MERRRRRY (late) CHRISTMAS

Happy holidays from rosy nordic baby to you!

P.S. I had this great idea to do a series of "christmas memories" sketches, but I've only come up with one so far. This drawing is awful, sorry, I was going to clean it up and do a more presentable one that doesn't have words all over it, but I'm tired and I have to get up early tomorrow to catch a plane! I hope it amuses someone anyhow.

Back again...kind of

Hello again! Well, I'm officially giving up as a "blogger," although I'll be keeping this site up as a kind of portfolio. I may update it occasionally in the future, but i probably won't be talking theories or anything like that. Hopefully some people will come back every now and again anyhow. I don't think most people read the type anyway. :) Here are a few drawings from the last couple months.

Another thing, I want to thank all the nice people who have taken time to write me emails. I know I'm really crappy at writing back, but it's not because I don't appreciate the thought...life's been busy lately, and I'm pretty dysfunctional at doing normal type things! Forgive me!
Well, bye!
P.S. Happy birthday John!

Vacation time for me

Well, I'm leaving for a while! I want to start up all my old abandoned projects, as well as learn some new crap, like animating and stuff. I'll be back on here eventually I think, after I've learned some new things. I'll probably turn off the comments after a couple days, but I'll leave everything up. If I actually succeed in one of my new endeavors, I'll come back and post an update. Here are some random and unrelated last few drawings:

Ok, now I'll answer some questions you guys asked me in my last post.


Ryan G
"Katie, do you feel that you have to clean up your art for it to be commercially viable. Is it like screw it, ill do it like they want me to do it just so itll be seen by a wider audience? Great stuff by the way.."

I guess I feel like more people would respond to a cleaner drawing than a messy one, but that's not the only reason I want to work on cleanup...once you get good at it, it's really useful. I'd like to be able to paint and stuff. t's so hard to not lose elements of the original drawing, though.

Trophiogrande
"Who are some of your favorite illustrators?"

I have a lot of them! There are a lot of modern illustrators I like, but right now no names are coming up...I like a lot of Japanese illustrators whose names I don't know anyway. Oh! I like Kirsten Ulve...she's really cool. I love most the illustrators that Shane Glines has on his site, Cartoonretro.com.

Clinton
"How did you render this?"

With markers, and one of those gold pens. Same as usual! :)

Anonymous
"Dont you draw anything else besides girls? It's getting old"

Well, it's not getting old to me...in fact, it's really fun. If it's old for you, then there are plenty of other artist's sites to check out. I get this comment quite often, and I don't think it's very fair to demand what another person should and shouldn't post on their own art blog. I've already said that I know I need to practice drawing other subjects more, but it's my own choice to post or not post them here, because drawing girls is my primary interest. Another thing, I don't think the subject matter is so important so long as the drawings don't get too stale. Lots of people draw the same girl over and over and make tons of money, but I do my best to try and have a wide variety.

Jason White
"amazing stuff! it would be cool if you also did some purely non-conventional paintings at the same time. i would love to see you do some more punk girls, maybe some goth girls and possibly some rave girls."

Thanks! It's funny though...I never think that the girls I draw are conventional! I guess I try and stay away from drawing "classifictions" of people...like, "this girl is droopy and moody, I'll make her goth" or "this girl is peppy and annoying, I'll make her a cheerleader." I'd like to get good enough one day that I can capture the essence of someone's personality without giving clues. I guess I don't really like the idea of girls who classify themselves, anyhow...for now I am mostly drawing what I wish real people were- happy and random and living in a world where it's ok to wear a one-piece sweater with one sock outside. I would like to be like that!

Rebecca
"Have you ever thought about doing comics?"

Yes! I'm gonna go do some right now! Or...maybe tomorrow...

Jesse
"How does it feel to work at SPUMCO?"

I'm not there now, but it was fun when there were projects to work on! It's a lot of hard work though!


Well, that's all for now! Feel free to email me and crap!

Trying to be conventional

I always wanted a chance to try illustration. I'm so envious of people who get jobs doing those spot illustrations in girls' magazines, or for fancy make-up companies. I sometimes think about pursuing it seriously, but I wonder if my stuff would fit in. I used to do more graphic-type illustrations, but stopped when I realized I was just ripping off other, more talented and established artists. My "illustrator" drawings were just more boring versions of other people's pretty pictures.

Anyhow, I was thinking about it today, and tried to cheat by cleaning up one of my normal weird drawings with what I thought might be a gimmicky inking and coloring style. Here's the original doodle:
...and here's the cleanup:
Of course I like the original better...it always happens that way! I might add a simple background to it later anyway.

I am going to try and experiment more with clean up- maybe even bring out my dried up water colors and crap. It'll be fun!

Here's another doodle from the day. I was trying to draw a more normal-type cutesy bad-ass girl, but it kind of just turned out the way I usually draw girls. Sometimes I wonder in the middle of drawing something if I should try and make the girl prettier, or weirder. I couldn't really decide with this one.

MAN

Here it is, the second ever man drawing on my blog. Everyone is drawing Uncle Eddie, so I wanted in too! Eddie is one of my favorite mans.
Sorry they aren't really finished!
Here are some post-its from this morning's bored doodling session:
I guess I'm all theroried-out from the last post...but I started drawing again a couple days ago, and now I have a whole pile of pictures to post later on. I have some new projects I'm starting, too. More on that later!


***Sorry, I forgot to add these answers to the questions people asked! Here they are:

Acetate:
"By the way...are you going down to Comic-Con?"
" How'd the big show go?"
"What exactly is this "lip bulb" thing?"

I will probably be at the con this year...I think they're going to have a thing for the new Ren and Stimpy DVD, so I will probably be there for that, and wandering around for a day or two.
The show was great, thanks for asking! It was great getting to meet some of the nice folks who read my blog.
The "lip bulb" is that middle part on a top lip...like the little pointed part. Urrgh, it's hard to explain, ha! Some people have it, but other's don't. It's not the philtrum...here's a "diagram."


Clinton:
"Katie, how do you scan your drawings in without getting those evil grey borders invading your drawings? My latest scans are full of them. How do you photoshop them out?"

Most of the time I don't draw in a sketchbook, so I don't have to worry about grey borders! But I'm pretty sure you can use the "brightness and contrast" or the "levels" in photoshop to get rid of them.

R:
" Hey, K! Do you do commissions? And how much would one set me back if ya do?"

Right now I'm supposed to be doing a few commissions for friends of mine, but I'm not doing a very good job of finishing them right now. So I probably won't be picking up any more until I'm better about procrastinating. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to handle doing commissions better!

Shawn:
"Hey, Katie! Where do you find light flesh colored markers and those pale yellow ones you use? I have so many marker colors, but I have no tasteful way to color flesh."

Ugh, flesh colored markers never ever look like flesh, it's so true! Most the time I layer weird colors together, or use colors that aren't real fleshtones at all...like orange or grey. But otherwise I use the lightest markers they sell, and then use the darker markers to add to it. Most brands have a few super light colors...you can't tell by the way the marker looks on the outside though, so just test them all until you find the right ones. :)

Kali Fontecchio:
"lips are always fun to draw. And to see if you're as weird as me, when drawing yourself, do you amp your lips up waaay more than they really are? I know I do! Just curious :)"

I think I amp up all my features! I'm one of those weird people that has big everything- big eyes, big nose, big mouth, big teeth...sometimes I wonder how my face fits on my head. Does that sound weird? Urrgh, sorry, ha! I'd like to see one of your self portraits, though! :)

Anonymous:
"P.S. What is your all time favorite Ren & Stimpy cartoon?"

I have too many favorites!! "Space Madness", "Stimpy's Invention"...I really love all of them. I guess "Big House Blues" might be my favorite though, just cause it's so cool looking.

Lacie:
"Did you just randomly draw these girls or look at pictures?"

Most of the girls from my mouth post were drawn from magazines, although a couple were made up. Maybe I should do a post sometime comparing referenced drawings with non-reference drawings...what do you think?

Alex:
" Are their any tutorials on drawing assholes so I can put Cory's theories into practice?"

I will Ask Cory to do one, and if he refuses to give out the address of his blog, I'll just post it on mine!


Thanks everyone for contributing mouth theories! Those comments were fun to read...

GIANT MOUTH...post

My two favorite things to draw are mouths and legs, but for some reason I feel a little funny talking about them here! I can't tell if I'm giving away "secrets," or just stating the obvious! Anyhow, since people have asked for it and I'm always obsessing over them, here is the mouth post!

There are a few things I always look at first when drawing someone's mouth...does she have that little "lip bulb" on the top lip (I can't remember who coined that phrase, but it's a good one!), or is there just a little hole? Does the mouth point down or up when making a nuetral expression? Is the top lip bigger, or the bottom one?
(Also, I REALLY like overbites and underbites, and I'm not going to even get started on teeth here...)

All those things change how a person makes expressions, too. I've really been wanting to do some photo experiments- I want to take pictures of all my girlfriends making the same mouths shapes, and compare them all to one another. This would be great for animating lip synch, and just comparing the vastness of human shapes in general. Maybe I'll do a post about that later, and people can help me out with supplying pictures!

Here's a funny observation about mouth construction- you know when you're constructing a drawing, and you draw the center line, and you draw the eyes and nose and chin and whatever all lining up accordingly? The mouth doesn't fit on that line! It actually sticks out, like a weird human muzzle. I tried to draw it here, in sort of an exaggerated way:
My friend Robert Cory pointed this out to me a long time ago, but he used a much more vulgar way of describing this phenomenon. Maybe sometime he'll get a blog and describe it in his own terms for you!

Here's another one: in a three quarter view of a mouth, the part of the lips that are farther away from you are thicker. This is kind of hard to draw without making the face look like there are nasty worms on it. John K. is really good at it though. His bad catholic school girl drawings influenced me a whole lot. I tried to draw some here:
Well, I can't really think of much else to say! It's one thing to make observations and attempt to put it on paper, but then trying to describe it in words is even harder! So...here are some faces that I drew tonight while becoming completely fixated on drawing weird human orifices!
I know someone's going to call me "weird" for this!

Semi-realistic girls

I realize my posts havn't been all that interesting lately, but I really haven't been drawing as much as I usually do! I guess I'm still not really out of my rut. Anyhow, I was looking through a bunch of drawings from the past couple of months and pulled out the more realistic ones to post here.

I suppose a lot of people would say that these are hardly "realistic," but compared to the kinds of cartoon drawings I like, these look pretty boring and uncartoony to me.

It's sort of funny, because when I was 14 or so I LOVED drawing realistic portraits of people. I'd spend hours getting every detail right and shading the whole thing. When I try to do it now though, I find I'm worse at it. My attention span has wizened and the urge to exaggerate things always takes over, even without my meaning it to. Maybe I'll dig some of them out of the closet and post them, if anyone would care to see them.

Here are some un-inspired phone doodle heads:


I actually really like how the colors turned out on the girl on the right side here...my scanner wouldn't pick up the colors, so I had to take a photo of it.

A lot of people have been demanding coloring lessons, but I probably won't do one. To be honest, I don't really have any coloring theories that I think that hard about. There's one tip I could give for coloring with markers: mix your colors and layer them, instead of just using "grass green" or "sky blue" or whatever.

Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm- I'm going to try hard to get some good mouth drawings done so I can post them!

Very important business

So I got a new hair-do! Here it is.

Here are some other things who also have hair:
P.S. One of my favorite cartoonists/people has a new blog! You should go see it! This is it:

http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/

P.P.S. Mouth theories, on the way!

P.P.P,S. For those of you who asked, I'm not sure yet if the posters will be available elsewhere...when I figure it out, I'll post the answer here!

Random crap

Wow, this past week has been lousy! I haven't been drawing as much lately, but here are some doodles so I don't look lazy.
Here's a horse for all of you who want something other than girls...


Some pretty girls who don't approve of any of us. I like the tall-hair girl, but I don't know about Ms. Broken-Arm.


Oh, I don't know...



Hey, I'm going to start answering questions when I post so that you don't have to go searching for them through the comments.

Josh-
"Also, do you have an outie belly button, because it looks like it in that picture."

No, I it's just fun to draw them that way. :)

Gigi-
" do a mouth post!"

I want to, but I'm really having a hard time figuring out just what to talk about and how to articulate it! I will think about how to do it, but in the meantime, if you have a specific question about it, I'll try to be helpful!

Well, that's all for now...

Mom Day!

I hope everyone remembered to call their moms today! I did, but I made the mistake of asking for recipe tips for turkey scallopini before saying "happy mother's day." I'm sorry mom! I hope you'll forgive me! Love love!

Also, my chinchilla turned 3 recently. Hooray!
This is him:
Today I celebrate the existence of two cute things!


***P.S.
Here's a question for the people who read my blog...I get a lot of questions in the comments, and I wonder if anyone ever gets to read them since I'm usually kind of slow in replying. Would it be better to answer questions in actual posts, or do people go back through the comments to read them? Thanks guys!

Fun with Marlo and David

YAY
Look at this beautiful napkin! This napkin used to belong to Marlo, but now it's mine! I stole it because it had Marlo's spilled coffee on it...then I turned it over and there were drawings on it! Cartoon drawings of me and Marlo! Just kidding, I didn't steal it...she gave me this too:
Anyhow, friend Marlo came to visit LA and I got to meet her for the first time...we went to Melrose with John and he drew this picture of us on a paper table cloth after shopping for vintage clothes all day. Thanks John!

Then the next night Marlo, David Gemmill and I all went to Bob's Big Boy to draw pictures and eat hamburgers. It was a fun night...we spilled markers all over the table and drew funny looking customers and got attacked by a bunch of normal people who wanted to give it to Marlo. Here are some of the results of our night of fun:
another Katie and Marlo coupling (with extra body) by MARLO

Cartoonist Hamburger Club by DAVID

Funny looking customers and funny looking cartoonist by DAVID
(note David's reactionary drawing in the lower right corner as we are attacked by people coming to the table and refusing to leave)

Here's a picture Marlo took of me...it's my new favorite picture! I love this artsy fartsy angle and lighting!
I think I will make it my new icon...

HEY, there are more photos and drawings by the three of us on Marlo's blog, so if you haven't already been there, go see 'em!

http://marlomeekins.blogspot.com/

Then David went and did a whole comic illustrating our cartoon night, and it's really funny! Take a look and laugh at the SPYERS!

http://cartoondavid.blogspot.com/

Oh yeah, and here's a drawing for Marlo:
Come back soon!

Inking

Lots of people have been asking me about inking lately, so I'll try to remember what I learned about it a long time ago and post it here. My first job ever in animation was inking for Spumco's "Weekend Pussy Hunt," and there were so many rules that they were all written down on a 2 page memo for all the inkers to post up in front of them. I wish I had those now, cause I'd just post them! Fred Osmond was one of the guys who taught me how to do it, so maybe he'll talk about inking some and fill in the blanks where I forgot stuff...he has some inked pictures on his blog, and they're really good examples of excellent inks.
http://cartoonsandcaricatures.blogspot.com/

So anyhow, here's a picture of the pens I like to ink with best:
Those black and white pens on the right are "boldliners' made by Eberhard Faber (that's what they're called, right?). I'm pretty sure they don't make them anymore, which is awful because they're the easiest inking pens I've ever used. They're cheap marker pens with felt tips. They're good because when you start out using them, they have nice sharp points, but after a while begin to get mushy at the end, making it easier to put pressure on them to get thicks and thins. There are other felt tip markers you can get, and they work alright too. Then I use Microns for small and delicate lines, and for fixing up any wobbly lines that the boldliners made. The white out is my best friend when inking, because I tend to put my hand right into the wet ink and smear it all over the place.

I had to ink an older drawing a couple of days ago for a poster, so I took a few pictures to show the ink in progress. I don't know if it'll be helpful to the people who asked about inking...I hope so!
I always start with the thickest lines first, and leave any details for last.
I think that the head on the right girl has nice thicks and thins, but the rest of her body and arms need to be made more consistent...right now all the lines are the same thickness and it's not as interesting looking.
Here's the finished ink, which turned out alright, even though there are some things that could be better...for instance, the place where the middle girl's hip comes too close to the right girl's dress. The lines get all mushy in there, so I'll probably have to fix it later. It's hard to avoid tangents when inking something crowded like this drawing, but I think I avoided some that were in the original drawing.

So here are the rules I remember from when I inked for money!

-Use nice thicks and thins.
-Thick lines are for larger shapes and shapes that are closer to you.
-Thin lines are for smaller shapes and details.
-Details within the drawing, like smile lines or clothes wrinkles, should help to describe the larger shapes that they are a part of.
-Try not to ink inside or outside of the lines, but stay on top of the original drawing.
-Make sure lines follow through. For instance- if I took away the instrument that the girl on the right is holding, the lines on her body and arms should look like they would connect.
-Floating lines, like smile or cheek lines, should go from thin to thick to thin, with the middle being thicker. It looks meatier that way!
-Lines that end should taper to a nice pretty point.
-Pay attention to subtleties in the drawing, and try not to dumb them down when inking over them. That brings me to another thing...

I scanned in some inking notes from John's Bjork Video, and they're better for understanding a bad ink from a good ink.
This is a really helpful piece of paper here! And besides the notes that are written here, there are some other things that are missing from the ink...Bjork's cute butt has some nice organic angles in the sketch, but turns into a boring curve in the ink. It may seem like nitpicking, but when enough lines get dumbed down it makes Bjork look like a balloon girl instead of a real flesh and blood girl, which is how she started out in the sketch.
Here's a nicer ink...the lines are pretty and the thicks and thins are in the right places. For the most part I think it's a really nice copy of the original, although some subtle curves in her cheek look like they got lost. It's not easy to get perfect, but the result is a lot better if you don't think about it just as putting black lines on a piece of paper!

Now it's plug time! The ink I did is for a poster that will be sold as prints at an uncoming art show...it'll be fun! The show is May 27th through June 4th, and it'll be featuring John K's art (although some of my stuff and maybe some other spumco people's stuff will be there too). There's a big to-do on the 28th, with the gallery show at "Ever Picture Tells a Story" and cartoons at the Aero Theater across the street. John will be there and there will be lots of art for sale. John's got more details over at his blog, so check it out!
http://www.johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

Also, my pal Chad just put up his blog, and it's going to be great!! He's really really good, and here's proof:
Say hi to him at his blog and tell him to post every day!!
http://cartooncrap.blogspot.com/