Onion Boy 4

RRRRrrr!

Onion Boy from last week finally posted! It is a double one, twice the size for twice the drama. The flag is the worst flag yet, but that's because I can barely draw a straight line with a pencil, much less a mouse. I also think that the dog is getting more and more misproportioned, but oh well. I will be posting this week's O.B. tomorrow.

Week at a glance

This week was partially successful, and partially unsuccessful. I am registered for a figure and portrait painting class with Nahrin, and that starts in a week and a half thereabouts. The teacher is Sergio Sanchez, and I really liked his artwork when I went to a gallery showing of all the teachers' works. I am excited since I haven't taken an oil painting class yet, and instead of studying still life, I get to study the figure, which I love to paint/draw (even though it frustrates me at times.) Also, we got Nahrin's new computer fixed up. Now we're both set.

Now the unsuccessful bit. I didn't get much artwork done, just some sketching, and some more shading on my Dugin inspired piece. The character is almost done, and i need to work on a background. I think the character is going to be looking out a circular window onto an interesting landscape. But I'm not positive yet. I'll try out some options. As you can also tell, no onion boy is posted. I had a fight with my scanner, and it wasn't speaking to me! Luckily, Eric fixed it shortly before we headed down to Long Beach, and I should be able to post it Tuesday!

Exciting info:
Last day of work: Sunday
Anime Expo: Monday

I know that one person from megatokyo will be there. yay! we want to support them, their art is cool. I hope I get inspired by art there, and I come home and draw another cool picture!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO ALL!

Onion Boy 3

Oh!

As promised, I am now current with onion boy. I need to start on Scott's comissioned artwork, hoping to show him at least one of the character sketches this weekend. I need to get working on it because I'd like to submit the final peice to the Masters of Fantasy 2005 competition on Epilogue.net and the deadline is August 1st. I have one month to work on this! I'll need all that time to get it just right. There will be three characters, one on a throne, and two with weapons. and there will be candles and gothic architecture! and twisty trees, because they're fun to draw!

Onion Boy 2

Hmmph!

Finally posted! Very belated, but better late than never! The next one is inked, scanned and should be up sometime this afternoon! The color on the flag is better, the color on the dog is worse than the first one. I need to do more sketches of onion boy, so I'll be prepared after the first 11 go up (actually #11 isn't drawn yet). I think I have about 5 random o.b. sketches throughout my sketchbooks.

OB and general info update

Onion Boy #2 inked scanned and started coloring...should have it up tomorrow. OB 3 should be up on Thursday. I still have to finish painting the Snow Queen and work on the character sketches for Scott's comission. Also, I have to work on a tattoo commission for one of the guys at work.

The character sketch inspired by Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin looks fabulous. 50% shaded. This is one of the pieces I work on down in Long Beach over the weekends. Pencil only since I can't haul down my studio. I'll post it once I'm finished shading it. Hopefully there will be more like it to come and character creation will get easier. I pictured this one completely the night before I drew it...I even kept waking up Eric because my mind was too active and I couldn't rest well.

They finally posted the summer schedule for LAAFigArt. I'll be signing up for Glenn Vilppu's drawing class this summer. I'm so excited, because I love the way he draws and interprets the human form. And this will definitely prepare me for the two figure drawing classes next semester. I want to be able to do good quick sketches of people by next summer, because I want to keep a travel journal while in Japan. That means I need to draw a LOT more before then. And I need to practice drawing buildings as well!

Behind on Onion Boy

So my track record isn't the greatest at the moment, since it's only week 2 and i'm behind already, but I have a good excuse: JURY DUTY! I've been in jury duty for three days this week. Yesterday I worked on painting the snow queen drawing that I used for my final project in visual tech. The face is painted, and the first colors for the background and the clothes are laid in, but the hair and the snowflake have not been touched. I also went to Storyopolis last night and saw a great exhibition of the children's book art of Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin, a husband and wife team. It was fabulous and I enjoyed talking to the artists a lot. I'll be working on a costume design a la Dugina/Dugin which I have to complete by next tuesday.

Today, I'm in Long Beach as I will be for all the remaining Friday-Sunday's this summer, helping out as needed with Eric's mom's recovery. Onion Boy has been transfered to the watercolor paper, but hasn't been inked, scanned, or colored. Stay tune for 2 Onion Boy drawings next week, and hopefully I'll actually have a full week to work on my art.

In the books Path of Fate and Path of Honor, one of my favorite lines is "We are who we pretend to be." So I pretend to be an illustrator, and thus I shall become one. (Well, with a lot of hard work, too!)

Onion Boy 1

Introducing Onion Boy! Weekly updates to occur. Hand drawn and colored digitally, although I'm also creating a series of watercolors from the hand drawn versions. He started because I fell in love with some sketches of vegetable characters done by Amano, awesome anime artist.

Fledgling Flight

And so my website has begun! This site is to be a reflection of my dreams, thoughts, fears, and my climb towards my goal as a fantasy illustrator. I often feel like I'm taking baby steps to get where I'm going, but hopefully I shall look back one day and be proud of how far I've come. My goals this summer are to finish three projects and do a lot of sketching and practicing my oil painting, which I just started to learn this past semester. Also, I am planning on weekly posts of a little mini-comic of a sorts of my new doodling obsession: a very funny character called Onion Boy (and his little dog, too!).

I was very lucky when I moved out here that I had instant companionship through my husband's friends. Yet I've been missing close female friends for the longest time. I have finally found not only friendship, but shared dreams and goals, with Nahrin. Both of us want to become fantasy illustrators, and we're going to push each other to get better and improve our skills.

A note on the name of the website and blog. I have always loved birds of prey, and considered following in the footsteps of wonderful author Mercedes Lackey and becoming a Raptor rehabillitator (with Eric's allergies, that's no longer an option). The most common character name I use in games is Raven. Ironically, shortly after arriving in Cali, Scott dubbed me NightenGail in a story he was writing. In it I was a ranger, still one of my favorite characters to play, and a healer. Although I have no healing skills that I know of and, unlike my new namesake, I cannot sing for anything, the name (which I'm quite pleased with) stayed. In honor of my husband for all his love, in honor of scott for his friendship and the cool name, and in honor of our friends and family and their support, I present nightengailart.com.