Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a merry merry Christmas!
Ahhh, the holidays. Lots of festivities, family, friends, and COOKIES! I did some pretty crazy amount of baking this year. The year of cookie experimenting with new recipes. Nothing better then watching the people you care for eating the cookies you bake.

Had to take a picture, they were so pretty. And yummy. You can find the recipes I used here:
Gingerbread Cookies
Russian Tea Cookies
Peppermint Chocolate Chip
Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Best part was having to sample all the cookies. My cookie quota this year has been filled. Good thing the new year is right around the corner.

One of the best parts about being an artist is the ability to make really personal handmade gifts.


One fun idea to add to gifts are hand painted ornaments :)  Paint images that make you think of the person and then top them by hooking the ornament to the wrapping.



My favorite handmade gift was for my little brother. We grew up playing Zelda so I decided to hand paint a wooden box with Zelda illustrations. Many days, many hours, were spent after work on this gift and I loved how it turned out (so did he, Yay!). Painted using acrylic and colored pencils.

Can't believe Christmas is over already. So much energy and time preparing for one day... I say it should at least be a three day event. Can't wait for the new year, I predict lots more art and more fun changes coming this way.

~Cheers~

Gobble, gobble, gobble...

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I certainly ate WAY to much this year, so worth it. Wanted to do a quick update of a few art pieces in the works. Plus, testing out drawing a few of my Dresidian characters, Navar and Raza.

In case people wonder why Navar doesn't get with the hot cambion minion, turns out he doesn't wear the right tie....

Work in progress piece. Raza is a fun strong female character. Knows what she wants, doesn't try to hide it or excuse it. "I am what I am. Took awhile to accept it myself but once I did, no turning back." Has a thing for men of the cloth and playing up human perception of demons (for laughs).

I swear I'll finish my Swan piece....

FUEL

and in the LAND of TEA, there was an addict
Who drank TEA all day long
And even wore TEA

Because there shall be non other then the greatness of TEA
And so, there were TEA birds and TEA clouds
And it was a good day



Did I mention I love Tea? Have you drank this stuff? It's amazing!
Quick 2 hour illustration created for Illustration Friday.

Theme: FUEL,

The Horrid Queen

The Horrid Queen poster by *DarkSunRose on deviantART

One day, as I was suppose to be doing work I had this sudden need to start writing. So I opened a text document and let it flow.

It took me two days and many edits but I finished the tale. I am still working on my Dresidian project, but I felt it was important to start with a smaller goal to work myself up towards bigger dreams. And hopefully I can improve my illustration towards story telling.

Here is the first, a poster of sorts, to get the ball rolling after completing the text work.

Look for "The Horrid Queen," because it is coming soon!

Madusa's lady

Turned to stone, Madusa's lady stands in stone. The birds her only witness.

Art update

 

Starting on a new piece for Record of Lodoss -dance-

The live stream can be viewed here. You can see how slow I work at times

...and make mistakes. Haha!

 Mean while, my Ursula piece is complete! 

Ursula by *DarkSunRose on deviantART

Lots of Updates

June has been a crazy month of lots of art (woohoo!).  The album art I created for The Grand St. Stompers is now available here. Take a moment and listen to the crazy talented Orleans-style swinging hot jazz band. My friend Brandon (who is also a talented musician AND multi-media artist) and I have been working on creating limited edition prints to be sent out very soon.


Working on my second fanart piece: The Dampiel and the Three Sisters while also figuring out livestreaming. Not much to see yet, but my livestreaming channel can be found at livestream.com/darksunrose. The first go around, I had a random movie playing and ridiculous Pandora music (with ads - gaah!) in the background (sorry about that!).

The first completed Fanart: Dark Side of the Moon (tribute piece to the Sailor Moon series), is up on my Deviantart account (along with a WIP that shows the progress of how it was created). THAT was pure pleasure in creating - rare time in which everything went smoothly.

And lastly (and what I am exited about) is a sketch showing my next art doll sculpture! Many years back I did a commission of a priestess. Her design stayed with me and now I'd like to revisit her and update the idea through sculpture:

~cheers~

VHD and SM fanart

Two fanarts in the works. I'm more into doing original work but after Fanime I was inspired to revisit two old anime series I was into. The first is from Vampire Hunter D, the scene with the three sisters. Oh yeah! And the last is from Sailor Moon, only I wanted her to look like she had more attitude. And yes, Venus has a whip. You know all those hearts they keep showing her with in the series? A cover up for her whip like tendencies.

Fanime 2011 ~end~

At my table ready to go.

Big thank you to everyone who stopped by and said hello. It was a whirlwind weekend of little sleep, no breakfast, and having a crazy amount of fun talking with people who love art and anime.

There were a lot of great costumes that passed by my table. Took as many Avatar cosplay pics as I could!

I meet and talked with the great Gorgonist while I was there. A super sweet person who was kind to talk to me about her latest children's book and give great advice. Check out her beautiful illustrations on her blog.




Talked with a friend from the past, Megamoth, an artist AND an instructor in the ways of comics, manga, and anime!

Even got to chat with awesome con goers that remembered me from past cons. One was sporting the King from my Queen and King button set!

My favorite moment came from a girl who spotted a warning sign placed within my portfolio. It indicated that the next pictures contained nudity. She liked it so much she purchased it!

Drew on a few people. Woohoo! 

 Such as trollface on a Vampire Hunter D cosplayer's hand.

Bob and Tsukasa

Want to do a shout out to Bob and Tsukasa who are a part of Cafe Verfuhren. These two were the kindest people I talked with during my time at Fanime. I wanted to take the time to SPAM their kindness and their Japanese “Butler” and “Dansou” cafe that pampers their guest to treats and cuteness.

A big hug to my table neighbors, who were kind to give me food and provided laughter when we had to sit for hours on end. Thank you Emily and Danny! Learned a lot this year and I look forward to attending more conventions in the future.

Vampire Hunter D fanart

~End~

ART DOLL Quarterly - Tulah

Some time after creating Tulah, I decided to be brave and send off photos to the magazine ART DOLL Quarterly. 

It has always been one of those magazines I loved to look through while in the bookstore, wanting to see all the inspirational artwork and stories from artist I admired. "These are the people who are doing what I want to do" I always thought.

For once, as I held a copy of the magazine, I looked for their submission policies and got to work with putting together what was needed. I had to be quick because it was literally the last week to send in work for consideration. I rush to the post office and realized I needed to do a rush delivery, having to spend $20+. I hesitated for a moment when I was standing to pay for it - but my mind kept going "But what if it does get in?" Don't stop!

Many months went by and I started to believe that it may not have been received in time. "At least I went for it!" I decided. So I pushed it in the back of my mind.

Today, as I was working from home, I heard the mail drop in and went to go see what came in. My heart stopped because it was a copy of ART DOLL with a note attached that said I was published.

I held that magazine and I did one serious Happy Dance.

It went from being the one who only browsed the artist magazines to finally being a part of it. It makes me want to shout to all artist that you shouldn't just keep "looking", decide and then go for it!

Look for Tulah in ART DOLL Quarterly
in the May/June/July issue!

Pleabein Photoshoot

A friend asked how I went about setting up the pictures to be taken for my sculpture. It is magical and complicated procedure requiring the aid of many squirrels and the blessing of a mermaid pajama elf.

Okay, maybe not that complicated.

Here is how I did a quick, easy, plebeian setup to take pictures of Tulah.
I worked with two ideas:

1. A white background
2. Natural light. Regular house lights tend to cast a yellowed or blue light.

Now, this is where I cheat: I own a pretty sweet Nikon camera.

And this is where I ask you to not laugh to hard at my setup :

Paper near a window! 

I know I will look back one day and laugh as well. But until then (using my serious face) I am exploring the wonders of simplicity and the usefulness of mundane objects transformed into new and insightful tools.

-Cheers & Smiles-

Doll Project - Arg!

Last week was full of a lot of joy and also many speed bumps. First with the joy! I was surprised last week to find an email from Deviantart telling me that someone has purchased a 3 month premium membership for my account.

What floored me was it was by an artist I had admired from afar for many years. The great Hector Sevilla (aka Elsevilla)! So a shout out for Hector, your whimsical linework I drool over, your character designs I adore, Elsevilla Esvilla so kind you are. Thank you -hug-

Bump bump bump...

I baked my first sculpture! Ahh, to wait was hard. Back tracking, if you notice I added 10mm glass eyes. Looking at the sculpture for about 10 minutes, I ripped out the work done previously and smacked them on (took forever to get them just right). After baking, it allowed me to build on top of the face.

The boots were sculpted as well (the most fun part of all, haha). Ahhhh, now I can't wait to get to the stage of sewing her outfit. So where were the speed bumps? Speed bump #1: Didn't secure her head very well so it kept drooping. Fixing it so many times I finally had the courage to rip it completely off and work on the under-structure to fix the source of the problem. Speed bump #2: Cracks after baking. Nooooooo! Thankfully I had Magic Smooth on hand to repair. That is where I am at currently, adding a second layer of Prosculpt over the repaired areas. Now to look into Genesis Paint and maybe eyelashes.

Phew! So much to learn from. In other news, new website discovery. This place gives a lot of food for thought about art and business: www.thestudiosource.com

Fresh cup of tea...

Make everything something special, something great. Even the little things and you may be amazed at how you feel about the world around you and yourself. I am lucky to have a wonderful father who always showed me the up side to a rainy day, spilled milk, and anything that inspires the "meh".

For 2010, my first steps have been to create a new blog and a new website. I am very close to completing the latter but for now I will enjoy what has finally been completed. Ze blog! Admire the banner, it took me 2 days to figure out what should go up there. Simplistic as it is, may I offend you with overly cute things in the future.

I am a freelance artist and this place will be my little corner to share artwork, inspiration, mistakes and hopefully how you can avoid them! Also, being a bit obsessed with tea there may be many a post dedicated to the subject matter.