Posted on

Finished Sketches, with COLOR!

So, because @callouscomics asked me to on Twitter, and because I was working on this anyway, here’s a sample of my color skills with an Artist Trading Card I just finished:

Prismacolor colored pencils, baby!

I also have another Artist Trading Card, this time in plain old ink:

I love my dragons. :3

OH! And I have one more: I’m thinking of making more cards like this for Animarathon (a one-day anime convention in March) as merchandise. There would be other characters, of course, but what do you think? Let me know in the comments!

I actually really like that shading technique. :D

Posted on

Current Work in Progress

Currently I’m adding inks to my pencil sketch, shown here in my screenshot. The actual image I’m inking is much bigger than this, but I was working on some finer details.

I really like this new piece. Once I’m done inking it, I’m going to color it in MyPaint. Unlike a lot of artists, I don’t really have a message to get across in this piece: I just thought it looked cool.

I’m hoping to have it finished and ready for sale at Animarathon. It’s a one-day anime convention held once a year in March here at my college campus. I have an artist alley table there! WOO!

Posted on

Navajo Reservation Community Service I Shall Serve in May, and the Lack of Money to Pay for It.

Hey everyone!

I am writing this letter to ask you to help me in participating in a trip to the Navajo Reservation in May. The Reservation is located in New Mexico and Arizona. Our trip is being sponsored by BGSU Arts Village and UCF community service program.
While on the Navajo Reservation we will visit schools, tutor children, work on projects to combat erosion, and help repair fences and roofs. Unlike many service-learning trips, the service work we do on the Navajo Reservation is not as important as the relationships we will make while we are on the reservation. The trip is designed around giving us opportunities to interact with people who are very different from the people we usually spend time with. More important than the service we do – we have the ability to ask important questions about how people experience life differently from the way we do. Before we can truly serve a community we have to learn how people experience the joys and sorrows of their everyday life.
As you may know that there is much poverty on the Navajo reservation and other reservations in the U.S. but there are also people who have dedicated their lives to improving the conditions of others. We will meet people on the reservation who are working on solutions to the problems such as poor schools, alcohol abuse, housing, and ecology. Most interestingly we will spend time with healers who will show us traditional ways the Navajo people solved their problems.
The cost of the trip is $400.00 per student, which covers transportation food and camping, but we need to raise one thousand dollars more for honorariums and supplies that we purchase on the reservation. 
I realize the economy is bad and you may not have extra money but you should consider a tax-deductible donation of any amount to help us with the cost of the trip. This experience will be beneficial to me because I know I will gain by doing something that will help another person, and it will be beneficial for the people we will meet on the reservation, because it will show them that we care enough to come all the way from Ohio to learn about their culture.
If you are able to contribute to this trip I will send you a collection of comics and a piece of art based on my experiences there. Please send your donations by PayPal by the PayPal button on the side.  You could also send a check to UCF, P.O. box 1463, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402. If you have any questions about the trip you can email Bill Thompson, director of UCF wthomp@bgsu.edu or Gordon Rickets, director of Arts Village gordonr@bgsu.edu.
You guys are awesome! Thank you so much in advance!
Posted on

And Now for Something Completely Different.

And now, a Viking riding a turtle.

Admittedly, I haven’t been updating my sketch blog as much as I should. That’ll change soon. I’ve just been tinkering with Bravenet.com‘s website-building features (by damn, there are a lot of them), trying to build an HONEST-TO-GAWD website of my own.

In the meantime, I haven’t forgotten to draw. I’ve just forgotten to scan my works in. That’ll change, too.

Wow, this entry is longer than normal.

So while I’m making long blog entries, I might as well share about this movie I saw today called Katyn. Here, I’ll let the IMDB description tell you what it is:

“An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.”

It’s brutal, at least to an American girl like me who doesn’t really watch war movies. Up to this point, I saw Black Hawk Down and thought that was intense.

It is, but it’s an action-packed intense. But the last twenty minutes of Katyn can woop the shit out of Black Hawk Down because of that sense of “Oh my god, that ACTUALLY happened. And no one said a DAMN word about it until now.”

That’s right: Katyn covers an event that Russia kept under wraps for close to 40 years. And the U.S. government knew about it and hasn’t said a damn word, either.

It’s an amazing film. Everyone needs to watch it at least once in their lives. It changed my life, that’s for sure, in ways I’m not able to articulate right now.

Wow, I can’t believe I mentioned a war movie in a post with a turtle-riding Viking.

What is the world coming to?

(P.S. this was drawn on an Open-Source program called MyPaint. If you can, try it out, but it’s apparently difficult to download. Be forewarned.)

Posted on

Dragon Men and Strange Men

I love Dragon-Men. Unfortunately my scanner pulled a Derp moment and jagged it up. :P

Don’t ask me what I was thinking when I made that guy’s sword. Just don’t.

Also, INFINITY TRIANGLES! That’s where you draw a shape (any shape! Triangles, squares, stars, Abraham Lincoln, etc) and you fill it with the largest circle you can make. Then fill the empty spaces with large circles, and so on and so on. Go check out vihart on YouTube. She can do this FAR better than me. :D