Thursday, December 3, 2009

red lantern commission


just thought i'd put this up since i haven't put up anything in a minute. this is a commission i finished a few weeks ago of Hal Jordan as a Red Lantern. the person that commissioned it is (clearly) a college football kinda guy and hence the flags. the bloody flames were far more of a challenge to achieve than i thought it would be. lets me know there is still far far more to learn about photoshop. =P
in case the pose and general look of hal jordan looks familiar, it's because it's directly referenced from the Blackest Night #2 cover as requested by the client. so it's not a happy mistake nor is it plagiarism. ^__^

Saturday, September 26, 2009

gettin there...


well, we're makin progress kids! =)
these are just the flats. not sure what i wanna do with the BOOM on the cannon yet. i'm not being very creative at the moment.

time for some color

here's the harley quinn that i recently did for an ebay commission. went for a more cheesecake-y look (whatever that means) and i ended up really liking it. but no matter how much i like it, everytime i go back to looking at my drawings, everything still seems to look stiff. how the heck do i fix that for myself?!?!
this was only meant to be a pencil commission but ever since i fiddled with gray copic markers, i just can't help but use them. especially at cons, i feel like my commissions lack a bit but having the grays makes me feel better about what i give to people. and now i can't stop. i'm going to color this so we'll see how that turns out. perhaps it'll be good enough for a print. but who knows!!
i'm also having an internal struggle with myself about what direction i want my art to go. lately i've been very influenced with these manga artists like Shunya Yamashita and Hyung-Tae Kim. i really like the look of the faces and delicateness of the figures. but i feel like my fan base is drawn more towards the more comic-book look like this harley quinn and i can't help but feel like i'm driving them away. also, more and more i notice that folks seem to hate on the anime/manga look. like to them it's a cheap way out of "real drawings." which i think is completely BS. then again, it's probably cuz we've never set up at an anime con. i hope we do one soon so i can have some sort of enlightenment.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

on to the next one

man, nothin like the new Jay-Z album to get u pumped!

at any rate, i finished it! Zatanna is done! i tried my hand at some art nouveau stuff (which i can barely spell as it is). i'm a big fan of Alphonse Mucha stuff and this is my first attempt. try not to look at it too long cuz then all the flaws come poppin out. i'll keep workin on it to see if i can make a better attempt.
the first one is the finished colors as is. the second is what i plan on making for the print to sell. i desaturated it a bit so that the colors aren't so jarring and somewhat has that older look. the background was done solely in photoshop with shapes and erasing shapes with brushes. it was a lot harder than it looks to decide the different shapes in there. as i said, its my first attempt so it's not perfect. heck i'm not even sure i'm in love with it but whatever. if i didn't stop, i'd have overdone it more than i have already.
i also just finished a harley quinn commission but i won't post it till i send it to the client. hopefully, with permission, i can color it and have that as a print as well. i've been given a list of characters to draw by the hubby so i guess i gotta get started. these ladies won't draw themselves. ;P

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

that'll be all

ok so after my stupidly long contemplative blog, clearly i needed to get it together and stop the tea party. so i took some time, got my big girl panties on and said "that'll be all."
so i'm back and on and poppin. haven't drawn much worth showing cuz i've been doing a lot of commission stuff and logo work. it's tough to post any logo work cuz i hate ruining the surprise for the clients and stuff. even when it's done, i just don't wanna put their logo out there until they've put it up on their own websites and whatnot cuz i'd hate to be the reason for a concept to get stolen.
since my last journal, i've been to Otakon in baltimore, then Comic Con in San Diego, and then out to Wizard World Chicago (which apparently wasn't even called "Wizard World" anymore). i have tons of pics of my exploits (especially in San Diego) but i haven't gotten the pictures off my camera yet cuz my printer (which has my memory card slots) broke!! so i haven't been able to post anything.
ANYWAY, moving on to the entry for today. i've finally been able to draw something for myself after a long drought of creative juices. i've been trying desperately to draw Zatanna for a print and whenever i force myself to draw during an artist block, it will inevitably turn into poopoo. and of course, once i see its poopoo, i get so discouraged and i tell myself i'm a waste of space. but one day i finally got up and decided to draw something and it turned out not so bad. i plan on making it into some Mucha-inspired piece but we'll see how it turns out. hopefully i'll be done with it to make it into a print in time for Baltimore Con. the rest of ID Comics keep crankin out these fantastical new prints and i'm still clingin to my Powergirl print that everyone and their Uncle Bob has. at any rate, after this i got another commission to work on and then maybe i'll tackle a Storm piece. EEP! wish me luck!!!
by the way the Pittsburgh Comic Con is this weekend starting friday the 11th until sunday the 13th. if ur in the area and plan on attending, come by and say hi to us ID Comics folks!!! we got more of our new sketchbooks printed (Inside the Box Vol. 3) and new prints. come and see! then we'll get to see fellow artists that we haven't seen all summer. it should be fun times.
anyway, hopefully i'll keep up this drawing stuff now that stuff at my day job has chilled out again. but as i type this, i look down at my new little Ranma (girl-type) figurine that i just got this past Otakon and i can't be too upset. (^__^)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

contemplative

[as a warning, this post is full of junk floating about in my head at the moment and nothing about art. so if u'd rather not read about personal stuff about me, feel free to ignore this post completely. i promise i won't be hurt. ;) i'm just using this time to express my thoughts without having to buy a diary. cuz these contemplative moments don't happen often enough to fill a book. kekeke]

with the deaths of farrah fawcett and michael jackson fresh in my mind, its tough not to get to thinkin. nothing profound, mind u. i'm not that deep. just thinkin in general. seems like cancer just circles around me and i'm just not a big fan. one of my favorite comic artists of all time, Michael Turner, died of cancer last year. my sister's mother-in-law (pretty much an aunt to me) dies of breast cancer last month about a year or two after her own sister dies from it. my co-worker's dad has it. one of my Godfathers from my wedding has it. i mean unless my family's been hiding it very very well from me, it seems like cancer has become a bigger problem lately than it was when i was still a kid. not really sure how i feel about it.
then michael jackson. what an amazing icon to just be gone. but what i really hate about this time is how everyone just seems to wanna speak up and say what an amazing person he was. how passionate he was about his music, how lonely he must have been not having had a childhood, how misunderstood he was in his actions. and yet i can't help but wonder, where were all of these comments when he was still alive?! and these comments are always coming from public figures like tv personalities and radio hosts. but when he was still alive, everyone was just short of throwing stones at this guy because of how disgusting they thought he was or how crazy they figured he ought to have been for doing the things he allegedly did. i mean, i understand u never speak ill of the dead but i was just sitting waiting to hear "thank goodness he's gone from this world." NOT to say that i feel that way because i don't. i just figured the angry mob that was ready to hang him for all those cases would finally have their closure. and yet they all hide behind their well-wishing thoughtful words. weird how people react when someone dies. just like if a teenager gets shot at 4am due to gang violence on a tuesday, u always hear the same thing. "he/she is such a good kid." "...always listens in class." "...never makes any trouble with anyone." "...got along with everybody." but nobody seems to wonder - well what the heck were they doing out at 4am on a school night?!?! i just wonder when someone will get on tv or speak in front of a school on graduation day and say "well, it was bound to happen some time considering the shady activities he/she is involved with on a daily basis."

or maybe i'm just too callous when i'm on my period. hmmm...

and unfortunately, since i'm all contemplative already, i sit and catch up on a few blogs i follow since i haven't done that in many moons. namely my two friends' baby blogs chronicling their experiences with their first baby. i'm reading about trimesters, sex of the babies, maternity clothes as well as baby clothes, baby names and sonograms. then i get ready to write my blog and i've got nothing but pics from a recent comic convention to share. it just seemed so trivial compared to bringing a new life into the world. and i'm not even sure if it's a slight hint of jealousy or just feeling really tired from being at work all day. either way, i felt deflated. gosh i hope it's not the first thing cuz goodness knows i'm not ready for all that baby stuff. but again, in my contemplative state, i can't help but wonder - OR AM I!?!?

heroes con 09








well, heroes con was a success! good responses, great fans. what more can u ask for, right?! here are pics of commissions that i did while we were there, along with the crew at the con!
met some really cool folks. Randy Green, very nice dude! and thanks Adam and Comfort - u guys are inspiring.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

new ID sketchbook


i've finally done it. it's the birth of a new era of Identity Comics sketchbooks! (sorry, both of my oldest friends are preggers as well as my sister so i've just got preggers on the brain.) finished laying out the new sketchbook in a new vibrant colorful way in a week! didn't think i could do it but i guess deadlines are a good motivator for me. it was supposed to have been done like a year ago by other folks in the group but it didn't turn out that way. SO i bit the bullet and got 'er done!
this is just the cover! don't wanna spoil the inside picture pages. there was a little miff in the group about what it should look like but because of time constraints a decision had to be made. so here it is! the hubby and i designed it and i think it turned out pretty nifty-like. the four figures are the four of us in the studio. it should be just in time to bring a few to Heroes Con in North Carolina. if all goes well, we should hopefully sell out. ^__^ then we can order more for the rest of the convention season! so if u see us at a con, stop by and take a look! it's 96 pages full of art-licious goodness! and finally in TECHNICOLOR! cuz really, who wants to see colored artwork in black and white?!
can't wait to see the physical book myself! i'm at the edge of my seats!!!

Friday, May 8, 2009

more things to work on...

all finished! the client loved it and that's all i can really ask for. =)
now, on to more stuff to work on. namely, the new purdy sketchbook for ID Comics. i'm hoping i can get it all done in like 3 days so i suppose i won't be seeing much of the outside world. hope mom understands seein as how sunday is mom's day. =P gotta go to work!!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

in progress


just wanted to show what i'm workin on right now. it's a commissioned piece from one of my ebay auctions. yes, she has 8 arms. the character's name is Armata. these are flats. from here is the fun part where i get to flesh her out with shadows and highlights. flatting is the most boring process so i always try to get this out of the way quickly. then i can have much more fun with the rest.
but its late and i've got the final book of the Twilight series calling my name. badly! =)

Thursday, April 16, 2009

and the heavens opened up...

and lo, there was art. i haven't drawn anything in over two weeks. darned day jobs!!! last week at the doggy kennel was rough! lots of dogs thanx to spring break and easter. it was nuts to say the least. i hadn't put pencil to paper for so long but i finally did it. drew this quick mary jane piece for the recently completed "spider-man and friends" art jelly on ID Comics's deviant page. decided not to stray too far from my comfort zone least i psych myself out and not complete something. i know, it's cowardly. but u do what u gotta sometimes. =P
i even tried to give her freckles on her face. can anyone even see it?? ah well. i drew something! i'm happy!

Friday, March 20, 2009

super pet expo


the Super Pet Expo in chantilly, va starts today and goes till sunday. my husband's set up there for Big Heads and Little Bodies drawin caricatures of folks' puppies and whatever other pets they may have. unfortunately, he had to do it all by himself today since i had my crazy work schedule. BUT i'll be there tomorrow and sunday and am SUPER excited!!! i'll be advertising my pet portraits so hopefully i can raise some type of buzz on it.
SO! if ur in the area and u kinda like pets, u should definitely drop by! it's at the dulles expo center. i've attended it before for fun and it was really nifty. had lots of cool stuff for a dog lover like myself. ^__^
in preparation for it, i had business cards made for myself to hand out to folks at the expo. but instead of the traditional kind, i did these mini cards from a really cool printer in London called Moo.com. got a gift certificate for it from one of my dearest friends who happens to be very artistic and i'm so glad she got it for me. they're so cool looking! they're itty bitty (like half the size of a regulard bizness card) but u can put many different images on the front and it's very high-quality print which is great for artists who are constantly compelled to "do something different." so i took a pic of the ones i got and i am SO going to order more when i get a chance. they come in this really nice hard box too. how fancy! that website makes tons of other stuff too. really nifty. THANX JACY!!! ^__~

tomorrow's a little late


oops, so i didn't even get to write the next day about the drawing i recently posted. work has really been kickin my behind but i finally made it through the last day of the crappiest work week to date at my dayjob! i survived!!!
well, to quickly touch on the previous post, that was an art commission i drew for a client that won my ebay auction. if the image looks familiar, it's because he asked me to draw an image by Luis Royo but to have the woman nude. so no i'm not taking credit for coming up with the idea - no i'm not jackin someone's work. it was requested of me and i drew it in my style. ^__^ besides, Luis Royo is flippin amazing so clearly mine pales in comparison.
so since i haven't drawn anything as of the last post, i'll post this funny picture of my babies. =) she was yawning as i took this picture but it just looks like she's saying "YEAH!!" hilarious!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

FINISHED!!!



too tired to write. just so elated that i'm done that i felt compelled to post it now before hittin the pillows hard. i'll write more tomorrow......z z z z..

Sunday, March 15, 2009

its done man!!


finally!!! i finished the portrait last night! i felt very proud of myself after finishing it sooner than i thought. so at least i've accomplished something. this is one of my dogs Krypto when she was a puppy. we had a superman cape on her for obvious reasons. she's much bigger than this now. =P
unfortunately, this week at work is going to hurt badly. lots of hours for 5 days straight. goodbye freedom. not sure if i'm ready for it but its just one of those things u gotta deal with in life. (-__-) still, at least at the end of the week, we'll be attending the Super Pet Expo for Big Heads & Little Bodies. seein as how i like doggies, i'm really very excited!!! plus i finally get to start advertising my dog portraits. woowoo!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

this week's jelly

i just finished this week's ID Comic's art jelly of Fatal Fury (or King of Fighters or whatever u wanna call it). but instead of waiting till tomorrow to post it, i'm just doin it now. hopefully, fingers crossed, i'll be done with this doggy portrait so that'll be what i'll post up tomorrow instead. yay!
anyway, this is Iori whom i have no real info about. (sorry if i offend any fatal fury fighters.) it's not that i don't like that game or anything, i just didn't play it very much. but i did think this dude looked cool and i didn't wanna go the obvious route and draw Mai (the chick with the big boobs). anyways, i drew this with the intention of not having it colored. so i did some basic shadings much like that Copper Kid drawing i did. but after scanning it, i felt compelled to color it. so i just took a big oil pastel brush in photoshop and just went for what i knew. an hour and a half later, this is what i got. which is pretty fast for me cuz i take forever to color. i think i do ok when i draw dudes that are a bit on the feminine side. but i think i'm going to take these jelly opportunities to draw more guys to get a bit of practice. so please forgive me for some future failed attempts. =P i'm still learning. (^___^)
dunno why he's smoking. i don't smoke, i don't condone smoking. but i guess he just seemed like the kind of badass dude that would smoke after kickin ass. with fresh blood on his shoe and everything! i dunno. maybe i've just been readin too much Saiyuki.

last week's jelly


last week's ID Comics's art jelly was Green Lantern. it didn't need to be an existing green lantern so u can make up ur own. and since practically anyone from any universe could conceivably be a green lantern, it makes things a little easier for me. so because i'm not too knowledgeable about existing GLs in the DC Universe, i had to make up my own. took me a while to pick one too but this is what i came up with.
it's Ling Xiaoyu from the Tekken video games. i figured if she made something with her lantern ring, she'd probably make pandas. but i used Mr. Saotome from the Ranma 1/2 anime (my all-time fav anime) as the panda. why? cuz i thought it was funny. sorry, i know it's nerdly. just thought i'd combine all 3 of my important art influences - anime, comics, and video games. =)
still got the dog portrait of krypto (my dog) to finish. then a commission. darned day jobs!!! takes so much of my time!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

art jellies


so instead of calling our Identity Comics art jam session an "art jam," we've decided to step it up and make it into an "art jelly." cuz jam don't shake like dat! =P (plus, u know these artsy folks - always tryin to do somethin different. kekeke) unfortunately i haven't been able to post any blogs as of late with these art jellies cuz i'm just really tired from work. maybe i'm just gettin old and my stamina for workin at a dayjob and from home just ain't the same as it used to be when i was in my early 20s. but i'd like to think age ain't nothin but a number and it's just my dayjob workin me too hard. ;P
still, enough complainin from me! i've got a jelly to post!! after the Silverhawks art jelly week, we had the week of "our favorite 80s cartoon." so i couldn't pass up another chance to draw Jem and the Holograms! or, in this case, Jem and her little sister Kimber. however, i've decided to update their look with a modern version. it's what i think they could look like now. more feminine punk of the new millenium. embrace the pink but with a little more emo. ^__^ so this is what i came up with. thanx to the Veronicas for their inspiration. those chicks do rock in my humble opinion.
[for more info on ID Comics's Art Jellies, visit their deviant page! http://idcomics.deviantart.com]

Monday, February 23, 2009

quick commissions

turbulence

amazon


i just finished these inked commissions. i placed an open call to folks on deviant for an inked commission in exchange for a year's subscription to deviant. of course, peeps came through for me again. gotta tell ya, folks on there are just so supportive! so for one of them, he wanted me to draw his character Turbulence who is this muscly dude. i didn't want to disappoint him with my somewhat femmy-lookin dudes so i offered my very talented husband's talents with my inks over it. so that's why it doesn't look like i drew it. =P the other one is this other guy's original character named Amazon. i usually don't gray my inked commissions but i kinda liked how the Amazon one came out and felt it could use a little shadows. so i did it digitally. =) and since i did that one, i went ahead and did it for the guy drawing too. i just took an airbrush with some dark gray color, set the brush to "multiply", took the opacity and flow down to the low 20%s, and made the brush size really big. then i just went for what i knew. ^___^

Thursday, February 19, 2009

video games r horrible distractions


i've gotta say, between halo 3 and CoD:World at War my free time to draw has been very very limited. but now that street fighter 4 is here, there's even less time to draw (if that's possible!). luckily, we're supposed to have these art jams so i can at least have something i'm supposed to draw on a weekly basis.
not to mention i've got a couple of commissions i need to get crackin on. haven't had any in a little while cuz of the kennel takin up all my time but it's on again like donkey kong.

at any rate, here's my Copper Kid sketch for this week's art jam of the Silverhawks! if u don't know what that is, don't worry cuz i didn't either. look it up if u like, it's an old 80s cartoon. if u do know it, then i hope i did the Copper Kid some little amount of justice. ;P enjoy!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

lovey-dovey day


so for lovey-dovey day, i didn't draw anything. HA! bet u weren't expectin that one! =P
instead i got my hubby a heart-shaped pizza. needless to say, he loved it. heehee still, i got a sketch to post. this is what i drew for our new weekly drawlin jam at identity comics. the past week was g.i. joe characters. i didn't wanna just draw what i normally drew. i think i'm gonna try some new stuff for these jams to try to help me break the monotony that is my art as of late. though i'm not deviating by much. as with lots of people, i'm not that open to change. o.O so, instead of just drawing the baroness sexy like i usually do, i gave her a phone. mix it up! go out on a limb! kekeke i gave it to her so it could give her a sense of purpose as she stands in the empty piece of paper. then, i thought, why stop there? so i gave her some dialogue. stupid dialogue, but dialogue nonetheless, to further her purpose. that way, we know the answer to the question "what's she doin with celly?" BUT WHY STOP THERE! i drew a fanboy in the back real quick-like just to give her some substance. and to top it off, i gave him a shirt with one of my favorite "chuck norris kicks ass cuz..." quotes with a fake Cobra Kai logo on it. ("y cobra kai?" u ask. i read he was up for the part of Sensei Kreese but rejected it cuz he felt it portrayed the art of karate in a negative light and he was not going to be a part of it. now this may be all lies, but even so, that pretty much kicks evil's ass in a passive/peaceful sort of way.)
at any rate, i posted this piece on my deviant page sans the fanboy and the dialogue. didn't want it to take away from the primary purpose of the piece (which was the gi joe jam, if i lost u along this really long blog for a simple sketch). so i hope we're all spreadin a little more love today than we normally do whether it's with buying our hunnybunnies somethin nice (like a heart-shaped pizza) or doin ur good deed for the day. but i do ask all the single ladies (and dudes), don't spread hate. cuz then u'd be a hater. and that's not a good look. ^___^

and now u know. AND KNOWIN'S HALF THE BATTLE.
(u know the rest.) ;)

Thursday, February 12, 2009

new identity comics website!

well, i spent the better part of yesterday (that i wasn't at the kennel) working on identity's website. so since i have nothing to show as far as artwork on my art table, i'll just point to the website's direction. it counts, right?! ........ right??? eh, it's all i've got.
so go!

www.identitycomics.com

take a quick look-see! none of the buttons work just yet cuz quite frankly i haven't made those pages yet. but they will dammit!
and just as a quick disclaimer, i have no idea how to make websites professionally. so if ur wondering "where's all the flair in ur website, peng?" i'm sorry, it's got a very limited amount of flair. i was using Yahoo's "SiteBuilder" program since its hosted through yahoo and its got very very basic options. it's like the difference between workin on Photoshop and workin on Microsoft Paint. but its better than the nothing that was on there previously. gotta start somewhere, right?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

new year yet no new art


how sad am i. it's a brand new year and here i am still with a blog posted back in EARLY december. needless to say, i've been busy. started workin at the kennel full-time last month so its really zapped a lot of my energy out. i'm there so many days out of the week that its tough to find the gusto to do much else. guess i ain't no spring chicken anymore. darned looming 30s in the horizon!!

aside from working full-time again, i'm drawing here and there but nothing substancial. nothing to write home to mom about, i suppose. still, i'll post. the little crap that i've done, i'll post anyway. so forgive me for the possibly unstimulating artwork that could pop up every now and then. i just gotta get a hold of this work schedule. with that said, this is an image i fiddled with. not really doin nothin with it as far as ID merchandise. it's actually a panel that i drew for one our long-time client's custom comic that we're working on. the woman in the actual comic is some lady and she's blonde with slightly shorter hair. so i just cut it out and turned her into wonder woman (or some lady that was dressed as wonder woman anyway).

i need to draw more. i feel rusty. where's that darned oil can?!?