Weekly Illustration Project 10 - Lost and Confused (Work-in-Progress 2)

So here's an update of my current project.  A little late, but better late than never!  I spent my time this week getting down the rest of the lineart and starting on blocking in some flat colors.  Hopefully it'll be done by the end of next week.  Depends how deep I go into highlights and shades I guess...  I'll probably stick mostly to cel, maybe a little painting for the background.  We'll see soon enough!  Hope you enjoy this in the meantime. 

Weekly Illustration Week 9 - Lost and Confused(Work-in-Progress)

Hey everyone! So this week I was working up an artistic tribute to one of my favorite things and characters ever, Ranma 1/2 and Ryoga respectively. The poor fellow just can't seem to find his way to the Tendo Dojo. It's almost like he can hear Akane's voice calling to him, so much does he want to find his way there...

As you can tell, it's not so finished as I'd like. Wanted to color the characters after I lined them, so it might have been more line-finished if I'd avoided that, but oh well.

It did bring me to a decision though! What I'm going to do from now on is work at least 30 minutes a day on an illustration, but not confine it to a week, necessarily. Sometimes I've completed things in less than a week, more often they're unfinished, so I am going to try a more flexible approach and work on them until they're done. I'll post in-progress shots at the end of every week untilt the drawing is done, then start a new one. Really the goal was to spend some time working on personal projects every day, and that's still achieved, but I won't have to rush and put out a subpar-quality piece or only work on simple projects. I'll still not drag my feet about it, but try to move at an appreciable pace each day and finish in the most reasonable time possible.

That's my plan at least. I'll do that for now and see how it goes. If I find that I'm abusing it and taking forever to finish things, I may have to rethink it, but I'll try this new system for the moment.

I hope you folks like the current state of the drawing, and I look forward to having a more finished version for you all next week! 

 

 

Weekly Illustration 8 - If I Were You: Seize the Cheese

Hey everybody!  A bit of an early post here.  For this week’s weekly illustration, I wanted to do a little fanart for a podcast I’ve recently gotten into called If I Were You.  It’s an advice podcast hosted by Jake and Amir from Collegehumor.  Been a fan of their sketches for years, but just started listening to the podcast, and now I can’t stop. 

Basically there’s a long-running joke based around the phrase “Seize the Cheese,” so I thought that would be a fun thing to render artistically. 

They also invite people submit shirt designs, so I figured if I was gonna draw fanart, I might as well make it a shirt too, so if you want to buy this as a shirt, you can!  You can find it here, and can also buy it as a print or on a phone case if you so please. 

Since it’s an early post, I may see if I can get something done by the time the week actually ends, or maybe I’ll go back and do some finishing work on older stuff I want to refine or color. 

In the mean time, I hope you all like this and SEIZE THE CHEESE

Weekly Illustration 7 - Fool For Love

Hey folks!  So here I am with my Week 7 Illustration, and it’s based on this song, Fool For Love by Lord Huron.  It’s one of my recent favorite songs, and props and profuse thanks go out to Lauren for introducing me to this amazing band.  This illustration is essentially the calm before the storm, the last moment of contemplation before the major conflict of the song. 

Ideally I would have been able to fully color this too, but I wanted to at least get it pretty solidly black and white, so that I can later color it when I have time. 

I hope you all like it and that you enjoy the song as well! 

Chris 

Ready Jet Go! Storyboards

Hey everyone! 

Here are some storyboards that I recently did for Wind Dancer Films and their kid's show Ready Jet Go!  They were a lot of fun to work on, and the characters were great to work with.  Here's hoping I can work with them more in the future! 

Weekly Illustration 6 - Dark Night of the Soul

Hey folks!  Here with another piece worked on throughout the week, and another that's not as done as I was hoping to get it by the working period's end.  Again, I think I gave myself overmuch to do, and the fact that I'm still sort of blindly groping my way through digital painting probably doesn't help matters.  Hopefully I can work on this more in the future and really get it to a state where I can call it done.  I think for the final, I'd end up cropping it down some, but I figured I might as well post it in the full state that it was.

This one was inspired by the song of the same name, by Loreena McKennitt, which you can listen to here if you'd like  I'd highly recommend it, as it's a beautiful, soothing piece of music.  And as such, it was very emotionally inspiring.  I don't think I can say I did the feelings justice here, but it's a start, maybe for future work.

Finished or not, I hope you folks like what I got down! 

Weekly Illustration 5 - Vide Cor Meum

Hey everyone! Here for week five, I have some fanart based on NBC's Hannibal. Unfortunately, my vision outpaced the time I was able to spend on this, so it's not to the level of completion that I want. Some things got a little rushed to get it even to this form, that I'd probably go back and redo if I had more time. I worked on it past the minimum requirements, but with work and other obligations, I wasn't able to do as much on it as I wanted. I'd like to work on it more in my free time in the future, and get it colored and such.

About it though, it has roots in a song used in Hannibal, Vide Cor Meum or "See My Heart," which itself is based in a poem from Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. I don't want to spoil things for those who haven't watched Hannibal (because it's the greatest show of all time and should be seen by all), but if you've seen it, hopefully it'll all make sense enough.

So I'm still working to find a balance of things I want to draw, and how complicated I can make them, in order to get them done in minimal time. With Kylo Ren, I got done two a week. With this, it's not complete. Hopefully I'll find equilibrium soon.