Drawing is my enemy

I guess I'm in another rut or something...I didn't want to go for too long without a post though, so here are some month-old sketch pages.
I like some of these doodles, but as usual I don't know what to do with them.
And here is your gorgeous host! Luke says I'm not this scary looking, but regardless of the weird likeness I thought the drawing was kind of funny, and that's what matters! Right?

Hey, thanks to everyone who was able to come to the 8-bit show! A lot of people asked earlier where to get the book...I'm pretty sure you can order it online easily through Amazon, and probably other book sites as well. I left a new comment in my previous post too, so if you asked me a question recently, the answer is probably there. Thanks again guys!

8-bit Book Signing!!

Everyone who can make it should come out! There's a book that's just come out of all the 8-bit art from the first show, and it looks really nice. Lots of artists will be signing it, including me, so here's the info...don't forget!

SATURDAY, APRIL 22
7 - 10 p.m

GALLERY NINETEEN EIGHTY EIGHT
7020 Melrose Ave (corner of La Brea by Pink's Hot Dog Stand)
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Books will be available there, too!

Now on to some drawings...here are the 4 Nintendo gals I drew for the first 8-bit!
My favorite, Princess Peach
Princess Daisy

Zelda
And Samus!

Well, I hope some of you who read this can make it! See you later...

8-bit Show

Hi again!

Well, everyone's posting their paintings and drawings for the 8-bit show that's coming up...hopefully I won't get in trouble for posting these. I guess I can't if everyone else is doing it too!
Since I did Nintendo girls last year, this year I just did a few Links. These are really small, about 5 x 7. I think they turned out pretty cute!
I hope someone will praise me for drawing boys instead of girls? :)

Anyhow, I'm going to Nevada to visit my family for Easter, so I won't be posting any more drawings until I get back. OH YEAH! Don't forget to Visit the 8-bit opening! It's coming up next week...

Gallery 1988
Tuesday the 18th

If you guys are near Hollywood, then come see it! I might be there, but I'm not sure, since I'll be driving 8 hours that day to come home, and I may be tired and cranky. But hopefully some of you guys will go and have fun and see the cool art!

Questions answered

Wow, I got a lot of questions on that last post about highschool. I don't know if anyone ever goes back to read the comments, so I'm just going to answer them here. I'll add some drawings too, so it doesn't get boring!)

Jennifer:
"With all the "big eyes" in your drawings, were you influenced by Margaret Keane?"

Yes, I like Margaret Keane, and a lot of the people who ripped off the style, too...I have a lot of cheesy paintings from the 60's that I get cheap from the swap meet. My favorites are the ones of "mod" kids dancing around. Those are really nice paintings! I'll post some of them sometime!

Jorge Garrido:
"How come you look so sad, though? Cheer up!"

Ha, I wasn't really sad, just weird looking. :)

Chet:
"So Katie,whats your relationship status? Im just currious(besides im too young to hit on you hahahahaha)"

My boyfriend's name is Luke and he's a cartoonist too. This is him:

Davis Chino:
"Funny how you note when a drawing is "from memory." Are you just trying to dodge recriminations from your subjects?"

Ha ha ha, maybe that's part of it...I also was hoping people would notice the difference between the ones done from photos and the ones done with no reference. Hopefully the ones with no reference are cartoonier! When you draw someone from memory, you use more of your instinct and draw things that you wouldn't draw if you were looking at the picture.

Mom:
"Does it embarrass you that your dad and I comment?"

No, I like it. :)

m.pheuz:
"may i ask what materials you use to colorize your (killer!) drawings? i mean, do you use brushes or some kind of pens or markers?"

I use a different array of markers. I don't have a whole set of any of the brands, just lots of random colors. Right now I really like this one kind...I don't know the brand name...they're super stinky though, and make you feel funny when you draw with them.

Arrive Magnificent:
"Hey, do you ever sell prints and stuff? When you do, you should let us know (for reals). More eBay auctions, maybe?"

I don't really know much about making and selling prints. Do you go to Kinko's and stuff to do that, or somewhere else? Maybe I'll look into it...I'll put up more ebay stuff soon, and I'll announce it here when I do!

Samuel K:
"Katie, what shapes do you generally use in your basic construction of characters? For drawing faces and open mouths and body structures and things?"

Wow, that's a hard question to answer with words! I guess I usually start with the standard Elmer fudd shaped head, with the cranium and jaw in two parts...then alter them to be more like whatever person I'm drawing. I guess I'll draw some and scan them in!

Here we go...sorry this isn't very good but I drew it fast:

I sort of wing it when drawing bodies...and when I draw mouths I usually think about the open part first, and then draw the lips around it. I like drawings mouths. Maybe I should do a mouth post sometime?

Anonymous:
"Huh......where are your highschool male counterparts?....I'm curious to see how adaptable your "design" techniques are... (much like the rest of your loyal fans)...Anyways, I figure it will be pretty easy, with all the boys today wearing girl jeans and growing there hair long and stuff...more and more boys can be funny and cute too...maybe even funnier and cuter...?"

What Male counterparts?? No one was interested in a bunch of nerds like us sitting around in home-made sailor scout costumes. Well, I guess there were a few. The truth is, I HATE drawing guys...it's so hard!! I do actually force myself to draw them at home, but I hate showing them because the drawings are so awkward. Girls are so much easier. I'll post some guys soon though. :(

Qui-Que:
"Are there any tips when creating a proffesional art portfolio for jobs nd' such you could show me?"

I suppose the best thing to do is have a lot of variety? Draw lots of different things and clean some of them up nice and pretty. Then send it to everyone you know! Maybe take a look at some professional artist portfolios online. That might give you some good ideas of what kinds of things to include.

Here's another picture of me and Megan:

One more thing- if you've emailed me or asked me to draw you a picture and I haven't gotten back to you, I'm really sorry! A combination of traffic from John's site and the mention on Blogger has brought me a lot of mail, and I can't keep up with of it. My brain's just not that smart! If I were good at that kind of thing, I'd probably be a lawyer or something.

By the way, everyone who played my "guess which girl is which" game got the answers right. Hooray!

Highschool

Whew, this is gonna be a long post!! It's probably going to get me in trouble, too! Well, anyone that knows me knows that I'm very (maybe annoyingly) nostalgic. I actually really enjoyed highschool, and really miss it. I had it really easy...I somehow managed to pass without ever turning in homework and ditching half my classes to spend my afternoon at the lake. No responsibilities at all!! I want to go back!! Anyhow, this above drawing is supposed to be me and my friend Em when we went as Sailor Scouts for halloween.

More Em!

Here is realistic Emli. She's fun to draw because she has real-life cartoon eyes- the kind that are huge with lots of shines and long eyelashes! I like her because she is smart and funny and good at a lots of things.
A little more cartoony...this blonde one above is "Cancer Victim Emli." At least that's what my mom called her when we washed the bleach out. I thought she looked cute though!
These are drawn from memory, and the little dinky doodles are about a year old. I had wanted to do some comic type projects involving some of my old buddies, but I never finished it because I figured no one would think it was funny except me.

Kacy

Sorry Kacy!! I don't have that many photos of you...and in the ones I do have, your hair is in your face!
Little cartoon hippie. Kacy is a really good actress and the best singer I know.

Christine

The first one is always too realistic...Christine is a really good painter and illustrator!

More cartoons from memory!

Megan

Realistic Megan...the ears are for real though!
Megan is a more pleasant person than the rest of us.
Cartoony-from memory-drawings. Megan looks like a pretty woodland creature come to bestow some elf magic on you!
A nice past time is playing the keyboard with a friend and writing songs about food.

Christine and Megan draw pictures too. I'm pretty sure they failed highschool art class as miserably as I did. We must've been doing something right...Megan and I were asked to paint a mural for the school...we had to recreate one of those Unicorn tapestries with a million little details. We painted it alright, but we also made sure to defile it by putting little weiners on all the animals. Next time I go to visit my parents I'm going to try to find it and take a picture.

Here's where they live:
http://misswithers.blogspot.com/
http://devicat326.blogspot.com/

Kathryn

Kathryn plays the bassoon. I haven't heard her play it since school though. I've heard she's really good.

By the way, don't bother asking me for any of these girls' numbers, ha! I'm pretty sure they all have boyfriends or girlfriends, or they're out of touch with me anyhow. Sorry!

Here's some fun that will get me yelled at...try and match the photo to the drawings! Don't expect hair colors and styles to help you though!

Here's a little bit more fun...my own highschool portrait. I'm being nice to myself!

Harry Potter girls (some of them)

I really love the actresses in this movie! I think my favorite new addition is Clemence Poesy, who plays Fleur.
This girl is so pretty! She is REALLY hard to draw, though...at least for me. Looking at her on the TV, her face totally stands out as being beautiful and possessing very interesting features. But when I drew the shape of her nose and the expressions she had, the drawings didn't turn out very cute...even though she looked pretty on the screen. I almost wanted to just exaggerate her obviously pretty features, like her eyes and headshape, and tone down the uniqueness of her other features, but it seemed like cheating. If she looks pretty in person with those proportions, then why shouldn't I be able to translate it into a cartoony drawing? Well, I failed this time, but I will try again.
Katie Leung, the actress who plays Cho, was the opposite of Clemence! Her features are very soft and round, and her face is so obviously cute that it was hard to make the drawing not look generic.
Emma Watson (Hermione) is another tough one! I guess it's dumb to say that...all these girls are hard for me to draw. Most of them were hard enough that I don't have any pictures to post here! Anyhow, part of what makes Emma unique looking is how three dimentional her face is. I couldn't for the life of me draw her face straight on. There must be some secret to drawing how a forehead or nose protrudes from straight on. Maybe it's just a mastery of construction and perspective. Anyhow, it's over my head so I'll have to stick with 3/4 views for now. I haven't given up yet though...I had to return "Ghostworld" to Hollywood Video, so I lied when I said I'd draw those two again...but I will be back with more Harry Potter girls! This is gonna haunt me!
Oh yeah, here's one more...IMDB won't tell me what her real name is, but she plays one of the Patil twins. Not much of a likeness, sorry!

Anime influence

*Edit!*
John posted some more of these drawings over on his blog today, and also has some REALLY insightful theories on style and design. It's a great post, even though he's being too nice to me. Check it out!
http://www.johnkstuff.blogspot.com/


Here are the anime and manga influenced drawings I was talking about...I think my drawings have always been influenced by different Japanese artists, since I watched any anime I could get my hands on all throughout highschool. I kind of stopped being so interested in it after I graduated, but now it's all coming back and affecting my drawing in different ways. I used to just try and ape the style, which wasn't very easy for me. I think now I'm more influenced by the silliness and cuteness and extreme exaggeration in the comics I've been reading.
Lately I've been reading a LOT of manga...especially the cheesy romance ones, like Paradise Kiss, Happy Mania, Peachgirl, and Club 9. I'm sure some people would yell at me for reading this stuff, but I can't help it. I even like the ones with crappy drawings! They have a lot of energy, and the artists will change styles halfway through a page and then magically go back a panel later. I love that kind of thing! Maybe later I'll post some examples since I don't think I'm articulating this very well.
I guess I'm also seduced by the supreme cuteness of many of these comics. Princess Knight is so cute...everyone should go out and buy it! I only wish I could absorb how to draw everything so appealing and nice looking.
I'm wondering it it's obvious that these are inspired by a new influence, or if they look exactly like my other drawings. I've tried to take just certain elements, like the crazy cartoony expressions and cuteness, but really there's more I could and should learn from reading all those comics. A lot of Japanese artists seem REALLY good at drawing extremely difficult poses and angles that would be near impossible for me. Crap, I have to go out and run errands now, but I want to come back later and post examples, and maybe more drawings. Describing what I like about manga is too hard to put into words!