My first Star Wars drawing

Work's partially done. For the time being, I have it painted monochromatically. Hope to have this fully colored sometime soon.

In the meantime, here's Boba Fett:

And here's the final product (for now)

Holidays are Here!

Only a few more days until my family finally visits my fiancee's . . . with less than five months to go until the wedding. Oh well. It needs to happen later than never. So I'll be off in Birmingham for a few days, but not before I finish off some fanart for a Christmas contest. I'll also be dogsitting this Saturday, so maybe that'll give me some free time to draw . . . or to vegetate in front of the TV and watch the Boomerang channel.

+15 points if you can guess the characters below (Hint: they're from Star Wars)

The Fett man will be added in later digitally, and I may color this (hopefully all before Saturday).

Bwaah!!

One more day of work left, and then I finally have a weekend!! Woohoo!!!

Though, I probably shouldn't complain. My fiancee Nikki has currently been working 50 hrs this week designing the layout for Hilton Head Monthly. I'm so proud of her!

And I've got some things to look forward to this weekend. 1) Paying off the first bill for my student loans! 2) Buying my plane tickets to the NY Comic Con! 3) Christmas shopping! 4) Going to see my best mate graduate from UNC! My friend Eric had majored in Japanese and he hopes to teach English in Japan. Here's his unupdated blog from his two visits in Japan ---> blog.

As with all my posts, I need to post some new art. Luckily, I've been doodling for some Spider-man pages for my portfolio. The script is for issue #112 of Ultimate Spider-man.
Never drew a Hummer before, and the script called for one, so here's my first attempt! And, uh, mind the glass roof that is customary for all Hummers to have . . . <_<
I can't wait to draw this thing all busted up!


I'm drawing the first six pages of the issue, which introduces Shocker, a throw-away villain from the Spidey series. The villain has these vibro-sound blasters that creates miniature sonic booms. I thought it would be fun to make him more . . . home-made, so I've created his sound guns to be modified hair dryers. And . . . uh, they're also currently invisible.

The Holidays Are Showing Their Ugly Side

Business is picking up at the workplace! I have to work seven days in a row, all eight-hour shifts, aside from two days that will grant me with nine hour shifts.

But I have a goal to reach (namely paying off my student loans) and sometimes that means sacrificing time (and a little sanity) to get things done.

In the meantime, I have some sketches here I can drop off.


The good news is I work at a place where I'm not pestered with listening to the same holiday album since October.

Back from SCAD's Comic Forum

It's kind of late, so I'll be quick. I had an awesome time visiting Norris Hall at SCAD. It's so great to be around fellow artists who are so passionate about the work they do! Below are some sketches I did during my freetime there. My portfolio with John Proctor went really well, and I learned some things about merchandising yourself at conventions. I still hope to go to the NY Con this February, as well as move back down to Savannah.

For those that have watched Spider-Man 3:


Good ol' Voldemort and his lack of dental hygiene.

Off to the Comic Arts Forum!!

Sorry about the absence of posts! Here's a pic I did for a book that will hopefully be published at some point.


Tomorrow I leave for Savannah to visit Nikki and to participate the Comic Arts Forum! I'll be going to Mark Schultz's workshop, as well as one tutored by Jennie Breeden. Not only that, but I'll get a portfolio review with John Proctor!

Oh! I forgot! Here's an older drawing I did. First time really getting full use out of the light box . . . I still liked my penciled version best.

Caricatures

Alan RickmanIan McKellen

I really miss SCAD.

I'm temporarily working at a local company in Hillsborough so I can get enough money to go to the NY Comic Con in February. I'm so excited!

Team Fortress has to be one of my favorite games to play. While I'm not too great using the Spy, he's got a profile that's fun to draw!

I got to see the first Ben Folds Five concert in ten years, which was great! Not only that, but I took my sister with me, and I think she appreciated it. The concert was held at Memorial Hall on the UNC campus, which had great acoustics.

But I am sooo tired right now. And tomorrow I drive down to South Carolina to visit my fiancee, Nikki! It'll be a long drive, but I'm so excited to see her! I haven't seen her in a month!

Valve Fanart & I leave Savannah for good! :(

I have less than a week left in Savannah before I leave for good. So many memories at SCAD. More than likely, I'll return to Savannah, but only to visit. I can never be thankful enough for the faculty and fellow classmates that motivated to push myself to work harder.

In other news, I got into the Orange Box again. So here's some fanart of Valve creations.

Antlions
Heavy from Team Fortress 2 looking . . . er, strangely contemplative. And sitting in the dark, apparently.

Elite Combine solider

Soldier class from Team Fortress 2

Barack & Harley Quinn

I did these sketches last week, so I apologize for not putting these up sooner. I decided to do a caricature on someone famous, so here's ol' Barack Obama.

If you want to get a sense of what I like to draw, here it is: Goofy caricatures of otherwise very serious subjects and dark sketchy drawings.

Below is Harley Quinn, made to be more along the lines of the Dark Knight look. I tried some harlequin suits, but nothing really seemed to work in reality.

As the Joker has self-inflicted scars, I think Harley would be crazy and enough of a Joker obsession to maim her own face for him. I imagine she's an unhinged fangirl, so her "costume" is pretty Spartan. Nothing too out of the ordinary aside from self-made tattoos and homemade T-shirts (this one has "Joker" in a heart with red paint splattered on it). I thought about cutting her right eye open a bit to damage her tear ducts, enough to make it so that she would always appear sad, despite what she was feeling at the moment.

This pose hopefully conveys absolute disbelief. Batman just took her down, and while expecting the Joker to come in and save her, she watches her "lover" flee from the crime scene.
More to come soon (probably fanart) as I've been in the mood to draw, but nothing so far that's decent enough to post here. :P

It's now just me and Mardig in the house. It gets very hot in here since we have to use the A/C sparingly. But it is nice to have an empty house to do brainstorming (I do it out loud).

NY Comic

Really sorry about not posting. I'd like to lie and say I've been real busy, but . . . ah, it's actually been pretty boring here. My roommates are slowly leaving. Soon it will be me and Mardig alone for a month. It's pretty disheartening that most of the people you grew up around and knew for four years are moving on to successful careers . . . especially when you're stuck in Savannah.

Well, I have been fairly productive. I don't want to overload this post with too much art, but I will post my finished final I did for New York.


This project had to be inspired from our trip to New York. I kept having this image pop up of doing some sort of comic that dealt with a large monster parading around NY. Then I wanted to give it a personality and sympathetic quality. Well, it all meshed up into this. Hope you all like this!

NY Sketchbook

I promised to finish the NY post, and I resolved to do just that!

Well . . . er, kind of. I seem to have misplaced my flash drive so instead I'll present some sample pages that I did from my New York trip.

I discovered it can be difficult to locate your hotel when it's your first time in a big city and you have no map. In my defense, the 30 30 Hotel was squeezed the middle of 30th and Park while I was aimlessly looking for the other 30th street. I think I passed by the same hat store at least five times.

Sketches of Times Square. I think this is where I first realized the horrible Photoshop job done on the Wanted movie promo poster.

While I was in utter awe of New York City, Times Square was the least impressive to me. Maybe because I had seen it a million times in TV shows and movies, but I think it reminded me of Las Vegas a bit too much. I like the personal touches of the city, and while Times Square is unique in its own right, it's just too tourist-y for me.

I was hoping I'd have a little art nerd entourage like I did my first night in NY when I went with my roommate Matt and a cool girl named Elena. Instead, I ended up alone wandering the streets for a quick dinner. I ended up at this little Indian restaurant. The owner seemed a bit testy, but the food was good. I loved that the TV was tuned in to Indian news. You just don't see that diversity in Savannah.

As mentioned in this journal, I went with my group to Marvel. I was surprised by how small and cluttered their office was. But they seemed to make the best of it. While meeting the editors was the foundation of our trip, I believe the pinnacle of it was meeting the artists. We spent a whole day with Kikuo Johnson and Paolo Rivera. I spent a lot of time watching Paolo paint because he's one of the few comic artists who practice the medium.

Paolo's blog: http://paolorivera.blogspot.com/
R. Kikuo Johnson's website: http://www.seabread.com/

And to explain the drawing below, the Marvel office was compared to a dive bar and DC to a wine bar. The comparisons were just as DC was indeed dolled up quite nicely, and Marvel's office was lacking in design period. (but Marvel's receptionist was a lot more friendlier)

Back from NY, Part 1.

It's been a little less than a week, and I've finally gotten around to uploading these New York pictures.

New York City was a blast! I'm a small-town hombre and I never thought I'd like big cities. I could only see the large masses of people moving down the sidewalks, cars honking incessantly, and pick-pocketers running off with my wallet.

Such was not the case in NYC. I've never been in such awe of a city before. I was overwhelmed by the large skyscrapers and innumerous glass windows, the smell of fried dough wafting from the street vendors, and the stores crammed as much as possible into one block. I even liked Queens, which apparently is saying something, because it had personality. The first time I walked down into my first dank, dirty subway of New York, I felt right at home. I loved this city already.

To best sum up this trip, I'll provide some photos I took.


This was my hotel room in Hotel 30 30. For being named after its location, it was incredibly difficult to find. It didn't stick out at all, no one knew where it was, and only one of the streets was actually 30th. It was in between Madison and Park Avenues. As you can see, my hotel room was very tiny. Not that I mind, but it's definitely the smallest room I've ever slept in.

This was my friend Elena at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. It was an overpriced tourist trap, but we definitely had fun. This was an exhibit that talked about a man who was born without a lower torso. Next to his wax model was a photo op set-up where a mirrored box gave the illusion that you had no legs.
This was some sort of Oriental ship made entirely out of jade. (according to the sign)


The skeleton of a six-legged calf.

The skeleton of a wooly mammoth. I mostly took this picture for bone reference.
First photo of Times Square. I actually didn't like Times Square at all. It was way too glitzy and electric for me. Too much "Hey! Notice me! Buy things! You're in Times Square!" Probably my least favorite place in NY.
Inside Chris Duffy's office. He had a lot of upcoming comics posted on his wall. It's nice to know that, even though the magazine was for kids, the art was great and I had to laugh at the jokes.
View from the conference room in Nickelodeon Magazine.
Our professor/chaperone John Lowe talking with Cliff Chiang. I was amazed that Cliff (and the artists we would later visit) had amazingly clean work spaces. It's amazing how much more professional you look when you have a clean workspace.
More from the streets of NY.Inside the DC Comics waiting room. There was a sample of "kryptonite" in the room.
Here's Superman, who stopped by briefly to talk with us SCAD kids.
On the 3rd floor of DC Comics' building, there was good ol' MAD. Here are some of the original covers posted on the wall.

More pics later.

New Movies and New Job

My summer job at the Catherine-Ward House Inn is great! It's run by people who go out of their way to put the customer first. I have never worked at a place that's so personal with its clients. On my first day, I was paid to go on an Old Savannah Tour to get some town info.

Here's some new tips I heard from our guide, who was really nice and kept promoting his daughter, who is a waitress at Six Pence Pub (an excellent place to dine in Savannah):
1. The tombstones within the Colonial Cemetery cannot be trusted to mark who lies where. During General Sherman's stay in Savannah, some of the Union soldiers set up quarters in the graveyard. At some point, they would get rowdy and drunk (the average age for a soldier was sixteen) and would destroy or misplace gravestones. So to this day no one knows exactly who's buried where, but apparently there are a lot more bodies in the ground than there are tombstones.
2. The Kehoe House was bought by Joe Namath in 1980 and he was planning on turning it into a bachelor pad/disco. Well, knowing the Historical Society of Savannah, and just any of the well-to-do citizens in Savannah, that was not going to fly. I'm guessing they protested enough to disallow him from turning a historic landmark into a disco, but what I thought was neat was the scrolling on the exterior of the house looks like painted wood, but is in fact steel.
3. This isn't really a historical fact as so much it is just plain creepy. The Mulberry Inn on the corner of Bay and Houston St used to be an old horse stable. At some point, it caught fire and killed the horses inside. On certain nights, guests and employees alike have attested to hearing the neighing of frightened horses. Now if that ain't creepy, I don't know what is.

But going back to the job, it's very relaxing as I'm doing a lot of manual labor like gardening. I haven't had much experience in it, but I loved digging through the dirt and finding earthworms and pillbugs. The owners kept coming outside and checking up on me, as it was pretty hot out, but I loved sitting in the garden bed.

I saw a ton of movies this week! Iron Man, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones 4, not to mention the old ones for nostalgia's sake. I also bought Big Trouble in Little China and one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time, John Carpenter's The Thing!


Unfortunately, it's late, and I have no recent drawings to post here, so for now, here's some pics of me and the family, along with my beautiful fiancee, Nikki.


[from top, clockwise: me, Nikki, Kelli (my sister), Lisa (my mom)][from top, clockwise: Kent (my dad), me, Nikki, Kelli]

First Day of Summer!

Ah, my first taste of summer! I have to say, it's dangerously relaxing not having to worry about homework or upcoming projects. But that shall not stop me from drawing! Here's a sample from today's sketchpad that I colored.


Graduation was very long and I don't think anyone came out of the Civic Center (where our ceremony was being held) without nodding off at some point. And to make matters worse, they said my name was "Sarah Ross Williams!" D'oh! Oh well. I can do nothing but laugh about it now, knowing that I will forever remember graduation day.

I obtained a summer job at a local bed & breakfast which is quite a nice place and the owner is very sweet and charismatic. And it's the best paying job I've had so far! Still, I'll be looking for a secondary job if I ever want to help my dad purchase a car for me.

I got so many checks from relatives and I can't thank them enough for their support. The money will really help with my NY trip and living in Savannah this summer. I have to check out restaurants and tours in Savannah so I can recommend places for customers. I look at this as an opportunity to start on my pet project, a Savannah sketch journal.

Let's see where this goes!

Finished!

My last class was actually yesterday, but as of today the school's doors have closed, officially ending the quarter. Rehearsal's tomorrow, and the graduation ceremony starts at 9 AM on Saturday.

What's funny is the main thing I'm looking forward to is not the graduation part, but the graduation meal! It's been a while since I've had a meal paid for me! And at 17 Hundred 90 House no less! Hooray for parents and relatives who like to eat out! Dad wants to take some sort of tour of Savannah later that day, and watch Iron Man with me on Sunday.

I worked on my website for Digital Portfolio class, but it's not quite ready yet, so as for now, this will be my base of operations, so to speak.

And in two weeks, I'll be off to New York to visit the guys heading up some of the major comic companies like Marvel, DC Comics, MAD Magazine, and Nickelodeon Magazine! We're also visiting the studios of Cliff Chiang, Kikuo Johnson (who I had the pleasure of meeting last year), Paolo Rivera (I'm looking forward to meeting this guy!), Michael Kaluta, and Bob Sikoryak (who has an amazing ability to mimic an incredible variety of styles).

I just hope I get my portfolio updated in time. I've never been to New York before, and getting to check out places like Times Square and Central Park should be a good time.

Don't want to leave a post here sans art, so here's some filler while I get some new material punched out.

History Vs. Hollywood and some life sketches

I'm a bit of a history nut, and any kind of visual representation of the many tools used in history makes me so interested. So I was quite excited to come along this little chart of surgical tools from 1829. I can't imagine having wooden gears as joints and surgical anesthetic being something rudimentary as a flask of whiskey and a wooden bit to prevent biting off my own tongue. But it's fascinating to see what man had in substitute of plastics and benzodiazepines.

And speaking of history, History Vs. Hollywood is a great program. I found this forum full of history buffs passionately and competently discussing the inaccuracies of such films as Gladiator and Braveheart. And luckily, these aren't the kind of people that let these discrepancies ruin the movie for them. We have to take into account that Hollywood has and, in all likelihood, will keep dramatize historical stories for the sake of making it interesting and condensing the plot to fit into 80 min-3 hrs.

I apologize for not posting in a while. It's my final quarter at SCAD, and I've got less than a week left! I'll leave some model sketches here, so as to not deprive anyone reading this of new art.