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

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

Sketchblog Edition 124: Make Peace, Not Dischord

Wow!  So, it's been a while.

I apologize sincerely for the distance between posts.

What has it been?  A month?

Man....

Well, I promise you I'll make up for it.

I have a lot to show from the past month, so here's the first of several blog updates for you to enjoy!

These are just some quick sketches and fun pieces I did in my spare time.

I'm noticing a wonderful shift in my style and my artistic abilities that I can only attribute to the new system of living and thinking that I've developed for myself.

Life is great. :)

I made this for my Facebook cover photo, but if anybody else wants it, feel free to download and share!

It's been in the 60s and 70s lately here, and even got up to 80 the other day! 
It's time for Spring/Summer clothes! :D

Ooooollllllld character.

Quick sketch, no reference.

Another quick sketch I did last night. 
I want to try painting in realism more,
so this was supposed to be the start of an exercise,
but I got lazy toward the end there with the arms and legs....
I'll fix it soon after I finish some other things first.

 

A test I gave myself to see if I had the chops for a freelance position,
which I ended up declining due to several circumstances.
It was fun to do though, even if I didn't take the job. :)

Quick dragon sketch!

Quick dragon man sketch, with colors! :O

Mermaid sketch... maybe I'll finish this for fun sometime.

It's a Loxodocto Serpentarius! 
You may remember this from my chimera sketch request batch however long ago!

Another Loxodocto Serpentarius!

At work, we have demos every once in a while. 
My coworker Ilene did a demo on pastels, so I made a Totoro.

Another piece from our Utrecht demo, this time the Fluid Acrylics demo by Rita.
It's a Derpshark, or couldn't you tell?

March 4th was my Dad's birthday.
I couldn't be there to give him a present, so I made him this.
Done in watercolors and pencil.
He loved it. :3

A new comic strip I'll be doing weekly,
on my lunch breaks over at Utrecht Savannah:
Breaktime Adventures with Emily!

That's it for the first batch!

Second batch, coming right up!

Thanks for reading!

Love you all!

<3,

Emily J Sampson