Comic Book Project

So here's the comic book project I did for my art history class, the one entitled "Copy Cats." The professor is a little eccentric, (another person who was in my class did a pretty accurate animation of one of his lectures) but basically the course talked a lot about Aristotle and his ideas of tragedy and comedy, and some "theories on mimesis," or basically as artists why we copy and what we copy.

For my final project I chose the comic book option, and decided to turn Oedipus Rex, a story we had gone over as the perfect example of tragedy, into a comedy. Oh, and the professor loves cartoons and anime and anything campy, so I was trying to appeal to his tastes.

Also, since the theme was "copy cats" I incorporated some things from other comics into mine.

The dinosaur on the first page is based off of T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics

"Fat Pony" on page five (and some influence on my style for the comic) is from Kate Beaton's comics

Almost all of page seven is copied and slightly modified from "300" by Frank Miller (the comic book not the movie)

And of course the story was from Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, which having some prior knowledge of will make this comic much easier to understand.

Also, I did all of this in like two nights, so the art started to get really crappy towards the end. It's really noticeable about the time Jocasta comes into the picture... her and the captain of the guard are about the worst things I've ever drawn.

HERE IT IS



By the way, my professor really liked it and gave me extra credit, so I ended up with a 100.5 for the class. :)

Updating just to update.

I'm tired of looking at my last post.

This week I'll get my prints from the whole semester of printmaking up, and then maybe I'll scan in an awful comic book I did for my crazy art history class.

In the meantime, here's something I did while watching tv just to remind myself that I do know how to use photoshop - it's been a long time. It's not finished, but I like it so far.

Decorating my wall

Since my walls are so big and empty, I've been creating a wall decal by cutting out shapes in contact paper. This is what I've got so far, and I'll probably add more later.

Didn't decide to take a picture of this one until after they had left (hence why it's in the bag, waiting for package pick-up.) I just haven't posted any black and whites, and this one was the first in-park drawing I really got to use the gray copic on.



The picture I snapped of this couple really doesn't do justice to his crazy blue fish-eyes. Hers is pretty meh, but I really liked how I drew the expression he had (which of course changed when I got a picture of him.)

That's all for now.

FINISHED

So I'm sure everyone else is as sick of this picture as I am, but it's FINALLY DONE. I am NOT working on it anymore. I am done. Even though I'm not happy with the hair and there's some weird kind of shadow next to the head on the right, I am done. Mostly because I've gotten to that point where I absolutely hate it and feel like I have to fix everything, and I know from experience if I touch it now I'll end up ruining it.

Gouache has been weird to work with - at first I loved it, and then I started to realize some of its limitations and hated certain elements of it. I simultaneously feel like I overworked it, and didn't work it enough.

I also kinda regret the background choice, and had a really hard time finding a color to paint the frame that would go with it - the yellow I chose is slightly less mustardy than the picture makes it look (I played with the contrast and color levels in photoshop a lot, but the colors are still a little off) and it kinda looks good, but at the same time I think it's probably too bright. But the only other colors I could seem to find that didn't outright clash was a dark maroon red (which made the background look like the fires of hell) and dark blue (but I couldn't find spray paint in the right shade.)

But, the important thing is I finished my first studio-caricature, and I have it done in time for the show. Now I should go to bed before I give in to the temptation to redo the entire thing.

Yet again instead of finishing House, I started something else. This is just a quick sketch of Stephen Fry that I did with my latest favorite toy, some gray Copic markers.

More vases! And House gets... House-ier.

I made more vases! Yay! The middle one is currently my favorite, and the one on the right I don't really like at all. The left one continues in a rainbow-ish color pattern, and the middle one has different tree-bird-cloud scenes on each side. The one on the right I was trying to be a bit random with the colors, which didn't really work out the way I wanted it to. I was uninspired by it, so I just threw on some flowers drawn on the text of some diabetes medication adverts and other boring stuff.



Also, this is what House looks like at the moment. It seems like the closer I get to finishing it, the less I want to work on it. Pretty much the only thing that's changed is he has both shoulders, a cane, and I managed to make the background even brighter than before somehow.

Quick vote - should I put the Vicodin bottle in or no? I kinda don't want to draw it in there, because the positioning is awkward, but I think a caricature of House really needs it. Opinions?

Half finished House

I've been working on this painting for a few days now (by which I mean for four hours or so two days ago, and half an hour today) but there's still quite a bit to be done. Things like his other shoulder, finishing his hair, the cane with the Vicodin bottle perched on it, and changing the flourescent orange background I started. It's gouache (a wonderful paint that's somewhere in between tube watercolors and acrylic paint in consistency for those unfamiliar to it) and it's (obviously) Hugh Laurie as House. There's a caricature show coming up in the near future, and I wanted to have something to add to it. I'm hoping to finish this and start/finish one of Eddie Izzard (in a dress!) before the deadline (in about a week!) so wish me luck.

Also, there's a ridiculous amount of parenthesis(es?) in this post.

More park sketches

Two more sketchy things

First off, a rough caricature of House I did at art night. By the way, my scanner mutilates colors, so the colors aren't quite as harsh in the real thing.



And here's a picture of me today. As you can probably tell, it was rainy and I was very unhappy.

Newest craft project

The beads were getting tiresome, so I started covering cheap vases with magazine clippings. I really like the effect, and I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far. Here's the three I've made, two with cherry blossom patterns (the flowers are drawn on craft paper) and one with a subtle leaf-and-berry pattern. They've been coated with a sealer, and are so far proving pretty sturdy. If I get the method perfected, and get an interest, I might start making ones to sell on Etsy or otherwise.

More craft than art...

I love to draw, but really my passion is simply to make stuff, whether it be drawings, painting, or jewelry or random things I don't even have purposes for.

In this case, here's a bracelet I made of paper beads today. I haven't made paper beads since I was about 8, but I had a lot of free time today and didn't want to go anywhere for fear of spending money, so I spent most of the day reading and doing this.

More Caricatures

Just a few more caricatures I've drawn lately that I've liked. I think I've gotten better at linework and bodies, but still have a long way to go before I can get exaggeration right.



This one I just liked for some reason.



He asked to be skydiving, and I was pretty proud of myself for pulling it off.



These two had just gotten engaged two days before, and she was very VERY excited about it. She asked for the ring to be in the picture, and for her to be smiling. Then she mentioned the engagement at least once a minute. They seemed pretty happy with it, even said they were going to use it for their announcements.

Koi Mistress - WIP

Just something I worked on for a couple hours last night.

Some couples sketches

I'm still not drawing stuff I'm really proud of yet at BG, but here's some sketches I like, just to get a sense of what I do all day.




The woman had a shirt that said "I Bite" on it, so I tried to be clever with it. T-shirts are usually a great place to insert your own jokes or digs at the person.



This couple sat down one at a time, so I didn't get a picture of both of them as they were, so you can't see it but the woman had a gold tooth with a heart cutout on it. I usually am terrible at making couples sketches have good interaction, so I tried bring them together a little more by having hearts come out of her tooth and wrap around him.



I think the whole reason this couple got their caricature done is because the woman wanted his chin on paper. I have two things I really dislike about this sketch - she smiled a little sideways, but my attempt to draw that just looks kind of awkward, and the arms at their sides make it really obvious just how bad I am at interaction.

That's it for now.

A piece I'm working on

So this is something I drew on Wednesday. It's not finished, but I'm not sure where I'm going with it yet. It's too purely decorative at this point - which is okay sometimes, but I personally wanted more out of it.

It needs some kind of background, but I'm afraid if I add one I'll sacrifice the contrast of the black and white tree with the colored cranes... because if I make the background black and white, it'll make the detail on the tree less obvious, but if I make it colored the cranes will fade into it.

I considered making clouds out of the silver ink but then the strings will fade away. Also, none of these things are going to transform it out of "purely decorative" yet... I need something more interesting in there. Problem is I really don't have a concept for it... I just have been drawing paper cranes a lot recently and wanted to do something with them.

Something new...

So, I'm creating an art blog.

We'll see how this works out.

Meanwhiles, here's some quick sketches I did while watching Sweeney Todd. They're not very special or anything, but I kind of like them.