A Rush Of Color To The Head

Been a while. 

I really love how these came out, it's a strange mix of inspiration.

Started these in an ER visit(no worries I'm alright!) In hopes of entertaining onlooking children in the waiting room. When I went home I had the insane urge to watch Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, then afterwards I treated myself to Coldplay for the remainder of last night and today. It's this bizarre combo that kept me driven to draw more of these.

It's a bit of a minimalism challenge. I simply drew only bits and pieces of a face and filled the rest with shapes and zany colors. It's a fantastic practice for one to think outside of the box. I plan to do more, too. 

Enjoy.

Paradise Found

I had such a beautiful dream the other night that really moved me. About a friend.

I never thought you would visit me in my dreams in a million years, it really took me by surprise.
You walked out of you old truck with my friend, it was a bright hot afternoon. I didn't see my girlfriend's face, she passed me by and walked to the front porch of my house.
And there you were, you wore a white cuffed shirt and some black jeans. Something I could never imagine you wearing. You seem so happy, so peaceful. You aged it seemed, you brown hair faded to a salt and pepper gray.
And you looked at me with those big piercing blue eyes. They glowed in the dream, like they were lit up by the sky. You stared me right in the eyes and gave me one of those mischievous smirks. You told me "Hey, kiddo, you take care of my girl now," and you winked at me, then turned and walked to your car. It faded to white as I slowly woke up by the sun hitting my eyes.

Bill was born December 19, 1957 and passed away from natural causes February 11, 2012. 


I promise I always will, Bill. I'll always make sure she is doing fine, doing healthy, and is thriving. That she never settles for less than what she deserves and is happy. That she continues to be the beautiful person she is and always continues her life as the talented artist she is.

I feel like, I really didn't trust you when you were alive. I was apprehensive of you, really.
If he has the ability to read this or hear it in my heart, I am sorry. I'm sorry  it took me so long to thank you like this, as well. I know you really enjoyed my art, as I did yours. Here's a little something more.

I wish I could have gotten to know you more. I appreciate everything you did for her, you graced her with such kindness and love and respect. You were such a great friend. With an understanding honest heart, and very funny as well. She really needed something to believe in and it was you, and it will always be you. I know you'll always look after her. And I know you want her to be happy, for her to keep moving.
The last time we saw each other, you dropped her off at my house. You walked up to me, held up my face with a gentle hand and kissed me on the forehead thanking me for being a doll. 

No, thank you. If only I could do the same now. 
Thanks, Bill. 

Love, Izzy.

More hoooomuns.

Some "familiar faces" ;]

The one where he's singing into the mic gets people every single time.

I just love playing around with different shapes and sizes. I should do a sheet for different female body types now.

Anatomy Drawings

EDIT-Darkened them. They came out like, wayyy too light on my scanner.

These were much more fun than expected. I really love drawing all the curves on a body, the muscle groups.

The guy on the top left seems to be a little scrunched at the chest, not as well pronounced as I'd like.

 Gotta work on that!

Overall happy with these. Still feel the need to tweak some anatomical problems a bit that I didn't see till it was scanned an on-screen, maybe add some depth  by shading these guys. Or keep as is and always try for even better next time!

I need to draw some chunky boys and some curvy women :] Yep yep yep.

Too many Izzies for this world

They are gonna be stinking up the place with farts. 

Class demonstration for character design. 

Facial expressions are so fun to do. It's like the rich cream cheese frosting off the red velvet cake of....designing stuff.

By no means is this a formula or something to go by for Iz's MANY emotions. I do these to challenge myself. If the emotion reads well you can usually tell what the character is feeling.

The center expression and the hairstyle Izzy sports(in all) is a homage to my favorite drummer, Tre Cool. It's always been that way. Sure it's changed 'er hairstyle a little here and there but it will always be inspired by that one person.

Baby.

I was given help to restyle the 'do by a girlfriend of mine(seriously she has a blog and she'll be posting soon check her out, she's amazing). Really helped me with the hairline, I love those two lil tufts in the back. See I was unsure whether to have Izzy's hair with different and varied amounts of strands of hair every time. I don't want too much inconsistency. Maybe more detailed works like a full scene or painting or close up, you'd see more chunks of hair. Eh, still working on it. I like it for now though.

There's some OBVIOUS major inconsistencies I'm gonna have to change but for now, it looks alright. Art doesn't have to be perfect. I'm tired of tweaking it at the moment. I'll pick it up and fix it with a new perspective in the near future.

Dream on, little panda.

By the way, it's a girl if you don't know that already. But honestly she can pass off as a boy too if she wanted to and I really like that.
I'm not really sure if I want Izzy to be androgynous. Part of me thinks it's a beautiful concept. Part of me is still unsure about making her that way though.
We'll just have to see.

C'mon.

If I should die tonight 
May I first just say I’m sorry 
For I, never felt like anybody 
I am a man of many hats although,  I never mastered anything 
When I am ten feet tall  I’ve never felt much smaller, since the fall 
Nobody seems to know my name 
So don’t leave me to sleep all alone 
May we stay lost on our way home?
C’mon, c’mon, with everything falling down around me I’d like to believe in all the possibilities ♥ 

Old art.
But I love it, regardless of its flaws.

Where Soul Meets Body

I love working on warmer tones. It's so refreshing  from just drawing on plain white. Gives it a more earthy feel.

Drawn on the cardboard backing of a used pack of Bristol paper.

Inspired by this song.

The Wierdos

So I thought maybe I should post my best from this art account on a website elsewhere I don't really update anymore. Y'know, to keep some sort of flow going with this blog. Just some small tidbits of my colored work.
These are more older drawings I thought I should share. I added my new signature to both, but got the years right. Both were made earlier last year when I started getting my artsy spunk back.

Alien sloth...thingies.

It's fun to go out of your comfort zone, I must say. 

I like drawing random shapes and using it as a body type when it comes to monsters.  That bigger one turned out really gourd-like. 

I think I didn't center this one enough, the background looks a bit crowded on the right side. Oh well, better luck next time. The seahorse came out kind of cool anyways. 

Dancing Shadows

More artsies for you!

Okay so these guys were a real-time class demonstration led by yours truly. These are all actually older class demonstrations for my fifth grade class of last year. Done in April or may of '11.
So not TOO old.

Don't mistake him for a bad guy. 

He really likes other bunnies.

A student told me that looked a little like the designs from The Princess and The Frog, Dr. Facilier's shadow minions. That's actually what I was going for as a far as a good example, the shadow characters designed for that film are a beautiful example of good silhouettes. I told my students to think in that sense while designing their shadow character. See how many parts of the body really stand out, whether it be fur, clothing, body type, hair, etc.

It was a lesson on how crucial it is for a character to have a good silhouette. If it reads well as a blacked out image then you've done a good job. 

Far too many artists and cartoons today lack that. To be honest I even lack it sometimes as well.
It was also a partial lesson on negative composition and how filling in dark spaces can either benefit your drawings in some cases or smother it with too much.
This was a very fun experiment and the kids loved it as well. That lesson actually had some of the best quality of work I've seen EVER for 10 year olds.

More madness for the class. 

I should do more of these. They challenge me to really work limited, and sometimes more is less.

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

AH! Hello again.

Well I've decided instead of leaving this place hanging I might as well start loading it up with older(but still pretty good) art until I've got new stuff that is alright for public eyes.

So I drew these babies back in....late 2010? It was the only drawings I could do for quite a while, I was in a dark state of mind(which is behind me now). Honestly it's rare when I draw like this, I'm known for adorkable monsters, dragons, pandas, happy butterflies and puppy farts with unicorn rainbow glitter. 

I guess when it rains it pours and it showed. 

I love drawing mythological creatures from various cultures around the world, regardless. Just depends on my mind frame whether they come out nice or not.

Crazy this was just a ballpoint pen sketch at one point. Probably took a few hours to finish entirely(with breaks)

 

I swear that bottom guy isn't giving you the birdie.

 Okay he looks more confused than anything

Yeah I dig Bowie if you couldn't tell from the title.

More to come!

Well, here it goes.

My first post here!
My "stage name" is Izzy Zee. Sometimes I go under Liz or L. 
I am a character designer and an art teacher!
I started drawing at age 3, inspired by Don Bluth films, older Disney films, and musicals. I was an oddball.
I made my first characters around 4, about some weird looking thing named smiley and his girlfriend who went on neighborhood adventures. I'd narrate the story as my mom wrote it down next to the illustrations, stapling pages of printer paper together. I would pretend I was a lion in most cases and I wanted a tail.  I'd make up imaginary friends and draw them on the sidewalks growing up in a quiet studio city neighborhood.
I decided at 8 I wanted to draw cartoons for a living and at 13 I realized character design and visual development was my niche. Character design and animation is my life, I couldn't imagine my life without it.
I've always been a hard worker, a bit of an over-achiever. I'd charge into things that most would be afraid of doing, I felt as if my age never mattered and I still hold that theory to this day.
Later in life I was the youngest to attend a college class in animation at age 14. Most of my peers didn't take me seriously, in fact some of them went out of their way to show they didn't like me with dirty looks and ignoring me when I had a say in a project. Ironically I left the class with full credit, an A, and a recommendation letter for a university or work.
I went to an art school in LA for a while. I learned a good amount of skill there for 2 years, taught there, upgraded to every class, and got caught in a whirlwind for a while.
I have now been teaching for 3 years to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Currently I am working on various projects for various people, including illustration, character design, private instruction, etc.  I plan to post those projects as time goes on.
I also do volunteer work for my local community, working with small children in arts and crafts. So yeah, I'm around little ones a lot.
I am majoring in Animation and Visual Effects!
My artistic influences are Don Bluth, Chris Sanders, Glen Keane, Jim Smith, Jin Kim, Chuck Jones, John Nevarez, the list goes on and on.
Outside of animation I am fascinated with theatre. I love making people happy and I am always on to entertain others. Improv theatre is amazing. I am a  huge Green Day fan, something you will come to know as I post tidbits of me. I love 60s and 70s pop culture, cooking, and psychology.  I also really love anything Charlie Chaplin.

I hope to post the journey of my life as an artist, maybe getting to know you all a bit better! I still have much to learn, as any artist. But what knowledge I do know, I'll gladly share.
See that panda up there? Her name is Izzy too! And she likes hugging people, just watch out because she is kind of stinky and gassy. But she means well.