Revisiting the Past – and Proof that One Can Improve

Found the draft of this laying around and decided to finish it up with what I could scrounge up in my scattered files.

I usually don’t look back or touch up pieces once they are done.

When they are done, they are done, they may not be perfect but they are finished. Looking back slows down progress. Also if I look back the anxiety monster eats me more than it usually does.  But as always, there are exceptions.

Back in the halycon days of yore, when I was a young wee, optimistic, Lissa I started working conventions with fifteen prints to sell. Over time I’ve added and removed a lot of stuff from the print books. A few of the original fifteen hang around, mainly due to the fact they still seem to be popular with people than me believing they are very good.

One of these pieces was starting to show its age to me and I felt I needed to give it an upgrade if I was going to keep it around.

People still like this piece – and I have a soft spot for it even if it looks really silly on my display wall these days. Sometimes folks even recognize the rather obscure manga it’s from. (Clover by CLAMP circa 1999)

Sure I really borrowed a bit too heavy form CLAMP’s school of design when I drew her anatomy (they are the masters of weird anime anatomy),  and it was also one of the first times I painted metal in any major capacity to…a varying degree of success.  And I believed I knew more about drawing horses than I actually did…But I still like this piece. I didn’t do the best job at it but I was young and learning. One hopes I have learned at least a little something over the past years.  Might as well try to fix things.

Year in Art Review

Decided to post this while it was on my mind. After this I start consolidating my art files and working on various online shop fronts.

 

Can’t Be Worse Than the Last

So 2017…happened.

Well as I write this – it’s almost over, barring anything major happening – it looks like we’ll have survived it.

Good job us. Smoke if ya got ’em.

This bout sums up my feels about the year. Click for link to full version.

 

I’ve been rather quiet on here this year.  Multiple reasons, mainly being bad at social media. I know it’s supposed to be an important part of business, image, and sharing personal bits and connections. But I’m never sure what to share and what to shove in the closet with all those fabulously dressed skeletons I keep in there. So I tend to over analyze and freeze up and say nothing.

Also it’s been a bonkers year, I’ve spent most of my energy gritting my teeth watching the news, or writing my congressmen demanding someone do something. The dregs of my mental energy left were then used to queue up shoujo anime and episodes of Call the Midwife, cause for some reason I find sappy narratives about midwives in the 60’s comforting.  I don’t even know.

Negative, I’m a Meat Popsicle

 

Welp it’s been a very long silence on here. I picked up a temporary job contract around the holidays and spent a good few months working out of state doing data processing. It was simultaneously more boring and more interesting than you would imagine it would be.
I also ended up couch surfing with family, fighting what felt like an eternity of bronchitis, and serving as a jungle gym to a five year old.

This was not very conducive to my usual hermit life style of wallowing in my own clutter, dancing to electro-swing music, bothering the cat, and slaving over a hot graphics tablet to get work done. I at least still got some stuff wrapped up regardless.

Started this in early December at a friend’s request and colored it as the New Year rang in. One day I’ll stop finding punk sailor scouts amusing.

I’ve been out of town and wrapped up in other things and forgot to post the end of the year art sum up on here. Oops. Let us amend that.

It’s Always Halloween

Happy All Souls’ Day. (belated as of the time of this posting.)

Halloween has come and gone and I am now at the time of year where I desperately try to cling to the spooky vestiges of the past and dread the coming of jingle bells.

This Halloween I ended up spending mostly alone with the cat. Worse ways to spend a holiday I guess, though not very exciting. At least I did get to participate and attend the annual local Monster Show again.

I got accepted early, I have lots of time, nothing pressing on my schedule, a new set of paints I love playing with. I have everything but…motivation. Or ideas. Or a concept.

So we are off to a great start as usual.

Tools of the Trade – Digital

As usual I’ve been chasing my tail around in circles forgetting to actually write anything down.

Since February I have worked two conventions, was in one wedding, drove on a few road trips, attended one funeral, and got my brain chemistry back together. Back in February it was revealed my local pharmacy had mistyped some info and was giving me a half dose, of the chemical mirror of my anti depressant. So things were kinda hairy for a long while as that got handled and sorted.

Anyways –  I’m fresh out of a convention and decided to try to field a few questions that I get at these sort of events on here. I do a mish mash of digital and traditional things so I’ll address them separately. This particular part is about what I use in digital media – tools, and software wise. I’m just going to do a quick run through of what I personally use, not saying this is the only way to do things, cause it’s not. I’m also going to not go into vast detail of how to use any of this. That would be a very very long thing to write up and I would probably start feeling like I need to be charging for sharing this eldritch knowledge.

Anyways, ONWARDS

Nuclear Hellscapes and Travel Posters

Holidays crashed over me and the New Year started pretty rough.

A mix up at the pharmacy has left me with a bit of a brain chemistry issue I’m still dealing with. (For the record; double check labels and spelling on any medications you take.) It’s been a fun month or two.

But despite the weird mood swings, head aches and drowsiness I have actually gotten something done.

Sadly not sure of the

original artists of these

hell we are lucky to have scans in the first place

It might be somewhat obvious on here but I’m a bit of a history nerd.  I also love and collect vintage posters and post cards (well reprints anyway.)  A few years back during a cross country road trip I got introduced to the National Park posters from the Depression era Works Project Administration and fell in love with them.

The Works Project Administration was a program that was part of the New Deal to stimulate the economy and get unemployed folks working. In an attempt to get out of work artists producing and as a way to get art to the lower classes they started commissioning posters for various events and projects. Public Service posters, Health Reminders, local events, and in this case advertising the National Parks. For more information and examples the Library of Congress has more information and over 900 examples of said posters.

Me being a graphic design nerd and a bit of a gamer, I tried this style out for a location in Fallout New Vegas – because making travel posters for imaginary, inhospitable locales amuses me. I had a lot of fun making that poster and it surprisingly was a great eye catcher at my last convention so I decided to try to give it a revisit when I had the chance.

The Future is Now

As per usual I can never post anything on time. I had started writing this in January and then I guess forgot about it. I’ve been dealing with some hilarious brain chemistry issues so I’m going to go point to that and blame that. 

I sure had a thing for blue last year.

 

So 2016 is here, a couple of my idols died, and we still don’t have any of the space age implements promised to us. Seems like a grand start.

As per usual I started the new year so fried and burned out from the holidays and holiday prep that it takes me a while to get my brain in gear and start getting my act together. New Year may be on the first of the month but my new year proper doesn’t set in until at least the 7th.

I always like to do these silly sort of memes of art of the year around this time. It allows me a nice chance to look through my old files and choose a piece for each month that I’m proud of. This year it serves as a nice gauge to measure when I played what videogame or saw which movie.

From my understanding a lot of folks see this time of year as a sign to start dieting, start exercising, promise to read piles of books, drink more water, floss their teeth. For me it usually means its time for me to start sorting my taxes, go over last year’s paperwork and figure out my attack plan art wise for this year.

I’ve been dealing with depression for the past couple years and have learned not to make grand plans. One never knows what is going to happen in a year or what curve balls will happen.

In Which I Ramble on about Ghosts and Ladies that Go Bump in the Night

So October is here, and gone.  I was intending to post this sooner but the month was a blur of comings, goings, deadlines and disasters.  Probably poor excuses, but it was a poor way to spend what is normally the happiest time of the year for me.

For the occasion of Halloween a local store decided to hold a monster themed art show and they were kind enough to let me join in the fun.

So I get in the show, no worries right? Well actually I realize that “Monster” is a pretty big heading. Are we talking classic movie monsters? Modern monsters? Urban legends? Zombies? The list goes on.

After a bit of mentally throwing darts at a board for ideas and coming up with nothing  a friend suggested I try to do something with “those Japanese ghosts like that one artist you obsess over.”