Once Upon a Time In Monsterland - Emily Tetri Sketchblog

2012-01-31T23:47:00.001-08:00

Drive home

2012-01-25T22:21:00.001-08:00

Doodlydooperdo

2012-01-24T22:30:00.001-08:00

Ref Study

2012-01-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in a while, so here's a study from reference. I'll find a link to the excellent set of photos on Flickr later.

Speeder

2011-12-07T23:29:00.000-08:00

Deep

2011-09-22T23:27:00.001-07:00

Also, I got a DSLR

2011-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Finally. I've been wanting one for so long, so I could go take reference pictures and make stop motion movies, mostly. Naturally, this is what happened, day one. If I start having photos I want to share on a regular basis, perhaps a photography blog will be in order. We'll see. This blog won't turn into tons of photos though.

Ref Study

2011-09-12T22:13:00.001-07:00

Another quick study from reference.

Quick LOTR study

2011-09-08T07:45:00.001-07:00

Camel

2011-09-06T23:39:00.001-07:00

2011-08-14T22:15:00.001-07:00

2011-08-01T23:45:00.001-07:00

Legend of Korra

2011-07-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've been BG painting on this show, the Legend of Korra, for a little over a year now, and it's been an amazing experience. The people I'm working with are incredible and I've learned so much. Plus, I was already a huge Avatar fan. Back in college I'd watch the show and think that that was the kind of show I'd love to be a part of. And I get to! And now there's a trailer! And you can watch it! (psst, the picture is a link, if that's not clear...)

Look at her go. What a badass.

Oh! And I should say, there's another BG painter, an awesome painter named Fred Stewart, and some of the BGs in this are his, some are from the Korean crew, and some are by me.

[EDIT] Now it's a trailer that's the right speed and is viewable outside the US!

Snow beast

2011-07-22T00:18:00.001-07:00

Summertime

2011-07-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

Just petting the dogfish.

and also some serious dudes riding.

In the mountains

2011-06-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

Cowboys

2011-06-16T00:21:00.000-07:00

Sailing

2011-06-14T00:06:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted anything in so long... so here's a quick one.

Fishin in the Dark

2011-05-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

I've had this song stuck in my head for about two weeks. It makes me want to go hang out on the water on one of those hot Missouri summer nights.That's where Missouri wins against California in the better-summer debate. I like those muggy nights. There may not be any actual fishing in this picture, but I'm sure it'd be a prime spot.

Pier on a misty night

2011-04-26T02:53:00.000-07:00

Man, it gets crazy looking under the pier at night. Had to do sketches before I forgot how cool it looked.

Market

2011-04-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

I saw these kids riding down the street the other day

2011-04-11T17:29:00.001-07:00

I feel like I've seen these costumes before, but I don't know where. They were pretty great, in any case.

In the hatchery

2011-03-22T22:18:00.001-07:00

Rocky plains

2011-01-30T22:15:00.001-08:00

Girl and crow

2011-01-29T15:34:00.001-08:00

A doodle while taking a break from working today

2011-01-12T22:43:00.001-08:00

Two from life and a rather messy doodle.

Doodles and some work!

2011-01-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

Some doodles:

And here are some things I did for a job.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T15:54:00.001-08:00

This has nothing to do with the new year, but here's a little sketch that appeared in the corner while I was working on something else. Sometimes it just happens.

Speed painting from life

2010-12-27T19:39:00.001-08:00

It's been a busy month! Here's a speed paint looking out the window of the cafeteria at Brighton ski resort.

In case you haven't been keeping up on Phil's Christmas...

2010-12-18T00:12:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pages from Phil's Christmas. It's the reason for the lack of posts over here. For more, go here!

Phil's Christmas starts today!

2010-12-01T12:53:00.001-08:00

For the third year in a row, my sister and I are doing a countdown to Christmas with an illustration a day (she writes them, I draw them). Check it out over at Phil's Christmas!

Here's day one:

Sketches

2010-11-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

More studies from Life (Life the series, not "life." How confusing.):

Bedtime sketches

2010-10-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

A couple quick sketches from the last two nights.

Night sketching

2010-10-13T23:09:00.001-07:00

While waiting for class to start.

Painting in the park

2010-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

From life. I haven't done digital painting outdoors for a while. Getting a folding chair really helped things! Why didn't I think of that before? Who knows. But I'll certainly be doing more now that it's easier than trying to find a place to sit on a bench or a rock.

Chocolate Lab! It is a blog you should probably look at!

2010-09-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

The other BG painter and I have started a blog for us Nickelodeon folks. Ok, so far it's just the two of us, but maybe eventually there will be others. In any case, you should go check it out because the other BG painter (Fred) is an amazing painter and you can see his work over there. You'll know it because it's the ones that aren't mine. Also, they say "Fred" below the posts.

Click the image to go there.

Reference and a lost polar bear

2010-09-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

Poor polar bear is lost.

I've been watching "Life" - amazing cinematography and generally fascinating. Watching is slow going, however, because I can't stop pausing and painting little studies.

Sheeps

2010-09-21T18:17:00.001-07:00

Someone glued the sheep together!

Arrival and Circle Tiger

2010-09-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

Reference studies

2010-09-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

This morning's doodle:

Reference studies from photos today.

Doodles from today and last week

2010-09-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

One from life and one doodle

2010-09-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

I'll leave you to figure out which is which.

Today's sketches!

2010-08-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

I did a plein air painting class this weekend, so I guess this is sort of based on one of the locations, even though the weather was nothing like this.

And these two are just for fun

Long drawing

2010-08-20T16:52:00.001-07:00

Look at it big and scroll starting from the left and going to the right. Blogger won't let me upload it any bigger than this, unfortunately. You can see it full size here

Hallway

2010-08-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

My morning sketch from today

Driving and robot

2010-08-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

The view I see when I drive to work and a robot.

A new job! And some sketches

2010-07-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't posted here in quite awhile, and that's because I got a new job! I'm working at Nickelodeon as a Background Painter now! It's pretty amazing. I get there a little early in the mornings and usually do a little sketch. So here are four of those I did this week.

Take off!

2010-07-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

I watched Lilo and Stitch last night - I think it may have influenced my ship design here. :D

Forest

2010-07-14T22:09:00.001-07:00

Just a forest doodle. Still planning on posting stuff from my trip, but I need to collect it all. Lots of sketches and some pretty unreal photographs.

Norway!

2010-06-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

Hey! I'm in Norway right now, hence the lack of posts here. I've been sketching, but this post is going to be all pictures. I didn't take these, my sister Laura, who is quite the photographer, did.

My sister and I (she's the one who looks like a person, I'm the one who looks like Cousin It) have been traveling around here since June 9th. This is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We started out in a tiny town called Solvorn, where we stayed at the homiest hostel I've ever visited. It's run by a guy who used to bike around the world before he started Eplet Bed and Apple.

They have the friendliest sheep I have ever met. These guys are like dogs - they come running up to you, they want to be petted, and they love feeding time. When they eat out of your hand, they snuffle food up with their funny, velvety lips.

I used to ride a bike all the time. And about 10-12 years ago, I pretty much stopped. My last two short bike excursions in the past two years were a bit terrifying, so I was a little nervous to go out riding on real roads. But it was great! This is me being determined. In case you can't tell.

More cool stuff from that area. We hiked on that glacier!

Then we went to Geiranger fjord, which was very dramatic:

This shot is from 2 am - this is about as dark as it got there at night.

We saw a rainbow over the fjord! (it's above the lit hillside in the middle-ish area)

Now we are in the Lofoten Islands above the Arctic Circle. I can't do justice to how powerful this landscape is. The islands rise straight out of the sea into tall, jagged cliffs. The land feels imbued with ancient and powerful magic. Solvorn and Geiranger seemed like places for fairies and trolls, but Lofoten seems like a land of gods. Towns are only on the edges, right near the sea. The interior is left to sheer cliffs, heather-covered hillsides and the occasional hut. Hiking up the mountains, it feels like you could turn a corner and the town below would have disappeared, leaving you in a different world. I'll leave you with this picture from when we drove into Lofoten on a foggy afternoon. Soon to come - pictures of the peaks, midnight sun, and some very smelly dried fish (I guess you'll have to trust me on the smell).

Also - tonight we skinny dipped in the Arctic Ocean! It was... brisk. And amazing.

Cowboy

2010-06-03T23:14:00.001-07:00

Ink!

2010-05-29T23:58:00.001-07:00

My current little sketchbook is almost full, so I thought I'd post some stuff from that. I like to do little ink and water composition studies in it. Sometimes from life, sometimes just messing around with composition.

Sometimes I do little "comics" but I'm not sure I can call them that - they're more like a sequence without any idea of the larger story.

And I started stenciling patterns on the outsides of them. The green one is the one that's almost done, the blue is the new one.

Hunting

2010-05-29T00:43:00.001-07:00

Forest Tigers and Grassland

2010-05-27T22:40:00.001-07:00

Lunchtime sketch!

2010-05-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

I had a couple minutes at the end of my lunch break today.

Little Red

2010-05-18T22:38:00.001-07:00

Elephant

2010-05-12T00:31:00.001-07:00

Quick sketch while taking a break from a project I'm working on.

Color script beginning and some color sketches

2010-05-07T00:15:00.001-07:00

Part of a color script I've been working on.

Greyscale compositions

2010-05-04T23:37:00.001-07:00

God, you guys are sooooo embarrassing.

2010-05-02T23:12:00.001-07:00

His parents always said they loved him, but he had trouble believing people who loved him could have such evil designs against his social life.

And another color sketch from today

Disaster! and also a mermaid

2010-05-02T00:03:00.001-07:00

Planetarium colors and seaside cliff

2010-04-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

Planetarium

2010-04-28T23:18:00.001-07:00

Some stuff for a planetarium shot I want to do. But a magical planetarium, not just a regular one.

Fish kite

2010-04-26T00:14:00.001-07:00

Jungle run

2010-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been spending all day drawing super gory stuff, and then when I came home today, this is what came out when I started doodling!

Vasquez rocks

2010-04-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

I went hiking at Vaszquez rocks today. Apparently bandits used to use it as a hideout, which is pretty great.

Cliffside house

2010-04-15T00:46:00.001-07:00

Mountain pass and grand hall

2010-04-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

Times of day

2010-04-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

An experiment in painting different times of day. Even did one of those long exposure night shots (even though when I think about where I set up east and west, I guess the spot that the stars are spinning around doesn't make sense.)

Fishing village, alleyway, new sketch

2010-04-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

I guess I was wrong last time when I said this was done! I got some really helpful notes from someone in class. Also reworked that fishing village slightly. And threw in a color experiment. Man, this has been a lot of posts for that alleyway - I promise won't post so many increments next time.

Alleyway and fish shop

2010-04-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

Finished the street scene! Started working on refining the fish shop.

A lagoon and a hilly game of capture the flag

2010-04-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

Film studies

2010-04-02T00:54:00.001-07:00

All I've got for today. One from Greenzone, two from The Boys Are Back

Jungle Volcano

2010-03-31T22:40:00.000-07:00

A couple minutes of sketching while taking a break from other things tonight. I didn't really know where I was going with it - I'm starting to think it's a temple built into a volcano - I think I'll actually go back and design the whole temple thing soon.

A new portfolio site!

2010-03-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

Oolala. I still have to reformat some stuff that is obviously too small since I pretty much took this directly from my print portfolio (and added a couple other things. But this carbonmade site seems pretty cool! It sure makes it easy to make a functional portfolio, which is really all I wanted.

Here is the link! Right here! This entire line is a link!

What I did today

2010-03-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

It was a busy day for doing other stuff, but I did a bunch of foreground stuff and roughed in colors for the midground characters and alleyway stuff. Also, a b&w thumbnail for homework.

Alleyway

2010-03-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Working on finishing up that alleyway shot. I think I've pretty much got the background buildings in, just have to do the foreground and little tidbits here and there. So there are sketches over this for where I'm planning to put stuff.

Fireplace and tropical village stuff

2010-03-21T23:36:00.001-07:00

Here's a cleaned up (except for the foliage) version of that tropical village I posted a long while ago. And a rough for a shop in that village that sells fish.

Rock town

2010-03-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

From one of the thumbs from yesterday. Now I've pretty much just got to clean up some parts. And try to get some of the energy from the thumb back into some other parts.

Thumbs!

2010-03-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

Thumbs for stuff I'm working on!

A meeting

2010-03-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

A manor in a crater

2010-03-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

A sketch for something I've been working on off and on for a while. The rest of the fruits of my labor for today are more props, so I think I'll skip posting those.

Space is cool

2010-03-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

I hadn't drawn anything scifi-ish in a while. It is absolutely not based on anything that happens in actual space. Also, I've been working on some props, so I thought I'd throw those in as well as a weird little color thing I want to turn into something.

Volcano continued

2010-03-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Volcanos! Airship captains! Aimless Comics! More!

2010-03-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

Whole bunch of stuff!

Some airship captains:

I made some random comics that had no point except to try out a style. I didn't go into any of these with a story or anything.

Thumbnails for a volcano thing.

Homework I posted a couple weeks ago - still need to finish it more, but this is where it is now.

A little prop design:

Comp studies

2010-03-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

I don't have my tablet or anything right now, but I was getting itchy from not doing anything so here are some comp studies done with the lasso tool. I like the colors on my laptop screen, but that doesn't always translate to me liking the colors on a real screen. I guess it'll be a surprise in a couple days!

Out for a walk

2010-02-28T23:26:00.001-08:00

I don't know who these guys are or why they are out for a walk in the countryside.

Christopher Chant

2010-02-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have to get myself motivated so I pretend I'm working on a project. A while ago I was pretending I was working on vis dev type stuff for Christopher Chant (pretty great kids books, I recommend them). You can see one of those in this post (second image down)

Well, I decided to revisit that a bit. Here are two thumbnails for shots from the same world - a hot desert world. I've been trying to decide if the colors are too garish. I really want it to feel hot though.

Thinking back to what it was like working on this last year, it's amazing to me what a difference a year makes - I can crank out thumbnails so much faster now and not labor over lighting and colors nearly as much.

Dance hall and homework

2010-02-24T23:21:00.001-08:00

Some thumbnails for a dance hall thing I'm working on.

And here are some super rough thumbs for homework. Sci fi and using some photomashing to get compositions to start with.

Stuff!

2010-02-23T01:01:00.000-08:00

Normally Fin is a happy dog, like this:

But when I take him out in the rain, his ears go out to the sides and he just stares at me like I'm punishing him.

Some homework - color thumbnails

And some studies! Outdoor gouache painting and zoo sketching with a marker.

TIGER

2010-02-18T01:19:00.001-08:00

Crawler

2010-02-17T00:53:00.001-08:00

More studies

2010-02-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

One plein air and two from the movie mongol. I have some gouache value studies, I'll see about getting those up soon, as well as something that's not a study.

Brushes used with wild abandon!

2010-02-16T01:02:00.001-08:00

I usually only use three brushes - two hard rounds and one chalk brush. But tonight my environment design teacher gave us a whole mess of brushes to play around with. So I used them ALL. Well, not quite, but this is quite a lot of brushes. There are some really fun natural looking brushes and an incredibly handy chain brush. Brilliant!

Also, here is some environment design homework - greyscale studies:

Studies

2010-02-10T00:08:00.001-08:00

Well, today was a day of homework and studies. None of the homework is really ready for posting, but here are some studies from various films.

Diorama sketch

2010-02-07T23:44:00.000-08:00

I took a break from the usual stuff I've been working on and set up little dioramas with blankets, toilet paper tubes, and little plastic dogs tonight. I was just going to use them for reference, but I ended up painting over this one for fun.

Sloths

2010-02-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

Sloths are hilarious. They have algae that grows in their fur. They climb all the way down out of the tree to poop. Their closest relatives - anteaters and armadillos - are as different from sloths as whales are from bats. They wear tiny hard drive hats (perhaps they aren't making a fashion choice there, but man, that's cute.)
Most of my sloth information comes from here

Swamp

2010-02-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

Man, I'm obsessed with swamps and huts lately. This is a hut-free swamp, however. This is still a sketch - gotta fix that perspective and maybe change what the characters are doing/where they are.

Hut village color sketch

2010-01-30T15:54:00.001-08:00

Color sketch for a village with those huts I posted before. I'm thinking part of the year it's flooded, and people have to move around in boats and part of the year the water is down (like here) and maybe I'll put a bustling market on the ground.

Riverbank

2010-01-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

An experiment - I started with a black and white gouache sketch and colored and painted over it in photoshop.