I'm studying, I swear!

...and while diligently doing so, my sketchpad just happens to accidentally fall in my lap and open to a blank page. The inherent problem with blank pages is that they are so lonely, crisp, and far too clean for their own good. This grievous error had to be corrected!

I've been asked to work on an image of a phoenix. The first I came up with was a bit Okami-inspired...though certainly, nowhere close to their stunning artwork.

The same image saw a little bit of clean-up to end up as such:

And just for kicks, I decided to go with a heraldic spin on the idea, because...well, it just looks freakin cool (click for reference):

Yeah...I may have gotten a little carried away with that. Looking at it now, I might shrink the birdie's neck so it looks less ostrich-like.

Now, naptime!

December dancers

ACK! two updates in one week?!

One glorious, glorious night I was kept up until 4 a.m. by the "soothing" sounds of the awesomeness of David Guetta via Deezer.com. Oh electronic beats, how you inspire me some days.

I've decided to try my hand at drawing movement and different perspective, because drawing *very* posed characters gets hella boring. The girl in the top right is a throwback to a really old doodle from at least 6 years ago.

T-shirt designs may or may not be coming up...

Stay tuned!

November Doodles

Though November may be well behind us, that doesn't mean no doodles happened in that time.

In fact, between essays, I finally got my act together and worked on a tattoo that was long-overdue. A co-worker asked me to rework an existing tat into something more interesting, so the heart and flames motif had to stay. The rest just needed to be made a little bit more ladylike (read: "girly").

So thar she be...

Another couple of designs got started, but are still in progress, updates for that are coming soon.

Until then, exams await!

October doodles!

It's been a while since updates...the portfolios methinks were a good idea at the time though.

I have managed to score a job with the campus Publishing & Copy Centre as a graphic designer as of last Friday (Oct 17) and will be starting training this weekend. Needless to say, I'm down to my last three shifts at Staples!

Never fear though! If you have ever commissioned work from me, or are planning on doing so, please feel free to contact me, for I will be more than happy to work on projects outside of work hours.

While walking home from class the other day, an image popped into my head:

I should really ink that image to actually get to what was imagined...the hair then went on to become part of:

As per the suggestion of a friend, the hair has a life of its own. Until now, it has been tamed by a tiara and a bun, taking away its power:

That was the original avatar created...two years ago I believe...her evolution tracked through my attempt to tackle the 100 Themes Challenge...my progress so far is here.

Armed with a new-and-improved avatar with sentient hair, I completed the "Teamwork" theme of the challenge:

Stay tuned for more!

Digital media portfolio

A sampling of recent digital work.



Shaping in Canada


Over the past few years I have been given the opportunity to develop my digital graphic design skills while creating promotional material for a family-owned Toronto fitness studio.


The company website was created in collaboration with Erin Marchak. She worked on the codes, for the templates, while I've maintained the site after its launch: text updates, editing links, and maintaining image galleries


Recently, a series of flyers and posters were made to promote an Open House at the studio

Queen's Bands

Originally sketched and inked by hand, the dancer girl was fixed up in Adobe Illustrator to provide Queen's Bands with the highest quality image for their Dancers' Night Out'07 t-shirts

Personal Brand

Rather than have a plain black-and-white resume and cover letter that blends in and gets lost with the rest....why not make a black-and-white "Liss brand"? The look extended to business cards and throughout the portfolio as well

Design process

A sample of how any creative process happens. In this instance the process covers a tattoo design commissioned by a good friend.
First, I request a description of the desired image and potential references.
Stage 1 of the design process involves a doodlefest to get any and all ideas down on paper.
Stage 2 is the cleanup of proposed images that the customer selects.
Stage 3 involves finalizing the image - in this instance, the addition of a vine to frame the celtic design.
The final product, the tattoo itself is included, huzzah for satisfied customers!

Traditional media portfolio

The following is a sampling of my work in a variety of traditional media.


While the majority of my work involves character studies and tattoo designs, I am attempting to devote more time to environment design.



Pencil sketches

Character design based on given description

Gift art - original design for katana based on a plethora of references

Ink

A character that was born out of several hours of Marilyn Manson's "Golden Age of Grotesque" on loop...

Him and his ladies...and his booze

A series of inked scenes for a mock "Butter" advertisements done by a friend. Done with India Ink and Prismacolour gray markers. The images themselves have not been retouched (aside from the smear of yellow butter in the first ad).
With these in his portfolio, he scored a pretty decent marketing gig in NYC.

Colour

On occasion, I'll bust out the Prismacolour markers and end up with doodles of my alter-ego:

From my Fantasy art phase, when acrylic paint owned my soul:

My biggest achievement in acrylic: a mural on the wall of my high school history classroom at Northern Secondary School in Toronto

The Challenge

I'm not dead! Just due to an overwhelming amount of work and severe lack of intense conversation (damn you Cuba stealing my friends!) I haven't had much inspiration to post.

That said, I've finally come up with page 1 of my list of art challenges:

The challenge is on!

Stay tuned for FanExpo pics!

*gurgle*

FanExpo...all day....lineups....furries...nerdstink...Star Wars geeks...overpriced...AWESOME!

I am indeed not dead...well...braindead for sure...but the day at 'con was great. It's always a nice thing to realize that the artists you worship are real people too.

Pictures will be posted shortly...most of them ninja'ed without people knowing...oh Stalking 101.

Until then check out Johnny Hollow, a wicked band that I was introduced to at 'con while waiting for my friend to get her Joker face scars done. Give 'em a listen!

Tour dates!

Liss shall be appearing in Toronto from Friday, August 22nd to Monday, August 25th. More specifically, I plan to make an appearance...for a really long Saturday of workshops...at the annual FanExpo! 

I'm looking forward to the Cool School and panels...and hopefully there will be many a doodle to come of this!

See ya there!

Steampunk pretties

The most recent Environment of the Week challenge in Conceptart.org is to create a Steampunk Concert Hall.

Liss likes steampunk....a lot...'nuff said

Have to say, I love doing research when the subject matter is a personal favourite...which usually means links after links of randomly delicious goodness:

1. As recommended by a friend: The Resonant Chamber - an animation of an automaton by Animusic.

2. A revolving and elevating stage at the National Theatre.

3. And two homes featured in the NY Times Home&Garden section: a gorgeous home by architectural designer Eric Clough on Fifth Avenue with custom clues and puzzles; and Clingstone, a 103-year-old mansion on an island of its own.

Now to actually get this entry done on time...

AI, evolution, and education

A good friend of mine and myself have been having lengthy conversations about the future of the world, science, and our place in it for the past couple of days, and I would just like (primarily for personal record) to make note of all the links and information that I was introduced to in one night:

1. Continuing from the previous night's discussion of image databases and all their potential, there is TinEye

2. Followed by a neat link to 10 Futuristic User Interfaces where all the ideas are reminiscent of sci-fi and anime, but in their presentation are not actually that far-fetched...

3. A short sidetrack to portable projectors...

4. ...and we return to our scheduled programming of interfaces with a flashback to two years ago, where the world was presented with advanced touchscreen technology beyond what we are already familiar with. 

5. A discussion on Singularity and the concept of technology developing faster than we can follow it...

6. ...which lead to a discussion of the evolution of technology and how often we are really shooting for something far beyond our grasp...like humanoid robots, which to this date are still beyond our grasp...the missing link of this evolutionary leap of technology explored by the creators of BigDog

7. Flashback to the night before and Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", since we were on the subject...

8. Since the topic of evolution was sparked, the Peppered Moth has to come in to play...

9. To throw in a link of my own, I was intrigued by the discussion of creativity in schools.

10. Lastly, a link sent to me by a fellow blogger to top off the night: a discussion of the origin of languages (always a personal favourite)

Liss learned a lot tonight.
Liss also has much reading to do.

Starting and the such

For someone who rants and rambles a lot, it's hard to admit that I have no clue what to say in my (very) first (ever) blog post, other than: "Shitson! Liss got a blog!" and thus realize that I just may be easily amused.

I guess the major point of this thing is to house my portfolio of doodles. Along with my older stuff, random creations, comissioned art and its destinations, there's word that there may be art challenges with other bloggers in the future. 

Of course, being 20, a geek, working in a Big Box Retail store, and going into my last year of undergrad, there's rants a-plenty to come.

You have been warned.