Friday, October 19, 2018

leia day

[listening to "successful" by ariana grande]




as promised, i wanted to share some quick WIP shots of my newest print - Leia Libations at Lamplight Lounge. i drew this for a Leia Day event at my favorite local comic shop The Perky Nerd here in Burbank, CA on Saturday Oct 20, 2018 from 4p-6p. along with having 5 Leia voice actresses for a signing, they're also doing a Leia art show to celebrate Carrie Fisher's birthday. this is going to be one of a handful of other pieces from other artists centered around Princess Leia. go to their facebook page for more info on the event - https://www.facebook.com/theperkynerd

i haven't shared much progress shots recently. i definitely need to get back to doing it but because of the usual secretive nature of most things i'm working on, i can't post most of that stuff. anyways, so i started with the sketch of course. the first wip shot is more of the cleaned up lines. this is about as clean as i'll take these lines before going straight into coloring.
recently, i've started to do just a quick grayscale mockup of the finished piece. this has really helped me to make sure that my color values don't end up super flat, which it has a tendency of doing cuz i really suck at that stuff. i think i'm supposed to color over these grays, but i don't (cuz again i suck at that). instead i use it as a guide for when i'm coloring, reminds me about where i want the midtones, the bright lights and the darkest darks. since i wanted to work with a darker-than-usual background, i decided to get most of the background colors down before going into flatting the figures cuz that's gonna affect my color choices pretty drastically. after i lay down the flat colors for the figures, i get into shadows and highlights. i also applied a blur on the hanging lights and the banister in the foreground, keeping the focus on the ladies.

the theme was supposed to be Leias Having Lunch, but i put a little grown-up twist to it. so instead, they're havin dranks! the hubby and i went to the new Lamplight Lounge in Disney's California Adventure side. we got seated outside with a great view of the new Incredicoaster. loved the ambiance of that place immediately. but i REALLY fell in love with their drink menu cuz all the drinks were illustrated and it just looked like fun. SO, each of these Leias have a drink from that menu. from left to right: 

  • Leia on Hoth - Nectar in the Rye
  • Leia from "Star Wars Rebels" - Open Ocean with a Splash
  • Leia on Endor - Over Budget
  • Leia from "A New Hope" - Infinity Fizz
  • Leia from the royal award ceremony - Sizzle Reel
if u ever get the chance to go to Disney's California Adventure, check out the Lamplight Lounge! it's so neat in there! the wait to be seated is pretty long, but so is everything else at Disney so whatevs. i will say, the Infinity Fizz drink is super cool to see, BUT it doesn't taste that great. tastes like a melted down ice popsicle. get dem mini donuts tho, they're yummy!

Friday, October 5, 2018

captain marvel

[listening to "dance to this" by troye sivan ft. ariana grande]

Captain Marvel Little Golden Book published by Penguin Random House
B&N preorder listing
i am finally able to share with the world what i have been up to all summer long. looks like CAPTAIN MARVEL is not only getting her big-screen debut, she's also getting a Little Golden Book and i had the amazing honor of drawing the whole durned thing! the book is up for pre-order now on Barnes & Noble website, directly from Penguin Random House online, and Amazon as well (image for hardcover copy should hopefully be updated next week). it will be available early January and will be sold wherever you typically find these Little Golden Books. =)

this book was a whole lot of work but i am super proud of the end result. it's kind of a milestone for me. i think if i tried to draw this book 2 years ago, maybe even 1 year ago, i would not have been ready. and the editors really gave me a lot of freedom to draw this in my style. well, as much as Disney would allow them. haha!

if you're near the Burbank, CA area, The Perky Nerd comic shop in Burbank will be having a signing event with ME when the book is released. the shop owner is a huge Captain Marvel fan and she's just an all-around awesome lady. more on that as it comes closer.


on a separate note, i just wanted to give a quick apology for letting this blog be poorly updated. i've really gotten more work than i've ever had since we've moved out to Los Angeles and it's been great. however, that work has prevented me from updating this page as much as before. i've even had to close down my Patreon page because it was getting more and more difficult to update that as well, especially with all the Non-Disclosure Agreements i am constantly having to fill out. but now that my Patreon page is closed, maybe i can go back to posting on here more regularly. fingers crossed!