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.

Simply Potterific 21

Click on the title link to see the full comic.

I'm pretty sleepy so I don't have anything clever to say... blah... I need to seriously work on putting effort into backgrounds...
But, still, fun, fun, FUN! ^____^

Beach Bettys

Some doodles I did at work today inbetween scenes. Man I wanna go to the beeeach...

charicatures #2

More celebrated bees!

Round eyed pigs

At work we've started putting up a "Whales and Rails" wall of incredibly fat and ridiculously skinny cartoons... here's some of my piggy contributions... never mind the anatomy I know it's painful, when I move back to Toronto at the end of this month I'm gonna hit the zoo as often as I can... or wherever you find piggies...

charicatures #1

Trying my hand at charicatures here folks, if you can recognize these celebrity faces than you're awesome because this is my first attempt at doing this. I got the reference from one of those $3 off the rack gossip mags, and I felt so filthy buying it...

Lefty Sketchy 2

Some concept sketches for a comic I'm working on...

Shrub Monkeys #24

When I went to see Ice Age 2, like a couple months ago, I tried to be open and enjoy it, but my honest emotional response was both frusteration and anger, but the kiddies still loved it! Maybe I'm just getting jaded in my old age...
And yeah, click the title link if blogger's made the image too small.

Lefty Sketchy

I did this last night with my alternate hand which I neeeeever draw with... and I'm rather pleeeeased with the result, it seems to me there's a lil' bit more thought process involved when working with a non-dominant hand, while your normal drawing hand will sometimes act on its own and do whatever it feels like in doodle mode.

Sketch Dump #1

Gerry drew my attention to this animator's wonderful sketch postings http://blackwingsketch.blogspot.com/ as well as her blog on animation theories and peoples and all that good stuff. But her sketch blog inspired me to share pieces from my own sketchbooks with you guys every now and then (as I tend to hide them like I would a secret diary and only post relatively polished pieces.)

Below: I was working on some character designs for a western me and Shagster are working on... and I ended up drawing two of my favourite Sheridan gals instead.

I don't sketch people nearly as much as I should...

Shag Potterific

The Potter kids and myself ala the style of Shag (www.shag.com).

Shrub Monkeys

A Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz) inspired version of my siblings Shagster, H.E.S, and I.

Shagster's b-day filler.

Steven "Shagster" Shanahan has just turned 21, (has the world gone mad???) Anyhoo, I promised him a super cool card, but as I'm battling deadlines and working on commissions (and it took over 20 minutes to search for reference material for the real card) I gave up for now and instead submitted this filler card! Just something to hold him over til I get the REAL card out.
I'm such a good sister :)

Treva

Ehehe... yeaaaah. Just a quicky I put together for a contest on Deviantart... though lord knows there's so many more crucial things I should be doing right now. It's pinup artist Joe Chiodo's Treva and her love for furs...
I'm only gonna post the thumbnail here for people offended by humans in their natural (albiet ridiculously over endowed) state of nekid-ness, but to see the full view click on the title link.

H.e.s n' Zell

A quicky for my adorable lil sis who's totally in luuuuuurv with the gollum/shaman/swordsman Zelgadis from the Slayers anime. Man, Slayers is one of my absolute favs, it is sooooo dang funny (though it can switch to deadly serious within the span of an episode)... but that's also why I love it! Keeps you on yer toes...

Oh such colourful hair!

My brother and creative partner Shagster hosted a voice acting panel at Anime North recently, and one of the activities was to have the audience participate in voice acting for various character architypes found in anime (like the school bully who has big hair and looks like he's 30, the b*tch aunt who begrudgingly takes care of the main character after their "good for nothing parents passed away", the pretty boy villain, the annoying magic side kick, the sexy villainess, etc etc). So it was of course my job to design all 20 characters (and I'm getting a Nintendo DS as payment, muahahaha!)My absolute favourite design is the wizard... I wanna use him for something...

**if the blogger link doesn't open, or if the image is too small, click on the title link and check it out on my deviant art account... I don't really have a spot for this on my website...**

It is your destiny...

A marriage gift for my uncle Christopher and his wife Rebecca, who both love Star Wars and camping.

...I definetly need to keep practicing with characatures...

Lum-oo!

Man, this was a spur of the moment thing, and there's probalby a million things I should've done instead (ie/ work, or commissions) but as soon as I sat at my art desk, this sassy bikini-clad alien babe popped into my brain and I couldn't sleep till I got her outta there.
Lum, or Uretsi... Ureetsi... forget it I can't remember how it's spelled, LUM was one of the first anime me, my dad and Shagster got into back in the mid 90s when anime was starting to break out big into North America. And even though I saw many more various anime afterwards, none can beat this one for its pure wacky zany-ness. She kind of brings to mind Betty Page now that I look at the final piece... I can't wait to see that movie.

..... and YEAH I gave her a big bum, DEAL WITH IT!

p.s. Argh... I just realised she has a weird man neck... and no real pelvis just a butt coming off her waste... and a broken shoulder... AAAAAUGH I need to go back to life drawing!!!!!!!!!

Sweet Home Ottawa

I've got to admit, I'm in love with Ottawa. It got a little harsh over the winter but now that green is in abundance, and the honey smell of (a certain tree that I have no idea what its called) is in the air, and the tulips are poppin' up like daisys... well I'm in love all over again. Especially with where I live. The appartment is okaaay and the street is kinda grubby, and there's aLOT of chain-smoking teen moms and creepy street guys, but I love it all the same. Especially if you walk down the side streets and see the more established old neighbourhoods, the houses have so much character. That kind of brings me to the point I'm getting at:
I've a huge passion for houses, I love all the different shapes and colours, nicknacks and pattywacks, even when they're falling apart they hold so much asthetic appeal to me! What I really wanted to do was spend time sketching the ones I like most, but I can't really capture what I see on paper too well yet, and a snap shot is much faster than if I sit on the side walk and doodle (where the home owner is BOUND to spot me). So I'm collecting photo reference (I also want to base a comic I'm writing here) but I'm hitting a kind of questionable area here where I'm wondering if taking pictures of people's homes is a kind of violation of privacy. Though it's not like I'm looking in the windows or hassling their pets. I keep the photos for my own record, (but if I were to show them I'd blot out the number and street sign). It doesn't seem any worse to me than sketching people on the bus, but even then I get nervous (if the person spots me I get all worried I'm going to be confronted... but most of my artistic friends do it all the time).
Ah well, I'll cross that bridge if and when I get jumped by a home owner, til' then I'll just keep appreciating the best source material out there: real life.

Commission #3

Here's the commission I've been working on for Flavie for the past couple days: her and Draco Malfoy (the Harry Potter series' resident snooty, self-absorbed, so-and-so). Yay Slytherin! :D

Uuuuuugh I'm hungry. OOH but I stashed GOOD during free comic book day! Grabbed one of everything! ... even stuff I'm pretty sure I won't read... but I'm a sucker for freebees!

*Sniffle*

Gaawwr... sure hope I get that Toronto job... feels a bit lonelier up in Ottawa already.

But on a happier note, tommorrow is free comic book day! Woooo!

Commission #2

This is a commission for Julia (all the way in Paris, woo!) of Harry Potter's Tonks and Lupin. A cute but odd coupling in how despite their devotion to truth, justice, and saving the world these two have practically nothing in common! Oh well, Lupin's my favourite character in the series so I can't blame her for fallin' for him... the ol' werewolf stud.

Simply Potterific #20

For those of you who're following my Simply Potterific comics, I've FINALLY updated with a new comic! Click on the title link to go directly to my page to see it.

Christine, Christine...

I was cutting 11x17 paper down to make proper size animation paper at work, and was left over with maybe 60 11"x3" sized papers. I didn't really want to chuck em in the recycle bin as I figured I could find a use for them. So I've decided to make a booklet of pinups based on characters and costumes I find to be beautiful... all in pencil crayon (the medium I used to use before I discovered photoshop). This is Christine's costume in the theatrical Phantom of the Opera, (during the "Point of no Return" song) which I found interesting because of its shifting balance between innocence and sexuality. Her feet are stupidly placed but I kind of slapped em on as an afterthought anyway... I also need more practice with hands and fabric and figuring out all that colour theory of a figure we learned briefly in life drawing...

More to come!

Yeaaah... it's best not to ask...

I was in a weird mood when I did this... I think she represents whatever it was that was holding me back from doing my own drawings for so long... now that I've kicked her out of my system I actually feel ready to start again.
And I cleaned the HECK out of my room, and anyone who knows me well knows that means I'm ready to get back on track with things.

Eleven years of sheer punky-ness

Lil' sisters birthday! Lil' sisters birthday! It's 10:14 pm so HOPEFULLY she's in bed right now and won't see this posted before her birthday tommorrow... I was just so excited to put it up cuz I wuv her to bits!

SBOR update

Hey everyone! Shagster's updated the SBOR show (link to the right) with new easy to navigate sections and all the classic (and mostly hilarious) slightly bent and odd stories! Check out his radio play "silly kingdom" or his dense detective story "charlie branton: trouble at the docks" as well as his numerable silly skits and fake commercials (and a stop motion short with the soldiers from Halo).

Me, my siblings, and I

V for Very sleepy right now...

Go see it.

Muahaha!

How about that! Currently our very own "Simply Potterific" is ranked 416 out of 5998 titles at thewebcomiclist forum ! With Penny Arcade in 4th, that's not too shabby!

Ren n' Stimpy madness

Oh man, I just had to share this. The best part in an otherwise... interesting episode...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSAfMIKEXog

Shrub Monkeys #23

This was how poor Steven's bus trip back from working nightshift downtown Toronto on March 17th went... it's enought to put you off alcohol forever I should think!
This is my first time sketching with the new tablet, and MAN the thing acts like it's on crack, or like it's one of those fast moving zombies from "28 days later". I've set the speed as low as I can without it feeling too muddy but it zips around the screen like crazy!
I just need to get used to it... and now for sleep.

More Cyberspheres

This is the show's protagonist, kinda you're typical spikey headed brooding hero. These are 3 different colour tests (I love photoshop's "adjust hue" ability, so fun!)