Improvement Meme...

That I totally stole from Phobs on deviantart.

2009 - Beginnings of fourth year first attempt, and first attempts at digital painting. Mostly lines with some colour ontop.

2010 - Got some cel shading in there, became much more vastly interested in storyboarding, which soon died out.

2011 - resigned to freelance, discovering more about design and the intricacies of digital painting and lighting effects. Of course it's just cats and ladies still though. I can't change that much.

2012 - realization that all of my favourite characters are blonde or ginger women.


Bonus: Here's a drawing I Did when I was 4.

It reads: I like spring because I like butterflies.

I wasn't very eloquent, but I guess you can't expect too much from a 4 year old.

2013

I'll just leave this right here.

Reaction to the End of "The Hunger Games"

So I just finished reading The Hunger Games, of which I am well aware is meant for children one half to one third my age, but w/e.

This was my reaction to the last chapter. Now I have to read the second book, which I would anyway, but now I have to.

Also I'm going to do what Faith Erin Hicks did and practise my comicbooking on an excerpt from The Hunger Games, possibly from the actual Hunger Games section, since she did the first five pages or so. Maybe if enough artists do enough pages we'll have an entire graphic novel of mismatching styles and panels but nevertheless, a comic anthology of The Hunger Games.

Read it if you haven't, it's not a long or hard read.

EDIT:

This is something I pictured when I read the bit about Foxface rejoicing in a section of the book. It's not a massive spoiler. It's just a girl with red hair laughing at a pile of crap.

Through the meadows of life

Sorry. I've been a little under the weather and overall busy, talking to studios about jobs and stuff. I'm currently speaking to a specific Toronto studio now, hopefully that'll turn into something. If there's any updates. I'll let you folks know (as that'll probably result in a major posting hiatus)

When I'm sick I tend to write more, because leaning over my cintiq when I'm sick is just a joke. I've been writing on my ipad lately and its been a joy.I never have to worry about pressing ctrl+s. Then I drew this because I've been listening to the Avenue Q Soundtrack, which is ridiculously happy.

Such is life at the moment.

Blackout in protest!!

It's kind of like the Government was having Marital Issues (read: deficit and healthcare reform) but they couldn't deal with it, so they got angry and kicked the dog (read: created SOPA/PIPA)

What a lot of my fellow artists seem to be missing, not that their favourite sites will be taken down, or censored. I am upset that there are sites that I like a lot that might be taken down, HOWEVER, that is not the issue that affects us as this digital generation of artists, the most -

What affects us the most is that any professional work that we have done for hire, for a studio or freelance, will no longer be available for your use if SOPA/PIPA gets passed.  


So what does that mean for you? 

• No more portfolio sites with work you've done professionally. 
• No more demo reels with work you've done for studios. 

No you don't get an investigation, it just gets taken down without warning. 

Blogger isn't exactly friendly to me covering everything with black.

So I did the next best thing. For the next day, my blog will be black like this.

What I am saying here is:

F*ck SOPA and PIPA.

Now that I've gotten that juvenile burst of vulgarity out, make sure you sign the petition from Google, linked through the image above. Learn what you're up against, and protest this bill, because it's stupid and should never be passed in a democratic society. As a blogger, and someone who frequents all of these sites threatened by SOPA.  Probably the poorest defense against Piracy, ever. The Oatmeal probably put it the best:

It's like dealing with a escaped Lion from the Zoo, by blasting kittens with a flamethrower.

Effectively the largest slur on democracy I have ever seen. Want to stop piracy? You should probably focus on the more trying matters first, Government. Like your massive deficit, that's probably more important than how many movies people illegally download, or how many people put a picture of Oprah riding a sea-doo, with Jesus on the backseat on their website. Or how many people make awful gifs of Naya Rivera spitting a rainbow into Lea Michele's mouth on tumblr. 

That's my two cents. Or ten cents. There was a lot of writing there.

It kind of seems like the government is throwing a tantrum because they can't fix anything else, so they may as well shut some shit down. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's like getting angry at your kids so you turn around the car so you can't go on vacation. Everyone loses. 

Sorry, because it's blacked out, it's hard to read. My bad.

****UPDATE 11:06 AM****

That's right. It's irresponsible to censor information from people, but we'll just shut them down when we win.

source: gifbuffet.tumblr.com

Merry Christmas Everyone

"My Favourite Things - A Gil Elvgren Tribute"
Time: 12-15 hours Medium: Photoshop CS5 and Painter 11

Last year I posted a card that posed a challenge for me, there was a lot going on - and a lot of characters, so I thought this year - not that last year's was bad - I would attempt to do something where I could spend more time on the quality instead of the magnitude.

Then I had work and Holiday preparation and I had about as much time to do it as I did last year.

For this year, I discovered that people consider "My Favourite Things" a Christmas tune (likely due to Oprah). From this, I chose two of my favourite things, pinup ladies and Gil Elvgren.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed painting it. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you. See you in the New Year.

(Also yes, I realize she looks a bit like Ariel)

It's December Already?

So it's apparently already December. 

But at least I finally got paid for my music video that I did for Asher Roth, well most of it. Rest of it tomorrow.

While I'm not working 100% full time, when I do work, I work a lot. 

And when I'm not working, I'm doing something else. Like driving in traffic jams (although in its defense, this is often means to a good end)

 Or getting my face rearranged by rabid female shoppers at the Bay or other department store.

Or playing skyrim.

No I didn't draw that. There doesn't need to be any hard evidence of how often I play that video game. But if you're wondering where I am  - and why I haven't done any art to speak of, this is why.

It's that time of the year.

I'm feeling a little overworked, and it's not my job. I find work is my respite from the rest of the holiday hustle and bustle. Especially trucking it around malls, that's probably the worst. The second worse might be harassing old clients to actually pay me for the work I did, I'm waiting on an exorbitant amount of money from about three people. But I have my computer back online - but that's not promising any art, not gonna lie - if I'm not working, I'm holiday-ing.

I'm definitely feeling a little close to "The Gift of the Magi" right now.

Computer Poop

Hey guys,

I'm sorry I'm not posting - but my computer exploded. I was able to set up my macbook pro to my cintiq at least, and I'm drawing again.

You might say: Leisha, why don't you just use a scanner?

...

I didn't pay 2300$ for my cintiq to use a scanner.

Tucker Smith (Ice in West Side Story 1961)

I watched the second half of the movie today, for the first time in a long ass time, and "Cool" really stood out, and it might be because Tucker Smith has the craziest blue eyes ever.

Also my layout is currently in shambles, I'm still fixing the HTML for a lot of it - and recreating assets, but right now I didn't feel like working on it. Or finishing the header, but yes, if you're wondering, that is Harmony from Glee. Lol. "Anything Goes/Anything You Can Do" shuffled on, it was destiny. I am aware that about 20 minutes ago, I Called her Melody, but I REALIZE I am stupid and that is not her name.

Animation Insider

For those of you who don't know what Animation Insider is, Mike Milo set out to interview every single professional in the Industry, and I had the honour of being interviewed a couple months back.


"Animation Insider’s goal is to focus on the blue collared worker of animation; the back bone of the industry. We want to focus on the real people in the trenches who make the award winning stuff we love.  Basically if your job is associated in some way with animated movement, we want to interview you! We think everybody has stories to tell from the trenches of animation!"

Check it out:

Doodles

20 minutes

20 minutes.

I digress, I haven't been posting a lot. I'm working at Capcom Mobile/Beeline Interactive for now, so I don't have a lot of time to myself. I'm also still doing some other freelance on the side.

I'm a busy girl.

I thought I might elaborate

Yesterday I posted on facebook:

"It seems as I age, things I learned as a child get pushed out of my brain and get replaced with cartoons, and women. *sigh*"

So I illustrated this: 

It explains a lot.

As an update, I've been offered three (legit) freelance positions lately - and me being me, I took all three. Granted, one of them is finished in two weeks, and another is a year long sort-of-on-the-side project, and the last one is a 3 month part-to-full time contract.

But still, I haven't learned to not bite off more than you I Can chew. I do go by the old adage (courtesy of Courage Wolf) "Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it."

I'm also going to Montreal for four days this upcoming Friday because Yuliya Boublikova is a boss and got into Stop Motion Montreal with her film Icaria. So I attend by default.

It's also my birthday on Wednesday.

Yay.

Coming Soon

Hey folks, sorry no art again today.

i know I've failed.

But I did want to let you know I'm working on a couple of posts (like actual posts, with content, and art, and words) - and they may sound either self-righteous or self-promoting but niether is intended.

So I'm working on a post about how to draw women, and granted it'll be how I draw women, but a few people have asked how to get into the grey zone between femininity and masculinity, without jumping the fence into the other gender. So I'll be talking about that.

And I'll eventually be able to announce what I've been working on for the last little while. If you're wondering why gifs and internet memes are suddenly invading my blog - I kind of came to the conclusion that a blog isn't your portfolio - so I can sort of do as I see fit, and I see fit to not have every post include art. If you disagree, you can let me know by putting it in this bin right here:

K goodnight