Progress!

Howdy! And welcome to the post in which I give you some very vague previews and slightly-related character sketches! Above you will find Dr. Can't-be-bothered-to-look-up-his-first-name-right-now Freeborn... Mostly. The colored one, while more entertaining, is not the final version that I'll be going with. However, the floating heads on the second image ARE! Huzzah! Freeborn is the hero of our... unique... tale. Well, I wouldn't really call him a 'hero' so much as 'a guy the story follows.' Nonetheless, he's a rather interesting chap! How is he interesting? Well, he is in no way related to an octopus, for one. And he has not been reported as wearing an ice cream cone as a hat for another. Also, he seems to be particularly poor at winning bets but excellent at drinking to the point that bets start flowing freely. Only some of that is relevant to the tale, really.




This chap is, for all intensive purposes, about as important in the story as Freeborn is. Interestingly, he doesn't actually have a name! He's listed in the script simply as "Guide" which is certainly his duty in the comic. Personally, I think he's a bit of a dumb-head, as you may well notice from the little side notes surrounding him. I'm not going to reveal what all that's about quite yet, but I gotta tell ya... As stories go, this one is bizzarrrrre. It involves an old myth that is all kinds of super-kooky and makes for one incredibly interesting story. It involves Australia, fig trees, and the color red quite heavily. OH NO, WHAT EVER DOES THAT ALL ADD UP TO?!?!?! No, seriously, you probably don't know. It's a very obscure myth but I honestly love the heck out of the tale that Sam, the writer, has made of it. Stay tuned for more, later!!! I think I'm going to spend my evening inking.

Exciting things!!!!

One day, long, long ago, I went crazy. Because I know if I say "one day, very recently, I went crazy" a lot of the people who know me will chuckle and say "Don't you mean a long time ago, super-kooky crazy-pants?" and I'm typically inclined to agree with them. SO on a separate, more recent, not-related occasion to the origination of my super-duper batshit crazybutts off-rockerness, I went off my rocker even further and decided it would be an excellent idea to just send off my portfolio to some comic publishers. Those people earlier who were chucklin' and tellin' me I've been crazy since forever all know very well that I do have a deep love of visual storytelling, whether it be in comics or childrens' books or those insert pictures you never seem to be fortunate enough to get in books past the young-adult age-typed novels... I just dig it. I love the idea that you're reading something and there's a visual aid right there in front of you that helps make the entire immersion of the experience that much more spectacular... Anyway, I am excited to say that my "Eff it, why not?" attitude has led to success!
One of the things I'll be working on for perhaps the next two months is a comic for Viper Comics, written by a rather interesting chap named Sam. Now, rather than give you any details about the project AT ALL, I'm going to, instead, say that we are both SUPREMELY excited and give you a piece that I did for work that will not be used. :D





More details to follow at some undetermined point and time!!!!! ... There will be character sketches up soon I suspect.

An example of inking.

Dear universe,

I love inking. Here's some proof!


















That is all!

Smooches,
Kat.

I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

So I'm lying here on my free, old-lady style, cream and creamy green-colored loveseat, talking to my roommate about how much it sucks being sick. She's got a killer sinus infection, and I've got a killer case of the too-stupid-to-dry-off-before-going-to-sleep-while-it-was-damned-cold-and-managed-to-contract-something-horrible-but-don't-know-what-exactly-because-I-don't-have-health-insurance-so-can't-actually-ask-a-professional-and-have-to-basically-just-tough-it-out-and-hope-for-the-best. I'm a big believer in the "Just toughin' it out" method, but Linny [the aforementioned roommate] is a big believer in drugs. After two nights of keeping my boyfriend up with my coughing and nose-blowing and general sickery, I decided to give him a break by going out into the living room and trying to nap here... Especially since I felt awful for kicking him in the face, inexplicably. Linny, who works night shift and is also having trouble sleeping due to the evil, evil phlegm monster, was in our living room watching Avatar:The Last Airbender and immediately started pressuring me into taking Niquil. Linny's basic arguing method is the doooooo iiiiiitttt method, except she's exceptional at it and I've pretty much been conditioned to give in within an hour in most cases. Wow. Niquil frickin' kicked my ass. I took the shot of Niquil at the beginning of the episode where our ragtag bunch of heroes gets drawn into a swamp and meets a bunch of swamp-style water-benders and was stone-cold knocked-out in the most uncomfortable position imaginable on this itty-bitty love seat by the time Aang started chasing -spoilers- Toph and a flying pig. And I STAYED asleep. AND I DIDN'T SUFFOCATE. I don't know what the heck is in Niquil to make it work, but... Good job to whoever figured that crap out. Anyway, speaking of not having health insurance... My job!

I've been doing some pretty cool things for work that will never see the light of day, so I figured I'd show a couple of them here whenever I feel like it. I only had this idea like.... last week, and I'm definitely not at work right now on account of being pretty damned feverish so the only things I've got to show are..... the following. Since they're saved on my hard drive and not the server.


That is the cover for a nail art brochure that was scrapped on account of not being clean.


That's an illustration I made for a 50's-themed collection of nail polish that we're coming out with. The drawing was scrapped on account of being too terrifying.


This image actually was used in our blog in celebration of the Chinese New Year, but I felt like sharing it because while it is incredibly simple, I did it, damn it. And I'm gonna say so.


There's more, but I figured that's enough about work for now. I'll upload some stuff here and there as I get around to it.



Lately, Billy's been bugging me about how I haven't been doing as much personal art and that I've been only doing work art and... well... He's right. But so what? Sure, what I do at work isn't what I really like doing but... By the time I get home, I've done so much of it that I'm just too tired and don't want to do any more. But he does have a point, so I have been trying to at least get around to doing SOMETHING once a week, especially if that something is make a shirt for the woot.com derby. Now, the illustration that follows was originally for the woot derby, but I didn't finish it on time because we decided to spend the weekend with Billy's mom on Mother's day instead of doing something responsible like 'conserving fuel' or 'finishing artwork.' I feel like it was well-worth it, honestly. But I at least got the basic lineart finished so... Y'know... Here it goes.



And just so it's known, I inked that digitally which I absolutely HATE but I had to do on account of the fact that I pretty much only had time to work on the 'inking' while I was at work on my lunch breaks [at which time I pretty much only had my laptop available to me] and at Billy's parent's house while he was sleeping before we went to brunch for his mother. ... Either way, no scanner in sight and not really ideal scenery for inking. I did also finish the pencils for another design which I'm hoping to ink the proper way if I ever get around to it.


Given that there's only so many hours in a day that I can use to try and sleep away this fever, I'm hoping I manage to get myself to do something between pass-out sessions. I've got a feeling anything I'd make in this state would be entertainingly awful. Whoo!

Dream big.

So I've been coasting along the road of life for the last couple of months with much more ease than I'm accustomed to... Which is why it wasn't really a surprise when I managed to hit a delicious disaster of a bump. I'm not going to mention what's going on, only what I've discovered because of it.

There are no rules. You can do literally anything at all as long as you want to and refuse to accept that there are pre-existing roadblocks that you have to bypass. Nobody in this world knows what they're doing and are pretty much just doing their best to convince you that they've got it all under control while panicking massively in their own mind. We're all just people dealing with the same stupid problems from different sides of the situation. What in this world says that you need to go to school to become something if you've already got all the knowledge without it? Who says the stars are too far away to be reached? Who says we can't all grow up to be happy? We all have such a limited amount of time on this earth and the people who have managed to build empires and become successful are not gods-they're merely other people. There's nothing special or scary about them that makes them any different from you. If you want it, go ahead and get it. We're all on the edge of dying at any given point anyway and I, for one, would like to go out thinking I had a good run; not go out thinking 'well damn, ain't that just another fuckin' thing.' Don't ever let anyone convince you that you CAN'T do something. Especially you.

Crazytown sombrerolicious!

Man, things have been super duper ridiculously crazy go nuts university for me, lately! So, on top of getting a killer new job... I moved! ... And so did my boyfriend! ... And my friend! .... And of course my roommate, but that's less surprising since we got a place together and obviously had to move at the same time but literally ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE MOVED ON THE SAME WEEKEND. It was friggin' NUTS. And exhausting. Seriously, I was about a billion percent sure that I was going to die after the four-and-a-half millionth trip up the stairs. Oy. But as a result of trying to unpack all places at once, the fact that I have the most stuff out of all of my friends and no extra place to store it because I'm not in contact with family or able to afford storage units or whatnot, and a desperate desire to spend all possible moments with Billy, who previously lived a couple of hours away and was only able to come down most weekends which made me miss him massively the instant he wasn't within sniffin' distance.... My place is kind of a wreck. Yesterday I got to work from home which was great because it means it was kind of the first day all month that I've actually spent a substantial amount of time at my house. After I was done diligently actually doing the work that work prescribed [NOW WITH KUNG FU RESPONSIBILITY ACTION!!!] I built two pieces of furniture that were previously housed in IKEA boxes! [Man, I had not been to IKEA before last year and HOLY CRAP WHERE THE FRICK DO I GO WHEN I'M IN THERE?!?!? Seriously! It's like you get lost in some kind of crazy hypnotic maze and by the time you leave you've got a tummy full of taters, a cake pan shaped like a horse, and seem to have misplaced all the funds in your wallet!!! EVERY FRIGGIN' TIME!!!] So... Y'know.... More progress. My place is shaping up nicely with the few moments that I actually get to spend here and set shit up and whatnot. Once it's officially all together, I plan on hosting a Tuesday night art... Fight? YES. It rhymes. But every Tuesday night, my pals and I are going to be here makin' art and probably food. Also, I've decided JUST NOW that I need to start drawing Batman once a week in addition to whatever it is that I end up doing on Tuesday night arts which will include bookbinding and printmaking very soon because I'm suuuuuuuuuuper in the mood to do those things. HERE'S A BATMAN.

I LITERALLY just drew this. Kind of was inspired by saying I wanted to draw some Batmans. Obviously this is an in-progress kind of deal but it'll have to do for now since I've got to leave soon to hang out with my sisters and FINALLY meet my niece! Juliette was born in December some time but between everyone assuming that someone else had told me, me crashing my car, getting attacked by a whale shower caddy, and working a whole bunches... I haven't gotten to drive down to Delaware to see her yet. I'm kind of interested to see how this goes down since my two sisters and I are not on good terms with one another and we're all varying degrees of batshit crazy. Eh, whatever. At the end of it Billy and I are going to go see Paul, so hopefully that'll make up for any poopie parts they've got in store. SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

I'm a big kid now!

Holy crap, I got a big girl job doing stuff that I totally dig doing! I've got to admit, after the debacle with Nijah directly after Panera I was a bit skeptical that work was really working out for me. I considered becoming an old-timey railroad robber or spaceship instructor or parasite wrangler but those positions all seemed not to currently be available. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when this new job not only turned out to be with a totally swanky company [ http://www.misacosmetics.com for those interested], but also doing something awesome! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you are now reading the blog of someone who is, quite unexpectedly, an art director. Awesome.

You know what else is awesome? CHRISTMAS. My family raised me Jewish, and did a pretty crappy job of it. If we decided to celebrate anything, it was by buying a pack of Matzos during Passover and eating it alongside our toast and possibly remembering to light a candle at least one of the nights of Channukkah while possibly being given gelt or nothing or a coat and continuing to ignore each other. Now, I am very proud of my roots despite not identifying with the religion or the people at all but goddamn does being a Jew suck.
This holiday season I elected to spend time with Billy and his family and celebrate Chrismas for the first really real time in my life. I was so excited! I couldn't sleep at all Christmas Eve and am STILL just going around and shouting CHRISTMAS!!! from time to time. Billy's family is fun to be with, and they provided me with enough trail mix and clementines to cause me to develop a very serious trail-mix-and-clementines dependency. That stuff's friggin' tasty.
By the way, the second best gift I was given is a heart necklace with a triquerta carved into it. The best gift was two weeks straight of Billy. <3

Also, my friends and I participated in a pollyanna for each other and in true "I'm a brokeass" style, I drew the gift for my polly.



Yes, this is why I was practicing reflective lighting on crazy child-faces.