Mary_mari's Dim Display

[Mary_mari]

Hi and thanks so much for tuning in. Today on Jerry Springer, vampire hobos and the ex-wives who want them to cha-whoa, wait...sorry, wrong channel*
Yes, yes, I'm actually the modest newbie who really appreciates *you* taking a quick peek at my amateur hour. Really!!


^This^ is a character (Dim) that normally doesn't have antenna (antenni?) coming out of his back -- crappy much?

And this...

...is View and those pathetic things I call "vomiting-circles" on his back are 'supposed' to be slightly bent keyrings. I apologize to the keyring lovers out there!


I *mainly* would love to know if these designs look interesting to you! None of my friends are interested in my "drawings" (thus I question my artistic ability ALOT). Thanks sooo much!!! ~Love, love~

[Rune]

Welcome to the Drawing Board Mary_Mari

Do I find your drawings interesting? Absolutely! For one thing they have a very original flavour and feel to them, I find the mixture of clean linework, attention to detail and that delicate colouring really make them stand out. Apart from that the characters in themselves are intriguing, do you have others apart from Dim & View?

I enjoyed looking a lot & hope to see more. Thanks for sharing

[Czar Gato]

Ooh, me likes! You have such a cool style, and I really love the sort-of creepy-yet-cute vibe I get from them. Good work!

[TimTwoFace]

And here I thought you were initially trying to say that everyone backstabs this particular character.

Nice drawings - I like the colour palette and the shading and the basic angular designs.

-Tim

[Outlander00]

LOL!!!

VERY good work! Nice line, great coloring and an interesting style. Might be worth ro explore it further.

[Mary_mari]

Oh yay! Thank you all SO much for the positive vibes! I'm grinning like a goofy monkey as we speak* ~High fives all around~
I do have other characters! No one minds taking a peek..? Great!!

Directly below is just a CD cover I made (I make LOTS of CD covers!). It's also just a boring anime style I have - overplayed much?? *On a side note, it's my own "eccentric" interpretation of Arnold from Hey Arnold*


^He^ is simply something I drew for fun. I like anime but...I'm horrible at copying the true Japanese style...*anime sutairu ga heta*

And this...

...is a character I call 'Kek' from an idea I've had (it's a loo~ng story and I don't want to induce sleep on anyone today). I drew this last year, though...

...so, Kek is lankier now*
**
This is Kek and Gu (Vasquez inspired characters, but Gu was all mine*). I know the chair looks alittle on the "eh?" side. Forgive my toe nail drawings. Poor Mary_mari has NO sense of perspective yet *baby steps*

Anyway, I hope the pictures aren't too big. I sized them down by quite a few pixels so that I wouldn't hog page space(!).
And thanks again for looking. I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear from other great talents out there! ~More love~

[Conekiller]

Very nice. I'm glad you posted a second set cuz I was gonna slightly rant about the overuse of blood and grossness and such that ihave been seeing in people's art. But I'm pleased to see you can express yourself without violence to other (chacracters) with a nice inspired by/original style. congrats


(I really hope that didn't come off as mean )

[Mary_mari]

Oh! Thank you, Conekiller!! Nah, you didn't come off as too harsh...the 'gore' thing is still new to even me! The story behind those characters involves ALOT of bloodshed (which wasn't explained -BUT- have you seen the injuries the internet inflicts? Utterly grotesque!^^) aa~nd...it's simply metaphorical in the drawings. I always use a corn syrup by-product in my stuff*
But, I'm a tad isolated from the reality of art right now, so thanks for the warning!

[Conekiller]

no prob, just try to stay away from the "ooohhh, I'm soooo deep and angstyl, look there's blood and anger filled poetry all over my art" it's a tad cliche , and I (personally) find it juvenile.

BTW, in the first pick, I really like te way the Antennae are drawn, each one is distinct and looks like it came from somewhere. (some even look like windsheild wipers!)

[Mary_mari]

Oh, I am laughing so loudly right now! Yes...I (sadly) am not an outwardly deep and angsty person (which is probably why my friends show no interest in my cartoons!!). But, yes. I completely agree that the whole "dark and brooding" artist thing is a smidget bland.
*ie., I got "Class Clown" in high school.

And I'm so glad you liked the antennae. I used a flyswatter as reference and kept building from there! But windsheild wipers indeed* I see it and it is good**

[Rune]

It's great to see more of your work M_M. I really like the look of Kek and it's very interesting to see the 2 versions of him and compare how he's changed. He looks very 'in yer face' style funky in the first one while in the newer, lankier version there's a great laid back feel to him. Those half-lidded laconic eyes and the slump make him more 'uh huh, so what ya gonna do about it?' Also I like the way his hair is echoed in the style of the chair and of course that colouring really makes the whole thing work so well.

Don't worry that you're going to induce any sleep here either, we love looking at artwork so please feel very welcome to show us some more

[Mary_mari]

*Aa* It just tickles me to see all of the positive input from you guys!! [thanks Rune!] Okay, I really hope everyone can play 'nonchalante' to my =horride= hand drawn backgrounds. I took art and perspective for 3 years in high school and didn't learn a thing (twas a small school, I must add).


Yay! Does anyone recognize...? YES! Dim and View are normal here! These characters I hope will please**


Ahh, yes, Kek and Gu again^^ *I still have a hard time drawing skirts on sitting characters* Gu's head is too big...and this is old *sorry* But, I hope this still pleases!

On a side note to Kek, he has NO personality and is very blunt (Rune got his persona exactly with the 'what ya gonna do about it?' line!). The little pink-haired girl (Gu) is supposed to be bizarrely curious about anything and everything (this is why she is with the oh-so-creepy Kek!).

Thanks again for all the positivity* I am much humbled -_-'

[Mangapen]

Very nice work! As you mentioned, a little derivative of Jhonen's style (actually more like Roman drawing Jhonen's characters, a la Zim), but so is half the stuff Slave Labor publishes these days :-)

Have you done sequentials or tried to tell a story with your characters? I'd love to see more

[Mary_mari]

*pointing to Mangapen* The characters I've posted here have stories to them that I've been writing for at least a year and a half. Gu and Kek are in a series of short stories I call "For Something Unwelcome" and ... the Dim and View characters are in a vee~ry long story that's most likely only interesting to me^^" I could post up an "overview" thing I did for "For Something Unwelcome" (I drew a lazy border and wrote the story - in probably illegible penmenship - in the middle of the page), if anyone's interested**

In the meantime, here are a couple of other drawings I've done recently:


^This introduces two new characters for you guys! Rius is the cool guy in the happenin' shades* and if you can look in Gu's backpack, you see a blue animal-thingy. That's Pinq (like 'pink' but with a 'q').


And then, this is just a boring drawing of Day of View (the curly-haired girl is Day, by the way^^). I hope ya like!


Okay, many handshakes and fava beans for all who've visited (eat those fava beans(!), they're good for you). ~Much love~

[Mangapen]

but, but, but... Pinq is blue! *head explodes*

Good stuff, and sounds like you have a good backstory for all your characters... now, put them in sequentials and get to submitting to SLG :-)

[Mary_mari]

but, but, but... Pinq is blue! *head explodes*

Haha^^ Yes, Pinq is blue *I love wordplay* There's a story behind why he's named that (and the uninterested are urged to ignore the following*). The first time Gu and Kek meet, this weird, little blue creature slinks up to Gu. She gets excited b/c she loves animals and asks Kek what it's name is. Still caught off-guard by this prying, pink-haired girl, he replys, "...Pinq..." (!) because all he can see are the bright, magenta pig-tails on her head. Adorable? Or boring? Your call :anime:

Anyway, again to Mangapen, I hadn't the slightest idea of what a sequential was until I saw your post! Although, that would be awesome to get something going w/Slave Labor...*wow* But, I'm still such a newbie(!).


See?! More toe-nail drawings. Can anyone guess what Nick character this was adapted from...?^^

Thanks all for taking a peek! I'm so happy I can share this stuff with people who *seem* interested !

[Mangapen]

Yeah, sequentials=comic book pages. The 'frames' are called panels... space between panels are the gutters. Traditional size is 11x17 inch paper, with a live area of about 10x15 inches... so each panel is about the size most people do drawings... so, making sequentials usually isn't a problem... telling a story with them is the difficult part :-) You can buy comic art board that's already laid out with live area, and a safe area (the safe area is a smaller area inside the live area where most important stuff goes, and all lettering goes... to keep it safe when the pages are cropped for printing). BTW, when images fill the whole live area, that page is called a full bleed, since there won't be any white space around the edges of the panels, otherwise panels are lined up on the safe area for the more traditional comic book look.

So, now you know :-)

BTW, manga paper is a different size... but, since no american publishers take manga size paper, it's pretty useless if you hope to be published, except for Tokyopop contests.

[James]

Love them. You have a real sellable style there and the skill to play and manipulate that style accordingly. Fantastic. Great work!

[Rayeli]

Awesome work! I also like the style you use there. Do you color them with water color or use some kind of coloring program?

[Mary_mari]

*To Mangapen*: Oh, much appreciation for the info!! I don't like my anime style stuff so...I probably won't work w/manga layouts. But, again, thank you soo much for the information*


*To SJJ*: Oooo, sellable...I like that! :anime: Thanks for looking!

*To Rayeli*: I'm glad you like! Haha, my coloring program will make everyone laugh at me. This is exactly what I do: I draw them with regular Bic ink, color them with Crayola coloring pencils, scan 'em, and finally run them through Roxio Photosuite (that's all I have!) and apply Smart Blur 1. That's why they look watercoloured-ish* I cheat --shhhh-- ^^"

I wish I had a better program to colour my drawings with, but...I'm not too computer savvy. I used to work with tablets when I was in high school, but I never made actual pictures. Basically, I'm a caveman when it comes to colouring*