Margo May

For all you Margo-lovers and Should-Be Margo-lovers:


Margo May by ~kaleeko on deviantART

Posted this on my tumblr about a week ago. Cute girl is cute. ^^

Read more...

Love is Blind: Drawing & WIPs

Though part of the reason I created this blog in the first place was to have somewhere to motivate myself to draw more by posting up doodles and sketches and what-not, this particular drawing I was unable to do so because it was done as a gift. Now that the gifty-ness has taken place, I can finally share it with y'all!

Love is Blind

Granite & Tranquil, Splash of Color

(Link to the drawing on deviantArt.)

Two incredibly well portrayed characters by an incredible writer: the unstoppable blind Tranquil and the bad-boy-with-a-heart Granite.

I was initially inspired to draw Tranquil because of these screenshots here; the scene Berry wrote about how Tranquil, a blind girl, experienced standing on this deck--and her determination to get into a 'real' school--totally struck a chord with me.

I knew her story was going to end up vastly different than most generations, and I was right--and in the end, Granite ended up being just as compelling to draw as her. :) I would digress into why, but... I'd really just prefer you went and read their story! Go! Go now!

A couple of people have seen these, but for those who'd like to see the process:

(click image for fullview)

Some brief notes:

• The original concept behind the drawing was Tranquil blindly reaching out to touch Granite's face, while they were standing in a darkened hallway; the drawing was going to be called 'I See You', but as I started working on it I realized that was a bit too ambitious for my current artistic ability. Whoops. XD
• Granite's face is mostly hidden on purpose--it has to do with the 'mystery' behind the character, as well as the fact that she can't see him the way we normally would.
• When I decided to opt for music in the background, I picked up the sheet music for "Only Hope", and chose two measures to use for the backdrop--they aren't consecutive so it'd be pointless to say which, but I like to think the song does have some meaning for them.
• The 'circles' are meant to represent sound waves, and the paint splashes are for "Splash of Color". (Have you figured out how cheezy I am, yet?)

Anyways. I'm continually aiming to do better in my artwork, and while this wasn't a *giant* leap in the right direction, I'm still really happy with the outcome.

Cheers!

Read more...

It Don't Take Long!

See, this is why it's stupid that I procrastinate, because if I had more time I could do a LOT better stuff. I mean, I whipped out this drawing in a few hours... Imagine if I'd worked on it several hours a day for even just two weeks?

I'm such a loser! Gah! Anyways. XD

My husband's best friend and his wife; they are an absolutely adorable couple, though he's actually probably about 5 inches taller than that... It's just hard to draw such a large height different in this kind of picture. ;D

Also, he seriously has a cheesy smile like that. I hope he doesn't mind me making fun of him for it, haha. XD

Alright, so now that that's done... I have to clean my house. I leave 9:30am tomorrow morning, and to be perfectly honest I'm probably going to have to sleep most of the trip because that is going to be BRUTAL considering how my sleep schedule is messed up right now...

Well, the terrible headache I have must because I haven't in like 24 hours, so I need to go do that and then get to work. I've been tempted to start working on the first episode of Desperate Sims before I leave, buuuttt... It's not looking like it's going to happen.

In any case, for now... Toodaloo!

Read more...

Sketchy Sketchy

The WIP of my next drawing-to-be:

I need to move the arms a bit (putting his right hand on her shoulder and her right hand on top of it), but other than that it's just straight shooting through the lines and onto the color, which'll be pretty easy, tomorrow.

Still feeling uber stressed out for some reason, though. Can't shake this weird chest pain and the BBoA screaming "YOU SUCK AT EVERY-TING!" in my ear. I swear, I'mma slay that beast one day. You'll see!

But until that day... I'm gonna have to come up with some strategy to at least lock him back in his cage.

Read more...

10 Day Meme: Day Six... & Sketchy Sketchy!

First, sketchy sketchy!

My brother would say, "You didn't make your cheeks chubby enough!"  To which I would say, "... Mooomm!!"

Doing just a really simple background for this site, with a self portrait drawing on one side and... I haven't decided on what for the other side. My alter-ego maybe. No freaking idea. I'm not horribly creative at times!

Anyways, just a sketch right now!

In other news... I had a fantastic day--my hubby had the day off and I got some much needed lovin's... Which means I've had no time to get much of anything done. For once, though, I honestly don't care. I deserved today!

But, in an effort to actually get this meme thing done:

Day Six

Five people who mean a lot to me.

To be perfectly honest, I gave this one a lot of thought. I tend to over-think a lot of things, so this isn't exactly any special occasion, but I seriously had the hardest time coming up with just five people.

There's two reasons for that: number one is that, as distant as I am with the world at the moment, I don't have a lot of close friends--and those friends I have, as much as they mean to me, are not so close that I put them on a pedestal above anyone else. Maybe that sounds a bit harsh to the people who consider themselves close to me, but, it's just who I am.

Which leads to my second point: I honestly care about everyone. I have a hard time distancing myself emotionally from a fake character on television, so not caring about the well being of the person crossing the street is incredibly hard. I'm not the type of person that values one life more than another, because I think everyone is amazing in their own way--people I don't know just haven't gotten a chance to show me how great they are, yet.

I think I spread my love a little bit too easily, but it's one of the defining qualities about myself I would never change. And, because of that, I can't really go out of my way to say that anyone I might name is actually all that more important to me than someone else.

That being said... The first five people that pop into my head:

1. My husband, Shawn - He understands the way I tick on a level few people have ever reached, and despite all he knows he still loves me. He's strong-willed, courageous, and--despite his inability to really empathize with me--he's emotionally stable enough to counter my mood swings. I loves him.

2. My parents - So it's two people, but I don't care. They too have their faults, but they made me who I am, and I thank them for it.

3. My BFF, Josh - And I'm not just saying that because he might read this later. He's been my friend, my boyfriend, my ex, my estranged friend, my cohort, and everything in between, and yet we somehow are still tighter than jeans on an emo kid.

4. My sisters - Okay, I don't mean to discount my brother or anything--of all the people in my family, he had the most impact on my interests growing up, and we have the most in common--but over the last few years, as all three of us have finally become adults, my bond with them has gotten a lot stronger and there isn't a day that goes by that I didn't wish I lived closer to them.

5. My mother-in-law - To be honest, we aren't super close--yet--but I couldn't have asked for a more understanding, more loving, more hilarious, more smart person to have as my surrogate mom. She's going to make a fantastic grandma! I only wish I had the courage to make her a bigger part of my life.

Okay... That's all for now. I just got off an hour-long conversation on Skype with my sister, so all opportunity to get anything else done tonight is shot to hell, but... Whatever. That's what tomorrow is for. :)

Cheerio!

Read more...

7 Years of Art

In middle school, I picked up my very first sketchbook. It was absolutely terrible; it was the kind where they basically took a stack of computer pages and bound them together under a hard cover, which not only smudged horribly but started to fall apart within a couple of weeks.

But, by the end of junior high I had filled the entire thing cover to cover. There wasn't much of anything good in there--trust me, there wasn't--but the poor thing did have a torn cover, ripped pages, and smudged drawings for a reason! I'd fallen in love with art, even though I never imagined it'd be something I'd ever be good at.

So, below is a bit of a 'chronicle' to look back over my journey through art from when I started high school until now:

2004-2010 Improvement Meme by ~kaleeko on deviantART

(Yes, you have to click it to see it bigger!)

Here's some self portrait comparisons for an even better comparison of how I've progressed even just on one topic:

Ends in 2008, obviously.

The latest cartoon self-portrait I've done, from 2009. (Yes, Jennifer, you can see the two freckles! Hehe!

Course, it's interesting seeing how much I've changed physically on top of my art, but... It's really mostly just haircolor/length, ha! Yeah, I still look 12.

Yet, even a lot about my art hasn't changed. I still haven't learned how to correctly use color and shading, as all my drawings seem to look like I puked up a rainbow regardless of how the environment effects colors... The last four pieces I've done turned out fairly well in that regard, but they still aren't perfect. I have a loonng way to go, and it doesn't even have anything to do with my technical skill at drawing. Just coloring. Gah! I have so much work to do!

Alas, before I start rambling about how bad my art is--which, yes, you may disagree, but I'm no DaVinci yet--I will say that I am proud of what I've accomplished. I really have gone SO far... I mean, if you compare the above image to this:

there's a huge difference, and that's just over the course of 1 year. A year from now, I could be doing something even better...

But not if I keep pansying around like I am now. I did a grand total of 4 drawings last year. Four. All of them were done within 3 weeks of each other, and that was the end of it. It's incredibly disappointing for my progress in art, because if I'd actually spent that year trying to progress, I'd be in a much  better state than I am now.

Why did I stop drawing? Well... As most things in the world: it's complicated. Between battling depression, losing my 'muse' (I quit Mu*ing for good), my Mac dying and taking forever to get my PC set up to do art,  I lost the will to jump back on the horse. When you've got nothing to draw, no reason to draw, and no energy to draw, the floor falls out from under you and you basically even forget it's even an option. And, to myself, I'm sorry that I forgot--art was always one of the few things I always felt proud of, because it's the one skill I had in life that never came to me naturally. I had to work my butt off for it.

So, in a way, you could say that this is my New Years' resolution: belated, but worthy. Somehow, I'm going to stop being a pussy and I'm actually going to draw. I don't care what, or even how many... But I need to do it. Not only is it one of the things that makes me feel truly happy, but it could open up a lot of opportunities that I never imagined. I'll never know unless I try.

If you're curious about seeing more of my artwork and didn't figure out how from the link on the first compilation image, here's a link to my gallery on deviantART. Warning, lots of dragons. (I played on a Pern RPG and lots of people asked me to draw their shit. I didn't mind, but it stunted my variety a bit...)

Read more...