Happy birthday to me...

lol.

(picture courtesy of somebody on the net)

New stuff to come, I think. I'm on the tail end of a week long bout with jetlag and illness. I have a new word for our little illustration challenge, clash (yeah I know, I couldn't have picked a weirder word) and maybe a couple of things I did over Christmas, if I can make them look not so crappy.

You can bring in the pretty girl in the oversized cake now.

bait

Kinga Bee and I decided that we would have our own little illustration task and illustrate a random word chosen by either one of us, but unlike other illustration tasks (a la Illustration Friday) there's no pressure to finish within a week. The topic chosen by her was "bait":

(pens on paper, A4)

 
My first real post with felt tip pens, so yay me I guess. It's always nice to use something other than watercolours or pastel. No apologies for the patchy colour, I just started using Alpha Markers and I don't know how to control the colours yet. They are godly pens, however.

This was the first thing that immediately sprung to mind on seeing the word "bait". And because I like to show you how lame my first sketch is, here it is in all it's awful shaky pencil, testing the pen colour because the indicator cap is usually different glory:

Update: A very (belated) Happy New Year!

This is a repost, I originally drew and posted this back on 11th October last year, then pulled it into drafts a few weeks later as the other "competing" half wasn't ready (i.e., didn't start). I don't really know if she'll ever get around to illustrating the word *HINT HINT :P*, and leaving this in a state of limbo is kind of a waste, so I decided that this should be the first post of the new year.

I should have had a whole load of other things to post that I was expecting to do over the holidays, but that didn't really pan out too well. I did some things but I actually had more fun with my new camera than I did with pencil and paper. Fortunately that means a bunch of reference photos for future use. I might post some photos too. But first thing's first, I have to open a FB page. I've been reluctant to do so for a while but I guess now's as good a time as any...

Happy new Year again! :)

Update 2: Well wouldn't you believe it, soon after reposting this Kinga Bee only went and did the damn thing! It only took 4 months, 3 reposts and some subtle prodding to get it done, hehe. Complimentary link-back here (clicky).
To-do: comment on her picture. Better do it later, I'm still jetlagged, it's 4:30am and my brain is lugaw.

Illustration Friday: prehistoric

Probably my last post for this year, just a quick painting for IF:

(watercolour, A4)

I haven't used watercolour in a while, nor have I made anything non-cartoony/"realistic" in some time either. So here's my attempt at merging those two things. It's a bit odd though because my first thought was to draw this cartoony, hence the mammoth's generally clean shape as opposed to the scratchy sketches of the foreground and background scenery.

I dunno how realistic it is, none of the photos taken during the ice age survived the freezing temperatures...

o.O wat!?

Illustration Friday: savour

"The cake is a lie" is a lie:

 

(felt pens on paper, A4)

...it exists and is very delicious. Yum :d

 

 The animal started off as a kind of dog, then evolved somewhat into a monkey-dog-koala hybrid. Now it's back to "animal".

Illustration Friday: burning

#She's on fire:

(soft pastel on paper, A3)

I haven't drawn anything in a while because I've been uninspired (and lazy), so here's a quick-ish pastel drawing for this week's IF. Photographed as usual, can't scan an A3 pastel without some serious post-cleanup.

I'm also fairly pleased that despite my lack of skill at drawing facial features combined with the relative speed at which I did this, the figure actually looks female and not like a man in drag.

...and she burns through the night at the speed of light#

Illustration Friday: spooky

This isn't spooky at all:

(felt pens on paper)

It does however have the cutest pumpkin I've ever drawn :)


(I wanted to use this word for another illustration project, but IF came along and swooped it up. You guys are like mindreaders.)

Another WIP

Yet another WIP. Good grief, this painting seems to be taking forever to finish:

I didn't want to post this until it was done, but right now I've lost the enthusiasm to continue and finish it. I stopped painting this about a month ago and there's still a lot of stuff that needs to be done to it, most notably "make it look less crap". So, I'm hoping that by posting it here and seeing it on my blog as an unfinished mess that it'll encourage me to pick up a brush and finally finish it off :)