A sampling of commissions.

I'm not completely lying when I call myself a "freelance illustrator" haha. Here's a quick sampling of some of the work I've done for clients from earlier this year [all characters belong to their respective owners]-

[SAI, minor edits in Photoshop]

Older personal stuff.

The work in this post is going to be from late 2010 to early 2012.

So back in Shark Week of 2010 I participated in a challenge that goes around deviantART every year where for every day of Shark Week, everyone is assigned to draw one shark. It was pretty fun, though I haven't had the time to participate in the years since then-

[SAI]

For Christmas last year I used my new-found people drawing skills for good and drew my friends things as gifts. I still like how this one came out- Bolin from The Legend of Korra~

[SAI]

Then earlier this year I reached a kind of epiphany- if I feel like drawing something, I should draw it. It sounds stupid when I type it out but it's the truth! A lot of what had been blocking me artistically before that point was wanting to draw certain things but I would end up guilt-tripping myself into NOT drawing because I know I should be working on other, more important things. The thing is, this mentality made me not want to work on ANYTHING. It was poisonous for me mentally, productively, and artistically. I still struggle with it occasionally but I just have to remind myself- you want to do it, JUST DO IT.

This is the piece I drew where I was at that turning point. It was an image I had thought I had seen on a movie poster but it ended up just being my mind playing tricks on me. But I still liked the mental image I got. I was so close to NOT drawing this piece but a friend told me to "just do it" and I decided... YEAH. I'm going to! This was the result- 

[SAI, minor edits in Photoshop]

One more thing from earlier this year- there's something that goes around every year called "Draw A Dinosaur Day" and every year I try to one-up myself from the previous year. I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to top this one for next year-

[SAI]

Older school work.

Pretty much just what it says in the tin! Everything in this post is going to be from 2011, and maybe a couple things from January 2012.

First off, a charcoal reversal for one of my classes from spring 2011. The canvas was huge, the process was dirty, and many late nights were spent on campus trying to finish this thing. I hated this project with every bit of my soul. The result was kind of neat though-

[charcoal, 57 hours, photo reference used] 

Thennn in fall 2011, I had a similar experience with an acrylic still life project. At least with this one we could come up with our own theme and set up our own still-lives [ended up going with something along the lines of  the "coexistence of Native American and Western religion"]. Even though I ended up with a pretty nice result, I had figured out that I hated realistic photo rendering with a passion-

[acrylic, ~10"x10", 50+ hours]

By the end of the fall 2011 semester, I had passed my major's portfolio review and then was required to fill a small sketchbook over the winter break. Here are a few pages I still like-

[SKB pens, Micron pens, watercolor pencils, watercolor, acrylic]

Yep.

ALRIGHT let's the the Pokemon stuff out of the way.

I like Pokemon.

And for a while, I drew almost exclusively Pokemon- whether it was for myself, for a client, or for merchandise. And sometime around last year, I burned out haha [I didn't even make it all the way through Pokemon White]. I still enjoy the franchise and all but my interest has definitely waned.

BUT there are still a few pieces that I like. Like this set of prints that i made over the course of what... 3 years I think? I still sell them at conventions and online-

 

[all drawn in SAI with the exception of the first one which was drawn in Photoshop]

 And like I said previously, if I wasn't drawing Pokemon for conventions, I was drawing them for clients. Like THIS little gem right here-

 

[drawn in SAI over the course of about a week]

 That piece is a couple years old now but I'm still pretty fond of it, and the client was happy with it too.

What else... Here's another commission, although this one was taken at a convention and finished at home. I even managed to take some progress shots for it-

[blue Col-Erase, Micron pens, Copics]

I'll end this post with a piece I actually drew for MYSELF [what a concept]. This was before the 5th Generation of Pokemon was released and I was sorely wanting an anteater Pokemon. SO I made one up for myself-

[Photoshop]

Aaaand that's all the Pokemon stuff for now!

FIRST.

So I made this blog to be a kind of... pseudo-portfolio? Or like, just as a place to post my least-embarrassing best of the best art stuff [because trust me, I draw a lot of ridiculous things]. But then again, a lot of my "best of the best" is probably really embarrassing also. OH WELL.

Okay, intro post, intro post... My name is Nicolette, I like to draw, play video games, draw fanart for video games, and at the very top of my bucket list, next to being a storyboard artist for a well-known studio, is to hug an anteater.

ANYWAYS, bear with me here, I've never used this site before and I'm still trying to get my bearings as well as trying to type in semi-proper capitalization. Apologies in advance for any slip-ups.

Oh and about my blog title- it's based off of my main interwebs handle. And that's all I'm going to say about that, haha.

Other than thaaaaat, enjoy!

[PS- that's Un btw. It's a kind of personal mascot/avatar I draw from time to time~]