Annotated Art Gallery

A digital drawing of Mark and Lazaro standing next to each other wearing just boxer briefs. The coloring is flat aside from subtle changes in skin tone for both. The colors are rich and warm, with the black of the line art and Lazaro's hair depicted as a dark dull burgandy. Both are casually standing, Lazaro with a hand on his hip and Mark with a hand absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck. Lazaro is taller with tan skin and short black hair. He's thin but not lean, a little soft around the middle and sturdy thigh-ed. He has a somewhat angular face, deep eyebags, angled eyebrows, and an overbite. He has moderate body hair. Mark is short with light but ruddy skin and short golden brown hair. He's fat, but neither pear shaped nor apple shaped. He has round rosy face with a big nose and thick eyebrows. He has curly body hair all over. Lazaro has subtle top surgery scars under his nipples while Mark has stretch marks and picking scars.

This drawing was made as a base for a dress up game for Mark and Lazaro, hence their rather neutral poses. It turned out being a very good reference for both characters, very accurate to how I imagine their bodies.

Mark and Lazaro depicted as small pixel sprites, both less than 80 pixels tall. Mark is standing shyly, with one hand holding his arm and looking towards the floor. He has a sweater and jeans on. Lazaro is standing more confidently, with one hand on his hip as he looks forward. He's wearing an ivory sleeveless button up, black pants, and shoes with small heels.

Not my favorite pixel art, but generally representative of my characters at glance. Saturated and contrasted the colors a bit too much after the fact. I find it a fun challenege to try and represnt my characters in as little pixels as possible while still being recognizable as themselves.

A 3D computer model of a lavalamp. The wax blobs are opaque gold yellow, the base shiny silver, and the liquid purple which captures the reflection of the wax as pink.

This was made using a browser 3D art program Womp. Its an interesting program that lets you stretch predefined shapes and set materials for them, which lended itself well to a lava lamp. My first experience with digital 3D art!

Acrylic portrait of my friend Ren! The painting is relatively smooth and softly rendered, but with blockier sections of color from painbrush strokes, including Ren's hair and their dress. Their dress is a pink floral, and they are also wearing a dandilion flower crown and a rainbow beaded necklace with a large heart bead in the middle. Their hair is vibrant warm pink and the background is a rainbow sky gradient, with sparkling blue at the top and pink at the bottom. Purple flower sprigs are in the foreground, complimenting Ren's flower crown and completing the rainbow. Ren is grinning and rays of light in the sky radiate behind them.

My second more creative painting, a tribute to one of my best friends Ren. I started with a picture of them and added things I felt they would like or represent them. Pink hair and overall color because pink is one of their favorite colors and they had pink hair at one point. A rainbow bead necklace with a heart because they like both hearts and rainbows, as well as childhood momentos akin to the colorful plastic beads. The dandilion flower crown because dandilions represent both childhood joy and unappreciated beauty typically looked down upon by as weeds. The sparkle in the sky was for fun, something "tacky" that art snobs would not appreciate, but Ren would.

This painting also has embriodery emphasizing the petals of the dandilions, and a border of lace and rainbow beads, but they were added after this photo. The lace and plastic bead border instead of a frame was also a symbol of prioritising expression over "respectable" conventions. In a way the appreciation Ren has for "low brow" art is like the web revival's appreciation for fun personal sites compared to bland corporate sites. You to can have fun making art even if its not the "right" or professional way!

While making this I think people expected me to give this to Ren as a gift, but I honestly made it for myself as a reminder of Ren, and an appreciation for my friends as a whole. I love my friends so much and it feels like the culture we live in prioritises romantic relationships above all, insisting that if you are too close to your friends you must secretly wish to be with them, as if you can't love your friends deeply. I wish friendships were valued more. I'm glad to have Ren, a wonderful person and friend.

An acrylic painting of myself laying on the ground with moss growing on me. My eyes are closed giving myself an overall peaceful expression. My dark brown hair sprawls out behind me, blending into the ground covered in wild strawberry plants. Moss is spreading in chunks in the crooks of my face and neck. A few puffs are embelished with embroidery to emphasize mossy texture. Glued along the edge of the canvas is various forms of dried moss and thread or yarn made to look like puffs of moss or tendrils of hanging moss. My face is most rendered in a rich buttery quality like in my oil paintings, leaving my shoulders and background flatter.

This is my first large painted portrait where I was not entirely copying a single picture. Instead I used a few references and combined them, one for my face (I laid down on dark carpet for it), a few for the wild strawberry patches taken from my parents yard, and some various moss pictures either from home or online. The dark background definately made it easier to make a composite like this.

My painting process had changed from my oil paintings to my acrylic paintings due to the painting class in college I took. In my oil paintings I did a pencil sketch first and highly rendered from the get go, working on chunks at a time (ex. hair, skin, background). With my acrylic paintings I sketch from paint, blocking out rough shapes and gradually refining them to correct proportions before fully rendering. Although many places such as my face were fully rendered with opaque paint, some areas were not important enough to warrant that level of attention, so they were left flatter from my rough blocks of thinner paint. It is definately hard to do this method with oil paint though, since it stays wet and the lower colors will be picked up by the new layers.

I've loved moss long before the cottagecore trend, a would sometimes like to escape the fast paced modern life that is so far abstracted from what humans began with, hence this painting. The moss represents nature reclaiming me.

A well rendered pixel art portrait of my character Lazaro saying, "I enjoy homo sex" in pixel letters. Shading and highlights define his face and neck structure. The pixel painting is detailed, but visably uses a limited color palette, resulting in blocks of color rather than smooth shifts. His hair has a stringy texture given by single pixel wide lines rather than chunks. His detailed portrait contrasts with the blocky letters in his speech bubble, despite both being made of the same size pixels.

I usually don't make very detailed or large pixel art, but I really like how this one turned out! Especially his eyes since I usually draw them simple, but he definately would have big dark brown eyes like that. I like how his dark eyelashes and the shine on his eyes turned out in particular. I'm less happy with his hair, I think I used too many thin lines, and should have left it more blocky, with just a few thin lines to suggest texture.

Digital painting of a black and white cat looking down at the viewer with wide eyes. The illuminated yellow background frames its imposing stance, glowing from behind it like a halo. The painting is smooth and vibrantly colored, lacking textured detail.

This painting is a study of a cat picture that was popular on Twitter, where many other artists illustrated the same scene. The intense light and colors drew me in as it likely did for other artists. I don't even have twitter, I just happened to be on at the right time to see the cat picture. Done on my phone with medibang paint.

Charcoal drawing of a man sitting in a classroom. Hes in a lower corner of the drawing, forming a frame with the dark background elements and fabric covered table in the other corner. In the middle is a blank white wall which has been worked over multiple times despite its simplicity. The fabric on the table has been loosely rendered, showing clear eraser marks as highlights. The man is comprised of a variety of mid range tones, contrasting with the white background and black edges. The depth and shape of his features are well rendered but still soft, with ocassional dark strokes showing the texture of the paper.

This one was done in class. Although I prefer to focus on human subjects, our professor encouraged us to put as much focus into background elements so I decided to put him in the corner. The anatomy of his shoulders is a little distorted.

This figure drawing class was interesting because it was in the first semester we went back to in person classes during covid, so often times the models were entirely naked aside from a mask.

Charcoal study of a classmate sitting in their art studio. A black locker stands in the foreground, taking up half the drawing. Light shines from the background onto the back of my classmate. The charcoal work is soft and sketchy, ranging from bright white light to near black shadows. Some areas are blended smooth, other areas leave the texture of the paper to show through.

Did a figure drawing class in college (not an art major, but decided to take the opportunity to take art classes) and this is one of my favorite charcoal drawings we did. At first we did line drawings with charcoal capturing outlines and negative space, but we eventually incorperated lighting/shadows. An interesting method introduced to us was covering the paper in charcoal beforehand, so we would have a medium tone base to work on, using an eraser to add light. I enjoyed this method a lot, as it allowed me to approach charcoal drawing like painting, using blocks of color to carve out shape, rather than using lines.

This was done from life of a classmate in a college studio space. I liked how the light from the windows came through so I asked if I could draw them. (Cool thing about art students is that its not weird to draw them)

A pen sketch of Mark and Lazaro naked. Lazaro is leaned over so his nose is touching Mark's face, his eyes gently closed and his mouth slightly parted. He has his arms wrapped around Mark. His hair is hanging over his face, slightly disheveled. Mark is looking over his shoulder at Lazaro, one of his arms reaching up behind himself to cup the back of Lazaro's head. His other arm holds onto one of Lazaros wrists.

One of my favorite pen sketches of Mark and Lazaro. I like their anatomy and how tender it turned out. Their arms on the left side of the page are a little funky but I'm ok with it.

Lazaro climbing onto Mark, kissing his neck as Marks cluches onto the back of Lazaro's own neck. Both are naked. Lazaro seems intent on being sensual, but Mark is laughing. A bright warm illustration of my characters with thin line art. Subtle shading mainly depicting shifts in their skin tone.

Probably one of the most suggestive pieces in my gallery. The idea here is that Lazaro is kissing Marks neck, though Mark's neck is very ticklish so he's laughing. His fingernails look like that because he's a werewolf in this setting (claws).

Lazaro tenderly holding Mark's face as he shaves it. Mark is gently holding onto Lazaro's waist. A digital illustration of my characters with line art and soft warm colors/shading. A distant light shines off of Marks wet skin.">

I like to draw my characters Mark and Lazaro in tender domestic scenes. I think I imagined Mark freshly out of the shower for this one, hence why hes shiny. I think Mark has gender dysphoria about having facial hair so hes usually clean shaven. He doesn't recognize it as dysphoria though (repressed nonbinary).

Made in medibang paint on my phone (before mobile medibang became infested with ads).

Starry night sky behind fluffy clouds with a sun surounded by a rainbow halo rising behind it. A full moon is high in the sky above the clouds. A digital painting with a soft dreamy rendering, especially of the clouds.

This was intended to be a draft design for a denim jacket painting, but I went a little overboard with it! This was done on my phone with medibang paint. The light coming from the sun was probably most challenging, especially considering its infront of a dark sky which does not lend itself well to reference photos.

I did do the jacket design, and maybe I'll take pictures of it. Its heavily customized but I never wear it ^^; All of the customizations were intended to make me want to wear it, but they couldn't overpower its feminine cut (especially the boob space). Nowdays testosterone has made my upper body too bulky fit it comfortably anyways.

Marker drawing of a witch mermaid sitting on a lilypad in a pond. She is old with a toad like face and wet toad patterned skin. She's fat with sagging breasts. She has a tadpole like tail dipped into the water, and black transparent toadpole like appendages flow from under her witch hat like hair. She and the pond are serene.

Another one of the mermay marker drawings! This one was primarily inspired by tadpoles, hence her hair and tail. By proxy inspiration came from frogs, ponds and witches ^^ I rememeber the water was challenging.

Marker illustration of an alien floating in space infront of a colorful starry galaxy. Shes looking to the side and speaking an alien language. She's fat and wearing an assortment of gold jewlery all around her body, including a oendant on her forhead implying royalty. She has a fuzzy upper body with a fluffy moth-esq chest. She has big bug eyes and moth antennae. She has a smooth lower body tail with thin fluttery fins.

2019 or sometime I decided to do mermay where I would draw a mermaid according to a few prompts each day (spoiler: I only did five days). This was one of the mermaids I drew with marker. I rarely do more creative character designs like this (tending to default to humans) so it was cool to experiement. Definately easier on my markers when I'm not constantly using the skin colors.

Acrylic portrait of my character Mark. He's softly smiling with full rosy lips and matching ruddy cheeks. Amber light is captured in his brown eyes. His hair is soft and fluffy. The background is a vauge impression of flowering bushes, but is not well rendered. Two small ribbon flowers are glued in the corners, and soft lace borders the canvas.

My first sucessful painting of an OC! Also one of my first "creative" paintings, where I wasn't just coping a photo. I remember looking at a reference of a woman with rosy cheeks and managing to translate her skin and shadows onto my OCs shapes. This was done with acrylic paint on a 3in by 3in canvas.

I should have used a reference for the background, and I should have done it before the portrait but I did not plan it out. His neck also looks weird, I would probably set it back further if that makes sense.

I felt embelishing the cavas border with thread and lace as well as attatching the ribbon flowers tied it all together.

Oil painting of Freddie singing into a mic. He has long black hair and a low cut shirt displaying his chest hair. His face is the most rendered while his chest and background are softer, giving a dreamlike quality. His hair and the shadows on his face are stark and blueish, given depth by the dark oil paint.

Another oil painting portrait study. I remember carrying this one around campus inside of two cereal boxes taped together to protect it from the rain and dirt. I do enjoy the depth and vivid colors of oil paint even if I hardly use it anymore. It is difficult though to paint over colors since oil paint stays wet for so long, especially if you want to put white or a color mixed with mostly white over a darker color. You may be able to see a ridge of paint on Freddie's nose, where I had to make the light paint very thick in order to actually cover the color underneith.

Oil Painting of Data, a humanoid android, from Star Trek the Next Generation. He has shimmery pale skin and light green eyes. He is looking into the distance with a curious expression. The painting style is fairly realistic, but not down to fine details, having a smooth buttery quality. The dark colors are deep and vibrant.

I made a few oil painting portraits in 2018, this being one of them. I long thought I did not like painting. It turns out I just don't like painting clean lines. My senior year of highschool my art teacher introduced us to oil paint and it was then I realized I actually do enjoy painting! I spent all my free periods, including leaving lunch early, to work on my paintings. Thankfully the way I learned to work with paint transfered over to acrylic painting when I took a painting class in college. Now days I primarily do acrylic because it dries much faster, so I don't have to find a safe place for my paintings to sit while they dry.

This painting is an oil painting before I started working with acrylics. Its not very creative, just a study of a frame from Star Trek, but I greatly enjoy the challenge of color matching and painting skin.