Proserpine; Preliminary Designs

I'm beginning work on a short comic, titled Proserpine, based on the ancient Greek season myth about the abduction of Persephone by Hades. The setting is modern, and I'm putting a lot of importance on the designs of the characters. Each of them will represent a different alternative fashion.

Hekate (goddess of where three roads meet), was crazy easy for me. I knew I wanted to give her a very dark, sinister look, but keep her simple. I'm still working out the details, but overall this look is here to stay. Hekate is representative of death rock style. (Haha, plus a tiny headshot of Athena in there, spoilers!)

Persephone was surprisingly more difficult. After finding out what pastel goth is I immediately knew it would be perfect for her, but for some reason I couldn't get the outfit I wanted. I finally found the shape and style I was looking for though, so I think these outfits are here to stay.

I'm so pumped for all the other gods I get to design! I have a whole bunch left, these were just the main characters. Yaaaaayyy.

Snow White's Poison - Step-by-Step

Managed to put together that step-by-step I did for Snow White's Poison. This is in no way meant to be a tutorial, just more of a documentation of my process.

I started off with eight truly awful thumbnails, because the most important thing to me was making sure the image fit the format of a business card well.

After deciding on one, I played around with what colors and elements I wanted to include. Here's a crappy collage of some of the images I used to inspire me. As you can see I've got a bit of David Bowie, some Joan Jett, and a few awesome photos of Irene Yuen, all along with the reference I used (and in the end ignored entirely) for the pose.

I'm usually pretty awful at redrawing something from scratch I've already drawn quickly, so I usually just scan the sketch or thumbnail (no matter how small) and fiddle around with it in photoshop. Thus I came to a much better version. At this point I was still trying to figure out what kind of prop she should be holding, and eventually decided on the bottle.

After inking it, I was really frustrated with how it came out. It was missing a lot of the attitude I had in the sketch for whatever reason. It drove me nuts until I finally sucked it up and fiddled around with the lines even more in photoshop. I ended up even taking some reference of my hands to make her gesture feel more natural. This step took me what feels like three decades.

This took way longer than I really would have liked, but it's worth it. I was able to get her looking exactly as I wanted her to look. The bottle literally took me an hour start to finish, go figure, but that's probably because I had access to my own bottle of hard cider and was able to reference it easily.

And the completed business card! Can't wait to get these suckers.

And just to put it up here, I have a facebook page if you'd be so inclined to go check it out! I'm posting stuff there all the time, so please come on by.

Snow White's Poison

Finally! This has taken waaaaayyyy too long to complete. This is the image I've been working on for my business card, which is a huge step up for me because I've never done a piece specifically for my card. I usually just take some of my ready-made art and use it, and it never looks quite right.

This kinda morphed over time. I'm hoping sometime this week to put up a step-by-step, because man, this thing was all over the place. But I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out, so mission accomplished? Sure.

The idea to make her a modern Snow White came about halfway through, I'm not sure why. But I really got into it when I decided that. Come to think of it, it's probably because I consumed about ten hard ciders through the process of making this. Apples everywhere!

Listened to so much Joan Jett working on this.

Hammond Castle

Sometimes I'm surprised at how lucky I am to live where I do. A little over a week ago, a couple of friends and I went to Hammond Castle in Gloucester, which is only about a five minute drive from where I live. Guys, I live down the road from a motherfucking castle. That's pretty lucky, because the bulk of Queen is going to take place in a castle, and it turns out that Hammond Castle is PERFECT. I ended up taking nearly 300 reference photos of it. So I'll share a few of them here, because this is my art blog and I can do what I like with it.

So many spiral staircases. I tried to photograph them, and then I tried to film them, but I nearly died every time.

My very favorite room, and of course, also the most difficult to photograph. It's the "throne" room, but of course Hammond was an American inventor and therefore had no real use for a throne or a room dedicated to a throne, so it's just decorative. Still, it's so perfect I could cry.

The Most Perfect sitting room. Ahh I might end up putting up some of the videos I took, because this whole room was a circle and the book shelves were lovely, and omg I want this room in my home.

Okay, you see that darker gray area to the right behind the trees? That's the ocean. Haha I never get tired of it. Suck on my coastline muthafuckahs!

I didn't really get any decent photos of the drawbridge, oh well.

And the reflecting pool room for last! I feel like this is everyone's favorite room, though I could be wrong. How could you not love a room in the middle of a castle with a greenhouse roof and a reflecting pool? Mmhmm, didn't think so.

Haha, it was so difficult narrowing down my favorite shots. Aaaaand it's gonna be more difficult to draw all this shit, haha. At least I'm not completely in the dark when it comes to drawing castles now!

Some awesome updates and a preview!

Gosh it's been a long time since I've updated. That's really terrible of me, I'm sorry, I'm usually not so bad at keeping my art blog updated. But I have excuses I guess? I went on a week-long soul-searching vacation for the week of my birthday, which was mid-August, and since then I've kinda been in crunch mode. I've been working on a whole lot of stuff, none of which is finished, so I haven't posted any of it here. So have a preview! Doing little previews of all the stuff I've got in progress usually helps motivate me to actually get them finished. I'm mostly working on stuff for Boston Comic Con in April because I'm hoping to have a table there! Ahh!! I'm super nervous about it, since I've never had a table at a major convention before. That's what the Sailor Moon is for. I need to get to work now or I'll never finish anything.

Also in the mix is the second piece in my Walk the Moon series! After I finished Nicholas Petricca, I figured I'd go ahead and do portraits for the entire band (so I can print them out and give them to each member next time I see them in concert <3) Next up is Kevin Ray, bass player and allover Adonis. The series is gonna be super colorful and fun, and I want them to be really cool to display together. Maybe put them in a gallery at some point, who knows! I'm just having fun.

The colored picture is for my new business card! Yay! I need to update it since I'm moving my home website to katebrezzy.com. But now it's gonna look all professional and sexy! Yes.

I did finish my entry to Ahoy Booty! the butt-centric art zine that's being put together right now, which I'll post soon. Aaaaaaand today I went on a super special trip to Hammond Castle, a castle built by an eccentric inventor in my hometown, and I took nearly 300 reference photos for Queen. Yep, that castle is going to be Judith's castle, and it's going to look amazing. So maybe I'll post some of the photos! It's a really beautiful place. Talk to you guys soon!

Shoujo Batgirl Sketch, and Update!

Yikes, it's been a while, hasn't it? I haven't had much opportunity to really sit down and work for a while, I've been a little busy. But it's all good! I'm actually starting to get some real work done in time for Boston Comic Con, where I'm hoping I'll get a table in artist alley! I go to that con every year, and I really love it, so I thought it would be a good place to ~*~debut~*~ my work. Have a look at the sketch for one of the prints I'm working on, a vintage shoujo Batgirl! It's gonna be super cute.

This coming week I'm going on a tiny vacation up to exotic New Hampshire, where I've rented a tiny cabin! I'm super stoked. I'm gonna miss air conditioning for the week, but I'm hoping I'll get a ton of drawing and writing done. And drinking, plenty of drinking. I'll actually be celebrating my twenty-third birthday up there! Hopefully I'll have a whole bunch of stuff to post when I get back.

In other news, I've been doing journal comics every few days and posting them to my tumblr, if you want to go check them out! They're super fun to do and great practice.

Odette

Hey, who remembers this movie? I watched it a few weeks ago and had the urge to draw Odette's romantic design. I just inked it up and finished it today when I got a little restless while working on some other stuff. Boom.

Argine, Princess and Queen

My story revolves around one character, and the biggest problem with that is that I can’t spend much time on the stories of the other characters in her life. If I ever get the chance to do smaller books dedicated to some of the other characters I will definitely jump on it.

Argine was once a throwaway character in Queen, and I’m so glad I got the chance to go back and breathe new life in her. She’s become one of the most pivotal characters in the story. She’s the Empress of the Leskian Empire, and is 40 years old at the time of the story. Leskia was traditionally patriarchal, and though Argine was the eldest of her siblings, her younger brother was the heir. She gained the love and respect of many people, though, and at her father’s death a revolution demanding that Argine succeed to the throne stormed the palace and took her brother captive. He renounced the throne and thus began Argine’s 20-year-long reign (at the time of Queen). She shaved her head, a traditionally male hairstyle, and began wearing less restrictive clothing - a result of her no-nonsense, bare necessities personality. Her reign saw the cultivation of education and order in Leskia; she had the first public schools built, had all the libraries renovated and updated, and opened up an alliance with the powerful nation of Cordis. Argine rules with absolute power by gaining the love and allegiance of her subjects.

Leskia is based on Greek-ruled Egypt, and I pulled a lot of Argine’s design from both Greek and Egyptian influences. Leskia covers a lot of territory, and the influences of the citizens come from native African tribes, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. Argine does not come from a long line of Leskian Emperors - her royal line only goes back a couple of generations, as Leskia is often conquered by the various tribes living in its borders. Her family was of a violent, warring tribe from the dessert, and she broke tradition by being a great intellect.

Another fun fact about Argine is that she’s a lesbian! But that I’ll save for the actual story.

Pirate Lolita Trio

A few years ago I was really into lolita - I surfed through the major communities constantly, had a whole wish list, and spent a fair amount of money on frilly girly clothes. And the pinnacle of all lolitadom to me was pirate lolita. I could not get enough of it. Unfortunately, it was far from the most popular style. It was almost passed off as costume lolita. But that military, flourishy, old-timey style just had my name all over it.

Looking at the files, I first drew these sketches in December 2009. Jesus. I've literally had them in my in-progress folder for years. And trust me, they do not look much like they did in the beginning. It's taken me forever to get this done, and I'm glad it finally is. I've actually come up with a whole story idea for these characters in the time it's taken for me to finish this. That's for after Queen, though, so I probably won't be sharing much of that for a while.

The first is Landlocked, the second is Nor'easter, and the third is Red Tide. I might go back eventually and label this with their names. They're the main antagonists of the story. I doubt I'll be drawing them in anything this elaborate for their comic, but I really loved coming up with my ideal pirate lolita outfits. I legit have Red Tide's hat, and though I'll probably never get to wear it I'll always treasure it. It was a sparkling, decadent, and dreamlike time in my life.

Queen Sketch Dump

Happy fourth everyone! Today I'm gonna celebrate by drawing as much as I can. And then I'm watching Akira with my brother and sister. It'll probably be the best fourth I've had in a while.

June 28 was a special day for me! I finally finished filling up the first notebook for Queen, and checking the dates it took exactly nine months! Just holding all of that work in my hand feels great, it's like a precursor to holding the finished thing. I came up with the initial idea for Queen when I was 15, and it's gone through so many changes since then. I've completely abandoned it more than once, thinking it was a frivolous and childish idea. But having a whole notebook filled with ideas, and being really certain about the direction of the entire story, has helped me regain both interest and pride in it. Here's to filling up the next notebook.

In honor of the Great Notebook Filling, I'm putting up a whole bunch of sketches of characters from Queen that I've been sitting on. I even included a bunch of older ones, to show how the character designs evolved. I'll eventually do posts on the specific characters once I whittle down their designs better, but for now enjoy the dump! Ew.