Category Archives: Art

Art & sketches!

Sketch blog on Tumblr!

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Life has been busy and exciting! Here are some updates on my current whereabouts:

  • • I finished my graphic novel project with the Associates of the Boston Public Library.
  • • Since then, I’ve been working as a Digital Arts & Humanities Fellow at Harvard University. My main gig there is designing/running the DARTH Crimson website, check it out!
  • • This past spring I’ve also taught Foundations of Visual Design in the Communications and New Media department at my old school, Southern Maine Community College. It’s been awesome.
  • • In a month and a half I’m graduating with a degree in Humanities from Harvard Extension School. Oprah is our commencement speaker. Let’s hope there are bees.

This summer and upcoming year promise to be equally exciting, too! I’ve got some pretty cool stuff coming up, including lots of comics and an appearance at the Maine Comic Arts Festival. For more frequent updates, I’ve got a sketch/photo blog going at Tumblr. Follow me there!

Homestretch

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Life is so exciting!

My fellowship as Writer-in-Residence with the Associates of the Boston Public Library is wrapping up as of June 1st and I’m currently looking toward the future. I have a few job prospects but also a new personal project as potential summer occupations, so we’ll see where life leads me. I’ve also been invited to Halifax, Nova Scotia to make comics for two weeks in June with the Roberts Street Social Centre. I can barely contain myself with excitement!

One week from today, on Sunday, May 20th, I’ll be at the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland, ME. If you’re in the area, stop by for free postcards and Avengers doodles!

Then, after a short intermission, Under the Apple Tree will begin updates again on Monday, May 21st, and we are quickly approaching the homestretch. There are only a couple pages before the last chapter begins and we reach the thrilling conclusion.

I’ve been updating my tumblr quite regularly with sketches and pictures of my cat, so if you’re interested in this sorts of things, follow me!

Bloody Jack

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I’ve been reading Bloody Jack, a cross-dressing swash-buckling adventure series by LA Meyer, and it is good. Really good. In my top five all-time favorites, even.

In the second book, after pretending to be a boy and joining the English navy, Jacky Faber’s sent to a girls’ school in Boston to learn how to be a lady. She meets Amy, and they have an adorable friendship. It’s my favorite book so far, mostly because there’s some really fun Boston history snuck in between bouts of mischief.

I’ve been doing 30 minute warm-up doodles before working on pages for my graphic novel Under the Apple Tree (which has a Facebook page now, by the way), and decided to draw Amy and Jacky today.

And here’s another past warm-up doodle, Rue from Hunger Games (who’s excited about that movie? Me! Click for larger version):

Harriet’s Friend

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Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone for their patience as I battle WordPress hackers! I had a couple old test installs on my domain and all heck kind of broke loose this past week. I’m hoping that everything is fixed though, and no one will be redirected to anymore sketchy Russian websites! (Please let me know ASAP if that happens to you; email me by clicking the envelope icon on the bottom right of the website.)

Secondly, Under the Apple Tree is going strong! We are entering the second-to-last (and my personal favorite) chapter, and the comic is on schedule to finish in June. If you haven’t been reading, now’s a great time to jump in as the plot picks up!

Thirdly/lastly, I’ve been working on the script and concept artwork for my next project, tentatively titled “Harriet’s Friend” (hopefully I will think of something better by the summer). It’s going to be transmedia, and I’m silly excited about it. Keep an eye on this blog for updates, as well as my tumblr and/or twitter for art sneak-peeks!

Official Announcement!

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The Associates of the Boston Public Library have put out the official press release, and I am now on their website!

I’m celebrating all over again, now it’s official! Also, T-minus eight work days until comics become my full time job. I think I’ll be staying at the Game Show Network part time for a little while, and I’m glad – working alone is going to drive me crazy enough as is!

Thanks to a Living Social deal, I have coming to me in the mail 2500 little cards to hand out with Under the Apple Tree’s information on them. Thank goodness for coupons! I’m hoping these will help spread the word; once the website is up, I’ll be leaving them at libraries, comic shops, etc, so people can grab one and check it out later.

I made this image specifically for that purpose, but the original is 11″x17″. Needs a bit of detail work, but I’m pretty pleased with the overall outcome. Say hello to the main character’s first appearance as Rosie!

The Dreamer Fan Art

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The Dreamer is a web comic by the lovely and talented Lora Innes. I’m greatly attached to it in a lot of ways: it’s a great story that always keeps me excited for the next update, and the creator has been a mentor since it started and I gave my first shot at web comics almost five years ago! It’s crazy to imagine that it started in 2007 — I’ve grown a lot since then and Lora has supported me not just as a fan, but as an emerging artist.

I made her first piece of fan art back in the day:

Boy, that’s an oldie! I’m glad to say I’ve come a long way since then. Maybe someday I’ll post some of the art from my teenage years. I’ve grown up a lot, so it’s turning into one of those embarrassing stories that you can laugh about later even if it’s still a bit awkward.

Recently I’ve been working on developing my personal style, and it’s fun to draw my own characters over and over, but sometimes a good test is to try out someone else’s to see how it translates. It seemed fitting to do some new fan art for The Dreamer.

I’ve had an idea for a while that I’ve tried sketching out a few times but haven’t been happy with. The Dreamer is about a girl who dreams about a seeming “past life” during the Revolutionary War, and at this point in the story she is distressed because she’s getting so caught up in the dream world that her “real” life is suffering. I wanted to portray her as stuck in the middle, curled up in an 18th century dress with modern sneakers, looking a bit under the weather.

I did some sketches and decided it would be fun to pick a color palette from one of my favorite inspiration websites, Colour Lovers. I needed something that was a bit “blue” to show her mood, and browsing around gave me a starting point.

I ended up choosing “Be Kind“.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It was great practice for my developing style and a nice update from my first Dreamer fan art.

Thank you, Lora!

Exciting Weekend!

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So, this weekend is full of excitement – tomorrow I am going to PAX East, and the next few days are also the Boston Underground Film Festival! My friend Andy’s piece, CD-ROM, will be part of the Animated Animus show on Saturday. Check it out!

Also, I am apparently allowed to show work from my fancy design job as long as we’re not going to use it in the game. Here’s some (silly) concept work I did for one of the games, in which there may have been jello animals…

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: ) Also, Under the Apple Tree is still going to be finished for the Maine Comic Arts Festival! I’m just not posting pages until I have the first chapter finished (the last couple scenes are much better read as a whole rather than installments, especially the cliffhanger).

Much Productivity

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Watch out, this is going to be a long one!

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Firstly, I would like to engage your attention with some art. I’ve done some portraiture lately and am really digging it. I tried a looser style than usual and am really happy with the result, I look forward to doing more.

Work on Under the Apple Tree/my senior capstone project is still in progress! My blog hasn’t seen much action, but I have been quite busy with preparations. A lot of energy has gone into networking in particular, and I’d like to focus on that part of my project in this entry.

I’ve discovered that a huge part of the enjoyment of creating comics is the company, advice and support of other creators. It’s invaluable to my process and I’ve focused a lot on it recently. There are a couple different venues I have utilized…

The Internet.

The most obvious and definitely one of the most helpful, the web has a huge amount of resources. Some of the most useful have been…

Drunk Duck (Support from readers and constructive criticism are both huge motivators.)

Webcomics Community (A specialized forum is a great resource for everything from crit to finding places to get merchandise made to… well, everything.)

Deviant Art (This website has a bad reputation as far as quality goes, but I’ve found a great amount of support there and even have built relationships there with professional cartoonists who give me advice. Pretty awesome.)

Local Organizations.

The internet is wonderfully convenient, but it doesn’t replace real contact with other creators, as well as such genuine opportunities for networking. Some options…

The Maine Comic Arts Festival is new as of last year and a great opportunity! I am registered as an exhibitor and can’t wait. The first one was awesome and the next one, I’m sure, will be even better. For those who don’t know, it’s a convention of sorts in Portland, Maine that takes place in May (mostly self-publishers with a few fancy guests, comparable to a small MoCCA Festival).

Maine Cartoonists is a group I co-founded. Its e-hub is a Facebook group, and as you’ve seen a couple entries ago, we hold “roundtables” where a bunch of people get together and share our work and mingle. It’s a lot of fun and something really cool has evolved out of it (which I’ll get to momentarily).

Other Stuff.

I’m not a Penny Arcade fan, really, nor am I a gamer… but I am going to PAX East. It’s a great networking opportunity that I’d be silly to pass up. It’ll be a huge event that combines two things that are very important to me right now: comics (after all, the huge phenomenon that is Penny Arcade originally just started out as a web comic, just like Under the Apple Tree), and the game field (though I am not a gamer, my current full time job is as a designer for games, so I have that association). I plan on bringing business cards, as well as perhaps postcard samples, to share as I mingle.

And now for the best part…

THE COLLECTIVE.

(YEAH!)

I realized a couple things recently.

Firstly, I plan on moving to the Boston area in the near future and that means I will be somewhat disconnected from Maine Cartoonists. Not that we meet all the time, and not like Boston doesn’t have its own group, but it just won’t be the same. How will I keep in touch with all the great people up there?

And also, I’ve admired collective blogs such as Gorilla Artfare for quite some time, and suddenly realized it wouldn’t be that hard to start my own. Except mine would be geared toward comics instead of general illustration.

And then, from these realizations, something was born!

Picture 7

The Collective is a blog I have started that will function much like Gorilla Artfare, only the members are all New England creators. (That’s right, not just Maine, but all of New England! I couldn’t start something like this without including all the other amazing talent I’ve met from places like Boston and the Center of Cartoon Studies in Vermont and the Trees and Hills dudes from New Hampshire.) It’s just getting started, but there is a great handful of creators registered to be authors and I can’t wait for things to really get going.

The site will hopefully expand, but for the moment we just have the blog, a lovely rotating header system so all of us can contribute artwork to the design of the site and an events calendar (still being worked out) so we can keep up with the goings on.

I can’t wait to make it turn into something really great.

If you’re still reading at this point, I am very impressed. Look forward to some more updates soon, including the conclusion of Chapter I (which must be finished in time to get printed for the May festival), some art and some other tidbits. I know there isn’t much to show, at least visually, for all the work I’ve been putting in this past month, but I assure you, much has been accomplished. I don’t feel like it’s been wasted at all.

I really wish I could share the game development work I’ve been doing for the agency in Boston. I can’t wait for them to be released in September so I can finally show everything off, it’s been so much fun! My main responsibility lately has been character design/development and it’s been one of the most fun, educational and productive experiences of my life.

Oh, and I redesigned my main website. Check it out. (Still fixing the portfolio section, though. d’oh)

Sketches and Trades

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I’d like to apologize for lack of updates on Under the Apple Tree. I can promise that updates will resume within a week or two not just because I think I can do it, but because I HAVE to – it is a condition of my graduation this spring, as it is my senior capstone project! My new job has just been more time consuming than expected, even just in the first week, and I need a bit more time to settle into the new routine.

Until then, I have some art to share! I’ve been taking trades and also have done some sketches for people. Here’s a few:

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