More Charcoal! And a Deadline!

Charcoal is still far from being my favorite medium. I just feel like it's so hard to control... not impossible or as hard as other mediums, but I just have a difficult time. I need much bigger charcoal. These hands are way too big for tiny, pointy charcoal.

What is fun about charcoal is the mess. I always look forward to seeing how ridiculous I look after a drawing.



This was only after two drawings. lol And not even those really dark ones (the first in the post). Mah face is dirty....

ALSO..... DEADLINE!!!
I've decided that the deadline for the first chapter of my comic will be February 1, 2010. This gives me my break between semesters to work on it, and that should be enough time. So I'll be posting teasers on here, but all of it won't be available until the physical minicomics are made.

New Comic and Feeling Better!

Last week was a blur of sickness. The flu kicked my ass, as well as the boy's. I finally started feeling better earlier this week and can safely say I am back to about 90%.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I could blame my sickness, but I've been a bit neglectful of you, blog. I won't do it again, I swear.

Here's a lame comic. It was fun to experiment working with a brush.

Prints Now Available!

Well, make that print. As in singular. I ran out of ink today and need to hit up an Office Depot tomorrow.
But check it out; they're cheap! ^_^

Long Time, No Post

Regrettably I have not posted in over a month. :/ And I was doing so well! Alas, school got ahold of me and awesomely enough, I worked with Unbundled on a storyboard project. Them's my excuses.

I will be setting a date for the first issue/release of my comic (the still Untitled one about Catholic school) pretty soon and let you know when that will be.

Also, I'm going to be switching servers and re-designing my website so once that's up and running, I'll notify here.

Lastly, I'm working on some prints to sell in my Etsy shop. I need to test a few papers, printer settings, etc... but hopefully within the next two weeks I'll have prints up for sale!

In the meantime, enjoy some head/portrait drawings which I drew this week for class. I must say, this Clothed Figure Drawing class at AAU is IMMENSELY helpful. I've learned a lot more about drawing already. At least I feel that way... let's see if I can digest, remember, and pull from everything so that my drawing reflects this... haha, easier said than done.

Sucks to My Assmar

So, as it turns out, I am developing asthma at the pleasant, adult age of near 25. Not 10. Not 11. Not 13. 24, heading to 25. My adulthood is going to be awesome.

(also, you can tell I'm new to the asthma thing.. I realized I completely drew my hand wrong on the inhaler... hello! Need to be pushing it down!)

Visual Passport

One of my assignments. I had to create a visual passport presenting myself to the class. So here it is! I took a slightly different approach to the illustration in the sense that I posed and directly drew from a reference. Shocking, I know! I do like how the drawing turned out though. I'm also liking the overall look and feel behind the finished illustration with the textures and physical elements (scanned hair). Makes me want to do a series of mythological or fairy tale illustrations in a similar style.

Hmmm...... we shall see.

Clothed Figure Drawing

So my first assignment for my Clothed Figure Drawing class online at AAU's grad program is complete! Woo boy that was a long-winded sentence. It was pretty interesting to already learn some new techniques, such as sharpening the charcoal.



Now, this may be obvious to some of you, but Columbia's Fine Art department was hit or miss. I guess I got through not really being told about this phenomenon. For those who are still in the dark, all you do is take an X-acto knife (or any good knife for that matter) and shave it down to a point. It makes a mess, as you can see, so make sure you're more prepared than I was. I really love the patterns the charcoal makes as it's shaved off though. After cutting it down, you're supposed to smooth it with sand paper but since I am lacking that now, I just worked with it as is.



This was the first drawing I did after some warm-up exercises. I'm also holding the charcoal differently now--against my fingers and held with my thumb so that I can gain more movement and flexibility when drawing.



Also what was different this drawing around was that I started with the eyes and related everything to one another as I went, as opposed to roughing the entire form in all at once. I think it came out ok? lol It was definitely a different experience.

All in all, working with charcoal again was lots of fun--especially with new techniques. However... there was one thing I forgot about charcoal.



The photo doesn't do my face justice as to how ridiculous I looked. It was all along the side of my face and on my chin.. haha...

If anyone happens to still be reading too (I know, crazy right? Of course I'm just talking to myself and the internet), due to my renewed love and interest in charcoal and drawing the clothed human figure, if anyone wants a quick drawing of themselves then by all means, let me know!!!

Send me a few photos of yourself.... CLOTHED. And let's keep it somewhat decent.. at least try. I mean ultimately it's up to you but know there's a chance it'll be going up on this here blog so you may want to keep your privates to yourself. E-mail me at melisa.desrosiers@gmail.com, include a photo or two, tell me a little bit about yourself, and I'll get to drawing. Then I'll e-mail the drawing to you as a high-res file just in case you want to print it out or anything. If I decide to post it on my blog, I'll let you know first before doing so.

Alrighty! I shall await your responses.

::crickets chirp::