Sketch: Phi-Phi MAX

One of my many New Years Resolutions is to draw more of my original characters!

If you're new to my blog, this is my character Phi-Phi MAX²: a Robot with H3art & S0ul... :)

. M . O . T . O . R . C . I . T . Y .

From my Tumblr:

"To Chris P, Titmouse, and the whole Motorcity fandom: I love all you guys! Here’s my gift to all of you!

I’ve made so many new friends in this fandom and that is so very precious to me. I feel like I’m a better person from interacting with all of you and I’m a better artist from seeing all the art that gets produced from and because of this show… I’m serious… I’ve become bolder in the things I draw and talk about, subjects I never thought I could. You all have inspired me to be a more awesome human being and that’s something that can never be taken away. Thank you so much! ♥
Here are wallpapers for each Burner, all of them smiling and hopeful…  If you need wallpapers in bigger/smaller sizes or at different dimensions, please let know. I hope all of you enjoy them! And guys:

Live fast, live free. ♥"

-
I have a strict rule about posting fan artwork up on this blog, but I try to make an exception for art pieces that I feel adequately showcase what I want to display as an artist and creative thinker in general. With the creation of the show Motorcity, marked the first time I have ever been able to actively interact with others who had a major hand in making it. To me, Motorcity was more just an animated show, it was an artistic muse, challenging me to push forward and draw things I never thought I could. It also gave me the idea of the kind of community setting I would love to work in... A fun, vibrant, place, with wonderful people, where I can grow and help others grow as well.

All wallpapers were made in Photoshop CS3, with the pen tool. Each took about 2 hours to complete. To view the full-size version, right click then choose "Open Link in New Tab"

Logo work!

Yay! I can finally put this up! About a year ago, I become the sole Graphic Designer for a company called Community Labor United, they wanted me to design their new logo. I'm not sure if they'll ever use it for anything, but I learned so much working with them, as it was my first professional commission.

I will admit, I had a lot of fun coming up with the design, since I love creating logos. My clients asked for a "sketchy, traditional" feel, which is why this logo was not vectorized, I did every thing by hand. I got to work with ink which is always fun!

They were looking for a "Russian Propaganda Poster" type logo, with determined looking folks, stating next to each other looking up. Eventually, my clients told me to remove the people, and asked that I instead include a strong, "feminine" arm to symbolize labor. The background is suppose to symbolize the connection of the downtown community to the urban community, linked together by The Zakim Bridge.

I was super excited with how the background came out, as don't work on backgrounds often. However, this project helped me learn what I'm capable of and that I shouldn't limit myself.

General Commissions!

I'm not sure anyone views this blog enough for this to be useful for me to put this up here, but I am taking general commissions! Click to enlarge photos.

Commission info in text format is available through -my Tumblr blog-

Have questions? Please send them to my commission email at Animegirl008@yahoo.com

ReDeAnimation

This is the new theme for this blog. I’ve been meaning to make one for a while now. It’s partially based off of a dream I’ve had many times. I want to draw more of my dreams… It is also a partial self-portrait.

"Truthfully, I was afraid for to complete this picture for a number of reasons I currently cannot disclose. However, I pressed on for the sheer drive of creativity, while also striving for individuality… I don’t know if I succeeded, but one thing’s for sure: Mistakes and all, I am so damn proud of myself for completing this picture and I have absolutely no shame in that. My passions will always push me forward, assuring that I will never give up… ♥"

My friends helped a lot with the thought process of this piece... Thanks guys!

Created in Photoshop CS3 with the pen tool. Took about a week to complete.

Marker Painting!

I've started to get back into coloring in traditional media and I really wanted to try "marker painting". I've been told several times that my more intricate pictures I've colored with markers over the years looked like watercolor, so I thought I'd experiment with rendering a picture with just makers.

I feel like eventually I should show a walk through process, but I guess there will be time for that later if I decide to continue working in this technique... Which I probably will... :)

I really like the look of it, but I'm still trying to get comfortable with it and take risks. It's a learning process I'm more than happy and willing to go through.



This is my character Leo-Rey, "The Last Golden Monkey" from the jungle planet, Oasis. Being the last golden monkey, he's adopted... By an Alligator. He also has a pet cobra. His earlier character design appears in my 2010 animation, "DTV".

I recently redesigned Leo-Rey and made a progress sheet for him.



The first one was done the year I graduated from high school, the second was done a year before I graduated from college, and the last was done a year after college. The one from 2010 wasn’t so much an update of my style, as it was me purposefully drawing the same character, in the same style from 2006.

Now, when I draw Leo-Rey in this more “cartoony” style, I want to showcase his more animated and hyper personality that I don’t feel I was getting across in the way I originally drew him. I’m going to mess around with his design until I’m more pleased with it, but I like the direction he’s going in.

Also, I recently created another marker painting for my mother's birthday.

Princess Aoi is a character I made for my mom's birthday last year that worked themselves into the continuity of a story with my other characters. Princess Aoi is a pixie and she is the Princess of Seifa-utaki forest.

Aoi's battle outfit is a combination of Japanese and Spartan style armor, as well as a couple of others. Even though Aoi lives in Japan, her armor is a bit of a hodgepodge...

I'm not entirely happy with this... There are a lot of mistakes... I feel that things got a little too muddled together and the highlights & shadows are sort of off, but as long as my mom's happy with it, I guess that's all that counts. :)

Funny thing though... I drew the leaf on Aoi's helmet the way I did because, truthfully, I wanted it to look all "swirly and pretty". However, I realized after I finished this picture that it's shaped like an "S". My mom's name is Sandra... ♥

Happy Accidents FTW.
  
I will say that with my first Princess Aoi picture that was created last year around the same time just a few posts down from this one, I really need to start picking up the pace with my updates. Well, I am making new film, so hopefully more news on that soon! 

Beemo Costume A-Go-Go!

Hey there! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been very ill as of late, but I'm starting to get better now. Also, if you've sent me a message recently, I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible! Sorry for the delay!

Anyway, since I won't be able to sell my artwork in the artist alley this year at Anime Boston, I thought I'd cosplay! I'm going as Beemo from Adventure Time.

Also, this is a progress post. Whenever I get to a certain point, I'll update this post with my costume progress! Hopefully I'll be done by April 4, 2012, so I don't have much time!

Part I: Planning 1

Here's my little sketchy plans for my costume! :D

And here's the box I'll be working with:

Thanks to all the staff at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for helping me obtain this box! :D

A thick 42in. x 72in. cardboard box that I carried on the trolley, train, and bus all the way from work.... That was an adventure... :O

Part II:  Measuring, Splitting, & Cutting the box

This is one of my least favorite parts to do in a project like this because I need complete concentration when I'm measuring, so I can't listen to music or do much of any of the things I do when I'm creating stuff. It makes the process all the more tedious.

 
My cat Salem decided to keep me company... She'll be popping up a lot. ♥

After measuring the box I had to split it in half so I could work on the front + left and back + right separately. Also, there was NO way I was moving that huge thing around in my apartment in it's entirety.

Here is the box cut flat open, spanning 148 inches.




How did I carry this thing on public transportation???

The box seems to be made out industrial strength cardboard, because it was a jerk to cut and it took me at least 4 days to cut everything out... My hands hurt so badly afterwards... ;__;

Front cut out:

Front cut out w/ Salem :)

Back cut out w/ Salem:

Part III: Details: Buttons, Face, Spray Paint & Whatnot

Now that I'm done with the cutting, finally... I can move on to the other stuff on the costume, like Beemo's buttons!

Here they are cut out:

And, here they are painted:

Also, I wanted to add something to the back of the costume to look like Beemo's battery compartment, so I used leftover cardboard and short thumbtacks. I worked really well!

Here are the long socks I used as sleeves. I also used black gloves to cover my hands as well.

The spray paint I used for the box and the face. I had to buy more because I ran out which set me a day back... ;__;



After spray painting, I made and used stencils to paint the letters on the sides.



Part IV: My mom is AWESOME

As I drew closer to finishing, I ran into some big problems. The first was trying to figure out how to make the face. I wanted to be able to see but not have people be able to see me... I wanted to really look like Beemo.

However, couldn't find anything that really worked. I was originally going to use white pantyhose, but I couldn't find any big enough and the material was rather unforgiving. So my mom came up with the idea of using this plastic mesh stuff to create the face.

I spray painted the whole roll and then glued it to the inside of the costume, strip by strip. Drawing the face, which was the easiest part of this costume, took about a minute to do. I drew with a black Prismacolor marker.
















Yay! :D

But I had another problem...

Because the box is industrial strength, gluing it was out of the question... Every time I did one side, another would come done. So my mom came up with the idea of screwing the box closed. All I had to do was spray paint them over.



Awesome!

However, one more problem came up...

I wanted to be authentic and have my arms at the bottom of costume come out of the "O's" in Beemo's name, but because of that, I made the arms too low and it started to throw me off balance. In addition, because the costume is so freaking heavy, I basically had to balance the whole weight of the costume on my head which threw me even more off balance...

So again, my awesome mom came up with the idea to create a helmet from an old popcorn maker bowl to keep the costume in place. It totally worked! :D

















It's held together from a bolt from the outside.

Thanks so much mom for being super awesome and helping me out! I couldn't have finished this costume without you! ♥

Part V: All Together Now

Tada! :D

So finally the costume is all done! Even though I had a super hard time putting it together. I had a lot of fun wearing it!

Thanks for viewing! ♥