I took a concept design class the beginning of the year, and one of our assignments was to choose a film and design an environment that could fit into that world. In How to Train Your Dragon (or the second film for that matter), I didn’t remember seeing how people interacted with baby dragons, so I decided to design a dragon nursery. I played around with a few different areas (hatchery, play room, training area), but settled on a bathing room where the little guys can get cleaned up :)

Sketch Roundup

Sketches of kids and cute things. You're not surprised, are you?

But don't worry, I've been obsessed with The Walking Dead so expect some fan art of that soon :)

Windmill

I've been doing a lot more of these mouse studies. This is my favorite from this week :)

Mouse Studies

I saw on Ty Carter's blog that he often uses his lunch break to do quick studies, and I thought that was a cool way to sneak in some productive study time, so I started doing the same at work this week.

Unfortunately, I don't have a tablet at work, so these are all painted with a mouse. I thought it would be frustrating, but it's actually a great learning experience--since I can't rely on blending and fancy brushes, I have to be very exact with my color choices. It reminds me of when I learned to paint with acryla gouache in school. I didn't realize how much I've been using certain brushes, overlay layers, etc. as a crutch to observing color. So yeah, use the mouse and it will set you FREE!

Sketch Compilation

I've been sketching a lot more lately, so I thought I'd throw some recent doodles up here. Right now I'm kinda obsessed with mohawks and frogs :)

Arrow Pattern

Whew! I'm already starting to lag behind on my weekly posting! I thought the long weekend would mean more time for art, but instead it meant more time for barbecues and and catching some movies at the theater (for which I can't complain--and btw Star Trek is awesome). So all I have ready-for-posting on my computer is a pattern I made on a whim because I had never made a seamless pattern, and there is something about a pattern being seamless that makes it magical and elusive, so I had to give it a go.

C. S. Lewis Characters

My friend asked me to draw some characters from The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. It was short notice so I turned these around in about a day, not having time to do any revisions or iterations. Sometimes having a deadline is nice because it forces you to make decisions and stick with them.

I haven't read the book, so I only had the descriptions she gave me to draw from. The first guy is an "oily" man who has a sinister Jiminy Cricket alter-ego kind of lizard that perches on his shoulder and whispers nasty things into his ear. The woman is a noble lady who isn't phased by the cruel commentary of othersThe pairing consists of a tiny man who won't say a word to people, instead letting an actor that he leads around on a chain do all the talking. C. S. Lewis wrote some weird stuff is all I gotta say.

7 Face Shapes

I read this post about different face shapes and thought it would be good practice to draw a character with the 7 different face shapes described. First I drew a bird spirit Final Fantasy-esque looking character. Then I was like, "I draw too many cute kids," and I drew a burly guy. Swords and facial hair are burly, right?

Hospital Beds

The other day I had a serious epiphany while listening to audio books in my car and pining for ice cream (specifically raspberry dark chocolate chunk ice cream). And that epiphany was that I love art. It makes me happy. Simple, I know, but then after that realization was a tidal wave of why-am-I-not-making-art-more-what-am-I-afraid-of-I-gotta-start-setting-goals kind of thoughts.

Anyway, how this relates to the blog is that I've decided to start updating once a week. No exceptions! And dear friends, followers, and random peeps who accidentally stumble upon here, if I fail to update regularly, feel free to send me harsh messages about my inability to commit or how people who don't post art regularly on the internet never get to eat raspberry dark chocolate chunk ice cream.

To start with, here's a sketch (not quite finished... no hands) I've noodled away at off and on for a bit that I think I'm going to leave be. I started it after reading Demo 2 and drooling all over Becky Cloonan's gorgeous art. I particularly liked the last story, which involved a lot of bodily injury and had some really beautifully paneled hospital scenes.

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.