Pretty much abandoned

I haven't logged into this thing in ages! Not sure if people still follow this blog anymore. I wouldn't be surprised in the least!

This blog account is and will remain discontinued for an undisclosed amount of time. I have nothing against Blogger, but my interest in it is no longer there. You can already tell by the lack of updates on this thing.

Don't fret! I've been adamantly working on a few projects plus a Tumblr account!
Check em' out!

Gorge: http://www.gorgecomic.net
( A collaborated webcomic effort between myself and Yuki S. )
Alien Drugged: http://aliendrugged.smackjeeves.net
( My solo webcomic project to be launched on August 6th )
Hause of Mause: http://hauseofmause.tumblr.com
( My Tumblr account, where you can check on some behind the scenes sketches, illustrations, and occasional craft work that you won't find on DA or here! )

Thank you for following along with this blog for as long as it lasted. I'll keep this account up so you can check out some of my older stuff.
Until then, have a great summer!

New Beginnings ( new void comic plus online comic in the works )

It's been well over half a year since I updated this blog. I wonder if people still know this place exists?
It's the new year and it's time to set priorities straight. I am no longer going to continuously sulk in my chair and make plans just to break them. Since the end of December I've been working diligently towards my goals in comics, and will continue to do so throughout the year.

The first of these major projects is the long planned EnterVOID submission of Sergio Pancrazio vs Eliza Quaille, which will now be in a two part Beyond Battle format dubbed 'Imouto'. The first part of this comic will be released February 21st or possibly earlier.
Details are here: http://entervoid.com/comic.php?id=3600

The next project will be an Online comic which will be a co-op between myself and Yuki Salinas. The project is under wraps and I don't want to give away any details, but once the website is ready for launch a link will be provided.

Explanation of absence, contests, F*X*T mag

Once again I apologize for the delay of updates. I normally don't talk about the grievances in my life through here since I have other outlets for venting. February of this year for me was the number one contender for worst month of my entire life. ( thus far ) My car broke down and had to replace an engine for two grand, which took away all of my tax return money and almost leaving me in the hole in my bank account. I was absent from the university for over one and a half weeks and despite my e-mails to the instructors, their responses were more of a half-hearted " I'm so sorry about your car" followed by a "BTW don't forget to bring some ________ for next class!" and I ended up getting kicked out of the place I was living. Nice eh?

And so washing my hands from my hellstained past and moved back to my old hometown, scored my old job back, and I've been more productive than ever.
Let's see, where to start...

I've recently joined a group on DeviantArt called Ink Group founded by a fellow comic artist and good buddy. He is also working on a unique artbook called "It's Like I Can Touch You", in which various artists contribute different sci-fi/ fantasy themed art pieces to be converted into stereoscopic art. ( aka 3-D Magic! )You can check out the details in this article on DapShow!

Satellite Soda is a collective art site which showcases handfuls of brilliant talent all over. They are holding a contest for their third artbook installment. You can see my hastly done entry here.

I would also like to encourage all of you artist and comic connessoirs(sp) to check out F*X*T, a magazine project that focuses on original art, comics, and stories. Problem is, they are lacking funds and are in need of your help! To get the project running, they need to hit their goal of $10,500 with only 12 days left! This project deserves a chance, so please check out their site here!

Previews be hustlin'

More Alien Drugged snippets fresh from my moleskin book.



These are but a small handful of the key players in AD. From the left we have Frog Chikori and Echo Magdelis in their revised costumes. Frog's face reminds me of Eric Warheim for some reason. Middle we have Tanuki, a masculine drag queen who also plays an important role in the story. Lastly there's Coral Cuda, an aggressive gal who delights in making Echo's life a living hell.

Just so you know folks, I am about halfway done with inking the very first chapter. More promo art along the way, but not for awhile due to some hectic circumstances.

Well I said I was going to post more right after that last entry, but man you guys ought to know by now that I am a terrible terrible liar. At least my best excuse is school, school, and more school. Don't worry, AD is not coming to another permanent halt. HOWEVER I was busy experimenting with the art of decoupage/Mod Podge and got some interesting results. Here's some samples of boxes I've been working on...




This is a box I did for my sister for Christmas. My first stab at mod podge, and a bit of a proud achievement. For this I used mod podge to tack down the black and white scrapbook paper, black acrylic paint, pearl white flower beads, and an avery mailing label with the original girl design by me.



One of my in-progress boxes. Not very high maintenance here, just tacking down a bunch of black and red miniature dice beads to make it look like a dice-mesh cube. You can't see it here but I kind of messed up on how much room the rows of die can take up, but I'll still finish it regardless of the sloppy handling.

I have a couple more to snapshot but that will also be awhile since one of them is a gift I need to mail out.

Concept Art

Yes! We now have a post involving stuff in techni-color!

Most of the posts from here will involve quite a bit of concept art for my story. Here are the two main characters in their renovated 'battle costumes'
( I needed to update them since they had he same clothes since 1998.)


Please excuse my scanner, she likes to snack on the colors and line quality.

Alien Drugged + Gorge

Changed up my blog's design again! This time it should be more permanent than most. ( plus I'm having a current love affair with gun metal gray and bright orange. ) I haven't had much of a chance to update this, as I've been too busy failing at school and hating my job. On the upswing, I've been working on two projects with the free time I have to spare.

these are just some preview shots of what's in store or Alien Drugged. Raw material stuff as usual.



Sketches of a bunch of different important characters from me and Yuki's collaboration project, Gorge.

More updates as they happen! ( ....what a way to state the obvious. )

Coming soon

Hey guys,
It's been awhile since I last posted. I don't have anything to bring to the table tonight, so this post is basically useless. Right now I'm sketching out pages for the first chapter in Alien Drugged, and it's been a miracle so far ( 13 pages out of predicted 21 and still going. )
I would post some art, but all I've been doing is terrible OC and Tegaki doodles, most of which are enterVOID related.
For now, I'm going to stave off drawing any of the usual characters until I can conclude chapter 1.

Sorry again for the weak post.

Disasterpiece Theatre

So for the duration of the week I decided to get a little generous and do some free requests for people. The main focus was to get into practice with Inking, different techniques of inking, anatomy while doing someone else's characters blada bladda blah. Results? Personally I'm not satisfied with myself, as previous mistakes come back to haunt my stinking existence.

You'll see what I mean:



LEFT TO RIGHT : Riley's DJ Meteor, King Pong's Introvert, Remotely Painful's Leslie

Guess it's just one of them days

Hard Lovins and Pluggins

I've been out and away for a long time. Trying to look for work while keeping myself productive through drawing and playing Silent Hill. Man's got to keep his sanity in check somehow right?
But you didn't stop by to hear me moan about my craptacular Summer, you want a legitimate update damnit!

Before I bust the arts I have some special plugs to fill.

My good man & freelance comic artist Aluísio Cervelle Santos entered Zuda, a special competition for comic artists wanting to get published and recognition by the industry. First place winners get their works published by the grand masters of D.C comics!
Check out his brilliant entry here; http://zudacomics.com/node/1301 and please remember to give him your vote and support!

Another friend of mine is currently running a RedBubble account selling his designs on T-shirts, and so far he's got two nifty designs going. Please support his work and check out his little shop here; http://www.redbubble.com/people/rabbitrabbit/

FATCHUNK Volume II: Zombies is now available through online vendors and some bookstores in the US. As I mentioned before, my contribution should be in the book as well. Go pick up a copy! ( and buy me one too? I...S...so poor....)

Now for the visual stuff! Starting from the left:
Cover art for my next comic for enterVOID, a sample page from a canceled event,
and concept art for an alternative evil version of adult Eliza .

Alien Drugged

Finally...FINALLY!! For many years now I kept making alleged promises that I'd resurrect my old web comic project and now by some miracle I've been racing through my sketchbooks, redesigning old characters and introducing new scenarios.
Here's a bit of a preview:


FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM:

Echo, the main protagonist of the story. Can transform into a bunny like "power suit" and wields a detachable lance. She's also an aspiring DJ, but always gets terrible gigs.

Frog, Echo's best friend and housemate. Has a major phobia towards outhouses. Her abilities reside in her bladed parasol, and summoning giant nut cracker heads.

Shep, Coral's "silent partner". Doesn't speak much. Due to her friend's vulgar behavior, she surpresses her true feelings for fear of causing more damage.

Coral, Echo's arch nemesis. Apparently had a past history with her that can only be described as humiliating and painful. Spends most of her time under an abandoned train station practicing kick boxing or playing darts.

There are more characters and sketches floating around in my book, but I won't be revealing everything. Once my last commission is done I will get started with drawing chapter 1.

Practice practice practice

Been sort of busy all this month, working on getting into a new school and practicing with my inks. Thankfully this post isn't all talk but more show, so let's get to the grind!

WIP: this is a commission I'm doing for a lady friend. What you see here is a color swatch test to make sure everything will integrate nicely before hand coloring. She chose the earthy brown/red palette.


One of my first major attempts at doing a pure ink/ink wash drawing. You can tell I made some awkward mistakes in the shadows of her arms. The knife also doesn't look quite like a knife as a couple of guys pointed out to me. Which lead me to the following doodles...

er....Lolita and knives. I'm sure nothing could be more awkward than this. I'll explain! See, I've also been having trouble with getting clothes to look natural on people ( as in organic folds and such. ) so I just decided to try killing two birds with one stone. I chose the Lolita gowns because the designs are challenging and aren't limited to one form of fabric. Also the blades in this drawing were referenced from bucknife model 184 and bucknife model 119.


Another practice session with clothing. By the way all of these dresses and blouses you see here were referenced from www.fanplusfriend.com. They have some pretty gorgeous dresses/EGA/cosplay items and even have close up shots of the fabric patterns they use. Good reference source IMO.

Yes we have no updates!

Well that ain't entirely true. For the last month or so I've been mixing it up with vegitating and doing another sequential battle at enterVOID.com. I'd link it but frankly my self confidence is too shot for sharing. Mayhaps later? Unless you the viewer already know how to find my stuff on the site.
I've did some small craft work recently, thanks to Yukkin sending me some clay and other little art supply things. I didn't bother taking photos before I mailed out the handmade gifts to everyone.
( I'm so BORING I know! )
In other news I received an e-mail from Jamie Chase of SLG stating that FatChunk volume 2 FINALLY has a release date. It should be coming around stores in April, so let's keep our fingers crossed and expect my little one shot to be in their book as well.
Don't expect updates to be frequent for awhile. I'll be practicing on not sucking with quill pens as well as a commission piece, and possibly another sequential match.

New Years house of blues

Happy New Year everybody! Nothing too excited going on here. I got laid off, and fighting for unemployment and while on the side I've been practicing with my new art tools given by my friends and family.
So the main topic of the evening; Quill inks and pens. I finally received a set thanks to my cousin, and I've been going to town with them since.
This is what I got
http://www.merriartist.com/Speedball_Pen_Set_sktching_p/sp2964.htm

Now, as I was looking through the ink section for pen ink I could only come across two brands; Higgins and Speedball superblack ink. Higgins, we all know and I've been informed well of, is chalky bullshit. I've tried it before and you're better off drawing in car oil. So because I wanted to try something out right away, ( and it was a gift ) I got the Speedball stuff. I figure it's good for regular black and white comicking. And so it is! I'm impressed with it so far, but it's come to be difficult inking buildings. Also, as my friend Heidi mentioned, it's not very water proof so slapping colors would be a challenge if I don't want to mess anything up. ( especially commission work. )
When hours can be picked up at my work and things calm down a bit I'll be investing in some Deleter ink and a jar of white.
In the meantime, here's a few practice pieces;

Panty Project

It's not very often, with my budget being so tight, that I venture away from just paper and pencil. Once in awhile I'll go on some misadventure in the world of experimenting with foreign materials. Sometimes clay sculpting, sometimes forcing my fat fingers to sew, or just making an ass of myself and setting myself up for failure. However, early this year was a different story.
Time warping back to my days in Florida early this year, a friend of mine gave me an opportunity of a lifetime.
They demanded that I defiled one of their clean sets of panties by doing some sort of illustrated motif on them. From there I had nothing to lose.
These photos are the final results before the pre-washing.



The only difference is the blue banding around the top is now black. As for the theme, it was actually inspired by a Youtube clip which you can see here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMdPYya3IoA

Now if only that person would just wear the damn thing.

Let's do something nonsensical once more

Not a very 'artsy' post, but wanted to add a little more coal to this blog's furnace so to speak.
I was hanging out with RabbitJunk in pchat the other night and tried my hand at digital painting for the first time....

Not a very handsome first try.

The comic experiments will have to be put on hold for awhile due to my holiday card and sticker project ( and money issues is really ripping me apart stress wise....probably why I haven't been sleeping....blahblahblah. )
Around the first week of december I'll be alterating commission prices to make them cheaper temporarily for that month. We'll see how that works, but in the meantime....


( sorry Riley, I just had to. And yet you'll never know this entry even existed.
.....*snicker*.... )

Rhythim and Blues

It's been years since I've had my old web comic characters make an appearance in public, so allow me to refresh some memories and maybe make some new ones. In 1999 I had an old web comic called Alien Drugged, a sci-fi 'shoujo' type story about five unique girls and their abilities to fight off an evil empire of intergalactic transvestites. The story was inspired by Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sailor Moon ( HAH! ), and electronica pleasure culture. I stopped working on this around 2003 because of time for the project being cut short and I was reworking the same first chapter over and over. If you're interested in knowing more of this comic, the most recent chapter ( from 2006? ) can be found at my comicspace account.
http://www.comicspace.com/bittermause/comics.php?action=gallery&comic_id=4601























Now onto more sketches! I decided to upload some older stuff from this year.
( LEFT ) Original character Pandora showing off her honkin huge mallet weapon. The next two are of a recent character I created named Ellegy, a Pan-like creature with a Quagmire overbite, and a passion for the accordion.

Setting the Mood

This is technically a 'part 2' to the Halloween gift art I was working on for Yuki. The grinning wooly lookin guy is Ero Ero Happy, Yuki's 'candy demon'. The chunky pissed off erololita girl is Edsel, my 'witch' type figure.
.....They're best of friends! Can you tell?

The holidays are inching closer, which means it's time for me to carry on my annual tradition of illustrating stickers and mailing out cards to my friends. I also have some practice sequential comics planned in the works, both which are linked to some activity within enterVOID.


Below is a sample pic of one of these said projects I'll try to get working on:


If you know your greek mythology and dramas then you'll more than likely know which painting I parodied this from. This will be based off the tragedy of Apollo x Daphne, but based around the enterVOID verse. When will it happen? I couldn't tell you just yet!

As for sequential mini project number 2, I'll keep that under wraps for now.

In the meantime, that's all for tonight!

Happy Belated Halloween ( and byebye bittermause.com )

WOW! For the most part I was suprised at this year's Halloween's festivities. I went to my first party, raided out candy from work
( they were free range, I swear! ) and I managed to pull off a small gift art to commemorate the holiday and cheer up a friend.
So what we have here is both of our characters dressed up as a Gurololita and a random male Suehiro Maruo character. ( I don't know of anyone specifically, but I know that the author portrays a lot of his male characters in similar outfits. )
Of course the hard eraser and scanner killed my inks. Again.
I did another set as requested by my friend, so I'll post that one up as soon as I can scan and color it!

Also for those that knew of my old website, bittermause.com...it is no longer in existence due to financial woes. BUT! That's where this blog comes in. From now on I'll be posting new content in here as well as news, events, and other art based snippets along with my account at Deviant art .

violin

Because my official website is no longer existing, this blog will be serving a better purpose. (I hope) This is a sample of a commission I finished a few minutes ago. I started this around late summer and due to some side work this took forever to complete.


Massive thanks goes to the commissioner herself for extending help with the pose as well as photographs of the violin. ( Actually, I haven't shown her the piece yet but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope she likes it. )