Zero 2 Illo - Week 4

Whew, had a rough week this week, plus I had a bad case of creative block and all of the ideas for illustrations I thought I would do suddenly seemed like they were either stupid or too hard to pull off. So I did what I usually do when I can't think of anything else to draw: I drew some birds.

Specifically, I drew a puffin.

It actually started out as this drawing, which I did about a year ago as something to possibly put on a business card. See, it's supposed to be clever because he caught art supplies instead of fish.



So then I drew this, adding a body and a little background (He did have feet at one point)



But it seemed pretty stiff, so I redrew it. I obviously have more work to do, but hopefully this will make a better composition.

Not So Much With The Science

On a different subject, I am a fan of the webcomic Awesome Hospital and did this fanart of one of the characters, Dr. Space Baby.

More Science!

Viruses Harnessed to Split Water

Science Experiment

Here is something I have been kicking around in my head lately: I try and keep up on science news, and every once in a while I see an article or headline that gives me an idea for an illustration.

Unfortunately, most of these ideas come in the form of goofy doodles that have nothing to do with the actual article. For example:

Ventriloquist Birds Call to Warn Friends and Enemies



and:

Moray Eels: The Most Cosmopolitan of Reef Fish, But Why?



Anyway, I had a couple of these, so I thought I might as well post them here to see what people thought of them.

Ink Wash

Just experimenting with ink washes...

Too Much Information

For the first week of the twelve week challenge I just joined (see previous post), we were given the seemingly innocuous question "what do you want to illustrate?" But it is a question I have struggle with a lot as I try and pin down my personal style. To try and answer it, I have kind of been thinking over where I was headed in the past and what that was pointing towards in the future.

(Like I said in the title, this kind of rambles on and is probably pretty boring for anyone who isn't me- feel free to skip it if you want.)

So, first of all, I had graduated from college with a degree in biology. I had started to take a few art classes for fun, and I had the vague idea I could combine the two interests by going into scientific or medical illustration. I was lucky enough to live near a college that offered a major in scientific illustration and I was able to take some of the classes they offered.

Here are some of the pictures I did:


I really enjoyed the classes and would still like to do this kind of work (although I abandoned medical illustration partly because I lacked some of the requisite classes and partly because, ew, cadavers). However, I was sort of struggling to find work and make it a full-time career.

While I was figuring this out, I met a woman who was working on a children's book. So I ended up illustrating a children's book, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. People seemed to enjoy seeing funny cartoon animals more than they enjoyed seeing, for example, a drawing of a spleen, so I headed in that direction for a while.

Here are some children's book illustrations:



Finally, most recently, I took an illustration class which focused on print illustration for newspapers and magazines and the like. It was a bit of a shift in subject matter, for instance, here is a series of illustrations for an article about a brother with schizophrenia who fell through the cracks of the health care system:


I really enjoy the process of coming up with ideas for these stories (finishing them is another matter of course), so for the 12-week challenge I think I am going to to try and push myself to do some more editorial-type illustrations do develop that section of my portfolio.

Whew! That was way longer than it needed to be. Thanks for bearing with me!

Act-together-gettening

So, for a while now I guess I have thought of myself as an aspiring illustrator, with some vague notion of someday becoming an actual illustrator. But that would require getting my act together and actually accomplishing things, something I am notoriously bad at.

Recently, however, Jonathan Woodward of the blog Zero2Illo also decided to work towards becoming a full-time illustrator and put together a 12-week challenge designed to help him achieve this goal. He also invited others to take part, and already there is an impressive number of talented people joining him.

It's a little intimidating, but I am hoping to follow along.

(Thanks to Mr. Woodward for organizing this!)

Happy Little Puffin

He really is.

Lizard with a Hand Grenade

Lizard with a hand grenade!

So easy...

...even a caveman could draw it.

Ahem. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, this is another drawing using Artrage, which I am slowly getting the hang of.