The work of Megan Jones

Worst two weeks ever

2010-06-01T21:03:00.001-07:00

I don't want to go into how bad the last couple of weeks have been other than to tell you having no internet and major computer hassles plus being horribly sick sucks. I am alive, I am attempting to keep up but it's been difficult due to the aforementioned problems. I'll post abunch of in progresses.
This is my original vector piece from the Killer Kitty study. Unfortunately, I had to leave the campus before I could finish it, and when I open it on my computer (I have CS3, the labs have CS4), it flattens and I can't pull off any gradients. I'll probably just finish it out in Photoshop.

This is an [unfinished masterstudy of Kalamu ( http://kalamu.deviantart.com ) I love the textures she uses in some of her work. I played around with this one more for the textures.

My original from Kalamu's techniques. I'm using the same brushes that I did in the first one. As I finish i'll add layers of texture to it using the rougher brushes.
Another Kalamu study. She does icons of people's characters, very flat and stylized. Nothing finished, just mostly to get the idea of how she handles the colors on the line work, and the use of the Overlay option.

Original of Sokka as Wang Fire the 'Firebender'. I'm going to do a master study of Sebastian Pether's "The Eruption of Vesuvius" and Sokka here will end up in that style (hopefully). http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/CollectionDatabase_ImageView.cfm?id=21199&theme=Euro

Since I've been in internet isolation for the past couple of weeks, i've had to think about what exactly I want from my digital work. I think the direction i'd like to push myself in is to make it look more like an oil painting. I'd like to do a study of Joseph Ducreaux/Fairfield Porter/or John Singer Sargeant at some point. But I definately need help figuring out how to get the brushes to look "painterly".

Custom Brush Tutorial [For Mike! :D]

2010-05-17T21:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry the quality's not the best, but it should get the point across.
Mike and I were talking about how to make a brand spanking new brush rather than editing one from photoshop. This is a really quick tutorial on how I've found out how to do that.
It all really starts with your image. Make sure it's easy to translate at different sizes. Don't use low quality, because when it sizes up, it'll be grainy. Consider line weight too if it has that. Make sure that only what you want to be the brush is on the image. Otherwise you'll have odd extra bits added on.
Go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. It'll pop up a window that gives you a brush at the size your image was drawn/pasted into photoshop.
Then use the Brush Panel to make them scatter, weight sensitive, etc. Otherwise you'll have a line of blotches/mustachioed gentlemen.

You can use this same technique for textures and such.

Hope it helped! :D

Not having access to the labs makes Megan a sad girl :(

2010-05-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately for me, Key Control shut off my FOB last Friday, so I didn't get to work at all over the weekend. To be honest, i've been struggling... alot with Vector, mostly do to my being 3+ years rusty with Illustrator and even then I really didn't know it. Being a Painter first, alot of it seems counter-intuitive. I've restarted my Masterstudy multiple (5+) times because I thought I was doing something wrong. Now i've finally got something figured out (and thank goodness I saved my books from Intro to Comm. Art and the tutorials have helped), so i'll show a progress shot and i'll post the finished later.
Fortunately, I got a start on my Original last week too, so i'll post finished shots later too.

1st Masterstudy

2010-05-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

For my first masterstudy i'll be doing a section of Mathieu Beaulieu ( http://mathieu-beaulieu.blogspot.com/ )'s Killer Kitty. I plan on doing the line work in Illustrator using the Blob Brush for the more organic lines and the pen tool for the more mechanical lines. [ I'm about half-way through the line work as I write this and so far so good!]
=Edit= Here's my line work

Digital Studio Techniques

2010-05-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I know it's been awhile, but i'll be uploading here again for my Digital Studio Techniques class with Professor Babcock! Wish me luck!

I'm going to do an image dump now. These are just a few of the digital pieces i'm looking at that i may use through the class. http://lordbiernac.deviantart.com/

(Bobby Chiu) http://imaginism.deviantart.com/
(Sam Nielson) http://www.artsammich.blogspot.com/
(Steffi Schütze) http://missmatzenbatzen.deviantart.com/ http://www.nusillu.com/http://kalamu-art.livejournal.com/
(Andrey Maximov) http://andead.com/
(Mathieu Beaulieu) http://mathieu-beaulieu.blogspot.com/http://hellcorpceo.deviantart.com/
(Therese Larsson) http://cargocollective.com/thereselarsson
(Jana Schirmer) http://janaschi.deviantart.com

(Greg Garza) http://christmassocks.deviantart.com/(Lois Van Baarle)
http://loish.net

Next Update: What I plan to do for the first study and such.

Drawing III

2009-12-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

I unfortunately could not find the image for the Invisible Cities piece (The Neon Signs in different languages). When I do find the image, i'll add it to these.

It's really confusing having three blogs on one e-mail. Let's try this again...

2009-12-09T22:46:00.001-08:00

Floor Perspective

2009-10-01T07:10:00.001-07:00

Floor Perspective Grid Practice after Carl Dobskey

Drawing III-2 Things I like

2009-09-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

I know i'm using the same blog for two classes, but I think that this update's fun for both.
For Drawing III, we had to show 2 things we like. It could be anything, so here are mine.

The first thing that I like is a book that I just found recently. It's "The Cabinet of Natural Curiousities" which is full of illustrations from the early to mid 1700s of different unusual animals and plants from around the world. If anyone wants to look through it, I have it in my studio. :D

The second is a bad habit of mine. I like to check funny websites alot. Some of my favorites include:
www.cuteoverload.com
www.failblog.org
www.fmylife.com
www.icanhascheezburger.com

Really bad habit. :(

Old Drum Mural Research

2009-09-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

T-Shirt Design and more!

2009-07-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, just popping in to show you some work i've been doing lately!

First thing's first, I did a t-shirt design for Threadless. Once it gets approved, i'm gonna start begging for votes. Here's the design:

We'll see how that goes, let's cross our fingers!

Debt Illustrations

2009-06-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

Habba what?

2009-06-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, seriously, i've been gone way too long. I'll post some old illustration assignments to make up for it, K?

Humbalum.

2008-07-26T07:12:00.001-07:00

Well, now that my summer's nearly over and this blog's been sitting here for years, I guess i'll start updating it.

These are chibis that I did back in May for some friends online of their characters. Yes, that is a Squid. A Superhero Squid.

This is a 13x17 watercolor I did for a calendar project being held by one of my friends. It's gonna be August. I actually had to cut out the cat because I started her on the wrong sized paper. But it does look pretty neat in person taped down to the paper, so big plus.

This is a thank you gift to one of my bestest buds, Katie. I really don't understand the concept of birthday presents well I guess. So this is my 'thanks for the present present'. 7.5"x13"

This was a picture for a contest held by two of my friends online. I won! So I got art from both of them for free ( which would run around $50 bucks if I were to commission them).

A new character of mine named Sanae. She's a Siamese Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher. Figure that one out.

Little fun commission of a girl deer named Cherry who just wears shorts and suspenders. Markers and approx. 3"x4"

This is something i'm really proud of. My character Soleil, who I had started planning a graphic novel around, but have just never gotten around to it. My only Digital piece from this summer, but i'm really pleased with it. Considering my tablet doesn't have weight sensitivity.
Go figure.

Art trade with a person whose character was named Telford. I found out afterwards that it was a girl.
Oops.

Random Doodle for a random person.

Okay, well it was a productive summer before I got a job. Post-Job art is alot less. But i'll upload it in abit. Ciao!

-Megan

Yup

2006-12-08T08:03:00.001-08:00

I broke down and made one. I have afew friends on here so I thought, what the heck, why not?