sargent the super dog

Pretty self-explanatory... Sargent loves the couch. I actually did this a couple months ago but never posted it... whoopsies. :)

more stuffies!!

More stuffed animals!! Reilly the Red Panda and Kipley the Okapi. The okapi is my favorite so far - I love his long legs! The red panda didn't come out as nice as I would have liked but oh well. I also have a crocodile and some monsters that I'm working on that should be posted soon.

work.... ugh.

this is what work does to me....

new stuffs

So I actually didn't fall off the face of the Earth... I've been doing more 3-d stuff lately and I no longer have a camera. So I borrowed my sis-in-laws and bummed some photos off Jackie and Brent (which I haven't posted yet). These are some stuffed animals I did - Rikki the Raccoon and his friend (and unfortunately his dinner) Cray-Cray, and Malabar the Muskox. I was just playin around seeing if they would actually work - so they're kind of like prototypes.... But I want to try and get them sold on Etsy.

I've also been working on some sculptures that will hopefully be posted soon. They're going to be dubbed "mini kills" and basically they're miniature mounts of animals molded from sculpey and baked then mounted onto wooden oval plaques with copper nameplates. So far I have a T-rex, kudu, unicorn, and platypus with an eye patch.... They aren't as detailed as I would have liked but I did them fairly quickly - I'd say about 30 min per piece sounds about right, maybe less for the platypus. And I did them all (except the platypus) without photo reference so there are some things that are a bit off. Oh well. Anyways those will be posted soon hopefully.

new idear

Loose character studies for a new project. I'm working on illustrations for a story I'm making up about a greyhound. Not sure if I want her more realistic or heavily stylized - these are just a few thoughts, I'm still working on some stylizations. I just really need to build my portfolio... That's why I'm doing this... And it's fun.

island

Entry for IF's prompt of "island." I was looking at pictures of gaur from India and water buffalo and thought that they could look like an island when in the water, and the little birds are the island's inhabitants. I used watercolor for the gaur and the water, the birds are digital. I don't think I like them orange but that's easily fixable.

greyhound waiting for a greyhound

Well, the writing at the bottom is barely visible so I should probably fix that... It says:

"Sandy was tired of living life in the fast lane, bored of running in circles chasing white rabbits, so she got on a bus out of town and headed for Egypt."

sketchies

Another productive Sunday evening spent at Jackie and Brent's. Just some critters - Gordon the triceratops, and some mammoths.

obscure holidays

These are for a project Jackie and I were working on for some obscure holidays in September. I only finished 2 out of my 4.... whoopsies. And looking at it now, it seems I have forgotten the teeth on my crocodile babies....

THESIS FINALLY POSTED!!!

Phenacodus matthewi
Thylacosmilus atrox

Arctodus simus

Synthetoceras tricornatus

Deinotherium giganteum

Hyaenodon horridus

It took me a while to actually get pictures of my thesis since my camera ist kaputt. So I had another doodle session at the lovely home of Lovesick Robot creators Jackie Steffen and Brent Bublitz, and Brent was kind enough to take some wonderful pictures of my work. It took months of work to create all of these and hours of painstaking work in the printing lab. All the animals are extinct mammals - their names are above each image.

These pieces were all created using intaglio printmaking techniques. The patterns were all hand-carved onto Sintra plates and then printed onto 140 lb (if I remember correctly) Arches cold press watercolor paper. For the backgrounds, the patterned papers were then cut into various shapes and each mounted to a heavy backing board (kind of like illustration board but more rigid). Then the individual background pieces are layered to create some depth.

For the animals, I cut the body part shapes out of 300 lb cold press watercolor paper before printing them with more Sintra-carved patterns. They were then touched up with acrylic paint and assembled with brads to make their bodies movable - similar to shadow puppets. They are all articulated and fully posable and attached to the backgrounds with velcro making them removable as well.