As of late, I've mostly been doing private commissions for friends (and friends of friends). Here's a few examples of those. Maybe someday soon I'll open an Etsy shop and expand my business! 

Practicing Painting in Photoshop

Graduation!

So because this past year has been what I like to refer to as my victory lap, I'll be graduating college the same time my brother graduates from high school! So I made a graduation announcement for the both of us.

I know. We're really cool. 

(My brother was really impressed with the fact that I'm now willing to admit he's taller than me.)

Another Dragon Drawing?

Yes. Another dragon drawing. 

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This one was my half of a trade with an incredibly talented professor of mine. He got this illustration, and I got one of his original woodcut prints! Maybe I'll be able to get a picture of that soon. 

Don't Be A Scrooge

My father is the chair of the English Department at my university and he asked me to create a poster to advertise a Christmas event. I think I got a little too caught in the illustration aspect and didn't really plan the poster aspect very well. In the end I think it turned out pretty well though!

Here's the final poster.

Aaaaaaand here is the scan of the original drawing. 

ProWeekend

So this weekend I had the incredible opportunity to hear lectures from several amazing former Disney animators/artists Ruben Aquino, Claire Keane, and Tom Bancroft at ProWeekend in Nashville. Their lectures were so inspiring. They hit on so many topics that I've been thinking about over the years and also some that I should have been thinking about. I took away so much from them. 

I also met Chris Oatley (I recently enrolled in one of his online classes which you can check out on his website) and was very fortunate to sit with him for the second half the seminar and listen to him dish out some great words of wisdom and encouragement.

But anyway, art stuff. Part of this seminar was a contest and the prompt was "A girl and her monster, is it a trick or a treat?" 

I pretty much knew immediately that I wanted the little girl to be the tough/scary one between her and the monster. Here are the first sketches I drew as I was thinking through that.

This is probably one of my favorite sketches of her. She just looks so angry. Don't even think about giving her an apple instead of candy.

The monster was a bit harder to work out. I couldn't decide exactly how I wanted to him to look. I thought about more dragon-esque type but it didn't quite have the feel I wanted. I wanted him to be scary and huge, towering over the little girl. But I also wanted him to look extremely excited about trick or treating as a fairy princess.

This is the final product! I did it in water colors and brush pen with a few small touch ups in photoshop. 

I was awarded the funniest picture and my prize was original Mulan storyboards! 

I cannot overstate how incredible the experience was. If you are an artist/creative person then I implore you to look for opportunities like this in your respective disciplines. Hearing from people who have been there makes your dreams and goals seem so much more tangible. 

So Blogger

First post!

I wanted to started with a few things that I did for my Drawing IV class last semester. Mostly because I really enjoyed making this work so much. All of these drawings were fairly large and done entirely in graphite (mostly graphite sticks but some pencils too). 

This is something inspired by one of my favorite books, "The Last Dragonslayer" by Jasper Fforde.

 

This is a picture inspired by the "The Jungle Book." I bet Bagheera was probably a pretty good mancubsitter.

Putting my own spin on "Cinderella" was a little difficult since it's been done so many times. I ended putting most of my focus on the Fairy Godmother. I always found it a bit ridiculous that the Disney version of this character was dressed so frumpily. I mean, if someone's going to design me a dress they better know how to dress themselves, right? Am I right? 

So that's a bit of my work! I hope to upload more very soon.