Totoro

not the greatest illustration in the world; but I think it gets the
'ah cute' reaction- which is what baby shower invitations really need.

I haven't done any work in my sketchbook today- largely because I spent the first half of today fighting with my computer and silhouette cutter trying to print out a design for a baby shower I'm helping plan.
To back up a little; I had this cute little design ready to go and no way to print it or color it.  I don't have photoshop right now and I have no idea how to use Corel Paint Shop for anything beyond VERY basic edits; so I gave up on painting it digitally.  I decided instead it would look really cute as a paper craft design.  So I spent most of the week last week looking for my power adapter- I didn't find it until Saturday evening and that was of course AFTER I'd ordered a new one.  In any case I needed the invitations done by Monday morning.  So I went from deciding I was going to have to go a different direction to thinking I could do the paper crafting style.  SO sunday I found the rest of my stuff that goes with my Silhouette machine... and attempted to start cutting paper and assembling the invitation.  (thinking to do one and then scan it in and print flat copies of it)  This attempt ended up being an epic fight between me and the machine.  I just couldn't get the settings right; and the farther I went with the attempt the worse it looked!!  My machine was shredding the edges; so I have one of two problems either my blade is gong dull or I just kept getting the settings wrong.

you can see all the jagged edges I was getting; I kept going over
things with an exacto knife to smooth it out.  It didn't help as much
as I would've liked

Clearly I stopped trying after awhile.  I still like the idea of doing the baby shower invitation this way- but until I have more time to play with my machine- I decided to move on.

This was the point where I was like 'why don't I just draw it out and paint it' something I had thought of doing earlier but I had hesitated in committing to this avenue.  Why?
1> I frankly have no confidence in my work
2> I think it is tacky when sub par artists use their work for things as if they are professional
3> I thought it would take more time than the other things.
Well... tacky or not I drew it out this evening after all the rest of the fighting with my computer (it is the image at the top of this post).  I really am glad I made the decision to paint it- there were a lot of things that were wrong with the original vector drawings- chief among them being that I have little skill in drawing anything on the computer.  Drawing it out by hand I was able to shape the lines better- and am enjoying the picture more.  It's not really an original drawing by any sense- it is drawn from a screenshot of the movie itself; just simplified a bit.  I don't think I can claim this as anything but really cutesy fan art.  BUT I like the way it is going- I hope my friend does as well... we'll see I suppose.  I'm going to spend the rest of the night painting it- hopefully it comes out well.

Lots of words- but I felt like typing.

~Alicia