Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys

Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys are a band from Boston.  I heard them while I was in Manhatten when they played at Cynthia von Buhler's birthday party.  They play dadaistic steamcrunk and were nominated for this year's Boston Music Awards.

This was made with house paint (and sandpaper), oil paint, woodcut for the tentacles, acrylic, and finally some Photoshop to make the text.

I left blank space along the top for a venue name and dates could be put in the bottom left.

Trick 'R Treat Movie Poster

Our assignment for the movie poster was given at the start of October, so of course I had to choose a Halloween movie.  I originally was just going to do a picture of Sam(haim) with the broken lollipop in front of his face, but I ended up using a composition based on a penny dreadful cover.  The original image of Sam was them put up in the frame. 

If you haven't seen Trick 'R Treat, it is an anthology of four interweaving stories that are all witnessed (or caused by) Sam, a cute little trick-or-treater that will make you terrified of Sackboy from Little Big Planet.  I had to sleep with the lights on the first time I saw it.

I had a lot of fun watercoloring it to look old and destroyed.  This is done in watercolor, ink, and colored pencil.

Mixed Media Experimentation

I just started reading the book Werewolves by Alice Carr, the found journal of a girl documenting the weeks following the attack on her and her brother by wolves.  It's actually by a Paul Jessup and illustrated by Allyson Haller, (whose other work I'll go check out now.)  The writing's not bad, but it's not great. It just comes across a bit forced when trying to get plot details across while still trying to be a journal.  The art is what caught my eye.  It's mixed media with mostly charcoal and inkwash with some ballpoint pen and other mediums fixed in.  The style is also mixed, with doodles juxtaposed with realistic drawings of people.

Well, this got me wanted to do some traditional work, particular bunnies and werewolves, both of which show up in the book.  I've been mostly doing digital, so I figured an afternoon of smearing charcoal might be fun.  I found my charcoal pencils (sans the extra-soft) and all my inking supplies, but I think Oni still has my ink bottle and she's in Texas, so I found a Crayola watercolor set.

This is a bit different than what I'd originally envisioned.  I'm going to just consider this a sketch and do the version I wanted once I get a new bottle of black ink.  I really think I want to do some inkwash paintings, maybe even for class.  I'm fond of the Burton-esque tree though, I might have to incorporate it in a future piece.

Then, I was going to do a Dia de Los Muertos picture, but when I went looking for stock photos of a face, I came across a pose I liked by PoorSouls-stock.  It wasn't the pose so much as the subtle expression and messy hair, but I wanted to try a stylized version of it.  Here is a WiP.  This isn't finished.  I really need to figure out a way to clean up scanned in pencils to make nice lineart.  My sketchbook has yellowish paper so trying to get rid of blue lines results in a dirty mess.

This isn't finished, though I think I'll keep it mostly flat.

Then I tried playing with some filters and got this effect, which I think could be interesting.

None of these are done, just showing what I've been up to this afternoon (besides a few chores.)

ART Cabaret Poster

I am taking a poster design class this semester and our first assignment was a musical/play/stage show.  Amanda Palmer had been mentioning on Twitter about her being cast as the Emcee in the American Repertory Theatr's production of Cabaret.  It seemed an obvious choice after three days of trying to narrow it down from Dracula, REPO!, and whatever my other idea was.
I couldn't find photos from the show, so I used stock from kirilee and wineglass-stock on deviantART for the side girls.

This was done in oil paint, watercolor, and mostly colored pencil.

Cynthia's Circus Card

The first weekend of October, AlyshaKahuna joined me when I went to New York to attend the birthday party of Cynthia von Buhler.  The theme of the party was Freaks, and the menu included popcorn, hotdogs, and cotton candy, so we decided to present her with a circus themed card/gift.  (The actual post on the party is yet to come, I am still backed up on schoolwork at the moment.)

The party was also to celebrate the publishing of the Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, so I included them in the card.  I wanted to reimagine Evelyn Evelyn's circus life as somewhat happier, though Alysha made sure everything remained a little sinister under the happy colors.  I added Sandy Fishnets as the trapeze artist just so the girls would be reunited with their childhood friend.

This is the second collaboration between Alysha and I.  For JAFAX this summer, she did some quick drawings of some yokai based on my suggestions and we sold badges and stickers of them at our table.  So began us working together.  For this one, I came up with the concept, sketched it out, directed her as she worked, printed/cut out/arranged the final images and helped with things here and there.  We discussed how nice it was working together and I've decided my new longterm goal is to become an art director.

Alysha did a wonderful job inking and hand-painting everything especially since we had less than a week to do it and ended up doing 3/4 of it in a hotel in Jersey.

Below are her drawings for this.  As she did all the final work on the characters, I've watermarked them with her name.

Ringmaster

Strongman

Bimba & Kimba, the world's only conjoined elephant

Sandy Fishnets as a trapeze artist

Eva and Lynn, or Lynn and Eva

Leather Pants & Riding Crop

My second piece for my summer illustration class in the style of Erik Jones.  The first piece was really of just a practice, it wasn't until this that I got the hang of it.

The Behr house paint worked really well though I'll need more practice and find a better brush for thin hair strands.  On both pictures I started off the colored pencil technique wrong but realized what I was doing so subsequent works in this style should look a lot better.

I'm really happy with this piece and really want to do more mix-media paintings like this.

Shiny Black Pants & Riding Crop WiPs

So this is my second picture for my summer illustration class.  I thought I'd uploaded this image to Twitpic earlier but my phone was dying so that explains that.  Again, I'm trying to follow Erik Jones' process for working.  This time I got the subject closer to his by getting a topless model and doing less of a scene.  It's a chick wearing shiny black form-fitting pants holding a riding crop.  I managed to find the right type of paint this time.  So far I like (Behr) house paint.

A pic of me working taken by my fiancé. I prefer the floor to a desk.

 

Yes, I know, I need a new dye job; which is why I'm taking commissions right now to pay for it.  

That and the wedding.

I accidentally blended the white before adding the other colors.  Hopefully this won't doom the picture; I'd had high hopes after learning from the first one.  I'll add another layer of color tomorrow.

I realized I'd misplaced my Payne's Gray tube of watercolor in this last months, so I'll buy more tomorrow and get back to work on the pants.

Class ends in a week and a day, so I really need to work on speed.

Buried Treasure

For my summer illustration class, I decided to do my work in the style of Erik Jones, one of my favorite artists.  I love his blend of graphic flats and detailed skin tones.

I had managed to use the same materials that Erik uses except the paint.  He uses Behr house paint but I figured artist acrylics would give me more of a range but they ended up just being a blotchy nightmare.  It was a waste of money but now I know to use the right paint on the next one.

I had problems with the colored pencils on the skin because I didn't do large enough areas of flesh so it was difficult to blend it.  The next one should be cropped in closer.

The bottom half of the picture isn't exactly the right color.  It should be richer but I couldn't get the settings in Photoshop to match them well enough.  I'll take a new photo when I have better lighting.

Overall, a great learning experience, and I think I need to push the next one to have more design elements.

Models are Emily and Ninja.

Materials are Rives BFK heavyweight, Prismacolor pencils, Winsor Newton Acylics, Gamblin watercolors, and Copic markers with awesome names.