Monday, April 30, 2012

Sketchblog Edition 131: Achievement Unlocked!

IT'S FINALLY DONE.
I completed all 30 character illustrations,
one a day for the month of April's Character A Day Challenge,
without fail!
Here are the final illustrations:


Harriet Cooper from "Plague Doctors" (working title)
a space pirate captain from a yet unnamed story

the so far unnamed character from my story "Godly"
the Feminist pirate captain from a yet unnamed story
the witch and her werepug from "Witch-for-Hire"


Elia from "Witnesses"

Aya (and several other aliases) from "Harbinger"




And here it is...
the final version of the wallpaper,
which will soon be available for free download on my website in four different sizes through the month of May,
if you want it:





It was so much fun and such a wonderful growth experience working on this challenge!
I'm happy I could share all my efforts with you!

During May I will be pretty inactive due to work on finishing my thesis,
so soon after that I promise you there will be plenty of uploads!

In the meantime,
thank you, as always, for reading,
and have a wonderful day!

Love you all!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Monday, April 23, 2012

Sketchblog Edition 130: Joyful, Free, and Happy

Man, I meant to update this on the 20th,
but I got so busy with other things I just didn't have the time.
Fortunately for all you wonderful people who keep coming back for more from me,
I had today off, so I decided to keep the April Character A Day Challenge updates going!
I've only got one more week left,
so at the end I'll show you the last seven as well as the compiled version,
which I will put up on my website for free download!

Ready?
Here we go!

Add-on Character for the 14th:
Eridanus, from the unnamed Magical Girl story



Eridanus and Celica together



Koko from RavenCrest
The half-way point!
A taste of what the final image might look like!
SO MANY CHARACTERS.

Torishou, "The Bird King" from RavenCrest
Sheriff "Mahogany" Jane Walker from DAWGs

Aida, "The Seamstress" from StitchCraft!
Ralph from Crazy Eye-Deer

Dio from Big Top University
Virginia Dare from OmegaMart (title subject to change)


Emma Evans from
The Adventures of Chester K. Fingkelbottom
Chester K. Fingkelbottom from
The Adventures of Chester K. Fingkelbottom

Emma and Chester together!
<3


That's it for today!
Man, all my other sketches keep piling up....
It'll be an immense upload when I finally get around to scanning them all,
so consider yourself warned.

On a side note,
guess who's almost done with her thesiiiiiiiis!!!
:D


Thanks, as always, for reading!

Love you all,
and goodnight!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Sketchblog Edition 129: April Character-A-Day Challenge Part 2

Next batch of the Character-A-Day Challenges!
It's gonna go by quick.
Ready?
Here we go!
Crazy Emily from Paint Chips!
Haita from Special Delivery

Imiru from WorldWide Collapse

Annie from Pandora's Box

Captain Enta from an unnamed Pirate story

Moshi from Dream Easy

Yurei from Dream Easy
Aiba Ravenhair from Karasukami

Jani from See You In The Rain

Kensington "Ken" Harris from Confetti Summer
Celica "Cel" Montgomery from an unnamed Magical Girl story



More updates to come!
Be on the lookout for some really fun sketches and an update of nothing but fanart! :D

Thanks for reading!
Love you all,
and have a great day!
<3,
Emily J Sampson

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Sketchblog Edition 128: April Character-A-Day Challenge Part 1

Here are the first three characters in my Character-A-Day Challenge!

The first two I struggled with on the proportions, mainly because I was designing them from scratch while I was drawing them (I had only drawn each of them once before, so it was extremely difficult to get a dynamic and interesting image while designing the character at the same time!), so I hope you'll forgive the wonkiness.


April 1:  Lisa Campbell, from the very first story I ever wrote.
She has the ability to transform into any combination of any number of creatures.

April 2:  Lady Falcon, from the story I wrote in my undergrad days, Randomia.
She is the Queen of the prosperous and peaceful country of Randomia.

April 3:  Tzipporah, who used to be named Tsubasa Minezawa,
from another undergrad story formerly called "Tsubasa No Negai."
She uses the power of something called the Solomon Stone,
which allows her to fight against demons.


That's all for today!
Thanks for reading, and be on the lookout for more sketches in the not-too-distant future!
Love you all, and have a good night!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Not-Sketchblog 18: Good Things To Come

Prepare yourselves, my friends!

Starting tomorrow, April 1st,
I will be doing a Character-A-Day Challenge!

I have been working on a Universes Catalogue,
which, for my own reference, contains information on plots and characters from every story I've ever written.
It is an exercise to ensure I don't repeat the same themes and designs too much
(it's very difficult for me!),
and the Character-A-Day Challenge will be a good workout of improving speed and technique.

My goal is to complete 30 colored character illustrations,
compiling them all into one large desktop background image,
which will be available for download on my website in May,
my free present to you for sticking with the Sketchblog since its birth 2 whole years ago!

Get ready!
There are good things to come!
:)


In other news,
my personal goal to be more positive and happy is meeting with huge success!
There are a couple occasions where I came across some bumps in the road,
but I kept the mindset that "this is temporary, life is wonderful, and I am loved,"
and I got right through those hard times, no problem!

I'm starting to reach another goal I set for myself a while back as well.
It's a challenge I've been struggling with for as long as, if not longer than, this blog has been active.
And I'm ready to reveal it:

I want to be happy alone.

I don't want to depend on anyone, or be afraid of being lonely or abandoned anymore.
It was a huge challenge for me, since I love everyone around me so much and want to share my joys with every person I meet.
And I had a few hiccups where I got too attached or dependent on certain people for happiness.
However, as I've worked to be a more positive person with an optimistic attitude,
I've noticed that change that I wanted in my life so badly.
I'm becoming the person I've always wanted to be:
an independent, strong, powerful woman who is happy with and without others.

I know now that I can survive without someone constantly by my side,
and if there is someone there, sticking by me through thick and thin,
well then that's just an added bonus.
I have the comfort and satisfaction of knowing I can do whatever I put my mind to,
and I can achieve it by my own hands,
and that's a feeling I have never felt so strongly about before as I do now.

I only hope this message reaches certain others who misunderstood all my actions in life up until now,
and that now they will perhaps start to understand why I took certain steps and made certain decisions,
and will forgive me for them, since they were somewhat selfish decisions to better myself as a human being.
But by doing so it means I can be a better friend, significant other, wife, mother, mentor, artist, or whatever life leads me to be in the future.

So you'll have to forgive me while I learn to be happy on my own for a while.

Thank you for reading!

Love you all and goodnight!
<3,

Emily J Sampson

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sketchblog Edition 127: Let Your Past Drive You, Not Control You

AND NOW,
a treat!
In-progress TAoCKF pages! :D

Page 9 rough pencils

Page 9 tight pencils


Page 10 rough pencils

Page 10 final rough pencils

Page 10 tight pencils
(without borders and some of the backgrounds, of course)


Welp.
That's all for now!

I hope it was worth the wait!

Thank you so much for always being there for me!
Love you all,
and have a great day,
and a wonderful, happy, love-filled, joyous, adventuresome life!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Sketchblog Edition 126: In Response to Bad, Do Good

It's FANART time!!!!
I've been watching a lot of movies,
mostly Disney and Bluth and Ghibli,
but there are some live action ones mixed in there too.
Enjoy.  :3

From Seven Samurai,
my favorite character, Kikuchiyo! <3

An adult Satsuki from Totoro.
Didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but meh.


Adult Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service! :D
The gang from Secret of NIMH.
JEREMY.  I loves him.
BABY SPOCK!  <3


Zoe from Firefly/Serenity.
;^;



One more batch after this!

Thanks for sticking with it!
 Love you all!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Sketchblog Edition 125: Say What You Will

Part 2 of my massive update!
I've started really enjoying drawing portraits of my friends,
so here are the fruits of that!


This was a quick sketch of a friend, Matt,
for a weekly exercise, and I really enjoyed it,
so later I tried drawing myself for a new profile picture (see below).

Self-portrait!
Portrait for my friend and coworker, Rita!
She has such wonderful features to draw and caricaturize!

First attempt at Crash's portrait....
Second attempt.

My friend Jessica!
My friend Laura!

My friend Kris!
My friend Staley!
Now I'm starting to get into animal caricaturizing!
Me as a bear!
Then my friend Matt as a bear!




 End of update 2!
Stay tuned for update 3!

Thanks for reading!
Love you all!

<3,
Emily J Sampson