Vcon sketches

Some sketches at Vcon

Setch dump

I've been trying to find a place to post my schetches and doodles. I figure I could throw somenon here for now.

Re-new

I know I'm not the most active blogger, but I have been thinking about re-making old  and making new comic related tutorials and I thought, what better place than here to post them.

I'm working on a few too many projects at the moment, but when I start getting my schedule back into shape I'm going to begin making tutorials.

So what I want to know is what kind of tutorials would people be interested in seeing?
I was planning on a hand lettering tutorial with the Ames guide for starters.
Also a self publishing tutorial/guide...
anything else?
I'm sure art related stuff and script writing?

Let me know!

Waiting for Paint to dry

I'm waiting for my latest comic page to dry so I can add text and gutters on the computer...
wanna see?
Okay here...

This is the full page, all messy and gross. 

Close up of the two panels I think turned out the bestest

Ordered new moo cards!

Guruubii and I have just placed an order for 200 minicards from moo.com! The  image there is but a small taste of some of my personal cards that will be in it.
The one side is going to have the website and then the other side will be a variety of different images.  With Moo you can have up to 100 different images in each order, so guruu made 50 and I made 50 so we'll get 2 of every one we made each.  I think they are nifty.

Anyway, fun times, I cant wait till they arrive.

Comic Creator Alliance is live

I'm a little late but theres still time...

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

Tuesday, January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. In honor of the event, I teamed up with the Comic Creator’s Alliance–a group of over 100 comic book creators (both web and print!) who volunteered our artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause. You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of

Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year. Unlike slavery in the 19th century, what is happening today is happening in secret. It won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.

So here’s what we did: each creator contributed an original drawing of one of our own female characters, and combined them into a single image! This year's theme was "The Brady Bunch." There is so much going on in this image--you can look at the wallpaper for a long time and still find something new! All of the artists included in the drive are amazing and some of the fan favorites are: Scott Sava (The Dreamland Chronicles), Adam Hughes (Star Wars, Wonder Woman), Sarah Ellerton (Inverloch), Bryan Glass & Victor Santos (Mice Templar), Beau Smith (Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars), Billy Tucci (Shi), Mookie (Dominic Deegan), Crystal Yates (Earthsong), Lora Innes (The Dreamer), Thom Zahler (Love and Capes), and Alison Action (Bear Nuts). View the full listing of contributors here: http://comicalliance.weebly.com/the-people.html.

Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. Or, this year you can buy a print! The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from January 11th – 24th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love 146 and Gracehaven House- two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prev

ention of this crime.

To learn more about the CCA and to donate visit www.comicalliance.weebly.com. To learn more about the problem, visit http://love146.org/slavery. (Note: contains adult themes and actual accounts of sex slavery.)

Here is a small preview of the wallpaper

First arts of 2011

I got my new National Geographic for February and there was a neat cave photo in there, so I decided to do a loose watercolour of it. I need to warm up, because I havent been making art for a couple weeks and I need to get back in the groove to get Daqueran pages going again but I'm having trouble. I was a lovely cave, with rain pouring downa dn mist, with rocks and moss .. anyway, my versions pretty abstract, but I was just foolin.

Watercolours and Iridescent medium on Bamboo paper

Happy New year everyone.

sweet!

This is probably the best compliment I ever got, Steve Rolston used my comic page I made in his comic course on his 2011 flyer!

See my page right there on the bottom right above my name. Well, I think it's pretty awesome. BTW, you should take that course. 

Also, GK Studios is going to be represented at the January 16th Vancouver Comiccon. I have a poster here for you.

Finished art

Finished my painting, wasn't as good as I hoped but whatever, it is what it is.

Watercolours

Work in Progress

Working on some art that ISN'T a comic page is rare, so it's real nice to be able to do. What with winter coming and all, I did a wintery image of Iada and Unicorn.

Its far from done, I've only painted about an hour, but I thought I'd make use of my blog and post some work in progress shots.
Especially since the process is a bit strange, especially on her coat.

I cropped out a lot of the background, but it hasn't been painted yet anyway.

Close up of Iada's face, I inked it all in grey except for her hair, which I inked in Wine coloured multiliner

Yes, of course it's watercolours.

Comic Creators Alliance

Well, since I had the time and it was for a good cause, I decided once again to participate in the Comic Creators Alliance. Which is a fund Raiser to stop human trafficking. Last year Almost 100 comic creators came together to create a massive wallpaper that was given out  by donation.
This year they are doing the same thing, with a new twist that you'll have to donate and get the wallpaper to find out. Over 50 people have already signed up, and it's barely begun, so this years wallpaper will be awesome!

So, I painted a nice new image of Iada for it, and in order to see the full image, you'll have to donate to the cause when donations are started in January.

Keep an eye out!






Also, If you don't watch the Gurukitty Blog, I finished the 4 Page comic, the Bachelors and the Python from school and posted them. You should scoot over there and have a look see =>

Done School!

Woot! Survived! I finished the introduction to comic production course at Vanarts.
Lots of stuff I already knew, lots of new info and it was nice to make a comic in someone else's methods.
Steve Rolston is an awesome teacher!
All in all, very beneficial, Daqueran feels like a pile of crap now,  but I'm okay with that, it's just a webcomic, I have other projects aside to do more seriously.

Well in that course we made a 4 page comic and I chose to do a small condensed section of a graphic novel project I'm planning to do after Daqueran is done. I'm making a mini sub-site for it and I'm going to post a teaser online on some sites.
I just want to fix some inks and stuff and re-letter it. I really had to rush at the last minute to get it all done so it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.

Also, I bought a couple of Steve's comics, One Bad Day and Pounded, which were both awesome.

I'm going to post the pages on a new site and on the gurukitty studios blog in a few minutes

I will never understand how someone could pay 600$ for an art course and not try and take full advantage of it. I feel like my classmate really doesn't belong there, every class I'm wondering why he even bothered.

He never agrees with anything Steve (the instructor) says and he never brings anything to class to work on!

Last class one of the students, in our 3 student class, was sick so it was just me and him. It was a work class, where you just work and as you work you can ask questions and the instructor can point out your flaws as you make them, etc. Well this student decided he wasn't going to stay, he just came to get his thoughts and leave.

So that leaves me sitting there, Steve said because I was the last one there, I could go when I was ready. I had no questions and I was just drawing so I felt guilty hanging around and making Steve stay just for me, when I really didn't need him at the moment, so I went home as soon as I got a good start on my pages.

It just seems so ridiculous to spend the money and not listen. The guy seems to struggle constantly and you'd just cringe when you hear him ask questions and shit because you can tell he just wasn't listening and he wasn't paying attention.

It irritates me because he takes up time that my other Classmate and I deserve. I don't have too many questions, I get the most out of the critiques, but I think my other classmate sure could use the extra time.

Anyway, i just needed to vent that. We only have like 3 classes left and it really irritates me.

Also, I have no voice right now so I cant talk to anyone and vent properly. HAHA

I have a bad cold and I lost my voice, noone can understand me and I feel like an idiot.

Oh, I'm going to be making some cuuuuuuute little blank sletchbooks with GK Studios artwork on them for the convention this weekend!

I hope my voice comes back before then 0_0

Vancouver Comiccon

November 14th

Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street, Vancouver, BC

Bookbinding + School

I've been wanting to do some bookbinding for a long time, because as an independent/self published comic artist, mini comics are a bit of a necessity.

A while back I even bought a cute little book at Opus called "Indy Publishing" because it had really clear and easy to follow how to instructions on a variety of different binding techniques.

Well, today, because of a contest Guruubii was doing for a

marker blog hop thingy, I had to bind a little book for the first time.

I just used a single *signature pamphlet style binding method described in my book.

What I made was a tiny little lineart comic, printed on marker paper stock, thats meant for people to colour. I even included blank pages in the back for people to draw and colour in, so it's a mini colouring book and sketchbook.

It was totally fun to do, I cant wait to do more with some sketches or just blank cute paper with hand drawn covers.

Well anyway, you will be able to find this book I bound at conventions I go to and on the shop.

*A signature is a bundle of pages, for thicker books you need to make several bundles and stitch them in individually.

Yesterday at school was the first day we actually got to sit and work on our projects.

It was funny, It was weird to get critiques and instruction from someone who doesn't belittle you and insult you as they do it.

Deviantart is hideous for that, people have no clue how to critique artwork, they're so arrogant and disgusting and just plain rude. You can barely see their point through the crap they are spewing... that is even if they have something to say, I find more often now, people critique in a nasty way just to get attention or cheap page-views. Thankfully, you can block that kind of troll now.

Not that thats news to me, it's been a long time since I actually sought out a critique on Deviantart, and theres not much chance of me ever requesting a critique on DA again because of that. The community is not what it was 3 years ago, thats for sure.

Anyway, I got lots of good advice on my thumbnails, but I wasn't really fully done my script so it made it a little weird. Script and Thumbnails are both due next class.

But it really opened my eyes to weaknesses I have and where i need to start concentrating more. Putting more thought into areas like moments and timing.

It also helped assure me that I am on the right track with some of the decisions I've made in my comics as well. It's nice to know my instincts on some things were quite good.

I'm working on a teaser that will be for my next graphic novel project, The Bachelors and the Python.

Also, I bought the book "Making Comics" by Scott Mcloud and it's awesome. If you haven't seen it, it's actually a graphic novel, which is rockin'. It has lots of good information and it is really good for reference.

What I REALLY like about it is the fact that he is not arrogant or self important at all. He's quite humble, acknowledges other artists strength and most importantly his own weaknesses. He doesn't claim to be the end all authority on comics, and he doesn't glorify himself in anyway.

It's totally refreshing!

It makes the book way more easy to read and makes the information he's giving not seem so overwhelming.

I totally would recommend that book to anyone interested in making comics...

or to anyone who thinks making comics is easy!

Anyway, fun timez :>

Comic Introduction Course with Steve Rolston

I started a comic course at Vanarts, taught by Steve Rolston, a sweet comic artist that knows his shit. SOME of you might be saying "Why the fuck would you pay for a course when you've been doing comics for so long?"

Well the answer is simple, I've only taught myself, through books, trial and error and tutorials, I've never been to art school at all. While thats fine, I have nothing against self aughtedness, but it's a lot slower a process and it's much more difficult.

I wanted formal training in something and a comic course seemed the best idea.

Daqueran is a big experiment for me, I wanted to see if I could actually keep up a comic and finish it all the way through, and actually see if comics were what I really wanted to do or if I wanted to stick to book illustration or something like that. Obviously, as the series isn't complete, it's an ongoing experiment thats not complete.

I did learn that YES, Comics is what I really want to do, so thats when i made the decision to do the comic course.

I eyed a couple, there was one at Emily Carr, that was much cheaper, but I am not a fan of Emily Carr. The one at Vanarts seemed much more intensive and thorough, so I chose.

I'm glad I did.

I've been having a good time there, and while for someone who's done comics for a while, it's moving a bit slow, the pace is starting to pick up and it's getting funner and more exciting now that we are scripting.

In the course you have to make a 4 page comic, so i decided to make the 4 page comic a kind of teaser for a type of comic I wanted to do for a long time.

So yeah. I think I'll use this blog to talk more about the course and my experiences in the comic world.

Gurukitty Studios: Convention appearance: Comix and Stories

Gurukitty Studios: Convention appearance: Comix and Stories: "Welcome to the Gurukitty Studios New blog!We've created this bog as a way for you to easily follow comic updates, events/appearances, Projec..."

How I create comics

Comic walk through by `misskittyoooo on deviantART

Glass tiles

I ordered some glass tiles and bails from and etsy shop called Candy Tiles2 and i got them in the mail the other day and started working on them.

I bought ten to try, 5 for me and 5 for my sister.
I used polymer medium to stick the paper to it and I used decorative paper for the backing.

Anyhoo, this was my tester one, Daqueran from my comic. Obviously as a test to see how marketable they would be.

Im going to make the other 4 using my abstract painting to practise and get the hang of it.



So Im going to make 4 of this paintings and sell them on Deviantart to earn some pennies to buy some more glass tiles and supplies to get some made for conventions next year!

Gamblin Cold Wax Medium

Yesterday at work, I was painting the windows of Opus for the Back to School sales that start September 1st and on the windowsill was a dead dragonfly that had gotten trapped in the store a few months before.

We all wondered where it had gone and there it was, all crispy and sunbaked. I decided that those wings were going into an art. Of course having a twin, I had to share my treasure, but I only needed two for my vision anyway.

So, I got someone else to cut the wings off, because it's a bug, and im not touching any gross dead bug, and I carted them home to encase on a painting in wax.

It's still drying, but I can share with you the glories of cold wax medium.

Cold wax medium is Wax with mineral spirits. The wax can be bought in cans and it is soft and will stay soft as long as you keep your tin closed tight.
Cold wax is a medium you use with oil paints. It's a matting agent that you can mix into your oil paints. It gives the paint a matte finish when it's dry and if you use enough, can give some texture as well.

I don't use it as a matting agent though. I followed my sisters idea and used it more for encasing found objects on a canvas.

I prefer cradle panels, but sometimes I use canvas.
This most recent piece I used an 8x8 deep canvas, because I had intended to submit it to the Anonymous art show, but Im not sure if I still will. I like it alot.

Anyway, so what I did was primed the canvas with Tri-art Canvas Gesso. It's a tan colour, much the colour of raw canvas. It's nice, because when I work on Canvas, im not a fan of painting on white. I don't mind white when I paint on paper though, go figure.
The canvas I bought was already tripple primed, so I only did one coat of the Tri-art Gesso, just to change the colour.

So after it's primed, and it's dry, i used tri-art and Golden burnt umber, portrait pink and titanium white to dry brush and smear some textures. I was going for sweet and girly so I kept it very light.

Being acrylics they dried very quickly and I was able to move onto the fun part right away.

I use a pallet knife and the wax spreads like butter, it's smooth, creamy and easy to spread.
I put a layer of cold wax, not too thick, just to create a surface for my found objects to stick to.
The wax dries quite slowly, so you have plenty of working time, so don't rush.

I took some grass picked on our trip to alberta. I traded my sister two dragonfly wings for some blades of alberta grass, because I didn't think to pick any while we were there.
But I got to the dragonfly first, so it worked out.

Anyway, I arranged my grass in the corner. I always tend to gravitate to the bottom corners when I do foreground, and it sucked, because mine turned out a little too close to how my sisters turned out, but it's okay.

I layed my grass down, and it took quite a few tries to get the grass to look right. You may think that doing abstract is easy and requires no thought or planning, but that is not true...
More on that in another post.

Anyway, after almost 45 minutes of picking off, moving and changing the grass I got the pattern I was looking for, now it was time to add the dragonfly wings and little details.

First, I took two interesting looking grass seed pods and put them together. They looked like cute bugs.
Then I carefully, because they were very brittle and delicate, layed down the dragonfly wings.

Once everything is in place, I used a pallet knife again and layed down soe layers of Cold Wax Medium.
Cold wax medium does not dry 100% clear. It has a fogyness, that is quite beautiful. It's wax, so it'll dry like wax. So I varied the thickness of the wax in areas with my pallet knife to create some less vibrant/clear areas. It adds texture and detail.

I let it dry overnight, ut it wasn't quite dry today and I noticed that the dragonfly wings were not down as well as they should be. So I added some more wax today and some texture.

This is the undried product, the wax will clear up slightly and dry very hard.

I suggest you try this product, it is very cool =D

Gamblin Cold Wax Medium!

Take that canSON rep!

So the Canson paper reps came. I don't think they could have BEEN anymore american. They said canSON, haha. Really strong accents, it's funny XD.

Anyway, they gave us a rundown on canson, sorry canSON papers and the company. You could tell they were salesman... I hate those kinds of practiced and rehearsed scenarios, with the powerpoint presentations.. BLAH. We aren't buisness people, we're freaking artists! We don't need to be sold on paper... anyway!
The point is, I took that opportunity to mention my distaste in the horrible Canson fanboy comic board packaging design.
If you haven't seen that crap, check it out: http://www.fanboypaper.com/
Quality paper, belittled.
Protraying comic artists as fat ugly nerds.

Anyhoo, so I told them it was embarrassing to purchase and it was belittling. They yammered on about how they have done surveys and 94% of people found them funny, blah blah.
Don't try and sell me that line! I buy your products, where was this survey? I didn't see it!
Who was it directed at? Little anime nerds ages 7-13 no doubt. Not professional comic artists, thats for damn sure.
wa wa wa