The Skees'

My husband really liked the last doodle from this post. So much so that he spun a whole story off it when talking to me about it and then asked if I could make a comic out of it for his birthday. Well, that was last month, but our anniversary was yesterday and I thought I would finish it in time.

I thumb-nailed the comic first. Then drew out each scene in pencil. We took some photographs for reference too. Then inked it when I was happy. Then scanned in all the inked panel sketches separately. Then took them into Illustrator to get vector line art. Then laid out the frames, vector art and text in InDesign. Then saved the file as an eps to keep the transparency. Took that eps into Photoshop. Colored the panels as if in full daylight. Then added a few filter layers to get the color right for a darker evening and the lighting. Added one more layer and tried to paint some backgrounds in for context.

Slowly getting back to comics

So, I have finally set up my new office to be in somewhat working order. It's a great space and all for me! I am contemplating doing the 30 Day Monster Girl Challenge, but I won't start that just yet.

In the mean time here is a warmup for me, going back to cataloging and doing fan doodles for the webcomics I read. Picking up where I left off...

Cat Versus Human by Yasmine. Basically just a comic about cats and the effects they have on ladies, life and relationships. Super cute and minimal look. I live for the rare strips she does about dogs. I can generally appreciate all the cat humor as well, since I do love cats, I just literally cannot live with them. Some of my favorites: This one and this one.

Was going to do a full fledged doodle, sketched out some ideas and realized that a two week hiatus was extremely detrimental to any skills I might have been building. So, instead here are caricatures of me, my husband and puppy inspired by Cat Versus Human.

Rosscott, Inc Fan Art

Today's comic is Rosscott, Inc. (aka. the System) by Rosscott.

Started reading this one in 2009. I knew it was one I would keep up with forever, when it spoke to my soul in this particular comic: The Crap Sandwich. Since then it has made me laugh on a regular basis.

Rosscott uses the universal imagery that we see on signs everywhere to make this comic apply to everyone. However, some of the subject matter is rather specific to one or another group: e.g. office worker, graphic designer, bike commuter, coffee drinker, etc. It also has some just plain weird and silly humor in characters such as Jimmy the Murderdog. Puns are often found here as well. Comics also often remark on technology, gadgets, social media, and fonts. If you like any of those things, you might give it a try.

Notes on this doodle: Started as a pencil sketch in my note book and then once I had the idea and panels arranged, I drew the characters in Illustrator from scratch. Didn't feel it was right to just use the icons he does. Text font is Helvetica New Medium Expanded. The dog eyes in panel two are actually the lowercase letter "o" from ITC Avant Guarde Gothic. I use that font in several of the logos and brands I work on. Since I work from home, often there are design decisions that I need to make, but I no longer have the luxury of asking another designer for their input. I hope that it is not just me who talks to myself, and my dog, when stuck on a choice... I do miss having coworkers...

Holiday Weekends and Stuff

Yes, Yes I know. I was supposed to update Monday and Yesterday too. But I haven't. No excuses... Ok.... a few excuses. Memorial day weekend was exhausting; between helping people move, visiting relatives, having people over to the house, working on the lawn, fixing the pool, taking the dog to the vet and getting my hair dyed, I had almost no time to think, let alone doodle.

A hold over for now since the rest of this week promises to be super busy with work as well...

The gimpy puppy to be taken to a specialist.

The blue hair in question.

A new crochet project to work on.

The crochet project will get its own post once the 4 are done.

Thanks for your patience.

30DC: Day 23: Something You Need

Need implies a lot. You can be needy and that is generally a bad thing. But it is ok to have needs. The human body has them and there is nothing that can be done about it. I prefer to think of this as something that I cannot live without... something essential to my life.

I once read or heard somewhere that in order for someone to feel happy they need something like at least 30 touches over the day. Doesn't have to be hugs or something big, but just to be in physical contact with someone else. That stuck with me for some reason. You might notice in your own life how often you touch someone else... and if you find a lack of someone else... do you notice how many more times you touch your own face, head, arms etc. Even now I find that I am sitting so that my feet are both touching each other without realizing it.

A "headpet" is common around my house. It is calming and loving. I never used to believe that notion that having a pet would lower your blood pressure; I do now.

It must be something comforting, reassuring that we need to do... or at least I think so.

Just as an aside, no one pets John's head, it's not manly. :P

30DC: Day 15: Family Picture

Today's prompt was hard again... jeeze... this thing really is a "challenge"!

Drawing my family is tough. We are no longer all in the same place... I stayed, everyone else moved! I'm in what I consider our families' home in DFW, my younger brother and sister are in Houston and my parents are in Tennessee. So I had no pictures of us all to use for reference. Instead I decided to kind of take a little liberties and make up something a little silly with just me and my siblings.

My sister started this phrase, not sure when or how, but she just one day squealed "LOOK AT IT" and held her little dog, Minky, up to the phone in Facetime. It stuck with me and always makes me laugh. Looking through my old photos trying to find the screenshot of this occasion I also found an image of my sister trying to pick up my 60lb dog in the same way and I thought it would be hilarious if I had tried to do the same thing to her with my pup. And recently my brother has acquired a scooter! He has been working on for a while now and it is finally finished, so he has mentioned how cool it is and fun to drive every time I talk to him recently. This scene formed in my mind out of all of that.

It was really hard to caricature my siblings in the same way that I have come to feel comfortable drawing myself... I hope they don't get insulted by the results. :)  I like it anyway...

Miss you!

30DC: Day 11: Turning Point

Another tough one. I could say when I moved to Texas in 1999, or when I met my future husband that same year. I could say when I moved on from my school days by graduating from UD in 2007.  I could say when I got a job and decided that Graphic Design might just be able to allow me to live the way I wanted. I could say when I got married, but that would be a half truth since I don't think marriage did much other than tell everyone else what we already knew for 10 years: that we were going to be together forever. I could say when I got a dog. (Most people wouldn't consider it a turning point/ life changing event, but for someone who had never had pets or something to really look after, it was for me.)

More like it is all of those things. I think I can my call my turning point that period of my life between 2007 and 2010. Those years I went from being a bit of a scatterbrained art student to a working somewhat-more-organized wife.

I also said goodbye to my studio art days. I do miss those long nights in buildings full of potential. Messing with clay, mixing glazes, etching plates, applying ink, exposing images... I also kind of miss studying art history. I keep saying to myself that I should go and reread all my art history books, but I don't have much time and day to day life gets in the way.

These 30 days are a little way to get back to at least holding a pencil and drawing on some paper. Maybe I can reclaim a bit of lost creativity.

Hopefully if I keep moving forward, I will be able in the future to once again have a studio to work, create, fail and succeed in... along with all those other things that make my current situation wonderful.

Puppies and DIY

Don't be afraid of DIY.

At least that's what I tell myself. And it is true. I see so many things on Etsy and websites that I know I could do myself, but the ease and convenience of simply ordering online and seeing it in your mailbox in two weeks is a trap I often find myself falling into. But not this time!

I have been wanting this adorable necklace. It is a custom, hand painted portrait of your pet, encased in a pendant. My local craft stores do not seem to carry do it yourself pendant kits, but I knew one had to be out there some where. Turns out it was also on Etsy... and Ebay if I wanted to do 20+ of them.

Now I get to make it myself and since I already know how to draw and watercolor, why not?! I get to work on something I will love, that will always have meaning for me, and get to have an excuse to play with watercolors again.

So with the pendant in hand, I broke out the watercolors and some cute pictures of my puppy, Gingko.
I did a few test sketches from a few different poses I liked. Mostly to try and figure out how small the image needed to be to fit under the glass. The Glass dome insert acts a little bit like a magnifying glass and makes the image seem much larger. So the circle of space I had to draw in was about 3/4 of the size of that glass disk. Once I had an idea of how big to draw I switched to the watercolor paper.

Once I had a sketch down that I liked I broke out the colors. Since she is such a light colored dog it was a little hard to get her color right. That image up there is much whiter than she is in person. She is a bit more orange but her face, neck and underbelly are all very white. Since she is a husky mix she does have a bit of the eyebrow markings, but since they are white on such a light yellow gold, you can hardly see them.

It was important to me to get it right though. And I think I did an alright job. One person I showed it to said, "Oh that's Gingko!" so I guess I did ok. Anyway, I am very happy and I saved about $40!

Happy Howl-o-ween!

Halloween is here and costumes are a must in my opinion. Why should our puppy be left out?

She is going as Krypto the Superdog! Her cape and collar were made from a couple of child's size t-shirts from your craft store. The studs on the collar and S logo were drawn on with a gold fabric paint pen. Finally her custom Superdog-tag is hand-drawn by me on shrinky plastic. The cape is safety pinned to the collar which fits like a tube over her real collar.

With the perfect costume and pose, our little Gingko is ready to save the day!
Just for reference, you can see how she has grown from the last post she was in: Tilt Shift

Trying Tilt Shift Photoshopping

A job, a move and a new puppy can suck up your life. Saw a cool tutorial online today about turning your ordinary photographs into faux tilt-shift photographs with photoshop. Naturally I tried with whatever was on my desktop... that being a photo of my little pup, Gingko.

Before:

After:

Not sure if the photo is quite right to use; it isn't really an aerial shot or far enough away. With that said, I still like it a lot.