No Comment Shop

I created these a little while ago, using most of those oh-so-familiar comic non-verbal balloons, mainly to create icons for myself, and little simple designs I might enjoy on my own t-shirts this summer. If any interest you, I've put together a CafePress shop called No Comment

I want the apron. I'm very much the bitchy chef in the kitchen.

firefly simon

firefly simon, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

He just looks so... prissy. This is Sean Maher, playing Simon Tam, the awkward and usually stressed out doctor on the ship, in the show Firefly. Not my favorite character, even though he is played well. Hopefully that didn't come through in the drawing attempt. I didn't intend to touch so much on the antique look for this reference.

firefly zoe

firefly zoe, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

Looks a little angsty here, but this is Gina Torres, who plays Zoe on Firefly. Another one who was difficult to find a good screenshot of. I settled on this reference piece, and tweeked the rather cool colors to something warmer. Took me a little over two hours, and it was threatening to go into three, but I stopped myself before I ruined what I got right.

illofriday "aquatic"

illofriday "aquatic", originally uploaded by alida saxon.

Thought I'd get this week's illustrator doodle done early, rather than last minute. This week's Illustration Friday topic is "aquatic" and this lept to mind. My choice of colors look a bit cruddy when compressed for the web, but oh well. :)

firefly wash

firefly wash, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

Today's portrait is of Alan Tudyk, who plays Wash, the ship's pilot. (And to those who've seen I Robot, he also did the voice of the robot) He's something of a goofball and it was tricky finding a photo where he wasn't contorting his face somehow. Even here, he's got his upper lip rolled under just a bit. Definitely one of the more elastic faces on the cast. I spent about an hour and a half on this one.

Oh, for those curious, I've included the first step of the drawing, if you were wondering how I go about them.



This is what you'd call a grisaille, an old monochromatic underpainting technique that sorts out the tones of a piece, so that from then on you focus on glazing in the colors. Instead of a grey, I used a dark brown colored pencil. I never use graphite, as I find it gets a little greasy under colored pencil, and has a dulling effect. The brown is warmer.

I don't use the grisaille technique very often, but I find it works really well with these brown bag drawings.

The reference picture is here.

illofriday nourishment

illofriday nourishment, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

Squeaking in at the last moment for Illustration Friday's subject "nourishment".

firefly Inara

firefly Inara, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

Today's portrait practice, this time with firefly's Inara, played by Morena Baccarin. I really like how this one turned out, even if not spot on. I've had a hard time doing the variations of 3/4 profile portraits for the longest time, so this is an enjoyable success.

1hr 15 min or so, colored pencil on large grocery bag. Decided not to fill in the bulk of her hair - one because I like it, and the other being the reference picture was very low on detail in that regard.

firefly Jayne

firefly Jayne, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

And here's Jayne, played by Adam Baldwin, from the Firefly show. I used this reference photo here. In retrospect I probably should've picked a better quality reference, but I liked the expression, and the hat.

Drawn in just over an hour on grocery bag paper, with colored pencil.

firefly Kaylee

firefly-kaylee, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

This is the first attempt to create some portraits for practice, of the characters on a favorite (gone) show of mine "Firefly". The actress is Jewel Staite, playing "Kaylee", ship's mechanic and unofficial cheerful person.

1 1/2 hours on a common paper bag this morning with colored pencils. Didn't quite nail it, but got happily close. Here's the reference photo.

illofriday mischief

illofriday mischief, originally uploaded by seian.

Mischief or murder? I rather like this is cropped version of the full figure. It puts a little more emphasis on what she's holding, and there's just that smirk left of her features.

Working on layout

Working on layout, originally uploaded by seian.

Going to do related set if pieces for my next drawing project. Can't really call it a traditional triptych what with the pieces being disconnected from each other. Nervous and excited at the same time. Tentatively titled "Conquest" with subtitles for each piece being "Sun's Gate" (upright left) "King's Way" (top right) and "Death's Field" (bottom right)

These are quite wide and large frames - I had to back off quite a ways to get it all in the shot.

Cloudburst

cloudburst, originally uploaded by seian.

Started and finished this may 7th, on the second day of the two day gallery show and open studio we have here at indian orchard mills.

It turned out quite stylized, but I'm getting to like it. Reminds me a little where I was going with another piece called "Murder Mystery"

Oh, the show went quite well. Always nice to have people in the studio for a look around, and great to see some returning folk interested in my work.

IOM Spring Exhibition & Open House

It's that time of year again at the mill. We're having our spring open studio today and tomorrow. Thank goodness the weather's holding out today. The show's looking great and everything's getting opened up in here. The studio even looks somewhat clean - just don't look in the back room.

illustration friday "ambition"

illustration friday "ambition", originally uploaded by seian.

For this week's Illustration Friday "Ambition".

Additionally, here's what I did for last week's "Daring". I was ill at the time, and whimped out on finishing it up.