Are they angry or are they borrowing an emotion or two?

My illustration instructor once said all my ‘girls’ looked angry, and then speculated on my emotions while drawing them. She quickly moved on to critique (read: criticize) another students work, but I was left wondering if maybe she was on to something.

It’s no secret that illustration class hasn’t been my favourite subject, and I do always seem to be pissed off by the time I get to my sketchbook, but about a week ago, something finally clicked.

I felt like I had been floundering, or at the very least reached a plateau with my work, but just as I was becoming complacent with skill level, I started drawing and looking down at the page, I realized I had gotten a little better.

I'm not expecting my work to improve over night, but the little changes in my style and form really encourage me!

So what was this sketch that I was working on that changed how I thought about my skills? It was an anime drawing. I was actually coping a picture on of my classmates had printed off and to my surprise and the interest of some of my classmates, I was copying it pretty well!

My sketch of the Anime face.

Illustration doesn’t seem to piss me off as much anymore, and I’m finding more of a niche in the animated side of the drawings, but I still think they look pissed-off (but that may be more because as models they haven’t eaten in days, and not necessarily anything that’s coming from my hand...)

With that I present my most recent a project:

Pastiche /pæˈstiʃ, pɑ-/ or [pa-steesh]

–noun

1. a literary, musical, or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.

2. an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc., taken from different sources; hodgepodge.

My Illustrator of Inspiration: Igor Lukyanov

 The Originals

My attempt at copying them

An angry/scheming woman

 A sad woman

I always seem to leave my first year marketing class equally excited and with a dampened spirit.

I understand that our instructor is trying to impart on us the difficulties of the marketing world, and more specifically the fashion world, but I sometime feel that if we don’t work for, own, or are in some meaningful way tied to huge corporation, we may as well not bother.

This is or course not the case, and she backs up the other side of the argument skilfully, constantly relating to us the possibilities for those new to the industry, trying to make a go of it on their own.

As I am not overly interested in having my own line, the woes that face new designers don’t scare me as much, but I am (and always have been) interested in marketing and find that class very interesting and extremely informative (albeit a little overwhelming at times also).

Further to my point about new designers, many seem to face the same interesting decision, one that I myself have not yet resolved. To ‘Etsy’ or not to ‘Etsy’, that is my dilemma.

I have a few odds and ends I have created over the years, and while I’m not overly attached to them, and wouldn’t mind selling them at least cost, I’ve never decided if Etsy is the path for me.

Etsy.com, for those of you who may not know, is a site dedicated to aiding crafters in the presentation, purchasing and selling of their goods and supplies. They categories on Etsy range from the ever so broad accessories, the more specific geekery (geek related ‘crafts’) to needlepoint, quilts, woodworking, and they even have a specific candles section!

There are over 31, 000 items in the candles sections alone, and over 500, 000 in the accessories section, with over 25 sub-sections, which would probably be my general target area.

Etsy seems so broad and all encompassing that a single shop would get undoubtedly lost in the shuffle.

That being said I still feel like I want to try my hand at it, and I may well (one day when I have time) but until then I at least want to get some decent pictures of my work. I heard a while ago a way of creating a nice and simple box to display your work. It basically consists of an opaque Rubbermaid box on its side, some thin white cotton over it to diffuse the light, a few strategically placed lamps with ‘tru-light’ or ‘daylight’ bulbs, and some white card curved into the box to create a seamless background for your work. I’m going to try to mess around with this idea this weekend and see what comes out of it.

Hopefully I’ll have some photos to share, they may turn out nice, or they may be disasters, I’ll have to try it and see.