either rate, here's some sketches of the Mario Brothers I managed to doodle; Luigi's head shape is a little odd for me, so I still haven't gotten it down. Drawing bigger noses on humans always seems a little daunting for me - I love big noses, but whenever I draw them, something doesn't look right! I probably just have to study more.

I tried to mix up the Paper Mario style, which obviously just means I added a few wrinkles and made the boys look worried about something.

Firewolf's Commissions

1/4 Badge Commission

For a very patient client. C:

Strawberry Guest Comic

Hello everyone! I'm not sure if I'm going to get a crowd here to check out my blogspot now that Kyle posted it from dummcomics. For those who are interested in less ancient art work, please check out my deviantart site ameart.deviantart.com! (Also, for even more updates of dumb sketches, I post on my tumblr ameart.tumblr.com) I'd like to thank Kyle for letting me work on the comic, it was a real honor for one of my biggest inspirations to ask me to contribute. It taught me a lot, and the most rewarding part about it is that people actually like it! I feel so inspired to just start posting my art all over the internet again, even if this is a fluke.

There's an art challenge going on http://princesssylvia.tumblr.com/post/797361069/it-was-an-ugly-ugly-drawing-but-i-just-wanted-to here; I was linked by a friend. I'm off by nine days, so instead of worry about the first nine days, I went ahead and jumped on todays challenge.

...Just so I could draw Klinger in a dress.

I have a lot of art to post. .....Not all of it is as scary as this.

Group Shot Progress

Here are some characters from the Fred the Frog series. Obviously this is a WIP because poor Clover has to HANDS.
I wanted to start introducing more of my characters to get interest into the comic I'll eventually make. I wanted to try making the group shots fun, so I am trying to group characters randomly. However, the idea of putting them all in one picture has crossed my mind so I might just do that instead. I wonder if I could make it into some sort of wall paper too. Hmmm!

Chris, the childhood friend. Albino crocodile.
Jet, the cool dorm roomie. River otter.
Clover, the college girlfriend. Chipmunk.

I hope Clover doesn't look too much like Sally Acorn. I tried to fix that. Her hair is dyed green... I'm wondering if this should be some sort of gag, like she tried to dye it a color and it ended up green and she liked it, or she's just that funky. I tried different colors for her hair, and liked green the best. Maybe I ought to try blue too? Or maybe several color schemes. But I really like her peachy fur.

For anyone who doesn't remember, Chris was once a CHAMELEON who was RED. I changed it, mostly because he often got mistaken for a rhino. And he did look kind of like Clam from Lazlo. I tried playing with several animal ideas, but honestly kept coming back to the albino crocodile, so, croc he is, and croc he will stay.

I've been studying a bit...
Things that seem to be off by me are the table and chair placement. Also, I forgot to shade the shadow of the coffee cup. I like the smoke effect. I found that layering colors as a middle shade, then highlights and shadows afterwards really helps bring depth to the picture.

Maya from Glass Mask, a shoujo anime about a young girl aspiring to be an actress... I got hooked on it today. Her passion for acting has really touched me. The voice actress in the anime has her work cut out for her...!

I was very obsessed with "Telephone" when I first heard it. Lady Gaga is ah-maz-ing. I never thought about doing fan art but a lot of artists have been doing it... I hope this looks like her, haha.

Art Dump for Jan - April 2010...

Half of my year in art consists with me trying to balance eastern (anime) and western influnce in my humans. For the most part, I've pulled away from animal characters, but still draw them for fun.

Might be because I'm into Star Trek...Sherlock Holmes...Law and Order... ....might be because I just like humans more? IDK... :>

I was going to post drawings best on my friend and my characters, but when I opened the folder I realized that it should go into its own post. ...Yes, thats just how much I've drawn this year. A lot of it I'm sure I'll look at in a year or so and ask myself what I was thinking...

On ward to the rest of the year.