HAPPY 2016!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Thank you to everyone I have met and spoken to at conventions, online and other events in 2015 - here's to continuing in 2016! May it be full of creation and good discoveries.

A lot is coming up quickly... my husband Matthew Sparks will release two independent comics in the first half of the year, and hopefully in the next couple months we will be moving to a new home that better serves our love of creating comics and illustrations. It's going to be... INTERESTING, if nothing else. HERE WE GOOOOO ~

Every nice elf should have a nice squirrel pet, I think. :D (created in Manga Studio and Photoshop)

Inktober 2014

Well, this is pretty self-explanatory. :)

Elf

Amazing, me drawing an elf.  :)  

Ink and watercolor - I put this drawing in a frame on my convention tables, with commission prices in the top right section.  

If a dress like this existed, I would wear it most willingly. 

THE FLU

I don't have the flu (probably), but I do have other things I need to work on so no official Fanart Friday this week. Instead, here's a perfectly charming germ (drawn for a goofy story; Germ to be printed and handed out)

I hope you enjoy it muchly. Happy Friday!! :)

Fanart Friday: Link in the Forest Temple

Because the last Link was less-than-dignified, I decided to do a cool one (EDIT: The aforementioned less-than-dignified Link).  Legend of Zelda is such a fun thing to fall back on when getting back in the swing of things and toying with what to draw.  Does anyone else fall back on fanart when warming up?

At any rate, here's that Link!:

I've been resorting to a lot of greyscale/watercolor washes lately, and decided to go with just stark blacks on this one for a change.  granted, I colored it, so that might've cancelled out whatever my subconscious was trying to do.
And the sketch:

A reminder that you can find me on twitter and instagram!  I'm doing my best to slowly get my work out on a lot of platforms.  Oh internet, you have so many ways about you. The only one I haven't really tackled is tumblr.  Not sure what to think of that one, when I've already got a blog here.

Goodbye American Elf

Sigh.  Today's "Fanart Friday" isn't altogether cheerful - more bittersweet.  American Elf has been a part of my comics-reading life for 5 or 6 years now, and a great inspiration.  James Kochalka, if you happen to come around, Here's a message for you:

For fun, here's the sketch of James (also on Instagram):

Fun fact - the funky circle was made by drawing around a funny bowl I got for 50 cents at a thrift shop.  Useful thing.

ELF!

Here, a curvy elf lady for you! I like this curvy elf lady. I might have to draw her some more. curves are fun. ^___^

Adventures in screenprinting

Okay... If you've been around me in the past several weeks, you'll know that I've been screenprinting an entire book, like a good little masochist. now that I'm near the end of production on these things, I thought I'd share a bit about them!

The book is called "That's Amoure!" and is based on a true story. Elves included. So, I got the idea to screenprint the whole thing from Duncan last quarter - it's all his fault.

The biggest problem was getting this:


successfully onto a sheet of brown paper; two colors. my biggest trouble arose from just getting the two colors lined up. by the bye, a HUGE thank you to SCAD's working class studio for letting me use their pressure washer and exposure table!!

I went through a LOT of transparencies for the guts of this book, as you may well imagine.


And, having THIS happen to my scanner while I was printing;


courtesy of THIS silly creature:


complicated things, but TO NO AVAIL!!! I was able to complete enough good pages for 29 copies of the book. here are the covers, laid out to dry:

Just seeing that monster stack here is enough to make me proud, but once they're really finished...

Ah! it is a lovely feeling. Mind you, I still have 15 copies of this to board and bind, but they'll get done. hooray for PVA glue! and THANK YOU to my awesome roommate Renee for letting me borrow her drill!!!

And nooooooow my brain is shutting down. If you'd like to buy a copy of the book, shoot me an email at Laurendsparks (at) gmail (dot) com. woooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooozzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Artistic Manifesto

NOTE: I'm right-handed.
For Duncan's Mini-comics class.

I was born...

A UNICORN. A unicorn with a big butt! I found an old mix CD a friend made for me back in 2005 today, and it has the unicorns on it. they make me happy. :D

so, this random drawing is dedicated to the animation club at Walnut Hills HS. you guys were so fun!!! It's a usual thing for people to not know what I'm talking about, but it's unusual for them to actually be interested. YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!

SO, I've still got sketches from Webber's sketchbook to scan. I left Savannah before Thanksgiving, but it was only 5 days ago that I got to Cincinnati to stay (for the next month). Been rambling around Indianapolis and Chicago. I've gotten my computer set up now, but the pickle-scanner's still in it's box. that will be remedied this weekend.

I'm working for Plow Digital this month! I'm a temp/freelancer/intern to help them finish animation on one of their current projects - a Facebook game. I animated an awesome waterfall for it last week. My supervisor said "that's way cooler than what they're paying for". harhar.

ok peace out.

Diddlebop

after being visually assaulted by submissions for Sketchoholic by Chrystin, Matt, and Zane - pretty much all at the same time - I figured I should prooobably check it out. :D



sooo, this is for the shut up and draw contest of the day! time to put those typing and babysitting muscles to rest and get the drawing and animating ones up to scratch once more. .... looks like it may take a little while. :D

THOUGHT PROCESS ON THE DIDDLEBOP: when I read the word diddlebop I first thought of little bunny foo foo, bopping whatever on the head. (yeah, I was a Barney watcher about 18 years ago. looks like some of the other participants were too.) :) and then the word itself, diddlebop, eventually struck me as something that Dr. Seuss would make up. so, there you go.

Excuse me while I go put some aloe on my delightfully tomato-shade of sunburn on my left arm. yup. I'm back in Savannah!

fantastical creatures

I seem to have a thing for fairies lately....

Broughton Street invasion

iiiiiiiiit's FEBRUARY!

These are character and creature designs for a script by a fellow student...

fairy forays

some funny fairy faces. herher, say that fast. :) anyhow. these are cute cartoony ones. crazy hair probably inspired by Ponyo (GO SEE PONYO IT'S AWESOME).


more realistic... playing with character design...

and my favorite; channeling Charles Gibson and Fred Moore. huzzah. I really like this... might try to do a digital painting of it, if I have time... ha. time. ha.

Carlo Collodi is a fun name.

Quote of the day:
"You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.”
--Walt Disney (from this kinda cool LIFE photo essay)

A month or so ago I was with Matt at Half-Price Books, and picked up Carlo Collodi’s original Pinocchio story. And then I drew this.



(ink and marker over blue line)
YES. In the original story there are creepy ghost bunnies who come and wait for Pinocchio to die and take him away because he won’t drink the medicine the Blue Fairy makes for him. Pinocchio was a BRAT. But he’s not, by the end.

I still love the film Disney made of this story. It’s art! It’s BEAUTIFUL animation, and though they changed the story a lot, it still is a great story. *suppresses the urge to gush and geek out.*

However… in the film, Pinocchio is just naïve, rather than a real brat. (I know why Walt said to change it though - the original story treatment was very like the book. but, they way ol' puppet-head is at first, you kind of hate him, and Walt's all about the sympathetic characters.) Stromboli was called Fire-eater, and he wasn’t really that bad. Pinocchio himself was both the bad guy and the antagonist (at first). Somehow, with him being so awful at the beginning and slowly changing throughout the fairly long story, it’s got a bit more weight. Leastwise, that’s MY humble opinion.

Ta.

oh, rain

storming outside.

I haven't drawn fairies in a long time. when I first started REALLY drawing (early high school) it was mostly fantasy stuff, heavily inspired by lord of the rings and .hack and the legend of zelda and comics by CLAMP other random sources. then in college I tried aiming for a more realistic style, which I think I accomplished somewhat. now I'm devolving back into cartoon/stylization, though now the cartoons are much more informed. darn it, Mr. Stocker was right. :)

so here's some fairies. I don't know what they're looking at, but it must be somewhat... shocking. you tell me.

and this one, I think will be a moth fairy, all brown and gray. there were actually a couple moths in the kitchen this morning, and I got pictures of one that sat still on the ceiling (had to climb up on a chair) but the other one flew down around the floor and I think the cat ate it.

and for kicks, another of Blanche. woot.