Tag: illustration

OTM #12: Virtual Professionalism

katelynski Leave a comment

Hello, and welcome back to OTM! As of late, I’ve been trying to book an internship for this summer (a draining process in itself). But with Zoom interviews comes with Zoom etiquette, and I’ve been paranoid as of late that my fun, personal side is hindering my professional life. Every Zoom interview with every company brings a new layer of fear; will they say something about the amount of posters on my wall? But every time without fail my huge head covers them up, saving me from embarrassment. It’s times like these where I contemplate if I’m too cringeworthy at age twenty, but why should I stop decorating my room to my tastes just for some interviews? It’s mostly funny to me at this point, reminding me to loosen up a little. Be cringe (in moderation), and have a great week, everyone!

Industrious Illustrating #12: A New Semester

Robin Leave a comment

A new season means a new semester, and a new semester means a new Industrious Illustrating banner! It’s been a while since I last posted to this blog, and I hope that the summer was a restful or productive time for all of you, whichever one was your goal. While I have some exciting new projects I want to share with you guys over the next few weeks, I want to focus first on a brief recap of a few pieces I made over the summer.

For most of the summer, I was spending time living with my parents in Hong Kong. We lived pretty close to the beach, so sometimes I’d go down to the beach and look for interesting-looking animals in the sand and rocks. Attached are a few watercolor and ink sketches I made of a Fiddler crab, as well as some clams, sea urchins, and sea snails I found when the tide was low.

Aside from sketching the wildlife, I also made more refined illustrations based off of the scenery and sights I saw in Hong Kong, albeit with a few changes for artistic effect. For example, one of the new pieces on my year 2 banner features a tiger girl dressed in summery clothing while leaning over the railing of a staircase next to overgrown terraces. This is actually based off of a real staircase near my summer home that led down to some tropical fruit trees and a tiny beach (though it wasn’t the one I frequented).

               

If you look at the other side of the new banner, one of the pieces I added features a girl floating in a brightly lit vestibule as if she’s in a spaceship. This is actually inspired by the Moncler clothing store display in Hong Kong’s International Commerce Center, which always caught my eye when I was walking from the Kowloon MTR stop through the ELEMENTS shopping mall and the ICC lobby. I made a few tweaks to the lighting to make it look more dramatic, but otherwise I kept it close to the reference in an attempt to capture what I liked about the design.

For a side by side comparison:

       

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten around to making more studies of the sights I saw in Hong Kong, or even more pieces inspired by what I saw in Hong Kong, but I’ll be sure to work on some and post them when I have time!

What did you guys do over the summer? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

LOG_011_MEDUSA

Traveler Leave a comment

The payload spun and spun within the planet’s stormy atmosphere, buffeted by high winds and fickle vortices. Visibility conditions were nil as it tumbled through the clouds, its camera feed only offering grainy flickers of orange-red and the overexposed glare of lighting, falling, falling, falling– until it plunged through a particularly dense layer and into a patch of calm.

Two purplish objects floated into view, shapes reminiscent of Earth-native Cnidarian medusae: radially symmetrical, a translucent, bell-like structure, and trailing, wispy lines starting from the bottom of the bell. The currents gently tugged at them, and like kites in a storm, they vanished just as quickly into the reddish haze.

LOG_010_LAUNCH

Traveler 2 Comments

It was on day three, hiking out into the mountainous scrublands and already sweaty from exertion, when he felt it: a rumbling.

Then he saw it: plumes of white clouds, billowing from the horizon off in the distance– no, not clouds… smoke, he realized, watching as a trail rapidly ascended.

Then he heard it: a deep roar, loud and imminent as the rocket screamed through the atmosphere.

OTM #4: March

katelynski 2 Comments

Hello again, hope you’re all well!

I’ve been taking a lot of walks as of late to cool me down from schoolwork, and I can’t help but notice the liminal beauty of March. Every day the air feels so heavy, the earth looks muddy and gross, yet there’s a sense of wonder about it to me. The weather almost heats up for just a moment, and I find myself wanting to spend more and more time in the gloomy nature. For this piece, I realized how much I wanted to draw the March landscapes around campus! It was really fun to work with mostly grays and browns, for any artists reading I highly recommend doing a study yourself. I hope you can all find some time to enjoy the weird air of March, have a great week!

OTM #3: Media Consumption

katelynski Leave a comment

Hello everyone! Last week I saw 2022’s Batman (which was phenomenal), and I walked out of the theater with a feeling of grandiosity. I felt like Batman himself, with a determination to save the world. Yes, that’s cringeworthy, but there’s something so fun about that feeling. I haven’t felt that in a while; it reminded me of when I was eleven seeing The Hunger Games for the first time, walking out of the theater with a rush of emotion, feeling as if I was a character within the film. The drive home is intense, deep, and I feel as though I’m in this depressing and dark universe.

I think it’s really fun how movies can do this to us, can temporarily alter my mind and put me directly into their worlds. It makes me feel like a child, in awe of the world around me. And something about this childlike wonder is so marvelous to me. I hope you can all get in tune with that sense of wonder this week, maybe take a moment to relax and watch a show you love!