Why So Sirius?

I had a lot more I was going to do with this. Blood spatter everywhere, try to fix those hands, etc. but I'm about to leave work and, honestly, if I don't complete something in one sitting I'll never come back to it.

Flying Solo...

I've been so goddamn busy lately, I haven't had time to pick up a pencil. I have, however, some how found plenty of time to pick up a controller and play a shit ton of Call of Duty. Pencils are heavier.



At least I did something. Where did the rest of you go?

Junk Drawer...

I found this sketchbook on my bookshelf this morning. I have no recollection of a) buying it or b) doodling any of the sketches inside. Weird. I guess this goes back awhile, as the first page was a "To Do" list from A.P.E. 2005. Anyway, I scanned in the bits and pieces that weren't COMPLETELY embarrassing (meaning, I skipped the first 10-20 pages entirely) and composited them into this:



Some of it's kind of hard to see, and other places have dark grey shadows in the corners. All of that is a result of the book spine not properly fitting on the scanner.


This stuff here is kind of a hodge podge of junk I had laying around. A lot of it is comprised of the tiny thumbnail sketches I've been basing my recent Illustrator pieces off of, others are doodles I scanned with that intention, but ultimately bailed on or never got around to.



And finally, this was another Weekly Sketch Group thing I did for PencilJack, but never posted here.



That's supposed to be the 1939 incarnation of Batman, hence the purple gloves and the smooth, refreshing taste of a cigarette after whupping some assholes'...asshole. Seeing as how I drew it, this struggle, of course, took place off camera and in no discernable environment whatsoever.

Scurcrow

I probably should have thought this one out a little more before diving in.




Here's the original sketch, to make it perfectly clear how absolutely lazy I've become lately.

Hawk, man.

Not exactly my best effort, but I'm not going to kill myself over it (this time) as I only had about 2 hours to work on the thing.

Ron

This post is brought to you by Parks and Recreation and Odosketch.
(And a little Guinness too)

Donde está la biblioteca

I don't draw females nearly enough,
so here's a quick sketch of one.

You live your life like a (Black) Canary in a coal mine...

Batman Beyond and Black Canary for the Weekly Sketch Group over at Pencil Jack. Is it still a sketch if it takes you something like SIX FUCKING HOURS? I've seriously become so dependent on fixing shit in the computer that I barely draw more than a stick figure these days. Fuck, I don't know if I'm even capable of truly drawing any more. This was fun though, and even if the results kinda look like warmed over ass, hey, I found a half-tone brush!

It's Sculpty Time

Now that the apt is showing some signs of being livable, I managed to squeeze in some time with Zbrush this morning. First time I've used in in months, and only for a half hour.

Thorskin...

Ain't That A Peach...

Don't really know what I was doing here...



Am I gay?

Widow Maker...

Black Widow/E-Surance mascot. This was going to be for the Weekly Sketch Group on PencilJack, but I was too embarrassed to post it. I tried to go for the solid color approach that worked out alright on the pirate chick I posted earlier, but the further along I got, the more I realized I had no idea how to light this fucking thing. So I did what any god fearing American would do, I quit! I really need to spend some time learning about color and lighting, it's killed enough of my projects that I should start swapping out the word "color" with "AIDS."

Redraw #1

I'm going to indulge myself on the "blog" part of the sketchblog for this post. Sorry...

I was going through the shit in my Photobucket account today, probably the first time I've looked at any of it in years. It's like a time capsule that when you open it, a fist flies out and punches you right in the face. Seriously though, it was kind of nostalgic, and a little surreal. I don't do ANYTHING the same way any more. I used to work mainly in pencil and Micron, whereas nowadays I do a quick sketch in a red animators lead at best, and then do most of the work in the computer. Previously, I favored straight lines and sharp angles, now I try to keep things as soft and round as possible. I put thick black outlines on everything, until I eventually wised up to the fact that doing so flattens everything out and kills any sense of depth. My coloring is still atrocious, but a few years ago, I handled everything with the airbrush tool in Photoshop, giving all my stuff a smudgy, dirty look. Today, I mostly stick to big blocks of color, and while I admit that coloring is one of my biggest weaknesses (still, I can't resist doing it), I think my current technique is at least cleaner. I used to hide the things I couldn't draw, or leave them out completely, as is clearly demonstrated in the following image. All of my figures wore big, baggy pants because I had no clue how to draw legs. I was influenced by anime and manga. I shied away from women even more than I do in real life. Unless I was feeling particularly adventurous, I drew strictly head on, or in profile, with hardly any action at all. I mean, I was a disaster. Shit, back then I used to sign my name to my drawings, instead of the little "diamond" symbol I made that I use now. SO MUCH CHANGE.

It's really inspired me to go back and redraw some of that garbage. Hopefully to see some improvement (I could wipe my ass with most of this stuff and improve it tenfold), but also as an experiment to see how I'd approach the same subject the way I draw now. First up...


I remember how unusually proud I was of this when I first did it. I drew a girl! I drew a girl in 3/4 view! This was also one of the first things I ever colored in Photoshop. As soon as it was done I went flying off to conceptart.org to post it... WHERE. I. GOT. KILLED. "Her nose is too big. Her head is too big. What's up with her lips? She has the neck of a giraffe. You call that a coloring job? Motherfucker, she has an ADAM'S APPLE!" It was one of the first (soon to be many) times I was evicerated on a public art forum. The feeble minds of these godless savages were too infantile to recognize the greatness I had lain before them! I probably made the most progress I've ever made during my early days on conceptart, PencilJack and The Drawingboard, simply because I had my ass handed to me so often, and I was so embarrassed, that I HAD to practice to avoid further flogging. It was awesome.

I'm well aware I'll never be known as a pin up artist. I'm just not very good at drawing women. But at least now I'm not scared of them, and the fact that you can (usually) tell when I'm trying to depict the fairer sex is a MARKED improvement from past efforts. The 2009 version is far, far from great, but I do think it's at least better. I got pretty lazy on the pigtails and feathers, my coloring is wack, I wish I hadn't overshadowed under the jaw, and I'm not sure my proportions are accurate. All that said, no adams apple=WIN! Progress has been made! The composition sucks, but I wanted to keep this as close to the O.G. as possible. My main goal was just to draw less of a circus freak, not to make a print or anything.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I needed to exercise the heebie jeebies I got browsing through those old drawings. I'm not trying to imply I'm king shit now or anything, or even that I'm any good at all, but I did need to prove to myself that I've made some strides, however small.

I labled this post with a #1 hoping that it will motivate me to do more. Unfortunately, one old habit I've never broken is my incredible, contemptuously disgusting laziness.

Sorry for the long post.

Booty!

Believe it or not, this was my own Omar Little doodle that got further and further away from me until it retained literally nothing from the original. Well, aside from the skin tone. And her propensity for whistling "The Farmer in the Dell" before robbing drug dealers.

I tried something new here, by shying away from lines and attempting straight color blocking. Also new, a background! Not so new is how half-assed of a job I did on it.



Click to enlarge, as it's way too big to fit in-line in the post. I don't want you to miss all of the intricate detail I neglected to put in it.

Oh shit, Omar comin'

Fo' sho.

While I'm at it, here's a shit likeness of Bodie's last stand too.

Weekend Sketches

Sketch o my mouse in Photoshop.

Pen sketch of the Palace of Fine Arts in a Moleskin.

bunch'a crap

A hodge-podge of stuff I've done over the past month or so.
Nothing really worthy of an individual post.
Baby-faced detective almost got one, but I ultimately decided it was crap.

Garbage...

This was going to be Hellboy VS The Count for the weekly sketchgroup at PencilJack, but I have such a hard time drawing Hellboy I decided to put the kibosh on it. He's such a simple character in concept, and in Mignola's execution, but I have a hell of a time figuring out the perspective on his horns and right hand. Should have planned this one out better, but what are you going to do? I'm going to quit, that's what I'm going to do!

Tiger Up Yer Butt!

When I set out to do this, my mantra was "simple, cartoony", but as it went along, I added more detail, and now it's become "awkward, weird." That's cool baby, the T-Man rolls with the punches. I did play around with some new coloring techniques, so it's not a total wash. I used Adobe Illustrator's Live Paint for the first time, and I worked light to dark rather than dark to light. If I had any confidence in myself to follow through with it, I'd say maybe this was the beginning of a series of Street Fighter characters. Since I know myself better than most, I say this very well might be my last post ever.




This was an experiment I did while I was fucking around with ways to manipulate photos in Illustrator. It kind of looks like shit, but I learned a lot of stuff. Primarily that Suzy's dad looks pretty awesome in shutter shades.



Click on those sumbitches to biggerize them. You all know this by now, right? I get paranoid sometimes that my resized, pixelated images will be mistaken for the final product. I mean, they'll look like ass either way, but I want to ensure you're looking at the RIGHT ass. I want you to look at MY ass, the way God and I intended it.

JudoJesus

Goofin' around...

Heads: 2, Bodies: 0

I snuck in a sketch while someone was surfing the web.

Shit yeah

Just some quick drawrin' practice
from photo ref.

Odd's 'N' Ends...

Random stuff I had laying about from the last week. The first was going to be Sabretooth and X23 for the weekly sketch group at Pencil Jack, but I wasn't feeling it and bailed.


This is a logo/t-shirt design for Chance's ultimate frisbee team. I didn't do much on this aside from tighten up and extrapolate a bit from his original sketch (which can be found below this).

I'm still hoping to find the time to pick up a pencil over the summer, but fate seems to be conspiring against me on that. Just today I was already to go, and then our work computers all had to be hauled off for some kind of repair/upgrade. I'm writing this on a laptop. Next week, god dammit!

Pike Cpt.

I started doodling, and when I stopped
there was a pikeman on the screen.

Coked up

A quick sketch I did while watching Kingdom of Heaven. It was hard to take my eyes off that Orlando Bloom, he so dreamy.

Monochrome in the Dark

I totally drew all of this in just one day...

EXPLOSION OF PRODUCTIVITY !!!

(click to big ups)

I wish. Actually, this is all the scraps I had floating around on my clipboard. Some of it from a week ago, some from a few months ago, some from the dawn of creation (that brown paper bag puppet that looks like a bear is a figure study of God himself). I really hope to have some time to pick up the pencil again over the summer.

Tetsuooooooh yeah!

I drew something. IN 2009! I win.


More in 6-8 months. Maybe.

Ocho

Ocho Davidson:
Glee Club
Mathletes

"Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law,
respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send
him to the cemetery."

-Malcolm X,

I'd animate this If I weren't so hungry now.

Sometimes I forgot how awesome I am, then I draw a little picture to remind me.

Sick

Here's the story. I was sick in bed most of the day and, after deciding the dustiness of my room was not helping me at all, did some cleaning this afternoon. I ran across this piece of paper with a freaky drawing on it, clearly made by me, but that I had no recollection of doing. Next to it were the words "fetal traveler" My scanner is jacked, but I tried to re-capture the spirit of it. I don't really think i succeeded though.