kanzashi 4

A new kanzashi that will be one of the main ones I sell coming up.

The Sakura

Kanzashi 3

Little update on the final product

Kanzashi 2

Here is the next attempt. Easily better, I figured out a bunch of teniques that will help make them more professional but there are still plenty of n00b mistakes in it. I will be making a whole series of them that are just copies of this design though I wont post them. However, I may post the end result to compare and contrast.

Kanzashi

Silk flowers do not a man make, but they can make you some coin. Im a regular attendee to anime, comic book and horror conventions where I vend various wares. The latest project that I am learning to do is Kanzashi, the japanese art of silk flowers. This is a co-op project with my gf and another friend but these are my first:

more on these as I get better at them

A Devil in DoozelDorf

The current table top that Im playing is Pathfinder (all of the good of D&D none of the bad). The campaign that Im running is called "A Devil in DoozelDorf", DoozelDorf being the moutain villiage that the campaign started in. Without going into the story itself, DoozelDorf has turned out to be a fun town to illustrate and flesh out for the group.

Ive decided to undertake a very large project that will basically illustrate every building in DoozelDorf as well as every floor and make it all interactive in Flash. That said, Im going to start posting the work as its done. That said, here is one of the various homes from the town:

Pencil

Painted

Tengu Troll

From a D&D campaign that we had 2 years ago that my group still talks about. To sum up the campagin, it was an asian setting. The group had recieved orders from a daimyo to infiltraite and observe a subject in a fortress that bordered his domain. On their way through the forest, they had a random encounter that ended up being the theme of the night. James, a player whos character is on the ground in this image was actually killed (twice) but at the complaining of my players I had to un-write him back to life. Not something I like to have to do in a game. In the end however that nights game was a lot of fun, even if I had a rewrite and so I drew this in memorial of it. Its been sitting in my portfolio for 2 years now and so I wanted to finally finish it so that it would have the color I hopefully showed them with it.

Icons Project 1

For a long time, Ive been a huge fan of Chuck Close. In Close's work the basic theme is pixilation. Downgrading an image to the point where it seems irrelevant, ideally skirting the line between when exactly an image is and when it is not.


That said, I find his work profound and in the air of all artists, I intend to take the idea and run with it. Among the Icons that I will be painting will be his Holiness the Dali Lama, whom I have a great appreciation of.

In the piece that Im working on, of what the belong is just the digital preliminary work, I chose to stay with the original photographs black and whites as the photo uses the Grey tones as an example of the symbolic ethics of Buddhism that he represents. Grey being the middle path between white and black.

The below, as always goes from oldest to most recent, but in this case, shows the progression of grid and numbers into pixel image. click and then reclick the images as they open in a new window so you can understand the size. When this project is done it will be 4'x5.5'

 

Geta

Ive been training at a taiko dojo, as mentioned in another post at two different places. RyuShu Taiko is my favorite and I have a great deal of respect for the sensei Gerald and Horiko.

For christmas Ive made them these: (project start to finish)

Draft

 

Mock up 1

Mock up

Finished Top

Finished Bottom

Taiko Tides Update:

So I did get the contract and not only that, but Im being asked to create an all-flash version of the site. I think Im going to have to put up a tab for my corporate graphic work as well....

Stay tuned for that.

Taiko Logo

I belong to two different Taiko Dojo. RyuShuTaiko and the StonyBrook Taiko Tides.

The tides are busy developing a website that's professional. Here is the Index page with their logo which I am working on for their approval.

Taiko Tides original logo:



Updated Taiko Tides logo:

Index Page and new round design for their site, set as a rollover image: (image before rollover)



image after roll over:

Unfortunately for now, I can't post the main page as apparently the print screen function on my laptop has decided to stop functioning. So it wont be possible to show but to give a quick description:

Basically it would be the same taiko drum head without the Mon (logo) in the middle with an invisible table inset on the drum head itself. The title font for "taiko tides" would be larger and moved to the top of the drum head but still present on the "canvas" background. The entirety of the site would be placed directly on top of the drum head itself.

Un-Were Wolves

While I haven't gone into a great deal of detail about the campaigns and stories that myself and my group of gamers go through, a great deal (like 98%) of my illustration comes directly out of those games. That said, the following illustration and the series that its from (that are in various stages of color at the moment) come from the second of the stories that we all played through.

In this case, the story revolved around a central theme and interest of mine in creative writing; classic monsters used in unclassic ways. Im not going to bore you with the details suffice to say that this particular tale involved one of my very favorite of the classic monsters, the werewolf. Except that for the story to keep from being stale and feel different for the players, it needed to have the roles reversed in it. So a quick summery of the story-line myth might help:

Were Wolves originally were not the semi-wolf/part-man beasts that are popular in today's retelling of the myth. At first they were either men that had gone crazy (think somewhere between Mario and the native American Wendigo) OR men whom transformed, momentarily INTO wolves. Today's werewolves lack the mysterious punch that their mythological ancestors had in tales from the dark ages because we insist on removing the magic from the tale. However, considering that there is no such thing as werewolves to begin with, removing the fun magic from the tale is at very best boring and at very worst illogical. Therefore for my myth men transform completely into wolves.

So if thats the case, than the question has to be asked: If monkeys transform into dogs, do dogs transform into men? The answer, in this story is a resounding yes. Basically, were children are wolves that transform into men. Werewolves retain the intellect, in most stories, of their awaiting former human selves, so by that same logic were children must retain their wolf sense of self and are therefore feral. Now this may not sound all that entertaining for a story until you hear the back story and hook that makes the story interesting.

To sum that up for you: A young woman was raped by a were man whilest he was in his cycle. Obviously the creature had human form and therefore human hormones so therefore had the instinct to breed with people, but as he was only human for a moment, it made the rape that much worse. Thresha, the character raped by said half-beast was unaware of that, what would come to be the father of her soon-to-be-"children" was a were child. She didn't come to have this knowledge until she gave birth to puppies. YaddaYaddaYadda there's a story line, etc etc and every cycle of the moon her puppies, whom age in human years, turn into little feral children.

Obviously the bite of which can cause man to become beast and visa versa.

without further a due, I will post the images, early illustration and mistakes first finishing up with the final finished piece as per usual.

Harpies abound

Harpies.

I have some kind of anti-love affair with them. In that, just like Zombies, harpies always end up in my campaigns. Not that they ever get much attention, even though they extremely effective preditors of adventuring parties.

Harpies first appeared in a short campaign I wrote for a weekend game in Jacksonville. It was a desert setting and so I did a lot of research into birds of the desert, the harpy myth(s) and what these two ideas had in common. What came out was more a cross between a dinasour and a naked woman, but the result still says harpy to me. 

I know that very soon I will probably be retooling this version of the creature for some future game. Not that I have a particular idea in mind for a story, so much as I feel like this version of the birdlady isn't quite monsterouse enough. 

Either way, here is series from before I downloaded Paint Tool Sai and the after will be obvious.

 

This was actually drawn some 4-5 years ago, and while I have a few harpy illustrations laying around, this is 1 of my favorites. I purposely made them all pigeon toed as I thought it would be both human and humorus for a feral beastly preditor to have a funny walk. I don't, dark sense of humor I suppose....

This was illistrated in Paint.Net. A program I still use quite a bit. While it retains kind of a quick and sloppy style, its easy and you can pump images out of it in minuets. If your preping for a game and you want to have solid illustrations to wow your players with, this isn't bad.

However, its not creatively satisfying and it doesn't live up to the image in my head.

And then I found Sai.....

 

This is far far far closer to what I had in mind originally. The colors seem right, and a combo between the after affects in Paint.net and the ability to simply paint and line illustrate with Sai is a deadly combo. 

I have another harpy I will be posting soon Im sure.

A Revenant's Tale

While I can't currently play Pathfinder as I'm in a whole different state (physical) I can finish up illustrations from my former PathFinder campaign that myself and my friends just had to cut short.

An abridged version of "A Revenant's Tale":

The adventurer's slay the Nightmare in front of the less-than-Mensa populace of Emery Villa.

Some of the populace, most profoundly moved by the slaying of the fiery beast devote themselves to members of the group.

The group swells in numbers bogging down their trip.

Not to be undone the group goes off in search of one of the locally-mythic Abastons stones.

The group finds said neolithic monument only to be attacked after nightfall by the spirits that haunt the stone as well as the wolf pack that's been stalking them.

A fight ensues and the group quickly realize that the potent mix of shadows and wolves is enough to kill them all, so they ride what little remaining horses that were not spooked away in terror, leaving several of their members behind to fight and die. A completely cowardice act, that fits the story perfectly.

Having made it back to Emery Villa to re-suture their now-open stitches, the group realizes their mistake even though its too late and forces the rest of the followers to dispatch as their safety is not insurable.

Several days pass as they heal up.

The last night the the group decides to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Lord of the Manor Emery the following day.

That night Jame's character Constable Gapaunce Lym awakens to find his three devotees have made it back to town. But not with their souls in tact.

A fight of reprisal happens that the Revenants are sadly dispatched just like the monsters they set out to destroy.

The adventures, having realized their mistake vow never to allow this to happen to them again and set out to solve the mystery.

Blogstart

So, while I know that no one is necessarily reading this as yet, I do know that people will read these words in the future. In a way its like a time-capsule where anything I am to write now will transmit information to the future.

Eitherway, I want to note the reason I am starting this blog.

It should be noted first, that, I was a part of the initial MySpace wave and found that to grow stale over time. Why have a blog entirely about one's own narcissism? I suppose in a few ways this is like that as well, except that I won't be writing about all the stupid people in my life (considering you have them in your life too) nor will I be writing about my deeper existenctial thoughts, unless they confire something to the illistrations I will be posting.

I may post little fictional tidbits about different illustrations or "details" about the inner workings of a story that I might be writing or playing (PRPG player) but it probably wont get deeper than that.

I will try not to post offensive ideas or thoughts but a lot of my illistration work is dark(ish) for the sole purpose of what I like to work on. Not to say that I don't do cute, just to say I find it boring.

All that said, the reason Im starting this blog is:

A:) I just turned 30 and Im unhappy with my lack of commercial accomplishment. I need a neat little platform to put all my ongoing work and I was inspired by D&D Doodler to do this. Not that he knows that I exist, so much as I realized that his blog was like a Resume and I realized I could do the same.

B:) I frankly, need a place to put the massive amount of work I have other than the OffTopic of a forum I admin.

So here it is, the first entry in this adventurers journal.