Week One 7.04.2011

Happy Independence Day to all my American friends and everyone else, too!

This also is day one of my first blog. 
  I decided to start this blog because sometimes I disappear into my studio for days at a time and people wonder what I'm doing in there?  This is a way to share my work in progress with you.  I have a website for my main body of work here:  www.beckylaff.com  but this is where I can better share sketches, works in process, and other things.
  I've been working on adding more storyboards to my body of work and have really been focusing on digital painting and coloring.  I've been having a lot of fun playing with color and brushes and stuff.  Photoshop is fun.  I just finished this last night:

This is a colored version of an image from the coloring book For The Children's Theatre in Minneapolis, MN.  They are an amazing company and I love working on the coloring book every year.  This image is for Pippi Longstocking, which is one of their perennial favorites.  I always loved this play so I thought it was quite a treat to make illustrations for it!  If you want a copy of the coloring book you should check out their website:  www.childrenstheare.org or come to a show and buy one in the giftshop!

  Here's another image that I recently played around with.  It's just one panel from a comic I'm working on...slowly....an adaptation of Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom of the Opera":

This is a panel I'm using as a color guide for the rest of the book.  I like the grayish, faded-out look to it.  I want the book to have an old, long-ago feel to it, over all.  This project is coming along slowly for now but whenever I move a little forward on it, I will post it!  baby steps, right?

  Another project in the works is "Hero's Journey".  This is a drawing of "Ondine", who is a water nymph that has been locked forever in the trunk of a tree....so sad!

This image is half drawn by hand and half into Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.  I am having a lot of fun working on this one.  I'm really excited about how easy it is to adapt to drawing directly into the computer. 

Another exercise in color, two unicorns:

Well,  it's time for me to get some work done before the barbecues and fireworks start! 
I will leave you with this exciting and holiday-appropriate image:

Beckaroo out.