Friday, January 30, 2009

So yeah.


I think my brain is officially fried today. 
I've been very, very stressed lately, so I don't think I'm functionally at my tip top.
I also worked really late last night and didn't get much sleep, so that doesn't help.

So with my cells and neurons deteriorating, this was my first solution to an experimental illustration assignment.
I don't remember what was going through my head.
Probably severe hunger.


Mmm... burgers...

Thursday, January 29, 2009



HAI GUYS.
I'm having a GIGANTIC SALE on my etsy until the end of February.
All 8.5" x 11" print are on sale for $5. Get them while they last!


I'm thinking of making a mini comic with all the silly comics Lindsay and I created.
Would anyone be interested if I did?

Let me know!
For now, visit my etsy!!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ok, Last One Maybe.

I leave you with this.

I'm going to go do some ACTUAL ASSIGNMENTS NOW, I think.

The Hilarity Doesn't Stop.


Lindsay's Rendition of the Cookie Episode in Linda Bond's class.

Linda: Lindsay loves you, and so do I. Promise!

Comic Crazy

As Lindsay put, it's "Allison and Lindsay's Adorably Retarded Adventures."

Featuring Andy Fish and Alycia.
Enjoi.


Strip for Lindsay.

GET IT IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO STRIP FOR LINDSAY.


Based on a silly class discussion in Degree Project featuring Lindsay Small. I'd brought her back candy and cookies from an Asian Market, but they made us become really disruptive (at one point I spilled a whole pack of candy on Alycia's chair and it was LOUD).

But Linda, if you read this, believe me, this is a SEVERE exaggeration of you. Lindsay and I were being brats, and we think you're lovely, so please don't kill me for making this strip. Your character needed some spicing up. *love*!


(PS This is the first comic strip of anything I've ever done. I have a ways to go.)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

More comic stuff.


Top half of the first panel of my comic. Once I have a more legible storyboard, I'll post it up. As for now, I'm happy with this image. I'm planning on doing this in black and white, but I may or may not change it to color for the summer issue of Detour.

Gonna have a meeting with Andy Fish for some direction (and to fill out paperwork that is do VERY SOON!!!). I have the first few pages planned out. Now I just have to.. create them.

While I was in Portland this weekend, I picked up an issue of Tank Girl (half-tones *drooool*) and another graphic novel called Muzz. I like it so far. It has weird creatures and delicious linework. Casablanca Comics in Portland has been alerted of the arrival of the new Detour with help from Jared, so hopefully we'll see them on the shelf there soon. If not, heads will roll.


I put my hair back today. A lot of people noticed and said they liked it. <3
I hope it doesn't snow on Wednesday.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Comic: Character Study 1


(Please full-view!)

So I'm making a comic. It's based on a story from my childhood about chasing down the ice cream man because he would never stop for me at my house. Jerk.

The basic story goes like this: Allison is sitting at her desk at home afterschool, bored, when she hears the delightful jingle of the ice cream truck. Her head shoots up, and she runs to her backpack, tearing it apart and dumping it out looking for every last bit of change. As the jingle comes closer, she darts outside, just as the ice cream man is rounding the bend.

Upon seeing just Allison outside of her house as opposed to a gaggle of kids, the ice cream truck driver decides it's not worth it to stop, so off he goes. Allison stands there, confused, but determined to get her ice cream. She leaps off the ledge of her yard and starts to run after the ice cream man, who has sped up a little to avoid the guilt of not stopping for her.

Allison leaps over small fences, cuts through yards, runs along ledges, and braves barking dogs to cut off the ice cream man at the corner before he gets onto the main route and will be too fast to catch. So she gathers every last bit of energy, pumping her legs and fists, quarters and pennies sweaty in her palm under the hot California sun, and jumps off the wall of a neighboring yard (dramatic action shot in the air) and lands close to the ice cream truck. She is now running side by side with the truck, pounding on the side of the van to stop. With a heavy sigh, the driver pulls over, and Allison does a little jump for victory. As she drops her sweaty change onto the aluminum window sill, faded peeling stickers of ice cream all around, she asks for a double cone with two scoops of Oreo ice cream. The Ice Cream Man serves her begrudgingly, looming in the darkness of his van and speeds away.

Allison triumphantly takes the first lick of her ice cream and begins her journey home.



This will be a test of my figure drawing capabilities, as well as using more dynamic compositions to tell a story. I'm really looking forward to getting this all together. I'm planning for probably 8 pages, and I bought comic layout paper and everything! I'm so excited! <3

So wish me luck. I'll have the priceless guidance of my wonderful Andy Fish, and maybe I can include this in the summer issue of Detour if I finish in time. :)

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

*sigh of relief*

All of my stuff is ready for my final reviews tomorrow, organized into folders, with pieces that I like and other pieces I wouldn't mind hiding, but organized.

Tomorrow I have my first class of the semester, Professional Freelance, then my reviews from 2 to 6 or so, then cleanup. Then I have to finish my essay.

Then on Thursday is Midnight Madness at Blick. I'm working at 5, and we're open 'til midnight that night, so I'll be there until 2am or so.

THEEEN on Friday, I get to hop on a bus and visit my favorite person, Jared! I'll be there all weekend, so give me a call if you need me.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at school tomorrow. <3 Yay senior year!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Something to say.


Since the beginning of winter break, my last winter break of my whole life if I don't ever pursue another degree, I have been absolutely working my ass off. I can honestly say that, aside from a couple of nights of plans, every day before and after I'm at my job I've been doing artwork, advertising my artwork, selling my artwork, and exposing myself to anyone who will listen to me. I feel like even my small paintings have increased in quality and that my larger paintings have become easier to complete because of the constant activity I've kept up in the past month.

My life in the past 30 days has revolved around art. I've completed at least 8 finished paintings and at least a dozen finished pieces, made plans for a fundraiser that includes my art, took down and painted a 30-foot mural, made three different fliers for Blick and had two of them printed in thousands to distribute throughout Boston, had my own acrylic jewelry produced with the intention to sell, made plans to go to the San Diego Comic Con in July, re-learned how to use half-tones, made three drawings by online requests on one of my art profiles, sold three prints of my artwork along with 5 finished paintings, created banners/icons/buttons/ads for my etsy and blog, and became well-practiced in Illustrator and Photoshop once again. I'm also going to be on the cover of a comic anthology created by a team of artists that I'm thrilled to even know, let alone be trusted to advertise their artwork along with mine.

I got a call from my Dad today telling me he's proud of me. A couple of weeks ago, I showed him this blog and my recent artwork, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, he told me that I'm fantastic and that he's so impressed by how far I've gone. He even printed out one of my paintings to show to the neighbors. I don't expect my dad to be educated on every moment of my life, but for him to recognize how hard I work and to actually like the art I make (even the weirder stuff), I'm absolutely blithe.

I feel like I finally got time to make the art I wanted to make on this break. I had the extra time to pursue ideas and markets I wouldn't have otherwise thought of. I've had immense support from Andy Fish, Jared, Lindsay, Mark Reusch, Alycia, Alex Carlson, Kate McElroy, Sarah (my roommate), my Mum, my Dad, my sister, my cousins, my boss, my District Manager, and so many other people it would take too long to list.

So thank you to everyone for being so excellent and believing in me. I finally feel like things are moving in the direction I want them to, and the last 6 months of my life have been the most exciting yet. Don't give up on me now, guys.

Super cheap prints!


Hey guys, now until the end of February, all of my prints on my etsy are just $5.

Tell your friends, your friends' moms, their creepy neighbors, and anyone else you think might like my work. All the prints are 8.5" x 11" (a little mini poster!) on heavy stock, so they'll last.

Again, my etsy is http://bamcat.etsy.com . Thanks guys!

Thursday, January 15, 2009


I'm making my own acrylic jewelry!!!

Jaredtold me about a wonderful site that can turn vector drawings into laser-cut wood/plastic. It's not very cheap on the shipping, as they're located in New Zealand, but I'm gonna be able to have my own line of products! I already have a template ready for packing I'm going to make, so I'm excited to see how the end result turns out. I'm trying to make my own blind boxes for them. :) I'm so excited!!!! <3>

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Skullapiddar.


Another small painting I did tonight after I finished my flier.

His name is Skullapiddar. I loves him.

Buy him (and other things too!) on my etsy at http://bamcat.etsy.com.

And I got to try out my new screentones! They're so much fun!!! <333

This week, I proved myself. (long-winded)

This week, I proved myself to my boss that I'm reliable, and I proved to myself that I'm committed to my work and meeting deadlines outside of school (not like I had a bad track record before). I showed my boss and myself that I'm unphased by being told, "No, this won't work," and instead can take that as an opportunity to push myself a little harder and create something better, even if it's work that I wouldn't normally do myself.

I make fliers for Blick. I paint the 30-foot long windows for Blick. And I'm usually given about 1-3 days to think up an idea, sketch out a composition, work it out in my head, and make it happen. The windows that are up now aren't my favorite - an octopus with art supplies in its tentacles isn't my idea of something mindblowing and newage and compositionally clever, but my boss liked it, and with time restraints, that's what happened. (I wanted munnies and dunnies painted like famous artists and papercraft monsters doing art, but oh well.)

So here are the fliers I made this past week.

This was my first attempt at our Midnite/Midnight/Moonlight Madness sale flier. I wanted to have a lot of fun with this one, and I've been working in the past year to have fewer text elements and work more with creating my own texts (like Mark Reusch and Dan Blakeslee and Brian Butler). So I had a lot of fun with this one, and it was quirky, and I got to use a million half-tone patterns like I love to and it was good. Hand inked.

But the problem my District Manager had with this is that... it has nothing to do with art, or art supplies, visually. And once I realized that, I kind of smacked myself in the forehead. I had gotten so carried away with doing something I thought would draw college kids in that I forgot to add elements that would be relevant to the content the flier was advertising.

So my boss was worried that I'd be upset when I heard what the DM had to say. But I sat there as she read the email and just started thinking. We thought of ideas that would have it please all sides. My boss told me that she was proud of me for being such a big kid about it and being so willing to fix/change it. That meant a lot to me.

So this is the flier we chose.

Not so visually interesting it will make you seize, but it gets the message across, clearly, sweetly, and it's still in my style (with lots and lots of delicious half-tones). My boss loved it, the DM loved it, and now there are a thousand copies of it circulating throughout Boston. Once again, I forgot to put my signature on the flier, but I'm just not used to signing my artwork yet. People will realize I did it later, hopefully.

Either way, I solved all of the problems that were set out before me, and I did it in an extremely short amount of time. And by short, I mean I had 2 hours to think up something, draw it, organize it in Photoshop, add tasteful text, color it digitally in greyscale, and still have it look like something I drew that I would like. So I think I did that well.



However. Because the sale is on the 22nd, the Art Institute of Boston doesn't start their classes until the 26th, so they would have to miss the sale. And instead of them missing it, we decided to have another night especially for them, where they can get the sale price on all their supplies for classes, something I thought was very thoughtful and smart of my boss to do to get business from a very prominent art school in the area. That Lisa's always thinking. So I was asked to do another flier, in the style of a VIP backstage pass. I never realized how awesome backstage pass artwork was until I looked it up - people made artwork for famous musicians just for shows, something so exclusive that only the band, some special guests, and the bouncers would ever see until ebay would come into existence. So I had a lot of fun with this one. I wanted it to be really MTV, graphic design-y, and Poison-roses-and-thorns-and-tribal-tattoo-swirls and crap. It was a lot of fun, and it helped me focus on text as the most important element on the piece, something I normally don't do. It was a switch, and I enjoyed it.

I know this piece got rather long, but I wanted to show you that aside from the paintings I've been doing and the sketches for Degree Project along with their color studies and my independent work, I've been meeting deadlines with a company and making a name for myself as a reliable artist and graphic designer. I'm more focused than I've ever been, and art has been surrounding my life and my thoughts at every turn, which I love.



So now I'm going to paint a caterpillar with a skull mask.
ALSO I BOUGHT RUB-ON HALF TONE PATTERNS AND I'M GOING TO USE THEMMMM. <333333

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Little update.


Just wanted to mention that I have a couple more little pieces up on etsy, including this little guy here. I've been keeping myself busy between the times I work by doing little drawings and paintings - I've been doing art every day, and it's helping me stay focused. I've had good company around too (see: Alex and Lindsay) to keep me motivated and to have some fun without assignment stress.

I've completed the color comps for my first 3 degree project pieces, and I'm looking forward to starting/finishing them. I'm strange - most of the time, I need to do a painting in one go, because I need the feeling of being in that moment and having that kind of relationship with the colors I'm using and the way I apply the paint. I'm very attached to my materials - I'm in love with heavyweight hot press board and paint that comes in plastic tubes. It soothes me.

But! Lindsay Small came over today, and we were supposed to paint but didn't, so we watched stupid online videos and looked at stupid websites instead, which was also very good. I missed her! She's one of my favorites. :)

So I'm just pushing through until school starts up again, I guess. Can't wait until reviews are over!!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Cohesiveness.

Degree Project sketches. I've redone my idea a thousands times, incorporating clowns into each idea (clowns being my theme), and I've come to the conclusion that I need to draw the way I want or this will never get past the starting line.

So now I have 3 concrete sketches, and I'm very pleased. It only took like, 5 months to be happy with this project, and the break - being away from the classroom atmosphere - has helped me rid myself of my insecurities regarding this project.

I'm using clowns in the way I normally would draw them - adding symbols and emotions and color to represent events and feelings I have about my life.

First, is the brother to my Bomb Clown Monster. He's a Dirigible Clown Monster. I drew him when I was afraid of not making it in the art world. He is a perfect.

Second is my Stilt Yolk Clown Monster. I drew him one day after work, when I was feeling strange. I always draw characters with stilts - I'm very insecure about my height. I wear tall shoes, have looked into stilt-walking classes, and the teetering/wobbling on shaky legs over eggshells thing just works for me. This drawing feels perfect, to me.

Last is the 800th edition of my Teacup Clown Monster. I had an epitome tonight. After 2 hours of drawing and not making anything good, I took a shower and cleared my head. As soon as I was getting ready to get out, my brain screamed, "THE CLOWN NEEDS TO BE MADE OUT OF ICE CREAM" and everything fell into place. I found my solution to this problem.

And now I feel that these three pieces look like they belong together, like they're part of a family. They're my Degree Project Clown Family. They've come a long way. I love them.

Friday, January 9, 2009

POW! OOF! SANDWICHED!


Tonight I had a painty party with Alex Carlson, one of the most talented MassArt kids I know. And with some suggestions from Alex and my faithful companion Jared, we came up with some AWESOME fanart. As seeable here. As purchasable here. On my etsy. :D A little fishy told me I should paint a Batman piece. I think it came out AMAZING. hahahaha . Alex really helped me today (and by helped I mean did half of the friggin' windows) at Blick with the mural, so afterwards we got Elios pizzas and energy drinks and decided to do some artworks.

For Valentine's Day, I drew a manatee dressed up as cupid. This will be on my etsy closer to Valentine's Day, and perhaps I'll print out some sweet Valentines with him on it.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bookie the Black Dog


Another small painting I did in my new "series" I guess. I just like making little paintings, and if they are small enough, my cat Momo will not destroy them too quickly.

He has 7 legs for good luck and a hideous face that he's very insecure about. He plays in radioactive snow with his favorite ball, Lucky Ball.


Original for sale at my etsy.

Prints of each character available in the future, possibly, if I do enough of these. I can't use neon colors anymore for these though because they don't reproduce well. :(


I have been INCREDIBLY active lately, regarding art and doing art and keeping up. I've started a million more projects, and I've been upkeeping all of my online shops/blogs/relations/funds very adamantly. I'm really proud of myself for being a grown-up on my own motivation. Jared has been a FANTASTIC help too, and he tells me I'm pretty and that my art is wonderful. So that helps too. :)

Side Note: I started the new windows at Blick today - I drew and painted all the linework for a 30-foot mural in less than two hours. I'm getting the hang of this. I also produced a new flier for our back-to-school sale that looks pretty sweet, that I may post later. Email me if you ever want to see the artwork I do for Blick (which is quite a lot).

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

New work up on Etsy!


EDIT: Mister Roosh bought my Demon painting!! Yay!

This is a small painting (about 4" x 10") I did last night in gouache. It was nice to paint at home, which is often impossible because of my mischievous cat, Momo. It was also nice to make something silly and fun and colorful that's outside of my other work. I hope you like it. The photo didn't make him as neon as I'd like, but in person it RULES.

Also, I've listed him on etsy! His name is Pinky the Pink Demon. He wants you to give him a home!

Check him out!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Set up an Etsy shop


Hey guys, hope you had a good new year! For mine, I got to spend lots of wonderful time with wonderful people, especially the ever-handsome Jared, so that was quite nice.

I set up an etsy shop with some prints of pieces I've done in the past and some original/drawings paintings. They're going cheap, so get them while you can!

While you're at it, don't forget to check out my ebay auctions ENDING IN TWO DAYS for some original illustrations/sketches.

Lots of busy things on the horizon! Starting up school in a couple of weeks and I have a final review that had gotten postponed due to a big storm. So I have to get all that organized. After reviews, I'll have a lot more artwork to sell and put up in shows. I've been working fairly steadily on my degree project (I have two more sketches) and I'm working on pieces for my first gallery show next semester.

Along with that, I've discovered a site that will allow me to translate images into pieces of acrylic plastic that I can punch out and make jewelry/charms/keychains with. That's very exciting! I've always wanted to have my own line of jewelry, and acrylic is YUMMY. <3


I emailed
Shin Tanaka for a blank template of his paper doll, so I'm going to design that, build that, and submit pictures to him for his site. I also bought a book I've been obsessed with for quite some time about package design that includes a dvd with templates in it! So I can hopefully make my own products and design the packages for them as well. I need to learn how to design packages, though! Haha.

So much busy-ness going on! I'm trying to pack as much independent/promotional work as I can before I'm buckled down with assignments again - I never have enough time to do the thousands and billions of things I want to do, haha.


PS! There are prints available of my Cooking Monster guy on my etsy! Go buy one!