Tumbling

I suppose this is as good a time as any to announce that I've moved my blog over to Tumblr. The plethora of blogging platforms is dizzying, I do admit, but I've been giving Tumblr a good try. Please follow me there!

Busy November

I started school! I am:
1) Designing the costumes for the University of Oregon's production of Creature.
2) Obsessively listening to Grimes.
3) Working on Celestina whenever I can.

Some pictures below from the past several months until I have a moment to write a proper update...

Watercolor black holes!



Costume Design class rendering



Learning how to make medieval shoes for Creature

Spaceships

A couple of spaceship designs from the Celestina graphic novel. I find it curious how homogenous futuristic imagery has become, and I'm trying to break away from some of the visual tropes of science fiction as I work on this project.

And a couple of progress sketches...

Blue Parka

Just finished up this little commission inspired by jazz, blues dancing at dawn, East Coast summer rainstorms, and a house affectionately called the "Blue Parka." I seriously think the blues were one of the absolutely best things that ever came out of the United States. The first image is a scan, and the following two are close-up photos.

Where, oh where, would the world be without jazz???

Summer Projects

A couple of projects I am working on this summer...

1. The Book of Celestina, Part I
As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently created a character drawing for a band called 17 Pygmies. Well, that drawing was just the beginning! I am tremendously excited to announce that I will be working on a graphic novel with the Pygmies that corresponds with their upcoming album The Book of Isabel Part I. If you are curious, here is where you can learn more about the project, and show your support.

This, of course, means that I've recently upped my science-fiction-watching and comic-reading (all in the name of research and inspiration, I swear), and am finding myself with the delightful dilemma of how to make 15th century clothing look futuristic (as the story is based on a 15th century Spanish classic.) Below are a couple of other character sketches.

2. Blue Parka
An East coast friend of mine commissioned me to do a piece for him inspired by a group of friends/dancers and their house called the "Blue Parka." I fell in love with blues dancing while I was living in San Francisco, so I'm especially excited about this little project. In case you're unfamiliar with this type of dance, here's one of my favorite clips (I used to dance at that venue in SOMA!):

3. Miscellanea
There's been a number of other things keeping me busy, including a puppetry workshop with Gabriel Ponti a couple of weeks ago (which I was very fortunate to take through the University of Oregon.) It was a short workshop - only 4 weeks - but I learned a lot, and got to make a couple of puppets, including the leaf/moss guy below.

I also made an appearance at Faerieworlds...I wasn't a vendor this year, but did have a chance to play with new materials, and made some horns, kind of as an experiment. They came out great, and got us a ton of complements (perhaps I'll make more to sell next year?)

And finally, I've been making coloring books again - hopefully they will be available at Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids at the end of the summer!

Etsy Update

In connection with moving, I've recently had the opportunity to re-organize a lot of my work, and finally got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for ages. Namely, upload a bunch of prints and originals to my Etsy store!

My hope is that I'll be able to continue to add some more prints, and hopefully some newer cards in the coming months. Please do check it out, and click here to find out how to get $5 anything in the store!

Celestina

I need to get the hang of blogging chronologically. I have a half-written entry documenting the opening of SWIM BLINK GLOW just sort of sitting around, but I recently finished something else and would actually rather talk about that. Humph.

Ah, anyway...below you will find my drawing for a band called 17 Pygmies, illustrating one of the main characters for their new album/short story Celestina (which, I was delighted to learn, was loosely based on the 15th Century classic novel La Celestina by Fernando Rojas, but is actually set in space. In the future. With robots.) This was tremendously fun to draw, since I got a chance to create a character that would visually reference 15th century Spanish style, yet would also be subtly futuristic.

The story is to become a graphic novel, which is tremendously exciting, but that is something I will share in another entry.

For now, please enjoy Celestina in all her completed glory, as well as several close-up shots of the actual coloring, because scans don't always do originals justice.

Also, in case you aren't doing so already, please follow me on Facebook! I post slightly more frequent updates there, as well as lots of links to inspiring things I find on my daily internet adventures.