"Dear Prudence" Portrait and the Sushi Monsters

"Dear Prudence"; 4"x6" Gouache on Watercolor Paper; 2014

Well, I can FINALLY cross a project off my to-do list this hiatus!  I've been feeling very lethargic and uninspired this break.  I think I probably burnt my self out last September when I took on 7 paintings in 8 weeks because I just can't get back into a groove yet this year.  I'd like to blame the infernal summer heat, but I know it's just me being tired, lazy and frustrated.  Anyway, as you can see I DID finally finish something!!

Work in Progress Collage compilation from my Instagram.

Prudence, the Boogervampire's sassy older sister, has been pretty popular since her first appearance in "Little Leota's Fortune Telling Kit for Beginners" back in May (April if you count the month it was completed but I couldn't show anyone).  I had people come up to me at Bats Day asking if I had anything with her in it.  "Dear Prudence" is just a quickish portrait and is meant to be a companion to the Portrait of the Boogervampire I did last year.  She'll be turned into a postcard and given out to repeat customers of the Crypt of DOOM and as a 'thank you for your purchase' item next month at ScareLA.

"Dear Prudence" Sketch composite

Fun little 'factoids' about "Dear Prudence", since I know that many of you are starting to notice I like to hide personal shout outs in my paintings.  First and, not so subtile, is the Easy Street Records poster behind Prudence's head.  I grew up in West Seattle and there is this super awesome record store there.  It opened in the early 90's and it was always a fantasy of mine to work there.  Sadly, I wound up only being able to get a job at Blockbuster Music and not Easy Street, but I loved going in there and purchasing bootleg Pearl Jam CD's and other grunge import singles.  I'm so happy that they're still there and hope to take my husband there one day when I'm able to go home for a visit.  Next, and not super personal but kind of funny, is the "Jedi" tag.  A few years back some kid in our neighborhood was running around tagging our building with that.  That's pretty much the tag as I remember it, although I think the 'i' may have been dotted with a heart.  The idea that this kid thought they were so bad ass and cool tagging "jedi" just kind of cracks me up because it just shows how 'nerd culture' is 'mainstream'.  Seriously, everyone that made fun of me for liking what I liked back in the day now likes what I like and think they're bad ass.  It's funny.  Last, a buddy of mine back home used to tag a lot in the late 90's, early 2000s.  He'd send me post cards when I was at college with tags on it.  I really enjoyed getting those post cards.  So now whenever I need to put a tag on something I always throw in one of his.

Sushi Monster Sketch.  It took a million years.  Just FYI.

Up next, starting/finishing some Sushi Monsters!!   I actually have been calling the Gremlins.

A very good family friend asked me to paint his wife and kids as monsters at a sushi bar chowing down.  I DON'T do commissions anymore and this is partly the reason why.  I've had to put the poor guy on the 'wait list' for a year now.  I feel terrible.  He's a very patient and understanding person, which is AWESOME, but my catholic guilt has been beating me up for the last 12 months.  I FINALLY got a break in the schedule and I'm getting things in gear.  I'm still assembling a color comp I'm happy with, so for now you get the sketch.  :)

2nd Annual Spook Show: Part 2

The Boogervampire and I thank everyone for turning out to the Spook Show and welcome any new followers!

The 2nd Annual Spook Show was this last weekend in La Mirada, CA.  I know I said I'd post teasers of items that were going to be there but work has been crazier than usual.  Hence the reason I shut the Etsy shop down until July.  And now I'm back into work, busy as ever.

I just wanted to do a super quick recap of the event.  Things went better than I anticipated.  Had the opportunity to meet up with some people I talk to every now and then online and get to know them a little better and meet a fellow artist I'd been admiring for a few years and speak with her for a while.  I also test marketed some new product ideas (cosmetics bags), sold a couple sets of the Valentine's and nearly sold all of my remaining 2014 calendars.  It was a great day and I got to sit right across from the hearse club so I got to look at pretty (and some not so pretty) hearses.

I feel horrible that I didn't get to talk to everyone that came by, especially Sarah from Pink Donuts Designs.  Both times she came by I was either helping someone or catching up with someone I hadn't seen in forever.  I hate disappointing people, or feeling like I may have, especially when it's someone you've never met in real life.  I hope she didn't think I was too rude.  :(

Anyway, here's a random assortment of me and my husband's Instagram pics of the event.  My episode deadline is rapidly approaching so I probably won't be able to post much until I turn my board in.  After I do I'll finally get back to my Sushi Monster painting.

My husband caught me during set up.  Of course I had to make a silly face. 

My fearless crew!!  Natasha Kline and the Hubby.  They are showing off all his fun purchases. 

Sold the neon heart bat to this lovely lady! 

Someone brought their replica of the Dragula out for the day.  The guy was nice enough to let Carlos take a pic in it.

I'll announce this here now though.  Remember how I mentioned I'm going to force myself to go out more this year?  Well, my "spring event" will be taking place in May!  I'll be returning to the Bats Day Black Market for 2014.  I won't be making any exclusive items this year because of my schedule but I will be participating in their Haunted Mansion Icons art show put on by Gallery999.  I've got something very subtile in mind for my piece and am pretty excited about it.  Unfortunately, as with last year's Gallery999 painting, I can't post any in progress or preview images until the day of the event.

For more information on the Bats Day event, history or the event, or activities for this year's event please feel free to visit www.batsday.net.

Boogervampire Mini-Painting and Another Monster Girl Challenge

"Snotty Big Slurp"; 4"x6" Gouache; 2013

 Greetings all!  It appears that I let half of July slip away from me again.  I recently looked back at all the posts from 2006 and back then I updated like CRAZY!!!  Now I'm lucky if I remember once a month.  So sad.  Of course, every time I start to think about how I'm not updating my blog I remind myself that it's been over a year since I've truly updated my website and then that makes me feel better about the blog.

Technically the 13th color comp was the charm.

Anyway.  So remember that "Boogervampire Mini-Painting" I did some color comps for a month or so ago?  I FINALLY had the opportunity to get back to that!  I wound up sitting down and doing one last color comp.  I truly wanted to do a purple and green background and although the other backgrounds were great and fun, at the end of the day it just wasn't what I wanted.  So I figured out how to make it work.  Why was I so dead set on the purple and green color scheme?  Well I'd like to use this little guy to help with website promotions (#1) and I've had a frame floating around the house for over a year that I wanted to use really bad.  And it was lime green.  Wanna see?

Lime green frames are always awesome.

July 1st, at 12:01am I closed the Crypt of DOOM down for an extended hiatus.  Since then I've already been up to all sorts of creepy cute fun stuff.  Specifically, I decided to take on the second round of the 30 Day Monster Girl Challenge.  I had so much fun back in February, that I wanted to see if I could challenge myself to do it again!

Day 1: Nymph

Day 2: Werewolf Girl

Day 3:  Yeti Girl

Day 4: Minotaur Girl

Day 6: Gorgon Girl

Day 6: Golum

Day 7: Selkie

Day 8: Witch

Day 9: Ghoul Girl

Day 10: Reaper Girl

Day 11: Banshee

Sadly, I've been slipping up on my dates, but I'm trying to get on track.  Here you'll find the first 11.  I'm hoping to catchup in the next week or so.  There have already been three I'd love to take the time to render digitally.  I'm thinking when I go on hiatus from my day job in August I might try teaching myself (or, take a class on) how to paint in photoshop.  As times change and evolve, I need to start adapting as well.  BUT, I'm never gonna stop painting for real.  I HAVE to disconnect from the computer or I'll go nuts.

So what's next?  Let's see. . . I still have to finish the wedding thank you card, which as I said previously, I'll spare you the in-progress shots of; trying to learn how to paint in photoshop; and possibly starting a Macross themed art piece for a Macross convention in August.

Gallery999 Haunted Mansion meets Star Wars Blog Dump

The fancy framed version with a lovely black velvet mat.

So, contractually I was forbidden from showing any progress photos or the finished piece until after the Bats Day Gallery999 opening/event.  Since today is officially the day AFTER the opening I can now post everything online.

"Help Us Master Gracey, You're Our Only Hope"; 5"x7" Gouache 

As my regular followers know, I LIVE for progress updates.  I do it because, honestly, I just get so excited as things start coming together I want to show it off like a little kid!  Every painting is an opportunity to learn something new and expand my knowledge and I skill base and now that I'm not in school anymore I LOVE learning!!  When I was working on South Park they called me "Ask Jeeves" cause I was the inferior search engine.  It may sound slightly insulting, but it just means I know a bunch of random stuff, but I don't know everything and some of the things I do now aren't always useful.  And you know what, that's totally fine with me, cause then I get the opportunity to learn MORE. . . but let's get back on target.  Here are a couple progress and detail shots of the new Haunted Mansion Meets Star Wars themed painting "Help Us Master Gracey, You're Our Only Hope".

Halfway there!  Getting a nice glow on the tombstones.

The Bride's Glowing heart.  Master Gracey's tombstone was slightly altered the next evening so she would "pop" a little more.

For this piece I really wanted to try doing a limited color pallet so I could try to work on light sources.  Granted this has a few errors, but overall it turned out pretty damn good for trying something new!

Some things/problems I stumbled across during this painting that I hadn't encountered before:

Thumbnail.

Once again, too many ideas!  As with most people my age, I'm a huge nut for the Original Trilogy.  My favorite has always been Return of the Jedi because that's the one I remember my Parents taking me to the Drive In to see.  I will forever have the final battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker embedded in my memory.

Both the Haunted Mansion and the Star Wars Films are so iconic, so I really had to ask myself a million questions when I was trying to narrow my subject matter down.  Questions like: "Yeah that's funny, but how many other people are going to have the same idea?"  I admit, I did have the had the typical "Yoda, ObiWan and Anakin as the Hitch Hiking Ghosts" idea.  Also had a variant where it was a Gammorean Guard, Bib Fortuna and Salacious Crumb as the Hitch Hiking Ghosts, but the problem with those ideas is that they're very iconic and you can BET that everyone had the same idea in their heads.  Another idea that I knew would be overused by the other artists was the stretching portraits when it comes to Haunted Mansion tribute artwork.  I also had a few funny ideas for those too, but at the end of the day I really wanted to do something that didn't involve a pin up or Slave Leia or something I'd seen a million other people do already.  After a month of throwing ideas around in my head I decided to just settle on R2-D2 delivering Master Gracey a message from the 80's/90's version of the Attic Bride in the original Haunted Mansion's lost cemetery.

Bride and R2-D2 sketch (before the redraft).

Background layer of the first draft of the Lost Cemetery.

Second problem encountered: Horizon lines truly can make or break your composition's "story".

My thumbnail had such life and this 'feel' to it that was just perfect.  When I started my inital sketch I lowered the horizon line because I thought putting R2 and the Bride center stage, unobstructed would tell a better story.  WRONG, totally KILLED the feeling I was going for.  I wanted the viewer to feel like they were looking in on some private moment, not much different than when a viewer first sees Princess Leia and R2's interaction on the Alderranian Cruiser in the first Star Wars film.  You need to feel that separation.  As you can see in the first sketch, you were right up in their faces with them, and it just didn't feel the same.  Not to mention, R2 looked like he was towering over the observer, which is just silly.  After completely redrawing my sketch, using a blown up version of my thumbnail, things felt MUCH better.  And then it was off to color comps.

Digital composite and crop of corrected original sketch.

Third thing I learned on this painting:  the better the color comp, the easier the completion of the final piece.  I invested more time in my color comp, and I admit, it's still rough, but since I spent more time on it the thought did run thru my head of just turning the comp in.  So glad I didn't.

Photoshop color comp.

So, yeah, R2-D2 in the Lost Cemetery (which you can learn more about here if you're interested) with the tribute stones and the Round Eyed Attic Bride (which you can read more about here as well).  Having said that, I'd sincerely like to thank HGB2 over at the blog Long-Forgotten for all the wonderful posts he writes analyzing the different aspects of the Haunted Mansions and their histories.  A sincerely fascinating dissection of the ride.

Although the artwork was only on display May 3rd and 4th as part of the Bats Day Weekend festivities, artwork will be viewable on the Gallery999 Facebook page.

30 Day Monster Girl Challenge: Part 3

Day 14: Dullahan (Basically a headless horseman type thing)

So here it is, week 3 and 17 monsters down.  Kind of exciting to be halfway at this point.

Day 12: Zombie (If I had to pick a zombie I like it would be slow and falling apart.)

Day 16: Ghost

Random fun 'fact' for this week.  Day 11 was the "True Monster" day.  To the best of my knowledge (and research) it was supposed to be made up and what we thought was truly a monster.  I was a little surprised that a Cthulhu type monster wasn't on the list so mine kinda went down that path.  Here's exactly what I was thinking in pictogram form:

Cthulhu + Sandworm +Mutant Kau I designed when I was at Neopets equal True Monster Girl

Day 11: True Monster

Same as last week, all monster girls are in no particular order.

Day 13: Insect Girl (a literal human centipede who also is obsessed with the 60's)

Day 15: Reptile Girl (Chameleons Rock!!  Especially shy ones.)

Day 17: Robot Girl (Her tire is like a little hand warmer/muff thing.)

Hopefully next week I'll have time to do a colored one.  I'm not going to hold my breath though.  I started a cleaned up vector version of the true monster and I'll be surprised if I can finish it before June.

30 Day Monster Girl Challenge: Part 2

Day 10: Succubus
Do you have any idea how hard it is to draw a child succubus with out making it look like pedophile fodder?

So, I managed to make it thru my first full week.  There's something refreshing about drawing something I enjoy at night before I go to sleep.  Sadly, it doesn't help me sleep well though.

Day 8: Octomaid
Octomaid was fun, her head reminded me of Queen Elizabeth I

Day 6: Spider Girl
Spider girl is quite intent on learning to Knit.

Day 4: Naga
Hadn't heard of a Naga before this exercise.  The Wiki said that Naga in Hindi culture were usually cobras.  Although the male king cobra is the one with the hood, I really wanted to put one on my little naga girl.

Day 7: Plant Girl
I tried busting out my Tria markers for this.  It's been way too long and I was a heck of a lot rustier than I thought I'd be.

Day 5: Mermaid
Top mermaid was second and I wanted to try an angler fish inspired mermaid.  I admit I'm happier with the first, but glad I tried the second.

Day 9: Demon
Little Demon girls love AC/DC.

What you see here is this week's batch.  Only bummer about this week's batch is that I didn't have time to do a really developed color illustration on the computer.  I did get to look up a new monster I hadn't heard of yet AND I had the pleasure of trying to figure out how to make a 'cute' and pedophile detracting succubus (I'm sure this one's still probably sexy enough to attract some but I'll leave the sexually exploitative 'tween drawings to everyone else).

This last weekend I took part in a beginning puppet construction workshop put on by Lori Lane from Chatterbox Puppets.  Although I took a puppet building and performance class when I was in college, I figured it would be good to brush up on things and see how someone else approaches the idea.  I had a ton of fun and realized I had absolutely no idea what I was doing before.  You can see Todd (or Toddy Wiseass) the Anti-Lovebug below.  My husband and I did make a puppet video torturing our cat Loki with Todd but . . . I'm probably not going to post it any time soon.  Don't worry, it's not anything kinky or strange.  Just your typical "torture the pet" video.  Only with a puppet.

Todd the Anti-Lovebug made at the Chatterbox Puppets beginning puppet construction workshop.

So, big announcement for me.  I'm delving into the of realms of booth running.  I'm going to try to keep my agoraphobia in check and run my first physical booth at a convention/craft fair type experience this Bats Day Weekend (May 3rd-5th, 2013, see their Website for more details).  Since I will be having at least one new painting in the Gallery999 art show that same weekend (also part of the festivities) I figured it would only be logical to also have a booth.  More Bat's Day posts in the future, so be on the look out.

Next week: 30 Day Monster Girl Challenge Part 3