Something really cool that I'd like to talk about. TATTOOS!

Good Evening/Morning Panda Readers & Followers! 

Yes, it is insanely late/early to be posting, but not like that ever stopped me before. I work equivalent to a bat. I work and am more focused at night when there's not something as tempting as daylight and sun and beach and beautiful walking weather outside my window to tempt my distracted mind already for the pleasures that are living life OUTDOORS. Hah!

Well, this week was busy mind, body and soul-wise. My lil' sissy-in-law came into Sarasota to spend some time w/ my bf and I. The first half of the week was so rainy and messy, we really couldn't do much else but go out to the movies and eat out. But we went bowling and towards the end of the week, the weather cleared up and became so warm, we got to spend an afternoon on the beach! Water was warm, and so perfect, though a lil' murky from the leftover debris from Tropical Storm Debbie. And we finished the week off at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. We made sure to say hello to Harry, when we were there. ;] 

But amidst all the fun-having, life living activities this week I did get a lot of applications sent out to a surfeit amount of anonymous companies over on the west coast and mid-west. I'm so eager to just MOVE and get to where I want to be right now, that I got a lil' ahead of myself. I found some more clarity, as I seem to have been doing ever since I graduated in May, and re-wrote some of my art goals. I am now going to focus more on creating more and better art and trying to work on projects that will cross into many different genres. Too obvious of a goal you think? Well, I will admit I've been a bit jumbled as of late and to just focus on my art and projects is really a bit of peace of mind, because I've been making all these plans for everything else in my life, I just need to tell myself to sit down and draw/paint. :]

Now, to the point of this post. I recently drew up a tattoo design for my cousin, Alexandria, a couple months ago. And she just got it done a few days ago. I did an initial b&w sketch of it and did a few color variations. But this is the final tattoo, and I'm okay with how it turned out. I'm not quite sure if it was even possible to needle the wispy, misty lines of my sketch thinner, but probably not, a needle can only be so thin while holding ink. But considering that it is not on my back, but hers, I am very satisfied w/ the results, but still question and would like to see the portfolio of the person who inked it for her. lol. Whatevskies. At least they evened out the sizes of the sun-star points, still wish they could have found a way to emphasize the 3 stars like in the sketch, and thinned the lines for a more stylized swirl in the middle. That is my critique of it there, but I'll shut up now, because all in all it turned out beautiful. And I'm so excited/awed that she used my design in the end for a permanent piece of body art. WAY COOL!

Love, Erica.

p.s. Until next time!

Some new thesis paintings.

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Way TOO long. I've been so caught up with preparing a portfolio for Zynga and researching other companies that I'm planning on applying to. But those are all just excuses. :] So to make up for it, I present to you guys some process work and some final paintings for my thesis, Lost & Found.

These were done all in watercolor on 140lb Fluid watercolor paper. These are the final colors for pgs 2-7. 

Final b&w color script with text. 

Final storyboards.

Final storyboard color studies. After many changes I decided to keep the overall scheme in the analogous yellow-orange to yellow green w/ the cools kept to the main characters. I've chosen the interior spaces and the sunset/night time scenes as my opportunities to introduce some cooler more thematic color schemes.

Here are the final b&w drawings for the above paintings.

I've been spending so much time worrying over what will become of me after I graduate and where I'll end up. But I've decided that it's useless to spend my time worrying whether I'm good enough to get in to this company and that. It's really just time to create art with full force and just apply to everywhere. I'm confident there's somebody out there who will see something in my artwork and would be happy to have me join them in their efforts in creating awesome artwork together. 

My plans to paint all of the total 32 pages of my book in order to print out my book in full color through blurb.com has been toned down a little more in consideration of the fact that I had to put a lot of my efforts into creating portfolios for Zynga. I was a little blind-sighted, I will admit by my passion for publishing my first book and getting out there for the whole world to see, instead of focusing on how I would get a job and what I would do as soon as I graduated for money. Instead of focusing on companies and narrowing down my art to be geared towards a specific job I just focused on doing what I was passionate about, writing and illustrating my own children's book. But well, I'm trying to make up for lost time and I have determined that I will try to focus my artwork towards the growing smaller studios in California that are developing Ipad Game apps. And in doing so I am hoping that I will find friends and pick up the knowledge and skills on how to turn my own book into an interactive ebook. And so that will be my cause. 

It's only after I stopped to focus on the immediate future and the fear of not finding work that I had to narrow my efforts into a plan on job searching. So my thesis and children's book will be put on the back burners and will come secondary for now. But it will always be on my mind, and I will always be working towards making it better. I'm just saying that I don't think it will all come as immediately as I first thought it would be. So I will be settling for doing 6-8  two-page spreads and as many one page paintings I can create before April 18. And then I will composite my color paintings along with the remaining b&w drawings into one cohesive book and have that printed out for my thesis. It's the best I can do & I will try my best to get everything done on time, along with building more portfolio pieces in my computer illustration class. 

So until next time. :] I feel much better now that I've written all of this down. It's like writing up a contract with myself so that I can't back down now. :] More work to come!! SOON! some computer illustration stuff as soon as I rework some things. :] 

Love, Erica. 

Some studs

Just thought I'd post some progress work. 

 simple value

in progress final color. 

Some more color studies to come soon as I have the time to scan them in and post. :] And also look forward to another small illustration project I'm working on based on "tea time".

'Til we meet again. :3 Have a good weekend!  Stay warm. 

-Erica