So, This Is Deer Girl Drinking From A Stream, She's Probably Going To Get Giardia Like That, But This

so, this is deer girl drinking from a stream, she's probably going to get giardia like that, but this is a fantasy universe and the bit where she makes tea requires a teapot and the standard Mrs. Beaver's Sewing Machine Problem starts all over again.

not that a lot of where this is happening isn't basically Narnia. because it is, but it's interregnum Narnia, (between human kingdoms) or at least narnia with a lot more grey zones than the books had, and laid over a local landscape, not an english one. but the archetype of the primeval forest where animals and trees talk is a really old archetype so I don't feel bad stealing it.

I just want to say those are really good legs, I'm still happy with them. I try my best to make deer girl look like her feet actually take her weight, which can be a problem when drawing any digitade bi-pedal creature. the human foot is plantigrade for a reason.

also that ear, man I love the little details, a lot of this is bad, but it has the seeds of better stuff within it.

so, here we have the ???? part of the wolves four point plan that ends in DINNER!

it is called "She Hoped That The Wolves Had A Plan, Aside From The Obvious One"

as I did not know what I was going to use this for when I made it, and I was so high on adrenaline and predinizone I only printed two, and I gave the other one to Kurt, here pictured as the hunter. because this print was made at the last possible second of applying to the BFA program (hence lack of attention to details and escher-girl butt and side boob anatomy problems) it is also absolutely against every bit of inspiration in my original very first Deer Girl print with her glomming on Bacchus.

but, it did actually happen. so there's that.

so, what happened was that in the middle of my predinizone treatment I was so hopped up and manic that I was just dancing late at night in the drawing studio. possibly to Lady Gaga's Alejandro. (senator I do not recall that infectious beat) and I turn around and there's Kurt. and he's just watching me. and I'm all "Hey Kurt!, whatcha doing?" and he's all "are you just dancing? and I'm like, "Yup!" and then he felt awkward and left. because while I had maintained eye contact through out our conversation, I NEVER STOPPED DANCING.

so I made this, because, again, I was hopped up on steroids.

during my BFA year I had to put it into sequence with the other images and it clicked into place that this would be a wolf's idea of an excellent distraction. I wish I had gone back and carved some wolf silhouettes into the woods, but it's too late now, and they are presumably behind him anyway.

I feel that the most successful part of this is how the body of the dude and the trees he is pushing apart frames the scene, the texture of the bark and his arm hair turned out nicely. I do think I should have made him blonde because his hair disappears into the black of the forest floor.

also could have just used a lot more care all over. if I was going to show this scene again it would be done radically different.

stole the idea from Christine, who still did it much better than me in her use of the phrase "don't sweat the technique" although I feel I'm taking the phrase more literally than she did. you will notice my backwards letter "N"s all over the place, (even carefully done as still backwards on the depicted block in my hand)  and my left hand depicted as covered in bandages, and the numerous weird printing errors that appeared on every use of this block.

it is a print about how I really ought to sweat the technique a little more.

it is a print of me, holding a speedball carving tool and the block that I will carve to become this very image of me. Recursion! and the block within a block is holding a little print but the resolution breaks down pretty fast even though I wished to imply it was this image again.

it was done for fun. I regret nothing.

I made enough of these to give one to each member of the Pigeon Vision Collective (here depicted baked into a cozy pigeon pie) and still keep one for myself.

the title is "good time management" I have also called it "Kate vs. Kate" this was the first thing I made when I stopped making art of fish, it was inspired by how motivated I felt after the McNett Event when I got to smash a giant pinata as part of a giant howling mob.

(seriously, we'll get there with the deer girl prints, I just have to get there, gotta build up to a crescendo like that)

anyways, the dueling self portraits were made by first photographing myself on a computer downstairs with the PhotoBooth application, then printing them out, applying red iron oxide to the back and tracing them onto the asphaltum of the plate. so there you go, that's why the look so good despite my inferior drafting skills.

the hat and the knife, the fangs and the snake hair are of course made up elements worked into the figures, everything else is the days (more like nights) I spent aquatinting both my black and red plates.

I gave one of these to Spike, and I'm still really happy about that. I have one left and I think I'm keeping it, it would mean so very little to anybody else.

this slide show is about my progress putting together my fish drawing. these photos were taken over time as I worked to make the tedium of a million little textures more interesting.