A Trip to SJSU's Costume Shop

Howdy,

So I took my costume rendering class over to San Jose State to visit the Theater Department’s Costume Shop for a day of rendering drapery. I had a blast and thank Debbie for graciously opening the shop's doors to us. I’ll post some pictures if I can get them from students, mine didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

Shown is my take of an example from the 1770s. Yes, I would wear this and I’d look damn hot in it too! Also a lovely dress from the turn of the 20^th century. Sorry, not much drawing from me as I spent the time working with the students, perhaps they can show their good stuff.

We return next Monday for more, stay tuned.

Old Finds and a New Challenge

"Greetings my friends. We are all interested in the future because that is where we will spend the rest of our lives..."
Welcome back, before I talk about the "future", I'm going to live in the past for a moment. I was digging around in a some old boxes in the garage (trying to make room for the new little guy) and I came across this design I did for a shirt sold by Nature Company in 1996.


This, I believe was my first t-shirt for a large distributer and I loved the Nature Company store, too bad they went under. Cute little bunnies for a little girl's shirt. Sadly, this the only version I have as the original was destroyed in the scanning process. A story in itself but not worth getting into at the moment But, I am happy to say that my little girl is just the right age to wear it. So it will get another chance to see the sun, and juice and spaghetti dinners and cookies and peanut butter and jelly and boogers and a whole host of other stuff that finds its way onto little kids clothes. It will be fun to see her wear it. When she outgrows it, maybe I'll put in back into the box where I found it or burn it.
Speaking of the past, here's something I did a while ago which I still like and it gets to hang in my house despite the fact that it is now owned by my brother. Ah those Sith Lords, eh?
Which brings us to this announcement...The next challenge: YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, GAME, TV, THEATER, COMICS, ETC. VILLIAN! That's right friends; everybody loves to root for the hero, underdog, or Protagonist but what makes it all worth it is to see the antagonist-the villain's- butt get kicked in the end (literally). So here's your chance to pay homage to those hand wrenching, scheming, foul playing, forces of evil conjuring, scowling, condescending, maniacally laughing, monologuing, doers of badness that are so much fun to hate. This can be any sex (or not), from any time period, human or not, and from whatever medium you so desire. How 'bout a due date of July 3...a date to remind us all that evil aliens can be overthrown because they use the same operating systems as we do.
Same specs as the past challenges due on July 3. Let's all get out there and RULE THE WORLD BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ahem...sorry 'got a little carried away. Have fun!

Finally A Chance to Do Something For The Challenge

Hola!
I finally gave myself about an hour to do something for this challenge. I went in the direction a water fairy. I guess they call those sprites but you can kinda see where I'm going here. Had to start with what a water fairy would look like...and what you see really has nothing to do with something that would spend its life aquatically. I broke out my colored pencils-I haven't used these in years-it's like catching up with a good friend you haven't seen in a long long time. this was a very fun diversion from the grind. Speaking of which, all of my classes except one were canceled this semester due to low school enrollment. A major damper on the joy I find in teaching, so I guess it's time to pull out and go on to other pastures. More thoughts on that later. Meanwhile, I am still going to work on this idea so stay tuned. I always find cool stuff around me to look at. Here is my buddy Josh's contribution to this challenge. Neato, yes? No Poprocks or Sharks or anything but still very nice.
I'll have my "judges" look over the examples of greatness and get back to you with a cup o' coffee winner. Or better yet, all of these are so great that I will happily get all of you guys a coffee. So come on down and let's go grab some caffeine on me!
I'm off to Monterey for the weekend, if you're around the area look around for me. Have a great weekend.

That Fairy Challenge...An Update

Well howdy!

So here it is the 19^th already. Yikes, time flies- I never really got a chance to do anything for this challenge…so I’m extending it until MAY 31^st! If you want to do something, now you can. I will get something up here too, promise.

But while we are waiting, lets look at some awesomeness from four wonderful people.

The first is from a fellow member of the SCBWI and diligent attendee of ZSC, Lisa Victoria. You can buy this one too!

The next one comes from a Cogswell coworker and a guy who really cares about the students, Mr. Reid Winfrey! It’s an honor to have something to post from you, Reid.

Here is another and this one’s from a recent Cogswell graduate and a former student of mine, Kyle Van Meurs. A hard worker whose skill and passion will be missed in the halls of Cogswell-good luck Kyle. Remember me when greatness knocks.

Last, is somebody special to my heart, my little girl. She came in while I was working on this challenge and did this drawing. She called it “chocolate”.

But who should win the cup a coffee? (Note: contributers who are related to blogger are ineligible to win) Start voting now, friends or get working on your own. Stay tuned there will be more to post soon.

Fairy Work In Progress

So I finally got a teeny bit of time to work on this challenge and because I was away all weekend (happy Mother's day btw) I decided to pursue the Faerie portion of the challenge. I don't draw faeries/fairies (however you're s'posed to spell it) very often-if ever- so this was kind of fun and easy to do while my kid was napping. Here is a page of exploration that is on the verge of terrible if it isn't already there.I guess I'm tainted with Fantasia/Tinkerbell or other so called Disney fairies so they need some time to make them original...I have a better idea for these little ladies which will be shown sometime soon.

As long as we are on the topic of works in progress, I thought I'd show you what we have in the works. A new Jackson male! Smile little dude!

I know it's a little weird to have these two thoughts appear on the same post but what the heck, he's about as big as a faerie. We just came back from the doctor's and I had to say something. He's healthy so far and seems to be doing well. OCTOBER 2? Got an idea for the name? Let's hear it. For now, let's all keep drawing.

BTW,

Drawing day

is June 7.
More soon.

A Between The Semester Challenge

Hi, the end of the semester has come and I thought it would be good time to call, another challenge. I know, I know, I let down millions of viewers by not finishing my Santa post (…er…okay, so nobody reads this blog so nobody was let down, just me) but I thought I would throw out another cup-a-coffee challenge to whoever wanted to participate. Read the first challenge or look for others on this blog to get an idea of what we’re looking for.

So this time's challenge is a split. You could either do “Fairies taste like Poprocks” or “Sharks Uniforms”.

Here’s a little background on the fairy thing. One day while in class, Alex, a student of mine said fairies taste like “Poprocks”. I don’t know what we were talking about but it was too good to pass up. So for the this challenge, do something that suits the title. Here’s Tink (sorry my modelsheet are on the other drive) and some Poprocks to get you started. Thanks to Alex for starting this fire…not the other one.

The other is a bit closer to my heart. The Sharks lost to Dallas on Sunday night after 3 and a half overtime periods after making to the second round and surprisingly staying alive after tossing away the first three games. Yeah there are a lot of folks who have their own ideas as to why they lost but my thought is this: THAT DAMNED ORANGE. Yep, the Sharks got new uniforms at the start of the season and I admit I do like Terry Smith’s new logo-but they altered the color mix to emphasize orange. They had to heat up the teal of the old sweaters so it wouldn’t look too freakish with the new orange- yuck! Did someone who didn’t pass color concepts do this? I mean hot teal? I understand they are doing a throw back to the old days of hockey as you can see in the Seals jersey. And colors like orange seem to attract fans or at least fans with a bad color sense. But nobody ever asked. But it's definately this "orange" that brouoght about the downfall of the team that lead the NHL in away game wins. This is what happened on the ice: After playing basically two and a third games in one night, with lactic acid building up in the players muscles, past the point of exhaustion, on the verge of breaking under intense pressure, Marleau gets the puck, goes streaking down the ice on a breakaway and looks down at his sleeve and thinks “Good god! There’s a school bus on my arm!” and fans on the shot. Or Nabby sees Morrow with the puck and suddenly thinks “Wha-road construction ahead?” after which Morrow scores and allows his Stars to advance to the third round.

So this challenge is about designing new uniforms with a new color scheme that won’t be so distracting in high pressure situations.

So get on out there and come up with something to meet this challenge or do something for both. Due date is May 19.

Bots need a place to hang out, I guess...

Some quick thumbnails for the memory project, more later...
...Which one do you like?