Christmas Eve Post

Just uploading some work I did this week either out of insomnia or because I was waiting on UPS to deliver something.  Have a good holiday!

For full view of comic click this link: FULL VIEW

Christmas Live Art on UStream

Did a Live art tonight cause I was dead tired from 3 allnighters of commission work, I just needed a night away from that work to try to get my barrings back together.  Bright side, had a blast sketching online and taking requests from fellow chatters!

Things got a little crazy...

 Click for full view

Phantom Assistant

Back in April when my Ninja'd website was on hiatus, a good friend of mine Kim Smith AKA: Hopelessidiot, out of the goodness of her heart, wrote a few guest comic strips for the site.  The comics featured Ninja'd's first fan character Kim.  I loved the character to death and have often contemplated featuring her in the comic as a canon character.

Anywho, decided to do a little sketch of her tonight.  Never drew her before.  I love her design, mainly her kickass hairdoo!!

You're doing it wrong!

Broke out a few digital painting tutorials, and I realize now that this is one branch of art I have NEVER attempted in.... go figure.

Yeah I plan on praticing more, my first attempt was pretty dry!

Need to make a quick BUCK!

Was thinking tonight that Christmas is coming fast, and I want some extra cash to make my first christmas in my very own home fun.  So I decided the best quick buck is a few sketch cards.  For a while I've wanted to make a card of Storm, from XMen.  She's not a fav character from the show, but I really really like her design.  Decided to go with a bit of a Halle Berry twist on it.  The card will go up for sale very soon, if you're interested in purchasing it email me at jennymstead@gmail.com to make an offer.  I accept Paypal and (US only) Money Order :D

The Sex Appeal

I've read in the past and have heard in the past from fellow artists that one of the best things you can do to design a character is to start off with a silhouette.  The reason for this is to develop the character into a shape that is recognizable and memorable.  Granted, I have already designed this character, and have her ready to premiere in Ninja'd within the next arc, but I felt I at least needed to attempt to flush her character out a little more with this technique.

The Great Pumpkin exploded in my Kitchen!

No, not really... but after I was finished you would have thought one did.

Never carved a pumpkin before.  Not going to elaborate why, but lets just say that was an art medium every year I didn't mess with.  This year my day job decided to throw a pumpkin carving contest, and I figured... why not?  Little did I know just how much goes into carving a pumpkin.  Needless to say I don't plan on doing it again.

But it did turn out pretty, methinks!
No sketch tonight, but this is just as good!

Furry!!

Honestly, had nothing in my head tonight to draw.  I tried several things, but I'm so dead tonight that I had almost zero motivation to do anything after work but come home, eat something, and watch 30Rock and Psych all night. 

This is the ONLY thing I could produce.  Been working on another comic story based around two of my current characters and a crap load of Naruto based characters that I'm desperate of separating from the Naruto fandom, cause I'm tired of being associated with Kishimoto's work by my watchers on DevART.  In short the new comic is an original story themed around Cause and Effect, and Nature.  This is to be the origin story of Ted and Nindo from my webcomic Ninja'd.  Link above.  This is meant to be the comic that Ally is being paid to draw in the comic strip.

The only thing I could get out of my head and onto the computer tonight.

Development of Ted's furry form.  He's a fox.

Need of an Upgrade

I learned today that all great things come with a price.

I love CS5 buuuuut, I noticed a lag in all of programs today while working on it (mainly through Netflix).  Checked the little processor meter on my desktop and BAM!!  Learned I was using about 80% of my computer's Random Access Memory.  Conclusion: Jenner is gonna have to upgrade.  Shouldn't cost much.  I know a guy and he's good.  I've trusted him with my PC for about 2-3 years.  Gawd willing he is still working at Radio Shack when I accumulate the cash to pay for the upgrade.

Exactly how I felt when I stumbled across this problem.

PINEAPPLES!!!

Came across the show "Psych" at the library a few months ago.  I'm normally not into cop shows, and most hour long shows (specially on USAnetwork) don't appeal to me due to them being overly dramatic.  I'm the kind of girl who likes to sit back and just laugh.  So out of sheer boredom I caved and checked out season 1.  I fell in love.  Not only is it a smart show, but it's down right hysterical.  The characters are very likeable and to be honest, it just an all out fun show, and James Roday is one sexy mofo!  Oh well, got Netflix tonight and decided to watch it, and this random idea popped into my head.  Psych is all about the pineapples, and Ludicolo from Poke'mon is one hell of a party animal.

Oh, you SO know that this would happen.

Lassie is off screen choking on his coffee in disgust.
(click for full view)

Just a Little Random

Up watching "The Middle".  For anyone who's not seen it, it's a sitcom on ABC following the lives of a family based in Indiana.  Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond), and Neil Flynn (Scrubs) star in it.  Despite my loathing of the show ELR, and the fact that I couldn't stand Debora at all in it for taking Marie's crap all the time, Patricia is quite funny and likable in this role.  And Neil is funny as ever, but then again, the Janitor was always my fav character from Scrubs. 

Anywho was sketching and The Middle is a good show and it helped me through my workload tonight.  Finally got around to inking most of the sketches for my Ninja'd comic strip, and I managed to work on something else that I'll show off later.

Enjoy, a little doodle.

Dunno who she is or where she came from in my head,

but she was fun to draw.

Jim Dale, the best thing since Quidditch!

Been listening to nothing but Harry Potter audio books at work for the past two weeks, so I'm a little bit on a high right now from hearing the talented Jim Dale pwn all other narrators with his movie-like speed in telling these awesome stories!  If you've never had a chance to listen to him read the stories, pick up the audio books and listen!  It's like listening to a movie, I promise.  Pretty sure if you Youtube his name and the book you want to listen to, you should at least find some samples.  If the stories about JKR writing another novel of the series is true, then he totally needs to narrate it.

It's pretty sad that one man can act out an entire book better than a whole cast of actors acting out the movie.  No joke!

Oh well...

Originally began as just a guy sitting on some grass....
then Hermione gate-crashed the drawing with her book.

Why Hedwig is so cold to Pigwidgeon.  Ron needs to invest in some riddlin.

Still Playing with Brush Tools

As I write this, I am remembering that I'm supposed to be updating Ninja'd.... Nice one Jenner.

Just a few random stuff I drew tonight.  I'm trying to mess around a little bit with different styles.  Especially with my girl based drawings.  I grow tired of my usual comic strip style, and my anime style at times.

Playing with CS5

Never have been for one to just sketch on Photoshop.  One of the reasons why I never really did, was due to my owning Photoshop 7.0 which distorted a lot of my lines, causing me to zoom in at, like, 500% before I could make a halfway decent line.  Bought Sai Painter, but it's really only good for smooth line art work.  Recently acquired Photoshop CS5, which is like 5-6 upgrades from 7.0.  OMG, I can't stop playing with it.  believe it or not, did these drawings at 100% zoom.  Never worked with a program that good before, so it's pretty confirmed that I'm hooked and do NOT wanna go back to 7.0 if I can help it.  Decided to tackle some random stuff tonight.  Pretty different than my usual cartoony style, which I like.... because I tried something new tonight, which is the goal of this whole blog thing to begin with!

Start of Something New

Here we go!
The beginning of something I've been contemplating on doing for a while now.
I've noticed the past few months that my artwork is becoming extremely stale, and that I'm not enjoying it as much as I had been in the past.  Most of this I think is from overworking myself to the brink of exhaustion, another is that I'm not challenging myself anymore.  I've hit a plateau that I cant get off of, so I decided tonight to prove to myself that I can improve! 
I've decided to start a sketch blog with random ideas in my head.
The goal in mind is to draw at least one thing every night before I go to bed.
I think this might help me in the long run and might get the juices going for better ideas in the future.

Cheers!
and keep a watch!

-Jen