Kelly Miller Sketchbook

Temporary Files

2012-02-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

These are temporary files for a personal project that I uploaded for some critiques! They will most likely be taken down after the critique. The page on the very right with only text is just a separate text area just in case you can't read the story in the actual pages. The block on the far right isn't actually a page for the story.

Graphic Animal Drawings!

2012-02-04T21:38:00.000-08:00

Lots of posts in the past few days! Recently, I decided to experiment with a more graphic style. If you want to see any larger, just click! I found that animals were easier to experiment with than people since their shapes are a bit more obvious. I hope I'm on the right path for the look I want. Next stop is experimenting with people!

Gilah Press Print!

2012-02-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

It's unintentional double blog post day! Today I received this special delivery in the mail and felt it was necessary to post about it:

What is it, you ask? Well none other than the first print of the 50 hand made letter press prints that Gilah Press did of my illustration!

My illustration was chosen about 2 years ago to be a part of Gilah Press's personal promotional project called Ready, Set, Fly! The project was put on hold a while back, but about a few months ago they began right back up with it. I was chosen along with 6 other winners to be printed in their promotional project. I received 5 prints in the mail with 1 being the one you see here and the other 4 being prints the other artists created for the project. They all look wonderful! It was an amazing surprise!

Charitable Events and Hourly Comic Day!

2012-02-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on some experiments to expand my style. My plan is to be able to post them next week. Until then, I can announce that my Severus Snape and Lily Evans Harry Potter drawing will be used for a charity event at Edinburgh University in March. For those of you who may have forgotten, I drew it back when the last Harry Potter movie came out.

I also was asked to create a sequel for another shirt for the event. This one containing a young James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to fit with the other piece. Both shirts will be available at the event!

The event is called Hogsmeade Weekend Charity Fundraiser in honor to all the good J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter has done. It will have the village of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley and all the money made will go charities and raising money for disaster aid, literacy programmes, Fair Trade campaigns and much more. I also want to thank Jessi Eichberger for suggesting my work for their charity event. The event takes place on March 11th, so if you will be in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, Scotland, you should go donate and pick up one of my shirts!

Also, this past Wednesday (February 1st) was Hourly Comic Day, where for every hour, you draw a panel or two of what went on through that hour. It's sort of like a day in the life of the person. Many students and my fellow colleagues participated in this day and updated frequently on twitter their current hour drawings. It was quite a fun event! Here's my Hourly Comic:

The Big SCBWI Blog Post!

2012-01-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

The past weekend, I attended the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators (aka SCBWI) Winter Conference 2012 in New York City for the first time with fellow friends and Illustrators Hope Myers and Qing Zhuang. It was a full weekend jammed packed with exciting information on the progression of everything Children's books and Young Adult Books.

From left to right: Qing Zhuang, Hope Myers, Me, Qing Zhuang again

Friday, I attended the portfolio drop off around noon. It was set up so art directors, publishers and many other people could come in and take postcards of your work and look at your portfolio. The Illustrators weren't allowed in till 9pm to look at everyones portfolio and pick up their own so we had the whole afternoon free to browse the city. We visited the Society of Illustrators to see the recent show from the annual competition and met up with my friend, former roommate, and graphic designer, Katrina Kelly for dinner. We had dinner at a small delicious crepe place around Pratt, where we met up with Hope's sister and a friend.

Katrina Kelly and Hope Myers

I also forgot to mention that Hope and my hotel room was super fancy and had the lowest toilet we have ever seen since preschool.

Photos from our room. You can see me in the bathroom mirror.

We were finally able to pick up our portfolios and turned out I had quite a good deal of postcards taken! Very exciting.

Lin Oliver

The rest of the weekend was filled with amazing keynote speakers such as Chris Crutcher, Cassandra Clare and Kathryn Erskine. Lin Oliver was our wonderful host. I attended very informative workshops about Picture Book Illustrators with Cathy Goldsmith, Fantasy novels with Arianne Lewin and the evolution of the Ebook with Ruben Pfeffer. We also had a surprise guest who was none other than............

Henry Winkler! For all of you younger than me who didn't grow up watching Nick at Nite, he is none other than Fonzi from Happy Days. He's come out with a series of young adult novels now with Lin Oliver called Hank Zipzer. It was quite the surprise!

We also had three amazing panels with wonderful people. The first panel was about today and tomorrow in children's books withe experts such as Jean Feiwel, Barbara Marcus, Nancy Paulsen, and Rubin Pfeffer. The second panel was moderated by Laurent Linn and was about the Illustration side of the Children's book Industry with illustrators such as Selina Alko, Sophie Blackall, Peter Brown, Brian Floca, David Gordon, Brett Helquist, Aileen Leijten, John Bemelmans Marciano, Sean Qualls, John Rocco, Sergio Ruzzier, and Dan Yaccarino. We also heard from a panel of Agents such as Regina Brooks, Ginger Knowlton, Chris Richman and Ken Wright. Other speakers included Jane Yolen and Stephen Mooser. Overall the experience was jam packed with information and I met a ton of illustrators, writers and other people in the industry. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Also want to give a quick shout out to all the wonderful illustrators I met at the conference! Hello to Holly Graham, Cathy Gendron, Yuko Katakawa, Yvette Piette Herrera, Moira Birch Swiatkowski, Leeza Hernandez, Jen Hill, Nina Edwards, Caroline Gray, Dan Moynihan, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Ben Rubin, Teresa Koester Mills, Erin Reilly, and Michelle Kransny!

My Latest Sketchbook Came to an End

2012-01-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

On January 25, 2012 I finished the last sketchbook that I was worked in and am starting on a new one today! I realized that I really haven't posted that much from this sketchbook at all so this post is dedicated to it. Most of the sketchbook is filled with doodles, drawings and notes, but recently I've been using it to experiment with color schemes and gouache. In my opinion, those were the more entertaining pages so I'm going to post some of those.

I always try to keep a sketchbook. I've had them since I was young and I always found it important to have something I can write down ideas in and do some artistic experiments. In the past, I was in the habit of not finishing sketchbooks and within the past few years, I decided this was going to happen no more! I now only start a new main sketchbook once I finish the one I was previously using.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Eighty Twenty

2012-01-19T14:36:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was commissioned by Fuji Foo to create a simple animatic style video for the company Eighty Twenty, based in Singapore. It's a bit different than what I usually do, but I had fun with it. The concept of eighty twenty is that twenty percent of main effort generates eighty percent of their business and the importance in focusing on that main twenty precent instead of getting caught up in the smaller conflicts.

Here are some of the illustrations from it:

Here's the final video:

Website Update!

2012-01-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

January's been busy so far and hopefully I can post some of the jobs soon. However, I can post about how I will be attending the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator conference in New York City for the first time at the end of January. Very exciting, yet very intimidating. For the occasion, I decided it was time to update the look of my website a bit. I added a new header and bio picture, as seen here. I hope to be able to add some new pieces soon.

To check out the updates, just click any of the links under the header to this blog or click here: MY WEBSITE!

Happy New Years!

2011-12-31T15:05:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years! I hope everyone has a wonderful 2012!

Red Panda

2011-12-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

I recently created a series to help promote knowledge on the endangered species, the Red Panda. All of these are painted in gouache. Sometime in the future, I may print a booklet with these illustrations and facts about the species.

This Illustration shows the distribution of the species in their natural habitat.

This is to show the natural eating habits of the Red Panda in it's natural environment.

Red Pandas have four cubs at a time during the months of May to July.

This illustration is about how the depletion of their environment is what is causing them to be endangered.

Internship with Hatch Creations, Ltd

2011-12-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

Back in the summer of 2010, I took an internship in London, England with Hatch Creations, Ltd. I had thought that I created a blog post dedicated to my internship around that time, but as I looked back, things got so busy that I never posted about it. It was a wonderful experience. I did edits to advertisements, photographed products, met with clients and was in charge of the social network pages for their clients. Here, I have posted some of the social networking advertisements that I created for Palmer's products.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

2011-12-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone's holidays are grand and wonderful this year!

Finishing The Treehouse Painting!

2011-12-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my gouache treehouse book for Art House Co-Op Sketchbook World Tour 2012! It's going to place such as New York City, Chicago, Portland (OR and ME), Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Greater Boston Area, Toronto, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Austin. It may be able to go to London, England and Melbourne, Australia, but those may turn out to be only for people from that country. We shall see! If anyones in those areas, check it out! I'm not sure how they catalog them but I know once they receive my sketchbook, it will be online on their website. I just sent it out last week. For more information, go to Art House's website here: ART HOUSE CO OP SKETCHBOOK WORLD TOUR 2012

Lucy and Mr. Tumnus

2011-12-13T08:14:00.001-08:00

I've been very busy with projects recently, but I was finally able to find time to create this piece for myself. This is a piece is inspired by C.S. Lewis' novel The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I've wanted to create this piece for a while. Some new techniques were used on this piece and I really like how the final product turned out. I may use some of these on the next digital pieces I create.

More Tree-houses!

2011-11-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

More Tree-houses for Art House Co-Op's Sketchbook World Tour 2012!

Ten Paces Van Gogh Blog Post!

2011-11-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

I recently did an Illustration for the blog Ten Paces and Draw based off of Van Gogh's painting Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin. To learn more about it, visit there blog here: TEN PACES AND DRAW!

Woman to Woman Howard Cover and Spot Illustrations!

2011-11-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

I recently was asked to create a cover and two spot illustration for the winter 2011 issue of Woman to Woman Howard magazine. The whole magazine was about how to lighten the load for the family woman. At one section of the magazine, they had interviews from different women in different types of marriages and from different cultures to figure out how each dealt with it all. After the interviews, they have a section where they highlight certain businesses in the Howard County area in Maryland that may help out in those times when everything just seems like too much. Above we have the cover image to the magazine and below we have the two spot Illustrations for Sandy Queen Stuff Seller and the Mobile Dog Groomer.

The magazine has an online viewing of the whole magazine. Here are some screen shots that have my work in them! After you look at these, if you are still interested in their magazine or this particular issue, click here: Woman to Woman Winter 2011 Issue

I was super excited about all of this. Even their Facebook page is using my cover image as their profile picture!

Children and Animal art.

2011-11-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

I had a good amount of recent work to update here but in my last post, I didn't want to bombard it all in one post so I separated them to two different posts. Above I have a children's illustration of the dinosaur, the Stegosaurus. Below I have two animal illustrations:

I was practicing a method with ink washes and ended up doing a portrait of my own dog. Shes older and only has one eye but still just as spunky as she was when she was younger. Also below I have a picture inspired by conjoined twin cats. One recently just turned 12 years old which has broken the record for longest living "two-faced" cat. I personally find these kinds of cats rather interesting since there is a decent amount of kittens who are born conjoined that have the type that makes them look like they have two faces.

Cat lady and two digital experiments!

2011-11-08T15:35:00.000-08:00

Above I have a drawing of a cat lady teaming up with her cats to trap the birds. This was more of a fun piece and daily drawing I did a while back. Also, the other day I did a super hero and super villain drawing for fun and to also practice a few digital drawing techniques.

Treehouse Sketchbook for Art House Co-Op part 2

2011-11-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a few more paintings for the tree house series for Art House Co-Op Sketchbook World Tour!

Some Recent Work!

2011-11-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Above I have my redesign of the cover to Wuthering Heights and below I have an Illustration of "Whats in my bag". Contents being a mint case, some pens, some pencils, a ton of coins, two glasses cases, an ipod, an ipod case, a mint, a bag of airline peanuts, a ticket stub, a Bath and Body Works gift certificate, a usb drive and that weird looking thing in the top right corner is my portable watercolor case.

Above I created an Illustration based off of my childhood. During the summers, I was usually in the pool. My friends and I came up with a game called the Blue Line Game, much like tag where the safe zones were the blue lines. Of course because we were much smaller then, it was much more trickier to jump to blue lines or be able to touch it at all times.

Below I have a piece inspired by the Harry Potter film, the Prisoner of Azkaban. This goes quite well after my childhood post since I grew up with the books as well.

Self Portrait and Imaginary Friend

2011-10-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

I recently did a new self portrait to enhance my portfolio and try out some new digital techniques. I also created a piece based off of the idea of Imaginary Friends, which can be seen below. I got a little more adventures with the techniques and textures than I usually do, which made it a lot more fun to work with. This may be a new step in my style. We shall see.

Here are some close up views so you can see some of the little details I added to the piece.

Ten Paces Blog Post!

2011-10-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

A piece I did for the Ten Paces Blog! For more info on it, check out the Ten Paces Blog:

http://ten-paces.blogspot.com/2011/10/boy-with-kaleidoscope-eyes.html

UPDATE: Treehouse Sketchbook for Art House Co-Op

2011-10-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

Here are some quick scans of the Treehouse painting series I'm doing for Art House's Co-Op. These are just a quick sneak peak at the project. More to come as well as some better scans.

Treehouse Sketchbook for Art House Co-Op

2011-09-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a little teaser for an upcoming project I'm working on. I am currently participating in Art House Co-Op's Sketchbook Project 2012 World Tour gallery show. It will eventually become part of the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library after touring around New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Vancouver, and many more cities. It hasn't been announced as to whose will go to the London, England and Melbourne, Australia locations but I am crossing my fingers for mine to be able to go there.

My sketchbook is going to be 32 pages of gouache paintings revolving around the subject of Treehouses. I'm super excited and just letting myself have fun with it. Here's the first spread from the sketchbook. As time goes on, I may post more!

Anyones free to participate so if you are interested click here for more info:

http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

Civil War Characters

2011-09-26T06:45:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my character designs. These four are inspired by the Civil War.

Rainbow Stone update!

2011-09-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the compositions and work I did from The Rainbow Stone which was written by T. Gardner Austin. There are in total about 14 or 15 and a cover involved in this project. Right now, we are working in steps and are creating the compositions as promotional material for the book and manuscript. I've really enjoyed working on this project. Here are some of my favorites!

Wuthering Heights Spot Illustrations

2011-08-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been creating colored spot Illustrations for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I've been having a lot of fun with this project. I don't normally work in such organic shapes nor break the edges of the border so just by that, this project has been different than the norm for me. They are all mixed media and I am going to to do an Illustration for most of the chapters. Here are the first finished five of the series.

Alan Rickman Portrait

2011-08-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't done portraits in a while so I decided now is the time! This time it's of Alan Rickman. Earlier in the summer, I went on an Alan Rickman movie marathon and watched most of the ones that are on Netflix as well as the ones we have at home. Quite fun!

Rainbow Stone

2011-08-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

For about five weeks I've been working with a local author T. Gardner Austin, Ph.D. with his manuscript for his children's book. Since the work on the manuscript is close to being finished and sent, I am finally able to post the work I've been doing for it! The story is called the Rainbow Stone and it is written by T. Gardner Austin, Ph.D. It's a delightful coming of age story about a boy going on an adventure through a magical forest to reach enlightenment. He finds himself surrounded by creatures that each teach him new lessons. Here are some of the character sketches I did for the story.

Let Me In

2011-08-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

This piece is part of my Classic Literature: Wuthering Heights project and another gouache painting. This one was more of a quick one. My interpretation of the part of the book where it vaguely states about Heathcliff going mad. It is never stated exactly what he sees or does during the times he disappeared. It only states that the staff notices a change in him.

Wuthering Heights

2011-08-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and loved it! I don't read many books where romance is a main part of the storyline but this one seems to have caught my attention. The fact that it is such a dark tale and all of the characters seem to have major faults in their characters has attracted me to this book. It's different than what I usually read. I've been looking for a book to do an on going personal project on and this one may be the one.

This painting was done entirely in gouache and is painted at a rather small scale for me. It's 4.75 inches by 11.5 inches. Here's a close up:

Joan of Arc

2011-08-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

In my free time, I've been working on a possible on going series based off of famous female figures in history. To start, this piece is based off of Joan of Arc. This isn't a portrait but more based off of the story of Joan of Arc. I had a lot of fun creating this piece. It is a combination of digital and traditional. I've been working on some other jobs recently, but I can not upload that work quite yet.

CMYK Mention

2011-07-30T20:12:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note but apparently I was mentioned in CMYK's blog post during May about upcoming artists looking for exposure. I had no idea about this until my family and I stumbled upon it! If you're interested, here's the link to the post but unfortunately it seems that none of the images of peoples work seem to view properly on the website:

http://www.cmykmag.com/blog/2011/05/all-emerging-artists-looking-for-more-exposure/

Best of Baltimore Illustrations

2011-07-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

If it's possible, everyone should grab an issue of Baltimore Magazine's Best of Baltimore August issue since 15 of my Illustrations are in it! It hits the shelves soon! I had a lot of fun working on this project with a limited color pallet. The images are mixed media with digital colors and traditional pencil texture. Congrats to everyone who won in the categories!

Here are the images within the pages of the magazine! I believe they came out very well.

Yale Character Design

2011-07-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

For fun, I decided to do some concept art on my favorite weird mythical creature, the Yale. I came across this creature when I was in London in a statue garden. It was by far one of the weirdest statues there with it's indented polkadots covering the statue and it's horns facing opposite directions. It wasn't until we read the sign next to it did we learn that the horns have the ability to move independently of each other in any direction it likes.

Love this creature. I may draw more of it later. It's just too much fun due to how weird it is.

Snape and Lily!

2011-07-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

To continue my Harry Potter redesigns, I created a Snape and Lily picture in the same style. I wanted to do one of Snape and a friend of mine also expressed interest in it so I decided to make it a Snape and Lily pic! It served as a good break in between projects.

I will soon upload what I have been working on!

Life Drawing!

2011-07-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

Jungle Book

2011-07-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

This is a redesign of the book cover to Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and is intended to be an addition to my online portfolio. The Illustration part of the book cover is done. It is mostly finished other than some tweaks on the way the type lays on the lefthand side. If anyone has any critiques for it, please let me know! I'm playing with the best way the type sits on the page as a paragraph.

Recently, I've been experimenting with hand made typography. I think it adds a little extra to the quality of the piece!

Rest of the Harry Potter trio

2011-07-11T12:43:00.001-07:00

I decided to finish off my Harry Potter trio redesign with the two boys! I went by the book descriptions rather than the actors in the movie for all of my redesigns. Since I gave Hermione a sassy hip bend, it makes her look even shorter than she normally would. Oops. These were fun to do though! If I have time, I may do more later for fun.

Hermione Granger

2011-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

I grew up with the Harry Potter books and always loved Hermione. This is a finished color version of something I drew in my sketchbook in honor of the new movie coming out!

Dragons!

2011-07-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

These are some quick dragon character sketches for my Concept art section of my portfolio. I will soon add them on my main website!

Frozen Yogurt

2011-07-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

I don't normally do food drawings so i decided that today will be different! Happy Forth of July to everyone by the way!

Pipe Pattern bag!

2011-07-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Threadless has a new competition involving patterns and for fun, I decided to enter it with my favorite so far of the patters I've created: The Pipe pattern! Everyone should vote on it if they get the chance!

Now unfortunately, I was so excited to enter it that I spelled "Piping" as "Pipping" so I do recognize that it is misspelled but unfortunately I cannot change it. It's currently driving me crazy.

To vote, click below:

Sketchbook faces

2011-06-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

These are only a few pages that I colored from my sketchbook. I may enhance a few more later and upload them but for practice and for fun, I did 100 loose drawings of different peoples faces. My goal was to keep them simple so i can merge my more "cartoony" style with my more "realistic" style. I used celebrities as reference only because you can find so many pictures of them on the internet. Since I was keeping it loose, some still look like the celebrities and some don't. I was just having fun! I'll upload the rest of them later.

Diversity among ghosts

2011-06-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

All ghost movies have the same thing. Either ghosts wanting vengeance or ghosts wanting closure. Never do movies show the ghosts that just want to annoy you while you watch a movie.

P.S. I used to watch Inu Yasha when it was on TV. :)

Stay Tuned.

2011-06-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hair is cut! New purse! And soon I will post all of that art I've been recently working on. Stay tuned.

THOR COMIC IN PUNCHLINE!

2011-06-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

New Punchline just came in and my Thor comic is in it! Looks awesome! Everyone should pick up a Punchline. If you missed the actual comic, I posted it below here:

Natalie Portman

2011-06-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Natalie Portmans been in a lot of movies recently so I decided to do a portrait of her to add to my recent portrait pattern.

Alexis Bledel and Michael C Hall

2011-06-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

I was in the mood to do a portrait and I've always been a Gilmore Girls fan so I decided to do a portrait of Alexis Bledel! Also since I was saying a while ago that I wanted to do a Michael C. Hall portrait, since I am also a big fan of Dexter, I decided to finally do a portrait of him too:

Zodiac

2011-06-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

To add more to my portfolio, I decided to create spot illustrations in the theme of the traditional zodiac. Recently I've had people ask me about the style in which my website is created in and if I had any more examples of this. At the time, I didn't so it became my next project to expand more on this simpler style.

Harry Potter and The Case of the Hippogriff

2011-05-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

I entered the Nucleus's gallery show that is in tribute to Harry Potter. I chose to do a quick gouache piece on the scene in the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry and Hermione have time traveled and are trying to save the Hippogriff. I think the Prisoner of Azkaban is still be my favorite book out of the Harry Potter series even though the movie is not.

Meerkat Exhibit

2011-05-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this piece for the past few days and I plan to make it my new promo piece. I think the piece is kind of self explanatory. Here are some close ups:

Zoo Piece!

2011-05-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a small sample of what I've been working on the past few days. This is just a clip from the larger poster in progress! Enjoy!

Senior Thesis Show

2011-05-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of taking nice photos of the book covers, but for now here is a picture of my gallery set up.

Life of Pi and Thor!

2011-05-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

I wanted to add one more Life of Pi piece to my portfolio. There were two that I liked so to go along with the first one, I made this one. Also I have another Thor comic. It seems that the first one was a hit on tumblr. This one unfortunately hasn't taken off yet.

Thor Needs A Horse

2011-05-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

In response to the recent Thor movie.

Society of Illustrators show and NY trip

2011-05-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

I went to my first gallery show at the Society of Illustrators for the Society of Illustrator's Student Scholarship Competition! Opening night was packed with students, teachers, parents and art directors. Super cool! I ended up spending the weekend with my parents in NY and Alexander Sloves joined us for the day too!

I also got in trouble for drawing at the Harry Potter Exhibit. The only thing I've ever gotten publicly in trouble with? Drawing in places I shouldn't draw. Weird? I think so. Also my parent's and I saw Daniel Radcliffe in the broadway show How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Awesome show! I highly recommend it!

DAILY DOODLES!

2011-05-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

More daily doodles! These are in order from earliest to latest and are the rest since my last daily doodle post! I am behind by 3 but that is mostly because of being in New York all weekend for my Society Of Illustrators show (which I will post about next with pics) and hanging up my Commencement show.

End of The Year

2011-05-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

Graduation is soon. I had my last Thesis crit today. Here is just a preview of my thesis from the casual set up we had in class. First are my book covers in action. Then are my spot illustrations and finally all of them together.

Before the thesis critique, we had a department show to show a small piece of what all the seniors have been working on. We were split up into different sections of the walls between the 3rd and 4th floor of Brown. Here is my group setting up our side of the wall. Mine is the black and white spot illustration in the black frame.

Scroll in Action

2011-05-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

OK! Do you remember a while back when I mentioned I did a Japanese Scroll that read from right to left about Little Red Riding Hood? If not, go to THIS POST. I finally took photos of the scroll in action after I assembled it. The photos are not the best quality since I took photo booth photos of it, but if you want to see the images, go to the post that I mentioned above.

Life of Pi

2011-04-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

For my final lifestyles assignment, I did an advertisement for the book to movie Life of Pi. I've read the book and love it. I'm both excited and nervous about them making a movie version of it.

Daily Drawings!

2011-04-28T21:01:00.001-07:00

So I've finally decided since the school year is coming to an end that I will finally do my daily drawing assignment that I have long talked about. So far I've kept up with it. Each day I will draw something that should only take 30 mins to an hour (depending on how much time I have to spare) and draw something in color on photoshop (mostly because it is easier than scanning then uploading all of them).

I started this last Thursday and I've given myself no limitations on the drawings other than they have to have some kind of color to them. I'm hoping these will keep my creative juices flowing and will be the perfectly productive distraction for those days that seem too stressful!

Here is from last thursday to today! Ideally I will plan on updating these on sunday instead of thursday on my blog. I'm posting them daily to tumblr but instead of flooding my blogger, I decided to condense them into one post each week. Keep a look out!

Quick Thesis Update!

2011-04-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

Here are the endpapers for Frankenstein and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I haven't been able to update my thesis in a while so I thought I would put up something as a teaser. I want to put my Thesis covers on here as the mock ups since that actually looks better than the files by themselves. The plan is that I will assemble the last bits and pieces by the end of this week and then try to photograph them nicely in the photo room over the weekend.

Sins and Virtues!

2011-04-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

In Lifestyles, we created pieces off of Sins and Virtues. We were each randomly assigned one for each that related to eachother. I was given Chastity and Lust. Here are them below:

Early morning post!

2011-04-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

So much thesis! I ideally should be done with all the designing other than the assembling of my thesis by the end of this week. Wish me luck. Until then, here's my Wizard Spam comic in Punchline! Once my thesis is done, I want to create more of these quirky comics. Also in case you're curious about the comic:

Thesis preview!

2011-04-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the book covers and endpapers now. I have two book covers finished other than finalizing the text and this endpapers show above. Since the book cover's text isn't completely finished, I didn't want to upload it but here is the endpapers to Beauty and the Beast!

Larry David

2011-04-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

One more for my portfolio! I updated my website too. Click here to see:

http://kellyleighmiller.com/illustration.html

Neil Patrick Harris Portrait!

2011-04-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Recently, along with everything else I've been doing, I've been trying to enhance my portfolio by filling the gaps. Due to my lack of portraits within my portfolio, I've been working on some over the weekend. In the end,how does someone know you can do portraits if you don't have them in your portfolio, right? Right? I hope these examples help improve my website.

Anyways, here is a portrait of Neil Patrick Harris. I have a lot from thesis to update, but none of it is fully ready yet. Once I print the book covers, I'll put photos up. I would put the jpgs up, but because of the way the wrap-around form on the book, I don't think it would do it true justice. Stay tuned though.

Tina Fey!

2011-04-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

I drew an illustration of Tina Fey to enhance my portraiture!

Little Red Riding Hood Japanese Scroll!

2011-04-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

For my Arts of Japan class, we created Japanese scrolls with any material and subject matter we wanted. I did Little Red Riding Hood. Below is the Illustrations from the scroll. Like traditional scrolls, it reads from right to left so make sure you keep that in mind. I will upload photos of the scroll in it's entirety once I document it!

Lifestyles Advertisement!

2011-03-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Lifestyles advertisement assignment! Originally I didn't like my designs, but I redid the drawings and now I like them! Its surprising how just redrawing a piece makes it so much better. The other ones were a little too stiff.

Check It Out!

2011-03-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Like I said, heres a pic of my published piece! And below is the advertisement in the same magazine! Check them out! They are pretty cool! Punchline magazine!

Also, here are more finished thesis pieces!

I've been planning my commencement show. I think I am going to pick the best two out of my spot illustrations for each three novels. Here are the 6 final spot illustrations I will use:

Thesis update!

2011-03-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

I realized I haven't updated my thesis work in a while. I have two more spot illustrations done and 4 that need slight adjustments but once those are done, they will be uploaded too! The top one is from Sherlock Holmes and the bottom one is from Frankenstein.

I have also been published in Punchline magazine! You can pick up the March edition with my Wolverine comic in it as well as next months edition with my Wizard Spam comic in it! I'll upload an image of it in the magazine but for now, here's a link to their website:

http://delawarepunchline.com/subscribe/

ALSO, here's some lifestyles work. This is a futuristic version of a magazine logo.

I love dog cloths! All of the dog cloths I dress my "dog doll" in exist including this wonderful elephant costume!

Loads to do!

2011-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

Here are my first two pieces finished from my 2nd semester senior thesis project. They are both spot illustrations from the story of Sherlock Holmes. I've been busy with website work and other classes as well as thesis. The website has a few adjustments to it if you are curious:

WWW.KELLYLEIGHMILLER.COM

2nd Semester Senior Thesis

2011-02-15T12:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the Character Sketches for my senior thesis from the novels Beauty and the Beast by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan.

Concept sketches for the beast. I ended up going with the middle one.

Beauty

Beauty's Father

Beauty's Sister

Beauty's other sister

Sherlock Holmes

Watson

Society of Illustrators Student Competition

2011-02-12T19:01:00.001-08:00

I learned that I am one of the students that won the Society of Illustrator's Student Scholarship Competition from my school! To see all of the entries from MICA click here:

http://tinyurl.com/6lahpre

This was the piece that won:

2011-02-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

Men's cloths are from Gucci, Women's cloths are from Emilio Pucci and the dogs cloths are from a dog fashion website. Here are the reference photos:

First Lifestyles Assignment - Speakeasy

2011-02-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

My first lifestyles assignment is centered around Speakeasies with using modern fashion that was influenced by the 1920's.

Paper Dolls

2011-01-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's the beginning of a new year and new classes. I'm taking a class called Lifestyles that deals with art that would be aimed to be published in magazines. Along side our normal assignments, we have this semester long project called "paper dolls." Within this, we watch current fashion trends and dress up the dolls accordingly each week by drawing the fashion styles we are watching. I kind of compare this to a weekly sketchbook assignment for a class. Here are my three characters that I will be dressing for the rest of the semester. Once I do more scanning, I will have more updates.

Winter Break

2011-01-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

Just a few of my outside thesis work. None of it is really completed work. It is more of a sketchbook/experimental sort of thing.

Also, I've updated my website:

www.kellyleighmiller.com

Travels

2010-12-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Here are two pieces I did for my parents for the holidays inspired by our trip to London, England and Paris, France.

First Semester Thesis Project

2010-12-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

The first semester of my senior year is coming to an end, which means that my first thesis project is also coming to an end. It was a long semester, but overall, I like the pieces I produced. Here is all the final work for my first project other than the physical pictures of the mock up that i created:

Ready Set Fly! Publication

2010-11-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

This piece above has been chosen to be featured in Gilah Press's Letter press book called "Ready Set Fly!" I am one of seven that will be appearing in the book. The others that will be featured as well can be found here: http://gilahpress.com/readyset/?p=88

I'm not sure as to when it will be finished, but I am excited to see the results!

David Bowie work in progress

2010-11-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

I've been working to make this simple portrait finished but it is taking me a while. This is the work in progress.

More Thesis

2010-11-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

Here is my recent thesis piece and the revised other one. More to come. Also, blogger has washed out the thumbnails yet again.

I've been watching a good amount of Superhero movies lately...

2010-11-03T06:45:00.001-07:00

This is Just for Fun.

Long awaited update

2010-11-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while due to my recent creation of of my portfolio website and the recent projects, so I decided to update a good amount of what I've been doing recently on here. I finally finished some of my pieces for my thesis. Here is one of the pages of the book and two different colored versions of the endpaper. Unfortunately, Blogger always seems to wash out my images.

Here is the color studies for my color assignments to the concept art.

Here is some of the color preproduction art.

Portfolio Website!

2010-10-24T14:00:00.001-07:00

I have finally built a new portfolio website! Hope you enjoy:

kellyleighmiller.com

Animation Pre-production

2010-10-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm in a class this semester called Animation Pre-Production, where we learn to refine our skills in story boarding, character design, environmental design, and story development. Here are four tonal illustrations of the beginning, rising action, climax and conclusion to the story. The story is about a man who shaves chinchillas for his fur coats which is later to be revealed that he is not a man, but a robot driven by a naturally hairless chinchilla who is seeking revenge for those who are born fortunate with hair.

London Comic 1

2010-10-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

I had a series of comic strips of my experiences in London. Here's one of them. Apparently my American accent makes ordering harder over there.

2010-09-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Father and Grandmother Character Sheets

2010-09-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here is more thesis work.

Mother Character Layouts

2010-09-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

Another set of character layouts.

Grandpa Character study

2010-09-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

More Character Studies for my Thesis.

Yorkie

2010-08-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

I started this just for fun a week or two ago. I was going to finish it but never got around to it. Maybe I will later.

Sophie Characterpage

2010-08-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

The first character sheet for Thesis is the main character Sophie.

Thesis again

2010-08-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here is another character portrait for thesis. This is the mother in the story. I think Blogger washed out the colors because it has more pigment in that than it shows.

Thesis

2010-07-25T07:02:00.001-07:00

Yes, I have been working on my Thesis even if I haven't updated anything on it on my blog. Most of what I have been working on is the writing aspect of it since I am writing and illustrating my own children's book. I've been working on character sketches as well but they are all in my sketchbook at the moment. I plan on doing digital paintings of the final character sketches when I'm back in the States but for now, I did a quick 2 hour digital painting of the main character in my story. (the stuffed animal is supposed to be my version of a Bison without reference) I do not normally digitally paint and this isn't finished but I thought it was fairly well done for not painting observationally for once.

The story line to my Thesis is about a little girl who goes to visit her grandparents with her parents and how she finds her grandpa boring and not relatable since he is so quiet. It isn't until she stumbles upon an area in the attic, where she's not supposed to be, that she comes across a collection of things from her grandfather's past that makes her believe that he was once an old superhero/hero from another land. And thus the knowledge of this secret makes her understand that there is more to him that she knows.

I'm still working on the writing of the story and will soon be on the home stretch for all the planning once I'm back in Kentucky. My plan is once school starts, I have the story written to completion, characters fully designed and a basic layout of how I picture the book to look.