New business cards, new mailers, and the start of my theme show entry!

Even though I still have mailers and cards, I needed to make new ones because my work and style has taken a MAJOR jump in the past year. As you can tell I even had to change my blogger header and avatar >.<. So this weekend that was one of the goals and I also did things that I didn't do for my last two runs.

For my mailers I decided to make it with a teaser of pieces rather than one piece of a portrait. Also added some of the funny faces so that it ties into the site and my business cards. For my business card I decided to go with a silly self portrait (the monkey face since I'm known for making it) but did it in a vertical format which my past ones have been horizontal. I know it's more common to hold them horizontal and that's how they sit in holders and everything. It's not particularly standard but my intentions were to be a little out of the ordinary. I usually hand them out vertically (by habit) and if someone sticks it in a book or a folder, I thought it would be a good calling card to have my face peering at them. I hope that this is as effective as I planned.

Then for the theme show, which is wild west, I chose to do an Alice in Wonderland theme. I'm not really into the wild west but we all get themes and projects we aren't happy with, so your job is to make it enjoyable. My first thought was to do a katamari tumbleweed piece with a jackalope; but then I thought about sharp shooter Annie Oakley and thought I could do something fun with her and the jackalope as white rabbit. It may have come from listening to too much anime or anticipating for the movie "Sucker Punch" but this is what I came up with. But I chose to use the common modern pose for her, the parallel of the game, and will add text on the buildings that should help make it even more themed to alice (the train is "The Dodo", the Saloon will be "The Rabbit Hole"). Annie Oakley was a sharp shooter performer who dress fairly conservatively, but what's the wild west without saloon girls. So it will be battle among the old bar maid (the queen) versus the noob starlet (alice/annie).

Hello 2011

So where to now? Well before the year ended I submitted a book, updated my website, and started looking for agents' contact information (since I'm really have no luck with promoting myself). Now things won't stop here... :D! I've planned to enter the new year steam rolling as usual and have. I've gotten 2 character designs- done, a spot illustration- done, my theme show piece- in progress, and a sculpture- in progress. I think I am in need of doing a couple items before I can submit to agents, but I'm really close. I hope that will be happening by the end of Feb. I'm hoping for sooner but time really seems to fly (it's already the 5th) and like all young illustrators know... working to try and get your break in the illustration world is rough especially when you need a 9-5 to survive and pay living expenses.

Gabby and Deity are from a long side project I started planning out a year or two ago. They are from a story that was made up from a collection of my own dreams.

"Gabby" is an orphaned elderling. Elderling are young full-bloods (there are two types of full-bloods: human and creature.... creatures have taken on the name elders to differ themselves from ordinary animals). She's from the creature class Sirenia. Sirenia are hybrid formed humanoids... they have always had a sirenia mother and a human father. Sirenia is a dominant gene for female offspring so all female offspring are called elderlings. She is the last survivor from the town of Avior which was attacked by Raiders. The citizens were torture, murdered, or left for dead. Her legs were shattered and her tongue was ripped out to stop her from trying to defend herself. She some how made her way to the city where she was made fun of by the local children who dubbed her The Jabberwocky. She was soon found and taken in by a group of housemates that have treated her and adopted her as their own child. Her legs are in braces because they had to be rebroken to heal properly. She's been able to develop a new attack and defense.

Deity (her code name) is one of the housemates and is the one that first finds Gabby. She was stationed in a purist city growing up because her father was on the modernization unit. She has the ability to control life energy and energy fields. When she moves back to the city, there was two her. To cope with the intolerance of the purist city her personality split into literally two bodies. Once she gains an esteem the second body begins to fade which makes that second version upset. The other finally disappears and is absorbed after she wins against her in a well needed showdown. She tests her theory of energy fields which boosts her abilities by 10 fold and takes her down. Energy source is everything in this world so that's why she was coined as the deity. She's also been called the puppeteer because of one of her favorite attacks.

I was working on my digital skill versus illustration styles. Cartoonish to more realistic drawings. This is my mom's dog Prince!

Bye 2010!

Alright the starting gate is done and the shot has gone off. Now go!!! Last year, I will admit was a huge leap for my art work (and I'm not just saying that)! I went from just acrylic painting and dabbling in digital paint to solely using it digital. I went from having very limited digital paint skills to somewhere I can actually be somewhat happy with.

January 2010


November 2010