Thesis: Character Design

This is one of the early character designs for the Princess in my thesis story, based on "The Twin Brothers" from Grimm's fairy tales. I wanted to make a character that was a little tougher and more competent than the original story dictated. I think the world has seen enough fainting heroines and it is time to move on.

Three Volume: Birds of India 2

Indian Peacock

Greater Racket-tailed Drongo

Greater Coucal

Common Hoopoe

Three Volume: Birds of India

Plum-headed Parakeet

Malabar Trogon

Indian Scops Owl

Three Volume: Birds of Africa 2

Helmeted Guinea Fowl

My aunt actually raised these for awhile. They are the ugliest things I have ever seen fly out of the chicken coup.

African Spoonbill

African Pygmy Kingfisher

Three Volume: Birds of Asia 2

Golden Pheasant

Demoiselle Crane

Japanese Crested Ibis

Black-Winged Stilt

I think the Stilt is my favorite. They are so cute.

Three Volume: Birds of Asia

Paradise Flycatcher

Silver-Breasted Broadbill

Nightjar

Mandarin Duck

Three Volume: Birds of Africa

These are the ink wash drawings from a book I created, entitled "Birds of Africa". It is the first of three books we had to create for a bookmaking project.

Yellow Billed Oxpecker

Van Der Decken's Hornbill

Secretary Bird

Marabou Stork

Re-do: First Bookmaking Project and COSMIX show

Finally got around to taking the Artist's Book class, and the first assignment was, in my opinion, a criminal act. We were asked to find a book, then read it to figure out what it is about, and then tear the entire thing apart and then rebuild it as a sculpture. Using the ENTIRE book. It was incredibly painful to rip up a copy of Mother Goose, and the less said about that, the better. I am trying to block it out. But here is the concept sketch:

The sculpture is in the COSMIX III show at the South Florida Museum at the moment. This year's theme was "The Artist as Storyteller".

Barn Owl

Playing with gauche, which I've never had a chance to use before. Oh my goodness, they are expensive little tubes of paint!

More Nonsense

Moving on to the current sketchbook. This one is crammed full of book making note and thumbnails for thesis. But the occasional sketch can still be found:




The Frog Prince's mustache was added by my teacher Patrick Lindhardt, who claimed he could not resist. Amphibians are on his banned animals list. But this did not stop me from starting this one on his drafting table. Then I realized what I was doing, thought it was too cute to destroy, and moved it into my sketchbook.

Pure Nonsense

I'm not sure why my style changes sometimes, but certain days are just sort of meant for cuter things.

A Bird

Color correction is a little weird, but I do love this bird. The little flowers look so Dr. Seuss-ish.

Character Sketches

Two older character sketches from 2009. I switched to one of the Handbooks after filling up this one, but I do miss the colored paper. It was great for pastel pencils.

Woodland Park Zoo sketches

I love my zoo in Seattle. They've done a great job of creating realistic landscape, and the insect exhibits are pretty fun. The orbweaver spider is actually in an open exhibit. I guess it never moves from its web, so there's no need to enclose the exhibit. I could've reached out and touched it. Emphasis on "could". The only thing I hate is when people step right in front of you or shove you aside when you are in the middle of sketching. They are so rude. I might stab one of them in the knee with my pencil someday, and claim it was accidental.

The French Lady

One of my forays into using pastel pencils in my sketchbook. I love the way it looks, but oh, the smudges...they hurt me a little.

2010 Update

My conscience has been nibbling at me after a friend visited my site.

"You haven't updated since November, 2009?!"

Umm, no. I guess not. I'm a bad person. But after many hours spent scanning pages to get this thing up to date, I realized why. If you know any underclassmen at Ringling, and they are going to buy a scanner, for the love of God tell them to spend the money and get the largest one they can afford. None of that legal sized nonsense. You are an artist, not an office worker. And sooner or larger, you will have to scan in a 16x20 sketch, and you will hate your life as Photoshop crawls to piece your art back together.

But the struggle is the glory. Without further ado...