Supergirl And Staying Busy

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been hectic and insanely busy this last month, and I've only had time to work on job-related art(which I can't post here, unfortunately), so right now I'm throwing this piece up. Between cut-throat deadlines and moving out of my apartment(it's....complicated, to say the least. Long story short: my last roommate moved out and I'm not making enough yet to afford a two bedroom place on my own.) and into my grandmothers--and then into my mothers house a few weeks later, I didn't have a lot of time to get on the computer.

Thankfully, I'm starting to see the finish line on one of two of my projects and now that I'm done with moving craziness, I'll be updating on a regular basis again. My friend Will has been giving me small tutorials on watercolor painting(without going over the painting with ink. A new for me.), and so I'll have some mini paintings to post here soon. If I get a great enough response to some of the sketchbook paintings(hint hint. Comments, please!) , I might turn them into full sized paintings & prints for sale. I'm thinking of either that or doing just one big hardcover sketchbook eventually, so let me know which you guys would prefer. Lots of stuff in the works here.

Alright guys, I'm out for now.
Hope your all having a great week and staying inspired.

Rachael

Snow White and Bigby Wolf

Hey guys,

Sorry about the long absence. Things have been insanely busy over here lately. Between drawing ten pages for a client one week(And then dropping dead while crashing the day after turning the pages in) and moving things out of my of apartment, I haven't had many chance to get online. But it's not bad being this busy, I just need to start taking better care of myself: Eating real food, drinking more water, etc. so I won't crash and burn after meeting a deadline like I usualy do.

Drawing a page a day doesn't take much effort anymore. Drawing two pages a day is a normal work day...but having to draw three pages a day is exhausting. Thankfully I'm getting close to the finish line with this one college graphic novella project, and then my project with company "x" will take my full attention once again.

No matter what, I'm going to make sure these things get done on time and , sadly, that means making a few sacrifices. So I may not be able post here as often, but I'll make an effort to at least post a little something every week. And, once I start working on sample pages for Heroes con, I'll be sure to post them here.

So for right now, I'll leave you with this commissioned piece I did of Snow White and Bigby Wolf from Fables. I hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to leave your comments. I get giddy with joy every time I get one.

Have a great Memorial Day!
Rachae

Ever Lovin' Blue Eyed Thing and Staying Focused

Here's the Thing Watercolor Sketch that's on the opposite page from my Flash drawing.

Staying focused lately has been proving to be a little difficult. Between juggling two projects and dealing with other "life issues", I find myself wondering "what happens once I'm done with THIS project? Then what?" and then I start to worry. I start to think of other projects that are in the planning stage, or I start thinking about how I need to start prepping my portfolio for the upcoming Heroes Con to look for more work and my productivity slows down as I forget to stay in the moment.

In the creative field, yes it's important to plan ahead, but it's also important to keep your head in the game. I can't be thinking about what work I need to do tomorrow or what I'm going to do for the next issue or for the project as a whole because then I get overwhelmed. It's easier to focus on the one page I have to do that day instead of the twenty+ I have to do for the month. It makes getting things done easier. And it keeps me moving ahead and pushing through. I'm quickly learning in this line of work that you have to break a project into workable chunks and just focusing on one piece at a time if you want to get ANY work done at all. Otherwise you'll just sit at your drawing board all day paralyzed by how much there is to be done.

Worry only about today. Tomorrows work will take care of its self.


Rachael

Flash Watercolor Sketch

Another Sketch I did on Friday while I helped hold down the Sketch Clubs booth at the Lubbock Arts Festival last week. I did this on the page opposite of a sketch of The Thing I did awhile back in my molskine so all the orange and gray on the painting is from me testing out colors for my Thing sketch.

I thought I would post this Flash sketch since I just finished reading Flash Rebirth #2 and, after that cliffhanger, issue three can't come out fast enough.

I'll have to cut this post a little short today. Brains not working at full capacity today due to allergies/cold--not sure which...could also be sinus infection, though. I love this time of year. It's absolutely beautiful out, the weathers just right, and there's birds and squirrels everywhere...but the seasonal allergies I could do without. :P Still, I'm doing better than most so I really can't complain.

Have a great Mothers Day, guys.

Rachael

Sketch Card #3: Spider Woman

So I'm sitting here in my Mom's car and it's hot as hell outside. I have a stack of sketchbooks that I've been hired to do commissions in and a full work load on my to-do list, but it's way to warm in here to think.

The plan for today was to head to the Studio this morning and get some work done, but it appears the universe decided I would have an "off day" today( or morning, rather). I had a lot of things that went wrong earlier that all seemed to get fixed or resolved by lunch time and it makes me stop and realize how ridiculous it is sit and stress the small stuff. Forgot my work stuff at the house? A chance to catch up on commissions and update my blog. My IPod falls in a sink full of water and starts going schizophrenic on me? Let it dry out and everything is fine. In fact, in the mean time, catch up with whats going on in my family's life instead of tuning it all out. Cell phone stops working and I have to have it to get a ride home from the studio? Quick stop at the Sprint store to find out the charger is kaputz and just get a new one. Issues resolved and I'm left feeling like a 5 year old throwing a hissy fit.

It all comes down to mental attitude. Even though I was upset at the beginning of the day, I tried to stick with the thought that things in my life only go wrong when something really really great is about to happen. And yet, I notice when I think a day is just going to turn out horribly bad, guess what? It turns nearly catastrophic with it's suckage. We choose the outcome of our life and the days we live in it. We choose to either throw temper tantrums or just take a calm breath and go with the flow. The day, in actuality, is neither good or bad--it's just how we perceive it.

So yeah...my day might not have started out exactly how I wished it would of, but from here on out today is going to be beautifully happy and productive. Because I choose for it to be. And it all comes down to choice.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll leave you with the sketch card I did of Spider Woman a week back. New sketches coming along soon.

Rachael

Sketchcard #2: The Tenth Doctor

David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Pencil, Ink, and watercolor.

Just relaxing at the coffe house and working on thumbnails for the next issue of the book I'm doing for Comic Book company x as well as doing some sketching on character sheets for a pitch me and a writer friend are doing for a textbook company. Issue one for comicbook company x is in the can and has been shiped out, so I'm working on the second issue for that and inking pages for my other client this week.

I really wish I could show some pages here, but I dont want to let the cat out of the bag before anything is officialy announced, which may take a while. But once all four issues for the book are done, I'll be more than happy to post as much is allowed here.

Until then, I'll keep posting sketchcards and I'll try to squeeze some time into the next few weeks to do some sample pages to post here. Those Young Justice pages at the bottom are becoming an eyesore for me and I know I can do better. I just got done reading Mike Weiringo and Mark Waids run on Fantastic Four and I think I would love love love to do a Doctor Who/Fantastic Four crossover sample of about 5 or so pages. If anyone wants to try writing it, I'd be much obliged. I might try my hand at writing though. Its not something that comes naturally, but I really want to draw this. I've always been a fan of the FF and I'll grab at any chance to draw the Doctor. So we'll see...

That's it for today.

Right now I'm going to sit here, relax, drink my coffee, and sketch out a few more thumbs.

Until another day....

Rachael

Sketch card #1: Captain America

I haven't had access to a scanner AND a computer for such a long time now due to my old roommate moving out that it's a relief to have these available again. Add to this that I've been working long hours everyday all day, I wouldn't have had time to update anyways.

A LOT has gone on in the past month and a half. To much to mention here. I've been juggling to freelance gigs plus I'm now trying to get things put together for an upcoming convention. Finding a workable schedule and staying "motivated" was proving hard and I was struggling to stay focused there for awhile...

THANKFULLY, I found away through this dilema. A few local artist friends and I have started up "Cowboy Robot Studios" in an office building in downtown Lubbock and it's helped a lot to separate my work environment from my home environment. I'm dropped off at the studio at around 9 in the morning and leave anywhere from around 6pm to 1am, depending on who gives me a ride home. There's still no wireless in the studio and we decided to keep the studio TV free. So I'm pretty much held hostage by my work, only allowed to leave when everything has been marked off of my to do list for that day. This has been FANTASTICALLY helpful and it's taught me something about discipline and creativity.

Most artistic types tend to fend away from words like "discipline", "work", etc. But truth is, it's important in a creative career. Waiting until you "feel like" doing something is a creativity killer. Waiting around for inspiration to hit is a horrible idea and a good way to assure you won't be able to make a career at what you want to do. You have to sit with your art everyday and, when inspiration isn't coming, you have to hammer it out anyways despite how much you don't "feel like it".

I've had to learn this in the last year and a half. The only way to accomplish anything you want in life is to work hard at it and make compromises on other parts of your life, at least for a little while. Whats kept me from getting what I want for so long until lately is the fact that I didn't want to give anything up. I didn't want to admit that I'd have to make sacrifices. But the truth is, anything worth having in life takes persistence and hard work. It won't happen over night. It could take a year of hard work or ten years. But clocking in daily and doing what needs to be done is success at its heart.

So yeah, having a studio has been great. I love what I do and I thank God for this job every day but it's exactly that--a job. And having a place to go everyday has helped me get into that mentality. Comic books is my business, and business is good. :)

I'll go into more detail about the actual studio later( I may even put a few pics of it up), but for now I'll just post this Captain America sketch card I did recently. A lot of local artists have started doing sketch cards on a daily basis to warm up and so I thought I might give this a try as well. More to come. I'm going to try to put a little stock pile of sketch cards together for the upcoming Lubbock Comic Book Expo and will post here with the progress.

Back to work!
You'll be hearing more from me soon, though. ;)

Rachael

Halloween and 24 hour Comics

I love this time of year. Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but it is one that I absolutely love. This year, I'm continuing the tradition that me and my friends have of "whoring up" are regular halloween costumes at midnight and heading off to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with all of the necessary supplies in tow---and watching old horror movies up until that day.  However, I do miss the old Halloween traditions--innocent costumes, trick or treating, fun pranks, etc.

I look forward to creating another October tradition this year with the 24 hour comic event. Tomorrow morning, I meet up with my pals from sketch club and set out to do 24 pages in 24 hours. I might post some of the pages here once I'm done and I'll be updating Twitter via my phone every hour(or at least I'll try to. :P) from 9:00 am Saturday(It starts at ten) until 10:00am on Sunday. I'm totally stoked. I participated in the last 24 hour comic event that Schetch club did back in May and I had a blast(Even though I only managed to finish 10 pages). So this is going to be great. :)

Anywho, the sketch I drew here is the villian for the Young Justice three page comic book sample that I'm working on for Wizard World Texas. I was really going for an 90's Image era with the look of his costume--what with the excess of armor and the pointy fingers, and so on.  

Well, thats it for today, folks.

Rachael.

Update: Wizard World Texas Portfolio Samples and notes

(If you just want to see my artwork as well as the following critiques and could care less about my explanation for my long absence from blogging land, then just skip the next few paragraphs. And please....ignore the numerous typos. ;))

Hey, sorry for the long looooooooong leave of absence. Due to the fact that I haven't had acess to a working scanner/printer(until today, thanks to my friend Will Terrel :) ) and also due to the fact that life has just been....busy(studying, working on portfolio samples, Wizard Wold, a vacation to Hawaii, and working full time at Sams club), I haven't been keeping up with anything online. But now I'm going to start making the time to at least give a brief update every week. :)

About three weeks ago, I attended the Wizard World Texas convention in Arlington, Texas with my friends Will, and Luis. It seems that the entire Lubbock comicbook community(Radio Free Metropolis radio host guys, some Sketch Club people, and the Star Books and Comics guys) made the journey down to the convention and a fun time was had by all. I'll try to go into more detail about the convention experience in my next post once I uplod the photos from my digital camera. But for right now...

I took my portfolio and a notebook for critiques to the WWTexas convention and did my best to keep a detailed report on who said what about my artwork and what I needed to improve. I did three different samples this time: a four page Huntress sample, a three page Batman Sample, and a three page X-Men sample. I ran around the convention floor the entire November weekend trying to get various artists to review my portfolio and to rip me a new one with whatever they felt really needed to be improved upon. It was a humbling experience. I had worked on my samples, feeling as if I had really made a big improvement in my artwork and I went away from the convention realizing that I still have aLOT to work on.

So, for the enjoyment of the two people who probably read this blog, I thought Id post my portfolio and my critique notes for your entertainment and pretend interests. ;) If you have anything extra to add, feel free to leave me a comment. Praise AND flames are both welcome.

(NOTE:Click picture for larger image)

BOP/Huntress Sample
script by Gail Simone
11/12/2007

Batman Sample
Script from Penciljack.com
10/18/2007

Ultimate X-men Sample
Script by Brian K. Vaughn
10/30/2007





The critiques(in the order that they were received)

Mitch Brietweiser:
*Pages are overly detailed. Put less detail in the background and economize panels.
*Anatomy is a little stiff
*Cleanup artwork and tighten pencils. Tips:use Interior Design perspective grids. Draw on back of bristol board with the lightbox.

Ethan Van Sciver:

*It's still going to be about two or three years before your ready to work in mainstream comics. Theres a lot of improvement from last time, but it'll still be 2-3 years.
*Figures are stiff.
*Artwork is muddied.
*Action should take up entire page. Huntress pg1 panel 1, X-men pg 1 pn.2, and Xmen pg.2 pn.5 for example, theres a LOT of wasted negative space that the action should have taken up. Work on making action sweep entire panel. Work on dynamics. Xmen sample page 3 panel three is a good example of covering the entire panel with action.
*Your good at backgrounds and at establishing, but your overestablishing. Huntress page 1 pn. 2. Focus more on the important parts of the scene. You could have just zoomed in on the gun going through the window.
*Your at a point now where you really should be using photorefrencing faces.
*I've seen your portfolio alot of times at Megacon and that head(Batman pg.3 pn.4)--I don't like that head. Never draw that head again! :P It's to bulbous...correct it.

Joe Benitez:
*Work on your anatomy. Study "Brigmans"
*Move "camera" angles for more drama.
*Use reference on backgrounds.
*Work on Dynamics
*After awhile, go back and look at your work for mistakes. If your old work seems bad and it's easier to spot your mistakes, then you'll know that your getting better.

Kody Chamberlain (with input by Michael Lark):
*Use photo reference for your figures and anatomy.
*Draw all important details within the "live area" of the prelined bristol board.
*You lose the form at times. Erase your rough drawing completely.
*Your brain is not involved in the procress. Learn to excluse it and just draw what you see--not what you think you see.

Editor w/ Viper Comics:
*Work on proportions.
*characters are stiff.
*Vary body types--not everyone has to be muscular.

Tommy Castillo:
*Study anatomy.
*Work on page design. The page should flow in a 'z' patter. Leading the eye through the entire page ans into the next.
*Watch for tangents in artwork.
*Get more training. Draw through "Bridgmans Complete Guide to Anatomy" and Andrew Loomis' "Figure Drawing for all it's worth and draw through them two or three times and get a skull or plaster cast to study.
*You need to start developing your own style. Right now I can see where alot of your influences come from and thats great--but find your own voice. Your style varies to much and your straddling being cartooney and realistic. Now you need to decide which was to go.

Angel Medina:
*Keep working on turning out sample pages. If your artwork has improved this much in a short period of time, then your mistakes will hammer themselves out.
*Take whateveryone tells you at this convention with a grain of salt and don't let what they say take your focus off of trying to turn out as many pages as possible. I could tell you alot of thing to work on here, but in a few months it won't matter and the problems will have corrected themselves.

Adam Kubert:
*Your figures are stiff. Take as many life drawing classes as you can. Drawing from life is an essential part of any artists' training.
-Assignment: Take 5 pieces of paper of any type--notebook paper, napkin, printer paper, contructionpaper, stationary, etc--and fill each sheet of paper up completely with figure drawings from life(from beach, cafe, school, work--anywhere). Back AND front. Leave as little black space on the page as possible.
*Watchout for tangents--Huntress pg.3 panels four and five-the staircase rail goes right into the couch and gun on the next panel. Be more consious of your layouts and avoid this as mush as possible.
*Mix up character sizes. Vary their size from panel to panel.
*On Pg.1 panel five on the Batman sample you could have overlapped the falling Two Face with the building
to add more depth to the panel.
*When showing portfolio smples, it's important to fill in the black areas and make your portfolio look as polished as possible. you can take the little shortcuts and leave spotting blacks up to your inker(if you so choose.) once you've got the job.
*there are alot of panels where you should have zoomed in on your characters to add emphasis and dynamics to the scene.
*great background detail.

Topcow Editor Filip Sablik:
*Work on your rendering
*Maximize your layouts and your panels. Make characters lager in certain panels and vary sizes.
*You have anatomy issues. Work on them.
*Try to focus more on your finished pencils than on your layouts and try to maintain as much energy in your final art as you can.

James O'Barr:
*Work on your storytelling and page design--see michael Golden while your at this convention if you want tips from a real master.

Humberto Ramos:
*Your anatomy needs work.
*Work on your heads. they're a little to rounded out on some panels.
*Keep turning out pages and keep working on your samples.

Mark Silvestri:
*Work on making your art more dynamic.
*Study and pay closer attentio to your anatomy.
*Figures should have been bigger in certain panels.
*Anything black will come forward--remember that rule when working in comics. Throw some blacks on or behind your characters and it will make them pop and bring some depth to your page.
*Work on spatial variety.
*Work on your storytelling.
*On your figures/chracters--focus more on body roation and fluidity. Again, make them as dynamic as you can.
*Pull back on your backgrounds--you show alot more than you need to.
*Loosen up on your layouts, it will suck all the energy out of your final artwork if your not careful.
*keep submitting your samples.

Michael Golden:
*You need to work on making your work more bold and Dynamic.
*Lost dynamics on Huntress sample page 3 panel 4 and pulled back to far. Gun should have been more prominent in the panel. I barely noticed it. Panel 5-throw shadows on the fore figure to add depth.
*Huntress sample page 4 panel 2-panel could have been a close up on Huntress and the smiling thug and on panel 4 you could have zoomed out.
-in Panel 6 you need to work on the rendering. Throw some shadows on the couch.
*Batman sample page 1 panel 5-you could have added up-lighting from the streets below to create shadows on the building and make the panel more dramatic.
*Batman sample page 2 panel 2-you could have added more motion lines to indicate mpore clearly that that Batman and Two face were falling.

-Panel 1 is a good example of a dramatic and dynamic camera angle. Good work! But again, you could have added some dramatic lighting caused by the city lights below to indicate more clearly that it's night.
*Batman Sample pg3 panel 4-instead of creating a'halo' of light around Batman to separate his black costume from the black backgroung, you could have just let them blend together to creat more of a mood for the Dark Knight.
-the characters should have been bigger in this panel.
*X-Men Sample Page 1 panel 1- Could have rendered more grass in the foreground and spot blacks on the tree in the foreground.
*X-men Sample Page 2 - characters could have been bigger in some panels.
*X-men Sampe Page 3 panel 3- Wolverine could have been more dynamic in this panel. The figure could have been twisted more until his claw and the sparks coming off of Colossus' chest were right in the readers face.
*In comicbooks you can't be to subtle or 'shy' with your artwork. Become more dynamic and bold with drawing. When your ready to ink your sample pages, make non-photo blue copies and use a sharpie to ink them. This should help alot.

J. Scott Campbell:
*Tighten up figures.
*Your linework is sketchy.
*Work on spotting more blacks.

Mike Choi:
*Your art needs to be more dynamic.
*Take more lifedrawing classes. Don't draw from memory. Draw from life as much as possible.
*I can't stress enough that you need to work on your anatomy. Draw only what you see! Work on developing your own style later. Draw from magazines, take figure classes, draw peope at the coffee shop or at the pool.
*Improve your foreshortening.
*In some panels you could have made the perspective lines curve into 'fishbowl perspective' because it sometimes looks to forced.
*Don't draw comic books for a while. Put it all aside and just focus on building a foundation of solid anatomy. Your strengths are alot of other new artists' weaknesses. Your weakness is your figure work. Learn that and everything else will snap into place.
*Work on your heads. I won't point out which haces are poorly structered--thats for you to figure out and improve. But just start working on the structure of the head.
*SUCK!(Note: He actual wrote that in my notebook. :P He was kidding....erm, I think. <.< >.>)

Everyone was really nice at the convention and every critique was very infomative and good natured. Though I was told of a lot of mistakes in my work, it was all told with the right intentions and by great artists who definitely have the experience and knowlege to know a flaw when they see one, so it was all very much appreciated and well recieved. These are just my notes and the gist of what I was told--so it's not verbatim. I definitely have a lot to work on, but I'm looking forward to this process. :)

Whew! This is one long post. I'll try to be shorter with my next update,which should come in a few days. See you guys later. ;)

Rachael