Post-Comic Con thoughts & Vacation plans

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First off, I wanted to say that I probably won't be posting new blogs for the next couple of weeks because I'll be on vacation in the U.K.  Woo Hoo!  I leave tonight.  I'm a long time anglophile and this will be my first trip to England, so I'm super excited!

As for how Comic Con went,  wow.  Lots of craziness!  I showed my comic sample around, but I don't think that anything really solid came out of it.  I think that the San Diego Comic Con has just gotten too big for a little person trying to break in at that event in particular.  I did have a lot of fun though.

The highlight was probably getting to talk to Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, at his table in the Artist's Alley section of the con.  People who have followed my blog for a while know my love for The Last Unicorn movie.  So cool to meet the author of the original book!  He was super friendly, and signed a copy of the new graphic novel of the book that came out in 2010.  I was kinda star-struck.

My next goal for my Snow comic is to show it around at the Long Beach Comic Con that happens around Halloween.  I just got notified this morning that I was approved for professional free passes, so I'll definitely be headed there!  It's a much smaller event, so I'm hopeful that I can have some quality networking opportunities for my work there.

After that, there is another event called the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank that I'll be headed to with my stuff.  That one starts November 18, which just so happens to be my birthday.  Perhaps that'll make me extra lucky there!

Alright, gotta get going to catch my flight.  I'll bring back pictures :)

Cover design mock-up

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Here is a mock-up of the cover design I think I'll use for my comic/eventual graphic novel.  I got excited to finally design and use a border pattern for this project since that's one of my favorite things to do:)

I looked at some examples of manuscripts dating from the middle ages as reference for designing the border and the font for "Snow."

On Thursday of this week I'll be heading to the San Diego Comic Con and look forward to having samples from my comic to show!

Wish me luck!
Cara:)

a rough day for the dwarves.

Pin It Now! Hello all,

Well, I'm trying to get a-going on panels for the story I'm working on so here's a couple of panel sketches. Briefly, it's kind of a re-telling of Snow White. Here's the seven dwarves not having such a good time. I don't usually do compositions with a lot of characters, so it's fun to challenge myself in this way. A bit depressing to stare at for a long time while I'm drawing it though:|

In other news, my teaching is winding down... So much to do here at the end of the semester. It always gets done somehow though.

After school ends, I'll be working more on this comic thing, as well as teaching a summer art class for kids. What are everyone else's summer plans? Trips? Lollygagging and lounging? Workin' hard for the man?

I don't mean to make anyone jealous, but I'm actually going on a trip to the U.K. for a couple of weeks right before school starts back up. I've never been before and couldn't be more excited!!

Later.

Dwarves

Pin It Now! Okay, so I know the first dwarf looks really sad and haggard. But I made it up to the dwarves in the next one. Look at him in his heroic glory!

I've been drawing some dwarves for the story I'm working on and so the two appearances pertain to the story. I decided once again to indulge my Norwegian side and make these dwarves from some sort of Norse culture.

I'm still spending a lot of time on the writing aspect of the graphic novel I'm working on, but I like how it's coming together so far. I've formed a writing group with some fellow creative people and we met for the first time over the weekend. Looking forward to that being a great help.

That's all for now!

still here...and went to a fun art event!

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Hello all,

I've been absent for several weeks on my blog, but I'm still here. A combination of factors are to blame: moved to a new apartment; starting a new art project that involves writing a story as well as drawing it; busy with some events.

The new art project is a graphic novel I'm trying to get going. I haven't done much in the way of comics/graphic novels before so I'm learning as I go. And right now I'm needing to spend some time writing the story that will be illustrated. Hopefully I can post some pictures related to that soon. My hope is to get a sample chapter done in time for Comic Con this July.

Here's a fun thing that kept me busy over last weekend. I attended a 2-day Illustration Workshop with amazing illustrator Jon Foster.

Jon Foster is an artist I've noticed and been a fan of for a number of years, having seen his work in Spectrum's Annual, as well as on some book covers that have caught my eye. I was really excited to have the chance to take a workshop with somebody I would love to emulate, within driving distance in Pasadena.

Here's some more of his work:

and this:

Pretty cool.

He was a really down-to-earth, helpful, humble guy. He talked about his own journey to where he is now, and gave a lot of hope to those of us who feel like we should already have "arrived" with our illustration careers. Jon talked about his process, talked about the importance of thumbnails, and talked about how he approaches value and color (values first, then colors).

Jon demo-ed an oil painting the first day, then took it into Photoshop and demo-ed digital painting the second day. Oh, and he also had all of us in the class do a series of thumbnails for a cover of Midsummer Night's Dream that he looked over and critiqued.

Overall, it was super inspiring--and raised the bar yet again on how I need to push myself to get better.