WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 14

I've been a bit slow on this project the last week or so. There's only 2 new sketches for the new archetypes--Bondage Villain and Holy Knight:

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 10

It's been moving a bit slower than I'd like--partially because I meant to spend the last couple of nights sketching here at work, but I kind of forgot to restock my drawing folder with paper, so I ran out of paper to draw on... Oops. In theory, I could draw on lined paper, because I still have lots of that, but it messes with my head. I'm not sure why it's such a mental problem for me, especially since I will be scanning all these pages into the computer to do the lines and color digitally. Is there anyone else weird about things like this? One of these days, I'll get over it... Maybe... One of these days, I'll also start doing the sketches on the computer too instead of insisting on pencil and paper.

Anyways, here's a few archetype tag sketches: Survivor, Lolita, and Fortune Teller. Again apologies for the bad pictures. Lighting is not great here at work.

WIP Wednesday - 2017- Volume 6

This post is brought to you by more work on the new badges. I'm working on sketching all of them out before I put them in the computer to finish. This week adds the Bounty Hunter, Mecha, Swordsman, Magic Girl, and Lycanthrope to the finished sketches. Apologies for lame photo quality. =P I was using my phone and it was kind of late, so bad lighting.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 5

Hey, two posts in one week. It's a miracle.

So anyways, I'm working on a couple of projects, but one of the bigger projects is redrawing all my archetypes. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that before. I posted a WIP pic earlier this year too. I've decided I don't like 3 of the pictures I posted there though, so... I'll be redrawing those. Anyways, this week's WIP post includes 7 more archetype sketches. I'm also playing with colors for the final versions.

Witch, Wizard, Wise Master

Ghost, Necromancer, Viking, Ninja

These are some of the color variantions. I'm leaning toward #2 and #3. Probably #3... This is also one of the designs I'm throwing out because I don't like it. No other reason.

I'm also working on a new line of something awesome. More on that to come, but here's a teaser picture. The top 3 fabrics are designs I had printed at Spoonflower. I haven't laid out things yet, but I'm hoping the sizing works. @_@

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 4

I've been working on more of what you saw last week: Angel is almost finished (at least for this part--the entire print has a lot more to it). The Magic Girl commission is finished. This one was fun. I was given a lot of creative license to come up with the design--I was given red hair, blue eyes, bare midriff, wields a great sword, and uses the element of steel. Also the yin-yang symbol because this character's normal form is a guy--he becomes a girl when he transforms.

WIP Wednesday - 2017 - Volume 1

I've been a bit out of it the last year. School really ate a lot of my time. Now that I'm not doing that, however, I am free to get back to art. =D I have so many ideas and plans for this year, but I'm not going to go into those specifically here. ;-) Suffice to say that there will be a lot of fun stuff coming this year, including a more up-to-date blog!

So, for the first round of WIP for 2017: One of the biggest series I will be working on this year is going to be majorly expanding my Character Archetype series. There will mean there will be more characters. All old characters are going to receive new art and will be put into new formats. I am revamping my badges! No more laminating. I am investing in a printer that will print directly onto a plastic badge tag. I am super excited about this. I will be funding the printer myself, but I'm planning a Kickstarter for stocking supplies and what-not. Here are a few sketches for the new badge designs:

Angel, Bondage Villain, Bunny Girl, Exorcist, Drunken Master

The above designs will have profiles on the back. The fun part about the way I'm setting up these new badges is that I will be able to allow some customization, like choice in colors for the character on the front or making the back profile more personalized. There are also going to be two print series stemming from this set--one of which is related to the Magic Girl Noir picture I did a couple of years ago. The other is more comedic, and will hopefully have a preview of some kind for next week's WIP post.

Along with the badges and prints, I'm planning several books including a series of mini-comics. The mini-comics will be short 28-page comic books featuring one of the characters from the Archetype set. Here is a preview from the Angel Mini-Comic--yes drawn the old fashioned way with pencil on folded pieces of paper.

So, yeah, 2017 is going to be full of fun and new art for me.

Magic Girl Archetype

So this looks much better in person, but it is finished. This is going to be the first in a new series. I am coloring this coloring style "Noir." It's technically not part of that artistic style, but it's to differentiate it from my normal coloring style. This is the style I used for the Nintendo Noir set and the Mare Do Well picture I did last year. There is a definite art nouveau influence. That is one of my favorite art styles.

Archetypes Coming to Society 6

I am going to be moving my archetype collection to Society 6. I am in the process of phasing out all of my badges including my archetype badges. I will be cleaning up the chibis, since some of the earlier designs for this set were drawn some years ago.

In the mean time, as you saw in my last WIP post, I am working on a new set of larger prints for the archetypes as well. The prints I will have at my table will be full color and awesome (in my opinion). Since all prints I make now will be limited print runs, the full color design will not be available anywhere else but my art table (and maybe Etsy, but I really want to find a more cost effective way to ship before I list them there). I will be however posting a monochrome color variant of the design on Society 6. The monochrome variant is going to be exclusive to Society 6. The Magic Girl is available now as an art print, phone case, or phone skin. We will be formatting it for other products, eventually.

Magic Girl Art WIP

I have a lot of things in progress. This is because I have some form of ADD. It really is amazing I ever get anything finished. XD

For this point, I'm going to give you a sneak peak at one of my archetypes. One of my current projects involves drawing my archetypes in a style inspired by art nouveau and noir. This is in addition to adding new archetypes to the collection (my goal there is for a total of 52, so I can make a deck of cards featuring them). The first three archetypes that will appear in this set are the Magic Girl, Evil Overlord, and Steampunk. The reasoning behind this is that I am working (very slowly) on a comic for the archetypes, and the first story arc features these three.

I have really been enjoying working on this one. It has been nice to step away from the computer and work with traditional art mediums for a change. This art will be 11x17 and done entirely with pencil, ink, and markers. Pictures are taken with my phone because I do not have a large scanner at home.

Pencil with Original Badge for the design 

Ink added and some shading

Wednesday WIP Volume 49

 What have I been working on: A couple of commissions, sewing stuff on paper, a blanket for my cousin's baby, and some new archetypes.

What Would Jareth Do?--This was fun; Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies growing up.

Anime Tarot commission -- Also fun. As a huge fan of Final Fantasy, how could I turn down a chance to draw more of it?

Snowflakes + fuzzy cell phone pic!! I have been having a lot of fun working on these.

Can you see it yet? It's definitely clearer than the last time I posted a progress pic of this.

WIP Volume 42

 This week's progress report: More progress on the Mermaid commission. This one is a little more detailed than what I normally allow for commissions. Usually I only take commissions for my chibi or 3/4 chibi styles, but this one is modeled after the Western Zodiac print set I did.

Remember that WIP post with all that fabric? That black and gray fabric at the bottom turned into this over the last week (yeah fuzzy photo sucks...):

 

I've been working on some new archetypes (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Princess, and Necromancer). They're inked and ready to color.

 And finally what I succeeded in finishing yesterday on the Tinkerbell costume I said I was going to make. I got Charleigh's measurements, put together the pattern, cut out all the fabric, and made some progress getting everything sewn together. She was really excited seeing all the pieces starting to come together, and I'm a little sad I couldn't actually finish it yesterday. She'll have it though in time for her birthday. =)

The Great Master Speaks

Giddy Gossip: Hello and welcome to the first in our feature series on the archetypes. What does it mean to embody a stereotype? Why is everyone copying you? What are your favorite pizza toppings? These are the important questions and we are here to answer them. I am Giddy Gossip and here we meet our first subject, the Wise Master. How are you doing today, Mr. Master? 

Wise Master: The air moves but the grass does not sway. 

Giddy Gossip: Great to hear. So I am sure all our readers want to know everything we can about you. Let’s start at the beginning. What exactly is a Wise Master? 

Wise Master: I have been called by many names, and many names I am.

 
Giddy Gossip: Nice. Nice. So what does it mean to be wise? 

Wise Master: A goldfish swims many miles but gets nowhere. 

Giddy Gossip: What exactly are you a master of? How long did it take? And what do you like on your pizza? 

Wise Master: I speak the songs of the sky whose beginning has no end. And I like pineapple. 

Giddy Gossip: So you sing? What kind of songs do you know?

Wise Master: A sheep on the road knows no fear.

Giddy Gossip: Never heard of it. Sounds like a country song. Now that we know each other, tell me. Who was the worst student you ever taught?

Wise Master: I knew a man who couldn’t speak and a woman who couldn’t hear.

Giddy Gossip: Sounds like a juicy romance novel. Tell me more.

Wise Master: They walked together but alone. A tragedy of comedies.

Giddy Gossip: Not sure I follow you but let’s run with it. So why do you dress like a homeless beggar?

Wise Master: The butterfly is naked.

Giddy Gossip: I’m not asking about the butterfly. I want to know about you. Spill the beans. Were you robbed? Are you on drugs? Could you show us some martial arts?

Wise Master: Boot to the head.

Giddy Gossip: And there you have it. The Wise Master. A walking fortune cookie. Tune in next time as I interview another one of these freaky people. This is Giddy Gossip signing out and falling down.

We (well mostly I) thought that it would be nice to spice things up a bit around here by getting a few more "guest" posts from my husband. This is a guest post in that I pretty much write everything around here, but it's not because this is also a blog that belongs to Gothic Panda Studios which is both me and my husband. It strikes me as a little odd that I do most of the writing on our blog, on the website, Etsy descriptions, and so on when he is the writer for our team. Well, I plan on fixing that. So, if you've enjoyed the text descriptions for our badges, then I'm sure you'll get a kick out of his contributions to this blog. -Panda  

The Wise Master is one of our Character Archetype badges. You can view all of our Archetypes on Etsy or on our Website.

Kung Fu Makes Everything Better

This Friday's blog is brought to you by all thing's kung fu. I think martial arts is awesome. I've always wanted to take lessons for martial arts in some form or another--I'm not picky. My parents weren't too in to that idea, and I took ballet lessons instead for most of my early life--not that I'm complaining; I liked dance. I just wanted kung fu lessons too. I can only blame my parents though for the earlier years. Now I'm older, and I still haven't gotten around to taking lessons. That's my fault. XD One of these days I'll change that. Maybe I'll find a place where I can sign the whole family up once Logan gets a little bit older and capable of better following directions.

Considering how awesome I consider kung fu to be, it's no surprise that Forbidden Kingdom ranks up there as one of my favorite movies. Seriously, it's Jackie Chan and Jet Li. How could a movie with such a pair of awesome kung fu artists not be great? This was one of the few movies I actually went to the movie theater to see, and the only reason I really wanted to watch it was to see the inevitable battle between Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The movie did not disappoint. I got awesome kung fu scenes; the story line and dialogue were also fun. Next to Lord of the Rings, it's one of my favorite movies to stick in when I'm working on the more tedious and mindless parts of cosplay or art projects. Another good martial arts movie is Kung Fu Hustle. If you can't tell, my favorites do tend to be the ones that don't try to take themselves seriously.

This also ties in with one of my favorite additions to Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. (No, this really wasn't an excuse to fangasm more about how much I love FMA). With the addition of the Xing Characters, Ling, May Chang, Lan Fan, and Fu, FMA got more than a little bit better. =P For realz, kung fu makes everything better. So do zombies for that matter, and FMA: Brotherhood added those too, but that's something for another blog. Not only did FMA add straight-up martial arts with Ling and his pair of ninja bodyguards, they combined martial arts and alchemy with May Chang's alchehestry (or however you spell it) techniques. *squee* Okay, I'm going to stop now.

In short, I really enjoy a good martial arts show. It appears in many, although not all, of my favorite movies and anime. You can see homages to that in the fact that I have three martial arts based designs in the character archetype set: the Ninja, the Wise Master, and the Drunken Master. I'm planning to do a few more archetypes; maybe I'll work in a few more with kung fu themes. I might even do a Forbidden Kingdom bookmark set. How awesome would that be?