A Dear Deer

The last I just finished up today. You'll notice it's the same sketch I attempted to turn into a Threadless shirt. ;) Since it didn't work out, I thought I'd color it normally. Thanks goes to my sis for the photo I used in the background.

Long Awaited Update

A few things I finished up during the last couple months, but failed to post here. ^_^

An Elf and a Kitty

Hey, both have pointed ears. XD

First of all, I finished Willow's character sheet. I think the frontal sketch in the corner is the one that best fits her personality.

And... we have yet another anthro-cat finished! Here we have Lily, Queen of the Nile. ^_^ It totally fits her personality, because she usually acts like she's queen of the house. XD I had a lot of fun playing with the Egyptian Cat idea just for the reason that the Egyptians actually had a cat worshiping cult, and a cat goddess (Bast). I struggled a bit with coming up with some hieroglyphics for the background, until it dawned on me: "Hey! I bet DAfont has some Egyptian wingdings or something!". Lily's name is actually spelled out in the kartushes (sp?) on the columns there. Typically I color the hair on the top of their heads the same (or a similar) color as their fur, but since most ancient Egyptians wore wigs, I figured I'd just go with the traditional black.

More Creature Art!

Yes! More of the art with the creatures and the stuff! XD

A Kirin in a forest clearing. This is the second incarnation of this picture- the first one just didn't sit right with me, until I realized that the photo that I'd chosen to put the creature in was the problem. It didn't have enough contrast. So! I changed it to this one instead.

Ollie placed in a starry scene. I'm extremely happy with this one. He fits so perfectly into the photo it's not funny. XD


An Amphitere attacking from a high branch. Basically, an amphitere is a snake with wings like a bird, though in this case I've turned it into a feathered serpent.

Art Day

Today has been nothing but an art day today- which is good, I needed some good 'ol fashioned art therapy.


Hm... I must be having a blue day or something. Both pieces are painfully bluish.

In any case, the first is a sketch of a Pixie that I thought I'd try to incorporate into a background of some type. I'm pretty pleased with the results. The background is another one of my photos that I've applied the "Cutout" filter to. I also used some of the Photoshop lighting effects.

The second is a Character Sheet for Jasmine, which I've been meaning to finish for quite some time now.

Back in the Groove

Back again after a month's absence. XD I should really try to be more consistent. Anywho, here's a few things I've been working on the past couple days. I'm not really sure what sparked my creativity again, but I sure feel better now that I've got it back. (At least for a while.)


This one's been lying around in my art folder labeled "Dragons" for a long while now. I finally got the inkling to finish him off. Its something I call a Makanoo- the inspiration came from a Native American mythological fresh water serpent that was said to spit balls of water at anyone who came too close. It was described as being snake-like with a set of deer antlers on it's head, so I took the idea and ran with it. It sort of became a snake-moose-fish-turtle.

This one is just a quick doodle I did while working on some drawings of Willow. It's from a short story I wrote a while ago involving her and a tavern boy named Ivan. (I hope to someday turn it into a full-length tale, but I've got to finish Landon and Dahlia first.)

Here's another doomed Threadless submission. (I'm just a sucker for punishment, I guess.) I took a sketch I'd done of a magical deer-creature I'd invented called a Trian and twisted it into a design. The trees in the background are from a photo I took that was altered with the "Cutout" filter in Photoshop.

Missy the Mime

Number five of the anthro-cat series. ^_^

This one was fun to do- the thing that took the longest to finish was the background. I had thrown the cafe table and doorway in for good measure in the original drawing, but it just didn't seem like enough. So I added the vines on the wall for visual intrest.

I also ended up having to resize the chair and table to make sure the perspective was right.

But, all in all a successful work. ^_^

Brooding Anger

Another bit o' artwork finished. I suppose it's a reflection of one of the kaleidoscope of emotions I'm feeling right about now. Nothing special in the background, here- just texture and lighting effects. It adds to the emotion, though- a background with objects might pull away from the emotional quality.

My sis pointed out that her face doesn't look quite right- and she's right, it doesn't. I drew it more or less on the fly, so I didn't even glance at a reference picture. Something to remember for next time, I suppose.

T-Shirt Impossible

Hello again from the land of the dead! XD

This past semester was C-R-A-Z-Y, so I didn't have much time to put anything up. In truth, I didn't make much of anything new- most of my time was spent preparing my portfolio with pre-finished work. Though, there were a few things.

A couple of which were projects where we were split into groups and worked on various things for local businesses and organizations. Sort of like a job simulation, I suppose. As one of the two Illustrators in the class, the only illustration related jobs we were assigned to were the making of tee-shirts. *Shrug*

One was for the organization that runs the Kal-Haven Trail Run every spring- apparently they'd been going to KVCC Portfolio students for their shirt designs for the past few years.

The other was for the Scotts Community Center- they wanted a T-shirt to sell at their 'Jammin' ' country music event on Tuesday nights.

So, I jumped right in. Little did I know that my work would be for naught. >.<>

Well, in one instance, I suppose. My designs for Kal-Haven Trail were flat out not chosen, which is fine. XD It wasn't a competition, and I'm not all that competitive as it is.
Scotts was completely different. We came up with some good designs, we all did, but in the end the Community Center decided they weren't going to use them because they didn't have the money for shirts. (But more on that later.)

These three- the three above this blurb- are for the Scotts Jammin' event. I had SO many different versions. I used the same pics for each one, but I just kept re-arranging them in different ways. The pics are sketches of some of the actual players who come fairly regularly. It was actually pretty cool to have some of the regular folks go- "Hey! That's so-n-so!". I think it makes the shirt more their own, too. The lettering on the first two was hand-drawn. It was inspired by the text in an ad in a reproduction 1900 Sears n' Roebuck catalogue. Oddly enough, from an ad for Banjos. XD

Although the Community Center itself didn't have the money to fund the shirts, another student and myself took it upon ourselves to have one each of our designs printed. Mine was the first one in this post- turned out pretty nice, too. We set a price, made fliers, took orders, had them made, and handed them out. We made some money ourselves too! My first big paycheck involving my artwork. :)

These last four were for the Kal Haven Trail Run. I did a huge amount of work for them too. These were some of the designs I thought were the most successful. I think the one with the white dogwood flowers on black is the one I'm most proud of. The "flowers" are made out of shoe prints- I used some black acrylic paint and my dad's old hunting boots to make them. :) The "branch" is actually in the shape of the trail, which extends from Kalamazoo to South Haven (Hence the name, Kal-Haven Trail.) The flowers were from round one of designing, which also included a cartoony bird design and a sketchy bridge.

After they'd looked at our designs, they decided they wanted something more to do with the train aspect of the trail, since the trail used to be an old railroad track. There's an old caboose (preserved of course) along the trail, so on the second round of designing, I focused on that. The first two are part of the result.

I guess in the end they wanted something more cartoony to represent the run, so they decided on a cartoon caboose that one of my classmates bought from a site online, and edited in Illustrator.