Evil Queen

A bit of Megamind fanart that I started sketching during slow times at Dragon*Con. Tried to emulate the strange proportions of Dreamworks' style here. Don't know how successful I was, but her curvy lady hips were a lot of fun to draw. :3

Roxanne Ritchi is from Megamind, by Dreamworks Entertainment. If you haven't seen it, RENT IT. I <3 this movie so much!

Con Report: Dragon*Con 2011

What a trip! Dragon*Con is easily the best convention I've ever attended. This year, Jon and I were joined by my best friend Magda, his best friend Al, our friends Tim (and his girlfriend Niven) and Oriana (and her girlfriend Rachel).

This year I shared my booth space with Magda (magdaguichard.com) and her leather masks. They were a huge hit and I'm very proud of her for taking a leap like that right into such a huge convention. :)

This year was especially emotional for me, because I got to meet the man who, at a young age, completely RUINED me for dragon art, Michael Whelan (michaelwhelan.com). Magda was awesome and took over the booth so I could attended his 'talk about whatever' panel. The only panel I was willing to ditch the booth for. Afterward I made an idiot of myself when I asked him to sign the cover of one of the Pern novels (Which I only bought/kept because his art was on the covers since I really didn't care for them otherwise) and the pen didn't work. CRAP! But he was really sweet about it. And I was grateful. I really wanted to tell him how much his work meant to me and how it was a catalyst for my early interest in Fantasy Art which steered me toward my current carrier path. But all I managed to squeak out was something along the lines of "Thank you, I love your work...." and ran off. Why does my brain lock up at this convention?! It's like I suffer from childhood-hero-overload. D:

For the rest of the Con I was kinda kicking myself, but it was easy to find distractions. To name a few, the Jonathan Coulton concert, the trip to the Georgia Aquarium, midnight Walmart adventures and tabletop gaming in the basement of the Hilton. No, I'm not kidding... they set the up the tabletop gaming room in the basement. In my over-exhausted state I found this thoroughly amusing.

All in all it was a memorable time and I even ended up coming home with a bunch of extra prints buttons and bookmarks! So, if you have the time, go check out the Shop! :3 

Print price increase.

I need to explain why I raised the prices in my print shop, because I feel like such a jerk for just doing it. And giving no explanation whatsoever has been eating away at me for over a month now.

I used to have a pretty good thing going when it came to making prints in house. I used my father’s professional Epson printer, and his stock of ink. All I had to pay for out of pocket were the protective bags/board backings, shipping envelopes and photo paper, since I preferred printing on matte and dad used glossy for his photography. And because that’s all I had to pay for I went for the top of the line. So when you factor in the time/labor and quality of the materials used, I wasn’t charging all that much. Living at home with my parents, rent-free, having all my meal provided for me and my dad’s help with the ink and printer allowed me to keep my prices low for years.

After dad passed away, his printer and all the boxes of ink/paper went into a storage unit. I had moved out of the house into my own place, so it was over a year before I was able to recover them. I was under the impression that I could resume printing again with all of the leftover materials for a good while. Unfortunately I found that a great deal of the paper from storage was Glossy, the ink was for a different printer… and the ink I could have used, had expired.

The printer is an old model as well and office supply stores no longer carry the ink. So unless I want to buy a new printer I must order the ink from the Epson website. On the bright side, buying one of each color for this beast qualifies me for free shipping. XD On the down side, no more free ride.

If I want to maintain high quality archival, color encapsulated, museum quality printing, I have to raise my prices a bit to compensate. Keep in mind, my prices were set back when I lived with my parents and they haven't been raised for almost 10 years. Since then, I've moved out, the economy crashed, and prices of everything have gone up. So while I'd like to keep things where they are, I'm forced to change with the circumstances. Thank you for your understanding.

Start of Summer Sale!

START OF SUMMER SALE on Storenvy!

Use the discount code: SUMMER between 06/22 & 6/29 and receive 20% off anything in the shop!

Serpents and Sealife

These are just some waiting room doodles, drawn over the course of several doctor/dentist visits. I think I've just about gotten my naga designs to a point I'm happy with enough to take on a more finished piece. I was hung up on the "hair" for the longest time before settling on a smooth scale to feather transition. I didn't want to do actual hair. Too mammalian.

Technically, she shouldn't have boobs either. Heh, oh well. ^^

Storenvy Shop

The whole shop has been moved off of Etsy for now. I met a lot of great people while I was there, the community was great. But things were getting kinda slow, so I figured it was time to test the waters somewhere else.

Dragondust on Storenvy

If you have a minute to spare, please stop by and take a look. And if you have a storenvy of your own, share the link in the comments! :)

Sea dragon

A friendly lookin' sea dragon, at that. :) I'd love to paint him up in some stripey Sail fish colors!

I apologize for the silence. My computer is hooked up in the living room and it's hard to work from there. So here's a sketchbook doodle in the mean time. :) 

Prehistoric Times.

My Velociraptor Pair illustration was published in the Reader Art section of the latest issue of Prehistoric Times Magazine (Issue #96)!

But that's not the main reason I'm hyped up about this issue. In it is a multi page promotion for James Gurney's new book, Color and Light: a Guide for the Realist Painter. I've been a sucker for James Gurney's oil work since I was a child and would recommend flipping through his book, Dinotopia, to anyone in need of inspiration. He makes fantasy worlds feel more real because of his classical approach to painting. You'll just have to check it out to see what I mean. :)

Copernicus

I recently flew up to Savannah, GA to visit my best friend for her birthday. And thanks to procrastination and World of Warcraft I stayed up all night packing before my flight and went sleep deprived the whole first day of visiting.

Amazingly enough, I discovered that the secret to productivity is simply "not to sleep." And here I thought artists lost sleep because they were too busy being creative. It's actually the other way around. Silly me. ^^

So here's one of the things I scribbled out in my sketch book while chilling in the costume department at SCAD. 

This is a redesign of my character Copernicus. He was the second character I ever made and needed an overhaul from his early Pokemon-influenced design. His body structure is mostly based off of a goat.

Hugable gryphons are hugable.

I recently updated the website with a painting of a couple of cuddlefaced Wrennec gryphons. So to continue the darble trend, here's a commissioned sketch of a Sparrow/Bunny Gryph.

Bunny feets are so BAWWW!