Monday, July 3, 2017

July Art Dump,

Katie Zall and Katherine Cross


Here's some more art. A pretty random selection, with some more notes on process.

The piece at the head of this post is a watercolor painting I made of my friends, Katie Zall and Katherine Cross. Mostly just for fun, but I wanted to get the stick out of the ass of my figure drawing, so I didn't really care if it was anatomically accurate (it mostly is, oddly enough). I also wanted to transfer some of my obsession with textures in my ink drawings to watercolor, to see if it was compatible. It is. I also wanted to do something nice for Katie, who has been a pretty good friend, even if we've never actually met in meatspace.  Here's the drawing I did over lunch a few weeks ago. There are some differences.


This next piece was done for an inking exchange on Facebook. The original drawing is by Maggie Thurston. I chose to do my finishing work in watercolor, because I'm trying to get back into working with watercolor. Here are the original and finished versions:


This piece was done for the Misspent Youth project, now funding on Kickstarter if you're interested. This is a character who is part of a forced labor population in an asteroid mine. He's been experimented on and the cybernetic ports are still all over his body. Here are the sketches I sent to the client and the finished piece.



Here's a drawing I did this week at my weekly life drawing session. I'm really pleased with her toes.


Here's a drawing I did at a life drawing session a couple of years ago. I don't think I ever posted it before, but I was going through my old notebooks this morning and ran across it. It's a terrific drawing, I think, so I thought I'd share it. It's red col-erase Prismacolor.


Anyway, I should have more art later this month. Enjoy for now.









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Monday, May 29, 2017

Some Thoughts on Process


I'm currently working on a role playing game called Misspent Youth. I thought I'd share some of my process for these, and some thoughts on the economics of being an illustrator.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

More Life Drawing, Spring 2017



The last few drawings I've made at my weekly life drawing sessions have been pretty good. Likenesses are a bugaboo for me, so the fact that all of these models have distinct faces that actually look like them in my newest drawings pleases me no end. I realize that verisimilitude is not the aim of art (if it was, the king of the artists would the photographer), and I realize that any drawing made from life is necessarily a composite image because even the most disciplined of models will move during the session, and the artist themselves will move, too, but a good likeness is always a goal for me. I'm a representational artist by temperament, so it's a matter of pride. Anyway, these are all drawn with a graphite pencil (a number 2 pencil, as it so happens, rather than a snooty art pencil). The above drawing is especially satisfying for me because it's the first time I've drawn this model and I got her in one, awkwardly posed feet and all.


This drawing and the one at the head of this post are very similar. I was in the same spot for both of them and the prop set-up hadn't changed much.


I'm particularly happy with this one. I mostly got everything right, even within my method of creative scribbling. I'm really happy with her face. I've just been feeling it lately, I guess.







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Saturday, April 15, 2017

The Great Race of Yith



I started drawing when I was a kid because I wanted to draw monsters and dinosaurs. I get to do that for money sometimes as an adult, so who's to say I'm a failure in life, eh? I don't draw monsters for pleasure very often anymore, but sometimes I do. I'm thinking of doing a series of monsters as a medical fundraiser later this year, but that's the cart before the horse right now. Anyway, here's a drawing of a monster I did this morning.

This is a member of The Great Race of Yith, from Lovecraft's "The Shadow out of Time." The description of this thing is ridiculous, and consequently, most depictions I've seen are ridiculous (although one enterprising cosplayer made a dress and some other stuff to play as a Yith. I liked that). So the challenge was to make this look NOT ridiculous. I don't know that I've succeeded, but it was a fun challenge. Pencil on crappy drawing paper.









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Sunday, April 9, 2017

Various Life Drawings Spring 2017


Here are some more life drawings. I haven't been attending as often as I'd like this spring, owing to a persistent respiratory infection. I'm slowly easing back into it, but it always feels like I've forgotten how to draw when I've been away for any amount of time. Anyway, these are all pencil drawings.  The drawing above has a nice sense of geometry to it. Not quite cubist, but architectural none the less.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

More Late Winter Life Drawings

Here are some more life drawings from my weekly sessions this winter. I'm getting pretty familiar with drawing our regular models, so my likenesses are getting pretty accurate.