Crystal Jellies drawings

The starts of our crsystal jellyfish page. In this page Aura's lost in the ocean and looks to jellyfish to light her way home. We decided to go with crystal jellyfish because they're bioluminesscent and that rather beautiful to draw but also because they're a type of jellyfish that children are used to seeing/imagining (unlike jellyfish like the flower hat jelly and so on so forth). It is rather hard to draw though (read: extremely hard). There's barely any actual jellyfish to draw seeing as it's mostly translucent so I have to heavily rely on subtraction oquacness with an eraser tool to give the illusion of translucency.

TSA Story Ayanna's rough draft cut

Life can be rather normal. Wake up, get dressed, got to school, play with friends, go to bed.

Yet to some people life can be anything but normal when you live in the ocean.

Aura was a young girl who only knew of the sea from the moment she was born. In the middle of nowhere, it was only herself, her older sister and their parents. Life was rather dull, but not bad being that she only had her family and fish to keep her company. Most of her time was spent reading, swimming or feeding her friends,and not much else. She went on her daily routine like this everyday never admitting to herself, no she’d never admit, that everyday, loneliness ate away at her.

Although one day, a large rumble shook the sea floor shaking her entire house. But she would never know that it  would also shake her entire world.

Her house shifted and rumble forcing Aura to take to the seas just to see what was making such a ruckus. She expected a whale, some vicious beavers, maybe even rift between fish? Some were rather territorial, though nothing would prepare her for what she did see.

A boy!

Actually, the oddest boy she ever saw. . .

The boy’s name was Mako, a boy from the mainlands who came to explore the oceans. Aura was unsure as she’d never seen a land dweller, actually she’d never seen anyone for that matter other than her family. Even though he looked a bit funny, Mako was still nice.

He gave her all sorts of food she’d never seen. Potatoes made into chips, colored water that fizzes, she wondered if all the main landers ate like this. He let her even try out his submarine. Maybe she wasn’t so good on maneuvering it, but it was fun still. Then again maybe it was fun because this time she wasn’t alone?

They’d stay late up into the night exchanging stories on the dock. Mako told stories of how on land people drove cars on pavement, how they had magical boxes that played ‘t.v shows’ all day, and how they even that buildings so big people could live in the sky. Aura didn’t think anything she had to say could compare but she told of the many fish she’d met in her short life. She spoke of ones that glowed iridescent(bright?) neon, other’s that were the size of her mama and papa or even bigger, and of course her favorite fish of all the jellyfish.

The jellyfish held a special place in her heart. One day, while venturing around the vast ocean floor, Aura had lost her way and couldn’t find her way home. She began to close her eyes and wonder if she’d ever find her way home. . .

Then, when she opened her eyes, she was amazed. The kind jellyfish of the sea, with their soft glow and squishy appearance, formed a line leading her home. “I will never forget that day!”, said Aura with a big eye squinting smile as she explained her love of jellyfish to Mako. The next day, as they were going through their routine of playing together and talking, Auro suggested that they visit the jellyfish so Mako could see their beauty.

When they arrived to the home of the jellies, Aura and Mako were shocked with what they saw.

What they saw weren’t jellyfish, but various plastic bags floating in the ocean dirtying the jellyfishes home.

With a fire in their eyes, Mako and Aura decided to clean the area in hopes that the jellies would come back to their home. This time, it would be Aura’s turn to help them come back home.

Mako and Aura spent hours trying to capture each and every bag as well as other trash that had floated there from the mainland. It wasnt an easy task, but one by one the jellies started to return home, and Aura was filled with joy.

As more and more returned home, Aura introduced Mako to each jellie with joy. Mako enjoyed listening to Aura talk about the jellyfish, he especially liked how she explained the anatomy of the jellyfish.

“Most jellyfish are passive drifters, but they do have tentacles that are covered in cells called cnidocytes that can sting for defense!”, Aura said pointing to the various strings and tentacles.

“Oh! And Mako! Did you know that jellyfish dont have brains? Or that their mouth is in the inside of their bell shaped body?” Mako listened to Aura talk and talk without a hint of boredom.

“its too bad they were driven away by the trash. . .” said Aura. “yea that really is sad! I feel bad for the squishies!” said Mako in a strong tone.

“I wish we could do something!”

“yea me too!”

“well as long as everyone on the mainland can do their part and not litter in the ocean and pick up trash if they see any, im sure everything will be fine!”

“yea, I reallty hope that the people on the mainland will help out the jellies!”

After a long day of cleaning and talking to jellyfish, Mako and Aura returned to her home where they would go to bed for the night. They were pooped!

The next morning Aura awoke to find Mako missing from his room. She checked all over the house but couldnt find the land dwelling boy anywhere. She found him on the docks of her ocean home looking out onto the sea.

Aura called out Mako’s name and he turned around holding what seemed to be a miniature orca! Aura jogged to meet Mako and asked him why he want in his room. “I was thinking a lot last night and I dont know if I can stay here knowing that there are 7 seas that are being polluted with trash everyday!” said mako with a sad look on his face. “Mako. . .are you leaving?”Aura asked, tears in her eyes.

“Aura, I have to. For the jellies, for the other sea creatures that are losing their homes!” he said with sad eyes. “But I would never leave without leaving a part of me with you! So I am going to give you Mr. Oreo so that no matter what, we’ll never forget each other and one day we will see each other again!” Mako said with warmth.

Mako handed Mr. Oreo to Aura and she held on to him tightly. When she squeezed Mr. Oreo she could feel something hard inside of his head area. She asked Mako what was in his head and he explained that last night, he created a radio of sorts inside of Mr. Oreo so Aura could hear of his adventures in cleaning the ocean.

Aura held on tight to mr. oreo and said,”I’ll cherish him forever! I’ll be waiting for you Mako! Right here in this very spot!” she said with a smile. “But dont think you’ll be the only one getting any action cleaning up the ocean! I’ll be out there everyday making sure it stays clean.” Aura said with a competative tone.

“you’re on!” said Mako as he climbed into his submarine.” The next time we see each other, We’ll see who the winner is!”

As Aura held on to Mr. Oreo she watched makos submarine dive into the water and speed to the next polluted area that needed a proper cleaning. She walked off of the dock and decided she should get ready to start cleaning before she loses to Mako. “How sad would that be if I lost?” she said with a determined look in her eyes as she smiled to herself.

Storybook page roughs

A few linearts and roughs that we were working on for the children's storybook. 

So today we had a new tablet come in. Normally we use the large sized wacom tablets but they cost close to an arm and a leg so my teacher was looking for another cheaper solution. This is how we came to get the huion tablet. The size is alright though I like the fullness that the wacom tablets have over this one. In addition to this tablet it comes with a pen-holder with extra pen tips, a glove, charger, and of course instillation disk. Installing it isn't too hard and right after I was able to draw. The pressure sensitivity is surprisingly very good and there's no lag or feedback error at all ( I was a bit worried as it was only around 70 dollars that the tablet would be riddles with bugs). I also think the buttons on the side of the tablet are easier to maneuver and use rather than their larger wacom cousins which I'd constantly keep pressing by accident making countless mistakes with my pictures. The above picture is a little practice I did with the tablet.

Fish stickerboard update

Book work

Some wips for book pages I've been working on. The top picture is also little stickers I'm making. the hope is by drawing a bunch of sea animals and putting them on one page like a sticker book I'll be able to take them and paste them into book scenes that require a lot of random sea creatures instead of re drawing them over and over.

2nd and 3rd perspective

Second and third perspective drawings I had to do for class (my page is starting to get flooded with perspectives aren't they?). Anyway this is the second to last batch of perspectives as my last perspective drawing will be a fish eye perspective I'll be doing as a page for my children's storybook. All in all these were exceptionally easy as I could free hand them but overall the perspective tool for sketchbook is amazingly helpful.

Other Perspective Drawings

Other perspective drawings I had to work on for class. We were only suppose to do three but I got bored and did the rest of them so I could get rounded in doing all shapes in perspective. Overall I like how they came out.

Storyboard panels 1-3

First three paneling pages for the storybook (only three for now because I don't want to make a tremendously long post with all of then though it shows the opening scenes of the story. We plan to obviously cut the pages down a lot but this makes it so we can draw out explecity what's happening throughout the whole story.

Don't be a Square

First batch of squares for my persepective practice in one point, two point, three point, and fisheye perspective. This was made in sketchbook pro using the perspective tool which wasn't so bad actually. It was okay even though sketchbook pro isn't my favorite tool and I really enjoyed using the copic marker gallery.

Quarter One update

Well quarter one is coming and going and uh now it's gone. Where did the time go?

The answer is no where, I just spent the whole time sleeping and regretting life decisions as all High School Seniors do. Though somehow I was able to do work for this class? It's some kind of life altering miracle but yes I actually did work in class.


Big Project: Children's Story book

This year I'm doing Children's storybook again and I will take home at least second place whatever it takes. The difference is that I'm working with a team this year instead and at the moment were working through finalizing the rough draft of the story. As well though I've been working on character designs and enviornment designs

This first design is the finalized beta design for our main female character, Aura. Beta as in we might change it when storyboarding comes in to play to make things easier on the artist but this is the concept we wanted to go with. Clothing form, hair, and color decision are made as inspiration from the aurolies jellyfish (sp).

These are the rough beginning sketches for our boy character. Since we were more focused on story we didn't take time to name him yet but we settled on the pet name mako. Though he's in more earlier stages than our female character his hair and color palette will be based off of an Orca whale. He'll be much more monochromatic to contrast with Aura's very bright color design.

When I'm finished with the rough sketches for setting pieces I will also post those up as well. The settings will include Aura house (which is in the middle of an ocean), Mako's Whale submarine, and a jellyfish robot which is a central part of our story. I will also try to post back to the story page/rough draft pages when I can.


Photoshop Class

The first project of the class that I hadn't done yet was a levitation. The one of left is the practive image he made us work with and the right was a tutorial I did by myself from pictures I got online of a girl on a ladder and the background from a levitation tutorial. I also added my own photo effects to them to add a bit of depth and mood to them because I don't get to mess around with photo effects too much

The next thing I've been working on in class is two little skill building things. The one of the right was started a bit earlier and was to help me with face and clothing texture and I was also experimenting with no using traditional lineart in this picture as well and so far I'm like the results espicially with her lower corset piece, eyes and lips. The one on the right was a skill builder with flower texture. I say I really like this one too but it was definitely complicated getting all the color packed in along with the like viney like lines in each petal. I'm finished with it so I added a really quick and kinda crumby phone with one of my favorite bands, Neautral Milk Hotel. I put up a little quote to make it nice but it's also an inside thing with me and my boyfriend.

Mini Halloween project

Last thing I was working on had to do with my wendigo project. These were a few rough sketches I had started.

Padlet inspiration wall

http://padlet.com/kaylinshaw8/5c6xum3hoano


My inspiration wall for my character Aura from my 2016 Children's storybook. I made it using Padlet though I do not have too many inspiration cues since a lot of her look came from actually music believe it or not. Visually though there were two heavy influences which are the form and color of a jellyfish and the studio ghibli films. I always love how ghibli is able to make these very adorable and lovable female character that are incredibly essential to every story.

Finished beta concept for our book character this year. This little girl's name is Aura based off the jellyfish here concept comes from the Aureolios Jellyfish.Main parts we got from the jellyfish was her tentacle like hair and the figure of her dress/hoodie as well as it's gradient. A lot of inspiration for making her look this way comes from the Studio Ghibli films I've been binge watching while trying to get inspiration for the book as well as music from this album called Flourist by Pekoe. The music helped me get the feel for what kind of character I was drawing, which came out as a more timid, if not social phobic, girl.

Wendigo mini Halloween project

Over the past week I've gotten into this games called Until Dawn; it's a beautiful motion captured horror video games for the ps4. One of the aspects of the game was these creatures called wendigo's. I thought they were made up for the story plot but I was surprised to find there's multiple renditions of the wendigo as it actually comes from Native American folk tales. I saw so many different renditions of wendigo's that a thought a cool Halloween project was to make my own version of what one might look like.

The actual legend of a Wendigo is that a person is possessed by an evil spirit after they revert to cannabilism to survive. By eating another human they slowly turn into the monster known as the Wendigo which is described to be incredibly taller, taller than any human person, and very skinny almost (some say you can't even see them from the side). Other notable features are their long fingers and sharp shark like teeth.

Main Character Children's book reference

2ns Levitation

Just some more practice with my levitation techniques. I found stock of a girl and then one of the plain background she was standing on. I used masking layers to cut what she was standing on out and added a little shadow instead then used HDMR toning and an overlay of pink to orange gradiant to make it more retro/feminine.

Illustrator Animal

A jellyfish I made in Illustrator as a project to learn the program. I basically just used the oval tool and warp to get the shape then used the star polygon to surround it. It wasn't too hard to accomplish thankfully enough, but I learned that Illustrator is actually pretty useful.

Levitation practice

Practice shoot for the levitation project I'm starting using photoshop to manipulate an image to make someone look as though that were levitating.

It was made using simple overlaying of images and then blinding and using the healing brush tool to completely get rid of the stools the boy was laying on. Then I used light blue and green screens to colorize the image and contrast with the heavily red jacket as well as to soften the more harder areas I had to disguise.

Social Commentary Picture

So, for our first project this year we're required to make a picture that tells a story (mainly one that relates to our everyday lives). I decided that I'd do something that commentate on Global Warming after re-reading my Chemistry paper on permafrost melting. My idea is a Snow Globe that inside is filled with only water with the buildings/animals floating around inside it. As well I'd have the glob had cracks in it leaking water as well.

Final Project 2015

My final project for Digital Media class. When I first started this t was suppose to be a simple realistic portrait, but as it's obvious to se a turned it around and changed it up with my Kaylin flare. Really this project turned out to be a measure of how much I'd grown as an artist. This years I've learn about technique, coloring, using smart objects, layering all sorts of things and I think that's what I really wanted to show off more than anything. I'm actually really proud of this picture because at the beginning of the year I thought it'd be impossible for me to do a picture, let alone a human, without cartoonish black lines or that I could get this familiar with paint a humanlike skin tone. Heck, I couldn't draw a realistic ear at the beginning of the year and lips frightened me to death but now look at me I've really grown not only in skill but confidence too.

MIni projects

Mini projects I was working out throughout the final. The first one is a mini for eyes using a tutorial I got from Yummei off of Deviantart. I actually really liked how the eyes turned out so I might keep using this type of eye work. The other two are from CGcookie tutorials (Cornell really you need to check this sight out) that I didn't get to completely finish but got the gist of it. One was food mood shadowing and giving values and coolness to shadows as well as creating mood with my color choice. The second was a candy study for simple shading.

Deviantart ID

  Another picture I was working on for a bit. I kept being asked to make a devinatart so I'm actually getting off my butt to make one. I think this will make things easier to keep my art in order. Anyway this was made to be my deviantart art ID.

Le Final Start

 So more my final I'm actually cracking down and doing a big picture with fore ground, back ground and all. I'm using the picture to the side as a reference, but I don't think I'll go full on realistic with this one though it's still a nice measure of how far my coloring and color usage have come. I'm planning to make the final image into a hipster esque with the galaxy motif to her hair and I'm adding in some flowers as a border for later on. I'm also changing up her make up, I wanted it sort of dramatic like as well.

works in progress update

mini lesson part uno

Practice Art

I started practicing a type of freehand drawing where everything's in one layer and you start with blocking in color and slowly adding more detail  (this is why the face and shirt look a lot more detailed than the rest of the picture). It's a weird process since I've never tried painting in photoshop like this. It really forces me to really pay attention to detail, but it also feels odd overall.

Febuary Reflection

For Febuary I did a lot of things. I went in for TSA and came out placing in third place and getting a spot in Nationals. I did a whole reflection on that experience for that itself. Anyway for next month I plan on rewriting/ going back into my book to re-do pages and script errors I found. As well I'll be doing a few mini lessons that'll help strengthen both my concept skills and coloring.

TSA Reflection

Just last week I represented my school in TSA Colorado; my category was Children's Storybook. I had to create a fully illustrated storybook for Children and then had to both read and do an interview for the judges. The interview was the biggest part of the competition in all and it truthfully was the part that made me the most nervous, but it went a lot differently than I thought. First off, the judges weren't who I expected them to be per say. I was expecting older people who'd look through our work with a critical eye; in contrast most judges were actually younger people whole looked to be college graduates at the most. The certaintly knew what they were doing, but it calmed me to know I was talking and being interviewed by people more close to my own age group. The questions didn't go as in depth as I thought they'd be they more so asked the simple questions like: "What inspired this story?", "What tools did you use?", "How did you work together?". Though do be noted they expect answers to come from both team members or else you'll be marked off points. The environment over all was very relaxed, though you still have to maintain professionalism  When I was said in done I felt really good about myself and how the interview went. I was able to take third place and make it into Nationals.