Tag: illustration

Witness the Small Life: Electric Boogaloo

Mia Lambert Leave a comment

A tale as old as time… a know-it-all girl who loves to just talk and talk but yet still is late to uploading her first blog of the semester to do just that…

Welcome back everyone to another fantastic year of arts, ink. and Witness the Small Life!! I am extremely happy to be back and creating artwork for this wonderful series again. For those who don’t know me, my name is Mia and I’m a sophomore here studying Art & Design alongside minoring in Education! I am a talkaholic who enjoys doing the most, consuming copious amounts of media, and taking in the world around me. My blog right here, Witness the Small Life, is an outlet for myself and also you all to remember to stop, smell the roses, and take note of all of their various scents. I’m someone who believes that life is made from the small memories that allow dreams and fantasy to weave their way into our daily rituals and through creating this blog I hope to spark that feeling in you as well. This semester I’m thinking of changing things up perhaps a tad: getting more creative and experimental with the artwork, having specific themes for entries, and maybe even talking oh-so-much more than I already do ;P

I’ll keep this one short and sweet as I already have to hurry off and tend to my ever-growing to-do list, but here’s a quick rundown on what I’ve been up to since the start of the school year: Just got back from visiting home on a 5am flight after having my last sip of Caribou coffee for the next 6 weeks, spending 5 hours in the studio to finish print pieces that I thought I hated but actually really love, and enjoying classic procrastination sessions with the numerous essays I have to do always.

If there are any comments, questions, or confessions you need the world to hear (or just little ol’ me) always feel free to share them on these posts! I love seeing the thoughts and ideas sparked from the weekly ramblings of these doodles and pseudo diary entires so please do let me know.

As always, to take into our next week:

Ins: Raspberry anything, bok choy, naps wherever, developing bargaining as a skill, puzzles, short legged dogs, appreciating paint stains.

Outs: Bad hair care, not checking the milk’s expiration date, setting hyper-specific alarms, Impact font, kicking rocks, sleeping without proper neck support.

I will see you all next Monday for more word salads, daily doodles, and whatever else life will throw our way!

LOG_031_SEAGLIDERS

Traveler Leave a comment
A pair of Kaua Merchant Navy Cormorant-class seagliders on a regular reconnaissance patrol, seen skimming over the waters of HKC 2901 c.

Cormorant-class seagliders are a type of medium-sized aircraft meant for fast powered flight over medium- to long-distances. They are often used as escort and reconnaissance vehicles by the Kaua Merchant Navy on the waterworld of HKC 2901 c. They have both single- and twin-seat variants, feature two pylons per wing, and a modest internal bay on its underside that can be outfitted with various equipment suites or light armaments.

Witness the Small Life – The Mini Apple

Mia Lambert Leave a comment

This week’s page is dedicated to be a glimpse into my life while being home in the greatest city in the world: Minneapolis! I’ve been catching up on all my favorite things to do that I haven’t been able to in Ann Arbor (sit at the lake, drive a car, relax, etc.) and it’s been a splendid week indeed.

As the first person of my friends home for the summer, I’ve spent much time basking in the freedom of being alone. My relationship with being alone has changed so much this past year and it’s been very evident in how I’ve been spending my past week. In my senior year of high school, my greatest fear was being alone at any given time. I worried that because I’d be moving by the end of that summer and losing proximity to my friends and family that I would then end up being alone forever. However, throughout my time during this first year of college I’ve had to confront that fear head on every day in an unfamiliar place surrounded by strangers. It was extremely hard at first and I’m still adjusting to these new changes in my life, but after a while I felt more and more at peace with myself. I started to learn how to take care of myself outside the pressures of my surrounding social circles. I no longer had to worry about driving my sisters to school or rearranging my work schedule so I could make it to the next hangout with friends. During my day all I had to do was decide on where I was going to study today or if I wanted to go explore a random event posted on a flyer. This past week I’ve been able to apply this college-sparked freewill in my adventures of the city streets and it’s been allowing me to appreciate my home in new lights. From vibrant inspiration for my next art pieces to a new loving familiarity for the communities I grew up in, I feel like I’m entering a new journey of understanding what home is in a place where I feel safe and loved. Although I am surely going to fill this summer to the brim with bonfires with friends and excursions with my sisters, I’m planning on making sure that I get my alone time with myself and my city in order to appreciate both in new and beautiful ways.

To take into our summer:

Ins: Reconnecting with old friends, supporting your local art scene (always), horror podcasts, going to events even if you’re going alone, drawing on your hands, Costco, re-appreciating your old art, quality time with loved ones.

Outs: Not wearing sunscreen, only believing in the worst outcomes, flat soda, letting dust pile up, immaturity, bugs on the windshield, drivers in Minneapolis, not speaking your truth, the ending of Grey’s Anatomy season 5.

Have a beautiful, fantastic summer everyone! Thank you so much for a great semester and for reading (and hopefully enjoying) these entries. Trust that I’ll be back in the fall for our regularly scheduled shenanigans of loving life and each other. Be safe, have fun, and remember to witness the small life!

Industrious Illustrating #63 – Looking to Summer

Robin Leave a comment

Hello everyone! I ended up not updating for two weeks because of final projects and exams eating up all my energy and time when I wasn’t making new art. But I’m back with one more post before the end of the school year!

Speaking of which, one of my class projects this past semester was illustrating new educational materials for the UMich Natural History Museum. I ended up designing a new step-by-step infographic for using their slides and microscopes. Here’s a sample of what one of my microscope illustrations looked like:

The other artwork I’ve been making recently has mostly been fanwork and commission work since that’s what people pay me to make (and I also enjoy making). I do want to work on more original design work, especially after getting my portfolio reviewed by a mentor and realizing that my design work has a long way to go if I ever want to get work in the double or triple-A video game industries, but I’ll likely have to do that later in the summer after I’m done with my internship. In the meantime, I’ll be selling at several fan conventions this summer — Anime Park this weekend, then Motor City Comic Con (the Spring show) and Colossalcon’s Otaku Craft Fair later this month, and the Otaku Detroit Summer Bash as well as Tekko in mid July!

I’m still not totally certain, but I’m leaning toward not continuing this blog next year. I’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities (especially in the last year) that I have to juggle on top of an increasingly demanding upperclassman schedule. While maintaining this column has been nice for tracking my progress as an artist over the years, sharing it with the wider world, and getting a small amount of compensation for my time, I’ve finally gotten enough traction with getting into conventions and cultivating a dedicated customer base that I’d rather focus more on my art and chronicle my development in less time-consuming ways. But I’ll at least for sure continue to be Digipaint’s event planning admin next year, and I’ll also continue to work on myself as an artist and small business owner. It’s surreal that I’m only a year away from graduating college now, but there’s no way that I could’ve stayed in undergrad forever.

Anyway, I’ll go back to resting and recuperating from all the hard work I’ve done so far this year, and I’ll either see you guys again in the fall or if we ever chat at an in-person event! (Or, a third option, if you figure out what my art social media accounts are and follow my art journey there…) Have a great summer!

Witness the Small Life – Long Journey Home

Mia Lambert Leave a comment

I’M FREE!!! Classes done, critiques finished, dorm packed! Boy, what a semester it has been. A true rollercoaster of epic proportion with all the excitement a girl can handle on a day to day basis.

Firstly, I need to address my mistakes! My burnout brain was apparently so fried that I actually wrote the wrong date for last week’s post! I truly didn’t know what day it was (the prophecies fulfill themselves). Additionally, apologies for the late post! Between getting ready for moving out, actually moving out, and driving 11+ hours, there was a minuscule amount of time to get anything else done. Regardless, we are here! In my chaos of packing up my life into my blue storage bags, there’s been so much happening. From temporary goodbyes to friends to the difficult task of deciding whether or not to keep my various knickknacks or pass them off to others, I’ve been reminded of the multitude of ways we connect ourselves to the world. People, places, things, and memories all make up the different facets of what makes home home. Throughout my journey of intense homesickness and deep fear of change this past year, my relationship to each of these things in my life has shifted and transformed in ways that have been both gratifying and heart-breaking. There’s a duality to growing up and so much of that comes with how our relationship to home metamorphosizes. I feel like there’s never truly an end to this journey of change and that fact scares me while at the same time sparks a flame of excitement in my soul. Although we as people change throughout our lives and the spaces we inhabit will do the same, it helps to remember that there will always be love and support through the challenges of it all, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I find that as people we want to see the best for others, even if they’re just strangers, because we want to see and believe in the compassion and beauty of the world. People change and homes get moved but the existence of love always stays the same.

To take into our next week:

Ins: Limes, the smell of bug spray, remembering to take breaks instead of just giving up, being the early bird that gets the worm, biking, daydreaming on roadtrips.

Outs: Hoarding to the extreme, letting the paranoia get to you, forgetting to patch up holes, taking on more than you can handle, caramel in coffee, not putting recycling in the recycling, cheap perfume.

This is my second to last post for the semester! To everyone wrapping up their semesters, planning their summers, and taking a second to breathe you all are amazing! Remember that even though life throws a bajillion crazy things our way, we will always be there for each other.