Funky Phone!! (nananananananaanananananBATPHONE!!)

Happy Turkey Day!

candle and fruit (some basic lighting)

Textures! (and atmosphere)

Skull and Books! (2 Light sources)

HEAVILY DISTORTED IMAGE! (initially by Miranda Yeo)

Original image by Miranda Yeo (http://miranda-dawn.net/)

Then heavily destroyed using Photoshop filters by me!

SPHERES! (and custom brushes)

color studies (a little more cleaned up)

Hello Internet!

Here are some color studies for project 2!

Spying and Watching! (a tonal study)

Hello Internet!

So Project 1 went well. I'll post the finalized version in a while.

Here are some late-night tone studies.

I'll edit this tomorrow.

Goodnight for now.

5 Random Locations! (And wibbily wobbily timey wimey stuff)

Hello Internet!

It's been a while.

So to remain terribly inconsistent with what this blog is about, here are 5 random locations and time periods to set art pieces, or narratives in!

Locations!
1. The circuit board of an internet modem.
2. The bottom of the ocean while basalt is forming.
3. An abandoned New York subway car.
4. A planet sized, populated astroid.
5. The inside of an animal's nose.

Time periods/moments!
1. Right before a kid wet his pants on a Disneyland ride.
2. The moment before a woman is murdered.
3. The morning before the end of the world.
4. The ice age.
5. A regular morning for a professional assassin.


I'm out of ideas.

It's way too early.

-Lantern

Color Schemes. (Now scheming in beautiful technicolor!)

Hello Internet!

We're still working on that self-portrait-silhouette-icon-palooza project, and one of the steps it to choose colors that really define us as people. (Or three colors we just think are purrrdy). Here's a couple color palettes that I feel fully embraces who I am as a person. (Because, you know, three colors can do that.)

Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialize!

This color palette, although nice on digital and printed media, was literally the colors of my bedroom in high school, (A la Haunted Mansion gift shop), featuring what I narcissistically refer to as my green (A1AF37, if you must know), and a violet that's dangerously close to that black. Not a great contender for the silhouette project, but it was a jumping off point for the rest of these.

Taken right off of literally any brand of trendy board shorts. 

I really like the way blue and orange look together. (Yeah, I just complimented complimentary colors.) But as the sassy (not all that clever) text under the image, this scheme is done to death on any given beachwear for guys. (err, "dudes"). A little more tweaking with the saturations and this is could be a strong option.

 To infinity, and beyond!

Sick of the Disneyland jokes yet? ME NEITHER! (Joking aside,) if done correctly, this could be a really cool color palette. And it's the only one that doesn't make use of my green.

Secondary, Secondary, PRIMARY!

(How art students play "duck, duck, goose")

Probably my favorite of the options. It's got good old' avocado-A1AF37, that nice desaturated violet, and a a little tealish blue. And none of them really cancel the other one out. I'm feeling good about it. 

We'll see though! 

Till next time,

-Lantern

Illustrator Professional! (in the making)

Hello Internet!


This is my newest masterpiece, I call it Failing Terribly at Illustrator in G minor.

Not sure if wearing a cap, or has funny shaped nose.

(Either way, it's rude to mention it)

So, as you may have guessed, this is a super quick in-class assignment.

But if you really dig it, too bad. I already added the copyright symbol, so you can buy it for a couple grand. (Because, that's how the law works).

-Lantern

New artist discovery! (Chris Wildgoose)

Hello Internet!

Sorry for that last hasty post. I'm just learning digital illustration, and thus, illustrator. Sooo The pen tool is taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated.

But, during the weekend I found this fantastic comic book inker on Instagram named Chris Wildgoose, and luckily, he has a blog (using this same page) riiiiight here.

What I like about his art is the balance between realistic proportions, and cartoonish expressions that I want to achieve in my art one day. He reminds me a little of Chad Hardin's recent run on Harley Quinn over at DC.

Wildgoose's instagram handle is @MRRIKTUS and it's packed with awesome pencils and inks, as well as progress videos, and he seems like an overall nice guy.

No pics this time, (I'd love to post some of his work, just to show you, but I'm a little unclear on what I can and can't post regarding stuff that isn't mine, so his artwork is just a couple clicks away!) 

Just letting you all know I'm still alive, and really wanted to share this artist I discovered! 

Thanks!

-Lantern

silhouette project (my face!)

Hello Internet!

Here's vectorized, photographic proof that I have a huge nose.

I think it really captures my personality.

(I seriously need a haircut.)

Sorry for the short post! I'll catch up with you all later!

-Lantern

six of my best pieces of art! (and by "best" I mean "favorite")

Hello Internet!

I think I speak for most artists when I say It's hard to rank your work. Especially in college, when you're making such eclectic pieces for every which course, in addition to pieces you just randomly decide to spend a couple hours on. Here (in no particular order) are my 6 favorite.


1. foxbear (a series)

A project for Illustration class where I combined two animals (like a mad scientist) using different mediums. (From left to right: acrylic, cut paper, watercolor and ink, ink)


2. still life (in graphite)

Wasn't a big fan of this class, but this was by far my favorite piece. It's got my Green Lantern power battery, my favorite Mets hat I bought in New York, and my white PS3 controller! (All of my favorite things!) And since I'd never done anything like this, I really like the way turned out.

3. party cannon

"Party Cannon" was just some MLP fan art that got out of hand. I did a little pencil and ink, a little bit of crosshatching, and ended it all with some watercolors, and a touch of colored pencils. My favorite thing to do is get a well-known character and give them a little darker twist.

4. ecocord

Another Illustration project based on an eco-friendly conservation message, focusing on solar power. The tedious/fun part of this piece is the ridiculous amount of wires (and the cast-shadows in between them). 

5. Mickey Avarice Mouse

Again, I love making recognizable character all grimy and ugly. And if we're talking big business, Mickey isn't the cleanest character to start with. (I worked for the mouse for over a year, and it was... an experience). If you don't get the image, it's a comment on DIsney (who already owns Lucasfilms) tempting Stan Lee (Marvel Comics) with money in front of Disney Studios. . . . (figure it out)

6. TRUST ME (a series on doubt)

A piece I did over the summer. Oil on canvas with two LED light bars, and wood to block out the negative of the letters. I did everything on this piece from scratch. I cut all the wood for the back piece, the negative letter space, installed the lights, added the switch to the light's cord, and nailed the whole thing together. I really enjoyed the result of this random idea in my head, and figured I'll probably do a couple more using different phrases and faces. 

Well that's 6, and this is a super long blog entry, so I'll post more stuff later. But that's all for now!

-Lantern

labor day weekend! (end of week 1)

Hello Internet!

Unfortunately, I didn't get into the Friday class I wanted/needed/could probably take next semester, and I was pretty bummed. I was seriously looking forward to learning about drawing heads and hands, buuuuutt the good news is, I got into an even better, more relevant class! Sequential Art!!

So being the future comic book superstar that I am, Sequential Art is essentially 
Lantern's Future Career 101 (or rather, 367). 

This class looks so freaking amazing. I get to pitch a couple comic ideas that have been floating around in my head, I get more practice on my inking skills, improve my visual story-telling, improve my portfolio; making it more relevant to my field, and basically get a first-hand look into the industry that will one day be paying my bills. (And the professor is pretty cool too.)

Mickey Mouse and George Lucas's newest addition to the Disney family. 

(Mickey, the years have not been kind.)

Other classes include graphic design (where I have no idea what I'm doing... yet), life drawing (but painting), and of course, digital illustration (with that same pretty cool professor). 

As cool as all these classes are, I've got a ridiculous amount of homework, so I'm gonna go ahead and start on that. I'll keep you all posted! (Next up, my 6 best pieces of art).

-Lantern

I exist! (an introduction)

Hello Internet!

So I'm pretty pumped. I've got this new blog going, and I couldn't start it at a more exciting time in my art career:

THE BEGINNING!

Okay so on the surface, it looks like I've got absolutely nothing going on, I'm just another art student with a crappy portfolio trying to get that fancy piece of paper that says "Hey look! The last few years of my life were very expensive!" But that is not the case!

This semester is the beginning of a whole new outlook. I'm going to make my portfolio sparkle! I'm gonna learn all I can about my industry! And finally, I'm gonna get someone out there to notice that my art exists!

(I know, I know... it's not a huge goal, but we've gotta start somewhere, right?)

Oh, where are my manners? Here I am going on and on about not being another face in the crowd, and I haven't even introduced myself.

My name's Gabe! Carrasco.  (the exclamation mark is necessary), but my close, artsy friends I work with simply call me Lantern. (and I've come to rather enjoy the nickname)

Anyway... back to me existing and what-not, (as the title of this entry is called) I exist! and although it seems like the most obvious statement one can make, the trick is getting your industry to acknowledge your existence.

I've applied to a few internships over the summer, hoping to get at the very least, an interview, but to no avail. Two major cartoon industries here in LA both gave me the digital cold shoulder. But meh, I don't blame them. There's a lotta guys out there who's dream is to draw for a living, and this is my first real attempt at existing, which means I'll only get better from here, right?

Anyway, I feel like I've rambled on enough for one post, and you all get the hang of how these entries will go (or at least what the plan is). A lot of conversation-style monologues (a lot of interjecting parenthetical comments), a little gumption, a little this a little that,

oh, and some art!

It's like a fox and a bear had a baby.

(and then that baby grew up and became violent)

Thanks for sticking around!

-Lantern