Some illustration work (August 2018)

I've had a couple of illustration gigs this summer. The first one consisted of drawing some superheroes, for what use I do not know. Here are some of them. These are all pretty much pure watercolor. I wish I'd sprung for better watercolor paper. Instead, I used bristol board. The White Wombat is brush and ink and watercolor, while the Kirby-ish one with the Superman knock off was drawn with a mix of brush and ink, Pitt pens, and watercolor. I like stretching my legs in watercolor. It's my favorite painting medium. The client wanted most of these to look like comics from the eighties, and the only really specific instruction I had was to make the Red Queen look like the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, only in red. These turned out okay and they were fun to do.

Here There Be Monsters

This is the story I did for the Alphabet anthology a couple of years ago. I painted the whole thing in watercolor (perhaps foolishly) because, well, I wanted to get at least some use out of my art degree.

Life Drawing Early 2018

Holy crap, it's been almost a year since I posted any art here. That cannot stand, so here are some pieces I've done at my weekly figure drawing sessions. The piece at the top of this post is a watercolor on Canson sketchbook paper. Turned out surprisingly well, all things considered. The rest is mostly work in graphite pencil.

This last one is a five minute drawing of another artist while the model was on break.

I'll try not to be gone so long next time.

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July Art Dump,

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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This blog is supported on Patreon by wonderful subscribers. If you like what I do, please consider pledging your own support. It means the world to me.

More Life Drawing, Winter 2016

Here are some more drawings from my weekly figure drawing session. The above drawing is another in a long series of awkward poses. I'm an absolute champion at finding difficult foreshortening poses. This, more than a lot of my drawings, is an example of my technique with a pencil, which is basically creative scribbling.

Some Drawings of Women

Here are some of my recent drawings.

St. Valentine's Art Dump

Here's some art I've made since last we spoke. I apologize if you've seen some of this before on my social networks.

The above piece is the first live figure drawing I've done since December. It's conte crayon, which I haven't used in forever. I used to love conte crayon, but somewhere along the way I fell out of the habit of using it. It has a rich, velvety darkness of tone that I love, even though I didn't take full advantage of it here. There's a certain creeping monumentalism in my figure drawing lately, which is even more prominent in the second drawing I did at this session from the same pose. This is a more technically correct drawing in graphite. I like it better.

Next up, we have a quick sketch of Oliver Cromwell I did in prep for a comics project I have on the back burner (part of my crippling idea debt). The brush I used for this was dying, but it still had some use left in it.

Next, a couple of fun drawings I inked over other people as part of the monthly "Ink Exchange" run by the Madames des Comiques group from St. Louis. The first was inked over Christina Steenz Stewart, the second over Tara Coble. These were fun to do. I like collaboration.

This was my contribution to this month's event:

Which is a character I'm using in a comic I'm currently drawing. Here's the first panel of the first page of that comic. It came out quite nice:

Finally, there's this, which is something I started for a warm up and got caught up in drawing the snakes. Medusa and her sisters--I think this is actually Eurayale rather than Medusa, but it doesn't really matter--are subjects I keep returning to. This is for sale in my Etsy store.

Enjoy.

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Some Unlettered Comics Pages

Here are a few unletterered pages from my current project. It's trans erotica again, but with werewolves and swashbuckling. No werewolves in these pages, though. Just erotica. Watercolor and ink on 300 lb Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper. If all goes to plan, this will appear in Alphabet, an anthology to benefit Prism Comics.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

More Recent Life Drawings...

Star, graphite pencil on watercolor paper

I've been posting a lot of life drawings lately. The reason for this is twofold: first, the stuff I would ordinarily be posting--stuff for my current illustration clients--is under a non-disclosure agreement until publication. Second, I'm really digging my life drawing sessions. Anyway, here are some recent ones.

Still More Life Drawing

Here's the painting I made at today's life drawing session. Sometimes, image-making just comes easy. This was fun. Watercolor and sumi ink on Canson watercolor paper.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

Britta

This is from the life drawing session I went to yesterday. Watercolor on 140 lb. Canson watercolor paper.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

Ivanna and the Wolf sketch

A warm-up watercolor sketch this morning for the Ivanna and the Wolf project I'll be starting soon (I hope). Plus, I just bought some new watercolor paper that I haven't tried before and I wanted to see how it fared. It's not bad, though my watercolor chops are reallllly rusty right now. Also feeling out the style I want to use on the project. I think I'm going to go a bit more cartoony.

Nat and Alex

Here's a watercolor I did this weekend to get back into practice. Damn, I'm rusty.

Christopher Lee (The Devil Rides Out)

I broke out the watercolors today for a commission that I've been procrastinating on. I'm sure my client will be happy to see this one finished. I have one more outstanding commission that I really need to get to soon. That one is a bit more...whimsical...than this one. Anyway, I'm glad this is done.

This is Christopher Lee, of course, as Duc de Richleau, the hero(!) of The Devil Rides Out, a Terence Fisher production for Hammer in 1968. Lee looks sinister even as the good guy and he completely blows everyone else off the screen in this film. I like the film, but mainly for Lee. I wish it had a better villain, because Charles Gray was never a good choice for a bad guy (a lesson Diamonds Are Forever could have stood to learn). I fantasize about Peter Cushing playing the villain opposite Lee, but the misers in Hammer's front office weren't springing for more than one "name" per film at the time. Bastards. Anyway, this is brush and ink and watercolor on 140lb watercolor paper.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

Mysterious Device

Day five of the drawing challenge (I'm not fond of the drawing I did for day four, so you'll forgive me for not posting it). The instructions for this one were "draw a mysterious device." Mainly an excuse to get back to my roots in watercolor, which I haven't touched in a while.

For some reason, I want to title this, "You'll all be sorry now!"