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.

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!

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.

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...

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!

Bearback...

I was tasked with coming up with a logo for our work blog that featured "Grizz, the Info Bear" (it's a long, and tedious story). After about a dozen attempts of varying stylization (but consistent terribleness) I decided to go the route of a true professional, and lazily recycle the understructure I used for my last post. Classy!



If anyone reads this in the next day or so, please, give me your honest, no holds barred feedback. This is for work, so I want to know if I'm posting garbage for dozens of people to see. If it's some ass, tell me it's some ass. If it gives you boners, tell me it gives you boners, then report to jail.

In an effort to keep it simple, easily reproduced and easily adjusted in size, I decided to forgo any type of inking/line weight and use the straight up stroke tool in Illustrator. I worry that may have backfired and the result is hacky and amateurish. The background paint splatter is most likely a temporary place holder until I figure out a color scheme, and I'm sure I'll add titles/text for the final. If you want to know specifically what it will be used for, go here to see what I'm working (inflicted?) with. I'm going to replace the whole thing, but I'm keeping the same basic structure, so bearforce 1 over here is going to take the place of "George Mason University" in the upper right hand circular area over there. If you have feedback on what I can do with the rest of that jonx, I'd love to hear that as well.

The Fatman Cometh...

Killing time at work on a Saturday night.



Sorry I've been MIA lately. I'm a busy little bee(otch).

Me So Horny...

Webdesign element I'm abandoning because it looked like warmed over shit.


A masculine looking devil woman. I think the FBI could generate a psychological profile of significant heft on me based on just this little doodle.

You should see the other girl. Heyooooo!

Oh, awesome! Now that the site is enfuego I've ONCE AGAIN lost all of my uploaded pictures and filled this blog with broken images! In honor of life kicking my ass:



Yeah, when I draw myself it looks nothing like me. Perhaps this is how I idealize myself, which, I guess says a lot considering the ideal me is broken, bloody and missing teeth.

Dragon Balls...

This was my most ambitious one yet due to the gun and all the shadows, so it's also my weakest one yet. The figure is hard to read, and the likeness is especially bad. Whatevs.

Supposedly the Chinese characters say "kung fu dragon", but I don't speak Chinese, so in reality they probably say something about testicles and candy (which would be ironic, as those were the characters I was actually looking for). Also, here's an earlier version before I went ape shit on doo-dads.