Too Amazing To Be Mine, But Thankful They Were For Me :)

Here are some sketches I got from Pixar :) :) :) From top to bottom, Adam Burke, Ronnie del Carmen, Angus MacLane, Enrico Casarosa, Teddy Newton, and a nice big "To Infinity and Beyond" from Bill Reeves :) I can't believe these are sitting my sketchbook... *___*





And here's one that Rad kindly drew for me at dinner after our last class :D I asked for Hiccup, Toothless and Astrid. Astrid is still there... in the back!!! So psyched I finally got him to draw me something :D :D :D

Visit to PIXARRRRR!!!! :D :D :D December 10!

Flight to EMERYVILLE!! December 9!

Here are some airport sketches from my flight to Emeryville :) I met a really cool dude on the plane who's a 3D modeller in Long Beach. So awesome. I got lucky on the way there :D

Tuesday Night Happy Hour Sketch Crew!

A recent development that I haven't posted about is that I started a Tuesday night sketch group called Happy Hour Sketch crew! :) My friend Andy has these sketch jams at the Lee's Sandwich near UCI on Fridays, but I'm usually busy so I decided to make my own, and it's been REALLLYYY fun and successful!!! :) :) :) We've only gone to the Grand Californian in Downtown Disney so far, because it's after work on Tuesday, and it's a nice middle point for people it seems. Also it's cold outside and the Grand is a really cozy hotel that we can stay at till like 1am... :) So it's perfect! Here are some pics from the previous sketchjams...starting on November 29!

These are the only sketches from the sketchjams that I feel like posting, since I've been doing mostly studies lately. :( The 2nd one is actually pretty funny though because we were sitting by the fireplace one night, and this couple that I drew just started MACKING right next to us while we were having a serious conversation! And then we just tried to keep going but we heard their sloppy kissing noises in the background that were super loud... disgusting. Haha I guess the romance of a fireplace just gets to people xD Thankfully they got up and went to their room after they realized we were right there -___- Maaaannnn I hate extreme PDAs...


ANYWAY! So here are some photos :)
Sketchjam #1: November 29...my crappy 3GS iPhone quality :\ I need to get with the times...

Sketchjam #2: December 6

Sketchjam #3: December 13... Woops no camera :\

Sketchjam #4: December 20


Sketchjam #5: December 21 (Wednesday holiday sketchjam... haha)

So yeah... it's a LOTTTT of fun!!! :) If you happen to be in the area, stop by and sketch with us!! When the weather starts getting warmer we'll probably be moving different places every week or 2, and also doing weekend sketch trips (which some of us have already begun discussing). I am absolutely loving this community that I've been lucky enough to become a part of. Everyone is so kind, amazing, and willing to help each other--never been happier!!! :) :) :)

Vegas December 1-6 (I'm so late...)

So I went to Vegas at the beginning of December, and it was pretty awesome :) We stayed at Planet Hollywood, I bought magic tricks to start learning magic, and we watched the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love show, which was AMAZING!!! So here are my crappy casino sketches, except for the guy eating a sandwich. That was from Earl of Sandwich..the best sandwich place in Vegas. I ate there like everyday -__- So bad.

Omg I Colored Something!

It's a miracle that I finished this, given the pit of loathing I was in for not having colored anything in years. Boy am I rusty. :\

BUT I USED A CINTIQ FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! :D :D :D Super funnnn!

Too bad I didn't realize the color profile on it was different from the computer though...can't seem to color balance it the way it looked in the cintiq!! How frustrating!!! :(

Great Scott! Back to the Future Studies! :O

Back to the Future is like my favorite movie EVER!!! It's one of those movies I can watch over and over...and a movie I DO watch when I'm frustrated/depressed. Yesterday was a nice rainy day and I was having Disney marathons due to...frustration/depression...and when I surprisingly got tired of that I put good ol' BTTF on! Cured my mood! And then I decided to draw it :)

I feel like I want to draw every single frame of this movie! SOOO FUN TO DRAW. Too bad I don't do Marty McFly justice. He's such a dream!!! ;)

I was told this looks like some kinda BTTF anime. HA. That'd be cool. ;)

Tabula Rasa Characters

I think that girl on the right has already gone through a lot of variations... hopefully I can tie her down soon D:

"You'll look just like Snow White!"

Hopefully I find some time to color this :\ Trying to figure out some new character for that project!

Sleeping Bunnie!

Sleeping animals are cute.

This New Guy...

Some new guy I'm trying to design for some new project I'm thinking up.

Aladdin Studies For Class

These are just studies, but since I posted them on the class blog I figured I'd do it here too. I'm realizing more and more how much I suck at drawing guys... I drew Jasmine in like half the time or less than it took for me to draw Aladdin, with like no erasing either. :( Aladdin was a mess to draw.

So now I vowed all my studies will focus on men. Sigh. I love men but I hate drawing them. Time to change that!

Figure Invention for Animation!!!

So I started my Figure Invention for Animation class with my buddy Rad Sechrist, who is an AMAZING teacher as well as a ridiculous artist. REALLY great class. Most of all, I'm finally being forced to draw again and I can start posting new stuff! YAY! :)

Anyway, on the left is a doodle I did during a super long work meeting. Got called out for it by my boss :( Blah.

The girl in the first drawing is supposed to be the same one as the girl on the left...but she doesn't look like it. For the class, Rad is encouraging us to think up poses for our own characters we're working on, so this is the main character of a new project I want to start. Hopefully I can actually MOVE on it this time... all my other projects are really long and time consuming. This is the easiest of them all. You'll probably see a lot of her soon... and also her troupe of weirdos...which will be really fun to design. :)

That guy is Mitch. He's not from the same story as Piper, but I miss drawing him :) Then Macie is down below. Doodle from class. I love my Col-Erase pencils, and how clean the drawings look when I grayscale and mess with levels :D

My Roger's Gardens Halloween Video!!!! :D WATCH IT!

Blackstone Theater: Roger's Gardens Halloween 2011 from Elora Lyda on Vimeo.

It's always fun to compare concepts to the finished product....so even though these are really quick sketches, I still want to post them for my records. Plus it's fun to compare them to the actual video :)



I think the thief costume was the most accurate....I drew these to prove that I was serious about this project, after I approached my boss saying that I wanted to do something "cinematic" with this year's Halloween display. They were all pretty fast and bad, and they were just the general "looks" I wanted for each character since I pretty much had to hunt for these pieces. Thank goodness for Gasoline Alley, this awesome vintage shop in Costa Mesa. :) It was like a dream come true! SO PERFECT!

The part of the diva and thief actually got switched in casting, so the dress and gloves we were going to use was actually similar to the one I drew, but lacier. We ended up using Emily's actual dress (the red one) because it looked best on her and worked out better in the end, but the dress we found at the vintage shop was really nice too.

Sylvr's black dress was a really lucky find after we visited the shop for a 3rd time....it just happened to be hanging there and I grabbed it because it was almost exactly what I had envisioned. PHEW! :D

Spencer's stuff we just bought a vest from Forever 21 and he already had khaki pants. He ended up not using the bowtie I bought since none of us knew how to tie one, and then after his makeup was on, he looked way better without the hat.


Here is my crappy attempt at a storyboard, an effort which I abandoned after it took me too long and I started to just write it out and do walkthroughs of the sets. That helped me a lot more...since I can't really draw backgrounds and stuff. But I thought it was worth showing at least. :)

This was my first project with an actual full-on process like this, so I feel pretty accomplished. :D

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO!!!! I put a lot of effort into it, and my actors are amazing! Considering the thief is my assistant, the Director ghost is my SEO guy, and the two other girls are on the Merch team and helped set up Halloween. :) The girl in the red dress actually MADE that red dragon you see in the video!!! AMAZING!!!

There's a lot of talent at Roger's Gardens, and I feel SOOO grateful to be a part of it! :) I loved working with these people who I never really got a chance to talk to until recently...and I really got a sense of what Roger's Gardens is capable of.

When people ask me where I work, I say the easiest way to describe it is a Garden nursery....but it's way more than that. Please watch this video to understand. What these people do is very "Disney", and I'm just blown away at how AWESOME they are at it! I wanted to finally show that off in video form, to try and do justice to all the hard work that they do in just 2 weeks. Go check out the website! :)

I've only been Marketing Manager for 4 weeks now, and this will forever be known as my first daunting task as Roger's Gardens Marketing Manager. I did this in 3 weeks, and am very proud of myself for it. :) This is the kinda stuff that happens when you put me in charge...I don't think anyone here was expecting it.