Tanked! Another Artorder Challenge and Supanova Perth 2013

I am really enjoying these Artorder Challenges despite the fact that some of the themes are not necessarily what I'd personally choose, but nevertheless they are fun! Plus it's nice to see how other people approach the same subject under the same time restraint. I also want to get my hair dyed the same colour pink/purple rocks!

The Artorder Tank Girl Challenge can be found here and other submissions to the competition can be found here 

*Lileinaya

I was going to have her winking but I think it just didn't quite look right

I was going to have ash clouds behind her (as if she has just bombed something) but I found that the clouds became too distracting so after a bit of web surfing to see how other artists solve this problem I changed the background to the matte turquoise colour it is now.

Since Tank Girl is supposed to be based in a post-apocalyptic Australia I have included some Australian motif's. They are the ANZAC badge on her beret, the Aboriginal flag on her shoulders (one of our greatest athletes Cathy Freeman famously displayed it on her shoulders after winning an event at the Commonwealth Games http://www.aboriginalflag.com.au/history.html), she is wearing the Australian flag in 2 parts - the blue part on the top (which shows the large white seven-pointed star known as the Federation Star and the Southern Cross constellation which can only be seen in the southern hemisphere) and the second part which is of course the British Union Jack. There is also the words "Sorry" with a smiley face on her missile this is to relate to the apology the Australian government offered to the Aboriginal people for the way they were treated (http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/australia/national-sorry-day). The fact that it is painted on a missile is my comment on the handling of this "apology" by the Australian government. You can interpret that however you like... So... this picture has a bit more happening than I suppose you'd notice at first glance. 

I hope you guys like it.

I almost forgot! On the weekend I went to this great little convention that happens annually here in Western Australia it's called Supanova, it's like a mini ComicCon but it's getting bigger every year. I had the opportunity to talk to Mark Raats and pick his brains for about a half an hour when I missed his panel talk, he was kind enough to look at my portfolio and offer me some advice (this happened in the Green Room where I got to see David Hasselhoff, the twins from Harry Potter, some of the actors from the tv show Merlin. I was practically peeing in my pants!). Thankfully Mark is really down to earth and not fazed by either :) I also got to meet some of the guys from Weta and saw some of the concept art for the dwarfs from the Hobbit film. I was able to show them my work and received encouragement to keep up the good work, which was very nice. I'm a big fan of their Dr Grordbort ray guns and was encouraged to contact the artist for permission to use the guns as reference for an illustration idea I have in mind... And finally I met up with a local comic book publishing group called Gestalt Comics I showed them my portfolio and on the spot they asked if I'd be interested in possibly doing a pin up on one of their characters and/or doing a sequential piece for a story idea they have... AWESOME!! Of course I said... YES!! Waiting to hear back from them the exact details but it's pretty exciting...

Oh yeah I also won the Wacom Fan Art Competition with my Tank Girl painting :) Don't know what the prize is yet but I imagine it's something from Wacom - duh ;) Admittedly I was up against mostly 8 year olds and teenagers... but oh well a competition is a competition.

The winner is...

My friend Nat surprised me with going as Tank Girl - she was awesome fun to hang out with

My other friend Cara made her awesome Wonder Woman costume - and straight after this photo we lost her for the rest of the day (I feared she had been kidnapped by the nerds geeking out over her cosplay)

The crowds - oh and by the way this is the middle of winter... and it's sunny without a cloud in the sky... Global Warming is real kids

Zombies are all about brain health :)