New Comics/ Old Comics

So, since the start of the new year I've been kicking it into gear and really preparing for MoCCA Fest in April. I'm a couple pages into a new comic tentatively titled "Mito and Me". It's part autobiography, part fiction, older kids/young adult comic about a young misfit panda and his imaginary friend. I'll be debuting the first bit of it at MoCCA fest, so I don't want to post any panels here. But, here are some doodles of the main character Mito Panda.

Last week I was probably the sickest I've been in a long time. I had the flu pretty bad. So, yesterday John was reading the symptoms of H1N1 and the perfectly described my exact experience. Sorta wish I had gone to the hospital. I'll be getting flu shots from now on. Anyways, in honor of finally getting over swine flu, here's a weeks worth of journal comics from 2012 in which both John and I got sick. This was the week John and I finally moved into our first NYC apartment after 9 months in a tiny room in Jamaica, Queens. It's also the week John graduated from the academy. Good Times.

So, on top of my "Mito" comics I'll also be putting together a compilation of old journal comics for MoCCA fest. So as I go through them, scan them, and clean them up I'll probably be posting them here. Probably. 

Holiday Card and stuff

Happy New Year! I know I shouldn't get excited about a new year. It's just another day and the date doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, however I just have a good feeling about this year. I haven't felt this optimistic about anything in a long time, so I suppose that's why I'm clinging to it so dearly. Anyways, 2014, we'll see. 

First off, did you notice the new banner? ↑↑↑

I finally get to retire this old thing. ↓↓↓ (I had to dig deep to find this original file).

I also just got new business cards with the same image (as my new header). So I finally get to retire these old bad boys with their old, ridiculously long website url.

So, new year, new stuff. So, here's some old stuff I did last year! The holidays are over and most everybody who was gonna get a holiday card got their holiday card. So here's a little behind the scenes of how it was created. Previous year's cards: 2012 2011 (apparently I've never posted my ones from before before 2011. It's alright my mom has all of them hanging up in her living room to see year round).

A very rough sketch of my idea.

A process shot of me inking the final sketch (the tea is a very important part of the process).

Inked, yay!

Colored the snowflake.

More coloring in process.

The final inked image.

Final. I added some Holiday (Photoshop) magic!

So yeah. I can't think of a clever transition for this. Here are some more RedditGetsDrawn pics I did. I've decided this time to just link to the original forums instead of posting the actual pictures on my blog. So if you click on the descriptions it will link you to the original thread.

So this guy asked to be drawn as the artists favorite Batman villian. So, of course, I chose everyone's favorite... Man-Bat!

This person wanted someone to draw this old image of their grandma from when she was young. It was a cool photo and reminded me of those old pin up models.

This was just a cool photo of a tatted up chick in all her armpit hair glory.

This person wanted their sister to be drawn Disney style. I didn't really get the Disney style, but just felt like drawing it anyway. In the photo she's wearing a black lacy shirt that I was not thrilled about drawing, so I quickly found something of my own that was black and lacy to scan and use for the shirt texture. Good times.

So, it's a new year. I'll be posting some more stuff real soon. Comics stuff! I know it's been a while since I've posted any comics. I'll be compiling a lot of my old comics and drawing some new comics, since I've decided to register as an exhibitor for MoCCA Fest this year! That's exciting news. So, there's some stuff to look forward to. Alright, I think I'm done typing now. 

A Few More RedditGetsDrawn Drawings

I felt like drawing some random internet strangers to get my pencil moving. RedditGetsDrawn is a forum where people post pictures of themselves, friends, family or pets in hopes to have their image drawn by an artist. There are many amazing artists who participate are draw some great things for these people. I am not one of them. I mostly just do a few scribbles to get warmed up and usually don't spend too much time on them. My apologies to the OP. Anyways without further ado here are some of my scribbles along with the original posted image. Enjoy!

This chick wanted to be drawn as an animal or mystical creature. I had a little fun with it.

See previous RedditGetsDrawn posts here and here.

So What Have I Been Up To?

The thank you cards are in the mail and I am now officially done with everything wedding. The past two months have been quite busy and fun. Unfortunately I didn't take the time to update my blog and I apologize. So to answer the title question. Wedding stuff mostly.

So, a month ago yesterday, my husband and I had our "wedding ceremony/reception". I wrote that with quotations, because we have technically been married for two years, but we just now had our ceremony. A lot of planning and work over the past year went into the whole shebang-a-bang. 

Here is a picture from when we originally got married in Chicago on August 29, 2011.

The event was held in the loft space at Kitchen Chicago. It's a beautiful space, but brought about some challenges: planning the whole thing from NYC and doing all of the planning, decorating, etc ourselves. So there was a lot of DIY that went into the planning of this wedding.

Kitchen Chicago

I designed the invitations...

...and these cool labels for the favors.

I dyed doilies.

I spray painted an easel.

I put together a collage

We made the candle holders and table dealies with the names of Chicago neighborhoods and NYC boroughs.

We had to set everything up ourselves the day of. Here's what the table settings looked like. Garrett Popcorn ftw!

On top of all this, I also designed and my mom sewed my dress for the wedding! I got a hand crafted one of a kind dress made with love. It was awesome. Thanks mom!

Here is the original drawing I made for my mom to make the pattern out of.

Here is the final dress (front).

You can sort of see the back in this picture.

Lastly I want to thank all of the vendors who made this night awesome! We started it out with heartfelt vows officiated by Erika Sowell of Sowell Mates, We had some great music courtesy of DJ Donnie. Delicious, delicious food from La Villa Restaurant in Chicago. And maybe most importantly, we had some amazing pictures taken courtesy of our good buddy Dave Gall.

Awesome photo by David Joesph Gall.

Check out Dave's website. If you like what you see give him a call or like his facebook page.

Anyways, enough of all that stuff. Here are a few other things I've been up to.

After missing the last two months, I finally got the chance to catch back up with the people at The House of Twelve for another NYC Comics Jam. Here is a link to some pictures that Darryl Ayo Brathwaite posted of the event: http://darrylayo.tumblr.com/post/65745935438/house-of-twelve-nycity-comic-jam-first-friday.
Here's a couple panels I drew.

I drew this last panel of dad tossing his son to exile on Staten Island.

I drew the third panel on here of the ant submitting to the furious noogies of some stranger.

Oh, and another thing. I just finished working on an illustration for my aunt to put on her business cards for her jewelry making business (Just so you know, she made my awesome earrings for the wedding. Go ahead, scroll back up and take a look. They were pretty nice!). Here are some pics of the process.

Original sketch of her character.

Final sketch of the image of her and her cat.

Inked version.

Colored in Photoshop.

Alright. That's it for now.

TL;DR: I got married and stuff.