Lamia final sketch

Here is my final sketch for Lamia the baby eating half serpent woman that hangs out by the rocky coasts by day and seeks out babies by night. She is a sort of Boogyman in Greek culture. Zeus had an affair with her (nothing new) and Hera punished her by making by making her eat her own children and turned her into a creature with a serpent lower half with an insatiable hunger for babies...creepy.

Ruby in the Smoke

Here is some finished work from my independent study with Kelly. We are working on black and white chapter illustrations for young adult books. The is one of 3 pieces I'm working on for Ruby in the Smoke, the Sally Lockheart series. I'm working on my character style and still painting in watercolor.

Finished my next Thesis illustration. Theseus and the Minotaur. I wanted to keep with the same format at Pandora to continue the series in a vignette. I wanted originally to show the path to the center of the labyrinth with a red string, but during the class critique my fellow thesis mates suggested I see what it looked like finished without the string and ad it later in photoshop. I'm still on the fence a bit. I think I like it without, but I'm posting it both ways to let you be the judge.

Fortune Cookie Project

Here is my finished Fortune Cookie project, for illustration seminar. We each got a cookie in class and had to do an illustration based off of the fortune inside. My fortune was "If you have no critics you'll likely have no success". I decided to keep with my theme from thesis so I could use this as another piece for my show. I wanted to have a bit of fun with the idea and play with how I could show the fortune. So I went with Leonidas and the battle of Thermopylae. I wanted to use a more muted pallet this time and colors I normally don't use. I made the silhouette of the thumbs down subtle so it would take the viewer a few seconds to notice it. I didn't want it to be an obvious photo real hand.

Pandora Finish

I finished Pandora. I added the red to the serpent and some of the yellows as well, I also added some blue to Pandoras dress which helped the tie in the over all color of the piece. I also rendered her hands and arms to a more finished level. I'm pretty happy with it, I want to break my old habits and stop now so I don't over render.

Final sketch

I feel like I have locked down a design that really pleases me. I decided to do a vignette with this design to try something I have never really tried before. I wanted to keep the elongated squared off shape so I made the serpents create the boarder for me. I wanted to keep with the blocky design of the serpents and keep them in the style of the old red figure from the pottery. When I paint them I will keep them soft and set back, and have them start off a bit smokey as they emerge from the box, but they will not become fully solid at the head.

pandora's Box Illustration

My first Thesis illustration will be of the story of Pandora's Box I'm going to do this one in full color, but my figures will be a more evolved version of the style I used in my Greek red figure pieces. I like how the character is working with my style, but I'm still trying to figure out the environment. I was thinking of representing the evil that comes out of the box in the form of serpents similar to how they were drawn on greek pottery. This is a rough sketch so far, I'm still working on the composition. Any feed back will be helpful.

Wild West Show

Here is my Wild West Show series. I decided to take 3 of my illustration teachers and make wanted posters out of them. I wanted to make them into fun characters that had an old west style nick name and crimes that fit their personality. I did them all in watercolor on paper with a limited pallet of just 3 colors to give them that old style look. I also did all the text by hand in watercolor. I did this so when they hang in the show everyone can see the original paintings, I really didn't want to scan them and have to do the type in photoshop and then spend endless hours trying to get the perfect printout. It was more work, but I really enjoy the handmade look to the finish and how the letter fade on some words. I think it was worth it.