Karen H. Blog

Whew!

Fan Expo was awesome, and thanks to everyone who stopped by! Quite a learning experience. Now I'm going to read some Dragon Ball and sleep 'till I can't sleep no more.

Tommorow I go to Fan Expo! If you're in Toronto, check me out this weekend at Artist's Ally, table A9, near Rue Morgue.

This'll be my first convention, so exciting! So nervous!



Holy Flipping Barnacle Bras Batman!

Although the news broke yesterday, I learned about Satoshi Kon's passing this afternoon, and it hit me like a kick in the chest. 

He was the director of several acclaimed anime films, several of which are my personal favorites - Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers.While I'd seen Perfect Blue as a teenager, I saw the latter two movies only recently, which cemented me as an enthusiastic Satoshi Kon fan. While I wasn't wild about his last film, Paprika, I've been making my way happily through his series Paranoia Agent, and waiting eagerly for his next film, The Dream Machine. He passed away while the film was in production, and while I don't know if it'll be finished now, I still hope to see it someday.

I'll probably detail my feelings on his work at a later date, but for now I'll throw up some clips from the above mentioned movies. It's always sad when we lose a bitchin' talent.

Just dropped the prints off at the printers! Eeeee!

Time to relax for a bit and tuck in with a book, maybe catch up with Dan Savage columns and podcasts. I used to follow both almost religiously, but kind of dropped off in the past year. I got a bunch of crazy sexcapades/problems to catch up on! Podcasts are also a great to play while yer working, so if anyone's got any recommendations, leavea comment and lemmie know.

Speaking of Dan Savage,  Joe Newton has been providing fun and adorable illustrations for the column consistently for the past I-Dunno-How-Many years, check out his portfolio.

Two more peeks into the sketchbook for Fan Expo:

I'm having a blast working on these superhero pinups for FanExpo. Safe to say, I've been inspired by one of my favorite Illustrators, Gil Elvgren.



Better descriptions of his art have probably been written, so I'll just say here that my favorite quality in his work is the way he managed to make the girls look innocently indecent. Whoops, my skirt just fluttered up! Oh noes, can you see my butt? I don't know how, but he managed to make the slightest sliver of skin seem quite salacious.



Zoe Mozart is an artist that I'm learning more about and enjoying, specifically her nude/pinup work. The most famous female artist of retro pinup artists (so the internet tells me), she often used herself as a model.



Duane Bryers is often credited with being one of the first artists to paint plus-size pinup girls, specifically 'Hilda'. I love Hilda to death. With over 200+ Hilda paintings (gouache on illustration board), this guy blows me away.

Links
Official Gil Elvgren Website
Zoe Mozart at The Pinup Files
Hilda Gallery at Toilgirls

Goodness me, it's been awhile hasn't it?

I've been deep on the down low all year, detoxing from my college days. It's time to knuckle down and get some serious work done, though. I was scared to death to get back to painting, since it's been so long now, but things are going pretty well.

I'll be breaking my convention cherry at Fan Expo this year - Gasp! Blush! - and I'm both excited and nervous! More info about where I'll be located to come later.

In the lead up expo, I'll be posting sneak peeks of new art. Horray!

Here's your first look:


Fans of boobies will be pretty happy with me this year!