Coffee Filter Masterpieces

 My local hangout, Foxy Loxy, is doing a small show of drawings done on coffee filters. The owner asked members of the Eschatology Society (my drawing crew) to do some pieces. Of course, I waited until the last minute, but I think that allowed me to be spontaneous when it came time to put pen to paper. These little guys were TOUGH to draw on. You can't erase, and any kind of liquid media, like ink, is just a disaster. I wound up using brown and white colored pencils, and doing the outlines on these with a Micron. I can pretty much draw a semi-truck right out of my head. So there ya go.

Animals and Jimi

I promise I will post more. At least twice a week, as long as you (?) keep coming by to look.

This page is a couple of things. The animal studies are just me trying to build up my visual vocabulary. Drawing animals helps me think differently about familiar shapes like eyes, hair, joints, etc. I also am trying to find the right amount of rendering for reptilian scales. It takes a lot of patience to effectively render textures like this, and also it takes experience and judgement to describe the scales enough, but not too much. I think I'll have to revisit scales quite a bit before I'll be satisfied with my mastery of them.

This is on Moleskine paper. Also, I think I predominately used my Kuretake no 40 brush on here. This is a TERRIBLE paper/brush combination, but I find I keep going back to it. The ink pools on top of the paper, and getting a nice, fine line is virtually impossible. If you see one line you like on this page, it's only because of the total refusal of my hands to yield to science and physics. It's a shame, because I love this sketchbook, and the pen is great on other papers. 

You've got a keen eye, sailor. That is the unexampled Jimi Hendrix hanging out down there. I've been studying him a lot lately, in preparation for some large drawings. I don't think I'll ever tire of drawing inspiration from his music and his sense of style. He really did artists a favor. 

---

Jimi-san!

I'm still playing around with photoshop color, it's getting easier to manipulate the tools, but I imagine it may take quite some time to develop the taste in palette that will produce what I have in mind.

I did this in my sketchbook last Saturday at my drawing group meet-up; It's pretty simple line work; but I like some of the ideas.  Probably 8x8 inches. I think you can see some Moebius, Mignola, and Fabio Moon, and maybe even some Miyazaki  in this piece, and of course, I love all of those guys.

As of late I've really been into Jimi Hendrix, really borderline obsessed. He was just such an amazing individual. I feel like whenever he's mentioned, there's always some argument over whether or not he's "the greatest guitarist of all time". Of course, Jimi never claimed to be that. He was just an incredible artist, and his creativity and magic will live forever. I don't think he ever carried a sword. 

I'll post more pretty soon. Thanks for looking. 

Color, this and that.

Hello!

Let's get back to business. Every Saturday, I meet up with some friends at a coffee shop and we sketch, critique, and discuss the works of the masters. I did a drawing of Hellboy (surprise). It was done in blue pencil, in a Moleskine sketchbook, and inked with a Kuretake no. 40 pen, along with a Copic Multiliner .02 pen. I scanned it into photoshop, and with the help of a great tutorial, http://designinstruct.com/drawing-illustration/how-to-color-inked-line-art-in-photoshop/, I decided to give it a go. I think it turned out pretty good. I hope to continue to explore and learn color, and maybe acquire a good critique or two along the way. I was hoping to really get some form and texture in the line drawing, but my goal was to let the color do most of the lifting as far as rendering.

The original

Also, you'll see I'm playing around with cartoon head shapes, as well as studying wrinkles. I'm ALWAYS making little studies of that stuff. I recently read Andrew Loomis say that wrinkles and textures should reinforce the form and support it's interpretation. He said that any lines and details that don't do this should be omitted. I was struck by that idea, and will continue to perfect it. I did the small studies on the bottom right with a Hunt no. 108, a very nice flexible copper pen. Great for when a brush won't provide enough control.

Here is a gesture sketch I did with a brush. This exercise is part of my goal of drawing with the brush, not inking with it. I'm trying to treat the brush like a flexible pencil. This is because I watched Moebius work on a video, and he held the tool very casually. I love the qualities the lines take with this approach, and it also makes me enjoy working a lot more, because it's a bit more carefree. Also, you'll see some little cast shadow studies on here. I've found that working things out on the side, just like long division, yields a better result. Sometimes I will redraw something 10 times on the comics page, repeatedly erasing and ruining the paper. I would get very angry during this process. Then it hit me: I was approaching the panel in question without a fully formed intention. I needed to work it out a little better somewhere else. It also REALLY helps me to scale things down to work out composition, lighting, and spatial relationships.

Lastly, here are some little cartoon sketches I did. I'm really getting into cartooning. I've just recently began to appreciate how sophisticated it is, and how deceptively difficult it can be. I want to do one Bill Watterson study a week, and also some studies of George Herriman. 

Thanks for reading. 

Hellboy Pages

Last summer, I was gearing up for Heroes Convention. I decided to bring some pages that would be fun to work on, so Hellboy it was. I pieced together a six-page story, one with a throwaway plot, and with various shots to test what I could do. I took a week off from work to work on it, and as time wound down I decided to cut it down to four pages. When you show stuff at a con, it's a good idea to be concise. 

I worked my ASS OFF to get done, but as I was puling an all-nighter the day before I would head out, I knew I wouldn't get it done in time. Crushing. I took what I had, even though I knew that taking incomplete work was pretty much instant rejection when it comes to getting work. I gave it my best, but I just wasn't fast enough to pull it off. 

I decide it would be a waste of time and money to go to the show empty-handed, so I took what I had and showed to everyone that would look. I got a very favorable response, considering that only one page was %100 complete. It was very difficult to believe anything nice that people said about the work, because my own insincerities as I praised the work of others have made me skeptical of flattery and applause. When someone asks you, to your face, if you like their art, you say yes, even if you hate it. I think the golden mean lies in how much you care what people think. I have always cared way too much.

 A few months later, giving this stuff a fresh look, I think these are the best comics pages I've done yet, so I thought I would post them. Robots, evil babies, motorcycles: fun stuff to draw. Also an evil Freddy Mercury disposable goon. 

Also, for fun, here are the thumbnails, in various stages of revision.

Welcome!

Hello!

I'm going to post some things from my sketchbook on this blog, along with my thoughts.

This is  the first page from one of the three new sketchbooks I'm working on right now. From the advice of James Gurney, I've started 3 books: one from my imagination, one from life, and one containing studies of other artists. This one is a few drawings I did from life. Most of these will be straight ink to paper. No second tries, no fidgeting, just permanent marks. I'm hoping working this way will familiarize me with inking tools to the point where I can confidently make marks without having complete pencils to work over. I really like the sketch of the old man sleeping.