Holiday time

Be envious of my tree!

Unfinished projects and interview

Just a few years ago, my main reason for drawing was so that I could ink and color up my doodles all nice and pretty...I'd rush through the drawing and leave in all sorts of crappy mistakes figuring I'd just cover them up with a clean line and nice photoshop colors. Nowadays I make tons of plans for art projects, but I'm just too lazy to ever do anything with them. This is the closest I've come in a long while to a finished drawing.
A couple weeks ago I became overly excited about Rex Hackelbergs paintings, and decided I would try to be like him and start some new projects that I could be proud of. I drew a whole stack of hillbilly girls with the intent to paint them up all nice and pretty, but as it turns out I still can't paint, and these still aren't going anywhere.
Some more drawings that I planned on inking up all fancy-like. I was going to learn to use the brushes in photoshop to color them...but everytime I sit down in front of the computer I end up stalling or suddenly remembering something "extremely important" that I have to do and go running away.
On a happy note, here is something from a project that will actually get finished- and it's not girls! A couple layout poses from the Weird Al video:
So anyhow, where does this overwhelming feeling of obligation to finish drawings come from? I'll admit I love a beautiful painting or carefully rendered drawing, but often I enjoy looking at a rough and dirty sketch just as much, especially since so many finished drawings lose what makes the original drawing look interesting. It seems however that a lot of people greatly prefer a finished drawing. I have been told in more than one email that cleaning up my drawings would make me seem more legitimate. I suppose that's sort of true, but I'd rather think that I'll become legitimate when I learn how to draw as well as the people I look up to. Maybe I'm just making excuses because learning how to paint seems so time consuming, ha! I think this sort of thing isn't even an issue for people who are actually able to get the spontaneity and energy of a scribbly drawing into their finished artwork. There are people out there like this (you know who you are), and I curse you! Actually, I want to be just like you...anyhow, this is turning out to be longer than I intended. If you want some more to read though, you can find it here: http://www.readersvoice.com/interviews/2005/December/222/
It's really long though, so watch out!

Friend Emily

I'm going to visit my folks in Nevada tomorrow, which means I get to go visit my best friend from highschool!! Em is great! She's super funny and smart, and looks like a cute cartoon girl. Actually, she reminds me of a Nick Cross girl (I always think of her when I watch his film "The Red Scarf"). Anyhow, I was excited about getting to see her again, so I drew a picture of her.
Not much to say about these other doodles...the one above is me trying to force myself to use the color purple, which I personally hate for unknown reasons. I understand that it can look good in a nice color scheme, but I can't figure it out yet. If anyone reading this understands color, explain it to me!

New project obsession

A couple weeks ago I noticed that the piles of fashion magazines in my apartment were taking over and getting to be pretty overwhelming. So last weekend while I was sick in bed, I tore them all up and made a giant book of all the best photos. I divided them up into people with interesting faces, people in funny positions, and people with interesting shapes, colors, hairstyles, and clothes. So far it's been really useful, and fun to look at! Here are some sample pages of some cute, unique, and funny faces and poses.
I guess if I'd been smarter I would have divided up the sections a little better...and perhaps made a section for dificult angles, and a section for cool profiles. Anyhow, after I finished destroying all the magazines in the house, I sat down and drew a whole bunch of these awe-inspiring girly girls. Hopefully the drawings will be half as amusing to you guys as the photo reference is to me.

Project for Weird Al

Hi again!

I've been really busy lately! A while back Weird Al Yankovic contacted my old boss John K., asking him if he'd be interested in doing an animated music video for one of his new songs. The song is really catchy and funny...and it's about girls! John asked me to help out, so for the past few weeks we've been designing, boarding, and laying out the cartoon.

Because the number of people working on it right now is so small, we've been using early Betty Boop cartoons as inspiration on how to make it simple, yet super silly and fun to look at. Hopefully it'll turn out that way! Here are some Grim Natwick inspired dance poses.
The layout system we're using has been really fun so far. I've had the honor of cleaning up John's rough scenes, and he's been nice enough to clean up mine. The dance poses above are mostly a combination of my roughs with John's clean up. I want to post some of John's original layouts soon, but perhaps I should ask him first!
Above is a funny picture of me pitching some of the gags in the cartoon to Mr. Yankovic himself! He was super nice, and even laughed despite my feeble pitching abilities. Hooray for Weird Al, he is nice!

Singing girl doodle

Nothing too interesting today...just a random doodle of girls singing. Maybe they're Carter Family fans?

By the way, I turned on the word verification option for people who want to comment. I hope that's not too annoying, but all the spam was becoming awful!

Time for fun

Well, I think I've been stressing too much over drawing lately...trying to force myself to experiment and do things I'm not so great at doing yet. I got burned out though, and decided to just have some fun for the night. Hooray for not being disciplined enough! Arrgh!
Here's to drawing funny faces without real reference and coming up with...something weird!
While watching my favorite show America's Next Top Model (season one), one of the girl's funny facial proportions inspired these. They don't really look like the actual girl, though.
More funny no-reference

Also, I've added some new links to my blog...go check them out!

New heads

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted! I really haven't been productive lately. I've been wanting to post some ideas and theories, but it takes a lot of energy! Writing is hard! So for now, I'll post some girls drawn from magazines, alongside their (hopefully) more cartoony counterparts.

*EDIT* I'm curious to know, which drawings do you guys prefer? The girls on the left, or the right?

Girls are retards...in a good way

I love to try and capture that side of girls that is totally mindless and silly. I like trying to make them seem unaware that they look dopey, too. Maybe it doesn't sound like it, but I really mean "mindless" in a good way. Since I'm a girl, that retarded, doofy side of female behavior is more appealing to me than the sexy, mysterious side that translates so well into drawings.

Here are some drawings out of a Delia's catalogue, a great reference for goofy cute girls!
Even girls in Playboys can be retarded! Another great reference: vintage Playboys.
I also like to imagine that most the girls I draw are about as complex as hamsters... friendly, oblivious, without worries besides the desire for a handful of seeds or a bed made out of tissue. I think I would get along with the girls I draw!
And here's one of my favorite subjects! Guess who!
Hip hip hooray, for retarded-cute!

Some more famous faces

I hope some of you guys will be up for another round of "Guess the Head." I also hope that if there are people out there reading this who have experience doing caricatures, that you'll enlighten me with some theories or maybe other cool caricature artists to check out. As they are right now, I feel like these drawings are more "warpy portraits" than actual caricatures. It's hard enough getting a likeness without concentrating on how to make it cartoony or funny. I suppose the perfect caricature would be a good drawing with an extremely good likeness that is also entertaining to look at. But for now I'm mostly just trying to get it so you can guess who the person is supposed to be.
By the way, some of these turned out meaner than I had meant them to be! I was going for "doofy" or "silly looking" with some of these, but they just came out sort of...vulgar.

A very special day

I'm calling today special because I'm finally posting a drawing of a man! I can probably count the number of men I've drawn in the past year on my fingers. I'm saving today's man for last on this post because he's so handsome.

Anyhow, I'm posting these caricatures in hopes that some of you guys may be able to guess who they are. It's kind of intimidating to do. Once you start caricaturing famous people, it becomes really obvious whether or not you're on the right track. I usually just draw random girls from magazines, so obviously no one will know if they look like the real girl or not. So, here goes!

I already know no one will be able to guess this one!

I'm pretty sure this one is really off, too...