Time Travel

Did these roughs a while back for a gig. Based off of a super awesome idea for a webseries about a time traveling hedgehog from the enlightenment era who meets a modern day gerbil/hamster. It was really fun sketching out the characters, as the writer had some awesome descriptions and character development. Unfortunately the finals were not the best, as I only had a week to bust this out haha. Anyways, here is Baxter, Chew, and Orchid (the last being an evil squirrel, who is clearly in now way inspired by Stephen Silver)

Wellcast

Sooo a while ago my awesome friend Jeff invited me to join the Wellcast animation team at Mahalo. And it's been great! With a group of about eight of us, we've already wrangled over 8,000 subscribers and over 300,000 views! The animation is very rough, but its more the content that gets the viewers interested. 

One of our videos was featured once, so it has a ton of views! BUT the second most viewed video is one I worked on, called The Party Survival Guide for Introverts. Again, the animation is rough, and I have like three days of turnaround time (ok, like seven, but I always procrastinate... plus I have my full time job too!), so it's not the most amazing animation. But its been a really fun time working on these! And now I have a partner to work with, so the workload is much better. We just put up our first joint animation, fittingly, on Procrastination. 

As I said it's been a fantastic time working on these, and we have 100 episodes to do all together (two released each week), so it'll be long time until we complete the project! And the viewers love it! We've been getting a lot of our ideas from comments. Soon Jeff said we'll be sharing our portfolio websites with the viewers, so I need to get working on mine... finally buy a domain haha.

Apartment Doodle and Work

A quick sketch of an apartment across the street during lunch today.
Two of my friends got hired at my company, and one of them started this week. :) So we have been taking short walks on our lunches and drawing things. It's nice having a sketching buddy again!
Work is hard. Somehow I am now doing graphic design... cause we are so swamped with card design orders. Too bad I was never actually trained in graphic design, so I am winging it mostly. I am doing well, but am way slow! It's becoming a bit of a problem so I stayed late at work today... until 7pm. Which means I put in a 10 hour day (not counting my hour lunch). The hardest part about my day is coming home to my desktop and readjusting myself to using PC hotkeys and shortcuts instead of Mac ones lol. I keep hitting ALT instead of CTRL. Ah, artist issues.

Post-Halloween Pumpkins

I really haven't been drawing much lately :( Even these were drawn near the beginning of October, but I just didn't get around to scanning them until now. Correction: I haven't been drawing much ON MY OWN. I draw plenty for my freelance job :) P.S. its here: http://www.youtube.com/user/watchwellcast

I do some episodes along with some awesome fellow animators. It's really fun, though stressful and time consuming especially cause I still have my full time job to do! But it's ok, what else am I doing with my life right now? Basically just watching Dancing with the Stars with my grandma. But now my friend Whitney is helping me with episodes, so it'll be less pressure on me for the deadlines.

I can't believe it's already November! I  have to start planning Christmas presents before it sneaks up on me... and buy my CTN ticket... I suppose this year I'll only be able to go on Sunday, as I work on Friday and have a funeral to go to on Saturday :( So I guess it's a good thing that I didn't buy a 3-day ticket earlier this year. It'll still be a good time to go to a few panels and check out some awesome animations and artwork. Until then, I have to get my act together, update my website and make more business cards!

What to do with boring flats

Just a couple more pages of random doodles. The first are some ideas of what to do with these boring shoes I have. I ended up buying ribbon and gluing bows to them :) Mustaches and monocles would've been cool too though. The second are just random drawings... a couple kids making halloween costumes out of bath towels :)

Girly profiles

Making up some random people while I render out After Effects videos :) P.S. some hairstyles may or may not be inspired by all those Pinterest pins about hair.

Cats and Desk

Some work doodles from this week. I have a few more, and will post more throughout the week. I miss my kitties, so I drew them on post-it notes and posted them to my computer to keep me company while I work :) The desk was just a doodle to see if I remember what my desk looks like (the trim on the desk is completely off but other than that it's pretty accurate!)

More Heads

Some more head drawings doodled during work! And a couple cats for good measure :)

Babcia's House #1

I think it's high time for me to begin documenting my "adventures" while living at my grandmother's house. In very rushed, sketchy comic strip form. I have a few good ideas already, and hope to do one every couple of days or so from now on. So here is the first. Basically, I spent a good part of my afternoon going through my grandmother's collection of quarters, trying to find every state to fill up these collectable booklet things my grandfather got back in the early 2000s. For some reason, she insists on filling up all 5 of them. We are still missing some states, and even though the booklets say they all became circulated by 2008, she doesn't believe that they have been minted yet. Oh, grandma.

Head Sketches

Here are some head doodles. I liked playing with the hair ones in Photoshop :)

People Watching

Goodness! I haven't posted on here in a while. I thought for some reason that it hadn't been this long, but it has. Excuses: had floor re-done on my level of the house, had to move all my things out of the rooms with the hard wood floors (including my scanner/printer). Also, work. Also, birthday. Anyway, no more excuses! I am now set up in my own little office room, with my almost dead laptop and scanner. I'm supposed to be getting a new computer soon (graduation/birthday present) so once that's set up I'll be able to work on more things, rather than worrying if my computer will spontaneously shut off (battery needs to get replaced :/ )
Until then, I have a bunch of things scanned to post for the next week or so. Mostly just doodles, as usual, but hopefully I'll be able to post some actual stuff soon!!

Face Doodles

Some faces I drew recently. Profiles are fun. Also, the second guy is in drag of course.

LA Drawing Club Betty Page

Went to drawing club again this week. The theme was Betty Page :) I had time today to color a drawing in Photoshop too. Have a good weekend everyone!

Happy Belated 4th of July!

Just a couple doodles I did during the day :) It was a rather calm holiday. Hung out with my bestie and had dinner with her family. Maybe next year I'll have my own place and host my own barbeque? Possibly.

Bikini Girl PhotoShop version

Decided to do a quick Photoshop version of the bikini girl I drew today. Definitely fixed up a few things I didn't like about her. Sometimes it's so much easier to fix things digitally! (just my excuse for being lazy) Side note: It's not supposed to be me, but I just tend to like coloring girls with hazel eyes and brown hair, and I also just bought a bikini almost just like this and so yeah...

More work doodles

Doodles from work... they look better IRL! I swear!

LA Drawing Club 06/28

More drawing club! Finally got time to go again last night. The theme was the Punisher. It was kind of hard sometimes, with his cape hiding a lot of his body.

Work Doodles

Just some doodles during work today :)

Happy Summer!

A small sketch done during downtime at work this week.

And here's a little color underneath.

Work is going well! I helped my boss hire three additional people for our department (the higher ups want the videos to be completed faster), including two of my former classmates :) We are just waiting for computers for them now. By this Monday, everyone will have started at the company, and we will have a full crew, with me as the production manager, sort of. I am going to be in charge of keeping us on track, and making sure we don't miss any illustrations or storyboards. Basically, I love organizing. And making Excel spreadsheets.

Drawing Club 3 and Graduation

Here are some drawings from the LA Drawing Club a  few weeks ago. I still have a bunch more to post, but will do so in time!

My graduation ceremony is coming up and I am very excited to walk with my classmates :) Since it's the College of the Arts, it includes not only art but music, film, dance, theater, and design. And I have a couple friends in other departments, including one of my best buds, Gabby.

It's pretty crazy because once it's over, I'll permanently step into the realm of Not a Student Anymore, an area that looks down upon Messing Up, discourages Sleeping In or Partying It Up(the last two usually come hand in hand), and unfortunately lacks student discounts. I already have taken a tentative step into this place, having taken a full-time position and being expected to pay more bills and insurance payments, though I am still not completely comfortable here. I find myself sitting silently in the office kitchen while others chat about their 15-month old babies or their friends' wedding ceremonies, wondering instead if I can squeeze enough time out of my day to watch How to Train Your Dragon after work (I could not). I find myself in limbo, stuck between a world who calls me "ma'am" and my co-worker who calls me "kid." Somehow I imagine graduation to dramatically accelerate my slow drift into adulthood, though I know it will not. I try and think of ways to speed this up on my own by dressing less in printed t-shirts and more in ruffly tops and slacks, listening more to political radio, ...possibly pretending I have a baby? But then I remember that I've been an adult for far less time than I've been a child (4 to 18, a ratio of 2:9), and I probably just need more practice before I get it down right. 

Mother's Day

This Mother's day I gave my other grandmother (not the one I live with) a piece of artwork from my Senior art show. She has arthritis and was not able to make it to my show. She and my grandfather moved here to LA from New Jersey when I was eight, and helped raise me and my three sisters while my parents worked. She is a great woman and a fantastic babcia whom I love very much. Also, I gave my other grandmother (the one I live with) a painting a few years back, and felt like it would be nice to give this grandmother a piece of my artwork as well. It's based off of a Polish Church in Krakow with influence from Polish artwork, from my film in progress.

More Work Doodles

Just some more drawings I did at work! :) Hands, shoes, and some flowers done across the street during lunch.

New Work

Nothing much has changed since I last updated this blog with content on my own life, except that I started a new job :) It was quite by accident, as the freelance position I applied for ended up changing into a full-time animation assistant position for some Flash e-courses. It's pretty awesome so far, as I get to draw every day! Yay! I work in Glendale, but still live with my awesome grandmother, who has me to help her out with various activities, including making homemade kumquat preserves, weeding her garden, and watching Dancing with the Stars Monday and Tuesday nights. She is quite hilarious at times, and I hope to soon illustrate some of her antics here!

Until then, here are some work doodles (did you know I like cats?), and a drawing of a church tower from across the street at my work. My co-worker said he would like to draw the architecture, and I went along with him to the little courtyard at the Episcopal parish. It was quite nice, and the stained glass inside is phenomenal. I hope to draw more with him there soon!

LA Drawing Club 2 + Finally have Internet

So here are a few of my drawings from an LA Drawing Club session a while back,  maybe a month ago, with a Bladerunner theme. I finally ordered internet at my grandmother's house, now that I got a new job that will last a while! Since I last posted, I got a position as a Flash animation assistant working on some e-courses for a marketing company. It's not really so much animation as it is moving illustrations, but I am just happy to be drawing for a living (at least for a little while)!

Anyways, that position made me decide to actually get internet here, now that I will be here for quite a while longer than the initial 3 months I was planning on. Yay! Ok, well, Dancing with the Stars is on now, and I always watch with my grandma, but I will definitely post a bunch of drawings from the past few weeks now that I have internet access. :)

LA Drawing Club 1

Finally got a hold of some internet now that I'm visiting my parents' house this weekend.

Some cool things about my recent move: the Hollywood sign is right outside the window at my work, I get to keep my babcia company, and I get to meet awesome industry professionals! Since I moved to my babcia's, I've had the chance to go to the LA Drawing Club a few times and draw models. :) Every Thursday, a professor from Art Center has a 3 hour life drawing session in Glendale. It's like $20 but totally worth it! The model is always themed, with a movie and fitting music playing, and props! It's super cool. My new neighbor Brittany told me about it, though we haven't had the chance to go together yet. So far I've been to a Samurai-themed night (with a familiar model!), an I Love Lucy night, and recently a Bladerunner-themed night. I will scan and post the last one when I have time.

But one of the best parts about the club is that professionals from all over LA, from all different kinds of artistic focuses come and draw too! I've met gaming artists, Titmouse animators, a Disney head of story... and the best part is I get to drool over their artwork. Gah I wish I could interpret the model like they do. They can see the model in front of them, but rather than copy what they see they reinterpret the pose into an appealing character. It's so inspiring. I've been trying to do the same, but am still getting back into the life drawing groove! Anyway, here are my drawings from the first couple sessions: