Meria of the Fire Paw Clan

This is Meria (which roughly translates into "Rebellious" for an African girl name) She is for an idea of a game that I dreamed up. It is an RPG centered around the idea of dream of an alternate universe: one where humans were not the ones to evolve. Instead, other creatures evolved, like Hyenas, Lions, Elephants, and other things. This story focuses on the conflict of 2 top predators of the African plains, the Hyenas and the Lions. Although evolved into more ... humanoid type forms. They still wage brutal war against each other, as they always have, even when they were the beasts we currently know them as. Somewhere along the line the "Player" (meaning you) gets transported into this alternate universe. You encounter 2 key characters - Meria the fiesty and firey Hyena, and a Lone male Lion (whom I am still developing as a character atm ...) Your job is to hopefully bring a truce between these 2 creatures and make them work together to stop the Shadow Nemesis that threatens to destroy the world and the fabric of Space and Time itself! I was thinking it could translate into an MMO RPG someday, but I'm not going to go that big with it yet.

Meria is a Spotted Hyena, she is a Prey Stalker for her clan. She is strong willed and very independent. Her main duties are to hunt prey and scout the land and follow the herds. Her travels can take her a considerable distance from Clan territory. She is quite inquisitive and delights in learning new things. Being a Hyena, she detests the Lions. Her mother was killed by the Stillwater Pride. She has vowed vengeance on them.

I wanted to keep Meria's clothings simple, yet in an African Tribal plains fashion. Something more than a Caveman would wear, but less than modern man dresses in. African tribal women tend to adorn lots of necklaces, especially for ceremony. Also, some sturdy necklaces might make for slight armor. Preventing that "Death Neck Bite" that Lions are famous for. Hyenas have most of their strength in their neck, upper chest and shoulder area. So she has a fair amount of neck to put adornments on. Weaponry is to be kept simple too. I want to try to keep a Pre-Bronze age setting motif (kind of). So I am working with spears, clubs, and maaaaybe an axe.

I think I got the idea from a National Geographic film made around the time Lion King came out. It was specifically about Lions vs Hyenas. It is one of Nat Geos. more exciting and powerful documanteries. Here is a link to a YouTube clip highlighting some of the parts of Lions fighting Hyenas:

LIONS vs HYENAS LINK
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I want to note that I do not consider myself a "Furry". I simply happen to like to draw and dream up Anthro characters from time to time. I have been cyber-bullied and harassed maliciously once before simply because I was playing a Tauren in World of Warcraft and I made a dumb joke once. So yeh ... I know what that is all about and I am not part of it. One can have an appreciation for nature and it's fauna and still not be associated with some made-up cliche' class.

Dress Making

This is the dress I have been working on. What I did was, I bought a plain black dress from a 2nd hand store ($8.00) and then built all the pieces and parts around it. They are then sewn on, and the patterns on the pieces I uses fabric glue. The big glass beads are sewn on, and I added the chains and other trinkets. This is intended as a sort of costume / evening gown. It is something I could wear to Blizzcon, or maybe as a stylish "gothic" style dress somewhere. I call it a "lich" dress because my inspiration came from the Lich in the Warcraft game series.

This is the plain dress, and the pieces I cut out.

These are the pieces I made, they are in their various states.

The front view of the, pretty much completed Dress.

The Back view of the dress.

I am working on another dress after this one. It is Matrix themed - it is a black dress with "Code Rain" falling down on it. The "code rain" is going to be swarovski crystal rhinestones set on the dress in individual lines. The bottom trim has a band of green sequins. I purchased the rhinestones, I just have to wait a few weeks for them to come over here. It has much less sewing, but a lot of sparkly rhinestones. The effect will be stunning!

These are the sorts of things I can do besides illustrate.

Akasha Frostbite

Akasha Frostbite is a World of Warcraft Lich I made up. I use him in a in-game character story/comic I make using a private server setup. I also like to draw Akasha from time to time. Warcraft Liches are so fantasy whimsical and imaginative.

Akasha Frostbite in-game

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Drawn Akasha Frostbite

Posting after a long while

Good gawd, I havn't updated in like ... forever! Here's some pics to make up for it. Mostly stuff I post on my DA page.

I made this for work. It was for a Safety Fair contest. I won in a 1 out of 3! yey!

Back to this blog - and DeviantArt page link here

Wow it's been ages since I posted in here.

I've been very bust at work taking classes to move up a pat grade or too. And on the side I have been working on other various projects. I guess my webcomic kind of fell by the wayside a bit. Oh well, it is kind of a for fun thing anyway.

My tax return came in for this year and I got enough to purchase the tool I have always wanted for a very long time - a Wacom Cintiq 12WX! Now I will probably find it easier to create things digitally, work on my webcomics faster, colorize them and stuff. I will like this very much! Hopefully it might put me back in the drawing mood again and I'll re-pick up my web-comic and various projects.

I'm also working on other various things here and there. Like I got this brilliant spark of inspiration to build a fancy dress. I am multi-talented that way - althought I am not a tailor nor a seemstress, I am teaching myself how to modify a dress to make this costume/dress thing. It will be intended to be a costume as well as an elegant dress you could wear on a night out. We will see how it goes.

I find it odd that a lot of artists in my bracket - Cartoon Illustrators / Animators don't take on such projects, nor seek work as airplane mechanics as an alternative career course in their lives. I can also sculpt things - I have done a major project for the City of Seattle. In this hellachious job market and shitty economy, I would hope that my fellow artists and animator people have found work. Often work becomes super scarce to nill in these times. And the only types who have jobs are the "old dogs" who created their own jobs. And most "work" is temp positions, contract work, or Intern work. Beware of internship work! There are a lot of companies and places exploiting that right now! Make sure when they decide to take you on as an Intern there is an end-date or a possibility of hire-on at a solid date. Many, many companies right now are gobbling up "free" workers by taking them on as permanent Interns. You don't want to work for free for years and still have that boss lead you on with a carrot-on-a-stick telling you, "It's for the experience...." It's a highly competitive world, and sometimes a shift in career path is what is needed to survive.

So - find yourself an alternative profession is the advice I give to art students and other animators. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an animator or cartoon illustrator putting their main profession on the back burner for a while and taking up an alternative full-time job in a total different field. Open up and learn new things! I never dreamed I would work at Boeing ... but I am and I love it and count my lucky stars every day that I go to work. I am training to work up to a higher grade - a Grade 5 position: which can net $30.00 per hour - Full Time. And I have full benefits, 401 K, retirement plan, EVERYTHING. Try finding that in one of those fly by night art shops or animation houses. Most Animation houses only offer contract work, so your only an employee there as long as the project lasts - and no benefits, nothing. The length of the work could last from as little as 1-3 months to a year or 2 (movies take longer). Other places I have been - the work only lasts till they run out of projects for you to work on and then your out the door. Unemployment benefits are not anything to live on and they run out fast! I got so sick and tired of that!!

So now I am at Boeing and I love it. I learn new things - I adjusted to a big corporate environment which teaches me how big business is conducted, and I build things like airplanes. I was a participant at the First Flight of the 787 - I was freezing out on the tarmac on Flight Line in a bright yellow reflective vest directing the crowd where to go. Watching the plane take off, hearing the roar of it's engines was truly out of this world. And that was a world wide breaking event.

I still have my artwork, my cartooning illustration knack in me. And a knack for animation. But it's just a hobby now. I make good money at Boeing - which is a career job. I still have yet to be proven that animation is a career. I haven't seen it yet ... Besides - I'm more of an illustrator than an animator anyway.

Here's a picture I drew just to add some artwork to this blog. It's a lich character I made up - Lich from World of Warcraft:

Web Comic and Boeing And a happy song!

I have been working diligently on my web-comic. Which everyone really likes. Yey for me!
Here's the rough sketches of the pages, and the link to the site.

This page is going to be a special "Flash Interactive" page. Meaning, in the Mid left panel will have a button on it that the viewer can push and Galvatron will stomp in a 2 frame animate while Cyclonus is speaking. And the bottom panel will feature a sound byte embedded in the text. Where the reader can click the text like a button and hear the word.

Aaaand here is some artwork I have done for my position at Boeing - something different for a change.



And a happy little song - it's linked to a YouTube upload audio. :D

MINISTRY - TV II
Tell me something I don't know!
Show me something I can't use!
Push the button!
Connect the goddamned dots!
Live-in thief in my bedroom bathroom
Commodity, sodomy, glass autonomy
Promise everything, take it all away
Give it a rest!
You're lying through your teeth
You're lying through your teeth
Who what which why who
When did you say the earth would stop turning?
When did you say we would all start burning?
When should I make a pledge?
Should I listen to the voices in my head?!
Connect the goddamned dots!
Connect the goddamned dots!
......
Connect the goddamned dots!
Who am I trying to impress?!
Who could care less?!
Tell me something I don't know!

Sketches of more characters

Tiburon and Smite. Tiburon went thru many changes since I drew him last - a long while ago. I studied the actuall car more and fitted pieced on a human figure. So now he'll at least be somewhat closer to the real vehicle. I wish I had toys to base my work from like Floro Dery did.
Smite didn't change too much. Only in the fact that I made him less pointy. I remembered that less agressive characters need to be softer and more rounded, "pillowy".

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Legatus took a while to figure out. He took many incarnations until I finally decided on this one. He has a lengthy back story and he's featured in my Comic Book 4. Which isn't even drawn yet ^.^; I wanted his to be really creepy, but in some odd way - something the audience will grow to become sympathetic for.