Other Worlds cover for Comics Forge

I was asked to do a new cover for a limited edition comic from Comics Forge collecting three of Justin Zimmerman's Other World's stories (one of which I drew). The comic is the first in a series of books coming out called Comics Forge Presents that showcase indy comic book types like Justin and me. The art direction was pretty simple: "sexy space lady fighting a  monster". This is what I came up with.

My initial thumbnail

The inked drawing

11x17, watercolor and colored pencil on Arches hot press

sold

And finally, the painted image. This was painted with watercolor with a little bit of colored pencil for highlights. I don't have a title for it...so I've been calling it: 

SEXY SPACE SIREN TRIUMPHS OVER INTERGALACTIC CEPHALOPOD!!

Its fun to take a break from my kid comic stuff to do some high brow art like this.

The Tour

Here's the process behind my latest painting, "The Tour".

The initial sketch. To get the composition right I used Photoshop to help me with the layout.

Inked with with a crow quill pen (good ol' Hunt 102).

Painted with watercolor, highlights with colored pencil (mostly in the nebula which was a blast to paint). Archival prints are available of this image through Imagekind HERE or signed copies are available on my Etsy shop HERE

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.

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.

Ogre Serenade

Here is my latest painting, based on a story by Gina Bellisario (she was kind enough to give me permission to use her story to create some portfolio pieces).

Ogre Serenade

10" x 13"

Watercolor on Arches Hot Press

Roller Derby Inks

All inked up and ready to paint!

Concert Poster Painting

 Well, I had a hard time getting the scan of the painting to look like the actual painting.  I'm not sure if its due to the gloss on the painting, but all my dark tones came out shiney looking, I mixed my paint with acrylic glazing liquid (gloss), so maybe I should try a matte medium.  If anybody has any thoughts or experience with this I'm all ears. I thoroughly enjoyed painting acrylic over charcoal, once I got used to how much of the glazing liquid to mix into my paint so that my charcoal drawing still showed.

Overall, since this is my very first acrylic painting, I'm pleased with how this is turning out. I need to finish all of my digital tweaking today so I can print out some copies to take up with me to Emerald City on Saturday.  Again, my main gripe with Photoshop is that you never feel "done".  There is always some pixel that can be nudged around.  I think I need an egg timer to force doneness upon me.  OR, maybe I need a real deadline and a taskmaster AD to tell me I'm done.

As always, feel free to comment or make suggestions. I've been looking at this thing for so long that I need to take a break.  The bottom of the painting needs some more digital tweaks, but I'm going to wait until this evening to play with that.

Portfolio #3

This one didn't take very long too do, but it was fun to jump back into charcoal for a bit. My mom #2 (ie: beloved mother-in-law) raised the idea of a holiday card a few weeks ago. Originally my Goldilocks piece was going to be a standard "Goldigrizz and the 3 Humans" image, but with the holiday looming (and my wife's promise to help me print and mail cards) I decided to make it more along the lines of "Goldigrizz and the 3 Klinkits". I had thought of using a polar bear, but it looked too much like one of those CG coke adds, so I had to go back to the grizz.

On a side note, I lived with a Klinkit once, his name was chuck Chuck CHUCK CHUCK BOOM!

Also, I thought about coloring this in Photoshop, but I realized I'd be too tempted to make that bowl of porridge look like a bowl of blood...

Portfolio Piece #2, Reluctant Vegetarian

This is an old idea revisited. Originally I made an etching of the troll under the bridge giving up his carnivorous ways, but I never quite finished it because etching is a long and arduous way to make an image that I never really took to. I had a lot of fun working on this painting, even if I'm not quite happy with how the reflection turned out. I felt I was at risk of overdoing the blobs of color in the water, so I called it quits. I think I should have added some foreground rocks into the pool of water to break up the reflections, but working back into watercolor is risky business. Honestly, I think like the duck the most.

Portfolio #1 Color

Here's the Jack piece colored in Photoshop. I think I need to let it sit for a day or two to see if I like the washed out tones. The problem with Photoshop is that you can tweak stuff endlessly, it makes it even harder to know when something is "done".

Portfolio Piece #1

I love drawing. This was so much fun to work on that its all I can do to not keep making images illustrating the "story".

Illustration #2

Well, I've been dragging my feet on this one. I foolishly let myself paint the meatloaf early on (the part I was most excited about) and ended up having a hard time motivating myself to finish the whole piece. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it. It feels nice to be painting again. Dusting off the cobwebs on my watercolor abilities is both fun and frustrating.

The main reason I finished this morning is that I'm super excited with how my future Jack in the Beanstalk image is coming along. I still have a lot of drawing to finish, but I am pretty sure its going to be a blast to paint.

Painted

Here's the children's illustration painted. Not quite sure about the magic beam....may fuss with it in photoshop (more than I already have).

Happy Anneversary (to me)

I can't believe its already been a year since I got married. This being the "paper anniversary" and all, I had it pretty easy and drew this for my lovely wife. She doesn't like snakes when they touch each other/overlap, so that's why they are in the clouds. Thankfully next year is the "comic book anniversary" followed by my personal favorite, the ever popular "Nintendo anniversary".


Obviously I had the most fun drawing the snakes. When I make custom art for people I find its important to make it for them, but to also make it interesting for me to draw.

Happy OCTOBER!!!

SUMMER STINKS!! Lets here it for the Fall! I am soooo happy that that the endless hot is over and the wonderful crisp of Autumn is here. This is a charcoal drawing I did for my pumpkin party invite. Hope you enjoy it. I'm also thinking about making/selling greeting cards through my etsy account, so if I can get a deal on printing look for these soon. Go Capitalism!!

Captain Ferdinand Poses for his Mother

I think I am going to start chronicling the many adventures of Captain Ferdinand. I have been wanting to do smaller charcoal drawings while I have down time at work, and I think this idea will be an excellent outlet for practice. Ideally this would be a weekly adventure, but I know me...so this may be a bi-monthly adventure.

Next week: "Captain Ferdinand Jousts a Plum, Mistaking it for the Head of the Black Knight!!"

Done?

Well, I think I'm done with it...at least for now. I think I am going to play with coloring it digitally, but I imagine it will look best as is.

Charcoal!!

I have re-discovered a long lost medium! Aparantly its called charcoal and involves drawing with burnt sticks!! It is absolutely wonderful to draw with. I decided to take a brief break from my children's book and do a big charcoal drawing for the fun of it. And I am having a LOT of fun with. The drawing is 22 x 30, so it is going to take some time. But, I am about half way done in two days of intensive drawing.