Mediocre art weekend

Working on a cover idea for Special Deliver my 24 Hour Comics Day comic from 2010.

I did a bunch of sketches and refinements and this inking seemed to work as a proof-of-concept. I did it with my Pentel brush pen (which works much better after my hack that allows me to replace the crappy stock ink with Higgins Black Magic). I'm finding I really enjoy using the pen, but I really need to practice with it a lot more. This POC is pretty good with a few elements I like. There's a fair amount that I now believe sucks. Regardless, with the original piece having a size of 6.5" x 10", it's the biggest face I've drawn in a while.



I'll hit the drawing again tomorrow and see if I can get something better.

Listening to while posting: "Typical American" by The Goats

fan art!

Last night I hosted a meet-up for comics and graphic novel fans at my local bookstore. It went pretty well. One guy who showed up was Mark Gonyea. He's a cool guy and a mad scratchboarder. One of the books I brought to introduce to people was Ross Campbell's fantastic TBP Shadoweyes.

This morning I got up at 7:30, made a lot of strong (French press) coffee and hit the studio. I sat at the table and decided to do some Shadoweyes fanart! Yay! The only other fanart I've done was a Missile Mouse for Jake Parker, but I didn't let that stop me. It went pretty well. The pencil drawing came together in about an hour, the tracing and inking another hour, then, as I was getting ready to scan, I found I'd FORGOTTEN THE DARN TAIL! Gah! This seems to happen every time I want to draw Shadoweyes. So, I had to scramble re-trace and re-draw.

However, it turned out pretty well. I must say, that I'm overall, pretty happy with it. There are some small things I see, but they're mostly technique stuff and not big mistakes. One thing I did change was the color of Shadoweyes' calves and forearms. In the comic, they're straight black with the hands and feet just black shapes. When I drew the original pencil, I tried to extrapolate the extremities and I liked them so much, I had to keep them. I hope Ross doesn't mind



So, go get Shadoweyes. It's pretty darn awesome.

In the FUTURE!

Listening to while posting: Ghostrider by RJD2

update: post +15 minutes. Wanna hear something kind of crazy? I also posted on my Deviant Art page (yes, I have a deviant art page, but so do lots of people who don't suck. Like Ross Cambell for instance). Anyway, I posted the pic but, decided I wanted to edit my description. I got into edit mode, wrote an new sentence and saved the changes. In that time six people had viewed it. I really never had the immensity and 24/7 nature of the internet until that moment. I mean if six people viewed it, that must mean that thousands are online and watching the Deviant Art new submissions page. Sheesh.

wrinkles part 2

Continuing my attempt to understand clothing wrinkles, I grabbed a stock photo from set of Steampunk costume photos from Zeldyn-Stock. The photo I used is 'in storage' and I really should have used this one because the hands are less problematic.

This is a bit better than the first wrinkles test, but there are still many issues that need addressing. I may try again with the photo I linked. Here they are in order. The original is 7.5" x 3" or so.







Listening to while posting: Some sort of violin concerto coming from the radio in the woodstove room where Sweet Enemy is chilling with the cat and reading some Hugo Award-winning stories from the seventies.

wrinkles

I spent a couple of hours today working on copying a photo to try to get a grip on wrinkles on clothing. I can feel how it should go naturally, I can nearly understand how things would work on a pose I made up. Not quite, though. Something is missing and I still need more work on it.

Here's the picture, though. It's a portrait of Anke-Eve Goldmann in her winter riding gear. I'm not posting the original image as my mistakes (the eyes are a bit high on the face, for example) would be more glaring, but I am linking to it in case you think I've traced. Of course, that would assume that you thought it was too good ;)

First in pencil:



I then traced the pencil, transferred it to Bristol and inked it with a Pigma Micron 01:



I then scanned the inked image and colored it digitally:



There are a good deal of things that need work on this, but there are enough good moments to keep me going. More drapery to follow.

Listening to while posting: "B&S" by The Bobby Hughes Experience

sigh-fie

Working on a larger, more complex drawing. This was a test of the black shading that evolved into a full-color test.

On the 'real' piece, I've bitten of more than I can chew at my current ability. In my head (and pencilled on Bristol) are four flycycles pursuing this one and they are flying over a nighttime cityscape. The figures are lit by the full moon from above and the city lights from below. (based on watching a United flight fly overhead of Manchester, NH. The approach was so low that the lights of the city were reflecting on the bare-metal belly of the airliner)

Gods! what am I thinking? I'm not good enough for the stuff in my head to find its way onto the page. I need to buckle down and practice. I'm going to spend tomorrow drawing drapery (clothing from photos and myself in a mirror). I've almost got the feeling of how folds are supposed to work. I think if I buckle down, I can get closer to getting it.

The rider herself is based on 1950s BMW motorcycle pro rider Anke-Eve Goldmann.
Pencilled on smooth Bristol. Inked with Pigma Microns. Digitally colored. I'll be using the portrait of her in her winter riding gear as one of my drapery practice photos.



Last week Sweet Enemy and I finished watching the last of the Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes available on DVD. Sad to see it end, but happy that we liked the new Doctor (sort of Tennant-y with a dash of Baker-ness). Last night we watched "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" and found it to be pretty awesome! I thought it'd be good, but it was even better than that. Tonight, we're going to a bonfire, sledding, beer-drinking party at a small, local, family-owned ski area. Woo-hoo! Thanks, SBiL

listening to while posting: "Mr. Mastadon Farm" by Cake

aht

So, yesterday's Animal failed. I was having an awful day and couldn't bring myself to draw. It sucked (for the record, I'm going a bit potty being alone at home looking for work, teaching myself PHP and talking to people via Facebook. I was going through meatspace contact addiction).

ANNNNYway. I did up a set of fake frames for the story that AndreZero and I are working on for Obscure Tales issue 8. The first frame is the cockpit of the Stellar PrincessStarliner seen earlier. I just wanted to do a cockpit and some aliens. The second frame is the main character of the story, a stewardess on board the Deneb Princess. The frames are a test of the style I may use for the comic and a test of the stewardess look.



That's all. It helped me out of my doldrums and I MAY do two animals tonight to make up for the lack yesterday.

Cheers

listening to while posting: The annual Joke Show on Prairie Home Companion (The only PHC I can take anymore)

Animal Week 2011 # 4: Chimpanzee

I used a random number generator to figure out which page and image to use and here he is, one of humanity's closest relatives! All I can think of is a radio piece I once heard about Alpha Males in primates. The conventional wisdom is the alpha, being the toughest, passes his genes onto the females. However, many times, he's too busy defending his territory and the lesser males... er... get the jump on him, so to speak.

There you go. The hardest part of this was trying to work cross-hatch shadows on the bare skin into the hair without the shadows looking like hair. Not sure if it was a total success.



Now, I'm off to finish another drawing I'm working on. The pencils look good, let's see if I can't screw up the inks.

See you... in the Future!!!

Listening to while posting: "Love Song" by Ofra Haza (on Soma FM's Secret Agent station)