October is the best

Everybody needs somebody. If a scarecrow was going to love anybody, it'd be a witch.

The Secret Admirer

 pencil and photoshop

Roller Derby Fire and Water Process

Here's the process behind my most recent poster for the Rose City Rollers.

1) Initial sketches sent to their Art Director, these were done separately and then arranged in Photoshop. Babs gave the okay so I moved on to polished drawings.

2) I decided to do the drawings in charcoal in order to force myself to figure out how to paint over charcoal drawings in Photoshop (yes, I really really really wish I was James Jean in his Fables years). I used so called "white charcoal" for the first time to tone down some of the stark blackness of the charcoal. I usually do my figures for the Rose City Rollers separately because the art director likes to have the freedom to move things around for all their print formats (posters, ads, signs, etc.)

3) I figured out how to paint on charcoal in Photoshop! I'm not going to describe it because its involvedish (mostly using a lot of layer masks) and I'm not sure how many people would be interested in it anyway. Needless to say, it works!

"Clean" Cover Process

Here's my process for the cover to the short story "Clean" that I did with my good pal Justin Zimmerman. I used a technique that I saw on William Stout's website (he made that Dinosaur book in the 80's that every boy has, he also most likely worked on every fantasy film you like).

Initial rough penciled concept, getting all the pieces in place

Inked with a crow quill using a mix of black and sepia ink

Raw Umber under painting

First washes of color

Final painting, but since watercolor looks washed out when you scan it in...

...I did some digital color correcting in Photoshop.

Re-Charged

Well, I wish I knew this watercolor trick a few years ago! I could paint 100 pictures this way. If you're interested in the process, I followed William Stout's "Rackham" process that I found out through Justin Gerard on the AMAZING muddy colors blog. It might seem slight, but laying down a wash of colored ink over your watercolor really unifies the piece (in this case it really cooled down the orange of the kid's apollo spacesuit). I am hooked and I can't wait to try this on a more complicated piece.

Oh, and consider this the launch sketch of Jet Pack Jack's successor! Painting this spun off an entire story in my head. If you're interested in buying this astro-boy, you can do so HERE, if you'd like to buy a print you can do so HERE.

Dissapointment

Well, I had a rather disappointing art-week. In the old days this would cause me to go through my flat files and randomly burn a few paintings to make myself feel better (looking at you BFA project). However, being the mature adult that I am, I decided to doodle something for myself instead. It turns out that doing fun things for myself recharges my batteries far better than artistic arson!

Here's the sketch:

Here's some ink:

I'm going to use some NEW TECHNIQUES to paint the image, so this may or may not end in failure in the next few days, which is ok since I'll have learned something.

Troll Kid

Some character doodles for a children's book project I'm mulling over.

New painting

The latest painting off the easel, this went on a two month baby induced hiatus, but I'm starting to get the hang of this stay at home artist dad thing.