I don't update this thing very often.. oops.  
Anyway, I'm going to be at Anime Central this weekend in the artist alley!  Yay!  Stop by if you'll be around!!

I'm also going to be at Origins Game Fair, GenCon, and GeekKon in the artist alleys.  I'll be going to San Diego Comic Con just for fun =]

Hello!
I never update because I am pretty bad at it.  I graduated college, along with & have some freelance jobs- including comic book colorist for Committed Comics and am illustrating a book for Talisman Studios, and a small game studio artist position.

But I am a little tired of people always saying that art is a talent.  Sure, a lot of talented people do art, but usually their skill comes from years of hard work.  If you need any proof of this, look at my old work/scraps.  I have a long, long ways to go before I am happy with myself as an artist,  but I still feel like I've come a long way from things like this: :thumb3885385:.  I'm actually very surprised I even went to art school with how crappy my work from back then was, haha.

If one works hard enough, their skill will improve over time.  Just keep working at it, finding good reference- always look up reference, I have at least 50 art books from classical art like Caravaggio to the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King art book (the WoW art books are amazing!).  Using reference expands your mind and ability, it isn't copying unless you actually copy from it. Shooting your own reference for figure drawing is the only way to really improve upon your already developed figure drawing ability.  Even if you are secure with how you are at figure drawing, you're probably making small mistakes- reference yourself in the mirror to make sure that you aren't making an obvious mistake.

Keep working at it, keep pushing yourself and your limits with every piece you do (don't like doing architecture? too bad, try it in the background!), and we will all be amazing artists someday   If I'm able to get freelance artist positions and pieces published, anyone can.  Truly.  Look at my old stuff and you'll see that. =]  Seriously, like this: [link]
Check out her face, what was I thinking with that nose?

An update.  Whee!
the end.

It's been a while since I updated sooo... here we go!  
My hard drive couldn't be salvaged, so all the art I did before April is gone (except for the images on Deviantart- no full size, etc).  Oh well.  All the more reason to do really good stuff for my portfolio before I graduate.  

Summer is great, I have a job at a video game store, an internship at a video game company, and moderate time to work on my own art in between!  I don't know if I can upload my work from my internship so I haven't yet.  

Commissions are open for now (that may change shortly with how much work I have).   Only a little bit of summer left, then one year left of school!!  Yay!  Hopefully I can get a real job after that =]

I have a long long ways to go in a short time...

I hope all of you are doing well!!  <3 Thank you for stopping by!!

Hello !!  It has been a long time since I wrote last!
I am very poor, and my external hard drive DIED this week (it was my backup drive while I formatted my PC).  All my stuff is gone.  I'm still holding out for hope that a friend's friend will be able to recover it, but there are no promises (all of my art, music, homework, EVERYTHING-- gone!).

Anyway!  School is coming to a close and I'm opening commissions again.

Full LARGE digital paintings like my Zelda piccie: [link] . Another example is: [link]
Will be $50-75, depending on the complexity and size- The Zelda is 11 x 17.

Digital character sketches like Robin: [link]
are $25-40 depending on complexity.  Those are around 8x11 in size.

You will get the original file in full-size, 300dpi and I will ship you one print (I can get more professionally printed for a great price, like $2/each). As long as you live in the US.  If you live outside the US it may cost a little more to ship.

I love working from character descriptions- so any personal character is very welcome!


More basic character paintings can go for cheaper, please message me and we can work something out for sure!

I can only take 2-3 commissions before I have to close them as I am still in school!

Woo, after a long long time, www.alayna.net is finally my online portfolio again!  

Check it out.. let me know what you think! ^_~

I'm back in Milwaukee!!  I swear to god that 4 months did NOT just pass by- it feels like last week I was cramming and pulling all-nighters to get all my final projects done!  I'm not really all that excited, mainly cause I'm homesick... but having my own studio space to work at during the day between classes is awesome.  I have a feeling I'll be sitting there drawing a LOT this semester.

Anyway... I'm getting my old domain back up again, so I'll update again when it does!

Well, I have no idea why I got that crazy buttload of hits, they were all repeat visitors so someone must've been hitting 'refresh' constantly.. weird..

Anyhow, it's already the middle of July and only a month and a half left of summer!  NOOOOOOOO'S!!!!!  I don't want to go back to school, really, living this Too bad this isn't SCAD in lovely Georgia T_T

I've been working on a bunch of different things, so hopefully more will be posted soon.

Commissions are still open~ $5-50 ranging on what type you want (anything from a sketch/inked drawing to a digital painting).

Thanks everybody for stopping by!  It means a lot

Can someone click on my pageviews for today and tell me what's going on....?

I changed my avatar about a week ago.  It'll probably annoy a lot more ppl than the last one   At least I hope so!  Muah hahahaa!  
And a few people have actually come by to say hello!!!! Yay!!   That makes me feel so happy ^____^

Go see Superman Returns.  Seriously.  Just do it.  It's good.  You'll love me for it.
While you're at it, go see An Inconvenient Truth.  The Al Gore movie.  It's really good also, but you'll hate me for seeing it.  Actually, don't hate me, hate America for creating 30% of the globe's global warming problems.  Someday, I'm gonna move to Canada...

Schedule for my summer:
Working on getting my real website up.
Learn 3D
Do lots of art

And taking commissions...
I won't charge much~~ Just $5/hour of work.  Which is pretty simple.
A sketch (depending on the amount of detail and whether or not a background is included) would be $5-10.  An inked picture would be around $10-15, while coloring that inked picture would be $25 (total-- I'll do a background too, so you'd get the full-sized photoshop file, I can mail you a print, and the original inked art if you want).  
I'll do anything but explicit sex.  I'll do light yaoi or a yuri.  No tentacles, please?   Original characters or fanart, anything is cool =]
I can also do colored pencil work of animals and people, such as: [link] , [link], [link] that case, you'd get the original in the mail and a scan at 300 dpi.

I don't take requests, unless you're a good friend XD  So, my good friends out there, take advantage of meee!  I'm running out of ideas to draw...

I'm all 21 now!  oh jeez.  I think that means I have to make a new ID piccie, so I'll do that later.  

I start my class on Monday!  Blah.  I was getting used to just spending all day drawing, too.

I'm going to start taking commissions, and I'll write more about them when I have the time.  I will price them cheaply.  I just basically want to make $5/hour so figure that a sketch will be 1-2 hours, while a CG painting could be anywhere from 10-50 hours depending.  
If you want to commission me, send me a note!!!!
i need monies!

Hooo man.  School is out.  Acen was sweet.  Conan (live in chicago) was hilarious.

and now it is summer!  Time to draw and play Suikoden V!


Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

omgomgomg.  Only 1 week left of school.  I'm sooooooooo happy!!!!!!!! ^_^ then ACEN!  w00tw00t.  And then the tuesday right after that I get to go see the Conan O'Brien show live.  I'm super excited.  And then... summer!!  I'm going to finally drawr stuff a lot and learn how to model things in 3D Studio Max.  And I'm going to take a class or two at MATC to transfer back to MIAD in the fall... yays!!

4 days left and so much homework left to do... !!

Hellos to all my new watchers!!  Thank you for watching me XD

Hoo man, is winter over yet?  It's so cold out... walking to school sucks!  Summer will be so awesome, it'll be warm, and I can bike again, and it'll be warm... and I can see my kitty every day!!!!!!

I got an awesome rice cooker this past weekend.  And a 25lb bag of white rice.  I'm sooooo set for the rest of the semester! Huzzaaah! XD!!

I'm DDRing like a mofo now too.  Not like I wasn't before, but just now more than ever.  In The Groove is so hard... Grawr.  Although using your hands in the midst of DDR madness is fun   :: hugs metal DDR pad ::

I'm so motived now though (more than ever, which is scary) since I got a DD.  On the way:  Colored Gum of Jet Set Radio, Cyberpunk/Femme Fatale chick, maybe another KH fanart, and maybe my Sonic 3D thingy.
BTW ~~ Check out my scraps, I have a ton of line art in there if anyone needs something to color for practice   It'd be most flattering and I'd love you forever if anyone would color them!!!

So, I have been without a computer the past few days because I'm home in Madison.. and today I chose to check out my site just to see if anyone had left me any messages...
...and then I crap my pants...

I got a DD!??!  OMFG!!
I never ever ever thought that would happen!  Thank you guys sooo much!!!  ^_^   

Thank you   for suggesting my piece!  I'm still in total shock ... but thank you everyone!!  When I get back to my compie tonight I'll visit all your pages!!

I think I'm finally getting myself back again.  After so long, I can finally feel inspired.  Working at Gamestop for over a year really killed my "soul", if you will.  I felt so uninspired every day after working there.  I just wanted to go home and sit on my butt.  But now I want to draw and I'm finally feeling "it" again.  ....it's really hard to explain, and it sounds corny, but I'm sure all you artists understand

And lately I've really started going back to my roots.  I'm on a "Sonic the Hedgehog" craze currently, he was my first hero.  I got my Genesis in 2nd grade and have been a die-hard Sega fangirl ever since.  I have every Sega system except the Master System and 32X.  yeah.  I had a Nomad.  

And Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega CD was amazing.  I can't wait to get home this weekend to fire up my Genesis/Sega CD.

Ahh, memories...

Much love to ya'll----<3!  Sorry for the ramblings!

maybe a sonic fanart to come... mmm...

Gah.  So, at my school we don't register over the phone or online.  You do it in person.  And if you want to get in to all of your classes here at MIAD, apparently you have to wait outside pretty dang early.  Like, 12:30am early.  So I got there at 3 am today, with like 20-30 people all ready ahead of me.  A lot of them couldn't feel anything, or at least any cold (if you catch my drift)..  Anyhow, this morning ALSO happened to be the coldest one thus far this year.  Yeah.  It was like, 10 degrees out.  And then with 20-30mph wind gusts.  Yeah, needless to say, I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of socks, a sweater, sweater arm warmers, a huge sweatshirt, a scarf, gloves, and my peacoat.  And I was still so freezing that this really nice Photo major guy gave me both his blankets.  I think I almost died.  But...

I GOT IN TO ALL OF MY FUCKING CLASSES!
HELL YEAH!!!!
I'm DONE on Thursdays at 1:50!!!
I CAN GO HOME SO EARLY!!!
THANK YOU JEBUS!

So I started school here at MIAD and I LOVE IT!!  The students are AWESOME!!  The teachers are really cool!  It's just a great environment and I really love it here already.  This school has a STUDENT UNION!  OMG!  So yes, much much love right now.  And Kris is awesome.  hehehe.

And now there is an anime club here at MIAD!  How cool!  Otaku are da best!   So yes, onward and upward, I'm going to try soooooo hard to get a 4.0...

I got a 1/3 off every year scholarship to MIAD, the art school I wanna go to next year!  YAAAAY!  I can finally start me learning once again!!

^_^ XD

Holy shit.  So much has happened recently.  Good and bad.  And very very bad.  Oh well...

Well, to start off with, my two buddies, Matt and Rob, and I, drove all the way to Ohio for Ohayocon on the 14th.  That was a super super blast.  The whole reason we went was cause I am a Steve Conte nut and ...suprise!  Steve Conte was a guest there!!! OMFG!!  He is a beautiful vocalist and does awesome work with Yoko Kanno, including stuff from Cowboy Bebop (Call me Call me, Words That We Couldn't Say), Wolf's Rain (Stray, Heaven's Not Enough), and my fave... from the Rah Xephon movie, Garden of Everything, which is a duet of him with Maaya Sakamoto (my fave Japanese artist...!).  So, we watched him perform of course, and bought a ton of crap, and all the usual con stuff.  But Rob and I totally tore up the dance floor because there was raver dances both nights!!  It was so sweet!!  It was all awesome music, too, anime and Japanese techno remixes.  Raves are banned here in Madison, WI, so it's really nice to be able to go to them at anime cons.  Anyhow, hopefully liquefying will be easier at Reactor or Acen...  But overall, this was definitely one of the best cons so far.  

And yeah.  Since then everything has been downhill.  Some of the worst stuff I've ever had to go through happened this past week, so I'm still kinda drained.  :sigh:  Oh well.. hopefully everything will be okay in 30 days...