YOSH.

Experimenting with Bad Grammar's look... Michio here is pretty much the epitome of my mood as of late. Eventually, some day, I will be done with my overhaul of the comic. Until then... Moar sketching.

Moar Character Designs

Nothing much to post today, so have some more character designs from my "Maiz" comic-in-progress. All the animals and animal-people will be local to Guatemala, so here we have a crocodile, a sea turtle, and a jaguar. Jaguars are actually very austere animals in Mayan culture, which I want to reflect in the comic. But for now there's still a lot of design work to be done.

Finish to Start

Finished up a concept illustration for the Maiz project!

And because I'm addicted to showing process, here are the stages in reverse order: flat colors, linework, and pencils.

Maiz again

I'm busy working on what is currently my most ambitious photoshop project yet (and it is long overdue), so here are some more sketches in the meantime, all having to do with my current comic in the works.

I considered this sketch for a postcard, actually, but ended up going with a different illustration.


Here are some more character designs. Above is Marcus, the faithful dog of the group. He was a stray before he met Maiz, and so is the precocious type. He's also a music lover. Below is a secondary character who will appear in the first story arc, though I haven't thought up a name for her. Her village worships a giant macaw with sapphire teeth, who I will probably be talking about much more later on.

Let's Get Some Color Up In Herrr

Thought I'd do that thing where I compare the sketch version to the finished version of some artwork... So here it is with a commission I did a few months ago.


The request was for a watercolor painting, and this was the sketch with some quick PS color thrown on...

And here's how it turned out! MAGIC. This ladybug and her pet aphid are now presumably hanging on the wall of a baby's room. Sweet.

Birch forest

Alright, I'll admit it. I have a huge thing for birch (or aspen) forests and artistic representations thereof. Throw in some skinny, white-barked trees and I am totally there. So when I wanted to test out some new hot press wc paper, I decided to draw some birch trees. Aw yeah. That's what I like.

Maiz

So, my computer died quite a while ago, and while it's not fixed it IS mysteriously up and running right now. I thought I had lost all the files for my website, so this is tremendous news, seeing as I had the chance to back it all up onto my flash drive.

In the past few months I started writing a new comic, and drawing up a lot of character designs for it (I'm just now getting into environment designs and straight-up script writing and such). I won't say too much about it, except it's an adventure comic heavily inspired by Mayan mythology and Guatemala.

So here are some designs I've been working on for the two main characters... I thought it would be interesting to show the progress I made from earlier designs to what I have now.



This is the main character, who I'll call Maiz for now-- since according to Mayan mythology people were formed out of corn. I may or may not change it. Maiz is the inspiration for the whole story, since I wanted to do an adventure with a chubby female lead. I feel like there's practically nothing out there featuring an overweight female character, and the few things I have seen are frankly insulting. But I won't get into my rage right now. Here, have some more Maiz:



I've gotten into the habit of sometimes sketching with ink, and I really like the results... Although it is sometimes disconcerting to not be able to erase anything. But they're just sketches anyway.



Here's Maiz's faithful sidekick, who I'm calling the Blue Monkey for now (again, subject to change) after the Mayan astrological sign. As you can probably tell, the comic will be filled with anthropomorphic animals. I'll stop here for now, but expect to see more work related to this project in the future.

New Website

So I'm working on a new website layout, and I'm nearly finished. And I have a brand new front page graphic, too.

Well, that's just the sketch. I'll post the finished product once I get the website up and running. Until then... Stay classy.

New York and Company

Get ready for a real life finished illustration to be posted on here in the near future. I was inspired by New York and Company's new clothes to do a fashion/lifestyle illustration (since I can't actually afford them). There are some subtly nautical themed things in anticipation for the warmer months, so I decided to use them:

Just some really quick sketches of the clothing and accessories I was thinking of using. Then I sketched a few compositions and settled on this one:

In the next few days I'll be refining this, then I'll do the final illustration in ink and brush and colors in photoshop.

Also, just because I love to draw girls wearing cute clothes (and partly because I've been watching a lot of Facts of Life):

That's all for now. Have a good weekend, web surfers.

It's 2010

So it's 2010! I hope everyone had a great New Year's. I'll be turning 23 in just a few short days (on the 7th to be precise), and I'm very excited, as this means sauerbraten for dinner. My resolution for this new year: move out to an apartment of any sort by March 1st, regardless of financial means. Let's see if I can do it!

This was a gift for a group of my BFFs-- we call ourselves the Juicers, which is extremely geeky and a long story. The illustration is by me, and then my juicy friend Cristina (the one on the bottom right, with the edamame) screen printed the design onto some t-shirts. The final product looked like this:

At least, this is what it looks like in my dimly lit home. The "Stay Juicy" phrase was chosen because of the oft used "Stay Golden" phrase used in relation to the Golden Girls. That's also partly why we chose golden t-shirts.

Well, that's it for my supreme dorkiness... For now.