Serenity & Other things

These last few months have been artistically interesting.
All five artworks were admitted and published in the American River Review 2010. It is exciting, and very humbling at the same time.

I am still involved in a Serenity RPG. It is a lot of fun, though I do miss my original character, Murielle. Kevin did take her, and turn her into an NPC...
Right now, most of us have super powers, and my latest character "Milli", is the doctor. She can heal from a distance and all that jazz.
....
Do you ever wonder how hard it is to really get your own style? I sure do. For years, I watched Japanese Anime, and analyzed video game character concepts. But in the end, I am discovering that my ingrained style is more.. Disney.. and 80s animated cartoons. I grew up in an environment where 80s and 90s cartoons were prevalent. The struggle to make the my artwork look like something Japanese people are raised in, is sort of a lie. I can take that which I have seen, absorb it, and make it into something that I feel is more my style; whatever that might actually be.
Oh well.

What is Art?

That's a broad question.
According to Dictionary.com, art has 16 different definitions.

I have this book that was printed in the 1900s, with quotes on various subjects by people time has generally forgotten. There are a couple of quotes from this book that get me thinking...

"The object of art is to crystallize emotion into thought, and then fix it in form." - Delsarte

"The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts.-Illusion on a ground of truth, that is the secret of fine art." - Joubert

"The artist ought never perpetuate a temporary expression...A masterpiece of art has, to the mine, a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant of a crystal." - Emerson

Is there really an answer as to what art is? And, more importantly, how can an artist define something they have done as artistic, when in their nature, it is to not define themselves?
Are any of us artists anymore?





Fan-Art for Hope from Marvel's X-men.
Created entirely in Photoshop, with my Wacom.
Took about 3 1/2~4 hours
Reference image found here

Maybe I can get into the swing of things, once I can define myself as an artist again.

The Vexel art movement does not exist.

So there is this 'art movemet/style' that people call vexel. If you ask for my opinion, it is a bit of hogwash in the digital media world. It ranks up there with putting DHTML on your web design qualifications.

vexel: a newly created word for an entirely pixel-based form of raster art that imitates the visual appearance of vector graphics technique. (definition courtesy of wikipedia)


The techniques you use, does not explain the art movement or style.

The person that artists can thank, or blame, would be Seth Woolley. You can find his explanation on his blog here.

Vexel is about creating raster images that look like vector.
Vector is a medium within the digital media world.
The digital Media world does not have itself defined as an art movement.
Therefore, vexel can not be an art movement.


PS - Above image's media is digital. The specific medium would be vector.

Totally not a Hiatus

I am totally not on haitus. I have, as usual, been working on things. Mostly Illustrator cuteness, logos and packaging design for the coming conventions.

But one of my more recent obsessions has been...sadly... Dragon Age: Origins. It is an obsession that can not be thwarted. At first, I just wanted to play the game. Then I found myself wanting to get all of the gamer points. Now. I just want to play through the game to find out the different endings... but always have a girl in order to be with that adorable little guy up there. Alistair.
The bastard prince, turned Grey Warden.

I do not fan girl over many things. But this guy, I have. It is the first guy fan-girl I've ever done. It is so new to me. And it is a bit dirty in that way. *sigh* Oh Alistair.


Anywho. I'll post more stuff later. Just hated leaving this empty. ;3;

SUMMER COME BACK!

This winter break has been a bit of a productive ordeal. Mostly, it has been a lot of researching on how to make certain charms, get them to look the way I want them too, and practicing in Illustrator some more.
This little guy is from a small series I did of popsicles. I looked up the original flavors for Kool-Aid and based my colors off of that. This one is Lemonade. What I am trying to do here, take popsicles, think of what dreams I would have as a popsicle, and the nightmares...then translate them into mini illustrations Here, the lemonade is radioactive and glowing. XD

Truth be told, theses are vectors made from sketches for clay charms (Lemonade one is a mixture of yellow and glow in the dark clay since it holds a level of transparency). Their original intent was to accommodate packaging. But I am thinking of making stickers out of them as well. Or maybe people will have in their package the charm and a stick of the charm as well. hmmmm.

Finals.. Ugh.

I am currently experiencing what so many students like to describe as Hell. In other words, it is semester finals.
This little 'gem' is still a bit of a work in progress, but it was part of a series which was submitted for my Intermediate Illustrator class. The objective was to create posters for children that convey fundamental ideals without the use of words; since the concept was that they are going to school, but just learning how to read.

This one is supposed to convey that reading is fun. I could go into the things that aren't working, but for now.. how about we just look at it as a really cute illustration. :3
Everything was done in Illustrator CS3.

There are a couple others in the series...a "wash your hands," and "Sharing is fun" poster. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully I will be able to work more in the program during the break. But for now, I will finish of my Mike's Hard, stare at some partially finished canvases, and figure out what the flip to do from there.

Eye for an Eye

Beware the eyes, as they watch.
Yeah, so I am sitting in my Illustrator class, a bit more than ancy.

Yeah, that is a bit unsettling, isn't it. It is my attempt at drawing an eye. Well.. The eye I was drawing was Kevin's. He has the interesting eyes, not me.
But all of the primary blues in the iris are way too dark. As you can probably tell, I am trying really, really hard to understand the gradient mesh tool. Since most things on there are done with the mesh tool, or at least a gradient. Oiy vey.

But, yeah. I am looking forward to Christmas, actually. I'll be making christmas card designs and ATTEMPTING to sell them on etsy. I dunno how well they will turn out. But I've got one from last year that uses Bodoni and it is adorable still. :3.