Baby of an update!

My friend who is with the music committee over at NYU contacted me to do a band poster for the upcoming Atlas Sound/Neon Indian show, Atlas Sound being Bradford Cox of Deerhunter's solo project, which is pretty fucking cool. His music's pretty intriguing; it's made through stream of consciousness, making it very atmospheric coupled with the instruments and special effects. It's sort of like being at the beach at night; very intangible. Some of the vocals remind me of Grizzly Bear.

Neon Indian, to take a quote from Pitchfork, is "Kind of like MGMT on a ramen budget-- and with less face paint." But way cooler than MGMT because MGMT is, well... I just had to delete a paragraph's worth of ranting.

But I can see similarities between NI and MGMT. Actually, I think Neon Indian might be more comparable to Hot Chip, especially because they have an affinity for remixes. Neon Indian's got more character because of the lo-fi feel, but then again I'm a huge fan of the lo-fi vocals on anyone's album.

I should stop talking about music.

Nevertheless, I'm very excited to see what is going to come out of it.

I'll be having that up and about within 2 weeks!

Edit: I probably will do the poster for the Man Man show that's coming up after that if I have time during school. Yippee skippy.

Excuse the poor quality as I am using the house scanner and not the school one.

The type is really unstellar; I totally rushed the shit out of that shit, but even though I did the ilustrations quickly, I'm pretty pleased with them. This is really the direction I want my illustration/art to go in, I think. It's what I used to do in my sketchbook when I actually had time to draw in my sketchbook for fun. (Ah man, I need to buy a new one. So much for putting that on the Chrostmos lost.) I have to be cleaner with it though. I don't know. I'm really kind of wrestling with myself as far as what I want out of my art.

Anyhow, great news from a few days ago! For those of you in tune with the underground music scene (did you catch that pun there?), there's a site called Tiny Mix Tapes out there and they recently did an article about the the top 25 album covers of this year. If you take a look, you'll see something that looks very familiar to what I posted on this blog! That's right, the cover I did for Perkasie back in November 2008 was #8 on the list of the top 25.
I guess the CD was actually put out early this year...

How excitinggggggfdh.

Time to go and wrap some gifts and clean the bathroom for the 31 people who are piling into our house in the next 14 hours.

This uploaded all washed out. Alack.

Small update

Black and white version. Crossing my fingers that I got this in on time.

I have an oil painting that I'll be uploading soon of a bitch fight, but I need to finish it a little bit more and wait for it to dry enough to scan it in. My camera's a dunce. I wish I had some time to draw doodles for myself these days. Maybe I'll find some time over Thanksgiving, eh?

Edotz: Gottong pobloshed stoll! Yos.

What goes on in hell's kitchen

Based off of a Russian fairy tale that my room mate has. The moral of the story essential is that making deals with the devil can turn out for your benefit. Those are all soot people. Lots of little lines. The scan makes it look kind of grainy, but you know... it's not. For Tim O'Brien's class.

Pin-up Round 1

There she is. I'm going to fix a few more things in this in color (such as working of the monster thing and making it darker), but I'm also making a black and white version of this on the computer for publication. My oh my.

I like to think of this as a sister piece to the bathtub woman.

This is before I go back and revise it-- I had to quick finish it in time for class, but a lot more work has to be done.
Once it's done, it's going to go into the case hopefully!

Dawww sad platypus.

Completed in gouache.

Showbiz

Hey guys. This is just going to be a text update whilst I am hard at work in the studio (which is where I live, it seems).
I will be updating very shortly with my work (Monday), but in the mean time I'm really excited because I'm working on a project outside of school, which I'm really excited for (despite my lack of time).

My friend Jess Nicholl and I will soon be published along side the likes of Jeffrey Brown, Johnny Ryan, and Lance Hansen (among many other notable artists) for a book called Seduction of the Innocent (being published by Kettle Drummer Books). It's a compilation of black and white pin-ups of girls reading comic books, so it should be interesting. It's unpaid, but hell, it's going to be on an actual bookstore's shelf.

So when it comes out (maybe in December? I'm not sure.) you know what to buy as a Christmas present. And if you don't buy it for me and Jess's work, there are plenty of other 'established' artists on the bill for you to lap up.


See you Monday.

The finish

There it is. I stayed up all night doing this and the other one (and finished! In one night! Because I didn't have any other time to do it!). The other one looks like complete shit (it's watercolor), but I learned the valuable lesson of checking surfaces. Kids, remember to check and make sure that you're painting on the right side of the watercolor paper unless if you enjoy all of you colors bleeding together and not having water absorb. Alas.

But I'm pretty happy with how this one came out, even if the print was a tad dark. It still worked out.

Back to drawing.
Oh--
And I'm thinking of maybe illustrating The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot for my bookbinding class/because I really really want to.

If you go to UArts and want to take a really good period interpretation course, take Les Amis de Paris. Best choice I've made (blindly). Worst choice is the poster class. Gee whiz.

Revised

Additional 2.5 hours.

Here it is, my first assignment done for Tim O'Brien.



I painted this all in one sitting... The painting took about 9 hours and the process of drawing the thumbnail, drawing a 'good' copy, projecting that to scale and then fixing the drawing even more took around 6 hours or so (I think)? So 15 hours. Not too bad. There are some aspects of this that if given more time I would change, but I needed to get it done today because well... I have other things to do.

The assignment was to draw a close-up of a body part, so I decided to do a crab claw. I really wanted to draw victorian assholes, so I put it into the painting while doing a scene that incorporates what I felt like really drawing (which are victorian patterns and etc).

And! Whoever is reading this and you've stolen my watercolor brushes last semester (I just found out that they were stolen), be sure to know that I do voodoo and am placing a curse about your house. Half of those brushes were from my deceased grandfather.


If you didn't steal them however, I bless you.

All right, off to pet my dog.

P.S. It looks way darker and more colorful on the UArts computer and in person. Blogger totally raped this. Shit.

EDIT: I have made alterations and will post up the revised version.

Through tunnels and storms and tornadoes and and and...

As the busy keeper

I've been keeping busy.

Some thumbnails for Mark Tocchet I've been working on that I'm pretty psyched about. I have another concept I have to do and will put up here eventually, but the composition of those thumbnails are really boring and don't deserve to be seen yet.

IT'S ME AND VIVI VS. THE FIRE DOG.

IT'S A DOG MADE OF FIRE.


HOLY CRAP. EMBERS OF FIRE EVERYWHERE.

And! So stoked. First class with the man Tim O'Brien on monday! Hearsay is that we might draw animals as people (scoree), but hearsay is only hearsay. Stay tuned, kids.

I can't wait until my only job will be drawing and making cool stuff and I won't have my day job or liberal arts classes interfering. I like the classes, but yeah.
I need to start sleeping less.

Coral is Persona 3 inspired.
The doctor sleeps with Jesus at his head.
The witch is for Nicole.

Album cover

I've toiled on this thing long enough. It's been 23 hours of waking life in this day and it's getting to the point where my vision is becoming bizarre.



I can't say that I'm wholly satisfied with it as my own art piece. But I suppose that's how it is when you are illustrating someone else's vision...
I don't detest it however, there are aspects in it that I enjoy. Like the pigs and elephants being farmer friends, and toad with tuba.

I'm not particularly fond of collage, which is probably why I'm not satisfied. I haven't dabbled in it much and I don't see myself doing much of it in the future. As long as the band likes it, I suppose.
Ah, well.
To each her own.

In the Last Drop I was talking to Ron about Vermont and Canada as we were going over album cover stuff, and after he left this Canadian man started talking to me and gave me a book that he wrote about Canadian politics. Unmuzzled Ox, rePOLITICS by Eugene McCarty et al. Very bizarre, but it'll make for a read while waiting for the subway back home seeing as how my bike's tire is still flat.

I'm going to buy watercolor paper now I can finally get my mind to work on something besides this! So watch this space, as always.

Piece of the album cover that didn't make the cut aka colored version of space woman I posted earlier.

Hastar Farn

Remember ole Hester-Fern?
She really likes whiskey and her dog companion which is basically my dog companion.
The bottle's weird, but whatever.

When I do ink with microns, most of the time I try and draw without any guidelines or pencil underdrawing in an attempt to get the job done in the first shot. I haven't quite achieved that yet (tubas are difficult without immediate reference), but I am working on it.

There's something so pleasing about the simplicity of black and white contour and crosshatching.

The man with the axe I had a nightmare about. The dog is my own, the man may be up for western characterization, and the rest were just for kicks.
Indeed that walrus is an astronaut.

It begins

Once again using my dad's terrible scanner.
I wrote notes next to Estelle in pencil, but it was all scribbly and left a bad taste in my mouth, so I retyped them.
Oh the adventures these characters are having in my head. I think I'm going to draw a man next. And a dog for Hester-Fern maybe. We'll see.

I don't know what I'm going to end up doing with them, but I'm having a great time so far just making them up and giving them lives.

I'm thinking of Ghost Towns.

Stuff.

The Doctor.

I'll come back with a backstory for Hester-Fern later. I need coffee and I have work in a half an hour. Ciao 'til then.

Ray Davis pt.1

Anatomy and sketchbook

All done in watercolor...

Thumbnails for Toy Soldiers' single and full album that is coming out. Single should be coming out around the 20th or 22nd. Really psyched that I get to do this for them, especially when I am trying to keep myself busy. I'm trying to stay in the groove that school put me in-- consistently doing some kind of art/illustration work.

Just an unfinished (but soon to be finished) fun character sketch. I don't draw men often enough, though this dude does look a little girly. Soon I will morph him into a plague doctor. It has been a while since I did character design or thought about making comics. It was a favorite past time in high school, but ever since college, I haven't been able to think of a story or had the time to put into any sort of comic. Nothing will probably come of this character (or the story I have brewing behind it), but it's a nice thought.

It was Nina's birthday. She and I also talked about making zines and trying to get into First Friday. I think zines are a more realistic goal for now. Looking through the ones at the Wooden Shoe, god damn they look easy to make. And cheap. All photocopied-- and some are as small as just 1 folded piece of paper. Wilikers!

Mike the barista from the Last Drop. I find myself becoming fond of porcupines. I am also fond of going there to doodle, so whoever is in the area and feel like having a doodle sesh, I am always down.

And a wonderful old photo I found today over at More than Just Books on 6th and Bainbridge.

And after all that, apologies for the poor scans. My dad's computer isn't really revered for its scanning or its monitor's quality. Once I got back on my mac I had to go back and darken some of the watercolors back in photoshop after already doing that on his computer. What a pain to deal with.

More to come later!