Looking for Art Books

I've been a little unhappy with some bad habits in my work and need to simply start sketching more for practice. I am jealous of people who went to animation school. So tonight I thought that I would try to find a nice animation book that would help me with movement. The only problem is that 90% of the animation/fantasy/comic drawing books at B&N are now Christopher Hart books. This is unfortunately since most of them are the same book with slightly different art (yes it irks me that they continue to publish them). I only found one actual animation book, which I think I will pick up later. I don't have any intention of animating but I think it would help with drawing.

There's really no reason I should be doing more illustration since I'm seeing children's books with the quality of art I am capable of. I just need get myself to believe I can.

So what I did find with what I was looking for was book 4 and 5 from the How to Draw Manga series Ultimate Manga Lessons. Most of the older books don't have a lot of useful information on how to apply techniques to your art rather than just copying poses in the books. There's some later books that go into detail about inking and specific techniques that are better though.



I also saw a new John Howe Book on dragons and and a Licensing book that I thought looked pretty helpful. Other than the author's idea that self publishing prints is more difficult than using a publisher (Fantasy and comic genre art is different than the market for, say Terry Redlin and Thomas Kinkaide), there's lot of information that no one tells new artists such as actual %s for different products (believe me, I was sure this was somehow secret information for a long time).



And some sketches:

These were preliminary sketches for my Christmas card design this year:


Sketches for a future painting and some critters:


Also,

- Saw Bolt (in 3d) this weekend. It was awesome. That got me interested in checking out future Disney movies The Princess and the Frog, Rupunzel (I love the concept art but how are they going to do this with the main character stuck in a tower the entire time?), and King of the Elves
- I discovered Emma - A Victorian Romance season 2 is out and Netflix has it. Yay! :)

Quarry Park in October

2009 Calendar and updates

I posted my 12 month 2009 Calendar at deviantart, at zazzle or cafepress. It features 14 images from the last year or so. It's was a little too late to do a print run this year but the quality from Deviantart's prints is quite nice.

My new website design is done and live now. I added a few new products while I was at it.

Site updates:
- Lotus Fairy ACEO
- Card sets featuring two Christmas images and anime fairies
- 21 new keychains. I've had these for years but haven't had them on my site before.

An Award!

I received an award from Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is actually only the 2nd art show award I've had. The first one was in 2003.



A recent commission based on the story of Undine by Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué. There is a part with a storm and the waters rage through the forest.


Gears and Glass is a painting inspired by gothic lolita and steampunk fashion.

I plan on offering prints of this but have not gotten around to it yet. I've been redesigning my websites and am almost done. They are looking good but there are a few things to fix still.

I am loved

Thank you for your lovely gift Sarah Butcher!

Rules of the Award:
1. Must display award.
2. Must link back to the person who gave it.
3. Choose 7 other bloggers to pass the bloggity love onto.
4. Let them know they have been chosen.

Here are my choices:
1. B Mousseau
2. Melissa Findley
3. Laine
4. Starrydance
5. Bread and Honey
6. Beth Hansen
7. Olga Ulanova