Emerson Paintings

Here are the FINAL PIECES. They're in the process of being framed before being hung in the salon...I finished 'em a while ago and handed 'em off to Alex Garcia for his salon, The Emerson Institute of Style...commissioned pieces...It's been an absolute pleasure working with him! I'm so stoked that he help me get my art out there in the public, here in Seattle!





I just hashed out the generals for a new painting I'll start work on here probably tomorrow...I'll snap photos and dump here next!

Get the word out there for the Emerson Salon! I popped down there and got a haircut and I'm absolutely LOVING it! Who else loves the fact that "classic" haircuts are coming back? George Clooney was well ahead of the curve.

Photoshoot with Eric B.

It's been a while since I've updated this...I need to be a little bit more dilligent.

So I opened up an account on Model Mayhem when I moved up here to Seattle, and my page eventually got noticed by a photographer here in Seattle, Eric Braziunas.

We got to do a fun shoot to work on his fashion portfolio, and so I could have SOMETHING in mine. It was a fun learning-first-shoot experience. Here are some picks:









As you can see, this guy is a genius with lighting...he did some amazing stuff!

Looking forward to getting to shoot with my friend Cathy Michalski here soon...
..........I've got a couple things I'm trying to get working on, so there should be some more stuff to upload here soon.

The Dead, and Paint

Just a bite-sized update here...

I've been reading Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy again (I only made it through Sabriel before, not the other two), and it's been inspiring me to draw book-related art like nobody's flippin' business. Here are some sketches:

Also, I've been grinding away at working on two relatively large paintings for the Emerson Salon. These are them:

This is the smaller of the two, more or less finished




And this is the larger of the two (still in progress, obviously)

Big

As I mentioned before, I'm working on two paintings for the Emerson salon. One of which is about 48x48, and so big we couldn't fit it in Alex's car...so, being the brave little artist I am, I trekked across town with a huge-ass canvas on THE BUS.



I enlisted some resourcefulness, and hooked my computer up to the projector in our front room (soon to leave, when my roommate moves out at the end of the week), and projected my design on canvas for pencilling...voila. Just a few more pencil tweaks and this mammajamma will be ready to paint.

First, however, I need to work on the smaller of the two paintings, get it ready to go, and get it up in the Salon as priority #1.

With my roommate moving out, that means my rent's gonna hike up 50%...blarg....regardless, it'll mean I'll be less stressed, have more space, and I'll end up doing more artwork as a result.

With my hike in rent, though, I'm gonna need to find a second job or SOMETHING until I start school and can leech a little bit of money out of student loans to pay for rent....the prospect of going into a buncha debt is NOT one I'm happy about, but I'll be doing what I want to in school....regardless (insert shameless self-plug here), if you're interested in helping me out by commissioning me to do some artwork for you, I'd be delighted...:D

Email me for commissions.

Murals and Mockups

Emerson_Small Color MOCKUP copy
Originally uploaded by KJealous

FINALLY got some work done on the mural designs I'm gonna be doing for the salon. Here is a sketch I worked out last night. Still contemplating things I want to tweak...colors, design elements, etc.

Here's the first, once I sketch the second out, I'll paint the both of them with acryllic, and then onto the walls, once I'm satisfied with my ideas!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flourishes!

Got another project to work on from Alex...just some simple signage, but I wanted to do something that was gonna have some real fun flair to it...and since he's going for an 1800s-ish (the 'ish' gives me a LOT of liberty here) visual scheme, I wanted to play with some flourishes, but incorporate the steampunk vibe we're also trying to go with...ergo, the gears and cogs. I'm finally starting to get a feel for Illustrator, and that makes me happy!

Here are some mockups:




In other news, I finally got my Blackjack II working (OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!) and can not WAIT to take it for a spin. Also (finally) picked up Lost Odyssey, so I'm preparing myself for the first 4-disc XBOX 360 game yet.

Photos

So, I've been really lazy lately...and been getting a little depressed because of it. The weather's starting to cool down, summer is starting to phase out (so soon!), and I need to get on the freakin' stick.

I HAVE, however, been making some money in my laziness! The "Emerson Institute of Style, a new salon opening up on Pike and Broadway is owned by my buddy Alex Garcia. I recently did the logo and animated thingey for his business page/the business itself, with much help and coaching from my buddy Jory (love you, dorling!).

Haven't been drawing much, and I think i'm realizing that that's part of my feeling depressed...I haven't been creating anything for any of my projects, and that just needs to get underway.

OH, also (okay, I guess I haven't been THAT lazy, I just haven't been drawing much), I did a photo shoot with my good friend Hillary. We're working on my model portfolio, and her portfolio as a whole, and these are some of the favorites from our shoot. Hopefully there should be more to come soon, before she takes off back to school!

It was a bit of a frustrating shoot for me, because she wouldn't let me be all smiley...just...give her some attitude...next round will include smiley shots...it must! Lemme know what you think!

Zacharias' Blood Magic

So, I've somewhat recently jumped onboard the comic bandwagon of my friend Benjamin Williams. He and I met at Emerald City Comic Con at the LBGT comic booth, and started talking comics. It was later realized that he was a writer looking for an artist, and I was an artist looking for a project...We swapped email, had coffee, and took off from there.

The story, more or less, is about sexy vampires in a major metropolitan city...lots of sexy, lots of vampires, and fun fun magic that I get to play around with the visual style on. :D Drawing beheadings is gonna be a challenge, but a blast all the same.















This is, essentially, an art sample I showed to Ben when we got coffee, and this is, in part, honing in on the visual style we're going to try to play off of. It took me, I'm not kidding, about a month to finally put in the broken glass in the windows and get the damn thing done...but now it's into the color phase, and that's always a bunch of fun.

















You'll notice that I'm pulling the same magic motif from the Nilam picture I'm working on...I'm really feeling the magic sigils and signs thing for magic casting. Totally dig. I'm contemplating playing with it a little bit in a 3d program to see where I can take the angling and etc. Should proove to be fun.


















All my laundry's folded, I've almost got my WA state driver's license, and I'll have health insurance shortly thereafter, and things with David are great. It's a hectic, but good place in life right now.

Asher

I posted a rough sketch before of what Asher's costume design looked like. Here's the progress I've made so far...been busy the last couple days and haven't gotten to do much on it...here's what I got though:

They're Naked

Until I put clothes on them...

I chanced upon a reference pic of essentially the same process I'm working on right now. Creating character designs using silhouettes, and building from there. Right now I'm working on Asher (prince of the desert thing I keep blabbing on and on about...honestly, I'd say an eighth of my day is spent daydreaming about possible scenarios for his little fantasy desert world). Here's the little nudie base. As I've got more progress done on his character, I'll post it up here. I'm really enjoying this idea, and I think it's going to segue into more silhouette-based art...it's been very good for getting my brain going and working loose!

Also did a bigger sketch on my large pad of a D&D character from the Darkraven campaign...more details/sketches from DARKRAVEN later, I'm sure. I'll post Gabriel Vermond, shadow hunter, up here when I scan him. Meantime, enjoy the nakedness!

More Desert Stuff

Bah, I totally meant to post this stuff up way before...I'm slackin!

This stuff is older, but in a similar style...more or less supposed to be from the same 'universe,' as Nilam. Desert stuff, desert stuff, desert stuff.

Goin' to the Crystal Castles show up here in Seattle tonight. Otherwise I'd be drawin' more stuff to post up here.



EDIT: Here are some of those older Desert-related sketches as promised.

Here's the most up-to date rendering of Asher (his belt/armor are constantly changing....I'm never satisfied with just one idea....:P), as well as some idea sketches for Nilam (also, constantly in a state of wardrobe flux).

Nilam, Desert Magician

So, I really need to be making use of this thing...gonna attempt to do that now!

Today was a day off (our restaurant is having REALLY slow business right now), so I sat at home, and drew all day. Like, really. Lol. This was intended to make it to a piece of bristol board, but I ended up just liking the sketch so much, that I ran with it. This is a character that I've been playing with the idea for for a little while now. A wizard (D&D style, with a spellbook and everything) in the desert. His father and hometown were slaughtered by a D'Jinn when he was a young child...seeking their revenge, he's taken his father's spellbook, as well as a few of his own to kick some ass!

Firsties

So, I started this blog up forever ago, and never ended up making use of it (or the email that I started with it...:P). I'm in the process of trying to beef up my portfolio, and I figured what better way to get some constructive criticism and some drive to draw more than use that ol' blog?'

It's time this thing stopped collecting dust and cob webs, and get some good lovin'!

AND, since this is my space, I can do a bit of blogging as well, so I'll start with the basics:

I'm Kevin. Around the interwebs, I usually go by Kellis. I live in Seattle, WA (for about 3 months now), and I absolutely love it. I studied Illustration at Brigham Young University - Idaho for just about 2 years, and then transferred to BYU in Utah (which was a big mistake) to study Animation. I decided to leave Utah because I didn't agree with paying a college to babysit me and I wanted to grow a beard (which they wouldn't let me do either...silly Mormon schools).

If you need any more information than that, then you're probably being nosy...or you should email me. :)