RETAILiation

I just finished the first draft of my "Pilot" episode, so I guess I'm going through with this...RETAILiation is going to be my next project.  Yes, I know I've had several false starts with "Rainforest Roomies" and "Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends" (the latter of which I still haven't posted anything on), but this one should be for realsies.  I actually could see this as being my thesis project, so I know there will be a lot of changes along the way over the next year or so.  Basically, the concept of RETAILiation is that three high school friends are all sharing an apartment and working together at a mall.  I'd like to highlight the fact that, just because they have a mediocre retail job, doesn't mean they lead a mediocre life.  I'm thinking of posting this as a series of comic books first, to get my feet wet, and then create the animatic for my thesis.  Of course, that largely depends on what The School decides upon.  I will also be continuing work on the other two concepts mentioned above.  Story.  Story.  Story.

In any case, here's a sketch of the three main characters, (from left to right) Chad, Mellie, and Greg:

More to follow...

Happy Birthday, Mother!

Today is my Mother's birthday.  She is of an undisclosed age, and I had the time this year to make her a card (A LoweQuality Card, as it were). This is something I've done before, where I paint some flower arrangement, then scan it and turn it into a card with text from Photoshop.  Here's the watercolor/colored pencil illustration I did for it:

So she'll get the card and can have the original illustration for framing (because mothers love those sorts of things).

All Hands on Deck

So today, I made a specific attempt to fill an entire page of my sketchbook with nothing but hand drawings.    And I succeeded!  Below are the results:

The hands were all (or at least mostly) drawn originally by the great Milt Kahl, taken from posted scans on this fantastic blog: The Art Center.  Hands can be so difficult to draw even when you take your time, but when you're trying to churn out some storyboards, you really need to have simplified hand shapes committed to memory.

Practice, practice, practice...