SENIOR THESIS PROJECT

my senior thesis project is complete and fully viewable on my portfolio site, StrangeTeeth! it took me a whole semester of endless nights, many tears and very little sleep, so i amever so pleased that it turned out how it did. please enjoy!

louie the hammer and dolores riesling

recently, my friends, roomates, and myself have started getting together on a night during the week; we light a bunch of candles, turn off all the lights, play some creepy music and sit down for a good ol' smattering of lovecraftian creepyness with the tabletop role-playing game of Call of Cthulu. the whole point is kind of the inverse of typical D&D style games-- instead of cultivating the storyline for a band of characters, in CoC, the whole point (and inevitable outcome) is the eventual death and/or loss of sanity of the character (which usually ends up with death anyway.) regardless of this, we've all lovingly crafted our characters and have actually managed to survive two runs thus far without anyone dying, which apparently is rather unheard of and balls lucky. we'll all sit together, huddled around our character sheets, often terrified of what's truly lurking in the loamy earth of the creepy basement, and end up getting the pants scared off of us.

it is delicious.

in any case, the sketch below depicts my character, Louie "The Hammer" Steele, and ex-pugilist turned rum-runner (the game takes place in the 1920's) He's all brawn, might and fury, towering over the other characters and his only real skills being his immense strength and hand-tohand combat skills. He's not terribly great as a detective, but when physical work need be done, he is damn handy when he's handy. The other character is my roomate's: Miss Dolores Riesling, a museum curator with interest in the occult. (Louie really only likes three things: baseball, whiskey, and Dolores.) I make no attempt to hide the fact that i'll be very, very sad when our dear little characters finally bite the bullet or go mad and kill themselves. such is the life of an investigator in the realm of Lovecraft!

limmericks

one of my favorite things to do spur-of-the-moment and as fast as i can is making up limmericks. i'm a little better at it when i've had a drink or two to be honest, but here are some sketches with two of my favorites within the past few months.

SILAS SEES SACRED THINGS

the original sketch that led to the ideation and creation of my thesis project, a collection of microstories and tiny prose/poems revolving around our relationship with the natural world. silas is the main character of my children's book manuscript and has since leaked out into the rest of my work. his story in my thesis takes place after his storybook adventure has ended, and we observe him observed all that is good and holy in the world, thus titled, "Silas Sees Sacred Things."

THINGS I DO BUT NEVER SHOW

when i break down the categories of things that i draw, it's about half and half between silly squishy things and ambitious story-led illustrationy sketches. usually, the content of those ambitious drawings is the never-ending, intensely complex conceptual playground that is the grand story and personal cosmology in my head. anyone who knows me well enough knows a few things about this strange universe, but most well-known i'd say is the character of the River God, who appears frequently in much of my work. A serpentine, fishy creature with reeds and stones and sticks making up his visage, he's actually the most jovial and least aggressive of all the natural tutelary spirits, (as compared to others) often engaging in playful activities and recognizing the value and potential of human strength and integrity. Of all the gods, he takes the firm stance that the salvation of the natural world relies not only on the harmony of nature and man, but the the alliance and unity of the two.

the sketchy comic below shows an interlude between the river god and another re-occuring character, who for the moment will be known as his name outside the story, the merchant. never in my life have i delved this in-depth (while barely scratching the surface) with this universe in such a public and viewable manner, so i hope you enjoy it!

SOME OLDISH STUFF

from winter and beyond. a cold weather sketch, the inital character design for a sculpted character, Margot (with a tiny doodle of myself) and the outcome of my first time using a Cintiq (we're on better terms now.) the photo shows how Margot's design changed when finished!

SOME NEWISH STUFF

two styles i love working and have been trying to make my own: lineless, color shape cartoon minimalism, and subtractive ink imitations (the first one was a wee present for my sister Fiorella and her fiance, Kosuke, and the second was the need to draw something pretty)

RESURRECTION

i have finally decided to try and stop being so picky about sharing any of my sketches and works on the terrifying internets, so i this is me coming out of comfortable hobbit hole and finally learning to put things on display. the sketchblog will LIVE! (i'll try not to do too many double posts from facebook, but at least for the beginning, no guarantees...)

annnd with that, here's the first batch!

fox and raccoon sketches from concept and production project, grumpy looking painterly face, many many tiny tuckers, and a collage of the most recent blog illustrations for the GR-based band Simien the Whale!