More Fanart, You Guys

The last few days I've been working on something for Mr. Ross Campbell, who is by and large these days one of my big ol' comics heroes.
Here are the scribbly, nocturnal fruits of that labor.

It still could be better, but I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. Shadoweyes is ludicrously fun to draw, and I think I was able to at least hint at the beautifully twisty, crumbling mess that is Dranac. I also haven't done a coloured pencil piece in quite a while, so neat to see I still had an idea of what I was doing. Still, I had to do some tweaks in Photoshop to really impart the feel I wanted.

For comparison purposes, here's the unaltered image, straight from the sketchbook.

Keep on making quality comics and blog posts, Mr. Campbell.

[Holden Out.]

Glorified Fanart, You Guys

I'm gonna try and facilitate a couple art-dumps here soon. Here's an appetizer--three bits from my current sketchbook, all recent. And all comics-related. And all technically fanart. Bluh.

Neglecting a Blaugh

My artbuddy Kii over at Rakugaki has been getting on me to put some of this stuff in here, so here we go!
After the main course, I have some propositions, as well, so stay tuned to the end for those, please.

Yep, it's another pile of art.

Yep. This is becoming a regular thing, it seems. If it becomes a regular enough thing it may get its own categorization and become some weird lumpy little deformity of a feature.

I guess...I guess we'll do some more of this now.

More art-related-things posting, that is. I aim to be getting back on top of keeping up with the Sunday Comics and Holden's Bookshelf entries again this week as well, these past couple weeks have just been busy.

Anyway. Yes. Things what I drew and made.

I tend to doodle on my notes.

Just some fun scribbles, because really, where else am I going to put them? All of these were done with one of those cheap ballpoint pens you get at Staples in hundred-packs.

A self-portrait...thing from the corner of a shopping list. I tend to caricaturize myself like this. Not really sure why.

Doodled on an index card during a long wait at an office. Sorry about the random writing in her hair, they were the notes the card originally contained. Not supposed to be anyone specific, I just like short hair. And stars. And Eyes.

Weird fish-eyed depiction of my character Tar, from the back of the same index card. Getting closer to what I actually want him to look like but still not quite there. One of his better gas mask designs though (he wears that thing because of some very special breathing issues).

Unfinished picture of characters Didi and Natasha arguing, done on the back of a class syllabus. I probably will add to it later. There's a lot I like AND dislike about this...this is pretty much the first time I've absolutely nailed what I envision Didi looking like (especially her hair...big fluffy tangled dreadlock pigtails), but I botched Natasha pretty hard...she's got a slightly too-small head and way too long of a neck. She's also supposed to be a lot shorter than Didi, though you could argue she's slightly in the foreground. Poses are a little stiff too, but I'm trying to work on that. For the record, since her hand's unfinished, Didi's eating a microwavable Hostess Fruit Pie-type thing. I imagine they get into bicker-sessions like this a lot, but wouldn't you know it, they're best friends.

[Holden Out.]

It's time to inject more art up in this piece.

Done partly as a sort of proof that yes, I really do mean it when I say I'm working on art projects. Except when I don't mean it. I have a terrible habit of starting things I don't finish, especially art-related things. Especially art-related things times roughly a thousand.

Here's a trio of photos dedicated to the project I've been working on the most, recently...a mask. I apologize for the slapdash photo quality, but this isn't the finished product anyway.

Spring Cleaning.

So I deleted a few older posts, ones that seemed like good ideas at the time but are kind of whiny/embarassing now, and a couple that just didn't really have any reason to be around. Hoorah!

Beginning to give thought once more to prettying this place up, though I don't know where to begin. A different template might be nice, but I've no idea how to craft one. I'm also considering a name change yet again. This place was originally known as "Overreactionary" until I learned that the term "reactionary" has political connotations, and I think the wordplay with "OverReactor" is lost and...doesn't make enough sense. So an entirely new name may be in order. Suggestions, anyone? "The Whimsy Pile" is the first one that comes to my mind but I'm not sure about it yet.

Some nifty new Sunday Comics entries are forthcoming, because I've been reading comics like a madman lately.

In other news, art news, more FoodPeople are on the way very soon, so watch for those. Seriously guys, check that place out and suggest something.

I'll close with an art project I presented to my father yesterday, as one of my gifts to him for his 56th birthday...presently just called "The R":

"R" being my Dad's first initial, I decided to do this after some inspiration from my sister's room (she has a similar giant first initial that she displays on her bookshelf). A craft supply store near where I work sells these papier mache letters in various sizes, so using coloured pencils, markers, india ink, paint, and a ballpoint pen, I made this conundrum. All the images and objects pictured in it are references to him in some way--things he likes, family inside jokes, that sort of thing. He liked it a lot, so mission accomplished; keeps it by the table where he sorts bills now. If I had thought of it further ahead, I would have liked to fill up more of that brown space, but I definitely did what I could in the time I had. It's hard to tell from the lighting in the picture but I painted all the other faces of the R black. I was set to write some sort of birthday message, like you would have on an award or something, on one side in silver, but the paint pen I bought turned out to be broken. Lame.

Happy 56th, R!

Holden Out.

He Speaks!

Hello, friends and well-wishers. It has been well over five months now since last post--almost half a year. And ever since I left this particular corner of the internet I've wanted to go back, so today is the day I suppose I figured, "why not?" I liked blogging then and I want to maintain it. A lot has happened to me in those five silent months, but I plan to move forward here once more. I've got some fun ideas and changes in the works, so keep those eyes open.

Some Doodles: Lexa and Natasha

So I didn't have nearly as much creation time over the past, oh, several months, as partially evidenced by my lack of said work appearing here on the internet. But as one of those "must create at least every once in a while or I will eventually explode" types, I resorted to the old classic of doodling, something I've done pretty much all through school. It's not uncommon for me to keep a chunk of my notes at the end of the school year, not for reference material, but because of margin doodles I particularly liked.
These last couple quarters, my doodles were more scarce, but I noticed a definite theme popping up--two certain characters of mine, both belonging to the same comics plotline (working title "Silicon Heart"). One makes sense, as she's the main character, the other was a bit of a surprise to find I was sketching her so frequently, as she's a very minor character (though perhaps it's the thrill of newness--she was thought up just this year).
So, anyway. Doodle showcase.

Commercial Art! Of A Sort.

So, first off, sorry to friends' blogs that I'm usually good about visiting, I promise I'll get to those soon. Second off, I realize the Hundred Faces Blog hasn't updated in like a month. I've honestly been too busy, it'll start getting back on track in a couple weeks hopefully.

Anyway, I was recently involved in a group that was making a magazine (yes, a real one, though as it's still technically a school project there will only ever be the one issue we've made available for purchase/in existence). Though each member of the team contributed an equal amount of article content, we also had our specialties--I was our illustrator, as it were. I've decided to post my favourite images here, for display and kicks.

The Cardboard Tube Army Cometh

I made a lot of references to the Cardboard Tube Army in some of my older entries, but now that I at last bought up some fresh batteries for my camera, I can stop referencing them...because here they are! Or most of them anyway. There are about nineteen intact, there were 20-something but a number of them were lost to some water damage (some smears are evident even on some of the intact ones).

These are based on a silly/fun project British comicker Jamie Smart did in his own blog once--drew little faces on used toilet paper tubes and set them up on top of the tank, along with a little sign that said "we're watching you poo." For my own I've omitted the sign and rather than giving them all the same face as he did, I tried to make them all look very different. I even named them. Check it out:

From left to right, starting at the top: James, WideAwake, Simple, The Sclurrious Flurge, Nippon, Count Tilde, FrankenTube, Tube-Bot, Admiral Agent General Scarrson, Tikiman, Wyso Sirius, Nom Chompsky, Hotep, Randolph Wiffles, Zaan, A Walrus, Lindsey, Lisa, and Steve. Lisa had to be elevated a bit to be seen since Lindsey and Steve are paper towel tubes rather than TP tubes.

Soon, they will be lords of the restrooms.

Holden Out.

Ye Olde Arty Tymes

This was originally going to contain pictures of the Cardboard Tube Army project, but my camera's batteries are dead and I can barely afford new ones, so that'll have to wait.


Cineris, if you're reading this, I'm pretty sure you should skip this entry since you want what lies within to be a surprise. You have been warned! I would post something else, but this is really all I have that's recent enough.


So anyway. Here's sort of a steampunk cyborg girl thing that I'm doing as an extremely belated gift to a friend (I don't even remember if it's a Christmas gift or Birthday gift...aiii). It's in two pieces right now, you'll notice--the girl herself and a wing. In the final product I'll duplicate and flip the wing and position them in the proper spot on the girl.

I think her legs are a little longer than they need to be and I'm not quite sold on the miniature top hat yet, but there are lots of other details I managed to come up with that I liked. I know it's small here, but some of the stuff I'm particularly happy with includes the gear-knee and glass portion of the mechanical leg, that weird ornate little winding mechanism on the sternum, and the little rods going under the surface of the part where the mechanical forearm meets its organic upper arm. Her pose is supposed to look sort of dance-ish...it looks a little silly to me right now but hopefully will make more sense when the wings are in place.
Naturally, this all still needs to be inked and coloured as well.

Here's the wing. Not perfect but there's plenty of it that I liked and I tried to at least make the struts and joints look functional. I like the little exhaust/steam pipes up towards the top. The little bulbs on the outer edge are going to be vacuum tubes.
So...yeah. Yay. Hopefully this'll come together...I have a bad tendency to get overly nervous when it comes to inking and just plain lazy when it comes to colouring.
Holden Out.