Mermaid and the Pirate

In late 2012, I was approached by a local comic company to draw a comic based on the 1975 anime movie "Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid", obviously based on the fairytale of the same name. It was meant to be for their manga anthology, so I was asked to draw in a traditional manga style similar to the movie.

The story was meant to be a sort of unofficial continuation of the movie and I was intended to draw 6 pages an issue.
I was asked to also ink and possibly add some screentones as you would normally see in manga to give it that authentic feel. Although they were only 6 pages, it took me about a good year to finish due to other projects I had been working on around the same time along with a full-time job.

A good lesson to be learned from this is: to not take too many projects at once, for it will take a toll on your productivity.

However, once everything was finished, the company ended up not publishing the pages for they felt the art and designs looked too similar to the movie.

Another lesson to be learned: make sure you have a good understanding of what you're getting yourself into before you waste a lot of time on it.

Despite not being published, I had fun working on this. It just felt good to draw comics again.
The inks and screentones were done in Manga Studio, which was the first time I've used the program.

New job!

A quick update of what's been happening the past few months.

For one, I got a new full-time job!
I've been hired as a Technical Artist for High 5 Games.
So far it's been great. I'm surrounded by a whole team of fun, creative and talented people.
But unfortunately since this is a 9-5 job, it's been tough to squeeze in some drawing time.

Our art crew throws a life drawing session once a week, so I've been utilizing the time to practice my figure drawing, something I haven't done in awhile.

Each took about 2 hours.

Skullgirls Weekly Tee

The good folks at Eighty Sixed Clothing chose my design for their weekly Skullgirls tee!

A little bit of context: Skullgirls is an indie fighting game that I'm a big fan of. To support further development of the game, the clothing company Eighty Sixed releases a new fan-made tee every week for purchase. "Squigly" is a upcoming DLC character that's currently in development, and will be released soon, so I wanted my design to be based on her.

I feel so incredibly honored and cannot thank them enough for this. If you like my art, or just want to support the amazing development behind this game, you can purchase a tee here:

http://www.eightysixedclothing.com/skullgirls-weekly-tee-squigly-wit-it/
It’s only available for one week so get it before it’s gone!

Once again, thanks so much to Eighty Sixed and Lab Zero for this amazing honor!

Quick update on what's been happenin'

I really should start updating this thing again. Problem is, I just got a tumblr so I've been updating there recently. You can check it out at lyssaspex.tumblr.com.

Other than that, I'm currently working on some freelance projects, but I've been told to be pretty hush-hush about them. I've also just started attending college classes this semester to continue my education so I've been trying to find time to squeeze in some personal art, but lately the only thing I managed to work on these past few months was entering in a couple of t-shirt design contests at welovefine.com.

Didn't win the Bravest Warriors contest, but Cartoon Hangover reblogged my design which was pretty neat. The Power Rangers one is still unknown.

Also in the works, is a small comic project I've working on. I'm planning on making a series of gag comics based on my experiences growing up on Staten Island. The only problem standing in my way is figuring out a title and a place where to host it. Here's a peek at what's to come:

So all in all, hopefully things will turn around soon. And maybe I can finally get a table at some conventions this year!

In the meantime, look out for any updates on my tumblr or deviantART.

Character designs

Been putting together a concept art/visual development portfolio.
Here's a few design sheets for some characters of mine.

 

 

Official website up!

Okay so I know I haven't updated this thing in a while, but if anyone is still watching this blog, I'd like to announce that alyssaspector.com is finally up!

It still may need a few tweaks here and there, but for the most part, I think it's ready to be open for the public.

Peace!

Poison Ivy final

Annnd done!

Sketch dump

Always sketching erry day. Whether at home, on the bus, at a coffee shop, etc.

But I should really make more time to actually scan the work I do.

Sketchdump time!

Red pandas. Why? Just because.

Poison Ivy Pencils/Inks

So it's been a looong time since I've updated, but things have been crazy busy over here. With between doing the freelance thing, working on-call, my sister's wedding, etc.
Now that this month is almost over, I'm going to get back into the swing of things and update a lot more.

Most of the time, I've been trying to improve on the things I have the most trouble with, such as anatomy, line weight, etc. Especially when it comes to inking. But I just got a new brush and bottle of ink so I've been putting that to good use.

Anyway, here's a piece of Poison Ivy I've been working on. She was always one of my favorite Batman villains, alongside the Joker and Mr. Freeze. I had fun drawing in all the various exotic, carnivorous and poisonous plants in there. :D

Colors coming soon!

Double Rainbow

Hey, so like, I guess I haven't updated this thing in awhile huh? Damn, where have I been?

Well, over the summer, I was commissioned by a perfume company to do the artwork for a perfume label as well as a few other projects.

But sadly, since I've been so busy, I've had very little time to draw for myself. Well, except for a few sketches here and there of course.

Also, an official website is still under construction. Just been trying to get the hang of Dreamweaver again...

In the meantime, here's something I doodled up in Photoshop the other day :)
Wanted to play around with the brush tools and see what kind of textures I could end up with.
Also, I may or may not have been inspired by this...

Peace out!

Phoenix Wright Vector Poster

Did this a year ago for Gabe Bridwell's class. We had to make a movie poster out of vectors. I chose to do a poster based on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, one of my favorite video game series. I had a lot of fun with this~

Carmen Character Designs and Pinups

Here's a couple of character design sheets and pinups of my character Carmen.

Comic Book Style

Animation Style

© Alyssa Spector

Eterne - 5 Page Narrative

Narrative assignment for Joe Kubert. We had to create a 5-page sequential story based on our original character. This revolves around my character Carmen from my story Eterne.

© Alyssa Spector

Seven Deadly Sins

An assignment done for Alvin Pettit at The Joe Kubert School.

We had to portray the Seven Deadly Sins in our own way. I wanted to go for a 1920's Art Deco feel, so I did all seven pictures in vectors in Adobe Illustrator CS3.

The theme I wanted was to have seven different women in different rooms that sort of "revolved" around the sin they represented.

Welcome to the Blyssful Spectrum

So I'd thought I'd jump on the Blog bandwagon to showcase some of my artwork.

For my first post, this is a piece titled Astral Waltz

Penciled on 2-ply comic board, scanned, and then inked and colored digitally in Photoshop CS3.