Weird Weather

Baltimore's been having some floppy weather lately; the temperature's been every which way but winter. Today, it's airing on the side of see-your-breath Fall.

Bear Guards

Given the line "assessing risk" as a jumping off point for a fantasy illustration, I chose to expand on my series of Ivan and the Firebird pieces: this being the part of the story where Ivan comes across a castle he has to enter, which is heavily guarded by some lethargic, but lethal beasts.
you can find more developing IVAN artwork by me here.

New Delhi Travel Poster

Our latest assignment in Concepts class: make an image for a travel ad to a place of your choice. The hustle and bustle of market places are always fascinating to me; how could I not choose India?
Now, onto mini thesis!

veggables

found some miraculous free time yesterday (to bw fair, half of it was lounging around in an academic class) and drew tuber-headed characters for no particular reason.


(my favorite's the dapper radish!)

FREEDOM (book cover assignment)

a work in progress to an assignment involving the reinterpretation of a fictional book cover. The title of mine was "Freedom: a novel" by Jonathan Franzen. Never read the book before, but had an art director/classmate who did; hope this does the story justice!



another version, with text

Totem Island!

For the sake of keeping to my promise on frequent updates, I present work from my most recent Fantasy Art assignment.


(animated version will go here once I figure out how to upload vids to the web)


(initial totem designs)

Domovoi

Toward the end of last semester I started drawing these little imps at work. With traffic at the bar being generally slow, I filled quite a few sketch pages with little old man trolls, and even developed a loose story relating them to witches and housework. I won't say more because that' about as far as I got, but who knows where they'll pop up again?





(Sorry for the cruddy scans, btw. The scanner I used belonged to the school, and was very worn and torn from a semester's worth of use.)

Star Wars Critters

One of the first things I did in the new year was watch the original Star Wars trilogy, unedited. What better way to express my love for the creatures in SW universe than draw my two favorites?

2011

Oh my! Is it a new year already? How fast the time has gone, and how largely my neglect has grown on this place. I suppose with the turning of the calendar, resolutions are in order.
To myself, I resolve to develop a more steady work pace for all future art projects, and to make it a habit to be inspired every day by something new, so as not o get hung up by a lack of passion to create. And to all those who've watched this little blog filled with little pictures grow, I resolve to give you more finished pieces to look at than last year, as well as progress shots and roughs to ensure that everything in the aforementioned goals is in check. Thank you, once more for watching me, and look forward to a bunch of updates very soon!
-Shanti

Character Design - Djinn

Sorry guys, I haven't posted much content here regarding school assignments. I have no excuse! This must be fixed.
Below is a recent assignment given in a character design course I'm taking this semester: Redesign a main character from 1,001 Arabian Nights. I was paired with the Djinn from Aladdin's lamp, and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy taking a few major liberties in pushing this figure past conventional identity. Apologies, for my sense of rendering is a little rusty.


bonus! sketches:

Pidgeons & Haiku

Summer's been so busy
Sorry for lack of updates
Will post work here soon.

Mighty Fine Lumberjack

Just for fun, here is a hardy woodsman. Also, some in-progress CD single wrap-arounds.

Illustration 2 Assignments

An illustration made to respond to a radio lab podcast regarding a lecture on Quantum Theory and Parallel Universes.



Two magazine spots and a half-page illustration done for a zodiac themed assignment. These pieces were to cater to a magazine genre of choice, and I decided to aim towards a teenage/girl publication.

Valentine's Day: Do's and Don'ts

Two pieces for an Illustration 2 assignment, pertaining to a list of things one (male or female) should and should not do for Valentine's day.
Just in time (sort of) to celebrate (sort of)!:

Don't Feel Sorry for Yourself


Do Consider an Alternative to Roses

Shanti Does a Pin-Up

about a 30-45 min ps doodle, just for kicks.
-I swear I'll upload some real work soon

Monster Bromance

Would it be called a momance?
"So a yeti and a sasquatch walk into a bar..."
Nevermind, I got nothin to back up why or how this idea got started.


+

=


(what the witness fails to capture while filming this is the hackey sack the two cryptids were chasing after)

Spies: Rendezvous

Trying something new here, bear with me as I hit some rocky points.

Monster as Modern:

Done as part of a two-part illustration spread having to deal with monsters and their modern day equivalents. I chose to illustrate the Deer Woman, a siren-like creature that seduces young men and ultimately stomp them to death, figuring that this concept could be tied in with jilted lovers metaphorically. Until I upload the other 50% of the assignment, please enjoy this modern counterpart of the Native American myth.

No More Stories...

Hawaii


New Terrain


Repeaterbeater

Kicking off the first assignment for Illustration 1, Fall semester is a body of 3 to 6 promotional pieces of an album of any musical artist of your choice. I chose Mew, after listening to their most recent album*, and re-listening to some of their earlier singles. There is a sense of evolution in their work, something I really admire with musicians but have found little of in recent music. I hope I did their latest album justice.

*"No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away; No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away".

Color Testing Between Monitors

Sooo, I have a Mac desktop now. Actually, I've had it for a little while, but I think it's worth mentioning here because I transfer all my digital work constantly between that and my Dell laptop. So far, I've noticed that colors show up noticeably duller on the Dell than on the Mac's screen, but I keep double guessing myself on which monitor needs to be tweaked.


Testing, testing. Color testing: does the background look more gray or green? (answer: It should definitely look green)