Coffee Skull

I know, I know it's been awhile but this Fall Semester has been rather hectic. Learning a new language, Art History, and my 2-D Foundations class take a toll on me sometimes.  I was insipred by someone's work they posted on reddit where they made a picture of an owl using the coffee they had leftover at the coffee shop they were at. So like anything I decided to take my stab at it. I had a Caramel Kiss Latte from Atomic Coffee and used a small bit to make this skull. I then applied ink and ink wash to certain areas. I'm still trying to incorporate ink wash and painting with ink into my art much like Tim Sale or Keron Grant's work. Overall not a bad piece for practice and it actually smells nice.  Oh apparently I created this in the future two days from when I created it. I just noticed the date that I put Oct 25 but just realized today is the 24th and I made this the day before. Maybe I have super powers?

Some recent doodles and work

Well my summer term ended more than a week ago and I'm back home for the time being.  I did do some small sketches and tried out watercolor/ india ink again.  I just used the back posting of small journal I had that I no longer used.  It was rather absorbent so when I applied the lighter washed out black ink it went through as it dried up.  The other piece is just a quick sketch I did of the Hulk and colored him in with sharpies.  I will be heading up to Tallahassee this weekend to start the fall semester, I hope I do good in my classes this term like I did in the summer.

Current Project

This is the current project I'm working on at the moment.  I am doing stop animation for my digital foundations class here at FSU.  I am to have 30 secs of film as my final. So far I got to up to around 14 secs.  Just need to add some more and maybe some music not sure yet. I didn't realize how long of a process this can be and I've working at this for the past two days now. I still have much more to do but for now this is my progress.

Attack of the Clones

Yeah, yean I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything, I recently started my Digital Foundations class in July for Summer C here at FSU.  It's not bad as it's an intro to digital publishing programs like Illustrator and Photoshop.  I've actually learned a few things in this class and this is my most recent work that I am proud of.  I present to you my workout montage with various poses of yours truly. I really like the way this turned out, I also put out cones so I could remember where I posed for various shots.  Using the quick masks I just simply erased or added in the parts that were needed. I have some other work that I will post up later I just need to tweak them up a bit. So enjoy this photo and tell me what you think !

Desk Cell Shade Attempt

Good Morning and Happy Monday Everybody!

Well I'm still on a roll of inspiration right now and woke up this morning, had my coffee and multigrain waffle and decided to work on something today. I took a photo of my desk and decided to mess around with an attempt to give it a cell shade effect. At first I was looking up a tutorial on how to give a photo a retro color look and from there I thought, hmm what if I add some more intensity to the outlines and try something else. I created a copy of the background and made an outline of the objects on the desk.  I'm sure it's not the best but I figured it turned out alright with doing it under an hour. Enjoy and tell me what you think. I will post the original photo and the finished result. I think I could have brought out the outlines a little more and noticed the blues turned green but I don't mind it. Now off to class!

The original photo

The end result

Pixel Fan Art

Well I got another burst of inspiration after visiting a website called www.sketchypictures.com and the artist there had a tutorial on how to create pixel art with Adobe Illustrator. I figured I would take a stap at it and see what I can do.  I used the sketch of Jbabies from Artist Jeff Matsuda (The Batman, Jackie Chan Adventures, Wolverine) as a template and created three of the characters. This is the second time I have used this sketch and interpretted as a different form of art, I don't know why I guess I like the sketch. I would say I took a total of 2 1/2 hours working on this today. Enjoy and again if you are the original artist I hope you enjoy the work and I am in no way attempting to claim it as my own.  Make sure to check out both websites www.sketchypictures.com and www.jeffmatsuda.com

More Ink on Cardboard

Well the other day I decided to mess around with a Chineese Ink Brush I bought awhile back and drew half a face which is the image on top. I used some pieces of cardboard I had left over, I like using ink on cardboard since it doesn't really bleed though and less mess to clean up.  I also attempted to work with negative space and drew Marv from Sin City on the other piece of cardboard, I found an image on google and mimicked it and used it as a study.  I think Frank Miller and Tim Sale are amazing when it comes to black and white art and I recently found out that Tim Sale is color blind.  I'm going to find tutorials online about chineese ink paints to get a better idea of how to use that technique hopefully I can create something better than just a face.

It's been awhile

Well I started the summer semester at Florida State University back in May and haven't really been working on either art or photography.  Plus my currrent laptop doesn't have Photoshop installed but really I'm just making excuses and I am sorry. Awhile back I found some photos of my mom when she was a young woman and a little girl, they have some deep scratches and I figured I would attempt to restore them for her. I completely forgot about them and then I had to restore my OS on my desktop and didnt finish the work. Well I found out that one of libraries at FSU has photoshop installed so today I decided to finish one of them up.  I didnt' really mess too much with the levels or contrast but I used the hell out of the clone stamp to get rid of the scratches.  If you can see where I fixed them then you truly are a photoshop master and you must teach me your ways, but hopefully for the untrained eye it will be difficult to see. I have to find the original photo so people can see the work I've done but for now I will showcase the finished work. I do hope to get back to blogging and hopefully in the future I can buy a new laptop and the new CS suite of Adobe. If you are feeling generous and want to donate to my cause, please let me know.

My momma when she was little girl.

He's the best there is at what he does...

But one of those things isn't drawing in pen. So Wolverine decide to pose for me and asked me to draw him like one of my french girls (why, I don't know).  Actually this is an old drawing I did in pen and found it in one of my old notepads.  I've Always been a big fan of Wolverine and yeah I loved all three X-Men movies and even X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Whenever I play Marvel Vs Capcom 2 he is always on my team.  And I can't help but put pens in between my knuckles from time to time, walk around and call people "Bub".  Anywho, I figure I would share some of my old stuff with all you lovely (hopefully non-imaginary) people.

Toxic Barrel Easter Bucket: The End

As promised this is the final result of my nephew's Zombie themed Easter basket.  My sister took it home with her and added all the goodies.  She decorated eggs as brains and eyeballs which I think turned out awesome! A Zombie bunny candy, various treats, glow sticks and a horror book since he loves scary stories (Goosebumps are his favorite). 

Craft Time! Toxic Can Easter Bucket

Well this week I will awe you with a craft that I made.  It is a Toxic Can Easter Bucket for my nephew.  He wanted a zombie themed Easter basket this year and it was my job to do it. Some of you might think he is weird but hey, he's only eight years old and I think it's something different so why not? Also it can serve as his Halloween Bucket as well this year.  It was pretty simple, I picked up a metal bucket from Lowe's, black primer (Rustoleum Textured), Yellow Spray Paint, Spray Foam, and a sample tub of Neon Green Paint. Painted the bucket with primer, let it dry and painted again. Then after that was dry I applied the spray foam around the bucket and let gravity pull it down and dry.  After that I made a stencil for the toxic signal and painted it yellow, then painted the foam green and also made sure to add globs of paint in certain areas to let it drip down. My mom is going to add the grass and goodies in later so I will post a photo of the complete basket afterwards. Enjoy!

Attempt at Ink, Female Head

Well this weekend on my streak of inspiration I decided to ink a drawing this time. I still have plenty of cardboard sheets left and since they are pretty thick I know I didn't have to worry about the ink seeping through or leaving it soggy. The first picture shows the pencil layout and the progress of the ink and the bottom shows the final piece. I did attempt a little bit of the washing the ink to add some lighter tones but for some reason didn't work out so well as I hoped in the end. I still like it with this being my first atempt of using India Ink and a brush. I also added a little bit of white to add some highlights to the lips. Females is another one of those things that have never been my strong point, to me they always seem to come out too masculine and my eyes just can't seem to get them right. With this I just accepted my abilities and went with it. I really like how the small strands of hair came out though, I am going to attempt at least one or two more female drawings hopefully by the end of the weekend.  Also note that I didn't use any type of model or reference for the female, just did it off the top of my old noggin.

Napkin Art

Here's some more napkin art I did recently.  Just hanging out at Barnes and Nobles, the first one I did with while taking care of my nephew for the day. Just a quick sketch with a sharpie. The second one I used a ball point pen on two separate napkins. I hope I did a good reference of the Death Star, didn't occur to me to look up a picture of the Death Star on my phone at the time though.

Couple of quick marker drawings

Well it's been awhile that I posted, the drawbacks to being unemployed (you get kinda lazy). The first doodle I did was just me at my computer desk and decided to draw the joker with Sharpie's, started getting light headed and had to stop. Actually I have this thing where I start drawing the half of a face and then just stop. I was watching Batman: Under the Red Hood which is one of my favorite DC Animated Films lately.  Joe DiMaggio did a great job voicing The Joker, he's no Mark Hamill but I like him . While watching the film I was inspired to draw the Joker, I hope I captured his craziness.  The second one is a zombie bunny I did with just markers on a cardboard sheet.  My nephew has decided that he wants a zombie themed Easter basket this year. His defense to this is that "Zombies are allowed to celebrate Easter too." So I figured I would draw him this seeing as I have to be the one to design the Easter basket for him. I tried to dabble with acrylic paints and......it wasn't pretty. Coloring has always been my off thing so hopefully I will work on it some more and post my results soon.

Guh?!

This is a quick doodle I did today while eating lunch at Panera Bread with my momma. We actually woke up early this morning since we both signed up for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K Marathon being held today in our area.  We walked the 5k and did ok, I don't run in marathons simply because I can't run. Maybe in the future it is one of those things I would like to do and hopefully this gives me a little bit more motivation to start walking/ jogging.  I have started going to the gym, there is one close by to my house which I will usually walk to or ride my bike. Cardio is just one of those things I hate doing, lifting weights is not a big deal for me. I actually have quite some more photos I will be posting up during the week, they are from my nephews 8th birthday party. But for today you get a quick doodle done in a red sharpie while eating at Panera. I actually left the napkin there and wonder if anybody threw it out or kept it. Should have put my friggin signature on it now that I think about it. Oh well.

MegaCon 2012

Hello folks,

Sorry I wasn't able to post up anything last weekend. I went to Orlando, FL to attend MegaCon and stayed the whole weekend. It was a lot of fun and hanged out with friends.  Since I drove over there it took me about 3 1/2 hours to get there.  I took the scenic route up on SR 27 and passed through towns such as Lake Placid, Sebring and Winter Haven. Also it was a lot quicker than taking I-75 then go through I-4.  Also thankfully this year the traffic wasn't so bad getting into and getting out of Orlando when I left on Sunday.  I stayed at the same Hotel I stayed at last year, The Rosen Center.  It is a really nice hotel and thankfully I got a great deal and stayed the two nights for the price of one.  I arrived Friday and was able to check in right away which is good since I didn't want to unpack all my stuff later.  Another benefit of staying at the Rosen Center is that it is right across from the Orange County Convention Center where MegaCon was being held. The hotel actually had a bridge to walk into the Con which made it really convenient.  Now for those of you who don't know what MegaCon is it is a convention that showcases comics, anime, games and sci-fi. Various comic artists and stars from Sci-Fi and anime attend for this event.  They also have various vendors and panels, gaming posts and tons of all things that celebrate the geek world. Last year was the first time I ever intended mainly because Stan Lee was the the guest of honor and I had to meet him. Stan was also the Guest of Honor this year which is always exciting to meet him.  Also this year had Tom Felton who played Draco Malfory in the Harry Potter films and various celebrities.  Famous comic artists consisted of people like J. Scott Campbell, David Finch, and many others that would take too long to name.

My main goal for this year's MegaCon was to get various comics autographed by their respected artists. My backpack was filled with comics from George Perez, Arthur Suydam, David Finch and others.  I took with me a sketch pad as well to get autographs from artists who I didn't have comics for them to sign and also get sketches from anybody willing to draw in it. Also I picked up some dice that I needed since I've been playing some RPG table top games with my friends. I've felt weird that I didn't have my own dice and had to be borrowing from them so now I have my own. I also did attempt to cosplay this year at the Arkham Madness After-party and failed somewhat.  My character was to be The Penguin but the nose I had kept falling off since the adhesive didn't work. But as see that as a learning experience and know what to work on in case I want to get more serious about dressing up for next year.

The highlight of my trip would definitely have to be hanging out with Matt Senreich the Co-Creator of Robot Chicken and Zeb Wells who writes for Robot Chicken along with various Spider-Man books and Carnage USA.  I talked with them earlier that day on Saturday at the convention and had Mr. Wells sign my Issue #1 of Carnage USA.  That night I went out to the After-Party with my friends Brand and Mandy, and in the party ran into my friends from home John, Chris, Drake and Rollie (sorry if I spelled your name wrong). As we are hanging out Matt actually was next to us and recognized me from the convention earlier that day.  We got to talking and just hanging out with them which was really cool. Just talking to them and joking was great and I am still currently on that high for right now. The only thing I regret is not taking a photo with them but at least there were numerous witness, although some may not be considered reliable.

The low-point of the weekend would have to be me running about the convention floor trying to get a good photo of Stan Lee.  I was crazed like some sort of teenage groupie crying over the latest pop sensation, it was pretty bad.  But other than that I had a great time, bought some pieces of art and got to talk with some cool artists and celebrities.  Hanged out with friends and had a really good time.  Hopefully I will be able to attend next year but since I will be at Tallahassee next year I'm not sure how it will happen, I'll worry about that when the time comes. I also posted links to the photos I took from my facebook and flickr page.

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thabmg60/sets/72157629394368035/


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.223842814378481.48552.100002582929325&type=3&l=c1599cc572

Imagination

Found another one of my burn in photos that I created. This one I exposed the negative of the manufacturing plant, then I had a cut out stencil of a Godzilla sticker I found online and placed it over the photo paper before placing it in the developing solution.  I lowered the exposure light and used some tools so that it would come out lighter than the photo underneath this technique that I used is called dodging and burning.  This plant facility is actually right by where I live and pass by it anytime I head out somewhere. I always imagine in my mind Godzilla smashing though it like in the old movies.  The only draw back was there are water spots from the developing solution that stayed on but sometimes I think that actually adds to the photo and gives it a retro/ classic feel to it.

Burn in Photo I created

Ok I finally found one of my pieces I did for my Photography II class in Edison State College last year.  The project we were working on was to do burn in/ dodging images onto another photo. This piece is part of the work I did, the stencil and graffiti are not part of the original photo. I exposed the negative of the wall onto the photo paper first, then I placed a stencil I created on top of it and then exposed light on top of that stencil. When I put the photo paper into the developer this is the result. I remember working on this and figuring out how I can pull this off with out over exposing the background. Because if I just placed the stencil and leave the rest of the area blank, the light would cause the rest of the photo to go dark. So what I did is place the stencil on top of a blank photo paper then exposed that to light, devloped it and this became my stencil.

This is the stencil that I created so you get an idea of what I'm talking about, I designed it to be backwards so I could just lay it on top of the already exposed photo paper and the letters would come out in the correct order and not backwards. I think it worked our really well since the only part that was exposed whas the white areas and kept the rest of the background photo intact. 

Ever since watching the documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop", I have been infatuated with  Street Art.  I've always like graffiti but the street art shows a side that people don't always get to experience.  Yes I do know that vandalism is a crime and don't reccomend or encourage it.  This is my "safe" version of street art/ graffiti.

The location of the wall is actually at Coconut Point Mall in Estero, FL.  It is behind the store called GQ'z or Men's Palace. If you go there you will see that this stencil isn't there or any signs of being painted over in case you don't believe me.

I have some more photos that I attempted with the burning and dodging techniques that I will attempt to place later on during the month. I found making these type of photos to be rather difficult and exciting to do since I was working with film photography and didn't use photoshop or any other type of editing software to creat the photos. If I could ever get back into a film studio I would do more of things like this.

Another photo of Jackson

Well I'm currently trying to upload another photo of my new cat Jax but for some reason it is failing to upload.  Could be IE 8 that is the issue but who knows. I did some minor tweaks using Windows Live Photo Gallery since I am using my laptop and don't have photoshop installed on it. I still have a few months before I leave to Tallahassee since I decided to push my entrance back until the summer term. Thankfully I have majority of my paperwork needed completed now. Just as soon as the application is reapplied I can then apply for on campus housing and complete my FAFSA.  As for Jackson, he is fitting in rather well and loves it in his new home. Like any good kitten he loves to play, is very curious and explores around the house. I see him learning his abilities as to how far he can jump or where he can go. My sister says that I've become his over protective mother since I constantly worry about him and I know I have. Since we are always together we have bonded rather quickly.  I am thinking about taking him with me to Florida State but I don't think they will allow pets in the housing units. If not I will do my best to visit him.... I mean my family as often as possible.

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty.......little ball of fur.

So I just got a new companion in our household. He is only 3 weeks old and seems to be enjoying his new home rather nicely.  We have decided to name him Jax which is short for Jackson.  I am a cat person and have always been a sucker for black cats. My previous cat was also black and his name was B.J. short for Bettle Juice. He lived with us for 18 years and we haven't had a cat in our house for close to three years until now. I hope this little guy grows up and lives just as long as B.J.