The Madoka Magica Madness Concludes!

And with the addition of Sayaka Miki, my series of "Madoka Magica" sketch cards is complete! I had such a fun time drawing them all and I can't wait to take on the magical girls again. ;-)

Yup, More Madoka Magica

Yup. I'm still workin' away at my "Madoka Magica" sketch cards and I bring to you Mami Tomoe! Fun Fact: this sketch card sent me out on a wild goose chase for all sorts of different yellow shaded markers. For that matter, I think I might've worked through some of my issues with the colour yellow through this card.

What? I just don't think I look good in yellow. :-P

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Sketch Card Obsession Begins

Well now...it's been a while since I last uploaded any artsy things around here. I guess you can attribute a lot of that to major life changes like, oh, let's say moving out. Trust me, the logistics pretty much dominate your life for a good while.

With that out of the way, as you can tell from the title, I've fallen pretty hard for the anime series "Puella Magi Madoka Magica"...or just simply "Madoka Magica" if you don't want your tongue to get all tied up. :-P

It's funny, I've kinda avoided this series because I absolutely DESPISE "moe" style anime art (their eyes always just looked so dead, vacant and soulless to me). Then I started hearing really good things about it in that it's "not what it seems". It finally took me watching JesuOtaku's review on the series at That Guy With the Glasses to really get into it. To make a long story short, I've already watched this series twice and I'm planning for a third viewing.

Yup. It's that damn good. 

So damn good that I just had to draw all the girls (with my own personal stamp of course! No moeblobs permitted here!) complete with the excellent soundtrack to push me through...

First up, we (naturally) have our heroine Madoka Kaname. So much hope and pink sparkliness.

Next up we have Homura Akemi. One of the things I really wanted to get across was the personality of the characters. I hope I managed to get her stoic nature with a hint of fighting back despair.

And now I have Kyoko Sakura. Along with individual personalities, I also wanted to give the girls unique facial features and body types (something that was pretty absent in the show's character designs. Can you tell I'm not a fan of "moe" style?). God I love how her hair turned out here. ;-D

Of course, I have Mami and Sayaka on deck. I just have to finish inking and colouring them and then they'll be posted...along with a collage of all five sketch cards put together because I'm a completionist like that. :-P

Is completionist even a word?

Baby Loves Her Bubble Tea

Okay, show of hands, who here remembers my character of yore Baby?

Well, I was kinda hit with the urge to draw her again recently. If you came to the Vancouver Comicon a few weeks back, you might've seen me coloring away at something. This sketch card was that something.

You can definitely say I was inspired by old school lolita and street snapshots from those "Fruits" magazines from Japan. I even tried to channel the blase expressions from those old shots. Hope I hit the mark!

The Long Lost Fascinator: Neapolitan

WHOA! Blogspot has a new layout now?!

Funny story about this one: I actually drew this all the way back in 2010 as part of my Fascinator sketch card set. 

However, as soon as I started coloring it, it ended up...not going in the original color scheme I had intended. As a result, I left it on the back-burner knowing that one day I would return to it because I really was pleased with the lineart. Well, that day finally came and I salvaged the image by going a very marshmallow peep-like direction with the colors.

Anybody craving sweets now?

A Sketch Card for Stephy-Wan

New art?! What the hell is this nonsense?! X-D

Anyways, this past weekend was my dear friend Stephanie's birthday. As you can tell, she's something of a "Star Wars" fanatic so naturally I had to draw her in some "Star Wars" related scenario. Needless to say, she loved it. :-)

I didn't really have time to scan this one in so that's why it's been posted in photograph form. God bless the iPhone.

Holly

Why yes, I was in a rather Christmas-y mood when I was drawing this. What gave it away? ;-P

SKETCHAVEMBER 2011 Day 22: My Mouth Is So Metal

Weird. I'm not scrambling to finish, scan and upload a drawing before the clock strikes midnight. Here's hoping Day 22 of Sketchavember is the start of actually drawing and posting at some decent hour of the day. X-D

Heh, I think this may be my first crack at drawing braces. I wonder if the delay is because I've never had to wear braces at any point in my life.

Is that a flaming pitchfork flying towards me?

If there's one thing I really hope I was able to get across in this drawing, it's the blackheads and the little acne scars.

SKETCHAVEMBER 2011 Day 18: Did You Know That Flamingos Are AWESOME?

See? Told you I'd post something tonight to make up for my Sketchavember boo-boo yesterday. ;-)

Once again, Day 18 proved to be one of those days where everything seems to just fall into one glorious place of "right". I guess you could say the direction I went for this sketch card was Lisa Frank with a Tumblr attitude.

Though if I really wanted to go full-out Lisa Frank, I would have added more rainbows, sparkles and animal prints.

Still, the colors look suitably like late 80's/early 90's vomit, don't you think?

SKETCHAVEMBER 2011 Day 6: A Girl Like Me

Ever had a random piece of dialogue that you've been itching to work into a poem, story, song, comic or prose of some kind? Yeah, I just had to get it out of my head and onto paper for Day 6 of Sketchavember.

It's been a while since I last did one of these single panel, devoid-of-context "cryptic comics" but they're always so much fun to do. I love pieces that let you draw your own conclusions and let your imagination fill in the blanks.

What do you guys think?

I will give you one hint: I listened to a helluva lot of Depeche Mode. "Music for the Masses" era Depeche Mode to be exact. ;-)

SKETCHAVEMBER 2011 Day 4: Something Worth Losing

For Day 4 of Sketchavember, I returned to one of the sketch cards I was working on during one of the conventions I was at. In this case, it was Comix and Stories back in August.

At first, I was going to make this a black and white ink sketch card but a random challenge of sorts popped into my head as I was finishing the inks tonight: to see if I could create an unsettling mood without using dark colors or blood.

I successfully avoided both elements but I'm not a hundred percent sure if I captured an unsettling vibe. A sense of bittersweet nostalgia, maybe? (The mad color balance/saturation experiments in Photoshop certainly helped in that respect.)

Let me know what you guys think in the comments. :-)

Ecstasy and Entrails

OONTZ! OONTZ! OONTZ! UUUUUUGGGGGHHHNNNN....

Ahh, who doesn't love a technicolor zombie raver? ;-)

I spent a fair portion of the last Vancouver Comicon inking this sketch card but I wasn't totally sure if it should be an explosion of color or if it should stay inked. Clearly, I went with the former.

Fun(nish) Fact: I was intending to make the skin a lighter shade of green but I grabbed the wrong marker and by the time it hit the paper it was too late to go back. Still, I think I managed to work well enough with it.

Ennui in Ebony

"Why do you keep doing this?"

(Semi) funny story, I actually had the pencils for this sketch card sitting at my drawing table since late August. I had been inking and penciling this one over the last two conventions I was at but I never managed to complete it all...UNTIL NOW!

I love drawing totally open ended pieces that let your imagination wander so I'm curious to know what kind of story you guys have in mind for these characters: who are they? What is their relationship? What events led up to this moment? What's gonna happen afterwards?

Let me know in the comments.

Wouldn't YOU Like To Know?

Here's a sketch card I completed at the Vancouver Comicon last Sunday. I've had this image in my mind for quite a few years but just had to wait until it was totally developed...or at least developed enough to satisfy me.

As you can tell, I was totally gettin' my Lichtenstein on. ;-)

Yup, More Sketch Cards!

That's right folks! I've got even more sketch cards to share with you all. I know you're cheering in the back there. :-P



Without further ado, these are some ink sketch cards I completed at the Vancouver Comic Con a week ago.

I took a bit of a different approach with these cards. I did a lot of the pencil work on them a few days before the convention then I did all the inking work on site. It allows me to get these cards completed a lot quicker.

The card on the left came about when I was struck with the urge to listen to a lot of The Birthday Massacre as well as Depeche Mode's "Black Celebration" album. She's so sullen and spooky, no?

The right card came from a failed attempt at drawing an 80's new wave chick with a Flock of Seagulls hairstyle. I decided to take her in a more punk direction while still maintaining that hairstyle feel.



Finally, this is "Fascinate Me". I figured after drawing and designing so many fascinators, I figured it was high time that I designed a mighty pimpin' one for myself.

I also felt an urge to create something colorful after doing so much black and white work.

Sketch Cards From Comix and Stories

Just like I promised! Here's the sketch cards I drew and inked on site at Comix and Stories last weekend. I would have posted these earlier but to make a long story short, the all-in-one printer/scanner was being a fidgety snot this week.

Quick 'n' dirty notes time!

-Oooooh, spooky possessed lava lamp! I'm pretty happy with this one.

-I felt like playing with a much sketchier, thicker look in the lineart. One of the few times when having frayed tips at the end of your brushpen pays off.

Sketch Cards Galore!

If you can't tell, I've been working like crazy on sketch cards lately (or ACEO's as they're often known in the arty world) and I'm going to share a couple today...

First up, I have "Love a'la Comic Mode". I'm highly certain the excitement for the upcoming conventions seeped into my brain for this one.

I was going to sell this one at Comix and Stories tomorrow but I came to realize that I love it too much to part with it. That and um...I'm kindasorta don't feel too comfortable about making money off of someone else's creations, be they characters or logos.

With all that out of the way, the girl is a diehard fan of the superhero comics (Batman in particular being her favorite). The guy's more into the "morbid" comics (with "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" being his very first comic book in his senior year of high school). Together, they widen each other's perspective on their beloved common ground: comics and sequential art.

So you see, mainstream and alternative comics fans can get along after all! D'awwww. ^_^

And yes, I did read/watch "Ghost World" recently. XD

These ones, though, I am selling tomorrow for $2 each. If you can't get your hands on them, don't fret because I'll be drawing plenty more of these on site.

And now, some quick comments on each card, from left to right, clockwise...

-Awww, homeless snail is homeless.

-Oh hey, it's the couple from "Love a'la Comic Mode". She's making goofy faces in front of her bathroom mirror wearing her rubber Batman mask and he's being all moody and poetic on a breezy autumn day. The latter image was brought to you by Silversun Pickups.

-That one was based off an old doodle in a sketchbook from two or so years ago. The lone white eye contact was a last minute addition.

-Business suits and cyber dreads make for a surprisingly spiffy combination.

-Totally had Little Boots on the brain while drawing this one. God, ballet boots are crazy fun to draw.

Finally, we have a fairly old-ish (well, old because this was done a little while before I got my hair cut and tips dyed black) self portrait done in the style of "Daria". Methinks I'm going to need to draw an updated version. :-P

Fascinators: Original Sketch Cards

Okay, this original sketch card set "Fascinators" has been well in the making since last fall. I've always wanted to venture in that direction and overall, it was a fun experience drawing in such small perimeters. I will be selling these individual cards at Comix and Stories 2010 on August 29 at the Heritage Hall in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Fascinators, from left to right, clockwise, top row to bottom...

Primitive, Artistic, Cinematheque, Futuristic, Widower, Romantique.