A few things! First, I did this image a while back for a school project/ a calendar for Pylon Design. It’s been on my website for a few days, but I haven’t blogged it:

Second, remember that Stephen Harper picture I did way back when? (Perhaps not, too lazy to find the blogpost, but this is it…) Well, it’s a finalist in the Framing Harper competition! And so is the work of my friend Rosemary! Check out the finalists! (Especially Rose’s, which should totally win because it makes me burst into a fit of giggles every time I see it.)

Third, the narrative project I posted a couple of teasers for was finally finished up. I had print copies at the show, but if you’d like to read my shot at writing (or at least look at all the pictures) here’s a PDF! If you’re interested in an actual, printed, hold-in-your-hands copy, let me know and I’ll get you the Lulu link. (They printed out surprisingly well, even if the shipping prices are insane.)

I think that’s it for now. Now I’m done school, I’ll likely, hopefully, be posting work more often – there’s all this stuff I’ve been wanting to do that Grad Show panic has kept me from doing. Ah, art, I do love you.

It runs from 7 PM – 1 AM on Thursday, April 23rd, and 11 AM – 8 PM on Friday April 24th. Check the invite for the location.

The grad book also came in today, and it’s full of awesome:

My final Interp illustration of my college career. *single tear* The last of the four seasons. Guess which!

I have rather pretentiously titled this Mother of Wolves, not to be confused with Australian hard rock quartet Wolfmother, although that would be kind of sweet.

And now, an hour or two of sleep before class!

I have business cards, which makes me happy. The grad show is in like two weeks. I, and everybody around me, are so wound up that the slightest thing will make us explode, atomic-style. That’s about it.

The fruits of an all nighter. Third of four seasons. Still have work to do before I head off to class in an hour.

One of these years, I will learn how to draw a cat.

So here’s the deal. With the economy in the state it’s in right now, our Illustration grad book for the year is in serious trouble. We’re trying to fundraise as much as possible, and would be massively appreciative of any help we can get. To that end, Grad Council marketing girl and all-around awesome person Danielle Crosby has put together the For The Love of Print campaign. So check out the little website (which I’m hosting) and if you have a few bucks to spare, there’s a whole lot of Sheridan grads who’d be very, very grateful.

And to that end, if you’d like to know who you’d be supporting here’s some links to just a few (i.e. all I could find) of my classmates:

Danielle Crosby
Mike Hiscott
Karen Brown
Yien Yip
Craig Arndt
Arthy Balachandran
Jesse McGibney
Amanda Ward
Irma Kniivila
Dominique Fung
Martha Chan
Juan Solon
Tyler Doupe
Bryce Huffman
Carlie Russelle
Rachelle Letain
Bennett Slater
Ashley Ross
Dave Webber
Yuta Onoda
Chris Coles
Miles Pasick
Dave Murray
Jesse Koreck
Nimit Malavia
Greg Dubeau
Jermaine Hannam
Ryan Christiani
Simon Kim
Kim Hughes
Steve McPhee
Lauren Pastuszczak
Peter Du
Tomas Zatrak
Peter Yuill
Melodie Papp
Eduardo Pasaoa

If any Sheridanites happen to find this and can let me know the links of anybody I couldn’t find (and there’s a lot), feel free. =)

The second Four Seasons piece – Spring was the one with the bunnies; this is Summer. If this looks familiar at all, it’s because it’s sort of the spiritual successor (if not a straight-out rehash) of this image, which I quite liked the feeling of in spite of rather hating the final output. Look! A car that actually looks like a car! Probably still too small to really sit in, but, uh, an improvement all the same?

A self-portrait, featuring my awesome new jacket, my ever-present messenger bag, and enough textures to almost crash Photoshop several times over. (800 mb for a 6×10, 300dpi image? Really?) Will probably later post the other version, which doesn’t feature acres of unnecessary background, and in which I do not disappear into the ether somewhere around my ankles.

For Interp, the thesis theme being the four seasons (sound familiar?), this one being spring. It is so girly you will probably puke unicorns and fart pixie dust, and it continues to highlight my ongoing problem with using the colour green, ever.

Click to fullview!

Oh, and another reminder that I’m now taking character commissions. I will draw you pictures!

The more I looked at it over the day, the more I hated it – this doesn’t solve all the problems, or even most of them, but it’s based on a few crits from class and it was a good experiment, at least.

God, do I hate green.

———

Y’know, I didn’t notice this until after I’d finished, but… I’ve been known for using green in my work pretty much never. It’s just a preference – I like the colour; it’s just not my thing for my illustration. So I find it funny that I actually managed to make a FOREST SCENE mostly reds and browns.

You really, REALLY need to fullview this one.

Very experimental – I rarely draw plantlife and I think this is the first time I’ve ever taken a real shot at trees. Tried a lot of new things; it feels way too busy in parts, but overall none too shabby. And now, off to class to see what people who haven’t been staring at it for the past several hours think…

Fullview would be much appreciated.

Final project of the semester, for Visual Dialogue. The theme is Heaven and Hell. Probably still not weird enough for Rick, but c’mon, he’s pretty damn weird. (And I mean that in a nice way, of course.)

I haven’t done a really serious digital painting in ages, and doing one basically all in one day probably wasn’t the way to start again, but poor perspective, iffy lighting, and the ominous-smoke-of-I’m-running-out-of-time aside, that is by far the best hand I have ever painted and may ever paint again.

…And now I sleep.

With all the shenanigans going on in the Canadian parliament at the moment this whole thing feels sort of absurdly moot, but I drew it, I finished it, and up it goes. Current Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been notorious for several funding cuts to arts and culture, saying that Canadians don’t care about art, and canceling the National Portrait Gallery project. This inspired some to fight back with a portrait gallery of their own, and since I still needed a final person for my Interp likeness project, I figured hey, why not take a shot at it. I don’t think it’s as subtly elegant as Rosemary’s (okay every time I look at that picture I laugh for like five minutes) but it’s something.

And with curiously appropriate timing, I’ve just finished up these, which are both a thing for Interpretive and a callback to last year’s NaNo, titled “Lines”. It was a fantasy, largely based around the premise that I don’t actually like fantasy, and wanted to write one I wouldn’t be opposed to reading. The characters depicted are, clockwise from the top left, Simon Gable, Farewell Green, the Priest, and Hare. (For any Traffies reading: there’s also a family surnamed Carter, and another main character surnamed Maxwell. I take my obscure inside jokes very seriously.)

Click for fullsize… they’re rather tiny at the moment.

I tried something a little different from the last couple of Narrative projects, in a couple of ways. First, the focus on the panel structure and visual storytelling, rather than spending forever and a half on the dialogue. Second, in the last two cases, I was pretty happy with the inks but by the time they were finished, they felt immensely overworked. So in this case, I tried to just let the inks speak for themselves, with minimum meddling in Photoshop. It was an experiment; I guess it kind of worked. If I do this again, I’ll definitely put more work into the ink washes, but aside from that, I guess I’m moderately happy with the result.

For a bookmark. A promo project thing.

First, a work in progress for visual dialogue, based on the palindrome “Mr Owl Ate My Metal Worm”. It’ll be a bit different in the final, but… man, I love this sketch like woah.

And second, I title this: I Spent An Hour On Jen Wang’s Site And Now Need To Draw Adorable Naked People With Curvy Legs And Tiny Feet. A naked angel! Without nipples! Because what’s an angel going to do with nipples, breastfeed?

Also, if you happen to like things that are awesome, check out Mike’s Death Note/Sarah Palin crossover. No, really.