Karen H. Blog

Got some news coming up about my participation in a gallery at the gladstone, but for now, a sketch:

I've been falling off the wagon, in terms on updating the blog. Bear with me, I'm still trying to get into the habit of updating on a regular sched!

Here's a few doodles out of my sketchbook: I've been watching a lot of Dragon Ball, the original series. I love Tien so much - he's the triclops of my dreams. He acts like such a dickhead - he went to dickhead school and everything! - but he just can't help but be a good guy.

Oh, and also, I don't get enough protien in my diet, so every so often I grab fistfuls of meat and shove them into my gob. I ought to do a better job of balancing my nutrition.


Finally, I've burnt my drawing hand! I was draining some potatoes while my mom was buzzing in my ear, and, in my annoyance, got careless. Splash! Scalding water all over my right hand. I've slathered the thing with polysporin, and bandaged it up. It's not a bad burn or anything, but it stings and I imagine the skin is going to peel like a bastard. Lucky, it was mostly in the palm and lower finger area, leaving the tips of my fingers unscathed, free for drawins.

And drawins I be doing! I'm going to have my first gallery showing this October, along with a group of Illustrators, at the Gladstone Hotel. Keep an eye peeled here for more info and process work.


Rock on!

I'm going to post all the stuff I had at my table last weekend, but for now, here's one of my favorite pieces from Fan Expo:

Alas, the print didn't go over so well, ce la vie. Next time I'll shoot for a brighter, crisper print.

I've been listening to a lot of Lovecraft audiobooks by the way, read by the awesome Wayne June. Does this mean there's going to be some Lovecraftian stuff in my future? You bet yer bum there is. 

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!

I am about to rip my hair right out of my head, this prep for canzine is frazzling me so much. It's really my semi-official debut on the art convention/fair circuit, and holy crap, did I underestimate how much work goes into it all.

So a gift to to myself (and you!), I'm putting up a 10 page preview of my 24 Hour Comic, 'The Last Minute'. I'll be selling paper copies at Canzine tomorrow, so if you like it and you're in the area, swing by to have a glance and chat me up!

Click the pictures to see 'em at full size!

Read more »

I've developed a recent obsession with Wonder Woman! To celebrate, I'm doing art challenges on the Wonder Woman message boards at Comic Book Resources, check it out!

First one was Wonder Woman's Winter Wardrobe - it's a cardi & underwear take on one of Wonder Woman's weirder costumes. I'm working on some other designs, but damn it's hard.



I'm also going to have some stuff at canzine, so if you're going, drop by!

October 3rd was 24 Hour Comic Day. I didn't know it was coming, but a friend told me about it the night before. I decided, what the hey, I'd give it a spin. I worked from 1pm to 8am the next day, and then crapped out on the last 5 hours. I was dead in the water. It was pretty hilarious to make up the story on the fly, without any pre-plotting. I trashed something like four start pages before finally settling on one.

Anyhow, I managed to finish the sometimes-rough-sometimes-polished pencils. I'm going to clean the sucker up and ink it, and post the whole thing here in it's entirety. Or at least, link to someplace where you can read it. It's a pretty straightforward story about a space lady boarding a ship to complete some unspecified mission.

But it's got monsters! Aw yeah, monsters.

In the meantime, he are some of my favorite panels, and my fave page.

Hey people, I have not abandoned you. I have just been hermetic since school ended, reeling for the climax and anti-climax of it all. As you can see, the place looks a little different now. I went back to the blog today and winced dramatically at the colors I had dressed this blog in. I'll stick to white for now until I can muster up the courage to conjure up a better layout.

The long-promised portfolio site is a bit closer on the horizon then it was before, but it still may be a little while until that reaches you. For the curious, I'm simply trying to fill my portfolio with work that I can feel a little happier about. Until then, this blog will have to do.

Another school assignment that makes me smile, Sherlock Holmes. This was done in a painterly style that, while I do like, takes a little longer to complete than I would like.



He's no Robert Downey Jr., but he's still my man.

I'm currently working on a book project with Yien Yip, featuring her artwork and my words. What will it be, you are wondering? It will be cute. It will be utterly adorable. And, ah, gorgeous. Of course. Go and dig Yien's flow at her website.

Now go hug someone. C'mon, don't be shy!

Website and blog re-vamp still coming swear to god. In the meantime, have some Wolverine:



Oh, project rooftop. I heart you!