Xmas 2013

So just to follow up my post about patience with my craft, here's one where I express some frustration with my lack of progress, after not putting in the practice.

Here are the Christmas illustrations this year, and the gifts they were associated with.

Okay, complete honesty here - this is a blatant ripoff of one of my earlier drawings. A 10 key number pad.

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 Akuma/Gouken figurine.

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Even after receiving the gift and knowing it was a Cosby bluray, my dad still had trouble figuring out what this was. Disheartening. In case this helps:

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Skyfall. An even more blatant ripoff. Basically traced over an old Christmas illustration for higher resolution and digital inking. And drew in the gun.

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The Last of Us. I really just wanted to do Ellie fanart, so the only changes I made were to make her blond and added the bow. I probably spent the most time on this, and therefore the most disappointed with the coloring. Sigh. Also got a lackluster reception since the recipient wasn't familiar with the characters yet.

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A wine rack. Again, dishearteningly, my parents took forever to understand what this was, and what she was holding. Yes, I draw for a living.

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Where the Wild Things Are.

So yeah. Patience, indeed.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

I just finished watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a great documentary on Netflix that was on my queue for ages. It helped me to remember that I am a student of a craft. That I should treat that craft with respect, and afford it the due patience required to devote myself to its mastery. A lesson that applies across the board, from making sushi to the visual arts.
And oh yeah, it made me very hungry for sushi :D

AVAA Sunday

I had started steering clear of AVAA since the models weren't very good on Monday, but had never gone on any of the other days. I went on Sunday this time, after not having really drawn in months. The model was much better. I'm using crosshatching a bit more, but otherwise still not making much progress. Of course this has to do with not putting in the practice, but I also don't have a goal in terms of style to work towards. Without a reason to get better (namely, a story to tell), I'm finding it difficult to see why I should draw at all. Well, until I start needing the money again.

Sorry this one was a bit of a downer, it was just one of those days.

And the batteries died on my laptop before I could finish this one:

Shadow Animation shot complete!

Finally finished with the first shot I decided to animate. As I'm pretty burnt out with animating this for now, I probably won't be making much progress on it for a bit. But here's what I have so far.

The real problem with time travel

I suck with names of things, so enjoy the generic comic title. This probably took me way too long, considering how much art I reused. It IS my first full attempt at a comic, though, and I think it turned out pretty well. A bit frivolous, but I'm happy with the execution. Inspired by Jon Su and Monica Ray.

SCAD animations

I've found myself having to hand out my portfolio more often as a freelancer, now, and more interested in working on personal stuff than putting together a nice website. I've been somewhat awkwardly sending two links: one to this blog, and another to my personal website at www.krishnajain.com, which hasn't been updated in a while. For the sake of simplification, I think I should probably post anything of value from there on here. Ideally, there'd be nothing of value since the work there is so old but...

All stuff from my years at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Sci Fi Concept

My most rendered piece yet. A concept for a sci fi idea I've been kicking around for a while.

I think this is where this drawing ends for now... Look how close I came to not needing the lines anymore!

Oh well, maybe next time.

And a WIP since I have that somewhere:

The Reward

Feeling inspired by The Reward animation. Not only was the story great, but I really liked the backgrounds, animation, and character designs. I gave the style a shot, though as I look for a style that suits me, I feel this probably diverges from the Japanese influences I started with too much for my liking. As I make my way through style limbo, I hope I find a distinctive style that I'm happy with eventually.

Sketchbomb

Sketchbomb's assignment: draw a mascot for a boring game. I drew a dragon playing golf.

And just the dragon head:

Say my name

Another attempt at rendering with crosshatching. Waiting for Breaking Bad's new season...

You have the right to Drink and Draw

Life drawing at Mr Tramps again. My friend Josh, who recently started drawing, came with me to his first live model session. It's fun to draw with someone who's still starry eyed about the whole process.

Father's Day

Father's Day card. I probably could have spent more time on everyone's caricatures on the last page but they're not fathers.

Inking in Flash

I decided to slow it down this time and try to concentrate more on the line, rather than being so gestural. I also tried wet hair, while I was at it.

SCIENCE!

A science guy doing science things! Doesn't look like he's doing anything all that science-y...

Drink and Draw

Went to my first Drink and Draw tonight, and met my ex-coworker from Zynga Jimmy Tovar there. I had some good drawings, and ended up winning the free tab - unfortunately I hadn't bought anything. All this, in front of a friendly, gorgeous British girl I was chatting up who loves QI and Sherlock... and wouldn't hang out with me afterwards. Well, 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

Shadow animation scene 1 progress

Doesn't look like much progress, but that's because I animated this twice, and just caught up to where I was before. Hopefully it's noticeably more on model than the first time through.

Self Quickie

I don't have a red nose... but I like red noses.

Amazing Girl

Quick sketch, blatant and shameless ripoff of a Skullgirls sketch. Also going to steal John Su's practice of drawing first and inventing a story after as an exercise in creativity.

Her story is when she was young, both of her parents were shot in front of her. Raised by her butler, that inner turmoil has manifested itself as the embodiment of vengeance: Amazing Girl. The twist is she's shit at it, and in reality she's just mentally unstable. She was killed in action attempting to stop her first robbery.



Seeing as within a simple doodle I've only gone and ripped off Skullgirls, John Su, and Batman, I think I can say with some confidence that this exercise in creativity was an utter failure.

RIP, Amazing Girl.

Femshep vs Harbinger

Yeah, I know it doesn't look like your Shepard. Deal with it.

The Reward

Bachelor film project from The Animation Workshop, Viborg, Denmark.

And a perfectly executed high five:

Life drawing

It's going to be the last time I'm going to be able to do the Monday life drawing session at AVAA for a while since I have Japanese class those days, so I figured I should go. Nevermind all the times I could have gone quite easily and didn't.

Out of all the sketches I did, I walked away with a measly three not horrible ones. And one of them wasn't even of the model. Not proud of myself here.

I'm also finding myself increasingly annoyed by my ASUS Slate. I didn't think pressure sensitivity mattered that much to me, but that lower bound - the one between not reading and its first sensitivity level - is really important. Really can't get any subtle shading with it. Can't wait for THE artist slate to come out, whatever and whenever that may be. Or do the sensible thing and learn to draw with a pencil.

Art as a Kid

Just got finished watching a TED Talk titled Jarrett J. Krosoczka: How a boy became an artist.

I remember in what must have been elementary school writing and illustrating a book about dinosaurs. That and a creative writing class in middle school were the most fun I had at school. I even saved that exact same fortune cookie fortune that he had for some time before it became too uncool to keep it in my wallet anymore. I may even have a recording of me reciting that dinosaur book on cassette somewhere. If only I had a cassette player, I could embarrass myself by listening to it right now.

One thing I really liked in the video was when he came across Drawing Comics the Marvel Way, and his teacher told him to throw it away. This is no excuse not to keep progressing my own style and find ways to push it so I enjoy it even more, but it's an immediate weight off my shoulders, thinking like that. Art becomes less a dead responsibility and becomes fun again. The only problem being making sure I can make a living, only being able to work in my own style. It's been embarrassing, as an artist taking on freelance work, having to tell people my limitations as a digital painter. But to be honest, it's not what interests me.

One of my favorite mediums right now, which I'm still intimidated to try, is the webcomic. But another one that I've always thought I might like is children's books. In fact, I wonder if my current animation short (which has taken so long, it has stunted my work and motivation on it or on other projects) wouldn't work as an illustrated children's book as well. I think I may have to seriously consider this if I want to push myself to be more creative and prolific. I'm hesitant, considering the good animation that's gone into it, and the fact that I know I could do more good work on it in that medium. But unless I make projects smaller, I may never finish one.

Christmas 2012

Top left:	Blade of the Immortal
Middle left:	knocked off some debt
Bottom left:	The reason for the delay in posting: the gift to Margret, the soon-to-be-mother of my younger brother Ravi's child, who has been known to refer to unborn children as parasites. Her present was some baby provisions, so a reference to Aliens was in order.
Top right:	Neil Degrasse Tyson book, referencing his "We've got a badass over here" meme.
Middle right:	This one may take a bit of explaining since no one seemed to get it. My father is a Republican who listens to NPR, so I got him some NPR stuff. As a Republican, he of course feels to need to display his national pride with a giant flag, carry a shotgun at all times, and wear the Republican logo on his shirt. As an NPR listener, he wears Democratic headphones that shoot hippie symbols out of them. Also, as party lines seem to be divided between saying "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", I felt the discordant combination of the two was appropriate.
Bottom right:	iPhone camera remote