Good Omens

For the handful of people who check this blog occasionally, here are a few of my latest artistic endeavours, based around the book "Good Omens," in which the protagonists are an unlikely duo of an angel and a demon.

Wake Me Up // Multi-Fandom

So I had a bit of free time and finished up this video I've been working on for a while!

It's a multi-fandom video to Avicii's "Wake Me Up." Fandoms include: Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, Merlin, Star Trek, Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Les Miserables, the Avengers, and the Hunger Games.

A History of Science

Alright, so the last month I've been working on this, and it's done at long last! It's a triptych showing A History of Science. The panels show a Roman building an aqueduct (science as engineering), Copernicus discovering the heliocentric model of the solar system (science as astronomy), and a modern-day scientist in a lab (science for science's sake). 

His hair is comprised of tiny individual locks with drop shadows. Pretty snazzy, right? You'll also notice that each piece has a circular object in the upper lefthand corner to offset the object held by the scientist.

This background came out of no where, but it is gorgeous and I love it. Also, I made the heliocentric model of the solar system myself, though I feel I should mention that I did take the liberty of adding Neptune, even though it had not been discovered by the time Copernicus died. Also, there's a Renaissance-era city in the bottom righthand corner.

And, last but certainly not least, my modern-day scientist, resplendent in lab coat and sneakers. The equations on the chalk board describe angular momentum, the entropy of certain gases in a closed system, orbital mechanics, and AM radio.

And, just for kicks, here's my modern-day scientist with dignified, yet premature gray streaks at the temples, and sans the date (ie.: Carlos from Welcome to Night Vale). 

Here's a link to my post on tumblr, 

and another for Carlos' picture only. 

Quark! Game

So this summer I got a little bored, and taught myself some particle physics. While learning about quarks and hadrons, I had an idea for a board game in which the players built their own atoms by acquiring quarks and electrons. And then I remembered that I was a graphic designer as well, so I just sat down and did it.

On a fundamental level, quarks are nothing more than vibrations. Three quarks compose each baryon; the proton and neutron are the two most famous baryons. Quarks come in different colors and flavors, and protons and neutrons are made up of very specific colors and flavors. For a more complete overview of the science, look at the instructions below the pictures.

Basically, you move around the board, picking up electrons on Electron Squares (green), Quark Cards on Quark Card Squares (purple), and drawing Uncertainty Cards (like Chance cards in Monopoly) on Uncertainty Squares (orange).

You then build protons and neutrons using the correct (and scientifically accurate) combination(s) of Quark Cards. You then receive a proton or neutron chip, which you place on your Atomic Diagram Mat. The players decide which element to play to, and continue until one player has the minimum number of protons, neutrons, and electrons needed to compose it.

From a graphics standpoint, I designed the game myself, and even painted all of the watercolor backgrounds for the board and cards.

Instructions:

 

 

link to tumblr here.

The Night Vale Daily Journal : Imagination Editions!

Here are two of Night Vale's imagination editions I made-- one for Cecil and one for Carlos. Click in the boxes below and you can zoom in to read the articles. :) link to tumblr post here.

Night Vale vs. StrexCorp // Uprising

My second "Welcome to Night Vale" video, this one to the song "Uprising" by Muse.

Supernatural Tags and Ships: A Study

So my sister and I were wondering if there existed any relationship(s) between major ships and various other tags in fanfiction. We decided to look at this in Supernatural, and arranged our data into a network graph using the pilot program Google Fusion Tables.

Each yellow node represents a ship (there are 63 in total), and each blue node represents an "additional" tag (209 in total). The size of the node is in relation to the number of fics associated with that tag/ship. Certain tags were compiled due to their similarity in nature/subject matter, though some overlap may still exist. All information was gathered from Archive of Our Own, which is home to over 100,000 Supernatural fics.

You can navigate the network graph below, zooming in and out using the + and - buttons and changing the number of nodes you would like to be visible. The higher the number, the more connections will be visible, and the "busier" the graph will appear. As the number drops, the weaker connections disappear, leaving only the strongest correlations. Hovering over a node will fade out all connections not tied directly to that node.



Also on tumblr here.

Supernatural | Only the Good Die Young

Here's another video, this one's a Supernatural video (seasons 1-9) set to "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel.

Button Owl

And last but not least, my most recent piece from the semester is this one, a gift for one of my friends for Christmas. She requested an owl, so I did one in watercolor and then, because I was feeling particularly adventurous, added buttons as well. First I tried to sew the buttons on, but the buttons kept falling off, so in the end I just hot glued everything down.

Toothless

For Christmas I decided to make my six-year-old cousin a drawing of Toothless, which is one of her favorite characters. Watercolor pencil on watercolor paper.

The 5 C's of the Art Room

So my art teacher asked me to do a poster for the room about the 5 C's, so here it is. It's digital. Not a whole lot else to it.

Senior Tile

So I graduated this year (yay!) and our school puts tiles up on the ceiling by each senior. I couldn't really think of anything clever to do, so I just made a sort of shattered design with each of my favorite fandoms represented. I also made each segment's design a pattern, because I think it helped with the composition. It's acrylic on tagboard but it's pretty sloppy, mostly because I figured it'd be up on a ceiling and no one would really stare at the details too closely anyway.

Going around from bottom middle clockwise: Doctor Who, Torchwood, Supernatural, Night Vale, Star Trek, Vlogbrothers, Sherlock, Harry Potter, and then just a generic "time" theme, because I like clocks and stuff. ;) I've replaced my name with my tumblr URL to protect my anonymity.

Welcome to Night Vale

My largest and most extravagant piece this semester, "Welcome to Night Vale" is a map of said town. Night Vale is a town in the podcast "Welcome to Night Vale," and because it's entirely an audio series, the listener is free to come up with their own interpretation of the locations in the town based on the vocal descriptions, which is what I did.

I won't lie; this thing took forever. It's pen on tagboard and is several feet tall. I designed the entire town and the border as well, which I made using a handmade stencil. 

Starting on the top we have the Night Vale Community Radio Station. On the left is the Glow Cloud, and on the right is a helicopter (what color? we will never know), a pyramid (probably the one that spouted off all that philosophical stuff), a "To Desert Bluffs" sign, and an old oak door to a desert otherworld :(  . Moving down the lefthand side, we have the post office, Tourniquet, the Whispering Forest, the dog park, Mission Grove Park, Carlos' lab, the Arby's (complete with lights, sign, parking lot, and an Erica), Telly's barber shop, the Public Library (outside which is Tamika Flynn and her army of teenage rebels) and the Museum of Forbidden Technology. Moving down from the right side is City Hall, Big Rico's (complete with Wheat & Wheat By-Products Speakeasy and hooded figure), the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area, the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, Radon Canyon (the view is literally breathtaking!), the Moonlite All Nite Diner, and Dark Owl Records.

Here's a zoomable version, also available here.

Here're some close-ups!

              

  

Starstuff

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." -- Carl Sagan

Here's my lone attempt at coming up with something deep and meaningful this semester; pretty much the woman's footsteps sort of give off a mist of "starstuff". In reality, the swirly cloud this is a mixture of the floral, anatomical, mathematical, and astronomical. 

Acrylic on canvasboard; I tried dripping some of the paint down in streaks but it didn't really work. *sigh*

Face Study Part 2: Clara

Following up on Cas, I switched to doing Clara in acrylic on canvas. She's the current companion on Doctor Who. I did alright with her, but the resemblance isn't nearly as good as Cas's. The nose is by far the best part, and I don't think I went dark enough around the eyes and shadowed side of the face. *sigh* Alas.

Cas in Pencil

I've had art class all semester and am just getting the chance to take pictures of my art from that period, so I'll be posting it here in chronological order over the next couple weeks.

This was my first piece, a drawing of Cas from Supernatural that I did for my sister for Christmas ;). I used it primarily as a face study and to help me improve in that area.

Night Vale Jack-O-Lantern

For Halloween this year I decided to go with a Night Vale theme, Night Vale being my latest obsession interest. Night Vale is a podcast in the form of a radio broadcast, so I carved the pumpkin and then painted on the radio station (Night Vale Community Radio). 

Quantum Leap Music Video | Mambo No. 5

This video took me a while on and off to do, but here it finally is! It's a Quantum Leap video about Al and his frankly unending list of lady friends. The song is "Mambo No. 5" (A Little Bit Of...) by Lou Bega.

Captain Jack Harkness Digital Art

So I was playing around with some digital sketches and then I started coloring this one and then I felt compelled to finish it. It's Captain Jack Harkness, a character on Doctor Who and the main character of the DW spin-off Torchwood. His face isn't quite right, but it's pretty darn close and I'm still working on faces in general. His face took about 4 hours and the rest of him was like an hour and a half. Worked off a photo.

Book Carving

Recently I've been seeing some really cool book carving art on the Internet, and decided I would try my hand at it. Unfortunately, the experts online weren't spilling any secrets on HOW they made their works of art (seriously, just Google "book carving" and be amazed), so I had to come up with my own method.

First, I selected five victims *cough cough* VOLUMES from an old incomplete encyclopedia set we had lying around.

I then sort of designed in my head what I wanted the landscape to look like (valley with a path and a river). I then sketched out in pencil on the book covers what I wanted to cut out on each volume, and numbered them. I also made sure to number them on the inside cover, down by the spine where it wouldn't get cut out.

From there I cut out the negative space on a band saw. I couldn't cut the curves or change angles too drastically, so I cut it out in triangle-shaped bits and shallow slices.

Before cutting the books I had selected, I grabbed five OTHER books, traced the contours from the other volumes, and rough-cut the sample books on the band saw. Then I arranged those and noted which cuts and angles I would need to alter for the actual books.

After cutting the actual volumes, I set them up in a clamp on the bottom and also along the top to keep the books nice and closed and tight.

I then set about the actual carving by using a dremel. I tried several different bits on a space piece of wood first, and finally settled on a spherical bit with blades that looked like a star from the top. That seemed to take off the most book/wood at once. 

This process, the actual shaping of the landscape, was the most time-consuming, and took about 7 hours on and off. The most important thing was that the edges of the books lined up (one book couldn't be taller than another, they all had to flow together). I did the left hills first, carving them down until they were flush, and also giving them a very rugged appearance.

The second day I roughed out the trail that would go through the middle, the river that would come down the third volume, and the hills on the right.

Once I was done smoothing all the books together, it looked like this:

Next I wanted to give some texture to my rugged landscape, so I took a flat circular bit and etched some scratch-like marks into the hills. I also took a drill bit and deepened the ravine where the river would be coming down the hills on the right, flowing underneath the path, and joining the river at the bottom of the hills.

Once I was happy with the way it looked, I set about coloring it. I wanted to avoid water- or oil-based paints (in case they wrinkled the pages or stuck them together), so I experimented on my spare books with several types of media. I ended up using pastels and colored pencil.

And that was all there was to it!