Thinking never works without doing.

Alright, so I am not much of an artist. Let us just be honest about that. If I were more into what I do, it would probably be some pretty amazing stuff. (ego much?) Truth be told, I do not practice my art.
I sit. And I think about it instead. I think about what could be done, how it could be done. I write notes on what to do and how to do it. Ask myself questions in my writing about support, structure, significance. And then answer myself back on how to solve the problems.
Things are however, rarely executed.

It is among the many giant faults I have. I just think, not do. I have been THINKING about vector illustrations that deal with Grimm Fairytales. After actually reading the Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found there have been a bunch of illustration concepts for the Knight, the white queen, the red queen, the duchess.. so many characters that I never knew existed!
But it has been thoughts. And thumbnails.

Perhaps this is too much of a bitchy, bitch post. But really, the biggest question is: How do you sit down after planning everything and then go "Alright. Time to work on it." What makes you jump away from the planning stages?

In an attempt to figure this out, I went back to something that was for a school project last year. The ARR2009. IMHO, I fucked this magazine up hardcore. I did not care about it enough, was not dedicated to it enough and did not labor over it enough. But somehow through all of this crazy muck there was one thing that came out that I actually worked on and thought "This is a really neat concept."
Perhaps where it should fall under is 'great idea, poorly executed'. But whenever I look at it, it is just one of those things that makes me point at it and go. You know what? I did that shit. And it was fucking' awesome.
Of course in usual Jess fashion, I grabbed copies of all the native files. None of the fonts, and no outlined .pdf's so that I could.. you know. Actually PUT any of it into my portfolio. All I've got is a book. Battered and now slightly ruined by an over ambitious pup attempting to leap through the window to get to the neighborhood cat.

Anywho... the magazine is coming up again. I've enrolled in the class, but really hope someone else will take the helm as art director. I would love to just sit down and work on a purpose to all of these thumbnails. All of these untested designs. See most of them fail, but in a thousand failures, one would think probability would shine on one, right?

Trying to Get Goin'

So I haven't been drawing too much lately, which is a bad thing. Actually, I've been occupied with table tops and console RPG's. In fact, while I am writing this, my friends and I are doing a Harry Potter Marathon.

So my boyfriend has been doing a Serenity RPG for a couple months now. Right before leaving for AX, we finished the first 'book' of the adventure you could say. My character is a genius mechanic with a flare for explosives. At this point, everyone in the group is considered a Big Damn Hero. My girl here is the daughter of a Parliment Senator who is mysteriously high in the ranking. Murielle here was supposed to be a registered companion, and went through a majority of the training.



Portrait I drew of her from her Companion learning days. Unfortunately, towards the end of her learning, her curiousity in explosives turned deadly. The result was the explosion of an enitre wing of the companion school in Shinon where tea ceremony was taught and held. Murielle immediately fled, changed her name to Esther and had been a rogue mechanic until falling into the ship the Sierra. Her ability to speak to machines had brought on a keen interest to the little Sierra a Draongfly class ship.
Her father was none to pleased of any of this and promptly put a want out for her. Her story ended up playing a large role in the first book, as did the Captain's backstory and one of our fighters, Marcus. The next adventure get to focus on the other peopple in the crew, but 2 years after all of the incidents that brought us together in the first place.
Kevin is seriously the best DM I have ever had in a game.

Back to the arty thing.. It isn't much but the thing I am the most proud of is the textures that are used. They are all from my own original stock. This is something I have been doing my all to make giant and easy to find. Any have some good ideas of what to shoot for more stock textures? I know there are websites out there, but I think it adds a new level of drama when using your own, ya know?

Anime Expo The Returning.

Oooooooh boy.
So today was the final day at Anime Expo; the anime convention hold every 4th of July weekend in Los Angelos.

It was a fun convention, but very tiring and extremely expensive. I went down with my clay and some buttons. Very little sold in the way of figurines, but people could not get enough of the buttons! Especially the zodiac signs turned into button form.
Part of me still wants to get a larger button maker for those. So it is a 1~2" button.

The apple magnets went really well too. I am so happy that Aja told me about them and how to make them! On top of that, some people paid for them to be sent to them as stickers to boot. :3

And someone, for the first time EVER commissioned me for drawings. It was amazing and so much fun. Here is how one of the two turned out:

They had requested their own lolita dresses be turned into buttons for each of them. Aah.. I love the sweet loli look *^^*