Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to each and every one of you! May 2011 be full of happiness, fun and cuddly cute things!

Thus ends my Holly Jolly Holiday month-long art-strvaganza! I din't QUITE make it to 31 posts, but with balancing the holidays, deadlines, and fitting in some time for sleep, I think I did OK. I hope you all enjoyed them as much I as enjoyed making them, and that they helped put you in a holiday mood.

Polar Bear

Winter Penguin

Nothing says cold weather fun like a little penguin in a scarf!

Hot Chocolate Fairy

This one is both Matt and Brian's idea; after all, if you do an EggNog Fairy, you can't leave out Hot Chocolate, the yummiest of all cold-weather drinks! I like how spunky she turned out; unlike certain T.V. News producers from the 70's, I like spunk! :)

Egg Nog Fairy

I didn't quite know if I was going to continue the Christmas Goodie Fairy Friends, but thanks to Matt, there is one more Fairy in the group: the EggNog Fairy! This one's for you, Matt! I didn't know how I would pull her off, but I like how elegant she is. Not quite the goofy, strange one like I thought she would turn out. Complete with cinnamon stick magic wand!

Gingerbread Fairy

And here is the Gingerbread Fairy, the third of the Christmas Goodie Fairy Friends! Do you have any suggestions for Christmas Treat Fairies? Leave a comment below, and maybe one of them will be turned into a Fairy Friend!

Sugar Cookie Fairy

I finally got around to drawing some friends for the Peppermint Fairy I posted a few days ago. Here's the Sugar Cookie Fairy!

Merry Christmas!

I sincerely wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas! I can't thank you enough for following me and looking at my little doodles all year (when I do post stuff). What better way to celebrate Christmas than the actual Big Guy himself, Santa Claus! I hope he was good to all of you; he was awesome to me this year!

Sittin Under The Tree

Tonight is Christmas Eve! Guess what's sitting under your tree (or will be in just a few hours when Santa comes?) A cute lil' present! Who knows what kind of wonder and magic lies inside? It must be something super awesome if he looks this happy!

Dominick the Donkey!

If you grew up in an Italian household, chances are you have heard of a little donkey named Dominick. Dominick is an Italian Christmas Donkey, who Santa uses to climb the hills in Italy that the reindeer can't seem to manage. Even though reindeer can fly. Yeah, logic often doesn't apply to Christmas songs. If you have not heard the song, do yourself a favor and click on over to YouTube to give it a listen. It's very cute, and dear Lord, one of the most Italian songs ever created.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z0tGVaeOwY

Have A Very Ratty Christmas!

I have a little rat. His name is Gobo (yes, totally named after the Fraggle; very fitting for a small little mammal that could easily go into the walls). OK, so he's nott hat little. He's pretty fat. But I thought I would tell you all Merry Christmas from Gobo! He wishes you all have a very happy holiday too!

Here's a picture of the real Gobo, exploring under our tree this year.

Peppermint Fairy

Brain had mentioned the words 'Peppermint Fairy' the other day as a joke, but I loved the imagery that popped into my candy-coated brain so much I just had to draw it up. And here she is. Super cute! I just might do some friends for her in the future. How cute would a Gingerbread Fairy be? We'll see. Hopefully I can get to that at some point.

Happy Life Day!

What do you get a Wookie who already has a comb? A cute doodle of Chewbacca celebrating Life Day, of course! Ahhh Life Day, that perennial favorite holiday among the furry Kashyyyk residents. A day when Chewbacca can't just forget his son Lumpy exists. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please do yourself a favor and look up The Star Wars Holiday Special on YouTube. You will thank me later.

Danny the Elf

Yeah..sorry about the title pun. I tried something clever and..well..obviously didn't work out. Sorry about the little leave of absence last week. Christmas and deadlines! I'm back now though, and hopefully I can make it up be perhaps posting an extra post or two. No promises, just possibilities!

Anyway, here's a little elf character doodle I did. I think I shall call him Danny. He looks like a Danny. Anyway, this is how my normal doodles look pre-clean up. I am very very very sketchy. But I like it. I find I can get a lot of emotion and movement in my original sketches that tend to go away the tighter I get. But I know that tends to be the norm, especially in the cartoony circles, so I am all good.

His Cuteness Grew Three Sizes That Day

Yay Max! Super quick sketch of my take on the Grinch's best friend and accomplice.

Another Retro Deer

So as I was doing my doodles for possible reindeer designs I ended up doing a few retro-inspired sketches because old deer designs from the 50s and 60s are amazing. So this kind of harkens back to that feel a little bit. Nothing too special, just a sketch today.

And just a heads up this coming week is looking to be fairly hectic; I have a lot going on this week, so I can't guarantee that I will be able to post everyday, and if I do it will probably be a doodle like this. Just a heads up! Enjoy for today though, and do check back daily. I will try to post something so I just might make it. :)

Jack Frost

I LOVE Rankin Bass Christmas specials. Nothing says Chrostmas more than a good ol' fashioned claymation special. One of my absolute favorites is 'Jack Frost'. I'm not quite sure why; it's not very Christmas-y, more wintery really. I think it's because it's more of a love story, so it has that 'aww' factor. I do love it though. So I decided to do a little tribute on the blog with a cute lil Jack Frost.

Berry Merry Christmas!

Holly berries, yay! :D Day 9, still on a roll with the Christmas cheer!

It's A Major Award!

Say it with me everybody.. "Frageeeeelaayyy..". Yup. This post must be Italian. I just couldn't resist sticking some electric sex in my doodles for the holiday. 'A Christmas Story' is a total family tradition for us every year. I think every member of my family can quote this verbatim and do on a regular basis. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and I can watch it all year round it's so damn hilarious. It's not Christmas till we watch the Bumpuses' dogs eat the turkey, listen to Schwartz get beaten over the phone, and watch some triple dog dares go down.

Happy Birthday!

Seriously though, if a snowman ever came to life right in front of me I would be seriously freaked out. And probably beat it with a stick until it was a puddle.

8 Tiny Reindeer

Day 6, woo hoo! I think in a previous post I had mentioned that reindeer were my favorite part of Christmas, so I apologize if the art this month gets a little deer-heavy. I had no intention of posting all of my reindeer stuff so close together but it just kinda worked out that way. More variety is in store in the future, I promise! I do really like this piece though, the deer are very cute. And the whole entire thing got very long and thin, so I posted both halves enlarged so you can get a better view of the reindeer. Hope you like it! Be sure to check back tomorrow!

Reindeer

Hello all and welcome to Day 5 of Holly Jolly Holiday! Nothing too exciting, just a reindeer doodle lovingly given a quick color in Photoshop. :) Gotta give the other non-red-nosed reindeer some love too.

Elfy McElferson

Little elf for today's Holly Jolly Holiday doodle! Done in Illustrator, loosly inspired by the costumes in 'Elf'. I tried for a more Hallmark/American Greetings type of more stylized feel with this which I don't do all that that often. But variety is the spice of life, as they say and new stuff is fun to do once in a while! I also gotta admit, elves are not my favorite part of the holiday season. Not quite sure why..I'm more a reindeer girl. But I hope you enjoy, and be sure to check back tomorrow for yet another installment!

Retro Deer

Decided to do a little retro-inspired deer for Day 3 of my Holly Jolly Holiday art-stravaganza! I love all the cheap plastic 60's deer chatchkys; they are amazing in their design and color choices, so I was trying to draw on that feel a little bit with this. With a little Mary Blair spin too. Can't do retro without a little Mary Blair inspiration thrown in for good measure.

Jinglin' All The Way

Happy 'Holly Jolly Holiday' Part Deaux! Two cute lil' bells today, and they're happy to see ya!

It's a Holly Jolly Holiday!

Happy December everyone! As a special holiday treat to countdown to Christmas I will posting something every day this month to help getcha in the holiday spirit! I don't know if any of you guys remember my 'Cute n' Creepy' thing for Halloween '09, but this is going to be just like that; just with less witches and werewolves and more reindeer and snowflakes.

'Holly Jolly Holiday' starts off just right this year with a batch of gingerbread cookies. Nothing says Christmas like a batch of these guys and the best part is decorating them! Enjoy, and be sure to check back every day for a new holiday goodie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving today! Here are some doodles I did to celebrate today.

And for all of your vegetarians out there, a Tofurky. Which are delicious, btw. I had my first Tofurky roast this year, and it is highly recommended for all of you want a less meaty Turkey Day. :)

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

Just a little Illustrator doodle of cute happy ice cream cones!

"When 900 years you reach, look as cute, you will not."

So lately when I'm home I've been doodling a little bit in Photoshop right after I wake up before I start working just to get the creative juices flowing . I never ever get anything good out of these sketches; they're mostly to get the crap out before I start on the actual work, and Photoshop helps because I don't waste paper on stuff that's just a jump start on the better stuff. But the other day some Star Wars music came on the ol' iTunes, and I decided to doodle some more Star Wars stuff. And these actually turned out pretty OK, so I kept going and filled a page up. They're still pretty rough, but I thought I would share anyway. :) I really like my take on Yoda. I might have to do a cleaned up version of him in this style at some point in the future. He kinda reminds me of Genndy Tartakovsky's version from the original Clone Wars cartoons, but less angular and more cuddly. "Snuggle me you should, yes. In need of hugs am I."

I also like my kinda wasp-ish, wino Jabba at the top there. That's what he would look like if Truman Capote voiced him I guess.

DAK Day: Slow Tortoise, Fast Gestures

I took a little break from work today and went to Animal Kingdom to do a little sketching. Not too much came out of it, but I did do a pretty decent sketch of a tortoise.

I also did some gestures at the Festival of the Lion King show. For those of you who don't know, gestures are very quick sketches done right on the spot. They normally range from a few seconds to 15 or 20 minutes, and should capture movement and not be too detailed. They were my favorite things in figure class in college; I'm a very sketchy drawer naturally so they're a lot of fun to do; and the quicker the better. I loved doing gestures while watching movies or shows, and dynamic action poses were the most fun. Cirque du Soleil marathons on Bravo were the best. I haven't done any since I graduated, so I was a little out of practice, but given that and the fact I did these in a dark theatre, I thought these turned out pretty good. If you haven't seen the Festival of the Lion King show, I highly recommend it. It's like a short Cirque du Soleil themed to the Lion King with awesome costumes. And the Tumble Monkeys are amazing. I wish I could have done more with them but they were so fast and did so many flips it was hard to keep up!

Wuv, Twu Wuv Is What Bwings Us Together!

One of my best friends from college got married recently and I decided that making them a pair of custom Vinylmations would be a really unique and cute wedding present. At least I really hoped it would be. I liked how they turned out, so I was sure to document them before I gave them to the happy couple. And these I share with you!

The groom, complete with sculpted top hat, real bow tie, glossy shoes and little gem button and cufflinks.

The bride, with a real dress with glittery top, tulle veil, a tiara made from a prefectly sized necklace charm and bow complete with gemstone.

The happy couple in Disney's Wedding pavillion, complete with Cinderella Castle in the background.


Just some romantic atmosphere pictures around the Wedding Pavillion. It was a beautiful place, my ideal wedding atmosphere. ;) I did a lot of girly giggling and wistful sighing while I was there.

And of course, no wedding is complete without some pictures at the Grand Floridian Resort, the absolute image of luxury and romance.

The actual wedding was a dream, I had so much fun and I could tell the bride and groom did too.

Dinosaurs!

My little nephew mailed my boyfriend and I a little picture the other day so we decided to return the favor and send him some back. Here's my contribution. Who doesn't love dinosaurs?

Foxxy Fox

Nothing special, just a little cute fox doodle I did while I was watching a movie. Nice rough pencil sketch, nothing Photoshopped about it, just pure pencil on paper. :)

Cute By Way Of Hoth

Well it has been a while, hasn't it? How is everybody doing? Good I hope.

So this weekend was Star Wars Celebration V here in good ol' sunny Orlando, and I had the good fortune of being able to go. Now of course, my brain is in 'Star Wars' mode so I decided to do some good old fashioned fan art with a cute spin; something which the Star Wars fan base is pretty lacking, I noticed browsing through the merch floor. I can fix that. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a cute, friendly Wampa (he must have just caught himself a Rebel snack to be in such a good mood), and my favorite creature in all of the Star Wars universe, the Tauntaun. He's just too cute to be sliced up and used for sheets, if you ask my opinion.

Both of these were done in Illustrator, in, oh, about two hours if you take Netflix distractions into account. I've been wanting to do some cute Star Wars fan art for a while so I'm glad I finally got around to doing it.

Molly the Owl

I have been swept up in the Molly the Owl craze! For those of you unfamiliar, check the website here: http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox Molly is an owl expecting her eggs to check any day now! A live webcam was set up and people watch her as she does cute owl stuff and takes care of her little owlets-to-be. My friend Lisa sent me the link this morning and I was watching it the background as I worked. What a nice way to let the workday breeze past. Thanks Lisa! Owls are very cute when they sleep btw.

So I turned it on just now to see if any hatching had taken place and I decided to a super quick Photoshop sketch. And by super quick I mean under 5 minutes. I never work this way but I like it, so hopefully I can do more the future. It hones my storyboarding skills, which have seen better days unfortunately.