Karen H. Blog

Another year, another Fan Expo over! I'll have a complete convention report ready for everyone once I'm done fucking off and doing UTTERLY NOTHING IMPORTANT OR RESPONSIBLE  for the next 24 hours.

I leave you with music to fill the void.

Are you tired yet of my cruel lies? Here are some sketches of birds I did recently. They're really beautiful animals, no?

Rick Perry is a 2012 hopeful for the Republican nomination to run in the upcoming Presidential elections. He seems to inject faith and religion into everything he does, which fascinates me!

I am working on this piece, where we see Rick Perry being called to high office. Progress to be posted here in the next few days. God willing.*

Sorry to twitter and tumblr followers, I've been lax in that department. ;_; In so many things.

Hey people! Not much to show you in the way of illustrations this time around, but I do have a selection of comics from my 365 project. I was behind for awhile there, but now I'm all caught up. Today I updated the 1st page of an 8 page story. Check it out!

So, doing this 24 hour comic day has been a real learning experience! The last time I tried it out, I only did the pencils. This year I tried to do the whole kit and caboodle - thumbs, roughs, inks, etc. I didn't finish, but since I had to go out that day to see friends it ain't all that surprising.

What I learned? If I'm not terribly concerned about quality, I can make a lot of pages in a short amount of time. Even if I do inject some intermediate effort into the art, I can turn around quite a few pages by sticking to a simple style.

Ultimately, I'd like to make a lifelong (and god willing, successful!) career of comics. Alas - I am notorious about not finishing the stories I start. I hope the new year-long project I'm undertaking will help fix that.

WHUT you ask A NEW PROJECT BUT KAREN YOU ARE ALWAYS DOING THAT i know i know shut up! I'm doing it anyways! SO THERE.

I'm making 365 comics.**

You are now free to take bets on whither or not I'll make it a whole year. C'mon take a chance I'M A DARK HORSE BABY. The first one is already up and running!


**yes yes I will still be posting on this blog and on ma tumblr, no worries.

Sometimes I like to do abstract pieces, both traditionally and digitally, to blow off some steam. Enjoy!

24 Hour Comic Day is upon us! I'll have to take an extended break to go see friends, since I'd, you  know, totally forgotten that today would be 24HCD. Don't know if I'll strike those hours from the clock or not, we'll see.

I started 11am today! It's now 3pm and I'm 3 pages in. WISH ME LUCK.

This post is going to be updated for the next 24 hours, so click refresh to see the newest completed pages. Or you can follow my progress on twitter!

UPDATE: Hahahaha having to go out at some point to see friends killed me. I don't got anything left in me. If I kept going, the art would just degenerate into the craptastical zone and I'd rather have it done late and looking good than having it done on time and descending into meaningless scribbles.

NIGHT PEEPS

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Whoa. Been awhile, huh?

It's been a long summer, and I'm ready for Fall and all the things it brings.

Have some art to tide you over 'till I put together a proper blog post! I'm been participating on the Conceptart.org forum challenges. Here's some of the characters Ive put together for the CHOW challenges.

Ohhh my new scanner, I love you somuch.

Have you seen House of the Devil? Or listened to The Fixx's One Thing Leads to Another? You should! Go do that now, you saucy minx.

I've got a new scanner! Horray! My sleep sched is messed up! I am very tirrzzzZZzZzzzzzz

If you don't read my Twitter or Tumblr (shame on you! shaaaame), you may not know that I'm working diligently on a comic. It's a retooled idea that I'd pitched for Crown Royale comics. Yes, yes that does mean that it's gonna be Yaoi! Right now I'm on the final revisions of the written draft and am in the middle of the character design phase.  I'm having a blast working on this reverse-gender fairytale, and am both giddy and nervous to get it down and release it to the wide, scary world. Like a mother pushing her baby bird out of the nest, and watching it plummet towards the cold, hard ground.

Uh.

Here's the first look at some of the character sketches. In this one, I was working on the facial features and some hairstyles for the Stepsister, who've I've called Jeanne. The hairstyle still needs to be decided, but I love her look.

More to come in the next few days!

ALL HAIL SCANNER GLORY zzzzzzzz

Today is the day that Edward Hopper died (May 15, 1967), one of my favorite fine artists. I won't pretend to be an art critic but what I will say is that I can stare and stare at his paintings, and rarely get tired of them. The loneliness of them arrest my attention, and the captivating compositions are a big influence on me. I often feel like his work says things I wish could my own work could say, so several of his paintings are quite close to my heart.

When Passover comes around my Mother often asks me to help with the customary cleaning. In an effort to shirk her requests I usually point out her subconscious gender discrimination: she never asks my brothers to help with this, just me. Time and again my mother half-grins at this comment, looks thoughtful, then says she'll ask them to help too.

Does she? Do they? If they do, I'm never around to witness this mythical event.

Anyhoo, I am usually guilted into polishing the silverware.

Growing up in the Jewish community and as a regular synagogue-goer, I was often surrounded by judaic/biblical art. Polishing silverware is tedious, but it does give me satisfaction in removing the tarnish off the religious objects I grew up with.

In Judaism there is a mitzvah - commandment - called Hiddur Mitzvah. The idea is that the use of beautiful aesthetics in Jewish practice glorifies god. Here's a selection of Passover objects I found while scouring Google Image Search and EBay that make my art bug itch and my wallet whimper. Click the links for the wiki articles relating to those objects.

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If you keep up a blog, how do you do it? I've been struggling to maintain this baby for awhile now. I've not given up on the old gal - HURR, DETERMINATION - but I am a bit frustrated at how slow I am. So how about it? What helps you to get blogging?

Also, I'm trying to update the look of this thing. I'm... seriously unhappy with how it looks right now, but it'll have to do for awhile. Please bear with me while I tweak with it, dipping big my toe into the scare CSS pool.

Also, did you know I have a Tumblr and Twitter? Well, you do now! Check em out, drop me a line!

I have not come to you entirely emtpy handed - Voila, some fun sketches: Two of my crushes, Ray Stevenson and Barberella!

Things I've been watching:

Elektra, the 1980 Opera from The Met:

I think the liberetto (lyrics) are fantastic - I'd love to make a comic based on the opera someday. I found myself wishing that I could have seen Birgit Nilsson in her prime, as this performance happened late into her career. Ce la vie. I will have to dig around for old recordings of this fab lady.