Just Another Day at the Bookstore: Based on a True Story

Just so's y'alls knows, this is a reeeally big image.  You'll have to click it to see it at full-size!

If you weren't aware, I work at a used bookstore (the awesomestest one evar!) that sells and buys books and media from the community.  Most of our customers are fabulous people, but every so often we get some who are...significantly less fabulous.  Like the title says, this comic was inspired by true events--Events from just a few weeks ago, actually.  In fact, the conversation is pretty darn close to verbatim of what "Mr. Gray" said to me.

And no, he didn't tell me that I was fat and that he hates me...But he was thinkin' it!  Haha!

Co-starring in this comic is co-worker extraordinaire, Josh!  And yes, he really did give him the stink-eye.  He told me he did anyway :P

Practice Sketch: Josh

Super rough (keyword!) sketch of another one of my

awesome co-workers (and easily the funniest guy I know), Josh!  

Even though I'm still not finished with the big side project I've been working on, I had a little "incident" at work that I feel compelled to illustrate as a comic.  Josh will make an appearance in it, so I started doodling some practice sketches of him.  Despite the look of the sketch, I don't want this comic to be very detailed/realistic, so I'll need to reduce down his features into more generic, cartoony forms than what you see here.  I'm not sure what sort of style I'll be working with just yet though--need to do some more sketches first.

Odd little note:  Even when drawing them as cartoons, I tend to draw real people in different style than if I were to just make someone up.  I figure it's because I try really hard to capture some defining physical characteristics of that person so that even the cartoon versions bare some resemblance to their real-world counterparts (like good caricatures).  Unless I'm going for a very specific visual style, I don't usually draw real people with features so generic they can represent pretty much anyone. 

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk!

About a month ago, my friend, Rebecca, got her boyfriend, Andy, a beer home-brewing kit for his birthday.  As a part of his surprise gift, she asked me to design a fun little label to go with it.  We brain stormed a bunch of ideas but threw most of them out when she covertly found out that if had he his own beer brand, he'd name it "Shempster."

Yes, as in Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges fame, LOL

Bottle cap sticker--The "A.W." stands for Andy's initials :P

 

All the photos were provided by Rebecca!

Just something I photoshopped using a stock image.

It was fun getting to design something so goofy.  Now we just need some for all the other Stooges.  Hope you had a fantastic birthday, Andy!

Magic Sparkley Cheeseburger

I haven't posted anything new here in about a month, and I feel like that's way too long.  The only thing is, I don't really have anything to post just yet.  See, many of you guys know that I've been working on a side project for quite some time (much longer than I had any intention of letting it drag on for...my apologies to the appropriate party...).  Since I'm determined to have this project completed in its entirety by the end of July, I have been forgoing most other attempts at artsy-ness, including the occasional, fun doodle.  But you know what they say...

...All work and no play makes [Saemi] a dull [girl].

Or, if you'd prefer the Simpsons take...

Saemi:  ...All work and no play make [Saemi] something something...
Marge:  Go crazy?
Saemi:  Don't mind if I do!  *crazy mouth noises*

Truth be told, it's just a (very) rough sketch that I took from one of the panels I was drawing for the project.  I did tweak it to look different than than the actual drawing though, since the project is yet unfinished, unpublished, and it's not my intellectual property (I'm just the brawns to someone else's brains).  Basically, I just changed some of the facial features and added the Cheeseburger of Sparkliness.

 (Click for larger view)

I also misspelled the word, "Sparkly" apparently.  Ah crap.  I knew that, I swear!  Well, I'll just argue that that's how it's spelled in the mystical world of glittery foodstuffs. 

Hope you were as amused as you were befuddled by this nonsense!  I'm off to fetch a glass of iridescent juice.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? At an Anime Convention, Oddly Enough

Even though most of the people who occasionally gander at my sketch blog have already seen it, here are (finally) some photos of my costume!  I cosplayed as Carmen Sandiego (accompanied by the most gorgeous Wanda/Wenda ever, my friend, Amy :P) at Anime Central (ACen) 2011.  Sure, neither character is actually anime related but...whatcha gonna do?

(I suggest clicking on the photos for a larger image!)

Wanda/Wenda & Carmen Sandiego

(Note: All this time, everyone I grew up with and I thought her name was Wanda, but it's Wenda?  What other crushing lies have I been fed as truth?!)  

Close-up

Amy and me with a random Waldo that we ran into 

I purchased the hat and used wore boots I already owned, but I added the yellow felt band to the fedora and made the red trench coat myself.  I used McCalls Pattern #M5525 but made some minor modifications in regards to the front pocket flaps.  The pattern called for them to face in the opposite direction, but I kept them this way because it made the flaps functional as opposed to strictly decorative.  Plus the pattern markings were off just enough that it would have been awkward to stick with the original layout...  I like it better this way anyway, really I do!

The trench coat is made with red sweatshirt fleece and is fully lined with cotton fabric (super cheap stuff, but it has a cute cherry pattern).  I chose to use red sweatshirt fleece because I wanted to make a comfy and warm coat that I could wear as part of my regular wardrobe when it gets cooler.  I underestimated, however, just how warm (and heavy) the coat would really be.  There were so many more layers than I had anticipated and in the end I was only able to stay in the costume for about an hour or so...  Really, it wasn't unbearably hot, but I was feeling ill.  And the added heat doesn't mix with nausea well :/

I had black leather gloves to wear as well, but I forgot them in the car.  D'oh!  It's such a shame because I think the gloves really would have polished off the costume quite nicely.  *Sigh* Maybe someday I'll put it all together and take photos of the completed costume.  But those photos won't be as nice as these...because I'm not the one who took them :)

All the photos I posted were taken by this awesome guy, so go check him out ;P

And here's a link to the photos he took at ACen 2011!

My ACen 2011 Badge Design Contest Entry

The folks who run Anime Central (the anime convention in Chicago--okay, technically Rosemont) had a contest a while back to design the badge for the 2011 convention.  Besides size restrictions, the only other requirement was that it feature at least one of the three established con "mascots," sisters Jaye and Elle Aoi (an anime nod to Chicago's Blues Brothers), and their fox/human hybrid friend, Kit. Here's the design I submitted.

The original design also had Kit in his fox form hanging off the tail of the paper crane, but I had to leave him out because I ran out of time.  Seriously, I was working on this thing up until deadline (hence why the background looks half-arsed, haha).

In the end, my design wasn't the winning submission, but that's okay.  I probably could have uploaded this to the sketch blog way before, but I figured it would be best to wait until after the convention had come and gone, just in case :)

Good Stuff

I don't like leaving my blog saturated with so much negativity (that is, the whole fraudulent ATM withdrawal ordeal from a couple of weeks back) so I thought I'd update with some good stuff.  This doesn't include new drawings or projects unfortunately, but I have something to share with you all later this week.  Just a fun little side project that I did for a friend :)

And then in about a week I'll have some photos of the coat and the costume that I've been working on.  Every minute that I'm not spending at work I'll be planted in front of my sewing machine in preparation for ACen (Anime Central) next weekend.  ACen is always a ton of uber nerdy fun--It's the one event I spend an entire year looking forward to.  More than my birthday, more than Christmas (then again, I haven't really liked the holidays since I was a kid).  And then next Sunday night (the same day as the last day of ACen) we'll be having our 2nd foosball tournament at work!  It'll be a packed weekend :)

The week after that will be pretty hectic as well because I have a lot of artwork that needs to be finished by the end of the month...  But after this last grouping, the rest of the work that needs to be done on the project will go pretty quickly in comparison.  It's been an on-going project for over a year because I haven't been able to consistently devote a lot of time to it.  Even if I wasn't spending every minute of my free time to the project I still felt that year's worth of stress, so I'm really looking forward to when it's wrapped up and I have a lot more freedom on my hands.  June cannot come soon enough :)

Switching gears a little bit, I'm happy to report that last night was the first night in at least a month that I got a decent night's sleep!  Yay!

Last night was also just a lot of fun in general.  My friend Kim's boyfriend had a birthday shindig at Dave & Busters.  A night of games, wonderful people and a very sweet surprise (Thank you! ;) ) Who could ask for more?

Well, I'll need to stop here for now because it's time to get ready for work.  Closing shifts on Saturday nights aren't exactly my favorite, but at least I'm spending my night with some of the best co-workers ever :)