A Dragon Named Coal

An awesome husband and wife duo - pals of my husband and I - have been developing their own game, A Dragon Named Coal for their mutually-owned company, Clever Crow Games. I'm super stoked at everything these two have accomplished so far, so of course I couldn't resist creating a little art love for Coal himself. Do check their efforts out if you get the chance!

♥M

An SoA Christmas

Best possible package to arrive in the mail. The SoA cast took the time to sign a bunch of my SoA work - I could not be happier or more inspired. Huge thanks to DL for making this happen (& the awesome DavidLabrava.com swag too! This gal definitely loves Happy.)

Speaking of Happy - Happy New Year, all! Here's to a productive & adventurous 2015!

-M

Art on DavidLabrava.com

Hey all! The multi-talented and hella awesome fella David Labrava ("Happy" from Sons of Anarchy) has launched his official website, and it includes some of my artwork. Do check it out if you get the chance! There's going to be a ton of awesome merchandise you can purchase there, from tshirts to glass and artwork made by DL himself - even the Dynas Happy had on SoA are for sale! (I'm personally looking to snag a "This Girl loves Happy" shirt. hahah.)

Check it out at www.DavidLabrava.com!

-M 

Toonstyle Mayhem

'Toonstyle Happy and Chibs - two personal favorites from Sons of Anarchy. This was actually a warm-up artwork for a separate illustration that got completely out of hand - Wound up being a fun exercise in FX/color/light. 

Also thought I'd share another warm-up: Quick first attempts figuring out how to draw Charlie Hunnam’s face. Kudos on being seriously fun to sketch there, fella.

-Mel

Support Boot Campaign - Win a Free SoA FanArt Print!

Want to win a print of the above Sons of Anarchy fan artwork? Here’s your chance - and for a great cause!

SOAAddicts is GIVING AWAY a print of this SOA themed digitally painted picture to ONE lucky fan of Sons of Anarchy and Boot Campaign & Boot Campaign Canada.
Boot Campaign is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to Cultivating Awareness, Promoting Patriotism, and Providing Assistance to military personnel, past and present, and their families. - See more at: http://www.bootcampaign.com/about/

To show our support for Boot Campaign, SOAAddicts have a Javadoodle to GIVE away! To be in the running for this prize, all you have to do is LIKE Boot Campaign on Facebook , FOLLOW them on twitter, and verify that you’ve done so on our raffle entry page here: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/NTBlY2RiOWIyZWZhNTg2ZDMxNmNkYTI5YTQ4NTk3OjE=/

Raffle Ends Friday, March 21st 2014.

Print Prize Information: The Artist will mail the print to the winning participant (Please make sure you are ok with providing a mailing address to ship to if you enter.) The print itself is 11x20 inches, on acid-free Moab Entrada Rag Bright White, 100% cotton paper, in a matte finish.

Raffle Terms and Conditions: By entering you agree to the Terms and Conditions. This giveaway is not sponsored, administered or endorsed by Facebook. By participating in this giveaway, you are agreeing to release Facebook of any responsibilities relating to the competition. SOAAddicts Admins & Admin family members are not eligible.

Cheers,
-M

Sons of Anarchy Fan Art

Last piece of 2013, just in time for New Years Eve. A couple of favorites from Sons of Anarchy - Chibs, Gemma, Bobby Elvis, and Tig. These folks are both challenging and a fun to illustrate - may have to do it again some time.

Artwork by Javadoodle. Find more on Facebook, and DeviantART.

Happy New Years, everyone!
-Mel

Sons Sketches

A couple of quick studies are evolving their way into a full-on Sons of Anarchy fan piece. Rather curious to see how this one pans out. Included - Chibs, Gemma, Bobby, Tig, and Tig’s pup because Bully-smiles are fun to sketch.

-M

Adventures in Fishbowl Space

Adventures in Fishbowl Space. With an army of laser bees. Because why not.

Bee and Puppycat is the husband and I’s new favorite thing. If you haven’t checked it out yet you probably should. It’s pretty great.

-Mel

Totoro BrOTP

Had a sketch of these little guys on my hard drive for a few weeks - Feels great to finally have a chance to so something with them. My Neighbor Totoro is an all-time favorite of mine. Thought I’d do a little tribute.

-Mel

Doctor Who Charity Art Show

Hey all. Some rather cool news for you! I was recently invited by one of the wonderful folks behind Tiki Machine to take part in a Doctor Who themed charity art show that will be taking place on December 13th and 14th in Anaheim, CA. Above is my contribution to the show - the Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble, and a kerfuffle of Adipose. 

All proceeds of the art sales will be going to Friends and Helpers, providing assistance to women, children and teens who find themselves involved in domestic violence. So if you happen to be the SoCal area mid-December, feel free to drop by the show, see some Whovian love at work, and buy some art to help donate to a fantastic cause. All info on the event can be found on the flyer below.

Allons-y!

-Mel

Dwarrow Doodles

Had a few minutes to do some scanning last night, so I jumped on it. Here's sketchbook doodles from the weekend before last, as well as some process on Balin. My "Hobbit" kick continues with Bofur, Bombur, and a random little dwarven lass for the sheer sake of cute. 

-Mel

Balin

The Hobbit's Balin makes me happy, so I thought I’d return the favor.

-Mel

"For Cardassia!" Painting Process on Ziyal

I have a spankin’ new Facebook gallery page for Javadoodle! to celebrate, here’s a compilation of the live stream session I did earlier this year om “For Cardassia!” while working towards teaching myself how to better paint in Photoshop, sped up to a much more viewable pace and length. Music has been provided under creative commons by the talented Mr. Kevin Macleod. You can find his work at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/ I will try to do more of these paint sessions in the future, as time permits. Thanks for viewing!

Cardassians and Doodles and Pizza oh my

 

In the sparse instances where time permits, I've been pushing to try and improve my digital coloring  (Slowly but surely, it's coming along nicely.) I also re-watched Star Trek:Deep Space Nine recently, and in combining these two efforts, fan-art was bound to happen. Above are a series of portraits of DS9 Cardassian characters - one of my favorite species from Trek in general. Clockwise from the top left: Dukat, Damar, Garak, and Ziyal. These proved a great practice exercise - I've included the rough and tie-down sketches and final line work here as well. 

Above is a recent page from my sketchbook - all my own character design musings, apart from the pair in the top left corner. Just one of those silly things I had to get out of my system. For reasons.

And then you have... Pizza. So fairly recently, the DS9 fandom on Tumblr exploded with a delightful bought of silliness called "Deep Dish Nine." DD9 in an alternate-universe scenario wherein the DS9 characters (All human) run competing pizza delivery joints, Deep Dish Nine vs. Dominion Pizza. The plotbunnies and speculation that sprouted from the idea were so genuinely goofy and funny and often downright delightful (Right up my ally, given I'm incapable of taking any fandom too seriously) I couldn't resist divvying up a couple of sketch contributions when one of my afternoons produced a couple of hours down-time. Pictured in each doodle are: (Top) Pizza!AU Ziyal, Dukat, Kira, and both Dax's (Middle) Garak and Weyoun and (Bottom) Damar and Dukat.

Nerdlady out,

-Mel

Space-Lizard Doodles

I've been on a terrifically huge Star Trek: Deep Space Nine kick lately. One of my all-time favorite species designs from the show has always been the Cardassians, so unsurprisingly, they've been cropping up in my sketchbook here and there. Above is some first attempts as drawing Gul Dukat (Who is every bit as challenging to draw as on might suspect) and a random OC who's been floating about in my brain as of late. (One of a solid twenty OC's at this point, because I seem incapable of being a fan of anything without countless character ideas spawning from it and renting out space in my brain. Pesky character-bunnies.)

-Mel

Sugar Rush Racer

Something quick and silly on the side. I keep seeing these great "Sugar Rush" themed fan characters cropping up all over the place. And who can blame folks, with as adorable as the designs happen to be from Wreck it Ralph? So, I'm jumping that bandwagon with bells on. Can't resist! This little lady's based on a favorite of mine: Sour apple candies.

Cheers,

Mel

AdoraBub

Heeere's Lil Bub! I had so much fun drawing the little gal, I thought I'd lend her some colors as well. Check out progress on the image on this post here, and Bub's blog here.

Cheers,

Mel

Snarls and Slytherins

I really love the bold, graphical look and feel to the cell-shade style of coloring I recently used on the ARMSmasters Pitch Party add, and decided to fiddle around with it some more, briefly, for the fun of it. Moxie here was the Guinea Pig. I'll definitely have to keep up with this style of coloring when I get the opportunity - it's quite fun.

Also, some line art-in-progress.

I’m still futzing about with what exactly I’d like to do for the background - or really, how extensive I want to get with it. Minimally, I know Hogwarts will be ablaze. We’ll see where else it takes me from there. For now, though, enjoy some Slytherins :)

Based in an interview quote by JK Rowling:

“A part of the final battle that made me smile was Slughorn galloping back with Slytherins. But they’d gone off to get reinforcements first, you know what I’m saying? But yes, they came back, they came back to fight (…) I’m sure that many people would say “Well, that’s common sense, isn’t it? Isn’t that smart, to get out, get more people and come back with them?”

Unfortunate for Slytherin fans, this was never made a clear point in the book, and who knows if Filmmakers will bother to depict it in the final film, either. Chances are genuinely slim that they will. So, here you have it. My depiction-in-progress of the Slytherins returning with Professor Slughorn to the Final Battle at Hogwarts. Characters clockwise from back left: Malcolm Baddock, Graham Pritchard, Theodore Nott, Horace Slughorn, Tracy Davis, Daphne and Astoria Greengrass. I’ll post more progress as I make it :)

And yes, as a matter of fact. In my mind, Horace Slughorn totally has a monocle.

Cheers,

Mel