Shrub Monkeys #36 Happy Holidays!

Happy Christmas!

Actually this is a last-minute commission not my Christmas card for this year... but as I haven't quite made a Christmas card yet it'll do for now! Gerry helped me out a lot with this one (composition and colour), thanks Ger! Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Website update

I added a "sketch" section to my portfolio page, which is basically a couple sketches and some shrub monkeys. That is all!

Shrub Monkeys #35

**Click title link to see full comic at girlamatic.com**

Maybe I'm just too old to understand, but why do so many girls dress like this downtown?

Demented little women

This was too scary not to share. My little sis was looking on our shelf for a family christmas movie to watch, and when she said "How about 'Demented little women'?" I had to see what she was talking about. Yes, the cover shows a regular happy Christmas scene with Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women characters... but why do they all look like they're possessed by satan???

Shrub Monkeys #34

**Click the title link to view full comic @ girlamatic.com**

As my mom pointed out, these past 2 comics make it look like I dislike Toronto, NOT SO! I just dislike smelly cities. Otherwise Toronto has lots of good points. Like... um... tons of sushi places! Aaaaand... awesome stores! And comic shops! Yah!

Shrub Monkeys #33

Sketches

*sigh* I need to be more like superman...
ANYHOO, these are just some character doodles. I may do something with this. Provided no one's already got something exactly like it. Boy do I feel stressed out these days... :P

Cartoonify thyself!

This week's topic at Artjumble was to draw yerself in the style of your favourite cartoon show. For the life of me, I CANNOT pick a favourite, I haven't had a "favourite" since I was 12 and Sailor Moon first hit the screens. There's lots of stuff I liiike, but it was so hard to choose that I just went with the smart-arse approach: Yeaaaaah Clutch Cargo!Then I felt like being nicer to myself and so drew a Ruby Gloom esque picture. It's a really cute show and my lil' sis absolutely adores it! ... man, with all the photos, drawings and comics of myself I keep posting , you all must think I'm the world's most narcissistic person...

H.E.S blog!

For those who don't know yet, my little sister has started her own blog! Check it out at duckwithumbrella.blogspot.com for the kinds of cute drawings and strange political (at least I think it's political...) cutout humour that only an 11 year old brain can cook up!

Shrub Monkeys #32, Medieval Misgivings...

**Click title link to view larger strip at girlamatic.com**

A bunch of friends (of mine and my boyfriend Gerry) came down from Ottawa a few weekends ago and all of us went to Medieval Times in Toronto. It was aweome! Highly recommended if there's one in your area. We got so into it that we'd be standing and screaming for blood during the sword fights, we didn't say anything foul, but I think we were freaking out the family in front of us. Whoops!
You can tell my great love for backgrounds in this particular comic. BAH! I want to do serious comics some day soon, so I know I have to get better, but at this point in time I find no pleasure in drawing backgrounds. I want to put as few lines down as possible to get the joke across and that's it!

Shrub Monkeys 31 and a hot potato!

Hoooo man, I've been living and breathing work for the past week and a half. Thank goodness for weekends, I felt a brain crash coming on. Now for some random sillies... smile folks! It's the weekend fer gosh sake! (I really need to start studying colour theory... I need more hours in the day! )

Again, seeing as blogger never opens my Shrub Monkeys the proper size, click the title link, it'll re-direct you to girlamatic.com where I post these.

Gamoween!

Over at girlamatic.com we had "GAM-o-ween" week where we've all swapped characters, put them in random assigned costumes and drew pictures of them all at a big ol' Halloween party!
Dale Ingram of "Hold my Life" draws Shagster and I: here!
And I was given Rachael Moore's "Unicorn Campaign" characters, dressed as Indian dieties! Good times!

**click title link to see full picture**

pum-po-kin carvin' 06

Lil' beginner's pumpkin carving attempt #2: enraged squirrel... complete with walnuts!

KT n' H.E.S Halloweenies!

My lil' sister's and my costume. She's going as "Aunty Monica" this year. You know, from the song:"I have an aunty, an aunty Monica, and when we go shopping, they all say 'ooh la la' because her feather's a swingin', her feather's swingin' so! Her feather's a swingin', her feather's swingin' so..." etc etc, on to her boa, her purse, and things like that.If you even went to girl guide camp you probably know exactly what I'm babbling about here. OK, time to do some commissions. I'm getting sick though, *cough* *snuffle* *snff

Me and Sleenaw getting into the Halloween spirit

Malabar on Queen and McCaul St. has the bestest rental gowns I ever did see. I'm not sure if we were allowed to take pictures in their costumes, but there were no discouraging signs... (therefore this is kinda like free advertisement for anyone who reads this blog)
I wish it were more common place to dress up in gowns like these, or that I could find random opportunities to do so. *sigh*

Cabaret Vampiress

This is what i'm going to attempt for my Halloween costume... (don't worry mom, it won't look this skanky)

... why the heck do I always draw my girls with such massive thighs? It's almost subconcious! I don't even know I've done it til the picture is coloured.

I've got quite a bit on my plate right now with work, hitting the gym, I HAVE to get through about 6 commissions (I've left those people hanging too long), and 3 gam-o-ween illustrations for girlamatic.com. Oh, and also next week's shrub monkey. I'm feeling stretched pretty thin as it is... I hope I don't get sick... sniff. I'm feeling very much like Bilbo right now...like butter scraped over too much bread...

A happy belated b-day posting to Gerry-kins!

Shrub Monkey 30

Blah... icky unproductive day today.

Shrub Monkey #29

New comic! Click the title link if the image uploads too small to read on blogger. Also, coming soon from girlamatic:

duh duh duh... I'm being mysterious here!

24 hours and not a single comic!

Today is 24-hour-comic day so guess what I did??? Absolutely nothing save this Zelda sketch. BAH! I had such good intentions too! Today I was going to polish off a few commissions, do a whole bunch of Shrub Monkeys (so as to have a reserve ready for girlamatic) and get another Potterific done. Rather, I went for a wonderful autumn hike with my parents, checked out a halloween costume shop and some sushi, recieved a fantastic package in the mail (copies of a Harry Potter fanzine put together by various web artists and published VERY nicely by Johane Matte) and watched the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice (for the first time) and fell completely in love with Colin Firth all over again!
Somewhere in there I put on the Legend of Zelda cartoon from the Super Mario Bros Super Show (that Steven bought) for nostalgia sake... just something to play in the background while I sketched, but instead I got so wrapped up in it. It's just sooo bad it's good! And Link's personality is so drastically different from what you'd expect playing the games that it's hilarious! I can't picture Link from "Twilight Princess" trying to steal smooches or throw his indignant "excuuuuuuuuse me, princess" catch phrase at Zelda...

sketch dump #2

My latest sketch dump. The fact that I draw strangely structured (or not structured) ladies at work (during breaks) shows that I HAVE to start going to lifedrawing again. Like, NOW! I'm in nekid-people-withdrawl.

Mindless doodles, just lettin' my brain wander...

The guy at the bottom was born to be charicatured, so I'm sad I wasn't able to capture him too well. BUT it's a good thing in that it's making me practice more.

Shrub Monkeys #28

You can tell I was having an awesome day at the studio when I drew this...

Luna doing that stupid cat thing

Just another Sailor Moon doodle. Though "Potato Farm Girl" has the funniest damn Luna design ever. http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5588/1051/1600/sailorspoonlo.jpg You can check out the rest of her blog by clicking on her name in my "other" links.

mercury has stoopid powers

My sister's been watching the original japanese sailor moon dvds, and I couldn't help getting nostalgic seeing those short skirted crazy teens running around on screen. I was such a massive Sailor Moon fan back when it came out... I'dve been the same age Heather is now! Oy! I wish they had the american version on dvd though... die-hard fans will hate me for saying this but I prefer the colour touchups and the voices and the music in the version that was released here. Some of the.. okay, ALL of the music makes me cringe in the original japanese version. But yah! Hurray for the days of yore... and Mercury has always been my favourite senshi... even though she has the stupidist pose and the stupidest powers... somehow I was able to relate to her... or maybe I'm just a fan of all things blue.

Shrub Monkeys #27

**click title link for full view**
I was kinda sick the day before this was due for uploading on girlamatic, and promised to colour it when I got the chance... but when I started doing so today I went "baaaaah, forget that." Shrub Monkeys is supposed to be quick and experimental anyway, and slapping blue on top aint gonna make the strip read 200% clearer...... ok, fine, you got me, I'm just being lazy......

I wanna vacation...

Shrub Monkeys #26

If it opens too small, click the title link and it'll take you to the Girlamatic site. Oh, and a note to all you self-proffessed bakers, never think that by substituting ingrediants with things that SEEM similar that'll you'll get anything close to tasty... I can't remember all the things I ad-libbed when I made brownies a couple years ago, but I can still remember how AWFUL they tasted.

And the Oscar goes to... moi?

Hmm! Apparently Caillou season 3 (first show I ever worked on) won some kinda award for best canadian animated tv series production. How about that? You proud of me yet, mum? Just kiddin', o' course you are...

Click the title link to check out the the AWN article (in case you wanna confirm I'm not making all this up).

Simply Potterific #24

New Potter comic! Click on the title link to see the whole thing.

I don't have too much to say today, so instead I'll do a lil' show and tell.

Movie recommendation of the week: Idiocracy (go see now, it's a real fun movie... kinda scary too as it's a look at where our society miiiiiight be heading, but still really funny!)

My absolute favourite artist today: http://dermotpower.com This guy did concept art for the Harry Potter movies, the new Star Wars, and some awesome Willy Wonka concept art amongst other projects. Go! Get inspired!

Have a good weekend y'all! Looks like I'm gonna be doing alot of cleaning around the house... oh, and checking out the local abandoned renaissance faire grounds! Wee!

Sketchy-Poohs

Did the first two during some quiet time at work. I drew mah doggy down at the bottom there, she used to splay out all over the kitchen floor and her Gene Simmons like tongue was sooo hilarious.

Mermaid art tag at http://elbowbite.blogspot.com/ ... check it ouuuuut!

Shrub Monkeys #25

Changed the template a bit, got tired of all that green considering blue is more of my favourite colour anyway... well, actually pink is, but if I post on a bright pink blog all the boys might run away.

SHRUB MONKEEEEEEY!

Belated Boluda Birthday

T'was Lucia's birthday two weeks ago! I miss you Lu!!!! But not the mate, ja ja ja!

Who wants to put their shoes on? Not me, my friend.

It's official! Shrub Monkeys just launched today as a part of the line up at www.girlamatic.com. You can check out the press release here: http://www.girlamatic.com//comics/gam-edit.php?view=archive&chapter=13069
The past few days have been incredible. For one, it was my birthday thursday , now I'm 23, and I got to see Monty Python's Spamalot which is BRILLIANT, a must see. Hilarious. Friday I went to see Video Games Live, the symphony orchestrated event, with my siblings, and it was beautiful. The big screen with awesome clips, the lighting on the musicians, the giant froger game, the INSANE piano playing dude who could play mario theme songs at top speed BLIND-FOLDED! Oh! It was too much! So good! Another "must see." Sunday I went to the comic expo with Steven and Heather, and bumped into a bunch of friends there. It was alot of fun and I've decided to finally get my act together and set up a table for next year! So... now I have to put stuff together for it ... ack! Well, it's a year away, most deadlines considered that's not bad at all. But still, as Steven can attest I tend to procrastinate aLOT when it comes to my own work. Ah well.

Some pics from the convention:

A bunch of ruffians we ran into.


Steven hanging with his new buddy and doing something unordinary... wearing glasses.

Simply Potterific #23

Clicky the title link-ee!
And yes, even though I like the Marauders I do acknowledge they were a bunch of jerks...

Long time no blog!

Yes, AS you can see by this post my computer is finally hooked up to the internet! FINALLY! The past few weeks have been wonderful and wonderfully busy. I'm pretty much all settled back at home and into my new job. Iggy Arbuckle is such an adorable show, really cute and funny. I'm very much enjoying myself working there.
ALSO, Shrub Monkeys will be joining the lineup at www.girlamatic.com, a lady friendly comic site, so that's very exciting for me and Steven! We're set to update every tuesday, so that'll be an awesome kick-in-the-rear for my usual procrastinatory self... (I think that's a made up word)...
Here's 2 more "Ben Bear-esque" illos I did, one as an "I'm back! So feed me and do my laundry!" gift to my family, and the other a farewell pic for my Ottawa roomate Andrea.I actually REALLY did kick her door down once. The door had gotten stuck due to age and poor workmanship so I had to use my years of ancient kung fu training to save the day. I splintered the wood and bent the locking mechanism and everything, but the wierd part is it was actually alot of fun...

Huggle Bears

Daaaaw, it's Kt and Ger-bear, in the style of Benjamin Bear (the cartoon I've been working on since last March and which finished up this week, sniffle.)

Simply Potterific #22

**Click on the title link to see the full comic**

I'd never really found the name "Hogwarts" to be at all odd until I read the Goblet of Fire. Here you had the Durmstrang school show up, full of strong, serious young men, then the Beauxbaton school, with it's lovely gifted ladies... both school names reflecting its students......then there's "Hogwarts"... like... hosting what, smelly fat kids with skin bumps? Geeze! Not an entirely flattering name! Which is how me and Shagster came about this lil' comic. I don't know if the British system calls its elementary school system "elementary school" or something else, but I figure this way keeps it clear for most people. Also, the bgs and uniform designs I stole shamelessly from google, so if they look familiar (or if you happened to wear one as a child) it's no strange coincidence.

Pencil Crayon Pinup #2

This is Buttercup from The Princess Bride. I hadn't seen the movie in so long, but I watched it again today and just loved it all over. She wears this dress when she's moping around the castle pining for her beloved, I love this scene because it manages to be both heartbreaking and also kinda funny...
I still have a long way to go in pencil crayon colour theory.