Have an update!

Christmas must be around the corner! Here's an update!

Fell in love with the brother dynamic of Big Hero 6. And I think this is how Tadashi gets Hiro's attention/embarrasses the living daylights outta him. He'd probably sing it in the cafe, in the lab, out in public...

Happy Halloween!

"Hurry baaaack... Hurry baaaack... Be sure to bring your death certificate. If you should decide to join us, make final arrangements now. We're... DYING... to have you..."

Have a Happy Halloween, everyone!

Hatter Day for Inktober

It's 10/6 today. I couldn't resist drawing the Mad Hatter for Inktober.

Bonus feature! A couple of other Inktober sketches from the last few days!

Grim Grinning Ghosts

Another Comic Con piece! I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while; Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as the three hitchhiking ghosts of the Haunted Mansion.

Come visit me at Salt Lake Comic Con September 4-6, Booth Green 23!

Also, happy belated 45th birthday to the Haunted Mansion!

Aye, the Force is strong with this one.

 After many hours of work, I finally finished another piece for Salt Lake Comic Con this September! Introducing Jedi Merida! Because you know that deep down, you really wanted to see it. And just for fun, I posted my process.

SKETCHING. Nothing is more important than starting off with a sketch. I usually trace over my line work in photoshop to help preserve the original idea I had. 

After completing the basic line work, I started some basic painting, mainly to see where I want the color palette to go and what looks best. I also played with lighting.

After settling on a color palette, I refined the painting and added some more details, i.e. the family crest, blush on the face, etc. I also changed up my lighting and refined that. 

After some more tweaking and finally deciding that it was too much to paint a tartan design on a time crunch, the piece is completed!

Queen Elsa

I doodled this in my sketchbook a while ago and really liked it. It's Queen Elsa from the upcoming Disney Feature Animation film "Frozen." I thought that she'd look cool with a White Witch-esque crown.

Col-Erase

Elsa, Frozen copyright Disney

(Almost) Fanart Friday

Okay, I'm jumping the gun a little. But I'm also going out of town on Friday, so there.

Good ol' Figment from the Epcot attraction, Journey into the Imagination! I did this for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, and Figment is my grandma's favorite Disney character. 

A friend of mine let me borrow her Cardcaptor Sakura manga series, and I couldn't resist drawing Sakura. Boy, I watched that show and read that manga so much as a kid... I forgot how endearing and cute it is!

Holy cow, it was wonderful to pull out some traditional media. 

Prisma pencils. Copic markers

Figment belongs to Disney

Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP

Can it be...?

Why, YES, DEAR FRIENDS! IT IS!

I suppose you're wondering why it has been so long? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway...

See, there was this six-month internship in Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL, and I participated in it! My second internship at WDW, in fact, and I hope that it's not my last!

And then, 4 days after my internship ended in December, I went back to Utah and good ol' BYU.

Shortly thereafter, this wonderful new experience happened.

Tendinitis. In my right hand. My drawing hand. 

If you don't know what it feels like, here's a pretty accurate description. 

It pretty much made the rest of the semester fairly miserable, seeing as it hurt to draw, write, type, drive, play piano, do dishes, cook, pack lunches, eat, move my wrist, sleep, live etc. 

BUT! I survived long enough to give you these sketches that I made during my stay in Florida!

Normal people ride Space Mountain in Disney World. I draw pictures. THEN go riding on Space Mountain.

More tales and adventures to come! Hopefully with my wrist not feeling like it's going to fall off my arm!

On the Rooftops of London...

I watched "Mary Poppins" chimney sweep segment and parts of the Broadway show. This is what happened.

The Broadway version of "Step in Time" has some of the most amazing choreography I've ever seen, Broadway or otherwise. Plus, Bert gets all the prizes for tap-dancing and singing upside down! Don't believe me? Check it out here.

So, if you don't mind, I'll be putting some soot on my face and start leaping around rooftops singing "Chim Chim Cheree."

Brush Pen
"Mary Poppins" belongs to Disney

Name That Tune...

As any veteran of Disney Parks knows, every single "area" of the Parks has its own theme music. From ride queues, ride entrances, Main Street, shops, hotel lobbies, firework shows, atmospheric music in the Epcot pavilions... Disney cares quite a lot about the immersive and imaginative power of music.

One of my walking routes around the Walt Disney World Resorts takes me around several of these "music areas": the Disney Vacation Club Preview Center - which has its own music loop, Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa - which has its own music loop, the arcade - which has its own various blips and noises, and the pool - which has dance music.

The trip starts off pleasantly, with something like "When You Wish Upon A Star," or "Beauty and the Beast" playing lightly over the speakers.

 

Then, slowly but surely, a jazzy instrumental number akin to Gershwin and the early 1900's comes into the mix.

 

As the arcade comes into view, so does Dance Dance Revolution classics come audible to the ears.

 

And everyone else is having a blast at the pool.

 

And then, a highly recognizable Sherman Brothers tune builds to a climax as the pleasant "When You Wish Upon A Star" or "Beauty and the Beast" descrescendos to an end.

 

Guess which song will be stuck in my head for the remainder of the day?

And yet, what's the first playlist I go to on my iPod? The Disney one. Loyalty never wavers. And yes, I will quote along with Mickey while listening to "Fantasmic!".

ALL THE PHOTOSHOP

Speed Painting - Take 3

It's another one! This week's highlight: This lovely background from Disney's Pocahontas. As usual, the top is the original art, the bottom is my speedpaint.

................ I feel like with every speed painting I do, positioning and composition slowly deteriorates.............

Photoshop. 30 minutes. One brush. One layer. The usual.

Disney owns Pocahontas

Speedpaint - Take 2

Woohoo! I did another one! This time, Lion King concept art takes center stage as inspiration. Important artistic technique put to work today: Lighting. Important artistic technique learned: Don't be shy about contrast, especially between lights and darks. I realized, looking back on this, definitely could've made my darks darker and lights lighter for a more dramatic distinction between light and shadow. I love the contrast of stormy dark and sunshine bright in this piece; reminds me a lot of the storms we get here in Florida. Acacia trees have such artistically pleasing shapes! More contrast with horizontal and vertical lines and shapes than most Western trees.

I eyeballed most of the colors for this piece! I only color-picked my two first colors just so I could get within the piece's palette range.

Lion King belongs to Disney. Screenshot not mine.
Photoshop. One brush. One layer. TO RULE THEM ALL.