Karou

Karou, from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. Because I can never paint enough blue-flowy-haired girls. And I'm going through story withdrawals. 

Squid Girl

A bit of nonsense, originally a warm-up sketch from a day I was particularly wishing for blue hair. Or something.  

The Boy Who Lived

Two of my very best friends had beautiful baby boys this week. I, on the other hand, painted a picture of baby Harry while listening to HP audiobooks. So. Not the same thing at all.

But welcome to the world, new babies. It's a magical place.

In the Trees

When I was growing up we used to hang out quite often in the tree in our front yard. We built blanket forts and hauled up picnics, or played with our American Girl dolls (they were always running away to the woods to have adventures). Sometimes we just sat in the branches, impractical as it was, and made a pretense of doing homework. I always thought it would be fun to have a treehouse, which of course would then have paper lanterns. And really what good is illustration, if not for painting up places you wish existed?

Subway Surfing

A warm-up sketch from this week. I'll be honest, the subway system was pretty high up on my list of reasons to move to NYC. Being able to read or sketch while traveling makes even the packed rush hour cars worth it. Though I have more than once gotten so engrossed I've missed my stop. Oops.

The Yanos

Had the privilege this past week of being commissioned to do an illustrated family portrait. It was a fun challenge and I very much enjoyed it!

If you're interested commissioning something like this, please contact me at siminib@gmail.com.

New York Sketchbook

Well, I've been officially living in NYC now for over a week! To be honest, it's a little overwhelming. There's so much here. So much to see! So many people! And such a very excellent place for sketchbook-ing. Everywhere you go you are surrounded by interesting subjects and stories. I love it.

Many more sketches to come, I'm sure. Though I will probably be posting the majority on my Tumblr.

Alrighty. Now to figure out what comes next...

Stars

Experimenting with making a simple GIF. Also... I like painting starry skies.

Merida

Some Brave fanart. If the previews are any indication, I will love this movie no matter what the story is,  because Merida is adorable.

Updated

I did this paint-over of an old piece- the result of compiling a new portfolio and realizing how very out of date everything from the old one is. This would probably be quite different if I'd started from scratch, but it was a fun excercise. I think I've improved over the last year and a half. Though I'm still often overwhelmed by how I wish I could be better. Am trying to be better.

Also, since I haven't mentioned it on this blog, I'm moving to New York July 1st! Hooray!! I'm terribly excited. It'll be an adventure.

Lady

I've been experimenting this week...

Harry Potter

Some Harry Potter spots...

It appears I may never grow out of my Harry Potter fanart phase. I also feel compelled to say that I DO paint/draw things that are not fanart. But I find it takes me a a lot longer to finish them and let them out into the world (unless I have a deadline of course... I'm pretty good at deadlines :D), so in the meantime, fanart. Plus I wanted to try my hand taking some piece to a finish in black and white. It's been a while.

Kataang!

I recently watched the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender series, and got hooked on Legend of Korra. Such good shows! Great characters and world. Anyways. I did some fanart of course.

Aang and Momo

Katara

Unseen

"And it's hard to dance with the devil on your back."

From the Florence and The Machine song, "Shake It Out." I wanted to do a set of illustrations contrasting the hope and despair, and I guess those inner happenings of one's mind, that we are often so not aware of in others, or may not feel we have control of ourselves. It's a concept that's been on my mind for quite a while, and I finally feel more comfortable attempting to illustrate it out. Anyways. This is part of that. Flip-side to come.


And because it's semi-related... I thought I'd link this trailer for the documentary "Miss Representation" that recently came out. I watched it the other day and it was fantastic. Very informative of a pervasive and destructive problem in our society, that effects both men and women. And I liked this documentary especially because it didn't just point out the problem, but suggested things we can do, which is empowering. So if you get a chance to see the film, do it!

(in case I should give warning, includes some examples of offensive media portrayal of women, as... it's a film about the destructiveness of those things)

Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi

Inspired by the Stuff you Missed in History Class podcast my friend Brittany and I are starting a project to illustrate some women of history... because we like drawing historical costumes and als o stories about women who did cool things. Seems like it's a good time to kick it off, as it's Women's History Month and all. We'll be posting to this this tumblr. Brittany is super talented, so, you should follow us.

Anyways. Laksmibai was an Indian queen who helped lead a rebellion against the British in  1857. It is said she would ride into battle with a sword in each hand, a visual I could not resist.

Beatrix in Marchesa

A picture of this dress from the Marchesa Fall 2012 collection showed up on my tumblr feed, and I thought, I must paint that. Because if I were the type to run through fields in a ball gown, this would be the one.

Also inspired by the song Beatrix Runs by Elizaveta, which I happened to be listening to.

Caught

Warm-up exercise from work today. We has some really sweet vintage fashion photos as reference. I shall probably need to do some more...

Hazel and Augustus

In honor of that coming Valentine's holiday... Hazel and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which I read this week.



Terribly lovable characters and beautifully written.

(And in case you're concerned... Augustus doesn't actually smoke. He carries the cigarette around for "metaphorical resonance" incidentally... the book is dripping with metaphorical resonance.)

Chime

My take on cover art for Chime by Franny Billingsley. It was one of my favorite books I read last year. So I thought I'd take a stab at it.

Without the type treatment:



And a detail:



Started this several months ago after doodling a super rough color study and thinking hey... that might be cool. I've worked on it every once and a while since then. Stretching it out over so much time resulted in lots of repainting and an appreciation of how much my style has shifted in the past few months as a result of my internship. Also of the difficulties of calling something done when there is no deadline...

Yutu and Miki

I just finished up some illustrations for a an educational text about an Inuit boy and his dog Miki:






The art director requested that I work within this specific color pallet:

I admit, I was a little unsure what I would be able to do with that at the beginning, but I ended up really liking the result. It's amazing the variety you can get just playing with value and saturation! I'm excited to experiment some more with this concept.

Color. It's truly my favorite thing.