Thursday, September 30, 2010

while i'm still in my 20s...

[listening to "Stronger" by Kanye West]

(a pic of Chauncy taken 3 yrs ago)
this is EXACTLY how i've felt all week in preparation of my birthday

yep, folks, i'm an hour away from my 30s and i'm really not feelin too chipper about it. in preparation for my PRE mid-life crisis, i've done absolutely nothing of any import at all. cuz it's my berfday and i'll cry if i want to!
however, through all this sulking and dreading, i've managed to be a little introspective. with the help of my hubby, theFranchize, i've come to realize that the 30s come with some perks.
  • with my increasingly DEcreasing tolerance for humanity's stupidity and ignorance, i've at the very least gotten much much better at being able to tell "good bullsh!t" from "bad bullsh!t." meaning if ur gonna try and sell me bullsh!t, first off, know i'm usually a pretty good judge of character when it comes to first impressions so i probably smelled ur bullsh!t before u dealt it. but at least give me a small ounce of respect and tell me a good lie than a crappy one. =)
  • i have learned the important lesson that though making mistakes is part of being young, u don't have to waste ur youth making mistakes. i don't like to toot my own horn so i won't go into stuff i didn't waste my younger years doing (plus i'd really hate to inadvertently insult someone who may or may not be reading this cuz i'm really quite a nice person). it's just good words to live by. and i really wish i could take credit for coming up with that but truth be told, i heard it from someone else (probably on tv or something). but since i don't remember who that was, let's just say for the sake of argument, that i made it up. =P
  • i'm finally in a position to say i've had years of experience in things (mainly in art and the comic industry). 6 years ago i may have said that but really i was just blowing hot air. it's not my fault, we'll just chock it off to "being young." kekeke i've always said i'd really rather just see the montage of my certain success (good bullsh!t) as opposed to waiting years for it. but now i'm actually at the end of the montage and seeing the success on the horizon. (bad bullsh!t - i'm really a terrible judge of my own success. as with most artists, i'm my own worst critic.)
  • i've collected a LOT of stuff in my 30 years of existence! but my 30 years have taught me that it's really all just stuff and are not as important as family and real relationships with others.
of course, turning 30 brings lots of crappy stuff too. but i won't get into that cuz frankly, it's a much longer list. kekeke i mean, at this point in life, i think it's safe to say if i do something stupid, i'm actually TOO OLD to be doin it.
u may be asking urself, "30 doesn't seem so old to me. what's the big deal?!" or maybe ur sayin "damn, ur friggin old." either way, the reason i'm calling my birthday "Doomsday" is simply because i remember being young and looking at my teachers thinking "ur old!" and yet i know people that are teachers now or used to be teachers at one point. last night in the weeeee hours of the morning when i couldn't fall asleep, i decided to IMDB the cast of Glee and the Glee teacher-dude, Mr. Schuester (who, btw, is a hottie!) is actually only 2 years older than me!! and yet he seems so much older to me!!! WTF!
so, even though i'm kinda over the whole "it's ur berfday, let's get frackin drunk!" stage (which is completely on a personal level and in NO way judges anyone that likes to drink some DRANK to celebrate), i would like to raise a hypothetical drink to my 20s. thank u, 20s, for teaching me some very important lessons like just because i'm out of high school does NOT actually mean i'm grown. thank u for the ups and the downs. thank u for the loves and the losses; the wedding; the girls Krypto & Chauncy; the epiphany that i actually wanted to be an artist. and with the passing of the 20s, i welcome the 30s with (an imaginary) shot of something really strong! i look forward to the new opportunities it brings - new places, new family members & new friends, new bills (cuz that's inevitable), and (dare i say it) possibly a child spawn from me someday. watch out world - when that day comes, it means peng's finally stopped being selfish. which REALLY means i'm no longer the peng u knew & loved. =P

i wish i had drawn something new or amazing in preparation of the eve of "Doomsday." but like i mentioned before, i've spent these last few days doing nothing but whining to my hubby about how old i'm gonna be. so, sorry i have nothing cool to show. =( but on the PLUS category, i think i'll spend my remaining moments of my 20s layin on the bed with my pups in my pjs and ring in my 30s with lots and lots of Halo games. =D cuz at this point in my life, all i truly know is that i'm a big nerd and there's really no point in denying it anymore. (hey, isn't it better that i spend my negative energy about turnin 30 into something virtually cool like video games instead of doing something actually stupid like drinking till i make a boob of myself in public or perhaps calling people in my drunken stupor saying things i really don't mean?! EXACTLY.)

Saturday, September 25, 2010

these dreams

...by heart


i've spent the better part of my yesterday working on the Big Heads Little Bodies website. it's our caricature company created by my hubby theFranchize and our fellow studiomate Flash. they do caricatures at parties and events up and down the DC/MD/VA area. (i'm just the humble admin that gets to do all the office stuff. i guess no matter what i do, office stuff is just something i'm good at and can't get away from. so is life.) now, believe me when i say i'm NO web designer. i've touched Dreamweaver before but only for one of my multimedia classes when i used to go to American University. i have no head for designing a website let alone any jargon that goes along with it. so with the help of Yahoo website templates, i just chose one and went with it! do i think it could be laid out better? certainly! but it's functional and has the right info on there so i'm happy! so if u or someone u know are having a party of corporate event in the area and are in need of an entertainer, visit the website!
(also, apparently it asks u to download some ActiveX thing to view the samples properly. i already have it on my computer so i didn't know it would ask others. it came with the template and isn't anything i can change. it's simply so u can view the pictures in a slideshow. so if it asks u to download it, it's not harmful at all and chances are it's used on other websites as well. otherwise it will just open up each picture larger on the same window and you'd have to click BACK to get back to the page.)


other than that, i've managed to make a little progress with the pin-up i'm working on. but when i showed my rough pencils (the pink sketch i posted last time) to the folks that asked for it, they said they had some notes for me next week. so i guess i'll be puttin it on hold for the meantime till they get back to me. you may notice that the crate under her right foot is different. after i finished the pencils and scanned it in, only then did i notice that the crate i initially drew was all out of perspective. perspective is the bane of my existence! i need to work on that after i get the hang of drawing dudes. so i had to draw another crate and slap that in there digitally. i think it looks good now though. but heck, how would i know?! i suck at perspectives! don't judge me too harshly, please. =(

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

my perrogative

...by bobby brown

so it seems like a lot has happened since last i blogged but i think the truth is simply that i've just had some loooong days lately. just the other day some big optimus-prime truck decided to fall and burst into pieces in the median of 495 (a very big highway around here). we were stuck for an hour and a half and we only went no more than 5 miles. SUCKED. then it went better cuz we went to get cupcakes. but then on our way home, normal traffic was there then suddenly we got a crappy flat tire. SUCKED MORE. our jack was kinda crappy so we had to wait for roadside assistance to help us out. 8 hours later, we finally made it back home. we got NO work done that day.
anyways, since this is a blog about what is on my art table, i've decided to post these pictures. i was working on some Hack/Slash sketchcards and my baby girl Chauncy decided she wasn't havin it anymore so she jumped on me unexpectedly and right onto the table. so instead of working, that's what i was dealin with. =P i finished those cards eventually but i'm probably not allowed to post them yet until they're released.
i'm not sick anymore though! that's always a PLUS. i'm able to get things finished and get back on the ball again. i'm ready to open up commissions again on ebay and deviant so that's always good times. i've been doing a lot of admin work pertaining to our other business - caricatures (i don't draw them, theFranchize does).


this is the roughs for a pin-up i'm working on for these folks' comic book. i'll write more about it when it's all finished. (look i drew another dude! watch out, world!)

Monday, September 13, 2010

poison

...by bell biv devoe

not really a fitting title for this blog considering the extremely cute little girl that i illustrated. =P but rules are rules and i said i'd make the titles of these blogs whatever i happen to be listening to at the time (unless it's some important title).
at any rate, this is a commissioned illustration of a friend's baby girl. she just turned one this saturday and this is a gift for her mom. she's quite a cute little girl so i have nothing to do with how cute this looks - it's au naturale! =D the first image was what i originally intended to give as a final product but due to my insomnia the other night, i decided to just try out a Warhol-inspired version at like 4 in the morning. the mom ended up liking it so that was kinda nifty! the final piece is 12x12.
i did the illustration completely in Adobe Illustrator with shapes and colors. =) (i didn't use Live Trace or anything cuz frankly i just don't know how. kekeke) the Warhol coloring was done in Photoshop.
i'll have a couple more of these to show shortly as well. being sick has really screwed up my internal clock. i'm behind on lots of things again even though i tried to get right at the beginning of the month. i swear if it's not one thing, it's another. i'm goin on my 2nd week of being sick and it's really wearin me down. and to top it all off, our xbox has once again received the Red Ring of Death!! F-in bastards and their F-in faulty piece of machinery! if it weren't for Halo i wouldn't even bother with it. so now Halo:Reach is finally coming out tomorrow and we're without a machine to play it on! perhaps it's fate tellin me i don't need distractions since i'm behind my work enough already. Microsoft could at least give us 360 owners some type of coupon for like $50-$100 off the new Elite system so they can stop getting sent these busted 360s to fix. poopies.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

mrs sexy

...by robin thicke
now that Baltimore Con is done, i can finally post those commissions i couldn't before. =P the first is a commission that someone got for their friend as a birthday present. she apparently really likes Disney princesses so he asked if i could draw a disney princess on a cake and have it say "happy birthday ___" somewhere. (i'm omitting her name for privacy's sake.) i know Alice isn't a princess but he gave me the thumbs up. i really wanted to do a nifty topsy turvy cake (guess i've been watchin too much Fabulous Cakes on TLC) and it would really fit Alice in Wonderland better than others. he also chose it to be more cute than sexy so this was what i came up with. i went a weeeeee bit overboard with it though. i think i was havin just a little too much fun while drawing and it got more and more massive. if i could've squeezed the caterpillar dude somewhere, i would've. but i got his smoking AEIOU in there. =P (the happy birthday message went in the blank spot on the Cheshire Cat card.)

these next ones were for one of my very loyal repeat customers. he's got a lot of stories he'd like to see come to life so me and theFranchize have been doing different pieces for him over the span of maybe 8 years now. wowsers! and i guess we're just lucky he hasn't gotten tired of us yet. OR that he's not upset at all that my style has changed quite a bit in those years. anyways, these are of 2 characters in his latest set of stories. both characters are based on 2 real women that he knows.
the first one is Mysti - yes she's got a giant ray gun. =) and yes she's got a genie-type outfit but with cammo print. everything about her were specific requests of the client and i just try to visualize it for him as best as i can.
the second character is Ms. Stake and has 3 personas. the ninja-lookin version with the hood is a secret identity so ur not supposed to know its her. after i drew this, he told me that my design and the fact that i chose to color her black & white made her look similar to a Birds of Prey comic villain named White Canary. believe me, i had NO idea this character even existed so any similarities were utterly coincidental. i just made her colors black & white cuz 1) she's got a rook as a symbol on her tummy and 2) i didn't think colors would lend itself well to her bein a ninja and all. i think i was mostly tryin not to make her look too much like Kitana/Mileena from Mortal Kombat. =P

and in case ur wondering, i use a LOT of references for poses and things cuz i feel my stuff is far more accurate when i've got models and things. but since i don't have sexy ladies at my disposal, i use stock photography. specifically from this guy's gallery - http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/. u'll need a deviantart account to view most of his stuff but it's a wonderful source. i highly recommend. =)

[feel free to not bother reading the stuff below. i'm just gripin about me bein sick lately.]
so i've been pretty durned sick for the past week and have lost like 5 lbs in 5 days thanks to my inability to eat much of anything except soup this whole time. and though i'm excited about losing any lbs at all, it's probably not a good thing to lose so much in such a short time. since i've got no insurance, i'm really not tryin to go to the doctor's cuz i've been down that road before. still payin off stuff right now as it is. hundreds of dollars so a doc can stick a light down my throat and tell me it's swollen. yeah, i sorta figured that out for myself doc, thanx. anyways, i'm hopin it'll go away after some time. with my trusty WebMD app on my iPod, i'm thinkin it's either strep or tonsillitis. either way, it should go away after a week and a half (supposedly). meanwhile, i take lots of motrin to keep my fever in check and the pain from swallowing at a manageable level. soup and popsicles are my daily diets so i'm pretty weak throughout the day. i really REALLY miss my coffee. but time is my only friend at this point. and nyquil - i love u!

Friday, September 3, 2010

bitter sweet symphony

...by the verve

so baltimore comic con this year was flippin fantastic! despite my reservations about the table spot, it turned out to be a big success for all 5 of us there! we all got way more commissions than we could handle but i did manage to finish all of mine at the buzzer. still counts!! luckily i got to get up early on saturday cuz after i came back, i was pretty much chained to the table. it felt very otakon-like. we're trying to attend one more smaller convention down in Richmond, VA called the VAComicon but not sure if that's going to work out yet. mostly because we can't seem to get a hold of anyone when we inquire about setting up as artists. no buenos. if we don't end up going to that one, at least we've closed the convention year with a nice bang. =)
i'm posting the pics of my commissions that i managed to take before folks came and picked them up. i'm missing maybe 2 or 3 cuz some came to collect sooner than i had the ability to take the pic. we didn't even get to do any of our usual free quick sketches cuz we were too busy! wowsers. we were in full force this weekend with the 4 original gunclappers plus the 5th freshest member, Domo. (the pic of Powergirl and Deadpool is a very particular request. the guy wanted me to draw Powergirl like how i had her in my print but have Deadpool drooling behind her. so Domo did the Deadpool!) he's so flippin talented i can't even describe. all i know is i'm glad he's with us and not against us. i'm not one to toot my own horn or gloat but i do think i have surrounded myself with some of the best artists in the industry. all these guys are tremendously talented and i am very humbled to be considered part of their league and even more so be allowed to sit at the same table with them! *gush*
i can't wait for next year's conventions to start! the first stop should be Megacon in Orlando. and u best believe i will be taking quite the detour either pre- or post-con to the magical land of Harry Potter!!! it's gonna be so flippin sweet i won't even be able to put it in coherent words. almost as excited as i was when i went to my honeymoon. kekeke

[just fyi - from top to bottom and left to right - ID Comics table w/ flash, joe, and me; powergirl & deadpool; storm; mystique; zatanna; emma frost; little mermaid; mystique again; black widow; phoenix - all of my colors were done with copic markers]