New Things

Heya. Here's a speedpaint from a photo I took at a Renaissance Faire, and also, my new favorite thing, a piece I did for Barron Story's class, based on a story in which an adolescent boy enters a penny arcade and has a few confrontations with the different amusements (an animatronic cowboy, a worn out fortune teller machine, and a "peep show" stripper that never quite takes it all off.) I had a lot of fun with this piece...it started as a monoprint, then I tweaked that, covered it with rough gel-medium, tried the goauche-resist technique for the circles on the side...found out india ink doesn't stick to gel medium, but liked the half-washed-off look, tweaked some more...and voila...something actually cool :-). Merci --Lauren

Barding, Yo.

Hey All. Here's some more stuff I've been doing for Hayasa...barding (aka armor for horses) and tack for Jalali. I got a great tip from Dave Coffman about presenting horse characters in your portfolio: he said to always "dress" them, otherwise one horse looks just like the next. So I'm on an epic quest to outfit my portfolio horses in coolness :-). I'll likely put up color sketches of these doodles soon...--Lauren

A Speedpainting

For Dela's class, we're doing weekly "speedpaintings." He puts up images on the blog, and we have one hour per image to paint it in photoshop. No rules, only tools :-) I actually had a good time with it! (It was too easy, so I wonder if I did something wrong). Anyway, I wanted to put this one up because I'm kindof proud of it. The screenshot is from "Memoirs of a Geisha," and is already a fantastically beautiful scene...so I loved (LOVED!) recreating it from scratch. And I'm surprised at how nice it turned out too, with all the sketchy brushwork, etc.,...I surprised myself (one of those "wow, I'm capable of this?" moments). Tee hee! --L

That Stuff I Haven't Been Posting...

Hey All. I've been working on an exciting project, "David of Sassoon," for Hayasa Pictures, doing creature and character designs. I am lucky to be developing our hero's horse (Jalali), and also the "pretty girl," (whom we formally call "Pretty Girl"). Also in the mix, some creatures, concubines, and village folk. :::Joy!::: I'm completely enamored with Armenian women's costumes, and can't wait to get into Jalali's "costume," his tack. I plan to post what I can here, but all artwork is property of Hayasa Pictures (so please do not download/save it ). So...Pretty Girl, and some critters. --Lauren

More Ghost Hunters

Here are two more sketches ("in house") for "The Ghost Hunters." This is Jang, the mongolian, and Bahram, the arab. Jang traps the spirits in his little bottles, and Bahram is the scholar who knows all about different kinds of ghosts, etc. Enjoy :-) --L

"The Ghost Hunters" ~ Victoria

Hi all. Here is a character in development, from a story about a team of ghost hunters in Victorian-era Paris. This is "Victoria" (very creative on the name, I know!), the patron and motivation of the group. A recent widow, she becomes obsessed with communicating with her dead husband, and so brings together the rather mismatched group (a superstitious mongolian, a scholarly moroccan, and a clairvoyant blind girl) to find him. I will post up the other characters as I scan them into my computer :-) --Lauren