Gig Poster

A recent illustration I did to promote my brother's band Izalith and their LA stop on their first tour. It was a fun opportunity to draw something a little different than I usually do!

For those of you in LA, Izalith will be playing tomorrow night at Amplyfi in Hollywood. The show starts at 7 PM, and in the words of the venue's own website, "AMPLYFi is located in the alley behind Astroburger in the 5600 block of Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90038. We are between Gower and El Centro." You can purchase tickets here.

The finished image.

Early rough marker sketch.

Pencils.

Inks.

Inanimate Objects

After a busy week and a half, today's workload has lightened just enough to let me scan a few sketchbook doodles from various café sessions this month. Time permitting I may have some fun drawings after this weekend to share. :-)

Samba e Amor

So, Tuesday (June 12) was Brazil's version of Valentine's Day, Dia Dos Namorados. As a little nod, I collected a bunch of sketches and art of the two main characters from my webcomic "Somewhere In Between"...hopeless romantic gringa Molly and her Brazilian love interest, Marcelo. Then I got a call that afternoon to do some storyboarding work which kept me busy for the past two days, and is going to stretch into today as well.

This is normally the part where I make some joke about this post being late in classic Brazilian fashion, but seeing as how one of my carioca friends managed to get a birthday gift to me before anyone else (including my own mom), I think it's more accurate to say this post is late in classic Los Angeles fashion...meaning, it started out early to arrive ridiculously late. Blame the traffic. 

Gato

Very very infrequently, my cat takes a break from shredding my tracing paper, knocking my ink bottles onto the floor, and attacking my ankles to let me draw him.

Yes, my cat is actually named Frodo.

Yes, his nickname actually is "Fucking Frodo".

Portrait of the artist

Some pretty exciting news over here today, at least for me. As of today I am officially signed on as the illustrator for Issue 2 of Run By The Gun...and what that means is that for the next month and a half, comics will be my full-time job, instead of that thing I try to do when my full-time job isn't consuming my life.

Not too shabby, considering it was just a little over three months ago that I quit said day job in order to pursue comics more seriously (with a nice little monthlong buffer of "fuck everything" time in Rio in between). I can't say everything in the last three months has gone according to my crazy plan, but, I can say I'm figuring it out, and so far I'm excited. 

About to get very busy over here! 

The Amazing Spider-Man

A fun little scribble from last night's post-work drawing session...for anyone who thinks I don't love or ever draw superheroes! (Spidey is one of my personal favorites to draw because of all the crazy yoga-like poses...)

Smash!

An older sketch this morning. No reflection whatsoever on my mood today, although apparently, on October 12, I was NOT a happy girl.

Saudades

Saudade is my favorite word in Portuguese, and one of the first I ever learned. It has no direct English translation, but it's a feeling we've all had at some point or another..."a nostalgic feeling connected to the memory of someone or something absent" (my translation of the Portuguese definition). You feel saudade for home, for family, for loved ones who are far away, for something as silly as a bar you used to go to in college or a kind of food you had on vacation and can't get where you live. It's less the feeling of missing, and more the feeling you get from the thought of that someone or something that is far away or absent.

Brush pens and lip gloss

A few of this week's random sketchbook doodles. A lot of exciting projects in progress or ramping up for next month, and that on top of the occasional in-studio day have kept me super busy, but I still try to find time to sketch every day.

Cute dog! 

Fellow artists...is anyone finding that as amazing and
indispensable as smart phones are these days,
they almost never read as "phone" when drawn?
All my characters seem to talk or text into little flat
nondescript slabs...

Game of Thrones

I was a bit of a latecomer to the whole "Game of Thrones" madness. I still haven't read any of the books, I don't have HBO, and it wasn't until my trip to Rio that I got a chance to watch the first season...I was sick and housebound for most of my first week in Brazil, so I spent most of my time camped on the couch in my friend's apartment, hijacking his DVR and curling up with a glass of suco de maracujá to watch season one. I was hooked pretty quickly. So of course, soon after followed fan art (some slightly NSFW after the jump)...

Ahh, Jon. So pouty, so pretty!

Rainy Day

After a lovely few days up in Monterey, supporting/driving/carb-loading my roomie as she ran the Big Sur marathon, I'm back to (surprisingly gloomy) LA, the grind, and the sketchbook.

Monster

Today's café sketch resurrected an old character I created ages ago...I'm a terrible writer, especially in the genre of horror, so I never did much with her. But at times I go back and draw her again. Her story is that her creator built her, Frankenstein-style, as a blank slate that he could then mold into the "perfect" woman...only to lose interest and become repulsed by her, before eventually dismantling her.

To be fair, she does clean up well, in spite
of all the stitches.

Orange hair

Favela...finished!

Finished and properly scanned!

Garotas de Ipanema

A series of pin-ups inspired by the Rio de Janeiro beach culture and the beautiful, confident carioca women that people have been writing cheesy songs about for as long as there has been a Rio. I used to be a cold weather, only-happy-when-it-rains, scarves and boots kind of girl. Although I loved the beach, I hid beneath layers of clothes and SPF 80, fearing the sun as much as showing off any bit of my less than perfect beach bod. 

Well, Rio beat that out of me, and fast. I'm still religious about my sunscreen, but now that I've been converted to the cult of the barely-there biquini (and tricked by the carioca men into believing I look good in one), I use about twice as much...

Scribbles

Just a couple of random sketches from last night and this morning...

São Paulo

During my first trip to Brazil, I never left Rio de Janeiro...I was broke, only knew one person in the entire country, and my Portuguese was rough at best (and incomprehensible at worst), so that was pretty much as far outside my comfort zone as I was willing to go at the time. This second time around, I was still broke, but managed to arrange a week of traveling to two other cities in southern Brazil, São Paulo and Florianópolis.

I had heard São Paulo described as "ugly" and "crowded" compared to Rio...that it was nothing but buildings with no green anywhere. I didn't find this true at all. There were plenty of lush trees and parks throughout all of the skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings. Of course the geography of the place isn't quite as naturally stunning as Rio's beaches and mountains, but calling "Sampa" an ugly city is hardly fair.

São Paulo did feel much less like a foreign city to me than Rio does...you arrive in Rio and immediately you know you are not in Kansas anymore. Sampa, on the other hand, seems to have built itself up as a global city from the get-go. It felt like the older, more responsible lawyer firstborn to Rio's wild bohemian baby of the family...complete with the sibling rivalry.

"Porra! Why are there so many windows? This is taking
FOREVER to draw..."

I hope to get the chance to go back and explore more...I definitely am more of a carioca at heart, but I loved São Paulo.

Café sketches

One of my favorite artist clichés is to go to a café in the morning before a long day of drawing, and sit and do warm-up sketches before my serious work.

Sometimes I draw what I see...

...and sometimes I just draw whatever's in my head at the moment. (These are two of the characters from my webcomic "Somewhere In Between", Molly and Marcelo.) 

País Tropical

I haven't yet posted anything in color here!

I've become a fan of the Tombow dual-ended brush pens...I probably should just cave and get a watercolor set, but I always feel like I'm too wimpy with watercolors, and always end up with a mushy mess. With markers I'm usually too saturated and cartoonish but at least it looks like a big, loud, colorful mistake instead of an overworked dull one.

Basically I was marvelling at the effect that Rio's tropical climate had had on me after a week. (I may have been exaggerating a little.) For all the things I do love about LA, the arid climate is not one of them, and you'll never hear me happily talking about "dry heat". I am not a desert creature.

Verde!

Just a little doodle in the garden outside my friend's condo. 

Corcovado

More Rio sketches. At the tail end of my second visit to this city, I finally made it to one of the major landmarks, Corcovado.

While waiting to take the train back down from the Cristo Redentor (or Christ Redeemer) statue, we had time for a caipirinha and I had time for some sketching. It must be a total pain going anywhere with me, all I want to do is sit and draw, which takes so much longer than snapping pictures! 

Yes, this is a butt shot of Jesus. The cafe
didn't exactly have the best view. 

Carioca com caipirinha.

I had to stop at these three sketches because a thunderstorm rolled in and it started to rain. (Yay! I love rain! Oh no! My sketchbook pages don't!) With a view like this, I could've stayed up there scribbling all afternoon: