The Avalanche Callers

When I was a kid, we got to spend one week a year up a canyon near my house with a ski resort nearby. If it snowed, and you woke up very early, you could hear cannons going off. The cannons are intended to remove the threat of an impending avalanche while no one is out and in danger of being caught in it. The least dangerous type of avalanche is one that's already happened.

(From the sketchbook section of my website)

I've had the idea for a sort of alpine character who rides a big saber-toothed cat for a while, but never knew what to do with him. Then a few weeks ago I needed to make a painting. Nothing specific, just a cool, fantasy theme painting. I decided that that might be a pretty cool job for him: go ahead of trade routes in the winter, and clear the way.  I finally got to use my lion rider, and he finally got a purpose.

Lineart

Coat colors

Initially, I felt like I wanted a pretty blown out image--dazzlingly bright snow, a clean white coat, and gold accents. Then I flatted it, and hated it. I decided on either ochre or blue, then asked a few friends which they preferred. The unanimous vote was for blue.  My friend Laura helped me name them, at this point, so meet Nils and his ice lion, Leaper. 

Shaded, mostly done.

I knew things still needed to be done, but by now, I had been looking at it for too long, so I went to a couple of trusted friends, and deviantART for critique and feedback. After a few days of fiddling, I decided it was finally done. 

Voila!

Prints are available at my Etsy shop. 

An announcement

I made this page the other day, and this seemed to fit almost as well as the dialog that actually goes on this page...

I've done ten pages now, going at about two or three per week. This isn't quite to the level they'll be when done, though I'm having fun with organic pencil lines, instead of reverting to my instinct to ink over things.

Also: car pinstriping for panel separating lines. Best thing ever.

Interesting Drawing, Physical Fail

This is a drawing from early 2011 that I just dredged up while looking for something else (which I can't remember what it was now...)

I'm not entirely sure how this ended up a motorcycle, but I'm fairly certain I didn't intend it as one when I started, which led to a few things, the major ones being: 1: A visually interesting machine built to punch through walls, and 2: No steering.

That's Cameron, from the somewhat-in-progress-novel 'Clockwork Dog,' looking a bit older here than I think he'll be in the book when all's said and done. In this sketch he's just stolen it from someone richer than himself, because he's really got no reason to be riding such a contraption.

It'd be fun to do a redux of this, I think, since I like the idea of a beautiful battering-ram motorcycle, and it would be a good idea to solve the steering problem.

Quickpaw Progress

Quickpaw is officially storyboarded! Of course, it's just for me, so they're a lot smaller and messier than usual, and the pages get gradually more covered in chicken scratch the further in you go, but it looks like the finished endeavor will be between 130-140 pages. I don't plan on doing the typical webcomic model of releasing pages, then having a book come out at the end. I'm shooting to have the whole thing done before I start uploading. Which means, no missed upload days (which, I know I would as soon as a more important deadline came up) and if you're just dying to know where things go, you can get the book, and well...know the end! So, wait and read for free, or get yourself a hardcopy and some complimentary instant gratification.

Speaking of instant gratification, this plan does mean a later release date, my current goal is to have it done by next year. So, to justify posting about a project that won't come out for a year, here is the first of (probably many) in progress shots.

First, one of my cleaner thumbnail pages, from the beginning of the story.

Next are two of my practice pages, done as exploration, with no reference, trying to 'find' Quickpaw's facial personality. I'd pretty much settled on his markings and general face shape by this page. I knew I wanted him more or less realistic, he's got kind of an overbite, and was experimenting with a few physical details of the Sense, which plays a crucial role in the story and deserves its own post later.

After getting acquainted a bit with Quickpaw, I tried to solidify and refine that information by drawing gestures from photographs, with my mental character filter turned on. The drawings got much more fluid and confident in these pages, but having already done many (many) drawings without it helped me keep drawing QP himself, while looking at photos of very different wolves, coyotes, and dogs.

But...who builds all of this?

I got back from a revision retreat through the SCBWI last week. That's Society of Children's book Writers (and Illutrators). (Parenthesis are a personal observation ;) )

The first question out of anyone's mouth after either reading the story or looking at the illustrations from my BFA project is always So...how do animals make all this?

The short answer is: Griffins do.

It's one of those questions that hits at the sweet spot between fantasy, science, art, and writing that is World Building. So you've got an awesome concept: how does it work?

If you're a super geek, and want everything in your world to really work, you need more than the short answer. Sorrek here has the beginnings of my solution: I'd already branched out from the classical eagle-lion hybrid by making him more the size of a large lynx, and giving him the 'flying squirrel' flaps along his sides to help hold up that heavy cat part of him while flying. I'd decided years earlier that Dumarian griffins were smaller (about the size of a large lynx) and more omnivore than eagles or hawks. In keeping with the omnivore diet, I could swing the design toward less 'talon' and more 'finger' than your average eagle, and a semi-opposable hunting talon/thumb. But would this really work?

(Sorrek, 2010)

(Detail)

As time went on, I thought: would eagle hands really have that kind of dexterity? I wanted a solution that would be a little more unique to Dumaria, and to make them more of a cohesive creature instead of just a mashup. During a visit to the natural history museum in late 2011 with a good friend, I found something that perked my interest.

(Image from This Post)

Iguanodons had quasi-opposable pinkies! Of course, the artist in me really wanted to let my griffins keep their hunting talon, so they got both.

The new solution, doodled out.

Of course, now, the question was: how would having 2 thumbs work? Since I wasn't aware of any natural parallel to this new solution, I did what any sensible geek would do: I tried it out. For a whole week, I tried grabbing things as if my pinky went the other way. Uncomfortable at times, but under the excuse that their pinky would be built to do opposable digit things, unlike my human pinky (which is not built to do opposable-digit things) I could now confidently say that this hand model would work fairly similar to ours.

And let them build all manner of cool things for me to draw and write about.

Have you ever faced a similar challenge? I'd be interested to hear how you solved it! Feel free to post to relevant articles on similar issues in the comments.

Senior Show now on display

My senior show is now on display in Rexburg, ID, showing on the third floor of the Spori building of the BYU-Idaho campus. If you're in the area, come take a look, and say hi. If you're not, it's online now, too, at erikastudio.com Be sure and check it out, as there's a great deal that's never been displayed before.

Additionally, you can now read chapter one online! (I'll warn you though, the text on some of the character sheets is somewhat spoiler heavy) The novel itself is in its last round of editing before being subjected to the publishing gauntlet; which is an whole different beast entirely.

Reader draft of War-sky Rising is DONE!

For the two of you out there that follow this blog: After a nice, round, ten years in the making, I just finished the umpteenth draft of War-sky Rising (who's title may still change)

It topped out at 163 pages, single spaced; 79,945 words.

Because it's way beyond 'second draft' or any other sort of counting, I've just titled it the 'reader draft' meaning: other (select) people may read it and offer insight for final edits before I start trying to market this suckah.

Woo!

Dumarian Instruments

The finished Dumaria instruments! from top right, clockwise, are a 'howl dish,' a harp, a guiro/huiro, and some hanging chimes. This is what happens when you read too much Diontopia. Oh wait, there's no such thing as too much Dinotopia.

Embroidery

Embroidery is one of the older decorative arts, and has been practiced for centuries from Europe to China. It involves creating a design using colored thread on cloth, often with other pieces of colored cloth sewn on. Lots of different designs are possibly using different stitches, or combination of them. Embroidery can be done by hand, or on a machine, or a combination of both.

This image mimics both machine and hand sewing techniques, but it's all digital.

The Bayeux Tapestry (Which is 20 inches tall and 231 feet long. Yes, feet.)
Chinese Embroidery
Azerbaijan embroidery
The Unicorn Tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Transparency

There's a nice little trick in Photoshop using the channels tab that allows any drawing to be turned 'transparent,' like an animation cel. Cel shading has been around for quite some time, and used to be hand inked and painted, frame by frame. Cels were inked first, then painted on the back, to eliminate brush strokes from the finished cel. Each one became one frame of the animation. Through the years cel creation became more and more efficient, especially once Xerography was invented, which allowed drawings to be transferred directly onto the clear plastic, rather than having to trace every single one from the original drawing. This process was tested on Sleeping Beauty, and the entire film of 101 Dalmatians was made using this method (which gives it its charming, sketchy look. There's more potential to this though than just cel animation.

Classical, a user on DeviantArt, used this transparency technique on That Sinking Feeling. You can see the black and white line art here.

It's also a great way to color that amazing drawing you did(Thank you TracyJB), add some tone to it, and stop relying on the 'multiply' setting.

I've used this technique before, but thought I'd experiment a little more than usual with it, and tried this little picture, which turned out looking pseudo silk-screened, but which I actually think would probably be a silk screening nightmare.

Sorrek's Hut

This was actually done before the last environment I posted, but needed a lot of revisions before I could call it done. Both are inhabited by griffins: two posts ago was the villainous one, this one is the 'good' griffin.

This was the first of 7 'environments' that later turned into 7 'huge illustrations' ... meaning, eventually this will have Sorrek himself in it as well, rather than just being empty.

This one was a good testing ground for how far I can take revisions without redoing something. The class critique on the original version of this was quite lengthy, but it (of course) improved it a great deal. I may fiddle with it a bit after critique round two, but for now, the revisions list is all crossed off!

The project as a whole is still underway. I'll post periodic updates on it until April (when the whole thing will go up on my website.

Inshee's Lair

A sneak peek at what I've been working on recently; one of the digital paintings from my BFA senior project. The project is a fairly large one, and will include full illustrations (such as this one, though as yet incomplete), character sheets, and spot illustrations. When all's said and done, there will be over thirty pieces. (One per week, basically)

This one is the lair of a secondary villian: a cult-leader griffin named Inshee. The project is based on a book I wrote and am currently in the process of self-editing. The world, Dumaria, is populated largely by sentient, mythology-based animals and what happens when humans from another world enter the mix.

Lord Azural's Lair

My illustration professor has a particular knack for giving out assignments that instantly spark interest, quickly followed by the realization of their difficulty. It's a good combination. This specific ink and charcoal drawing was assigned as 'a villain's lair, in two point perspective.' It was a good excuse to blend Assyrian style with a little medieval , plus Azural's wolf motif. I turned it into somewhat of a study in props, also known as a messy room. This particular villain is also a personal novel character. Now I wonder from whom he inherited the tendency to have such a clutted desk?

Seylan in his Natural Element

Seylan, who is a frequently occurring personal character of mine from a novel-in-progress. He stands in as a guinea pig for me when I want to experiment, or just have fun. This one is a bit older, from a little over a year ago. It was somewhat inspired by a picture I saw as a kid many, many, years ago and has never left my head. Done in gouache and ink, on illustration board. 7"x10"