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About two weeks ago I went to the Mojave Desert to visit family and while I was there I had the privilege of teaching a second-grade class how to draw a couple of animals. Since it was close to Halloween I taught them, step-by-step, how to draw a simple cat and a bat. It was way too much fun! I was also able to show them some of the work I’ve done for clients and my own projects. They were so excited! It’s always encouraging to have kids get excited about art and what you do as an artist.

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I also made a few posters for the kids to take home. This was a promotional poster that I made for October. I had it printed on a glossy stock so the kids could roll them up – so it looked a little different from this image.

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Of course to top it all off, I got a packet of letters from the kids yesterday, thanking me for visiting their class! I can’t express how much this means to me! They are the best thing ever! I’ve read every letter and will probably keep this in my desk (along with the letters from last year’s class). I love all of the lovely pictures each of the students drew for me!

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Here are three of the letters from the packet. They are amazing and I wish I could post them all! So, You’re welcome Mrs Smith’s class! It was a pleasure visiting you all! :D

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Two new images that I’ll post about later. Things have been busy with friends visiting this week! We’ve been having so much fun and we still have until Saturday! :)

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We went to Stinson Beach the other day and explored the coastline around there. It was so incredibly beautiful! Afterward, I felt so inspired. Sometimes I forget that putting your feet in the surf and being in nature can really help take the edge off. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately with work and finding more work. Somehow, standing in the sand and watching the ocean helped me feel grounded. It was just awesome to be with great friends in an awesome place. I will most likely return to this spot to recharge. :)

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John’s dad came to visit last weekend and we took a trip to see the Redwoods. Such an amazing place; especially right now. Because of all of the rains, the forest has exploded with green moss, lichen, saplings and new ferns everywhere! It looks almost prehistoric! It was nice to go and “re charge” for a bit. Sadly, I don’t get to make it up there all too often.

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I’ve been messing around with personal work lately too. Work on The Red Valley is picking up and I’ve begun to to lay out species ideas and thoughts about how the project will flow. I should be posting work on the blog come November this year. I’m very excited about the project and am really looking forward to exploring the concept.

I’ve been working on the illustration section of my website too – trying to round it out with more personal work lately. This is an image a created about a week ago.

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These two images are live now. They were created for Imagine FX’s Q&A section. As always, I have a lot of fun answering the questions and creating work for the magazine. I’m fortunate in that I get to answer questions that tend to relate to creatures and such. :) You can see them in the current issue (in the US now) here –> Imagine Fx – Issue 73

That’s it for now. Fall is looking busy! :)

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Here are two new beasties! I’ll post more about them later when I get more info and such.

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I hope everyone (in the states at least) had a happy 4th of July! It was a great weekend for me. I was able to see family and sort of take a break from work. It was a good “re-charge” and I totally needed it. Excited to get back to work though. I have lot’s planned for the next couple months!

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Been working away lately and the year is going by so fast! I can’t believe it’s already May. Where is 2011 going? So far this year has been full of surprising opportunities and good things.  Just finished two new pieces. I’ll post more about them later when they go live and such. These were super fun to create! I always enjoy painting Gnolls and weird alien creatures.

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This critter above was actually inspired by an older sketch I did. You can find him in one of the sketchbook pages of this post.

Trying to fit in personal work lately. Finding it harder to find time for things of the sort though. However, it is a must so I’ll be posting some progress here soon to stay on top of it more. I have a new project I’ve just become a part of. I’ll be working as lead artist for a new start-up in Seattle, WA. I’m very excited about the project (as it involves a huge amount of creatures) and I can’t wait to start sharing work. I’ll be posting news and such as we release content online. Of course, this is a freelance gig so I’ll be staying here in Oakland for the time being. :)

Here is something I’m currently working on:

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Obviously still a work in progress. I’ve warmed up to the image in the process of creating it but I’m not sure if I’ll keep it around. I’m wanting to update my website with some new work and this image was the beginning of that…

I’d also like to post a reminder about my book “FishHooks”. May is my birthday month so if you buy FishHooks during this month you can save 15%! I had a lot of fun putting together this book and have started plans for my second volume. Of course, that means that I will probably discontinue this book once I release volume 2 this fall. You can view more images of the book here: http://www.fishhookstudio.com/2010/09/fish-hooks/

You can buy FishHooks on Lulu.com, here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/fish-hooks/12917022

Anyway, I suppose that’s it for now. I’ll be posting more news soon!

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This was a quick warm up from this morning. Nothing too special – just trying to wake up and get things going.

Tuesday night I was invited to speak to two classes at my former college, CCAC. Robert Hunt and Bob Ciano had me share my work with their students and talk about life after school. I focused mainly on self promotion and the act of working on something creative everyday. Something I knew right out of college was that I’d need to keep up my momentum. Having a blog like this and joining online communities helped me stay on top of deadlines I had set for myself because I felt like I had an audience to please somewhere – even if that was never the case. I also covered online promotion and the power of social networks like blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I’ve had a good amount of success reaching people through the internet. Of course I also talked about physical promotion, networking and meeting people. Sending out books and prints to potential clients and such. I also covered how long it takes to get things moving when it comes to freelancing. Graduating in the midst of a economic crisis was hard enough. December 2009 was tough, real tough. No jobs anywhere. Yet somehow, I made it work. It took lots of willpower. There were plenty of days where I wanted to give up and go back to school for something – anything at that point. Something to take me out of the recession. However, I think sticking with my art through that time really made me realize how much I love doing it. Of course, I’m busy with lots of deadlines and projects but I’ll never be busy enough. I think that was the thing I really wanted to talk to them about. To never be satisfied. To try everything. To constantly move forward. This is what really got me working at what I love – never giving up, never giving in and always being thirsty for the next project. Overall it was a lot of fun to talk to the students. A friend of mine and fellow illustrator, Brianna Harden shared a quote on her blog a while back that I thought was inspriring to anyone starting out and anyone who has been in this for a while. I shared it with the classes later through email:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” -Ira Glass

While I’m no expert and I’ve only been at this for a couple of years, I do know that: working as hard as you can and being nice to your peers can get you places. It’s not easy and it will never be easy but if you have others there with you who are as inspiring and motivated as you are, it can be awesome.

Anyway, those were some of my thoughts. Today I’m working on more stuff I can’t share for a while. I do have another spot in Imagine FX coming to the States soon and some cards done for Fantasy Flight Games that I should be able to post in the coming days.

Otherwise, I’m working on the project I’ve always wanted to work on and its awesome. ;) I really can’t wait to share it.

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Been trying to do more sketching in the sketchbook lately. Here are some recent doodles. Really liking the blue pencil. It sort of takes me back to when I was studying game design and animation in L.A. I’m hoping to dig a little deeper into more traditional media soon.

I’m leaving for L.A. 6 hours from now. I’m not very sleepy but I am exhausted. It’s a weird in between feeling. This last week has been full of work and surprises. I’ve been keeping up a steady flow of Q&A articles for Imagine FX magazine for the last couple of months. Mostly to do with creature questions. I’ve been having so much fun creating and showing process for the magazine. I’m really excited to see them in print soon and show them here on the blog.

Mostly nervous about L.A. I guess. Some exciting things are taking place lately. Things are looking up…way up.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! Looking forward to the new year!

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This was an experiment I started the other night in pencil, watercolor and oil – a method I used to work in constantly. It requires lots of layering with fixatives, and matte mediums. The end result is usually a more layered looking effect than this. I kept the technique up for a while until I started to get sick from the chemicals in the fixative – the back of label read: causes nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness. I endured a year of these symptoms before I realized what was happening.  I was careful to spray things outside, wear a mask or cloth around my face and let the piece dry for a day or so. However, with tight deadlines in school I’d have to breathe in the fumes while I was working on the final product almost inevitably. The fixative would linger around the piece for a week or so.

I recently tried the method again without the fixative, with this drawing of a dodo, but found that turpenoid has the same effect. I’m not sure if it’s association now or if it is something in the thinner but I can’t use the stuff without getting dizzy spells and headaches for a few days. I hate writing about this because I feel like its my fault. I feel like I’m less. In any case, I’m trying to find new methods to replicate the way in which I used to work.

When I couldn’t produce work the way I wanted to, I learned how to paint in the computer. I knew I needed to learn because of the field I had decided I wanted to be a part of but was always reluctant – I think it had something to do with the environment I was in at the time. I had one instructor who always told me to learn it but it didn’t hit me until I went to “Revelations” – an art convention put on by Massive Black. I saw digital painting in a way I hadn’t ever seen it before – in the process of being done. I understood that it wasn’t so different from what I was doing on paper, in fact, it was structured exactly the same. I was excited about art-making in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. I came home, bought a wacom tablet and photoshop and began to teach myself…slowly. I didn’t have too many resources in college in the digital department. There was one class that covered everything briefly, but nothing that taught painting or anything that would be necessary to create a digital illustration from scratch. I taught myself almost everything I know now with class assignments and personal work when I could. Needless to say, most of my attempts were pretty awful in the beginning. I’ve since deleted a lot of my student work except for the work I did for The Morae River my last semester.

I am in no way an expert in digital media either. I only know about 10% of what I should probably know. I’m learning new things every day and I hope to be for a while. The illustration above has digital enhancements added to it. I couldn’t finish it in oil due to the headache. I’m wanting to figure out my process again, in a more health-friendly way because I like to work in watercolor and pencil.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to type all of this….I guess that’s what blogs are for? haha…

edit* …And since you’ve endured my rambling on, you should watch this as a reward. (if you skip ahead to watch it I wont blame you either, hehe)

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Finished up the Pygmy Esorifleu for CGHUB’s creature planets. These were lots of fun to do. I’m currently working on the next species for topic # 15 – Viscinian Scavenger. These are just some rough sketches of the overall form that I want the organism to have – following the guidelines provided in the prompt.

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This forum activity has been really good for me. It a lot of fun to help run but its also pushing me to try new things with creature design and even graphics. I’ve been producing the banners for the activity with direction from Shane Watson – CGHUB’s community director.

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In case you’re wondering, I did not paint the actual planet. I use Flaming Pear’s “LunarCell” to produce it. Creating a banner along with stats and a creature for the activity each week can be a lot fo work and so any shortcuts are vital to get things done on time. I did, however, paint the galaxy and produced all of the other graphics on the banners (except for the little icons on the top banner, those are winning entries) Anyway, This has been loads of fun for me and my partner in crime (co-runner of creature planets) - Ogi Grujic. As the activity progresses, I’d like to re-work the layouts of the planet banners and such but for now these seem to be working ok.

Like I mentioned in my post before, I’m wanting to share things that inspire me, things I find funny, and things that I think others should watch. This was a short that brought tears to my eyes. I love how animation is able to span gaps and make you care about lumps of dirt on the moon. Enjoy…

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I thought a lot about The Morae River and what I want to do with it. It’s been dragging lately. Not because I’m uninterested, but more because it’s beginning to change. I’m not sure that I want The Morae River to continue to exist on the continent of Orcura. I’m thinking the river might be moved to an island. This geography might be more appropriate to where the world exists in relation to us. I’m also wanting to blur some information and keep a lot of things a mystery. Anyway, it is going to take some thought and some re-designing but I am excited to kind of let it change and tell me what it wants to be.

I’m working on some other things I can’t really mention right now but I will be posting some work in progress of a few things soon.

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Good news! I will be participating in a show in St. Louis this July called Drawgasmic. Lots of really talented individuals are part of this exhibition andI’m really glad to be a part of it. You can find out more about the show here. I’ll be displaying the image “…And Then It Got Out” at the show. I will be for sale along with all of the other works. If you live in the St. Louis area come on out and see some awesome artwork! :D

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We lost a legend today. RIP Frank Frazetta…

From the New York Times: “Frank Frazetta, an illustrator whose  vivid colors and striking brushstrokes conjured up fantastic worlds of musclebound heroes fighting with broad swords and battle axes to defend helpless women from horrible beasts, died on Monday in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 82″….Read More

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Sort of at a loss tonight. I’ve been experimenting with painting environments with no luck so far. So to take a break from doing that I painted some quick alien-ish heads to serve as avatars for this blog. I’m hoping to have some more work up soon. I might do more fun things like this for a bit. I’m needing a bit of a break to get some things figured out. I have a trip coming up soon so that should be good separation from my work right now. I’ve been feeling somewhat dry. Anyway, I elaborated one bust a bit for fun…

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Going through a bit of a stint right now in my work. I feel like there is a transition coming up. I’m having issues with exactly what I want my work to look like. The thought of becoming more marketable is always appealing but I’d like to try and stay unique in what I do. The computer has freed me up a lot and I really do enjoy working with it. I’m really wanting to dive back into some creature design I’v been thinking about lately as well. I always enjoy thinking up species and behaviors to write and draw about. The Morae River has been on the back burner for a bit and I’m ready to pick it up again maybe even move into some digital renditions of things.

In other news I’ve gotten my aquarium back in order. I’m thinking about  adopting some neon tetras and gouramis to live in it. I’ll post some pictures when I get them settled in the tank.

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I’m giving a talk tonight at California College of the Arts for Bob’s Ciano’s class. If you were in the class you can retrieve your goodies at this link: Goodies for Students

Its a small package containing some photoshop brushes I found from Cghub and filters from Flaming Pear’s webpage.

The image has nothing to do with the demo. I just thought it was funny that someone tagged mudblood on some building in Oakland.

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So after my ridiculous post last night (which I’ve edited) I decided to put that thought on hold and get some work done! Right now – Fantasy!

“Wyvern Rider” and soon to be finished “Dinner with Gnolls”

more fantasy fun coming soon along with some sci-fi happiness!

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Started doodling today. I think I might finish it…I’m still figuring out the human…(of course)

Anyway, more work coming soon…

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The New Year has been really great so far. Im currently working toward exploring the Shenzabi Plains for the Morae River project and its turning out to be a very interesting biome thus far. I’ll be posting new spceis as well as updates for the older ones in the months to come. (click these for larger views)

Trying to produce new work that isn’t related to the Morae River project as well. The images up top were for a community activity at CGhub.com. It was lots of fun and I’m hoping to get some more finished illustration like this one out soon. I thought I’d include the pencil with the finish. I will also be dabbling in humanoids a bit here and there to keep things balanced. Looking through my website I’ve realized its all animals :P

EDIT* Another piece new to BrynnArt.com – “Expedition”

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Expect more updates soon.

Here is another image of a small side project I’ve gotten into – putting moss into glass containers.

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December is finally here and I’m officially finished with college! It seemed like forever and no time at all. I’ll miss seeing everyone in the program all the time. I really did have an amazing time but Im glad to be done with it…

On to other things.

I’ve begun more writing on the Morae River recently. I’m really wanting to dive deeper into families and explore different species and how they are evolving in the area. I’m starting with the mardiks and will be introducing three new species on the blog hopefully later this month. I’ll also be generating family tree graphics for the families I’m exploring. For right now I’m exploring Pernixids – the family that mardiks and balas belong to. Most of the species on the blog now will be getting makeovers and adjustments as I move deeper into Solturna. I’m hoping to generate more plant species as well and start to put them into families as well. Plants seem to get neglected…

The project has become a lot bigger and I’m hoping to shed some light on where Orcura sits in relation to us. Many viewers have been asking about it but I am a bit reluctant to give it all away at once. Either way, Im glad to be working on it again. It really is where my head is most of the day but I did need a small break to think about where I wanted to carry the project.

Expect new dinosaur work on brynnart.com soon as well as some other projects in January.

the photo above is one I took going over the golden gate not too long ago…I’ve only been over it twice in the 4 years I’ve lived in the bay area.

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mad unicorn...

Its been a while since I’ve updated! The Morae River was featured on io9.com recently. That was quite a surprise! The book seems to be selling pretty well so far, although I’ll be taking it down at the end of November. I initially wanted to take a break from the project but it really isn’t letting up – as in I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m assuming this is a good thing and I’ll keep working on the project although I’ll be slowing up a bit due to other projects.

Also, the Morae River show went great! Thanks to everyone who came out to see the work! I really appreciate all of your support! I’ll be opening a store online soon to sell some of the prints I have from APE. I’ll make an announcement through all of the various web portals I frequent once that is set up.

I’ll be posting some new work on brynnart.com and this blog once the art “goes live” so keep an eye out for that.

This Tuesday I’ll be giving a demo at CCA in Bob Ciano’s Typography for Illustrators class. I’ll be going through how I color animals for The Morae River in photoshop. I will be filming my process and will hopefully have it on here and HeyTutti.com. That should exciting, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about how I work so it should be interesting.

I’m starting to get some work done for “Tiger Tea” – a children’s book I had an idea for a while back. I had made a smaller dummy of the book and am now looking to finish it. I won’t be uploading too much work from it until the final sample book is created.

Most of my time is now going to filling up FishHook Studio.com which has been suffering from neglect. I might even drop it all together and squeeze it into brynnart.com to make things simple. I’ll have to think about it…

Other than that I’m just trying to get to December….

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APE has come and gone. It was quite the event for us and I’m sad it’s over. Four of us shared a table: myslef, John Mathis, Annika Green and Jonathan Zajdman – all incredibly talented. Needless to say we had a blast and sold a good amount of work. I was surprised to learn that most people who came up to my table knew what the Morae River was. Thanks to all of you who came out to see me, it was great to meet some of you! It was great to know that the blog is being read by a few people out there!

Im currently working on getting things done for my show next week. Things seem to be moving smoothly so far and I’m lucky to have great support from friends and family in getting everything organized. Once this show is over the Morae River will be put on the shelf for a good month so I can take a break. I really want to work on some solid illustration work until next year. I’ve been itching to do some painting down in the studio.

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It seems as if I have 20 deadlines approaching all at once. The Morae River content for APE is coming along nicely and will be done in time for the convention. Its the book Im most worried about. It should arrive on Monday but That may not be enough time for me to look it over and order 10 more to be here by the time APE happens…heres hoping. The show at CCA will be the easiest part out of all of this. Its just printing, mounting and cutting up foam core boards. Its actually quite relaxing and fun. I am excited to see it all work out. Not to mention I have friends and family coming out to see the show up. I’m excited to see everyone!

Other than that, the semester is picking up pace and turning out to be a very difficult one. At this point I really would rather be drawing but I have to finish this last semester in order to graduate this December – which I’m more than excited about. I have a huge amount of reading to get done every week. Its all very interesting but I do have trouble with vocabulary.

I thought I had gotten off of coffee for good but Im back on it again due to all of this reading and writing I’ve been doing. Green Tea, while better for me, just doesn’t have that zing I need in the morning… pours herself a cup*  Cheers!

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Another doodle. I took an old face and gave him a body.

Im currently laying down layouts for my show and its turning out to be a tight squeeze for all I would like to include. I have a lot of text that needs to be legible for the average sized person and so hanging everything at eye level is a good idea. This is proving to be quite the task. Printing all of the drawings and text will be interesting.

Im nervous about Tuesday. I don’t really like to fly. I’m always a wreck on the plane and I can never sleep through it. I am looking forward to some time to relax though. This summer has been pretty crazy and has gone by way too fast.

I start my final semester in exactly one week…

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We are half way through Pre College and so far things have been running somewhat smoothly. I was invited by Dugald Stermer to give a talk along with him and Ashley Benham about the illustration department and what it has to offer to students. We covered other things, such as working for clients and how illustration is turning out to be incredibly flexible these days.  I went well enough and I think the students really enjoyed Dugald and they asked a good amount of questions. Barron Storey was out of town for his show down in L.A. and so I took the students to the Cartoon Art Museum for the time we were at Yerba Buena Park. It was lots of fun and I suggest you go there if you live in the bay area. The show up now is pretty amazing. They all seemed to enjoy it and are turning out to be a very good bunch.

I discovered an artist today who’s work I instantly fell in love with – Claire Morgan. I suggest you explore her website and prepare to be amazed. I was speechless when I saw these . They are haunting and fantastical all at the same time.

I got a new bristol pad yesterday. I think its calling me over….

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