The Shadow Character Lineup

I've been working on a short comic for a group project with some friends from BYU. We're having a show that displays some concept work and comic spreads from the project. The opening reception is this Friday, Dec 7 @ 7:00pm on the second floor of the Harold B. Lee library. I can't be there, but if you're in the area you can drop in to see everyone's art and say hi to the other artists!

Each of us chose a classic story or fairy tale to retell in graphic novel form, with the goal of getting children excited about reading. I chose "The Shadow" by Hans Christian Andersen. His dark fairy tales speak to my sensibilities as a storyteller.

My favorite character to design for the comic was the princess, who only shows up in the last pages of the comic, yet probably has the most costume changes of all the characters.

And the lineup with the princess, scholar, and his shadow in two different phases:

Unlikely Duo

Last weekend I moved to Glendale, CA and I'm starting to really feel settled in to my new place. I haven't had too much time to do art (but I unpacked my art box the other day, so that will change!), so here's a sketch I got around to scanning. I think it shows that I’ve been playing Mass Effect :)

My BFA Project is Complete!

This week I finished and exhibited my senior project at BYU! It's been a year since I started this project, and it's such a relief to be done. The show is up until the end of the month, so if you're in Provo you can check it out at Gallery 303 in the HFAC on campus :)

My project was a series of concept pieces for a theoretical animated film. It's a spooky children's story about some kids who find a book that grants whatever wish they write inside. But of course, the wishes always come true in terrible ways... 

I also included some of the concept work I did next to each piece. Here's a couple of them:

Elementary Education Course

This is the last course I worked on at IS: Writing for Elementary Education Majors.

Poetry Illustrations

I just finished my last week of work at Independent Study. It was a blast working with all the great people there. Here are some illustrations from one of the last two courses I worked on (I'll have the other up soon). The course was an advanced Poetry class. I decided to keep it simple and use two colors to get an old book printing vibe.

Cleaning House and Golem Armies

I feel like I've been cleaning nonstop for nearly 3 weeks. I moved out of my apartment and I also helped my brother and his wife move into a new home. Now I am nearly all settled into my new space; I only need to find a desk so I can get my computer set up for painting again.

While browsing through some of my school files, I found this painting from several months back that I forgot to post. I got the idea for the ultra-crested banner from an illustration I saw by Ken Wong, I believe.

Staaaaaatistics!

I haven't posted any work stuff for a while. The fun thing about my job is that I get to play around with style a lot to best suit the courses I'm designing for.

Ironically, I ended up taking Statistics 121 during winter term while simultaneously illustrating the online version of the course. Needless to say, me and Statistics were close buddies for a while. At first I dreaded working on the course because it was huge (over 50 illustrations) and I wasn't sure how to make Stats exciting. I decided--mostly for the sake of speed--to try something more abstract than I usually work, and I was obsessing over film noir and those old moralistic sci-fi movies with the obsessed scientists, and this is the result.

Gesture Drawing

I took Ryan Woodward's gesture drawing class spring term.  This class taught me how much I needed to loosen up with drawing. There was a big focus on exaggeration, and I don't think a pose was ever longer than 10 minutes, so these are all somewhere between 1-10 minutes. I think you can really see Ryan's influence, but in classes I like to implement--as best I can--the principles taught by the teacher, and then later try to fold it into my own style more. Don't know if that's the best strategy, but it works for me.

Winter Term Life Drawing

Some life drawing from the end of winter term Advanced Life Drawing with Bob Barrett. I'll post the stuff from Ryan's gesture drawing class soon, too. I'm glad I took both of these classes because I feel like I practiced and learned very different things in each class, despite them both being life drawing classes.

I'm Alive!

It has been forever since I last updated, but I'm alive! And not just alive, but making lots of ART! So why haven't I updated? Because I am making so much art all of the time that I don't even have time to upload it! Actually, it's because a lot of what I've been doing lately is traditional or work stuffs, compounded with laziness. But on the eve of the Fourth of July and no plans, I find I have some time to post (sad I know, but don't worry, a parade will be waltzing down the road quite literally 20 feet from my apartment tomorrow, so I will be in the middle of the festivities whether I want to be or not).

Anyway, here are some sketchbook pages I did for gesture drawing class spring term. We had a theme every week, as will become readily apparent from some of the unusual sketches below.

Techno-Sub

I really wanted to get out the traditional ink and just--make lines, you know? And this illustration was born. It was fun and I definitely want to make some more illustrations along these lines (no pun intended).

Little Red Back in Action

I did another painting of Little Red, this time about to encounter the wolf. In retrospect, I think there are some changes I would make to the environment if I were to go back and do this again. I also thought I would post the sketches for the wolf and a couple early sketches for Red. I don't think the wolf has the same rhythm to it in the painting as it does in the sketches... but hopefully we learn something from each painting we do to apply to the next one, right? I do like how the colors turned out in this, though, especially on Little Red.

Society and Life Drawing Update

I've got some good news: My landscape from my previous post got into the Society of Illustrators Student Competition! I found out on Valentine's Day, and the previous few weeks had been pretty terrible for one reason or another (illness, money, frustration with progress, etc--the stuff we all struggle with, right?), so this news really buoyed me up. I feel humbled to be included among so much talent. 7 other BYU students got in, including my good friends Liz, Colt, Melissa, Brittany, and Josh! Check out Society's winner page for our school here.

On another note, I'm taking Bob Barrett's Life Drawing class this semester. I had been very frustrated with my progress for some time, but I feel like I've made a breakthrough over the past few weeks. Here are a few drawings I'm pretty happy with so far.