Story: Hit it, Ladies!

So I've been working diligently on my latest endeavor, a comic book of my own tentatively titled "Story". It's sort of a "what if" story, as in "what if all of the most notorious Fairy Tale villains were forced to combine their nefarious powers in order to defeat someone with GREATER EVIL POWERS than their individual ones?" So far it has been a great exercise. There are moments where I fall into traps about how I want to tell the story/relying on storytelling devices that I'm comfortable with, but I am really trying to push myself and hopefully it will continue to grow.

Over the weekend, I was able to finally finish putting the four main lady baddies together, and I decided I really liked what I saw. So, here they are:

The Sea Witch: Calliope

She's sort of the main...I don't know if you can label her a "protagonist"...but she is. Calliope is a woman bent on revenge, and she has the know how and the means to do it. The dagger that she carries in a symbol of her past and what she wants to use to finally exact her vengance. Also, she has aqua hair. Which is fun.

The Forgotten Fairy: Vivianne

Beautiful and shy. I hesitate to call her a "Fairy" because of all the glitter/sparkle connotations (which I love, but are not appropriate for her character). She was the 13th Fairy in the tale of "The Sleeping Beauty" that wasn't invited. But was she simply neglected because of a lack of table dressing, or was there something more sinister in the snub? She has Nature/Season based powers, which should be fun to play with/draw.

The Candy Witch: Hexe BonBon

She's often a neglected villain, but the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" was a cannibal in an house made entirely out of sweets. What's not to love? Her name sounds like a drag queen, which is also something to love. Hexe loves being who she is, isn't afraid to go after what she wants. She runs a circus, which she uses to lure more children to her in order to feast upon. She likes them with lots of chocolate sauce.


The Wicked Queen: Marie Adele

I imagine Marie growing up as a princess getting everything she wanted but was never able to make any important connections with humans. The Magic Mirror she has is actually inhabited by the spirit of her deceased mother, a powerful sorceress in her own right. I view their relationship as Toddlers and Tiaras gone horribly, horribly wrong with murder thrown into the mix. The shoes/boots are the metal shoes that were heated and placed upon her feet at the end of the original story. So, part cyborg?





And there you have it. I still need to draw the dashing hero of the story Blue who is in charge of making sure that these ladies don't kill each other. Excited!

Bang: Winter Sign (I'm Back!)

Hello! So, been a while. But, I've firmly decided that I want to make Illustration/Design more a part of my life. I'm going to keep more up to date with my blog as a way to track my progress and keep my art in one place until I have a proper website. Anywho, enough resolution, onto drawings!




So, I was fiddling around in Illustrator and figured out a way to ink that I actually really like. I feel that it's the way I've always wanted to draw, but never could cause I sucked with a tablet and my inking in PS always looked...wonky? Here's a detail:



This drawing was for a large 4'x6' sign for the stores that we manage. The only down side to the inking is that in Illustrator, since the sizing for the brushes is relative, I have to make sure that I create the inked art in the size for printout. I'm sure there's a way to do this in scale, I just haven't figured it out yet. Also, I didn't notice that the girl in the picture looks like Hermione Gragner, but now that I see it I can't unsee it. Enjoy.

Art Dump! I've decided I don't like that term...

Hola!

It's been a while! But I have some things to post:




This is a poster I did for Pembroke Hill's upcoming Prom. Their theme was "A Touch of Class". They wanted "elegant" and "classy", lots of atmosphere. I wanted to make sure it still looked young, so I went with this graphic treatment of a chandelier. I thought it talked about the venue of the Prom and the overall tone of the evening, but the color treatment I felt was still young.







Posters for Sinag-Tala's upcoming concert "Alamat: A Dance Journey into Philippine Foklore". That's a lot to type! I did have fun making these. If I've uploaded these before, these now have all the logos we were supposed to have on the posters in the first place (whoops...)...and the colors are a little more adjusted. Overall, I like how they came out and I'm glad we went with an illustrative approach since we always tend to go with a photographic approach.

Mermaid again...

EEE! Did some work on it...

I like the way the shading/blocking came out...still working on the background...
process is a little different for me since I'm not exclusively using Illustrator. There's
some things that I do miss but some things that I actually really like. Hopefully I can
experiment some more.

Pigs, and Mermaids, and Cakes, oh my!

Latest page from "Fastest Pig in China". A little trickier than most. Lots of going back and forth between Illustrator and Photoshop. Liking where it's going. I'm hesitating on doing the screentone for some reason. So far, I've liked how the grey tones have been coming out, but I'm still trying to find a balance between all of the pages and how I use it.



I thought this just turned out really cute and it makes me want to design my own cake! I've been helping Tita Inday with her upcoming 25th wedding anniversary...and here's her cake! Well, it probably won't end up looking like this...Tita Inday and my Mom probably won't go for the red and purple tiers, but I think it gives a cute, modern twist to the cake without losing the classiness. That's their monogram in the upper left...I think that my dream job is branding weddings...



And lastly...my little pet project. I've had this sketch in mind for about a year now (in fact I've lost the original...I tried to recreate it as best as I can). It's my little tribute to the now closed on Broadway but starting a national tour "The Little Mermaid: A New Musical" musical...dorky dorky dork! This picture is sort of a spoiler alert, but Ariel's sisters (who were all women from different cultural backgrounds, which I wholeheartedly applaud) play a beautiful role in her final transformation from mermaid to human which was so beautiful it deserved some fanart...right now I'm doing color palette...I'll probably desaturate some of the colors, and keep Ariel in focus. I'm trying a lot of different techniques (for me at least) in this one, so I hope it turns into something interesting.

Fastest Pig II: Door and meeting continued!

I checked with Randi and this is still okay to do! So I'm going to do it...It's more of a chronology thing for me at this point and I like it that people can see what I'm up to : )

So. These two pages have taken the LONGEST time. I think it's because of all the screentone that I'm dealing with, even though it's fake screentone. That being said, I do like the way the pages turned out. I still need to add the one speech bubble that is going to be on these two pages. I can't wait to just crank out the rest, even though the next few pages after this sequence may be the hardest ones yet. Yergh.

Fastest Pig II: Door again...and new page!

Working on the climax still...

Here's more of the door and here's the next page where Jimmy and the Monkey King face each other FOR THE FIRST TIME BUM BUM BUUUUUUM!

Yeah, I need to bust my buns on this one...I do like how the door works and the way the vines work. I think I'm just not looking forward to drawing all of the backgrounds that the page with the door is going to need.

Woot...