chelseakenna:

Here’s some of the concept art I’ve been doing for Sojo Studios for the game Joy Kingdom! I did concepts all of the animals in the game, which were then turned into animated models by the 3D team. 

It’s been a lot of fun working on this project because it really gave me quite a variety of things to draw. I was researching new animals almost every day.

I’m reblogging friends all up in HYEAH as of late, but oh man these are adorable.

Chelsea and I met through the TLK fandom back in the day- back when learning how to draw Scar on-model was like really important okay that was a life goal- and so I always get misty-eyed when she draws some damn nice lions.

My buddy Kai Carpenter (Deviantart | Portfolio) just put some prints up for sale on Etsy!  Go buy them.

I love Kai, but I also hate him because he does these in goache, and that just seems like goddamn magic to me.  My memories of using gouache in school are strained and frustrated and often chalky, so seeing a fellow artist take to a medium so naturally is a serious kick in the pants, inspiration-wise.

Go buy some of his beautiful nonsense here, if you have the chance!

More of my vis dev work for Bioshock: Infinite! (You can see my concepts for young Liz over yonder in this post)

Sooo I also got to work on designing Robert and Rosalind, who you end up meeting pretty early on in the game.  I’m only three hours in so I don’t know if their full names are spoilers yet, so I’m playing it safe. :)

The two of them were still in the really early design stages when I was brought on, so I got to have a lot of free reign with them; I’ll be honest, I’d pretty happy rock Rosalind’s final outfit given half the chance.

HEY YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT Bioshock: Infinite is out and I can finally show some of the visual development I did for the game! :D  Pretty excited over here.

Figured I’d start off with my dress design process for young Liz, since her alternate outfit has been getting a lot of coverage (no pun intended) over the past couple of months.  Irrational wanted a period- and age-appropriate look, so that’s what I was aiming for.  I’ve got some more stuff I can share out tomorrow, but I didn’t want to overload you guys with art posts. :)

-C, who is definitely picking up her pre-order after work

(Tremendous thanks to Jorge Lacera and the team at Irrational for briefly welcoming me into the fold- as a huge fan of the franchise I was blown away when they hit me up to do some concept work, and it was an absolute pleasure to contribute in even the tiniest way to what is looking to be an amazing game.)

thaddeuscrunch:

The Duchess Approves Poster by ~ThaddeusCrunch

The source art for my We Love Fine “Gravity Falls” T-Shirt contest submission. Please do me a great honor and vote for it if you like it. 
Thank you! 

My buddy Russ has some rad entries in We Love Fine’s Gravity Falls t-shirt contest, so you should go vote for him POST-HASTE.

Vote for his design HERE!

My variant cover for Bravest Warriors #09 was just announced! Was given pretty much free reign to do what I wanted, and this was the thumbnail that the editor liked the most- can’t go wrong with bathing suits and sea monsters!

-C

justinoaksford:

SMAAAAUUUUUG. 

This was a fun one, hope you like it!

So you guys should go follow the hell out of Justin Oaksford- I had the pleasure of being his manager for the past six months, and the boy’s got some insane painting chops.  The kind of chops that make you feel bad, but in the best way possible.

He’s also immensely gracious with technique and advice, so if you ever want a thoughtful critique/paintover of your work- Justin’s your man.

-C

ericafailsatlife:

Happy Lunar New Year, y’all. If you haven’t celebrated today do not fret, it’s around for another thirteen days.

This is why I love Erica, and why all of you should be following her.

1923

My piece for the upcoming Message in a Bottle exhibit at the Light Grey Art Lab, opening January 25th in Minneapolis!  Looks like it’s going to be a killer show. I would talk about the piece some more, but the whole point of this show is SECRETS on top of SECRETS

-C
(You can buy prints and check out the other amazing artists HERE )

My Hatshepsut piece for the upcoming GIRLS: Fact + Fiction show, opening December 7th at the Light Grey Art Lab gallery space in Minneapolis, MN!

We were invited to draw any fictional or factual lady of our choice, so I went with Hatshepsut because, well, she’s Hatshepsut. If I am to believe all of those ancient statues of her, she looks damn fine in a pair of aviators.

I’m not going to be able to make the opening myself, but you can check out the invite for the show over on facebook if you’re so inclined and/or local. :)

PRINTS AND ART BOOK
Also worth mentioning is that the people behind Light Grey Art Lab have already set up an online store for the show! You can pick up prints of all the art, along with a limited edition art book collecting all of the pieces in the show with short blurbs about each of the featured ladies.

You can pick up a print of my piece HERE, and grab the art book HERE. Go forth and look at all the pretty art!

-C

nathantwist:

So Claire introduced me to artists on Tumblr reimagining themselves as SugarRush characters, so here you go. Jameson Scotchrocks.

He has a fruit rollup vest.

OH MAN Colin made a Sugar Rush racer and he is whiskey-themed

Perfection

nicholaskole:

Creepy-deepy bad guys from Project Copernicus! 
Some of my favorite designs I got to do for the game- spirits of malevolent chaos! :D

You all follow Nick, right?  He’s one of my best RISD buds, and his work always makes me all flushed with jealousy in the best way possible.

Boy’s got some talent.

Jillian Tamaki:

I’ve been teaching illustration for about 5 years now. I feel really lucky to have seen some of the students I taught/met during my first couple years at Parsons go on to become professional creative people themselves (Katie, Anna, Zack, Roxie, Hannah.)

The vast majority have not.

For my current class, a senior portfolio class in the Illustration Dept. of the School of Visual Arts, I require my students to build an online portfolio website for their final project. It’s the only group critique we have in the 2nd semester. I visited some of those sites this week and noticed that most haven’t been updated since that day of the final critique last spring.

Why? Why put all that time and money and effort into 4 years of college if you’re not even going to make a run at being a professional illustrator? I suppose there are myriad reasons… the main one being that I just don’t think most human beings find the freelance life to be all that amiable. Talent is important and so very lovely when you have it, but I’ve found it often doesn’t correlate to any real-world post-graduation success. A persistent attitude is just as important.

I actually think that most people don’t realize or think about the difference between Drawing and Illustration. They think they’re the same. They’re not. Drawing is an act, whereas Illustration (as I define it) is a profession. Illustration *can* involve drawing (it can expand beyond drawing too, obviously), but it’s actually the act of thinking and problem solving. I think I’ve mentioned this before but Tim O’Brien once said something to the effect that the sketch-phase of a project IS the Illustration… I couldn’t agree more, despite my work being incredibly different from Tim O’Brien’s.

I wish this delineation between drawing and illustration was made more clear earlier on to young art students. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe illustration is more than a just a “style” and that most students enter such schools with hopes of eventually making their living being an illustrator. For this reason, I try to structure my class around real-life projects, prompts, feedback, and processes. (It’s also the way I myself was trained.) I do recognize that illustration programs are not quite the “trade schools” they used to be, and that they can be fulfilling experiences unto themselves. But again, I think most students enter with reasonable expectations that they will be exposed to realistic representations of Illustration as a JOB.

Illustration is about fitting your conceptual and aesthetic style to a problem. There is a “solving” aspect to it. I find students either revel in this aspect or absolutely hate it. It can represent a brainteasing challenge or be completely oppressive, depending on your point of view. If you want to become a professional illustrator, it helps to be the former. Sometimes you will feel more like the latter! But mostly you need to be open to collaboration and working within constraints. The joy of illustration is striking the delicate balance of solving the problem with artistry.

No real conclusions or grand(er) pronouncements than that. Just something I’ve been thinking about lately…

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  That wave of pleasure washing over you as you solve an Illustration- that’s the best feeling I know.  I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’m not remotely interested in creating art that doesn’t strike that nerve for me.

Finally had enough free time to kick out an entry for the FluevogCreative contest- what can I say, I really like the idea of having a subset of money that I have to spend on shoes.  Exciting!

No idea if this’ll make it into the final round for voting, but you should head on over and like it if you have the chance. :)

-C

(via shoomlah)

A portrait of Nat Love/Deadwood Dick for Tiki Machine’s upcoming Western-themed art book, which should be debuting at San Diego Comic-Con this year.

Nat was a knockout black cowboy with a pretty impressive autobiography and, not being one to give up any chance to draw bison, I decided to draw from the chapter in his book about a Buffalo stampede:

A Buffalo Stampede—On They Came, a Maddened, Plunging Snorting, Bellowing Mass of Horns and Hoofs.

…So rad.  You can check out some more WIP sketches over on the blog, and I’ll make sure to let you all know when the book’s out and available.

-C