So, I haven’t been using this blog quite as often as before, but I’m still working quite a bit! Expect a portfolio website on the horizon. 
In the meantime, I’ve posted a new illustration on my deviantArt, which I hope you all enjoy:
http://courtneytrowbridge.deviantart.com/#/d4cgy0q
The Japanese ball-jointed doll craze?
Kinda creepy.
The format itself?
Pretty neat.
Collecting dolls is not much of a hobby of mine, though I do enjoy higher-end models that employ great costume design. Robert Tonner and Marina Bychkova definitely inspired me to take my work 3D.
This picture actually doesn’t quite do justice to what I have done so far, because the flash is really reflecting on the rougher surfaces more than what you’d see in reality. I have already been trying out some buffing tools ala Dremel, but the speed of ours is a bit much for the material. I’ve been considering a nail buffer might work to smooth out the cracks, though haven’t invested in that or a slower Dremel yet to really give the piece some polish.
Ball-jointed figure head detail
This head, while hollow (thanks to aluminum foil), still needs to be drilled out in neck region for the ball to fit into. I’m currently using a oven bake polymer clay as practice, before moving to a much easier air dry clay, of which I can add on parts easily even after the piece is dried (such as the ball of each joint…much easier to align things that way). I’ll be interested to see if the air dry stuff dries harder, as well.
Here’s the torso relatively far along. It’s also hollow, made of oven bake polymer clay, and still needs leg and arm openings drilled in so that the aluminum foil armature can be removed.
Ball-jointed figure head and torso
Again, the photo really reflects on any not perfectly smooth surfaces, and I have yet to find a buffing tool I love (need a nail buffer perhaps or a slower Dremel), so it looks much nicer in person at this time. The photos are a tiny disappointing, but should only serve to inspire me to A. find a buffing tool, and B. use the camera more often.
courtneytrowbridge@gmail.com
Next week I am going to be a bridesmaid for my dear sweet Sheil and Vic’s wedding. The wedding is sort of a punky Rococo-themed amalgamation, and Rococo is one of my favorite design periods!
I found this necklace at Anthropologie and really liked it, but thought it would be a cool idea to create some ultimately removable pieces to fit it more into the style period. I’m thinking I’ll leave it relatively asymmetric, and add in a few well-placed flowers on the other side. The applique needs a little trimming before it’s done and I’d like to incorporate the rose quartz teardrops in better with a few more beads. And yes, that flower is ponyskin.
Rococo-inspired necklace
Please click on the links to visit my Flickr page and see the images larger! Though, I still felt it quite necessary to also take a detail shot of the applique so far. I’d love to find a way to incorporate more roses and especially a bird into the piece! But I don’t want it to get TOO large. We’ll see…and of course I’ll post photos of the finished product!
Rococo-inspired necklace detail
courtneytrowbridge@gmail.com
I just got copies of a recent children’s book collaboration with an author, and I’m pleased as punch! The design turned out so nice, my images look vibrant, and my client is super excited. What a happy ending. Except, maybe not an ending since she’d like to work together on a sequel.
The book is currently available here on the publisher’s website, and I’ll post the Amazon link as soon as it’s up!
Here are some preview images:
It’s awesome that the author, Elizabeth Kass chose one of my favorite images from the series as the cover! Let’s hope the book is a success!
*All book images copyrighted.
Sometimes I have a problem with being a little too literal. I did a sample for a publisher recently that took me more time than I would have liked and in the end had an illustration that was bright and engaging, but perhaps not exactly for children. The character in it was a girl who in fact wasn’t a character at all. Instead, she was a real girl that perhaps kids could identify with but not necessarily get into reading about and aspire to be. Design fail.
Likewise, clients often want something they constantly refer to as “cartooney” which I take to mean they want something stylized and less realistic. My personal work can’t really be referred to as cartooney, but I love other illustrator’s more stylized approaches and have recently vowed to take notice as I think my work for clients would greatly benefit from it! A few months ago I did this rough for a client. The colors are basically thrown in since it is just a rough and all wrong and the perspective is totally messed up, but I really like the base drawing and approach. I have a brand new client and the word “cartooney” is being thrown around and I feel inspired!
My actual training is in fashion design work. Designing is all well and good…every fashion designer dreams of having the freedom to creatively put together a line of clothing. Unfortunately, EVERY fashion designer dreams of this. So, naturally, opportunities of this degree are rather scarce.
It’s hard to find gigs even doing the drawing presentation, but that definitely is a fun part of the job, and not everyone who goes to school for FD has this type of skill. Here are some examples. Click on each thumbnail to go to an album (I use Photobucket strictly for image hosting, unfortunately they seemed to have “upgraded” their site so I can no longer just have a simple blank page to take you to…but at least this way you only have to click on one thumbnail to see all 5 images…double-click to make it slightly larger).
Last year I was working on a set of 13 illustrations for a Western novel called Pickett’s Trail. The author is named Jon Lantz, but sadly the book was published posthumously by his uncle, Ron Lantz, who is a delight to work with. Ron and I are collaborating on some other projects as well.
The book is now available on his publisher’s website as well as Amazon.com.
Here’s a peek at some of the illustrations:
All images © Jon R. Lantz.
In more recent years, I just love working in color. Usually this manifests itself in all kinds of neon hues and mixed media!
This was done as a gift for my friend Melissa. It's a mixture of ink pen, color pencil, concentrated watercolors, and gold ink.
This is an image of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Ballpoint pen and marker.
Color pencil and marker.
Please do not take my images and use them without permission. I own all the rights to them. That being said, I do commission work and I also most likely will be okay with you using them for something as long as I know what it is. Please just ask me at courtneytrowbridge@gmail.com. I promise I am not mean. Thanks!!
I’ve been working on my own children’s book for about a year and a half, in between other book projects I’ve been doing for clients. Rapunzel was one of my favorite fairy tales as a kid, augmented by the Peck Gandre Rapunzel paper doll I had then! My reason for wanting to retell the tale, aside from my love of it, was that the original (as with most fairy tales) really smoothes over a bunch of complications! My idea was to create something a little bit more epic…and I’m really hoping to finish it this year (since I’ve learned after beginning the project that Disney is coming out with Rapunzel Unbraided next year).
Here is a sneak peek! For secrecy, I’m not going to explain the drawing. It’s only concept anyway.
This is a ballpoint pen sketch that's then messed around with in Photoshop.
I have been posting a lot of pencil work but I also enjoy working in ink. Sometimes I grab my extra fine ink pens….sometimes I really just want a cheap ballpoint pen. I can really achieve a much sketchier effect with the ballpoint, but both have nice results. Here are some examples. Some are colored a bit as well.
This was done with different Micron pens. Since they go all the way down to a .005 point they are really up my alley (detail, detail, detail)!
A pretty nymph gazes into the water. This was hand inked but cleaned up a bit in Photoshop.
This was inspired by the classic fairy tale, The Snow Queen but also the children's book I have been working on, which will be a retelling of the classic Rapunzel.
Here's an example of working in ballpoint pen. The hand drawn image was brought into Photoshop where I added a few extras - like the shine in her hair.
Here is something with a much less realistic looking approach, plus I added in some pencil, color pencil and marker.
I love this goofy drawing of the smurf village done on the fly in a notebook.
