For the first time in human history, the number of hungry people worldwide will exceed 1 billion this year…
Around the end of the school year, my final project for both my computer and my information illustration class was an infographic-y video about Free Rice, a division of the United Nations World Food Program and an excellent, easy way to earn money to help combat world hunger. I sent them the video, hoping they could use it for something. While that animation has yet to see the light of day, it led to this opportunity – to do another short video, this time for their new Billion for a Billion campaign.
It’s been an interesting time. Very powerful subject matter, so trying to do it justice hasn’t always been easy, and I’m certainly new to work requiring so much revision – others have worked on it at various stages; the version up on the site isn’t entirely my own work – but overall, an amazing opportunity, working with some wonderful people for a fantastic cause.
This past weekend, I participated in 24 Hour Comics Day at the fabulous Kingston comic store 4 Colour 8 Bit. I was down there anyhow, for my very own art show at this very same store – it was great fun, and thanks a ton to Kevin for putting it together, and Nick for allowing me to spend entirely too much time in his store despite the fact I don’t think I bought anything but Pac Man power pellet candy.
I forgot my camera for the opening, but look, art!
24 Hour Comic Day BEGINS
I suppose it was something of a cheat, since my comic was a collaboration with m’dear friend Aggy. The story came from both of us – we couldn’t decide what on earth to do a comic about, so we just decided to do EVERYTHING, and base it on our stupid conversations. She did the lettering, erasing pencils, and filling in large black areas, not to mention writing the old-man rants, which was a task in itself. (And the Cleavager is her fault. I will take no credit for that one.) So while the art is basically all mine, I couldn’t have done it without her, not to mention having somebody to yell at me to stay awake. When she was awake.
A sleepy Aggy sometime in the last few hours
Other adventures included drawing at Denny’s in the middle of the night, being interviewed for the Queen’s University TV channel… all in all, a crazy weekend! God, I love Kingston.
This one might look a little familiar to some… I’ve been meaning to recolor this one for a while, since I’ve learned quite a lot since I first colored it almost a year ago!
I’ve got a show coming up starting October 1st, at the fabulous comic book and videogame store 4 Color 8 Bit in Kingston. I spent much of my summer as a couch hobo at my friends’ place in Kingston, so I can attest to the sheer awesomeness of this store, and it’s an honour to have the opportunity to show there. Thanks to Kevin for putting this together!
It’ll be mostly old pieces, but there’ll be a couple of new ones… like THIS!
…My inner illustrator is insisting “Yes, but what does it mean?”, but frankly, sometimes it’s fun to take a break from concept and narrative and just do something that looks cool.
I recently completed these illustrations for an educational kids’ story for Rubicon Publishing. Fun project, and a real challenge, too. (The composition may look weird on a couple of these, because I was working around text that’s obviously not included here.)
Aaaand back to work. Man, I knew freelancing was feast and famine, but it’s one thing to hear it and another to actually experience a couple of months of absolutely nothing followed by sudden work!panic. But whatever, wouldn’t trade this for anything!
I’m going to be at Toronto Fan Expo this weekend, with a gaggle of friends, selling art and the like. Here’s two new pieces (of fanart) that’ll be on sale:
Dr Horrible vs Captain Hammer
Death of Sandman
Yes, I still seem to suffer from some bizarre stylistic schizophrenia. This blog looks like it’s kept by 18 different people, not one girl who cannot make up her mind. It’s not that I CAN’T keep to one style, it’s just that there’s so many fun ones out there to play with…
Also, you may notice a slight facelift to the blog… my portfolio has also got a proper redesign! Check it out!
For some reason all I want to do right now is draw adorable children. What’s up with that?
Was planning to (and still will, I think) do this in my usual inky style, but for some reason, I decided to do this up as a digital painting, and throw it up for Illustration Friday. She oughta look a little familiar. Been playing with her as a character. Her name is Penelope or Penny or something, and she is obsessed with aliens and ghosts and things, all in an effort to discover why the hell her pigtails hover.
I haven’t done a digital painting in so long. Man, I need to spend like a week doing nothing but draw faces.
This Illustration Friday brought to you by my inner emo kid. This one was a quickie, maybe an hour, hour and a half?
I’ve got a blog and portfolio revamp coming (yes, again) so look for that soon! I’m in a real tidying sort of mood, cleaning up my room, cleaning my websites; I need to feel refreshed, I think.
After nearly a year of waiting for publication, I can finally post what I did for my co-op last summer!
I did the character illustrations for two children’s travel guides for Junior Jetsetters – Paris and Amsterdam. (The background illustrations were done by artists living in the cities themselves.) Mike did the other two – Chicago and Lisbon. Here’re just a few of the 200-300 images done for these books. (There were about 150 “frames”, but many of them contained several separate character images.)
My first job was to design the local animal guides of the two travelling children.
Amsterdam Character Designs
Paris Character Designs
The images themselves were intended for insertion into photographs. I only have a few examples of that, in cases where it would have been difficult for them to add the characters after the fact. (The two kids, Keira and Jordi, are not my creation; they’re copyright to the Junior Jetsetters guys.)
Paris La Defense
Musee Grevin
Rembrandthuis
The rest of the images only exist in their free-floating, character-only state. Some of these were intended to go in photos, some not, and frankly I can’t remember which were which.
Nothing says Amsterdam like Bollywood
Cooking
Sports, with kiddie versions of our bosses Pedro and Slawko
Amsterdam Roots Festival
Picnic
X-Ray
Paris style
A badger riding a horse?
Beachtime!
Fun with perspective
A TREE
My one regret is that there was so much to do in so little time – near the end, I was doing maybe ten a day, and this was after school had started – so the shading had to be done in a very quick, loose style, and looking at it now I can’t say I like it. But it was a good time, and I learned a lot. Thanks to Pedro and Slawko for the opportunity.
