I Looked into the Void, and the Void Tossed Back Art Supplies: New Art, Reviews, and More!

  

The last few months have been busy as ever for me, and in addition to the usual mix of work, personal projects, art, writing, raising monarchs, and social excursions, I also dove in head-first to a really fun (and admittedly: somewhat time intensive) side-hobby: doing Amazon reviews.

Now I have no intentions to turn this blog into a space for a string of extensive reviews, but rather, I wanted to take a moment to elaborate on why I've been enjoying it so much, and why I actually feel it's been beneficial to my art.

I Looked into the Void, and the Void Tossed Back Art Supplies

I started getting into doing reviews because, well, I use Amazon reviews to gauge a large amount of my purchases. From cat litter, toilet paper, batteries and other household items, through to niche art supplies. I realized that over the years I've read probably thousands of reviews, but hadn't contributed very many, and for whatever reason, that propelled me forward to look into how I could get involved into reviewing items for free or at low-cost in exchange for a review (you can Google this if you're interested in doing it too!).

In time, I was reviewing all sorts of things, and after a time I got to the point where I had enough credibility that I would sometimes reach out directly to sellers on Amazon to ask if they were interested in offering me products for them in exchange for an honest review, and it should be no surprise that some of the most interested sellers I contacted were often ones that had art supply listings with few or no reviewer photos: how sad!

So over the past few months I've reviewed over a dozen sets of brushes, as well as colored pencils, acrylics, water color pencils, and more. Some have been great, and some not. But at the end of the day, one of the things it did was that it prompted me to do more shorter, focused projects, and to reignite my love of 2D real media pieces.

Some pieces got more love than others, and the ones that got more love were usually the ones with better supplies, but even still, it felt wonderful to have the freedom to experiment and have fun without worrying so much about the final result. And as an added bonus: whatever my findings, I felt good knowing that by my reviews and photos, I was hopefully helping other artists or aspiring artists out there make informed decisions about their supplies, and where they might want to spend their money.

So what I've decided to do is to post all of the pieces I've worked on over the last few months where I was using art supplies I was reviewing. As I mentioned: sometimes the supplies weren't up to snuff, in which case I didn't spend much time creating art with them, but for most of these pieces (with the exception of the sculptures), I probably would not have ever created them were it not for the fact I was nudging myself along to do the best possible reviews I could. :) In particular, I think there is close to a 0% chance I would have ever done any face painting or work in acrylics were it not for wanting to provide reviews for various products. And a major shout out to Jessica Johnson and Jay Patel for being a model and photographer on one of the impromptu "What about having some fun collaboration with this facepaint...?" sessions. You two rock!

I'm not going to link all the reviews (since that isn't the purpose of this blog), but if you have questions on any particular ones, just let me know and I'd be more than happy to let you know! The captions below list what materials were being reviewed for each piece.

Art Created with The Help of One or More Reviewed Products
 

"Sashah's Song" (Work in Progress) - Multiple Types of Paint Brushes

"Koi" - Colored Pencils and Paint Brushes

"Huntress" - Electric Eraser

"Jeweled Lioness" - Various Paint Brushes

Water Color Pencils

Sketch Book

"Blue" - Water Color Pencils and Paint Brushes

"Raven" - Water Color Pencils and Paint Brushes

Face Paints and Paint Brushes (Inspired by a painting by the incredibly talented Balaa)

Face Paints and Paint Brushes (Model: Jessica Johnson, Photographer: Jay Patel)

Acrylic Paints

"Wulfhound" - Pen

Acrylic Paints and Paint Brushes

Fountain Pen and Aqua Brushes

"Messenger" - Paint Brushes

Gel Pens

On the whole, I've been pleased (if not a bit overwhelmed sometimes) with all the art and reviews I've been able to squeeze in, and while I'm hoping to slow my roll a bit so that I can dig back into some more involved projects like my "Sashah's Song" sculpture, I am hoping that I can keep this momentum up, and that going forward, I can squeak in a few new art smaller pieces pieces with a bit more regularity. :) That's the intent, at least!

As a random bonus, here are two tabletop doodles I did during our recent Blizzard Art Summit! That is a Rogue Dragon on the left. ;)

 

I hope you find your inspiration in the most surprising of places too!

My 2015 Year in Review

2015 year has been something, alright!

I'm not ashamed to admit that the first half was pretty heavy and depressing for me, as I was still reeling over the loss of one of my dear friends, Kevin Kanai Griffith. :(

I felt like in early 2015 it had to really force myself to do personal writing (and I did), but the art side of things wasn't coming nearly as easily for me, and somewhere in late 2014 and early 2015 I felt like someone had shaken me awake to get me to really sit down and think if I was happy with the trajectory of my career as a Community Manager at Blizzard. In truth, I was content and I certainly enjoyed a lot of the work I was doing, but I kept finding myself wondering if I was selling myself short by not even letting myself consider the possibility of a more creative career in the arts.

The thought was terrifying, and then after a time, it was inspiring. What could my life be like in another five or ten years if I let myself pursue the arts? Would I even be capable, qualified, or skilled enough to change careers and find success in something so different? Would I have to leave Blizzard to progress?

In the early half of 2015, I didn't talk about it, but behind the scenes, I gave it my all.

I applied to a job at Blizzard as a Media Artist within Story and Franchise Development (formerly known as Cinematics) and Video and Post Production with every ounce of passion I had. I spent countless hours on my cover letter, resume, portfolio, and then threw myself into the art test and preparing for the eventual interview.

And I got it.

And I haven't looked back.

I talked about my new opportunities within Blizzard in this blog post, but even in the time since, I've got to tell you: I am so much happier. I have so much more creative energy both during and after work, and feel like I am just buzzing with ideas. I feel like myself again, in the best possible way. I love being surrounded by so many creative individuals, I am digging my new work/life balance, and I am so excited for where the future will take me. I'm glad I dared to make the change, and that I had the opportunity to join such an immensely talented, passionate, and wonderful team.

So when I look back at the first half of this year, part of me cringes that there isn't a lot to show for it publicly, but man, if you could see all the hours and hours that went into my portfolio/art test, you would probably understand that that's completely fine by me. :)

I remember about a year ago at this time I was really struggling with whether or not to make a career change, and I'm immensely glad I did. If I had any piece of advice in all of this, it's to be willing to believe in yourself and pursue your own happiness with as much gusto as you can muster! It's never too late to follow your heart!

12 Glimpses of My 2015 Year in Review
 

This year was extremely busy, but I put together 12 of my "top" projects throughout the year, which you can see above and learn more about below:

1. World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 3: Bringing Monarch Brightwing to Life: While I technically completed this official project in the middle of 2014, it wasn't actually posted publicly until May of 2015. It was definitely a fun project to try to realize Monarch Brightwing in a butterfly-cosplay-sized sculpture, but I really enjoyed the challenge! It was one of the first full-body sculptures I'd done in years, too!
    
2. This year I did a fair bit of personal writing, organizing, blogging, and a boatload of social media. I made 16 blogs in 2015, including numerous blogs detailing walkthroughs of my various projects. I'm hoping to increase that number in 2016, as well as to really kick my writing into gear!
    
3. This is one of the many composite images I created for my portfolio for my media artist job application. I spent so much time working on the contents of it, and I'm so very glad it all paid off. :)
    
4. Matt Murdock (Daredevil): Avocado at Law: I got really into Netflix's Daredevil this year, and allowed myself a bit of a breather to do some loose fan art of him in the middle of the year.
    
5. 30 Day Story-Sketch Challenge: Day 2: Protection: In July I decided to challenge myself to partake in a 30-day challenge to sketch characters and environments from a story I wrote, and would like to get back to editing in order prompt me to get back in the headspace of those characters. This is the second day's image of two of the main characters. Unfortunately I only made it about five days in before I got really sick and put the challenge on ice for awhile, but I definitely plan to give it another go next year.
    
6. 'Butterscotch' - World of Warcraft Fan Art Yak: Gah, this project was a beast! Started on November 3rd, 2012 and completed on July 26, 2015, this project spanned many years, and was subject to so much scope creep and technical hurdles that it was sometimes incredibly frustrating to keep moving forward with it, but finally, finally it is done. During the last two years, I've been trying to finish off a number of long outstanding projects and this was one of them. It was also a more than subtle reminder that money and time are hardly limitless, so it's important to make sure you're spending your time on projects you find worthwhile, and well, that you actually finish them.
    
7. “Dragon Mage” – ZBrush Sculpture: This is yet another project that had been put on ice for awhile that I finished up in 2015. I had a lot of fun with the patterning on this fella. :)
    
8. Sculpture: "Friendship": Amidst a lot of really time-intensive projects (like the job application, Monarch Brightwing Sculpture, and Yak project), when Cindy visited me this year I was somewhat emphatic that I wanted to to a project we could actually complete during a few days, and this ended up being just that. :) I'd long wanted to experiment with a particular type of air dry clay, and had a wonderful time sculpting with my seester! <3
    
9. Demon Pig from 2015 BlizzCon Sketch Group: I enjoyed working at the BlizzCon Art Gallery this year as well as at the BlizzCon Sketch Group. The theme for the sketch group was "demon + pig" so I had fun with it. :)
    
10. Crafty Secret Santa and "Sailor Usagi": This year I hosted a special Secret Santa-type exchange for crafty people that you can read about here, and by and large I feel it's been a great success! My own giftee enjoyed (among other things) Sailor Moon and rabbits, so I forged her interests together into a fun little sculpture gift. It was a lot of fun to be able to allow my creativity to go wild on another short-form sculpture!
     
11. Jeweled Lion Sculpture (Work in Progress): While it's not done yet, in late December I discovered yet another abandoned project from many years ago (2011), and I decided to take a break from my other projects to try to and make it into something with a bit better form. I'm looking forward to finishing it off!
     
12. “Sashah's Song” – Mixed Media Sculpture (Work in Progress - Current as of December 17, 2015 - Photographed by Dana Bishop): I started this sculpture way back in late 2014, and it sat around for the bulk of the year before I got moving again on it in the later half of 2015. It's a sculpture of one of the lead protagonists of my stories, who happens to be a werewolf enchantress. Much like the Yak, this project has encountered numerous technical battles along the way, including not fitting properly in a home oven, which meant I had to build an oven to bake it, so... suffice to say, she has continued to be a labor of love, and I'm really hoping I can finish her off in the near future. :) I figure I'm around 106 hours in at this point, and there are a lot more photos of her over on my Twitter accounts @KLeCrone and @Vaeflare. To date, this is very possibly the project I'm proudest of so far!

On to 2016!

All-in-all it's been quite a year, and I can't wait to see what 2016 holds! Some personal things I'm aiming to accomplish in the new year include:

1. Complete "Sashah's Song" Sculpture
2. (Re)learn how to mold and cast
3. Finish one or more short stories
4. Keep moving forward with one or more novels
5. Learn some new art materials (CX5, I'm looking at you!)
6. Finish at least one outstanding art project and selectively retire others
7. Sell some new personal art
8. Continue to infuse my unique vision into my work
    

Conventions/Festivals I Am Planning to Attend in 2016

1. February - The Southern California Writer's Conference
2. May - Lightning in a Bottle
3. July - San Diego Comic Con
4. August - PAX Prime (Planned)  

Thank you for all your support in 2015, and thanks for joining me on my creative journey!

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 3: Bringing Monarch Brightwing to Life

Back in 2014 when I was still a Community Manager, I worked on an official project relating to a character for the Blizzard game Heroes of the Storm, and due to one thing or another, it took over a year for all the requested blogs relating to the project to finally be published on the official site, but at last in May of 2015, the final blog and photos were posted on Battle.net, and I wanted to share the final results here for posterity as well :)

Originally I shared with you how this project began and the various stages required to sculpt the Monarch Brightwing sculpture that will serve as the base of what may very well be the world’s first butterfly cosplay!* In the second part of this blog series, I showed you the colorful and creative steps that followed, and in this blog, we’re putting it all together and bringing Monarch Brightwing to life with a live monarch butterfly from my home garden!

 

The in-game model is seen on the left, and my sculpture is seen on the right. All it needs now is a regal monarch!

Where We Left Off
 

When we last left off, Monarch Brightwing was all painted, sealed, and ready for her guests, and it was time for everything to come together to complete this unique take on cosplay!  Here are the final results:

 

Did You Know?
 

Monarch butterfly populations have plummeted so much in recent years that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now believes there might be reason to protect them under the Endangered Species Act.

You can learn more about how you can help raise monarchs and milkweed plants at MonarchWatch.org.

All monarch butterflies used in this project were hand-raised and released into the wild after photographing.

Outtakes!
 

Things don’t always go as planned when you’re working with one (or more!) live subjects, so here are some of my favorite outtakes of Monarch Brightwing and her fluttery entourage.

 

 

 

I'd highly recommend checking out the original blogs which are posted directly on Blizzard's website because there are a lot more photos and details about the process there (and with much better formatting)!

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 1: Sculpting Monarch Brightwing

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 2: Painting Monarch Brightwing
World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 3: Bringing Monarch Brightwing to Life

If you're interested in finding out more about Heroes of the Storm, you can learn more about this fun team brawler here on our official site. And if you work at Blizzard or manage to get a tour of campus, you can see this little guy currently on display at the Blizzard Museum!

Do you have any questions about painting materials, the creative process for this project, or raising monarchs? Let me know in the comments below!

As this project was done on-the-clock for work, all photos of Brightwing and my Brightwing sculpture are Copyright Blizzard Entertainment. All standalone monarch photos are copyright Kimberly LeCrone.

* - As far as we know! 

Onward to New Opportunities within Blizzard and BlizzCon 2015

 Onward to New Opportunities within Blizzard

It's been an incredibly busy year, and among the plethora of activity during 2015, I accepted an exciting new position at Blizzard as a Media Artist within Story and Franchise Development (formerly known as Cinematics) and Video and Post Production, which I started in early June. At the time I was also supporting the launch of Heroes of the Storm while I slowly transitioned away from my various Community Manager responsibilities behind-the-scenes.

I made this announcement official back in August with this goodbye post on the official Heroes of the Storm forums, and I wanted to share it here as well:

ONWARD TO NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN BLIZZARD 

For over six years I’ve served on Blizzard’s Community Team, and together we’ve shared many adventures across the sprawling realms of Azeroth, Sanctuary, the Nexus, and more. From Diablo III design discussions to Warcraft fan art features and contests, I’ve enjoyed connecting with so many of you online and in person at conventions, but alas: my time working in community is coming to an end as I explore new opportunities within Blizzard. 

I’ve loved community work and all its intricacies for many years, way back even when I was making World of Warcraft PvP videos, blogs, and fan art in my spare time, and being ingrained on Blizzard’s Community Team has been a wildly fulfilling ride on so many levels. So it was only after a lot of profound soul-searching these last few months that I came to realize that what I was craving was to move in a more artistic direction professionally, which would ultimately take me away from the Community Team and onto the creative powerhouse known as Story and Franchise Development, which houses Video and Post Production, Blizzard Animation, Visual Media, Creative Development, and more.

On one hand, I couldn’t be happier for this opportunity, but on the other, it is with a bittersweet heart that I will have to step back from the usual Community Manager duties, blue text, and flavorful Twitter Takeovers. But fear not: I won’t be far! :)

I know I’ve said it many times over the years, but I wanted to thank all of you for your passion for all things Blizzard, and for continuing to offer your insight and feedback so that we can make the best games and community we possibly can. It has been an absolutely wonderful journey thus far, and I’m excited to see what the future will bring with so many developments on the horizon.

Be kind to each other, keep in touch, and I’ll see you at BlizzCon!

<3,

-Kimberly “Vaeflare” LeCrone

P.S. – Velociraptors are still the best dinosaurs.

You can read my goodbye post here on the official Heroes of the Storm forums

My time spent in my new position been absolutely wonderful. I adore my new team and my responsibilities, and I relish the opportunity to be creative in my day-to-day. :) I can definitely tell you that after over six years as a Community Manager with Blizzard, it was a welcome change to step into a full-time artistic role once again, and I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to switch careers (of a sort), and yet still stay within the same company I know and love.

It was super exciting to see my name in a new section of the credits for StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void as well!

BlizzCon 2015
 

Nearly every year, my employer (Blizzard Entertainment) puts on a massive two-day convention celebrating all things Blizzard. It's a fantastic spectacle to see, and it's been wonderful to spend time connecting with players from around the world (I believe something like 25,000 people are in attendance: wow!). You can find out more about BlizzCon here, and if you're unfamiliar with Blizzard Entertainment, you can find out about them here.

This year's BlizzCon was a little different for me, however. Whereas I used to have one set of diverse responsibilities for BlizzCon as a Community Manager representing one or more franchises, instead this year I had the incredible opportunity to see some of the many projects my new team and I have been collaborating on up on the big screen during the opening ceremony and during panels: crazy! You can watch the action-packed opening ceremony here:

Congrats to everyone involved in making BlizzCon 2015 a jam-packed success! Now it's time for me to watch the VODs of all the panels I missed... ;)

Did you tune in for BlizzCon? If so, what was your favorite announcement?

"Fly Free" Hawk Plate and Gamer for Life Art Book Tribute to KKG

This is the longest I've gone without blogging for quite awhile, but I'm aiming to get back in the saddle again.

A few months ago, one of my close friends, Kevin K. Griffith, passed away, and for awhile I simply didn't have the bandwidth for a lot of things like blogging. Over the past few months I have been creating new art and writing, though, and in the coming months I'm also aiming to create a sort of standing memorial post to his art here on my blog, but, well, first thing's first: I have quite a lot to catch up on.

"Fly Free" - Plate

 

"Fly Free" - Fired Plate - Completed on November 1, 2014

The final few months of 2014 were rough for many, myself included. Weeks after Kevin passed away, some of my family and friends gathered to celebrate my Birthday by painting ceramics. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to paint (and wasn't necessarily in the mood to create art), but I wanted it to be something with meaning to me. So, after some thought, I worked to painted a red tailed hawk flying free.  It seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

Glazing is always guesswork, because you never know how the colors will turn out until they are fired. I've slowly been getting the hang of layering the various glazes, though, and this plate ended up nearly as I'd imagined it. It's around 8 inches in diameter and was painted freehand.

  

 

"Gamer for Life: A Fan Art Tribute for KKG" Art Book

 

Primal Fury - Altered Beast Fan Art - Project KKG - Completed on February 3rd, 2014

Last year I posted a detailed walk through of the above piece of Altered Beast fan art, which I made specifically for Project KKG. During this call to action, 283 artists came together from around the world to create art based on games Kevin loved in order to support he and his wife in their time of trial. Kevin fought an incredibly rare form of cancer, Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma (ASPS) cancer, and unfortunately in Oct. 2014, he passed away prior to the campaign going live.

While the original intent was for all of the proceeds will go directly to paying for treatment, instead the purpose of the book was re-examined after Kevin's passing, and the organizers opted to transform the love that had been poured into the art for the book into a tribute book entitled "Gamer for Life: A Fan Art Tribute for KKG."

The proceeds from the sales will be going to two different charity organizations related to cancer, and the Indiegogo campaign for it is still open for another week if you're interested in finding out more about the campaign or purchasing an art book of your own.

Myself and many other artists have donated hundreds if not thousands of hours to make this project a reality, and I hope others are able to enjoy the spirit of hope and solidarity that went into making it, even if Kevin isn't around to enjoy it with us.

You only have so much time in this life, so make sure to make it count.

I hope all of you are well, and thank you again for taking the time to read my blog. 

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 2: Painting Monarch Brightwing

This dragon of a project was relates to a character in the upcoming Blizzard game Heroes of the Storm. Last month I shared with you how this project began and the various stages required to sculpt the Monarch Brightwing sculpture that will serve as the base of what may very well be the world’s first butterfly cosplay!* In this second part of this blog series, I wanted to show you the colorful and creative steps that followed.

The first in-depth blog covers the beginning stages of my Monarch Brightwing sculpture, here! There are also some photos of monarchs tossed-in for good measure, and I strongly encourage you to check it out if you’re curious to learn more about monarchs or find out more about how I approach sculptures!

Likewise, I recently posted the second blog in the series, which covers all aspects relating to the work that went into painting the sculpture. I'd highly recommend checking out the original blogs which are posted directly on Blizzard's website because there are a lot more photos and details about the process there (and well, much better formatting)!

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 1: Sculpting Monarch Brightwing

World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 2: Painting Monarch Brightwing
World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 3: Bringing Monarch Brightwing to Life

 

  

At last Monarch Brightwing was finally ready for her butterfly cosplayer! In the next blog covering this quirky project, you’ll witness everything coming together, butterfly and all, to complete this unique take on cosplay! You can check out some teaser images below.

 

 

 

If you're interested in finding out more about Heroes of the Storm (the game I work on), you can learn more about this awesome team brawler here on our official site. 

Do you have any questions about painting materials, the creative process for this project, or raising monarchs? Let me know in the comments below!

Onto World’s First Butterfly Cosplay – Part 3: Bringing Monarch Brightwing to Life! 

As this project was done for work, all photos of Brightwing and my Brightwing sculpture are Copyright Blizzard Entertainment. All standalone monarch photos are copyright Kimberly LeCrone.

* - As far as we know!