I laugh, or you die.

For this months theme week I'm drawing salacious crumb, rather than try to explain it all, I can leave you with the wookipedia entry below. I was hoping to have a lot more fun with him but because of time I ended up just quickly drawing this. It's just a regular brush in Photoshop, with the flats.

Salacious B. Crumb was a Kowakian monkey-lizard employed as a court jester for Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Known for his shrill laugh and sadistic sense of humor, Crumb started out as little more than vermin on Kwenn Space Station during the days of theGalactic Republic, eventually escaping onto a ship belonging to Jabba the Hutt. When Jabba found Crumb eating from his food bowl, he attempted to digest him, though the Kowakian monkey-lizard escaped, covering Jabba's two henchmen with goo in the process. Jabba found this extremely amusing, and offered Crumb a role as his court jester; if Salacious managed to amuse Jabba at least once a day, he would be allowed to eat and drink as much as he wished. However, if he failed to do so, he would be killed. For over a dozen years he lived in Jabba's Palace, playing many tricks and practical jokes on some of the palace's regulars, and becoming one of the most disliked members of Jabba's court. He died in 4 ABY, whenJabba's sail barge exploded over the Great Pit of Carkoon.

To Infinity and Beyond

Sorry, that is the wrong space reference. This week we are giving ourselves the challenge of creating something Star Wars related. I used this chance to challenge myself to create something 100% digital, and so the Death Star was born (pardon the pun).

Playing around with different textures, and what started off life as a Malteser, actually looks not too bad. If you know me, then you know I try to stay away from digital art, mostly because it is the area of art where I am least  experienced, and to be honest, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. But I powered through 3 Photoshop shut downs, and finally finished something that looks a bit like what was intended.

The original intention of painting something ended in disaster, when I discovered that a certain sibling of mine, who is sitting her Standard Grades, commandeered most of my paints. So this idea of a digital piece didn't come around as organically as I make out. Ah well, the end result is what matters.

My Week

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

So yea been a very busy week reflecting on what has been happening through out

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour..."

Ok so a bit of a quick update this week, me and my friend Myles were chatting away on Saturday morning, and I was talking about how I didn't want to be stuck in one style, for example I always start with the same shapes for faces and heads. And I've been thinking about it since. My problem seems to be that there is no thought to my characters personality, who they are? what they do?

So I end up just starting, not really thinking about height, weight, are they scary? goofy? moody? nerdy? These are all things that eventually I want the drawing to portray before someones even read a word. big friendly eyes, little beady eyes, messy thick eye brows or tidy plucked ones; they all make a difference.

So earlier today I figured I'd try and change it up a bit, even if it meant things looked goofy so here is the first three I did. I deliberately kept them quick so I didn't have a chance to go back and change them or think too hard about it.

Anyways I want to end this before I get too in depth, it's maybe a topic I'll cover another time, but next time you doodle someone think about who they are and try to exaggerate the bits that show that.

Who we are. What we do.

Unsure if I like this new layout, Blogger. *stares at webpage* But I can see that Google are trying hard to fit it in with the Google+ interface.  It seems to run things a lot smoother though, which is something that will always be great in my book.

Anyways, back to business. This weeks post is another mix-up. It is a really, really simple edit. It is more the picture which makes this, in my opinion, rather than the actual editing. It is Tim Armstrong, from punk band Rancid. It is from the band's gig at the Glasgow Barrowlands in November 2008. I managed to get a photopass and borrow a friends' DSLR Sony camera, so I got some awesome pictures. Rancid are my ultimate band, and I adore them so much. They have witnessed my fan-obsessiveness to the max, and I am dubbed as 'crazy Scotch girl'.

The band themselves are brilliant. I have followed tours and have bought them dinner. This band are one of the biggest selling, most popular punk bands of a generation, and I feel privileged to have grown up watching them. They a fantastic live band, which is something that I think every band should be. Yeah make good albums, but you NEED to put on a great show. And after 28 Rancid gigs, I haven't seen a bad one. But then, I am bias.

And when I am bored, as I have already mentioned, I sometimes wonder aimlessly into the realms of Photoshop. And when I say aimlessly, I mean it. Things like this just happen.

From the Vault

Again we become brave to dive into the vault that is my pc folders to find old sample of work that were done in the past.
So my brain has been running low on creativty this week not the funnest of things to have go on. I thought I would put this up as it is one of the more interesting ones that I have done. I have tried a few things in photoshop to this but they never really work as it already look fine as it is just being shaded in with pencil. Yea not much to say about this is was done a few years back now.

Hopefully I have more of a creative week after I figure out where my brain ran off to..... too many dark places for it to hide...... well hope you have a good weekend and yea we'll see if I have that creative spark back.

Q Fan Art

Q 's a character in Street Fighter III: Third Strike He's one of my favorites to draw, and play as. His background is a mystery, don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy, all we know is that he is around whenever a major disaster happens. I'm not a fan, it feels like the idea guy took a half day...

Co-worker: "Hey guys? I, uh, think we need a boss."
Idea Guy: "What? another one? Just chuck something in we'll make it up later."
Co-worker: "Is that a good idea? I mean won't they notice?"
Idea Guy: "Nah, they love that stuff, just say he has something to do with disasters, they'll do the rest."

It's true Street Fighter players love to figure out what parts are cannon, and what characters back stories are, but do you know what they like more? when the continuity isn't screwed over whenever capcom feels like it. *cough* Charlie *cough*

Skullduggery

Trying to show a bit of a different take to the last few edits I have uploaded. A lot of the editing I do to my artwork tends to completely distort it. This is one of my favourite things I have ever draw. It is an anatomically correct skull, which has had the colouring changed in photoshop.

What I like about it, is the fact that despite the slight editing, you can still tell it is hand-drawn. Like so many of my creations, the effect is actually accidental. I was playing around with different colourings and looks, and this happened. And it was a cool accident. But, just don't ask me to repeat it, I have no idea of the exact process.

That is a good thing about art. The majority of it is experimentation. So the textures and colours you make, are discoveries of trial and error. Which is what makes art so exciting. And it is also why it is one of my biggest passions.

It's been a long week

Well what can I say, it has been a long week for me as I am now starting uni again so not been ale to do something for this week. I was working on the idea of doing some drawings and character type stuff but haven't had a chance to do that. But I still manged to find some thing that was created a few weeks back that I haven't shown :) . This was created in Illustrator and as you can see it is just really the same monster repeated over again but this was a fun one that was done. Originally done to be a wacky desktop image it only lasted for a couple of days. My PC didn't agree with it having a trail following any thing that was opened when i moved it to someplace else was not fun. But this image is!

Alchemy it's like... alchemy, for alchemists?

I play D&D on Monday, and this Monday I started a new campaign as my first ever alchemist. Normally a little eccentric alchemists tend to  create potions and bombs, always tinkering with new formulas, my characters mind has maybe deteriorated more than most and after a few too many bad ones his common sense could be better, but don't get me wrong, the mans still a genius.

Now back on track, I couldn't help but sketch him, I even ended up inventing a wee gizmo for him, it keeps track of the daily formulas. The first Image, is a really quick colouring just so that I could jot down what's in my head. The second image was drawn earlier today at work, the glass vials he has are bombs, he mixes them and throws them to do damage and the third image, that's just a doodad. 

Sue Smells a Journey

Today I am showing a piece of abstract art, which is taken from something I uploaded to Deviant Art, although I am unsure this is going to work. I am currently using one of the PCs at work to post this. If it doesn't work, I'll fix it when I get home tonight.

It is supposed to representing smell and journey. I put these two things together because I feel that they are interlinked. Mostly because if you smell something, it can take you on a journey. Even if it is an emotional one, where it takes you back to a period of your life.

Again this is a mixed media piece. With patterns originally painted with arcylics, and then distorted using photoshop. As I have said previously, this is the kind of art I seem most happy with. Because it has the traditional aspects, of which I love, mixed with the fact that the meaning is whatever the viewer deciphers it to be. And to me, that is the magical thing about art.

walk about

hi there its me again. this week I thought of trying something different with taking photos form a walk I had this week with sue, and well here are the pics.

 Ok so this one was not from this weeks walk this was from round new year when still had the snow disappearing but its still a nice shot.

 ok these next are almost the same but I really like this area the sound of the running water and the waterfall have a nice relaxing feel for me.

 This was me trying to take a interesting picture and show the flow of the water but I don't think it worked that well but again its a different shot from the others

And here we are to the last one a close up of the water fall it self. The Dunfermline park is a awesome place to go to for relaxing at the end of the week.