Walkin' Sketches

So, since the weather was so nice today, I went for a walk. I walked down Clark and browsed comics at Chicago Comics. Then headed east and walked along the lake. I stopped at Montrose beach for about an hour to rest my feet, draw some doodles, and do a little people watching. Amongst all of the badly drawn sketches I did dogs (which I won't post, because I am bad at drawing dogs), I did this little ditty of my feets and my shadow.



...Also this.

It's a Zebra

That is all.

Photoshop Painting Practice

I really hope to hate this piece one day. However, as I am still working on my Photoshop painting skills, I suppose it's not too bad.


This took about five hours in Photoshop which includes me hating the way I was shading about halfway through and starting all over again. This is a more realistic version of a character I have been working on for some time now.

Any critiques would be more than welcome.

The Evolution of Penélope

So, I haven't done a caricature in a long time, but I recognize that it is a useful skill for illustration as well as animation. So I decided to try it out again. The subject: Penélope Cruz. I like Penélope Cruz, because she is really pretty, but she has an almost freakishly long neck. And for me that sort of made her memorable. Anyways, it took me a few sketches for me to get to one I liked. I could definitely use more practice, but I sort of like the way this turned out.

Moderate Sillyness

So for some time now there have been two people that I have always wanted to dress up as. The first person is Batman. Since I was very young I wanted to be Batman for Halloween. Batman was my favorite hero and I always enjoyed watching the movies and cartoons. However, my family always sort of waited til the last minute to buy Halloween costumes and Batman costumes were quite expensive and were often sold out.

The second person is Groucho Marx. The obsession with Groucho Marx came a bit later, probably around the age of sixteen, when I saw A Night at the Opera for the first time. Groucho was immediately my favorite Marx brother; I really like his type of humor and wit (which may also explain my obsession with Woody Allen). And, despite the fact that I am female I was quite convinced that I would make a good Groucho Marx. However, for a long time my hair was too long to really pull off a decent Groucho.

Anyways, what I really want to say is, I finally did it! This past Halloween I made a homemade Batman costume, and just this past weekend I decided to go all out and dress up like Groucho Marx for a friend who was having a mustache themed birthday party (and really, who has a better mustache than Groucho).

So, without further ado, here are the wonderful pictures!


Special effects brought to you by John's default webcam photo booth thingy.

Notice the utility belt pouches are made out of construction paper.



The glasses aren't quite Groucho, but you get the picture. The glasses are actually Real 3-D with the lenses popped out.


Both costumes were homemade and thrown together with stuff I already had, for the most part. I painted that Batman logo on that grey t-shirt all by myself. The gloves were fun to make. They are just black rubber cleaning gloves and cardboard cut into triangles and painted black glued together. Oh, also, both costumes were worn with jeans, because I'm lazy, hence the waist up photos.

Lastly, and I'm not sure I should bring this up, but I noticed while writing this blog that the two people I have always wanted to dress up as are both men. I never wanted to dress up as Catwoman or Batgirl. I wonder why that is...

Watercolor Poetry

A small watercolor piece I did based on a poem by my boyfriend.

A Quick Watercolor Sketch

Run For Your Life

Just a little thingy I doodled and played around with in photoshop.

Told You So!

Blah Blah Sketchyness I've Been Up To and Such: Volume 3

So here is some of the sketchyness I've been up to since being unemployed. I just finished my internship at WMS Gaming and am back on the job hunt. In between playing Modern Warfare 2 and prowling the want ads, I've been doodling and updating my portfolio. Below are some of the sketches I sketchied in the past two weeks. You may notice (but probably not) that some of these sketches have a slight yellowish tint to them. This is because I have have recently put Sketchy Magee 3, the big fat never ending dark red sketch book I was using before, aside and started working in a smaller, more portable, funner-to-draw-in moleskin. I received the moleskin as a gift for my birthday in November, right at the peak of my sketch drought this past fall. The moleskin really got me motivated to draw again because of the size and quality of the paper and mostly 'cause it was free so I didn't mind ruining its wonderfullness with my horrid scribblings. Okay, enough making up words. With out further ado, the sketchyness I've been up to volume 3.

John sleeping

Random drawings

Jesus?

The scribble that inspired the illustration.

The rough outline for a comic I am working on. The cleaned up version to be posted soon.

I hope this has been educational. I will see you soon. I promise, promise!