Iluq- Visual Development

So some of you know I've been without my computer for weeks now.
I finally got it back
since I was away from it though, I started doing more work on paper, like I used to.
And it feels so great :)

For my story Illustration class, I get to basically come up with my own project
I've had this story playing around in the back of my mind for a year or so now.
I'm really inspired by inuit art, so I'm doing a short comic about a young inuit girl name Iluq (means frost in Inuit language)

Here's some of my sketches and visual development work I've done so far.
I started this project about 2 weeks ago now. Basically, I ran to the library, took out every book I could find on eskimo and Inuit culture and art and have been pounding out sketches of character designs and environments

There are hundreds of sketches of the bear spirit lying around my room, and even more of Iluq, but these are just some of the more recent, not as terrible ones :)

Final Design I've chosen for Iluq:


Some facial expressions (WIP):


Some of the earlier designs for Iluq:




Environment sketches:



Bear Spirit Design:

Places: La Jolla, California

So I've been doing so many doodles for places rewards lately, I haven't really been doing anything for the actual book! I had a really inspiring weekend with Marie at La Jolla in San Diego County. I love how crazy the rocks look. I had a couple reference photos that looked a little like faces, so I did 2 little drawings of rock close ups and then a more pulled back shot

Hali to Cali: Beale Street

Beale Street, Memphis. There'll probably be a lot of Memphis sketches

Hali to Cali: Dallas Rain

My mom calls the birds that fly right in front of your car kamikaze birds.

Hali to Cali: Albuquerque at night

Quick sketch of albuquerque from above at dusk

...now with a cactus

eh, I don't know which one I like better.

Hali to Cali: Albuquerque

Digital sketch of Albuquerque mountains

How Much is that Bugatti in the Window?

oh not much... just 1.7 million dollars.

Hali to Cali: Texas

Hali to Cali: Grand Canyon

Finished up 2/12, Grand Canyon!

This was such a great day



you know you're having a good week when you end up making a slew of pieces all good enough to replace what's in your portfolio.

Grand Canyon WIP

working on illustration 2 of a 12 part series of sequential style illustrations for the road trip my sister and I took through the US this summer.
I am going to cap both ends with small illustrations but I think I'm done with this middle part for now



Also, here's the first one I did, which was for vegas:

Stuff from This Week

Work is starting to slow down a little on a game project I'm working on and CTN portfolio deadline is fast approaching. October 15th! also the deadline for the game to be finished, so holy crap! hahaha.. great client though, so I'm not concerned...oddly enough a good client who's not a pushy jerk will make me work faster and better than one who's constantly like "DO THIS RIGHT NOW" and is a wiener about it. Stubbornness... it's a curse.

Anyways, here's some stuff I've done the past week:

A couple illustrations inspired by Lunenburg Nova Scotia. It started out just as fall because Lunenburg is quite pretty in the fall, and LA doesn't have that season it seems. But then I played around with it and got winter, and now I don't know which one I like better... which is funny because I don't know whether I like Lunenburg's winter or fall better, they are both really pretty.




Rain in LA, because I find it so incredibly funny how worked up about the rain they all get. this was drawn from the window of a starbucks on the one day it poured here. I hear they get like... one or two days a year, and I experienced it. It was very comforting, and reminded me of home:



Animal silhouettes and sketches. These are for that game I'm working on. I have final versions of all of these, but I don't want to post them yet, out of respect for the client. He gave me the go ahead to use them in my portfolio, so I'll use it for my personal CTN stuff, but I don't like posting final game assets on the internet prior to the game getting released. So now you all have to buy the game to see what they look like finished haha... and tons of other stuff I've done!





Girls love puppies... just for fun



I also edited the birds to make the composition a bit better:



and that's it! Working on a giant illustration today and potentially on and off for the rest of the week.
I also have a whole sketchbook full of studies from this week from the zoo and starbucks
hitting starbucks every day for warmup drawings, it's like having super fast figure drawing sessions every day. Definitely paying off to warm up I think.