Sketchblog Edition 14: Girl Logic

I think my brain gradually died as the day progressed.
You'll be able to tell this as well, when you examine the deterioration of the sketch quality and content below....

I woke up with that horrendous stomachache making a comeback after I tried to drown it with Pepto Bismol the night prior.
It was so terrible, I decided to email my prof to tell him I wasn't coming to either of his classes this morning, and instead passed out and slept for another 3 hours, which helped.

When I woke back up, I ate a cookie, then met Lilly for lunch at Papillote.
Afterward, we went pen-shopping to replace my unfortunately dying favorite pen (whose last breath is recorded below in the upper right hand corner in the form of a derp face).
She helped me test pens in my sketchbook, and I was finally able to find a suitable replacement.
It's not blue like I wanted, but it sure does make some delicious solid blacks.

Once I got it home, I broke it in by doing some warm-up sketches of big cats from the wonderful book of the same title.
KITTIEEEEEES!!!
This cat was really hard to draw for some reason, and the anatomy on it is all wonky, but it's actually not all that far off from the photo.
It just has really weird meaty arms. D8
Cat mouths are really hard to draw. D8


Later, Tyler and his visiting sister, Alysha, and I went to Juaréz for some burritos (at last!).
While waiting for the food, I drew more Southern Drawl Cat.
Yay!

Alysha is a wonderful and quite enjoyable person indeed.
She discussed on the car ride home the science of cookie acquisition, and whether it is better to make your own or to simply go out and buy some.

This produced for some interesting psychological points.
Now Angry Tyler has a good reason to be angry.
Silly Tyler.
Don't you know you'll never understand the brain of a woman?

Upon my return home, my stomach began to argue with me about the food I had just eaten.
Not wanting a repeat of yesterday, I decided to take necessary measures and let it know who's boss.


With my newfound domination over my enemy, I had the confidence and energy I needed to draw today's free sketch, which goes out to my good friend and classmate Ian.
Now, Ian, you must understand, had requested a portrait of himself "sloppily making out" with his frog detective character Frank, but I decided that was a bit much.
However, not wanting to disappoint him on his Quarter-of-a-Century birthday, I met him halfway.
Happy Birthday, Ian!


Now that that's out of the way,
I and my friends Lilly and Vanessa are about to embark on a journey to see the midnight showing of Iron Man 2.
So I will leave you with this final sketch of Derpy Iron Man.

NOW I LEAVE.

(It's a good thing I have all this pent-up energy, or I'd never be able to last through the movie!)


Thanks for reading, as always!
Love you all, and have a great night and an awesome Friday tomorrow!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Sketchblog Edition 13: Method To The Madness

Today was quite unusual, to say the least.
My production value was sub-par.
Be warned that the following sketches should not be expected anything great of.
I apologize.

Well, I continued watching Hamlet today.
I started the second act... I'm slowly working my way through it so as not to overwhelm my tiny little brain with Shakespearean dialogue.
I have to say, though, it is highly entertaining, and quite enriching.
Watching David Tennant make a fool of himself is amusing, to say the least.
When he was feigning madness to Ophelia's father, the ridiculous facial expressions he produced gave me giggles.
So I sketched it.
Then I looked at what I sketched.
Then I was somewhat horrified.

Afterwards, I went to go look at an apartment.
I'm considering moving someplace cheaper since I'll most likely be staying in Savannah in the Fall, but won't have the student refund since I won't be taking classes, which means I'll either have to get a job, or use what I've got in savings, or both.
I still haven't decided if moving is my best option at the moment though.
I love my current house, and have just grown accustomed to living in it.
I don't think I'm ready to part with my cozy room and living room furniture just yet.

That aside, the girl who showed me the apartment, Jennifer, was quite pleasant.
I wish I could live with her and her sister, but at this point I'm leaning toward staying in my current place.
She had some cats, though, who were quite friendly....
Except toward the end of my visit there.
"Jupiter" seemed to shun me as I was preparing to leave.

Today was also the Jen Library Open House, where they displayed their entire Don Bluth Collection.
Now, those who know me well, know that I am a huge fan of Don Bluth's works.
I grew up on Land Before Time (the original one), An American Tail, and Secret of NIMH.
True, he doesn't make the best movies in the world, but I'm enraptured by them nonetheless.
So when I walked into that room glittering with original animation cels and hand-painted 20-foot background scrolls from Thumbelina and the like, I was giddy with excitement.
I was infected by Don Bluth's artwork, and immediately felt the need to draw my characters in his style.

This was my first mistake.

I am no Don Bluth, nor do I ever want to be, nor should I ever be.
If the following illustrations are not proof of that, then I don't know what is.
I'm horrified by the results of my experiment, but at least I got it out of my system.
Don't know who that is? It's Emma in DB's style.

And here, unfortunately, is my attempt at drawing Chester in his style as well:
Never again.
I don't even know what this is.


Well, at least it was done with after that third sketch.
I've successfully put the thought of ever trying my hand at Don Bluth animation out of my head.
But what of the rest of the sketchbook quota?
I was suffering greatly from the DB emulation experience, and needed to rebound quickly.
I know!
Let's draw a lion!

After drawing my rebound sketch, it was time for dinner.
Unfortunately our plans to celebrate Cinco De Mayo with delicious burritos failed due to the busy crowds at Juarez.
So we opted for Chinese.
Big mistake on my part.
We went to the one Chinese place in town that has never failed to give me stomach problems, which I swore off a long time ago, but for some reason said "OKAY!" when it was suggested. ><

At first everything was fine.
Tyler hijacked my sketchbook and did a couple doodles....
He then demanded I cease and desist from uploading any more Angry Tylers on my sketchblog.
So here's an Angry Tyler about it.

However, afterward, when we went to his house to make cookies, the poison set in.
I was doubled over in pain on his couch for most of the time the cookies were baking, and couldn't even bring myself to partake in one.
Tyler was very sweet and understanding, though, and comforted me as I groaned and moaned.

So instead of Angry Tyler, here's a page of "Consoling Tyler."
Thanks for being nice to me tonight, Tyler.
And giving me a baggie of cookies for the road. :3


As I returned home, I remembered I still hadn't done my free sketch of the day, which goes out to Vawn.
She requested I draw the character Nissa Revane from Magic: The Gathering, doing some sort of magical green thing or whatever. *shrug*
As I started sketching, I remembered two things:
A.) I have no idea what this character looks like, even judging from the reference picture (seriously, what's going on with her costume? cuz I don't know...), and
B.) I know NOTHING about Magic: The Gathering, and therefore do not know how the heck they cast magic spells, let along what they look like.

To top it off, halfway through the sketch, my favorite pen, which Lilly gave me as a souvenir from her Christmas trip to China, ran out of ink. :(
So I had to finish the sketch in black ink.
With a pen I'm not too fond of. >< onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyG-xLxboSMucvU35eyk9SeXU78v0n0c0GUR_IZcVd8K3FuISfCF2bY6kCT8ZJ93hBQJK7tVhcDIdsHsMCCSZh-WOR9CMNn1gt1E-wNnf4dSULxlsqzZqxrQmih_SASFpm0M7LKdmuDr4/s1600/5-5-10+sketches+9.jpg">
So yes, today was kind of blah.
I got sick, my favorite pen ran out of ink, and my computer decided to crash almost every application it had open, all while I'm trying to scan my sketches and get them uploaded before midnight (which didn't happen), so I could at least get some rest before my morning classes.
Like I said before, though,
live and learn.



Thanks for reading, and Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Love you all, and have a good night and great day tomorrow!

<3,
Emily J. Sampson

Sketchblog Edition 12: I'll Be A Nickel

First off, let me start by wishing you all a Happy Star Wars Day, possibly the punniest holiday ever created.
That being said,
today I skipped out on classes.
Not to celebrate the pagan holiday, but for a number of other very good reasons,
one of which being that I've been dueling with a recurring headache for the past week, and, knowing that I'd have to deal with two classes back-to-back (an 8 AM and an 11 AM), in dim and stuffy classrooms, in the company of a hard smoker,
I wanted to avoid making it worse.
As if that combination wasn't deadly enough,
Savannah weather decided to add a full day of rain to the mix.

Not just any rain, mind you.
This is the most horrid rain that Savannah has to offer.
It's like its bad-weather specialty.
Lilly named it well:
Passive-Aggressive Rain.

You can see it illustrated below, along with its kinder yet still a little annoying counterpart, Chubby Rain (That Goes Sideways) (this is a long story... yes, I know it's from a movie, but there's more to it than that).
Sometimes it's small and gentle, and sometimes it's large and abusive.
It has violent mood swings, so you can never predict when it's going to go torrential on you.
I hate that rain.

While eating with Lilly and Chad at Back In The Day Bakery,
I caught a glimpse of something in Lilly's sketchbook,
which I thought to be a narwhal crossed with a squid at first,
but later found out to be simply a windsock.
Still... The image made its way into my head and I couldn't help myself.

Below that is a quick sketch of the delicious Mondo Brownie they were serving today.
Why was it so quick a sketch?
Because the thing was so delicious, I could barely keep myself from it.
It may look small, but please keep in mind it was almost like eating pure fudge.
It lived up to its name ten times over.
So rich.... so delicious.... so deadly.


Upon returning home, I performed some menial tasks, then took a nap to relieve the onset of the weather headache.
When I woke up, however, almost an hour and a half had passed and I was feeling hunger rear its ugly head yet again.
I heated up some leftovers and popped a squat in front of my computer,
and began watching the glory that is Hamlet, as put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and produced by PBS.
If that's not enough to whet your palette, hear this one:
It stars Patrick Stewart AND David Tennant.
Now THAT'S tasty.

Amazing actors aside, the production is really awesome as well!
Here are some sketches inspired by watching the first Act:



Now comes the part where I introduce the Free Sketch of the day.

Tyler, be warned.
You may not like this one.



Jillebeancolbert on DeviantART requested I draw a somewhat unsettling creature of her creation,
the "man fish thing."
I complied, to the best of my abilities.
I took a few liberties with the design, so I hope you don't mind.
I actually kind of enjoyed doing this one,
especially the little bubbles and foam.
Hope you like.
(Also, here's some listening music you should all get addicted to that I listened to while drawing this one.)


Of course, we can't have a sketchblog without another Angry Tyler.
(What's wrong with that leg???)


Well, that's about all I've got for you.

Oh, but I've got this letter to read to a certain someone:


"Dear John's Head,
Please stop hurting him and please don't stress.
Have a nice rest of the week.
Thank you.
Signed,
Emily."


Okay, I'm done now.


Thanks for reading!
Love you all, and goodnight/good morning!

<3,
Emily J. Sampson




p.s. Tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo!
TIME FOR BOOREETOES!

Sketchblog Edition 11: Boom Boom On A Leaf

MONDAAAAAAY!!!!
I love Mondays.
A fresh start to a whole new week.
A chance to use the next seven days fully to your advantage!
I started the week by doing chores around the house, running errands, and sketching, sketching, sketching.

I meant to do this mini-Emily line-up from last week since it was "Wear Your Sister's Hand-Me-Downs" Week for me.
Below you'll see all the shirts/dresses I wore that were all given to me by my sister.

And we all remember what happened on Sunday....

I went to eat lunch with an awesome gentleman, Jeremy Nguyen, at Locos today.
While waiting for him, I drew a napkin.
Thrilling.

The whole time we were eating and talking, I came to realize one thing...

I'm a slob.


Today's free sketch goes out to my friend Valerie.
It's her vampire character, Ansen.
Yaaaaaaay face fail. ><
And what's with that bat wing?
I don't know.... Oh well.
At least the hand turned out okay this time. XD
Hope you like it, Val!


I've been thinking more about that Plague Doctors story I've been developing.
(Plague Doctors is just a working title.)
Since it was rats that spread the Black Plague, I decided to make them the nemesies.... nemesi.... neme.......... the antagonists of the story.
I found some really good reference for rat skulls, too!

I really love the look of a rat's skull, so I started playing with working that into the design of the demon-like characters.
Here are a couple concepts.


Last but not least...
Your daily dose of "Angry Tyler."
Ahhh... revenge is sweet.

(In case you didn't get the reference....)



That's all for today!
Pretty full for me, but in the grand scheme of things, fairly uneventful for you, I suppose. XD


Thanks for reading!
Love you all and have a good night and a wonderful week!

<3,
Emily J Sampson




p.s. Who else thinks Adventure Time gets better and better with each episode?

Sketchblog Edition 10: What's All That Smoke?

You ever start waking up while you're dreaming?
It happens to me all the time.
I was in the middle of a dream when my alarm clocks started going off.
The dream started to become about me changing the settings on my alarms to play a different tune, when in reality, all I was doing was hitting the snooze button out of habit.
><


Strangely, I had trouble getting started sketching today.
The first sketch I did was in the afternoon, and I don't even know what to think of it.
It kind of frightens me a little.
I do like the freckles on the girl though.
I don't have enough characters with freckles....

As for the cat, well... I have no excuse.
I'm sorry.
I tried drawing a cute sleeping kitty from memory and failed epically.
I apologize.
-___-;

For some reason I felt the urge to draw a series of new characters for a random story that I haven't even thought of yet.
Seems like a team of pirates to me, or something along those lines.

The order on the line-up below is like this:
woman, man, young woman, boy, robot.
*shrug*

Here's a full and more detailed view of the guy character.
I like his jacket and belt.
His hair works better in the smaller version.

I imagine this character to be the tough-as-nails female captain.
She smokes. Not a good habit.
Her hair's pretty neat, I think... probably wrapped up in a bun type thing in the back.
Her outfit is really fun. :3


Today's free sketch goes out to my very good friend Heidi.
She asked me to draw the psycho demon character Six from her new story.
He's pretty neat.
I don't know how well this came out.
I'm happy with parts of it, but there are obviously a lot of parts where I had issues, like his face and his hand.
(For some strange reason I'm having trouble drawing hands lately....
It's weird because they're one of my favorite things to draw. :/ )

Later today I had a work session at my friend Tyler's house.
As I was leaving and packing up my moped, a prowler approached me silently out of the darkness....


And then started rubbing up against me.

Then it got distracted and went off to pounce on falling leaves.
Allow me to illustrate:

Cute, isn't she?
She was quite friendly. ^^


That's about it for tonight.

Oh, yes.
I almost forgot.

Tonight, as I was working at Tyler's place, he inadvertently and unwarrantedly chucked an eraser at my head.
Not any old eraser, mind you.
A Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser.

It hit me square in the forehead.
It hurt.
He smiled and chuckled as he apologized.
He said he didn't mean to hit my head,
that he was aiming for my shoulder...
But I don't believe it.

I think he's been trying to do me in for a while now.
He constantly throws things at me, tries to frighten me, and suspiciously sneaks up behind me, not to mention attaches things to me, like clothespins.

I'm pretty sure he's trying to off me.



So don't be surprised if you don't hear from me again for a while.



Thanks for reading!

I love you all, and hope you have a pleasant sleep and a wonderful day tomorrow!
Goodnight/Good morning!

<3,
Emily J Sampson

Sketchblog Edition 9: Hush Hush

Today was...
bizarre.

I woke up way later than I should have, or wanted to.
I was exhausted from the late night last night, so I slept through most of my alarms.
The remainder of the morning was spent checking emails and sitting there staring blankly at my computer screen, trying to figure out things.
I tried to get into my artwork, but my drive just wasn't there.

Lunch was extremely delayed, and by the time Lilly and I did eat, it was mid-afternoon already.

At T-Rex Mex, I drew this Shishi Foo Dog.
It was from memory, so it looks really wonky and I don't really like it, but at least I tried.
I always liked Foo Dogs.
They intrigue me.
I want to own a little one to put in my room.

While waiting for our food, I saw this guy sitting at the bar.
He had extremely intriguing features (actually, he was pretty attractive because of those unusual features), so I decided to sketch him really quickly.
The first sketch is the upper left-hand one, done in a semi-realism style.
Then I decided to try sketching him in my more cartoony style (done typically for TAoCKF) below that.
Next I drew him in a more "animeish" style (upper right), which I really don't like at all... his features didn't translate well into the style and the eye is too big (yeah, a lot of anime eyes are big, but don't get me started on that subject).
Directly below that one is the simplified comic style (also for TAoCKF for when I'm attempting a humorous moment), which I've nicknamed the "derp" style.
I like that last one. :3


After eating, I immediately felt sleepy, so Lilly dropped me off at home and I promptly passed out on my bed for a nap (again).
I slept much longer than I intended to, and around 5:30 I found myself struggling to just sit up.
I must have slept with my arm in a strange position because it was all numb and tingly, and my legs felt like two heavy slow things.
The rest of the afternoon/early evening I felt so incredibly drowsy that I could hardly get anything done aside from more sketching.
So here's my handiwork.

Practicing drawing Southern Drawl Cat and trying to get down a definitive style.
(Reference taken from here, because, as we all know, the best place to find cats is on the internet.)

This next batch is a little weirder.
I was trying a more simplified cartoony stylistic approach, but was failing epically towards the end.
The last few ended up looking like dogs or foxes. BAH. ><

Oh, and since it's May 1st, that means I'm starting my free sketch month!
First up is Zeta, Holly's centaur character.
I was sleepy when I drew him, so I drew him yawning as well. :3
(I've come to the realization that I can't draw hooves for beans... or horse ears for that matter. Add that to my list of things to practice drawing.)
Thanks for the request, Holly!
It was fun to draw another one of your characters after so long! ^^


Man, I still feel like this wasn't enough good stuff for you all to look at.
Hence, I am making it up to you all with a bonus FULL PAGE of Angry Tyler sketches.
I call this batch, "Moments at The Atlanta Bread Company."

Lol floppy pickle wars.





I tried to get more work done today.
I really did.
But man, was I exhausted.
I think my body is pooping out on me... maybe it's because we only got one week off between Winter and Spring quarters.
I hear they're changing that now though, so that's good for future students.


On a final note, when I got home tonight, it seemed that my upstairs neighbors were throwing a crazy party, which I did not mind at all.
I couldn't even hear their music from my room (much to my surprise, since it was so loud in the living room).
However, I guess other neighbors complained about the noise, and pretty soon after I got home a cop rang our lower apartment (our apartment) doorbell, so I was the one who had to answer it.
I had to let the cop in, and he immediately went upstairs to confront the girls in charge.
I heard some banging, the noise cut out soon after that, the front door open and close, and then some more banging and stomping.
Then I heard a knock on my door.
It was the upstairs neighbor being very VERY nice and inviting me to their party because they thought my roommates and I were "soooooo cool" at the last party they threw (even though I never actually went to it).
I politely declined, saying I had work to do, and she turned to leave, but then stopped and turned back to me and smiled.
"Oh, and if we're being too LOUD, just let us know. We don't want to BOTHER you."

It suddenly clicked with me why she was suddenly for the first time ever talking to me and inviting me to her party.
She thought I was the one who had called the cops.
I felt kind of bad.
I explained that I didn't even hear the noise from my room (because it's true- I didn't), but I think she still thinks I did it.
Oh well... not much I can do about that. :/

Makes me kind of wish I had gotten to know the girls upstairs a little more in my time living here.
However, I'm not letting it get to me.
I'll just learn from the experience and be more sociable with those around me.

Live and learn, folks.
That's what life's about.



Thanks for reading tonight!

I love you all!

Have a great day tomorrow/today! ^^


<3,
Emily J Sampson



p.s. Ghirardelli brownies = yum. That is all.

Sketchblog Edition 8: The Comfort Of Hand-Me-Downs

Ah, Friday. At long last, the end of the week.
Today also marked the Swap Meet, which was quite enjoyable, if only to spend the entire morning in the company of a room full of comic geeks and anime nerds.
You can imagine the conversations we had.
It was fun, to say the least, and I wish I could do it again.
I didn't sell a whole lot (actually, all I really sold were TAoCKF merchandise, so I guess that's a good thing?), but it was nice all the same, and I managed to get a hold of the FLCL Storyboard book for a mere $7 from another merchant!
BARGAIN!
That alone made the whole experience a win for me.

As it was, I had been drooling over our Department Chair's copy of the same book every time I walk into his office.
Actually, I ogle pretty much everything in his office....
It's a hot mess of comics, action figures, and anime paraphernalia.

But I digress.

The sketches for today may not be the best I've produced so far, but I've been experimenting and pushing myself, so I'm satisfied with the output today.

First up is a random illustration of a girl who was meant to be one of the main characters from my story, Dream Easy.
This isn't her final design, though, so I'm still working with it.
Ugh... those arms and legs.... why am I having issues with my anatomy lately?!?
Must practice on that next time....
I was wearing that dress today, btw.
(It's a dress my sister gave to me last time I went home, along with everything else I've been wearing this week... I've declared it a personal holiday week: Wear Your Sister's Hand-Me-Downs Week. It's a good holiday.)


Uh... I don't know.
I was sitting in Loco's with Lilly waiting for food to arrive, and decided I should probably do some sketching.
I was coming up on empty as far as ideas, though, and I began to realize that all I really draw are women.
So I challenged myself to draw a guy with drastically different and exaggerated facial features than what I normally draw.
It didn't turn out great, but I do like the shape of the nose, and may use that in the future.


Okay, this may take a little bit of explaining.
I've developed this obsession with drawing Emma's (the main character from my webcomic) mouth.... JUST her mouth.
It happened when I was working on concept design assignments for Paul Hudson's class involving character expressions, and I found I really just like drawing the shape of her mouth and her teeth in all their various forms.
I've come to realize that Emma expresses with her mouth, whereas Chester expresses with his eyes.
This creates a nice contrast between the two characters that reflects the difference in their basic personalities, but I'll leave that for you to figure out as the comic progresses. ;)
So here.
Have some Emma mouths.

During my weekly Friday Game Night, I determined that I had not drawn nearly enough to redeem my recent fallings-short on my sketchblog, so I attempted to make a comeback... only to realize I was fresh out of inspiration for the day.
So I drew an eye.
That's when I thought to myself, "How absurdly ordinary and cliché can you be?!?"

Luckily, one of my regular Game Night guests, and my good friend, Rebecca, picked up on my lack of creativity and volunteered to give me a subject to draw.

So first, she suggested a cat with lazer eyes.
I give you: LazerCat, the pet of RazorBack (Game Night inside joke... don't ask).
LazerCat is srs bsns.

Finally, Rebecca requested a bird in a business suit being pooped on by a human overhead.

That's when I decided to call it a night for sketching.
I apologize for what you're about to see.

Rebecca called that both cute and disturbing at the same time.
Somehow... I agree with her.



That's all for tonight!
Sorry for the late upload!

I want to say thank you to my very good friends Lilly and Lauren for being so good to me today.

I also want to say this:

Goodnight, sugar dumplings.


That is all.



Thanks for reading everyone!
Love you all, and have a good night!
(Maybe instead of saying goodnight, from now on I should say good morning?)

<3,
Emily J. Sampson




p.s. Happy May. :)
My birthday is on the 27th, along with my Thesis Show and the last day of classes!
How exciting!