Inktober! (I haven't been updating!!!)

Okay, I'm NOT gonna add ALL of them I've been working on the last month on here, but from now on I'll ACTUALLY make updates!

Stitching Butterflies is Far from Finished

I completed the Stitching Butterflies book dummy... or so I thought.

Turns out there is a contest out there for illustrators not agented or published who are writing stories about diversity.

I'm entering of course! SB is all about two girls with diverse backgrounds, two different points of views and different interactions with the world. These interactions clash until they realize they are more similar they than thought.

Do I think I'll win? No, I don't, but I'm sure going to make sure that I try my very best and I make SB the best I can make it.

 These three images never seem to go away
or be completed. I want to make them perfect
but I need to move on (I need 6 completed pages!) So my next three I must do in a short amount of time. Everything MUST look SPLENDID, fantastic, it's gotta be a like a delicious cake where all the ingredients as a whole make people want to consume my cake. This is the next one I'm completing. I hope I can do this fairly quickly!

And in other news, I'm trying to complete a book dummy for Hello Robot by completing Dani Duck's book dummy challenge. Oh yeah, it's also INKTOBER and next month NaNoWriMo and the last Tomi competition is due in December.

I have a lot of projects...THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR.

I've Been Busy...and I'm Starting a Thing and it's Day 1

I need to practice my drawing skills.

Yes.

That means back to the basics and I'm talking specifically perspective.

Take a look at these:

They are both extremely flat and while I love working this way (I have another oil painting in progress) I need more depth in my bigger works, more specifically for all the worlds NL involves. 

I think working on perspective will help with my picture book illustrations as well.

Here is the first perspective drill. 

Got to keep pushing. 

I was NOT finished! (Am I ever really?)

After showing the Facebook critique group and going over it with friends and family, then going back to a critique group, I came up with this:

final before 

final after

The very first reaction was that the colors were lovely, but very dim. I needed to brighten the whole composition (and ultimately I agree with this move, however I now need to go back to the first illustration to make sure everything is consistent) The second reaction what that most people could not see the "Stitch stitch stitch" which is what I was afraid of. I still need to clean up those "stitches" a bit before calling it a final. 

Lesson: If you think your illustration is finished, it's probably not finished. 

Second Illustration COMPLETE (I think)

I truly believe that my process could be a lot easier if I tried. This next piece took about a dozen sketches and re draws and tears (haha) to make. 

The biggest problem that I've had for a long time is tone/shading and clarity. Perhaps I'm an abstract artist at heart, but rarely is abstraction acceptable in illustration...especially if that abstraction was meant to be a hand or something or other important detail that needs clarification.  To fix this issue, I began to determine tone in photoshop by scanning my drawing in (after sketching out the darks and lights in thumbnails @_@) and just going through with photoshop paint. After that, to help with color (which sometimes I'll get too many layers and forget that this is acrylic and NOT oil paints) I just plop in the color to determine where things are placed, and gain more clarification.

Then comes the re-draw yay! I figure out what I enjoyed most of about the sketch, then draw the final. The acrylic layer is then painted on for texture purposes (and for patience purposes as working with acrylics can be annoying sometimes, but I suppose thats what happens when working with a plastic paint, not nearly as flexible as oils or digital) as I like painted textures with a strong color and found the combo to be fairly interesting. Prints way better too! And quicker! Joy.

In the middle of making this, I realized in my sketch I didn't see the gutter problem with the dandelion and the first "stitch" sooooooo... had to fix it. 

I did.

And here it is.

Perhaps I'll add the words on here later tonight, but this is the page spread! Another illustration complete for the dummy. I'll be making this one next!

AH I FAILED!

SO I failed the April 50,000 word challenge.

That's because I finished my Stitching Butterflies book dummy! YAY!

I'm still working on Nightlander like usual. It'll just be a long term project like I thought it was going to be. If you're interested just go here to see my progress, slow as it is. I supposed you can't write a YA novel/comic in a month (or at least I can't.)

After making my book dummy, I began a final illustration to go along with the dummy. This process was similar to my others: lots of  sketches, final sketch, acrylic painting, digital painting over acrylic, and I'll do a final acrylic after the digital. Here's the process:

Took me a week of frustration, but I got it eventually. Next final I'll do...

I'm Finished! Woo hooo!

I'm finally finished with this piece! (maybe...for now I am though!) Is it a portfolio piece? I don't know but I'll probably add it with the other Little Red Riding Hood piece if I do. ^_^

Building a Portfolio? Uh Oh

Out of my entire website, I found only three pieces that has done anything to get into my actual portfolio. I guess they're right in saying it takes a lot of failure to gain any kind of success (whoever they are ha.)

My illustration work has disappointed me.

But! When I look and compare the work I was doing just a year ago, a lot has changed. I have gotten more accurate and I pay more attention to detail. I had thought, and this is a silly thought, that illustration was supposed to be "made up" or something that my mind has poured out on a surface without any reference. Well, it's not too surprising that I thought this. Going to college with many different artists, the fine artists and the illustrators were almost at war with each other in the ideas for what is a true art piece. As a fine artist and oil painter first, I thought that if I used reference the image would be too realistic and traditional to be an illustration.

Blah no!

Again, silly thought and perhaps thinking this way has made my art suffer. Any readers out there, if you have a stable idea of what art is rethink it! You might find a whole new reality.

To keep myself from spiraling down into a dark abyss of the stereotypical, almost archetypal, artist defeated depression, I started looking around for simple explanations for building a portfolio. I found this blog post helpfully breaking down what my portfolio needed to accomplish. I've read this one before however it's still helpful. Both of these illustrators seem to have their stuff together, and if there's any way of learning how to put a portfolio together and be professional, looking at successful illustrator portfolios is the best.

In the end, out of the 23 pieces on my website, and many others not on my website, these three are the only ones that are close to portfolio worthy. That's okay. If I can make three already then I can make three more.

No, No, No Negative Nancy

I've reached passed 15,000 words and I'm so behind in the word count. I think what is truly destroying the creativity is the word count and the deadline. As soon as I get a deadline, I freeze up and can't get anything done!

On the plus side of NaNoWriMo, I've never  been dedicated to a story as much as I have with this one. Each time I go and write a story, my creative and non judging self disappears and out comes the critic, the negative Nancy (who've I've started calling Bethany Jones in a super annoying illustration doodle) the editor that says I should give up on writing and illustration because I'm never going to be quite good enough, not with the competition out there. What chance do I have? With this month challenge, I've been able to go past the editor and the critic. I have 15,600 words and that is more than I had about two weeks ago, I should feel accomplished!

I also finished my little red riding hood piece! That is another goal I met for the month, and maybe with the contest piece finished, I will have more room to write.

Enchanted Contest

Yay! Another contest! No! I haven't won any yet!

Annnd that's it for the exclamation points. 

The next SCBWI Draw This theme was "Enchanted". If there are any members out there who just so happen to see this post and have not entered into the Draw This yet, DO IT. Just look at how much I'm flailing around trying to get decent work together each month, you should be able to do it no problem!

My idea was an enchanted dress and I personally loved working on this piece. The painting is completely digital with my line work (I'm starting to really like working this way) and because this was digital I was able to paint different color themes quickly to see which one I liked the most. What I have here is just the blue and the final yellow. I might make a pink and a green one for more digital painting practice. 

Not What I Normally Do, Fun Though

Recently I landed myself a small illustration job designing a logo for someone's auto shop. Logos are not something I'm real comfortable with but I went for it and it turned out pretty darn good! 

It's also the first time that I've completed a finished piece completely in photoshop paint so here's what I did:

after a great deal of sketching fonts and getting the image right, I came to this general idea and the next step was a bit tougher...

Then...

this piece just kinda came together. :)

Is It Ever Finished?

I don't know if I'll win, but after showing some people and getting feedback on small things it was well worth going back to this piece. Just a little lighter, eh?

Only one contest this month...

 I didn't do the Jack and the Beanstalk contest :( but I'll do the next one! It is space themed so I feel that I must!

I did however complete the Diverse contest (but may not have turned it in on time! gosh I'm bad with deadlines this month!) and here is the process for this piece.

I decided to mess around with photoshop again by creating a pencil sketch/digital sketch. Fast forward through more thumbnails and I got this next image. I think still think this is the best drawn here. If only I could just re-draw the final...but alas the contest is over. ;)

This next color sketch didn't work out as planned and ultimately I hate it. What it did do for me was make me backtrack and plan the colors a bit more.

Again I used photoshop to mark out these colors in the original sketch. This was helpful! I think I may start doing this with my color pieces from now on. Saved me a lot of mistakes and some (SOME) frustration haha.

Aaaaannnnd the final. Again, it could be better! My painting and drawing are rocking in some places but crashing in others. Moral of this story...KEEP PRACTICING THE CRAFT...and make deadlines.

Why Didn't I do This?

Oh yeah, Lily's page goes first and that's how it would be read. OY!