"Lookin' Sharp! CRAAAZY Sharp!"

Happy Friday!!

Between all my side projects and preparing for San Diego Comic Con, I have a couple of things I’m excited to share with you (followed by a barrage of images)! First, I just launched a couple new shirt designs for the Dota 2 International Workshop T-Shirt Contest, of my favorite Dota 2 hero, Rizzrack the Timbersaw!! Please click the link below to check it out and vote! Thumbs up and comments would be most appreciated!! ^__^

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=258012679

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=260446304

Secondly, last Christmas I commissioned an incredibly talented artist, Shoulong Tian, to do this AMAZING Timbersaw statue for me. When I saw his Alchemist sculpture I was totally blown away and instantly I knew he would be perfect to model my Timber! He was such a pleasure to work with and is a master of his craft! Every update he sent me of his work in progress was simply jaw-dropping and he knows I just about exhausted every synonym for “AWESOME” in the book when reacting to it! XD

He created the main body out of Super Sculpey and hand cut wood, plastic and metal pieces to add to the sculpt. Afterwards, he casts it in resin, sands and hand paints every little detail!! I’m seriously convinced this is the best Timbersaw sculpt that is and ever will be. XD I mean, LOOK at the little details he put in the textures to make it look like wood and brushed metal; the little dials and bolts; the amazing construction of the sawblades, claw and chainsaw… and just look at how freakin’ adorable that Rizzrack is!! @w@; He’s modeled perfectly, from the buckle on his suspenders, to the valve on his helmet. He’s even got the different-colored eyes that I requested!

Needless to say, I was SO grateful for all the time and effort he spent on this statue. I loved it and I was so impressed!!

Shoulong is a student at Ringling and is starting an internship at Hasbro next week! Shoot him a congratulations and check out more of Shoulong’s work here!

http://www.behance.net/Shoulongtian
http://shoulongtian.blogspot.com/
http://shoulongtian.tumblr.com/

I wanted to give a shout out to my good friend Jody, who took time to do a photoshoot of the sculpture with his really nice cam—you’re super pro dude, thanks so much! ^__^ I couldn’t have gotten these nice shots without your help!

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Below are some rough frames of one of the many animations I’ve been working on, based on Rizzrack’s response when meeting Pudge as an ally. I totally recommend listening to the actual soundclip below!

"Wood carving, meat carving… I mean, same thing, right Pudge? Heh…"http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/3/30/Timb_ally_04.mp3

Pudge is not amused. o_o

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So why Timbersaw? I admit, I’ve been crazy in love with Timbersaw the moment I played him and heard his hilarious dialogue set (I LOVE his voice acting!); he’s such a fun hero with a great backstory and quirky personality. In game, you better believe I’m going Timber 100% of the time. It might be a little (a lot?) weird but my obsession has got me wanting to have ALL THE THINGS Timbersaw-related! I’ve made sketches, animations, and fanfics and found any reason to draw him on random things—napkins, the dirt on my car windshield, shower steam (TMI?). My current desktop/phone/laptop wallpaper/ringtone, mousepad, luggage tag, shirts—yes, my friend Steph made me an “I love Rizzrack” shirt for my birthday! XD—are all littered with Timbersaw. And not surprisingly, I’ve also got a thing for goblins… Warhammer miniatures, WoW characters, etc… GIFF TECHIES ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ. I even modified a Pathfinder goblin plush my friend gave me to look a little like Rizz—whoa… sorry, I’m sure all of you are either going TL;DR or WTF??! so I’m gonna stop there…

Under the chimney, Shoulong signed it: “First cast for Genevieve Tsai” Yeeee! ^__^

(And a wild Woody appears!)

Below are some WIP shots Shoulong took after making the resin cast—I love the shot next to his Alchemist!

  

When I first commissioned Shoulong I offered him some sketches and screenshots I took for reference and direction. I painted over some edits to Rizzrack’s face and expression and gave him multicolored pupils just to add more of that crazed look. XD Shoulong really knocked it out of the ballpark!

 

 

Below, a badass commish I got from Chris Copeland at CTN last year!! Thanks again, Chris!! Check out his killer stuff here! http://chriscopelandart.tumblr.com/

I threw in a Lich. With hella Ren & Stimpy eyes. “NUM-NUMS!”

Thanks again for reading, especially if you’ve made it this far!

And please don’t forget to check out my design in the Dota Workshop!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=258012679

~Genevieve

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sona & Gangplank ... and a Poro! :3

And some previous ideas...

Here's a piece I did for my friend, Gina, who wanted to surprise her boyfriend with a pic of their favorite characters, Sona and Gangplank (specifically the Arcade and Special Forces skins), from League of Legends. She and Cooper share a little inside joke about feeding Poros and she even made this super adorable Poro-themed bento box!! (See if you can spot the little easter egg that leads to the illustration above!) XD

I also wanted to share some exciting news! I was invited to be a part of the incredible Masters of Anatomy book! Now, I honestly wouldn't ever consider myself in any way a "master" of anything, much less anatomy, so I was really surprised and flattered when Suny asked me to join. The book is packed with TONS of crazy-phenomenal artists, many of whom I look up to and I go around buying their books and art at conventions and I just admire all their talent! (Seriously, I just feel like bowing and repeating, "I'M NOT WORTHY!") Hahaha! Anyway, I just wanna say that I'm all at once humbled and grateful and super excited to be invited to participate!! ^___^ Please check out the Masters of Anatomy site and Facebook page!

Last but not least, I haven't posted any Love of Lines doodles in a while, so here are a few new ones!

Also, I wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your support—I read and appreciate all your messages you send me on Tumblr, Facebook and Blogspot, and I PROMISE I will get to all of you, it’s just been super hectic with work on my side and I hope you understand! @_@ Thank you again for being so awesome, you guys, I will try to make it up to you somehow!
~Genevieve

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

So I’ve been a long-time fan of the Disney Afternoon ‘toons... I’ve seen (and dare I say, used to memorize?) every episode of DuckTales, Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Gummi Bears, TaleSpin… and my all-time favorite, Darkwing Duck!! (Needless to say, I filled my sketchbooks with tons of fanart. ^_^) When I was younger, I bought a book called The Wonderful World of Disney Television: A Complete History and read through all the summaries and credits of each episode. Tad Stones’ name popped up on all my favorite ones; he was the creator, producer and writer for Darkwing Duck, and producer and writer on Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears. Ever since then, I’ve remembered his name!

Fast forward to San Diego Comic Con 2010: I am rushing over to BOOM! Studios’ booth to meet the great Tad Stones in person, who signed my brand new Issue #1 of ‘Darkwing Duck: The Duck Knight Returns’ that just released! Needless to say, I was absolutely star struck! XD

But I had never dreamed I would have ever gotten to work with Tad personally! Near the end of 2012, I had the great pleasure of working with him on a pitch he created while at Bento Box: a Beverly Hills Chihuahua animated series for Disney Jr.! Tad was fun and an absolute joy to work with; being an artist/animator himself with years of experience, he had the great creativity and vision I could trust, and I learned SO much from his feedback. I loved the script, too; his stories are filled with lively and humorous characters whose dialogues are brimming with attitude and personality; I could easily hear the voice acting and see them animated in my head! And although in the end, the series unfortunately fell through due to timing, I totally treasured this invaluable experience!

Hope your guys' 2014 is off to a great start!! ^_^
~Genevieve