Thrandegan

Thrandegan: I like to make artsy things for my sister as gifts during our birthday or Christmas. This year, I gave her what she wanted. It's embarrassing, really. Ever since last year, Pinterest keeps feeding me pictures of Thranduil despite the fact that I never have posted any Hobbit related pins (not a fan of the movies) and that I haven't posted any Lord of the Rings pins in ages. After getting more Thranduil pins shoved in my faced paired with pins about weddings, I became convinced that the Internet is trying to ship the two of us together. And my sister has gone crazy with this idea, even making videos about it and creating a ship name - Thrandegan (Thrandegan x Megan, my first name).

But despite the fact that I can't stand what fuels this piece, it is still one I'm proud of. It's my first try at Photoshop painting, and while it's not pretty in places, it's a good start.

Be prepared-this may eventually become an inside joke on the blog.

Tools: Photoshop and the heat of my own embarrassment. The things I do for my twin!

Wildcard Wednesday #26

This week, we can expect: yet another great soul lost to 2016, the year of celebrity deaths.

Princess Leia: After seeing Star Wars: A New Hope, Princess Leia easily became one of my top favorite heroines of all time. And now the woman who brought her to life, Carrie Fisher, is dead. This year has already been a bad year as far as celebrity deaths go, but this loss has hit me the hardest. We love you and we will miss you, Carrie. We look forward to seeing you one more time in Star Wars Episode VIII.

(Side note: Sorry there was so little art today, I've been taking it easy and getting ready for the big changes, which I'll post about on either Friday or Saturday)

Christmas Reflections

Christmas Reflections: Well, tomorrow's Christmas, and I'm so excited to be celebrating it with my family! But as Christmas draws near and the New Year dawns upon us, I can't help but think back on this crazy year.

I finally realized that animation was my dream, after three years of not knowing what I wanted to do. I got my first job, and despite feeling incredibly unhappy through most of it, I learned a lot about people in general (they're all horrible creatures-just kidding) and myself. This year was also a year of transitions-of living without my twin on a daily basis, going from traditional media to digital media in art, and finally switching from a watcher to a player with We Happy Few. 

And, of course, this was also my first presidential election to vote in. Why oh why did I get stuck with this one? And why oh why did we choose Trump as our president?! Anger and fear aside, I feel like this may well have been one of the most important elections I'll ever vote in. And all I'll say is I'll be glad when we don't have an arrogant carrot in the White House.

While I'm very excited for 2017, I can't deny that I'm also a little afraid, mainly because of the above subject. But the only way to move forward is to continue on and change.

And boy are some big changes coming in a week.....more details next week!

'Til then, merry Christmas, everyone.

Holiday Announcement

Hi, M³ here! As Christmas draws near, it's gotten really busy lately. Basically, I didn't have a chance to get anything ready for today-so there is no Wildcard Wednesday.
But I will try my best to have some finished work up for Christmas Eve. And besides, in anticipation of the New Year, there's about to be some big changes...I will put up a little announcement sometime next week about what's to happen. I think you all will love it a lot.
So until then, happy holidays everyone!

The Plucker-Climax

The Plucker-Climax: Earlier this year/last year, I drew several story beats of Brom's The Plucker. This one takes place at the climax of the book (spoilers!). As I've said in the past, it's my dream to turn this story into an animated film (I've got drawn out diagrams, plot points, character arches from over the last year and a half, that's how much time I've spent thinking about it).

Tools: Pencil (outlining), various colored pencils, Prismacolor pens, and Faber-Castel markers.

Wildcard Wednesday #25

This week, we can expect: only one piece because the scanner settings got messed up and directed to the scanner that doesn't work anymore-ugh. But anyways, it's coming back to one of the subjects that kicked off this blog.

We Happy Few-Arthur: Coming into class today, I had everything done, so I spent my time practicing and drawing Arthur Hastings of We Happy Few in Photoshop. I've been playing the game (not too much since I need a more powerful graphics card), learning the lore, and still anticipating the final version. I got inspired after seeing some 101 Dalmatians pencil tests of the human characters. I definitely want to animate Arthur and the other Downers once I get the hang of it better!

Desoldri

Desoldri: Last month right before fall quarter was over, I posted some sketches of two original characters of mine, Desoldri and Kurian. Desoldri's design, as I've said before, was something I could never seem to get, no matter how many redraws I went through. But I think I'm finally settling on this design of her-my finger/hand memory with this design is really good, and she has more of a distinct figure, looking less like a generic fantasy heroine.

I've made a couple mistakes in here, but I decided to finish it anyway just because I love the original lines. The coloring job is really more to show her color schema than to look perfect.

Tools: Pencil (outlining), Prismacolor pens, Faber-Castell watercolor pencils.

(Belated) Wildcard Wednesday #24

This week, we can expect a little Arlecchino with a lot of nightmares.
(I'm so sorry I forgot to post yesterday! School started back up this week, and while it's been an incredible experience, it's been so crazy on top of everything else I've got going on my plate)

Arlecchino #10: Some more body language/rough sketches, featuring Arlecchino and Columbina.

Nightmare #1: Most of you are probably familiar with Henry Fuseli's famous painting The Nightmare. If you're not, look it up-it's one of the most chilling pieces of art. It catches a woman in the heat of a nightmare, with an incubus pressing on her chest and a horse peeking through the curtains. Anyways, while I was looking at it, I was thinking about Rise of the Guardians, and I wondered, wouldn't it be cool to have Pitch Black, the King of Nightmares, in the picture? So this is one of the first practice sketches before I get the finished product up (hoping to make it in Photoshop if I can learn more about the brush and paint settings).

Nightmare #2: Another practice sketch for the Nightmare-inspired piece I have in mind. This one's just playing around with Pitch Black's positioning over the sleeping lady (since in the original, the incubus was sitting on her chest-works fine for a small demon, but not so much for Pitch).

Arlecchino Character Sheet

Arlecchino Character Sheet: This was one of my finals for Vector class - we had the option to do either an illustration or a character sheet, and because I was running short on time, I went with the character sheet. While there are a few inconsistencies here and there, it's still something I'm pretty proud of.

Tools: Adobe Illustrator.