Check out my new tumblr!

Since its a bit easier to post pictures and update my facebook page easier I've moved to tumblr! Here's the link!

Regine's NEW Tumblr!

Sketch and Finished Color- Debbie Downer

I challenged myself to draw something and color it in one day and here's what I did. I woke up feeling sort of down today, so drew and colored this:

I call her Debbie Downer, the name is a bit lame, but it sums up  how I felt at the time. I thought she was cute, so I colored her. Decided to go with a monochrome scheme after trying out a few normal human skin tones. Went with bright pink for the umbrella because I thought it would be a neat focal point, and it looks with all the blue.

I'm going to try and animate the rain a little on this one, I've seen pictures with little animated effects and thought it would be fun.

Here's the initial sketch of her.

Random Face Sketches

So while on my way to work I try to push myself to draw something. Lately I've been either practicing cartoony hands or making sketches of faces. I actually really like some of them and might go a bit further with them a little later:

Chipmunks and Preston Blair

In the process of creating new work for my portfolio I'm going back to basics in character design and animation. I'm studying Preston Blair's book again because I just really like his style and simple yet effective lesson in the book. I've been doing a lot of sketching when I have free time as well. I'll post those later, first I'll post my chipmunk design. 

This is based on Preston Blair's design for the cute and small animal designs. 

I'm really drawn to characters with round bodies, they are just more fun to draw. I'm still unsure on where to go with his tail though, I wanted to practice animating secondary action, so giving him a long tail like a squirrel would work. 

I went ahead a gave him some ink and paint, I really like how cute he turned out!

Finished Project- Owl

Ok, here's my finished work for the owl. I think he looks really nice, I might think about adding a background in the future, but I really liked the idea of him blending into the background a bit.

Here it is:

Owl work in progress

This is a new project I started on a while ago. I keep doing little bits of it when I have a little down time. My brother worked at the zoo for a short while and managed to take a few pictures of the animals while there. He asked if I could do something with one of them.

Here's my work in progress and the picture of the owl its based on:

Finished Work! Janelle Monae

So I finally got around to finishing this portrait of Janelle Monae. I've been working on this for a while and I finally got it to a point that I'm happy with it. I could probably work on this forever, but its time to move on to other projects now.

I'm working on new material for an updated version of my portfolio, doing a few illustrations as well as animations and character designs. I think it'll show more examples of the kind of work I can create.

Here's the picture:

Life Drawing: Animals

It has been a little crazy for me in the last few months. I got a new job and have been a little focused on that. During all that I did manage to get in some drawing practice:

More toon boom

I've done a little more work on my creature, I think it looks really neat. I also think I may have finally gotten the hang of working in toon boom, after getting my bearings its not as intimidating as it used to be. It is actually a lot easier for me to draw and color my characters. Animating in toon boom is great too, I'm going to play around with that part today and post what I did, but first here's the progress on my character.

I really like the coloring tools. I'm going to see if I can make him into a cut out, I've already made him in segmented pieces, so it would be neat if I could make him move.

Toon Boom Practice

So I'm learning toon boom now. I've downloaded the PLE version from their website, which is a version that lets you get familiar with program, but doesn't offer the licence. It lets you play around with it without spending all your money first.

So far I really like it. It offers a lot more drawing options than flash. I haven't gotten into the animation part quite yet, but I'm excited to use even more tools.

I'm doing a basic project first, which is a walk cycle. It'll give me a chance to use most of the tools I'd be working with without making it complicated. I designed a character based on one that I drew before:

Here's a sketch of the turnaround:

I took the sketch into Toon Boom and fixed a few of the errors that I saw. I think it looks pretty cute!

Today I'm going to look at a few tutorials for coloring tips and continue to work on a walk cycle that I started a few days ago.

Valentine's Finish Project

After working on it for a few days I finished it, complete with a cheesy line. I showed it to my boyfriend and he really liked it, it was really fun making it too.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Valentine's Day Project

My boyfriend and I have sort of a tradition of making gifts for each other for birthdays and valentine's day. This year I decided to do a valentine's day card with a character that he created. My boyfriend is an active D&D player, so I started from there:

This is a sketch of his character "Olenjack the Axe", he's a thief and all around bad ass. I started with sketches of faces first. Its the first real time I've made a male character in a while, so it was a bit of a challenge for me.

I finally settled on a look for him here:

Janelle WIP part 2

So I think I got the hair to look pretty neat so far, probably going to still mess around with it, but I think its time to coloring and tweaking the face. I already know I'm probably going to redo her nose and probably do something new to the eyes.

Here's my progress:

Janelle Monae WIP

Ok, here's some progress on my Janelle Monae picture. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I'm going to tackle her hair. It look alright, but still a lot to do. Decided to play around with gradients and clipping masks to get the look I want.

Bored at work

So when its slow at work I sometimes draw little doodles of customers that happen to be hanging around. Here's a few from today:

Primetime WIP

I've decided to get back to work getting better at animation and illustrations this year. I'm working on an animation project as well as this one.

I'm a really big fan of Janelle Monae, I went to see her in concert late last year and it was a blast. Her music inspires me so much, and I find myself drawing little pictures of her in my sketch book sometimes. This project started as doodles I drew while watching her video for "Primetime". 

Here's the sketches:

And here's the line art for the second on so far:

I'm going to color this work with a few new things that I've been trying to learn. I think it will turn out great.