JNF

Recent Illustrations/Designs

2011-11-19T11:01:00.000-08:00

I have been rather busy - and focused elsewhere - in the last several months. Here are just a few of the projects I have worked on recently.

Graphic Design Portfolio - Pizza vs. Chicken

2009-12-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

Fight Banner. Contest Ballots. Buttons. Nuff said.

Graphic Design Portfolio - AMC Ad Hoods

2009-09-03T12:42:00.001-07:00

So... for those of you still checking this blog for new content (which is probably, like, 3 of my friends - and my mom), I'm sorry this is not new artwork. I haven't done much drawing in the past couple of months - what with being engaged and planning a wedding and all. What I have drawn is not ready to post, and since I've been cultivating a renewed interest in the advertising/marketing/graphic design world, I thought this would be the most efficient way to get this content out there and available for prospective clients/employers.

So - sorry to have to do a bit of business here, but hopefully there's a good deal of material here that you've never seen before and may find entertaining. I've decided to post this a bit backwards since all these posts will occur on the same day. This will be the main post with the most recent project, and then you can scroll down back through several others with some limited description/explanation.

These first images are of some new projects I'm working on for AMC Theatres. I call them Ad Hoods. I've also included some of the accompanying signage. All of the copy (advertising lingo meaning "words") is original and create by me. (Excluding, of course, the classic film quotes.)

Graphic Design Portfolio - AMC Midnight Madness

2009-09-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

In addition to the Ad Hoods, I've also been working on a line of posters for one specific AMC theatre in the Valley - Desert Ridge 18. They've been showing older films at midnights on Friday & Saturday. I've tried to maintain a design theme/color scheme that compliments the Ad Hood material while still being original. I have several other banners and signs planned for the next few months. (The Combo Menu mock-up at the bottom is not actually part of this series of projects. It was a concept I had several months ago and figured this would be as good a place to throw it as any.)

Graphic Design Portfolio - Save the Dates

2009-09-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

I love a good challenge - and any opportunity to save money and do something original - I'll take it! Originally, I did some quick designs based on some pictures that my fiancee and I took while I was in Germany with her. When we finally got some professional photographs taken and settled on one we liked, I was able to re-tool the elements from my favorite original design. This first one is the final product.

Graphic Design Portfolio - Sweet Romance CD

2009-09-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

This was another project for my fiancee. I had the opportunity to spend a week in Germany with her, and this was one of the gifts I took with me. All of the songs were written and performed by me, and again - all the design work is mine. (The photographs were found online and manipulated to suit my needs.) The bicycle bell in the 4th image down is what I actually proposed with. ("What's this... a bell?" "No... (ring-ring)... it's a ring!") We've since purchased an actual diamond ring, but she still calls this her real ring.

That image, by the way, goes under the CD. And I designed the logo at the bottom specifically for this project. It's a mash-up of parts of both our last names. (Oh - and aside from the logo, this entire project took me just one day.)

Graphic Design Portfolio - Paris Card

2009-09-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

This was an Un-Valentine's card I sent my now-fiancee when she was in Paris. She spent 4 months of our early relationship student teaching on a military base in Germany. She was able to spend the weekend in Paris over Valentine's Day, and this was secretly waiting for her when she arrived. I spent a good couple weeks on this project. All the artwork and design is original.

The client was very satisfied with my work on this project. ;)

Graphic Design Portfolio - Imaginary Target/Apple Cross Promotion

2009-09-03T11:52:00.001-07:00

This was a fun little quicky-project I did for my brother. He's an accounting major at Indiana University, and the was for a class project. The idea was that Target and Apple merge brands as a cross promotion - Apple sells Target-themed products exclusively at Target stores and then consumers can earn reward points on their purchases that go toward iTunes, etc. I *think* the idea to incorporate both logos - with the apple as the bullseye - was my idea. But I'm sure my brother will confirm/deny whenever he takes a gander at this. :)

Graphic Design Portfolio - Pariyatti

2009-09-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

This was just a quick mock-up freelance job I did for the guy who was actually re-designing this particular website. He had a lot of projects going and wanted to see what I could do with it. I think, ultimately, the company decided to halt the re-design due to budget constraints... I think. (The logo/header was already designed, I just updated the font and based the rest of the page design on that color scheme.)

Graphic Design Portfolio - The Broken Road

2009-09-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

These are from a couple years ago, but I still like some of the design elements. These are just mock-ups. Ultimately, we went with a different photograph & design. I was asked to keep these offline at the time - in order to avoid confusion, etc. - but I figure it's okay to post them here now - 2 years later. (I still absolutely love the belt buckle theme.)

2009-02-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Aaaand here's that new project I was talking about. Can't reveal too much yet - gotta keep it under my hat or I lose interest. Anyway - it's a short story that I think will make a really nice little storybook. And it's written! Just need to start cranking out pages.

The design of the guy came pretty easy - I knew what he looked like immediately.

The girl was significantly more troublesome. It couldn't just be any old pretty girl. She had to be unique. There had to be a character there. After throwing around a bunch of ideas (shown in the lower & right sides of this page), I hit her dead on in the sketch at the top of the post. (The 2 sketches in the upper-left of this last image were attempts to see if I could maintain that look.)

Anyway - that's what I've been working on the last couple weeks. (Among other small projects and my actual job. *yuck*) I have every intention of having completed (or near completed) pages to show in the next week or two. It depends - I may need to storyboard out the whole thing before I actually start finishing pages, but I can probably post that as well. I'm debating between posting images and stages of the process here and actually just posting final pages on a dedicated website so you can actually read it as it goes along... haven't decided yet.

Progress?

2009-02-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Well, hello there.

No excuses. I haven't been drawing nearly as much as I want/should in the past couple months. I've been very busy. I've been writing - does that count?

Anyway, here's some stuff from the project I posted back in November. A cover design, and some new character sketches.

A cover mock up for the first issue. I like the lighting on the guy - need to make sure that the girl is lit the same and that there's an appropriate light source that would cast those shadows. And a background, obviously - need one of those. Probably a warehouse or basement.

A sort of cartoon-y version of the main character. It was a quick pencil/pen sketch. I like the drawing, but it doesn't really look like her.

Some side characters. I really like the girl in the top left - an assistant, of sorts, to the main character.

And a mish-mash of a couple pages where I was working out designs for the first few pages of issue #1. I really like this project and intend to get down and dirty with it very soon. Sadly, my brain won't stop cranking out new ideas - and I've found another, shorter story that I absolutely HAVE to work on right now.

This one - soon.

Sneak Peeks & Frank Critiques

2008-11-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

Wow. This is kinda becoming a habit, huh. Nearly 3 months without a single post. That's pretty bad. I wish I could say I'd been so busy writing and drawing that I just haven't had a chance to post anything... but the sad truth is, this is about all I've really done in the past 12 weeks. That's the way it goes sometimes, I guess.

For those of you following along - thanks for not forgetting about me. You may notice that this isn't new Hollow Ian stuff. I've decided to hold off on that for awhile and work on a new, less ambitious project that I'm actually pretty excited about. (I'll get back to Hollow Ian soon, I promise.) I can't tell you too much about it, but all these sketches are me trying to A) remember how to draw, and B) come up with a main-character design I'm happy with.

The character is a woman in her late-30s/early-40s - a tough chick who's lead a hard, violent life but finally decides she wants a baby. You can see above some basic gestures and some head-shots trying to find an appropriate look/style.

The majority of the story takes place in the present, but there are several scenes involving the character at younger ages, so I decided to get some hair/wardrobe references and attempt some different stages of physical development. (I'd like to achieve some form of authenticity when depicting previous decades, but I studied up on some of those 80s-90s fashions, and it's pretty scary.) I like the 2 faces on the left, but the main figure is a little too manly and kind of style-neutral.

Another later attempt at the character. I really like this one. The hair is a little stringy, and it's a little out-of-style for me. I've been trying to find an illustrative style that's uniquely my own, and I think I really began to fall into that with the Hollow Ian stuff. I've always leaned a little more toward cartoon-y characterization than being really grounded in realism, and the closer I get to actually being able to do this for a living, the more I'm trying to streamline my art. Clear, simple, elegant art and storytelling. This one's beautiful (to me), but a bit too realistic and not easily replicated panel after panel.

Which leads us to the sketchbook. The previous stuff was done on copy paper at work. This is me trying to slap my style and designs on top of some photo reference. I hate it. I can pull some great stuff right out of my head when I'm in the zone, but I have a really hard time cartoonifying a real person's features and proportions. Apparently.

So I tried again - beginning with the girl in the middle. My standard slightly-sad, staring-off-into-the-distance-longingly-about-to-cry girl. I drew her in red pencil, liked it, and moved on to the figure on the right - going for the same fun style, but adding the age/edge I wanted for the character. (There are some obvious problems with this figure's proportions and perspective, but hey - I'm just hashing stuff out here.) The face was decent, but when I went to ink it I was lost. Which tipped me off to the problem. I don't like the way my style looks when inked with a brush. So I grabbed a roller-ball pen and went to town on the figure in the middle. Eureka! (Except she still looks like a light breeze might blow her over.) With the face on the left, I tried to add some of the hardness and intimidation I had planned, but just ended up with a really wonky perspective and some lazy inking.

So I tried again. Went back to the brush-pen for some reason. It's a decent face (if a little manly again), but it's not my character. This did, however, help to reinforce the fact that I do not like to ink things with just a brush-pen. In fact, I'd rather not ink them at all - which is becoming more accepted in the comic industry if one has a good finished pencil style - which I do, I think. (All my Hollow Ian stuff was just finished pencils.)

Anyway, all that crap-on-top-of-crap finally lead to this last set of (unfinished) illustrations. I moved from the sketchbook to 8.5x11 sheets of Georgia-Pacific cardstock - which I actually love to work on. It's cheap as all get-out, and it's got just enough tooth to hold the pencil lead the way I like. Too bad it's no good for inking - it bleeds too much.

I'll admit, these have been cleaned-up in Photoshop some. (That's the blue-line stuff.) I tilted the head of the figure on the left slightly and am still working out perspective and the motion of her right arm. For the middle figure, I adjusted the length of her left arm slightly and had to thicken/lengthen the legs a little. (She's not naked, btw - this is just what you do to work out the anatomy so you know where to put the clothes - which I'll add just as soon as decide what she's wearing. I do find that I like to use reference for clothing whenever possible.)

The figure on the right (same character - alternate hairstyle) was on a separate sheet of cardstock and was done really quickly and with the finest/lightest lines possible. You'll notice there's a lot of "scribbling" on the other two figures - exploring/working things out - so it's actually pretty satisfying when you get a face/figure just right with only a few hair-thin lines. See. Clear, simple - elegant. (I added the clothes and filled out the hair a bit it Photoshop.)

That's it. That's the process. As long as you finally get something you're happy with, I guess the frustration along the way is worth it. As always, thanks for the looks and let me know what you think. See you soon...

Hollow Ian at SDCC

2008-08-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

So... some of this you've seen, but some of it is new.

This is actually material I used to put together a script packet for my new comic series to shop around at the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). After a couple setbacks, it turned out that I was actually able to make it to the Convention this year and got some good responses to my work. The Skinnies (which will be on hiatus for a bit) didn't turn out to be all that impressive, actually. The upside, is that my original stuff - the Hollow Ian stuff you see here - got a good deal of attention. I spoke with a number of publishers and editors and I think that this project has a very good chance of seeing publication if I can knuckle down a turn out some really great work.

Above you'll see some character designs and early page-work from what I'm tentatively titling Hollow Ian #0 (though it may well turn out to be the first issue). The script is pretty solid and I just worked up a brief pitch for the series, but I'm still having a bit of trouble really digging into the pages. I'm still searching for the best process and deciding what I want the finished product to look like.

Below are some more character designs for later in the series. I'll try to post updates as often as I can.

Dark Knight

2008-07-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty thrilled with this one, too. (I was immensely happy with the Hellboy Skinny.) Since I will be at the San Diego ComicCon this next weekend, I went ahead and worked up a double-Skinny for this week. Batman this weekend - Joker next. I hadn't necessarily intended to draw Batman/Joker as they appear in the film - it just sorta worked out that way. I couldn't find the right reference for Two-Face from the new film - and I was more interested in portraying the version from Batman: The Animated Series. All in all, about 10-12 hours on the artwork.

Check out the playing cards - I bet you can find at least one good poker hand in there. :)

And here - just for kicks - are the inks and a rough-sketch/color mock-up I did to see if I liked where I was headed. Most notably is the addition of the Joker's jacket and the alteration/mirroring of the backgrounds.

Boy, Hell

2008-07-10T22:17:00.001-07:00

Can't. Work. Any. More.

Here. Look.

Independence Dude

2008-07-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

No time for thoughts today - gotta get to work.

Well, okay, maybe just a few. July 4th weekend is definitely Will Smith's territory. Remember ID4? (Independence Day.) Anyway, I'm still dying to see Hancock, despite the varied reviews. As for the illustration, I realize it is most likely not an accurate representation of the story, (I don't think the spandex comes till after the drinking), but I wanted to get both versions of the character in it and this was the best way I could find.

You'll also notice that it doesn't say "the Skinny" on it anywhere. It still is a Skinny, I just didn't have anywhere to put it. Top left corner was the only real option, but then it looked as thought Hancock was staring at it - kinda ruined the patriotic-ness of the poster.

Skinn-E

2008-06-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

I hated this one about half-way through, but it's quickly becoming one of my favorite. I really wanted this one to look different from the rest, so it was done completely in Photoshop. I rough-traced the characters and ship from three separate reference stills to get proportions right and then incorporated them into my Wile E. Coyote Looney Tunes landscape. There are several layers going on here, including two for background and middle-ground dust.

I'm very happy with my rendering on the EVE character, and particularly pleased with the Skinn-E font (my own creation based on very limited reference of the actual Wall-E font.)

Get Smarty

2008-06-20T16:06:00.001-07:00

Another week, another Skinny. Yay.

No seriously, I'm still having a ball doing these - just wish I left myself some extra time to work on comic stuff. Anyway, couple things about this one. A) I'm very pleased with it, finally. The coloring gave me fits until I decided to go with a cut-edge style rather than my standard paint-y/scribble-y method of late. (If you look, you can see that there are no soft edges anywhere - just a couple gradations of flat color for shading/rendering.)

B) I think I finally nailed a likeness. I've been really bugged by the fact lately that I can't seem to make the people look like themselves. But I hit Steve Carrell on the nose right off the bat, and I think I even managed to get Anne Hathaway right after a million re-draws.

Even here, (above), it still wasn't quite right - her face, I mean. I spent a lot of time getting each feature as dead-on as I could, but they weren't in the right place or proportion. Hooray for Photoshop!

And finally, the inked version - which I think I still like better than the colored version. A little.

"Hulk smash little Skinny man!"

2008-06-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

Mm-mm-ch-mm. Yeah. Mm-mm-ch-mm. Yeah. (That's me doing my happy-dance.)

So... yeah - I'm pretty happy with this one. Still missed the mark on the likeness - Edward Norton - but it's definitely one of my favorite so far. It may even trump the Iron Man Skinnies. (I know. I feel dirty just saying it). They were really fun to do and I think I nailed each iteration of the Iron Man armor, but as cool as that is, it's a little flat. I think it's because there are no faces - no expressions - no real sense of conflict - no story. This one has all that.

It all came from this one little thumbnail sketch - (above) - literally the size of a child's thumb - a paperclip. Even in this tiny doodle, you can see me trying to ape Kirby. (For those not in the know, Jack Kirby is probably one of the greatest influences of modern comic artists - he's a legend - and I'm only now really discovering his work. Jack was about the hardest working guy in the Golden & Silver ages of comics - often cranking out 3 or 4 books a month, and he co-created most of the Marvel Universe, including the Hulk. His style is easily recognizable for its design-y, graphic, not-necessarily-anatomically-correct rendering and amazingly dynamic poses and panel-work. I didn't really pull it off, but it was fun to try.)

I must have burned up 5-10 pages of sketches trying to find something original to do. It really started to bug me that I couldn't find (or seem to come up with) a single pose of the Hulk where he wasn't just flexing and roaring. Then I started thinking about the character's inner struggle - Bruce Banner fighting the anger inside him - and BAM, I had it. Why not exteriorize that conflict - Hulk vs. Banner. Anyway, I worked up a few of the elements seperately - tossed 'em together, and sketched it out. (The right arm wasn't looking right, so I mirrored the left and inked it a little differently for the final piece.)

Okay - that was way too much information. But if anyone read it, I hope it was enlightening or entertaining. And I hope you go see The Incredible Hulk. I haven't yet, but I've heard good reports and I'm gonna try and see it this weekend. Till next time - I'm out!

The Fatty

2008-06-06T01:25:00.001-07:00

This one wasn't entirely my idea. My boss threw this out there almost 2 months ago - why not do a square Skinny for Kung Fu Panda and call it The Fatty. Done and done. I had wanted to do something like this with the Horton Hears a Who Skinny - having him squeezed between the borders of the frame, but it just wasn't working. I think I nailed it here. (That little guy is Master Shifu - voiced in the film by Dustin Hoffman. Po, the panda, is Jack Black.)

Also - since I didn't post it last week, Sex & the City. (Inspired slightly by the work of Coles Phillips - and to a much lesser degree, Rene Gruau.)

2008-05-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

BAM! How ya like dem apples?

I got quite the lesson in color & framing today. Thought I had a decent drawing to begin with - inked okay - but when I put the final Skinny together (see below) it just wasn't working. (Sadly they've already been printed, laminated, & distributed.) Yellow was definitely the wrong color for the background, but then I muddied it up with a nasty turquois-y gradient right at the end. The framing's a little wonky too, though. And the face wasn't cutting it.

I'd pretty much written the thing off as a failure, but I spent the evening pondering it and was pretty sure I could fix it. Some softening of the lines in the face (some color holds, really - like you see in cartoons sometimes - not straight black) and a tweak on the BG color - swipe a logo off the web, widen the frame, and voila! A perfect paperback cover. (Indy looks warmer and more energetic in the top pic - kinda sickly in the original Skinny version. But I swear they're the same - just the BG was changed.)

Oh, and since I forgot to post it last week - the Prince Caspian Skinny. Another one where I wasn't happy with the final product. I'd spent the better part of two days (on vacation with my family, no less) getting this one just right - only to discover that I liked the BG characters better than the main conflict. Caspian's armor was too blue, Miraz's too dull.

I tweaked them both a bit, but I'm still not sure it was successful. (The printed versions look different - I think maybe the top one works best digitally - the bottom best for print.) I'm still very drawn to Peter and Susan, though. Better design, maybe. Whatta you think?

Go, Skinny, Go!

2008-05-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

Aaaand we're back to the regular Skinny format. Although, this is the first Skinny to feature more than one panel - a "split-screen", if you will. I had originally intended to do just one image, featuring the Mach 5, Speed, and Trixie all just sort of chillin'. But that's boring. I try not to do boring. So I ripped off a panel from a classic manga I used to read for the car-action, and pulled a freeze-frame from the trailer and re-tooled it to fit the original costuming for the Trixie panel.

I must confess to having never really watched the show (Speed Racer). I'm a G.I. Joe man from way back, and I didn't really get into anime until I saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Also of note concerning this piece - I went back & forth between versions where the line-work was all black (as inked) or the version here with the colored lines. There's not really any anime that I can think of that does this, but Disney's done this for years - if Simba is orange, he's outlined in darker orange, etc. - and I wanted to try something cartoony and new. Something I haven't done yet.

I think I like it.

Finals

2008-05-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

I've looong since been done with school, but this happens to be Finals' Week for several of my friends, and so I thought it appropriate to offer up the final versions of my two latest projects. I finished both of these last Wednesday. The Iron Man Skinnies were a huge hit at work, and hopefully the same will be said for the Bookmans contest selection committee. I'm very happy with how both turned out. What do you think?

Sunday - Mark II

2008-05-04T08:51:00.001-07:00

Iron Man Skinny - Day Three.

(Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man.)

Saturday - Mark III

2008-05-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

Iron Man Skinny - Day Two.

(Did you see the movie yet?)

Friday - Mark I

2008-05-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Iron Man Skinny - Day One.

(The movie is incredible. See it. 'Nuff said.)

Crack the W.I.P.

2008-04-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Wh-tsh! That's right - it's time to get to work! Time to get down to business, put my nose to the grindstone, burn the midnight oil - IRON MAN's comin' baby!!!

So yeah, I've been a little lax in updating this yere blog - hopefully this will make up for it. I've been talking about the Iron Man Skinny for a couple of months now at work - how I wanna do three Skinnies, one for each armor, and how I want them to make one kick-A piece when you put 'em all together. And since I've spent a couple weeks already working things out for it with no finished product yet - you get to see the WIP! (Work In Progress)

We begin here - with some concept sketches from a few weeks ago. I wanted to have each Skinny feature a different iteration of the armor, while using something to bring all three pieces together. Nothing quite worked - they were all just poses. Nothing really dynamic. Until I hit upon the sketch in the bottom left. Iron Man vs. Iron Monger. Perfect. That'd be the middle Skinny and either end would feature the Mark I and Mark II respectively. As you can see, at the time I was planning on those being horizontal and then hoping they'd sort of disappear when you put them all together to really feature the central battle.

So I started in with the sketches. I finally got the pose I was looking for, but the head was too small. I work a lot now back-and-forth between pencil/paper and Photoshop. I resized the head, then printed it out much larger (in blue-line) to do a detail of the helmet. The leg was a study I did from some photo reference on another sheet. Then I put it all together for the final sketch.

In working out the Iron Monger, I printed a very light-blue version of the finished Iron Man to get the interaction and proportion right. Even when I'd "finished" that, I still wasn't quite happy with it - as you can see from my notes on the side. So I took it into Photoshop and altered several different portions of the sketch with the scale/rotate functions and then layed it in under the Iron Man sketch.

Once I saw them together, I realized that I wasn't happy with the initial concepts of the other armors - I didn't like the idea of them being perpendicular to the main image, so I started playing around - sketching in Photoshop. I did the close-up of the Mark II on the right and realized that the problem with the concept in the first place was that each of the figures would have been about the same size - thus confusing focus and not providing much variety for the viewer. From there it was clear what I needed to do with the Mark I armor, so I traced off a 3/4 view of the armor and added the raised arm to fill the space and link those 2 Skinnies.

I'm very happy with where this is headed. Can't wait to show off the finished piece!

Oh, you thought I was done? Ha!

So this is something I've been working on for a local Mascot-redesign contest. I'm pushing it to the wire and not sure I can finish it, but I'm gonna try. It's gone through several stages, but I think the image above is the final draft - ready for ink and color.

Since I said a lot about my process earlier, I won't repeat myself, but you can see here more of that half-pencil/paper-half-Photoshop thing I was talking about before. Beginning with the first tiny sketch on paper, each subsequent re-draw below adds another layer in Photoshop.

The last image up there was actually a pencil re-sketch over a blue-line print-out of the second to last one. Aside from scanning it back in and adjusting the size of the guy to fit better into the ring of paper, I thought I was finished. After a lengthy discussion with my friend, Mat, we concluded that the re-fashioned '40s football uniform was too confusing for a character who represented a bookstore. So I removed the helmet, added gloves, and tweaked the uniform. I actually like it now.

Lastly, here are some of the many sketches that went into the initial preparation for the drawing. Sometime I get it the first time, other times it takes me forever to really get down to what I want.

As always, thanks for the looks. If anyone has actually stuck around long enough to make it to the end here, let me know what you think of this kind of post. I'm not so self-involved as to think people are dying to know "how I work", it just that this is totally the kind of post I wish other artists would offer. I love seeing sketches - thought processes - I want to see how other artists work things out.

See you next week!

The Ol' Pigskinny

2008-04-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

This may be the most time/work I've put into a single Skinny yet. And I'm still not sure if I'm satisfied with it. I spent a good deal of time just working out the concept and gestures - and quite a bit more getting down the likenesses, which are probably passable at best. I did spend about 6 hours coloring it, and I think I am actually very happy with that aspect of it.

I've been reading up on some famous painters/illustrators recently - both from the heyday of the Calendar Girls to modern comics and cover art - and I've been itching to broaden my skills as a colorist/painter. This is definitely the most "painterly" Skinny yet, as you can see above if we remove the line-art. (Ha - the expression on John Krasinski's character is even funnier here - since we can see more white around his eyes.)

I've included some sketches below so you can see some of the various stages of my process. I was actually very happy with the initial concept sketch (top left), but thought it'd be more interesting if the girl was in the picture since that's really what the film is about - these 2 guys fighting over a girl. (The film, if you haven't guessed yet is Leatherheads, a screwball romantic comedy set in the early days of American football.)

I did some early likeness studies of John Krasinski (from The Office), and then cranked out a new drawing of he and George Clooney's character grappling, which I was very happy with. I'm not used to drawing multiple characters physically interacting, so this is a good step for me. And lastly, if you'll notice, I drew Rene Zellweger's character separately and backward from the way I intended to use her. Oddly enough, while I like this pose well enough, it didn't work when I flipped it, so I cut her head off and re-flipped it and tweaked the angle for the final version.

Most lastly, then, and finally - here's a nice comparison of the final concept sketch, the rough re-draw of that, the finished pencils, the flat colors before "rendering", and the final colored piece. All the color work (aside from the background layer) was done on the same layer to preserve the painterly aspect - no shadow/highlight layers.

And that's that. I'll be taking a few weeks off from the Skinny to hopefully do some work on my comic and get a head start on an ambitious set of Skinnies for the release of IRON MAN - May 2 - yay!

As always, thanks for lookin' and readin' - if you did - and I'll see you back here soon.

Play-Time

2008-04-02T14:41:00.001-07:00

As promised - something besides the Skinnies!

I spent about 2 months putting all of these designs and illustrations together for my church. We've embarked on a new Building Project since our current facilities (mostly old houses, with the exception of the sanctuary) are sorely inadequate.

It began with a request to maybe work up a logo they could use:

...and ballooned into a full-on brochure, devotional, letterhead, mailer, banner, flyer, tote-bag, new-church-logo kind of thing. Everything seen here is mine, I'm pretty sure - with the exception of the 3-D Building Render and the blueprint, which came from the architects, and a few random texture references from the web. And fonts. I suppose the fonts aren't mine.

Anyway - enjoy a little something different... while you can.

Friday - NEW SKINNY!

Lean Back

2008-03-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Man, I like this one!

And I have no idea why. I liked the initial concept and ended up doing it in a couple parts - which is pretty standard - but it was downright ugly in it's finished b/w stage. The color really does it for me. I used a few tricks on the background, and there's a ripped-off pin-stripe texture on the suit, but everything else is just me trying to learn to "paint". I really like the color/shading/highlight on the girl, and the little (not-so) subtle halo around her really makes the whole thing *POP*!

Below is the rough thumbnail version - the original concept - and my detail study of Kate Bosworth. The film, if it's not obvious, is 21. The image is a little misleading. After seeing the trailers, I assumed this was her get-up most of the time, but she only appears in this disguise once near the end of the film. I used an old Superman Returns image to get her profile right.

In other news - I got a sweet new computer chair! And free, no less. (Can't get any less than free, right?) My old one bit the dust and my friend, Jerry, had a really nice one sitting in his garage he wasn't using. It's got all kinds of bells & whistles. Independently adjustable seat and back height, seat tilt, adjustable arm rests - the works. (The back & arm rests can tilt side to side, too.) Plus, the back leans independent of the seat - something I swore I'd have whenever I got a new chair.

Anyhoo - that's enough for now. Soon - other, non-Skinny related drawings, I promise!

(ps. did you catch the dual "lean" reference in the title? skinny. new chair. get it?)

Skinny Dudes

2008-03-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Man this one was a bear!

Okay - little late - my bad. Not that anyone's eagerly awaiting it or anything... not here. But it's a big hit at work! I didn't get it finished Thursday cuz I was working on something else - and then my computer crapped out on me Friday and I lost about an hour's worth of work. But I finished it up finally last night.

The movie is Drillbit Taylor - I've decided to nix the title on the cover - and I think (hope) the likeness of Owen Wilson is pretty good.

Anyway, that's it really. I'll post some more stuff soon. Next Friday - more Skinny!

Not so Skinny

2008-03-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

Now that's a big elephant.

Aaaaand if it wasn't obvious - here's this week's Skinny - as promised. I spent way too long working on last week's Skinny, so I decided it would behoove me to try and speed up the process. Nothing like a tight deadline to make you get down to the nitty-gritty. With too much time, you just spend it all tweaking stuff that won't even make a difference. I wanted to be able to get to the point where I'd be able to do a Skinny in just one day - so I waited till the last minute, and voila - a 3.5 hour Skinny! And I couldn't be happier with it.

I'd have been quicker, but I wanted to get the expressions right on those little Who-faces. I think it paid off, though - you can see 'em if you look real close. Right there. No - yeah, on the flower. Well, on the speck on the flower. All of Whoville. Right there on the... no? No, you don't... you can't see...? (sigh.) More wasted time, I suppose. I'll have to upload a high-res version next time.

Anyway - I screened the movie this evening and I actually really enjoyed it. I was skeptical, but it was great fun! A solid story, great voices, and fantastic animation.

Also, just a little paste-up of the stages for this week's Skinny - Thumbnail, Rough, Pencil, Ink, and Color. Enjoy!

The Skinny

2008-03-07T00:33:00.001-08:00

...aaand here's the final version. (See previous post.) I spent several hours on this today before work. I'm very happy with it - had to change the arm and spear cuz it just didn't look right in the original, did a quick but decent ink job on it, used the rough as a color guide, found a few new brushes I like (digital, of course), and got it printed up right before I had to leave for work.

I'll plan on posting each week's Skinny every Friday and hopefully other random stuff on some of the off days. Just to get us caught up - on the Skinnies, at least - here's last week's.

Messy Mock-up

2008-03-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

My working process has become rather messy of late. I sketch thumbnails, do rough-half sketches, scan 'em into Photoshop, print 'em blue-line, re-draw everything, half-pencil finish it, re-scan it, fit it, color study it, re-draw or fine-tune it, ink it, re-re-scan it, color it in earnest, stare at it, love it, hate it, print it, done.

This here is the "color study" phase. See, I'm doing this new thing at work - a weekly, laminated, mini-memo for our crew - some updates, info, says & dos. I draw a different illustration each week - based on one or more of the movies coming out that week, and on the back - that weekend's talking points, etc. I call it the Skinny. This is week two.

I figured it'd be fun for the crew and give me a good reason to burn some hours at work (and several more at home) drawing things I wouldn't normally sit down and draw. Case in point - a sabertooth tiger. (Smilodon, as the anthropologists would call it.) It's a great exercise, and - while taking away precious free time in which I could be working on my new comic - should actually force me to spend more time drawing and keeping my chops fresh.

Anyway - there's a ton more I have to show you - last week's Skinny, the myriad illustrations and designs I'm doing for our new building project at church, and even more comic stuff. You'll just have to wait. Bated breath and all that.

Thesp-Ian

2008-02-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

Morn-evening, gentlefolk.

Yes, I'm up into the wee hours of the morn' again. I've really been struggling to find the time to write/draw lately, and not terribly satisfied with the work I've done recently. Jump to last Wed. or Thur. night. I was watching some Cowboy Bebop and the urge hit me to get a few minutes of sketching in before nodding off, and an hour or so later - BAM - I've got the page you see below.

Well, a rough-pencil version anyway. I didn't get around to filling in and cleaning up the pencil work until this evening, and then I decided to color a few of the faces I really liked. One's a little more painted - though I'm not the best at that - and the other is more of a hard-edged animation style of coloring. The first sheet represents Ian's mostly hue-less appearance in much of the comic, but I've included the second version for comparison.

Plus, I'm just so darned pleased with the whole thing that I thought I'd show it twice.

Hollow Ian Model Sheets

2008-02-15T02:04:00.000-08:00

Hey there...you.

Howareya?

Here's a few different sketches I've done lately - cobbled together into some model sheets for my new comic - Hollow Ian. I'm still working on everyone's look - and the style of the art - but I'm most happy with the big heads on the right. If they look like that in every panel of the comic I'll be happy...I think. Ian's the lead - obviously - and Eve is also a pretty important character. She's maybe the slightest bit too colorful here, but I'm working on that. That dude at the bottom is a demon. He's a little to "wasssssuuuup!" for his currently-conceived role in the comic, but I still really dig the image.

I'm still up in the air about a lot of the story elements, but I've got what I hope is a great start, thought it'll be awhile before there's much more than character sketches to show. I've not got a lot of free time right now, and the writing is going slower than I'd like - I've got to work out several world-building issues and still tell a clear and compelling well-paced story.

Keep-You-Company Girls

2008-02-05T04:58:00.001-08:00

Hello again, sketchy-friends.

I'll be posting here again soon, as I begin work on a new project. Until then, here are a couple random ladies to keep you company - a couple clearly unfinished sketches that I like for some reason or other.

Don't Mess With Texas

2007-10-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Just don't.

More fun with my Wacom tablet. I did this sketch a few weeks ago and it's been sitting on my desk since then, so I decided to finally finish it up and throw some color at it. This is more in line with my process on Bobby & Darin - minimal color over tight/heavy pencils - but it's a little different style. Less cartoony. Little smoother/realistic, maybe. Anyway, it was fun. On to the next!

Back on the Horse

2007-10-01T02:14:00.000-07:00

Hey folks.

Boy. It kinda looks like I've gone another 7 months without drawing anything at all. That's only partly true. I haven't drawn much in the last month or two, but actually before that I was working on my creator-owned comic, The Refrigerator-Box Adventures of Bobby & Darin. I got the whole first issue done just in time for Comic-Con in San Diego. It was a great experience - I spoke with several publishers and got a lot of interest/feedback on my work. (click on the title above to read issue #1!)

Below are some character sheets I put together in designing the main characters.

Above is a fun little piece I did featuring a couple of my all-time favorite comic characters. I bought myself a Wacom drawing tablet recently, and this is the first completed piece I've used it on. I still draw in pencil and ink - the color is digital. I've not got any aspirations of becoming the world's greatest digital painter, but the tablet does make the coloring process a lot smoother. I fell into a pretty comfortable coloring routine in working on Bobby & Darin - basic flat colors with a sharp shadow level and a softer highlight level. In the comic, I even do some background shadow/lighting and some other general effects. I think it fits my style for now.

Anyway - if anyone's still checking/reading, toss me a comment, and I'll try to post some new stuff very soon!

It's Aliiive!!!

2007-02-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

September.

Wow.

I haven't posted anything since September. Matter of fact, I haven't drawn anything since September. Seriously. What the crap have I been doing!? I dunno. Layin' low. Takin' a break. A sabbatical. Little...hiatus. Who knows. It just happens sometimes. I can't draw.

But -- that's all over now! I'm back - with a vengeance... maybe. We'll see.

For now -- new characters!

Final Mini-Comic

2006-09-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Greetings, gentlefolk.

Here now is the long-awaited, highly-anticipated, way-overly-hyped-by-me-in-this-sentence promotional mini-comic book for A Static Lullaby. (Whoa! Seriously - go to that link - check out their new website - NOW! Do the flash version if you can - my stuff is all over it!!! Plus, it's just a really cool site!)

Final Album Art - Kyle Crawford

2006-09-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello... hello.

I know that I posted my final illustrations for A Static Lullaby's new album back in June. But I thought you might like to see how they worked into the finaly CD and Booklet designs. It's not at all how I would have put it together - but that's a good thing! I'd have never thought to work in all the cool splattering and whatnot - and it really matches the feel of the band's music. So I dig it. All this design work was done by Kyle Crawford - so kudos to him.

There are apparently posters, stickers, buttons, and t-shirts out there with these images all over them as well. I just haven't seen any of them yet. The album drops 10-10-06, so we can all see them soon enough.

This just gives you some idea of the design and visual impact that I was asked to recreate for the mini-comic...

Ink Big.

2006-09-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

Hello, again, mostly-people-I-know-but-some-I-mayn't.

Yes. I said mayn't. Now for INK!

Except for this last one, these are all straight-up scans. I put all that black right on the paper. These last two go together, and I would have filled up the whole rest of the page with black if I didn't have to trace over the spirits onto a separate page. Those, by the way, I left pencilled - and actually made sure the line-work was kinda messy and free-flowing to evoke an ethereal, spirity quality. I just scanned the pencils, inverted the b/w image, and layed it as a screen over a crimson background. You can see that basically everything has stayed the same from the pencils, except for the girl in the second image (which is actually Page 3, because we haven't seen the cover yet). Her I wasn't happy with - so I changed her.

Now the real work begins...

New Concept - Roughs and Pencils

2006-09-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

Hi folks.

It's 5:15am. I haven't slept yet. Well, that's not entirely true. I took a nap Sunday afternoon. Slept off-and-on Sunday night. Had breakfast early Monday morning. And then slept most of the day Monday. I've been up since about 7:00pm.

Anyway - I know I've been lax in keeping my promise to post everything related to my latest freelance project in a timely fashion. No excuses, just -- you know... here ya go.

After my first concept bombed, I was directed to nix the Charlie's-Angels-Themed-Trio, the Lullababes, and resurrect the guy/girl duo from the album art. (See the June Archives - Posts I'm HOME! and I Guess I Can Tell You...) The mechanical heart ended up playing a major role in the finished booklet design - which I may be able to post later - so I reincorporated that into the mini-comic as well as the theme of the characters' spirits leaving their bodies.

I waited a day or so for the new roughs to be approved and then started on the over-sized, pencilled pages that would later be inked and shrunk. The guy's eyes from the first image, the weeping/screaming girl from the fourth image, and the spirits from the last image are all meant to mirror illustrations that ended up in the album art. Soon I'll post the inks. Then the final renditions.

Hi-ho, hi-ho...

2006-09-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

If you recall from a few months ago, I did some illustrations for the cover & booklet of A Static Lullaby's new album - in stores 10-10-06 - and they wanted me to work up a mini-comic with the same flavor as the album art to help promote the new release. I wasn't happy with the sketches and mock-ups I'd done already, so I re-worked the concept and sent them these roughs. I wasn't given a whole lot to go on, but based on what I percieved their needs to be - I came up with this. They were less than thrilled.

That's okay, though - we worked it out. Next post, I'll show you the full-size pages I started working on before the idea was rejected, and most likely the roughs for the new concept. Like I said - this time you get everything...

The end product will be an 8-page mini-comic. Cover, Back-Cover, and 6 Interior Pages. In the album artwork, the idea is that the sun is exploding - or something like that. So with this, I thought it'd be interesting to have these groupie-like characters rushing out onto a rooftop to hail the coming of the new album - almost like it was aliens arriving or somesuch. There's wind and debris flying everywhere, and the girls have a home-made sign saying "TAKE US WITH YOU!" Anyway, it didn't fly - now I'm working up a different concept, which you'll see shortly...

Prelim Junk

2006-09-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Not much to show here, but I'm keepin' my promise. Here's the ugly stuff- stuff nobody should ever see, really. I tried inking a few of the sketches I showed off in the previous post, and mocked these up on the computer to get an idea what it might start looking like. I wasn't very happy with the way these turned out, so I went back to the drawing board - I'll post that stuff in a day or two.

Until then, try not to gag on these 2-page spreads...

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

Boy, have I got a LOT to post now!

So as you may or may not recall, I was shooting a movie in Indiana for about 3 weeks. Check out The Broken Road website to see the teaser. You can also view the teaser at the film's myspace site, and it's on YouTube as well. There's so much to show/tell, that I'll probably talk more about the movie in the coming weeks and months. I need to fly back there soon to finish up principal photography, and I'll be working on the marketing/advertising/poster campaigns. So I'll post that stuff here when I get working on it. Suffice to say, it was a busy/sleepless/grueling/absolutely-fun-as-all-get-out 3 weeks. I spent the first week writing the 3rd draft of the screenplay, and then the next 2 weeks playing the role of TJ - the film's antagonist of sorts. Anyway...

When I got back and finally tried to log into my Blogger account, it froze me out. I think I've fixed that problem for now, so without further ado - check out what I've been working on.

"What's all this," you ask? My latest freelance job. I've been working on it for the past week or two. I'm much further along than this - in fact, it looks absolutely NOTHING like this now - but I figured it was time to show EVERY bit of the process. The gold, AND the crap! I've got about 3-4 posts worth of material to get us back up to speed, so all you get today are the very first thumbnails of the concept and some scribbles from my sketchbook. More soon - I promise...

Pages 6-9

2006-07-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

Yello, folks!

Gosh, I'm moving slow. You'd think I'd be able to crank these pages right out - what with not really working full-time and all. Eh. Stuff happens. In fact, one of those stuffs is happening tomorrow - or rather later this morning. I'm flying back home to shoot a movie. Well, I won't be shooting it. I'll just be acting in it. It's called The Broken Road. (No, that's not me on the front page. I play one of the other characters.) So I'll be away for about 3 weeks. If I have time, I may work on the comic some more. We'll just have to see. This first one's not entirely finished, but I posted it anyway, cuz I like it. :)

Read it!

2006-07-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hey there, everybody!

If you haven't checked out the blog lately, jump back a post and read the first 3 pages of 3-Picture Deal. Then you can check out pages 4 & 5 right here! The saga continues...

And here is just a taste of the next two pages...

What the crap is going on here? Find out in a few days...

The Grind...

2006-07-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

I couldn't wait any longer - and things have been going slower than I'd hoped - but without further ado, here are the first five pages of 3-Picture Deal... in some form or other.

As you may or may not be able to see, things don't always go smoothly. My intention is to work pretty hard on this for the next 10 days or so - I'd like to have 13 pages done to take with me to the San Diego ComicCon, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. Sometime before (but more likely after) that, I'm planning to have a website up for the comic, so you can read it over there, and then check out the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff here.

Anyway, I'll keep crankin' away at this. Of course, the more feedback I get (positive, hopefully) the easier it may be to keep going - wink, wink - so let me know what you think.

And thanks for the looks.

The Sweet Smell of Progress

2006-06-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Mornin' folks!

So I've been working on the comic book this week, and I was pretty excited to post some of my progress, but then I realized - Hey, if I show it all here, what'll be the fun of reading it?! I can't just NOT post, though - and I knew you'd all be clamoring for a gander sooner or later - so here's the compromise. I'll show you some.

You get no descriptions or info - just random pics that will work into the comic in some way or another. Or not. Ha - one of 'em is a deleted scene! I gotta keep SOME secrets, right?

Not the most entertaining set of sketches, I'll grant you. (You liked that last one, though, didn't ya?) It's all part of the process, though. Turns out, since I'm still getting into the swing of things, I'm working a little differently than most comic artists at this point. I'm not confident enough with what I want to see that I can just go right to the 11x17 bristol board and lay it down. Plus, the first few pages REALLY need to be outsdanding. So I spent a lot of time bringing myself back up to speed on perspective, interiors, backgrounds - that kind of thing. I'm usually used to just drawing figures, but when you put 'em in a story, they gotta BE someplace.

For now, a lot of it is done piecemeal - I'll work out poses/gestures in my sketchbook, scan them in, cut them together in Photoshop to make a page, and then print it out in an ultra-light shade of blue so I can ink them. This is not to say that I don't have a clear vision of where I'm headed. Each page has been thumbnailed in the script, so I know what I want to see. It's just a matter of really working it out to get the best - at least, MY best - results.

If you don't understand some of my jargon - or if I'm just plain unclear - let me know. In future posts, I'll continue to give you little glimpses into how I'm actually working.

That's all for now. As always - be good. Leave comments.

Octo-Man 2.0

2006-06-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

Thanks for the comments on my last post. I'm a little busy this weekend, so maybe no more sketches till next week, but I did do this re-design on Octo-Man. I didn't like the inky/splotchy designs on the first one. I like this one MUCH better - the color scheme is not final, but I want the lighter part of his costume to have a mottled/textured look - almost like an octopus's skin. And - it has camoflauge capabilities as well. It may be a little subtle here, but the main color area on his chest and back should evoke the idea of an octopus actually glomming onto his head, with the arms hanging over his stomach and wrapping around his back. If that was obvious, I apologize for the unnecessary explanation. Keep your eyes peeled for more designs soon.

Thanks for the looks. Be good.

Three Picture Deal

2006-06-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't signed any movie contracts lately.

It's the title of my new comic book! I've been working on this for the past couple of weeks. I've written the first issue, thumbnailed the page layouts, and just today I began designing the characters. This should end up being my main project for the next several months, and I hope to put up a separate blog/website soon where you can read the comic as it's finished. First things first, though. Here are the sketches I did this evening.

This is one of our main characters - Jathan.

Our other main character - Michael.

Detectives Epstein & Barr.

This is Janice. She's... interesting.

Just a few of the supporting characters.

And of course, the Astounding Octo-Man.

So just what is Three Picture Deal? A detective story? A super-hero adventure? A slice-of-life drama? Mmhmhmhmm. You'll just have to wait and see...

Phonic Sketches

2006-06-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello.

Turns out I haven't drawn anything for about a week and a half - with good reason, though. I was out of town for about a week. But also, I do much more than just draw - sometime I write/record music. If any of you have checked out my website (see the big banner at the top of the page?), you may have sampled some of my songwriting skills on the Roughcuts project page. (It's a bit sneaky, but if you go there and click on any of the songs on the back-cover image, you'll get a little taste.) For those of you too lazy (it's okay) to do that, here are a few songs not on the original CD - well, one's new, and the other is re-recorded/remixed.

Kinda Homeless

Midnight

Or just check out everything that my freind Josh and I recorded last week.

I never said I was the greatest singer, and these are by no means final-cuts, but the guy who recorded them with us may want to use them in his first film. Which he'll be shooting this summer. Which I may be involved with in some capacity. More on that later.

That is all.

I'm HOME!

2006-06-06T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, folks.

I'm home this week. Indiana. My brother's graduating from high school. Here are the rest of the illustrations I did for A Static Lullaby. The album should be out in the fall, I think. They're Rock/Metal. I'm pretty proud of this work. I've just recently begun to really enjoy inking. This was, like, 99% done with a Faber-Castell PITT Brush-Pen. They're awesome!

I'm out for now. Be good. Leave comments.

I Guess I Can Tell You...

2006-06-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hey there, everybody!

I've been working on illustrations this week for the rock/metal band A Static Lullaby. Another guy is doing the final cover/booklet design, but I'm providing all the illustrations. Which you can see here. Let me know what you think!

I Can't Tell You...

2006-06-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, folks.

Don't know who's still keepin' tabs on me, but here's what I've been working on lately. Can't tell you what it is, but I was told I could put it in my portfolio - which this is - so here they are. Until further notice.

No commentary. Just look. (smile)

BroPics

2006-05-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, all.

I'm sssssseriously bored today. I've hardly done anything the last half of this week. Saw X-Men: The Last Stand. That was pretty good - did some crazy things with the story, though. I've decided to spend the next several months working on a graphic novel. I think. I need to decide which of my many concepts/characters/stories to actaully do. But as soon as that begins, be prepared to see a glut of posts here chronicling it's progress.

In the meantime, however - I've drawn my brother. He'll be graduating from high school in a couple weeks, and so I ganked his mug from some prom pics my mom sent me. Just for kicks. Cuz I'm bored. I'd draw my other brother, too, but I actually have no idea what he looks like now. He's finishing up Chiropractic School, and sometimes he's got long hair, sometimes short, sometimes a beard/mustache/whatever.

Send me a picture, bro!

Both likenesses are semi-accurate. Left looks a little young, right looks a little old. He's in-between, I 'spose.

Gabriel Valles!

2006-05-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody!

(hey, dr. nick) Check this out! I've been posting most of the stuff you've seen here over at the Drawing Board.org as well. Gabriel saw my work earlier this week and was kind enough to give me some critiques on my inking skill - which, admittedly, are lacking. He suggested that the way I was inking my pencil work was flattening it out - killing was the word he used, if I recall. :)

I asked for a specific example, and this is what he sent. I'm sure it only took him a couple minutes, but it's beautiful, and you can really see a difference when you compare it to mine. Thanks to Gabriel, I will be concentrating more on my inking - trying to get as much life into the inks as I do with the pencils. Gabriel is a great artist, and you can visit his site HERE.

Go there. Now.

ColorcolorcolorcolorCOLOR!

2006-05-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Man. If you haven't checked my blog lately, you've been missin' some good stuff. Well, at least I'm happy with it. I've had quite a bit of time on my hands lately - still haven't found a job - but it's given me time to work on some projects of my own. Not to mention building my portfolio with some pro-bono freelance work like this. Enjoy!

This one's pretty big, so you can see the artwork.

And then these are smaller versions of the final product.

Hope you like, 'em! As always, be good. Leave comments. ;)

Velocity!!!

2006-05-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

Mornin', folks.

I've been working on a Youth Brochure for my church the last week or so to promote their summer events. I went with a comic book theme - duh - and cooked up these characters. I'm pretty thrilled with 'em. Watch for some finished illustrations and maybe the whole brochure in subsequent posts.

1930s-40s Aviation Story

2006-05-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

Hello there.

Here are a few more designs I did recently to try to flesh out some more of the story I've been working on lately. I'm not sure I'm happy with them yet, but they're coming along.

Recent Projects

2006-05-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

Okay - here ya go. Couple projects I've been working on.

First - my new business cards. Remember this girl?

These look slightly less vibrant when printed, but I like 'em.

And these were done just today for a friend of mine.

Whadaya think? I'll probably be able to post more sketches in the next couple days. Till then, be good. Leave comments. :)

More Flyers

2006-05-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

Thought I was done, huh? Nope. Not even close.

I did these last night - a few hours after yesterday's post. A couple days ago, I thought I was in a rut - but not anymore! Problem is, now I don't know which way to go. At first I was thinking I wanted a smooth, animated style for this story - simple, clean lines and solid colors. Now, with these new sketches, I'm leaning toward using a slightly more realistic/comic book look. Closer to my regular style. Maybe I can do the simple clean lines in the inking stage.

What do you think? Do you like yesterday's designs, or these?

Oh, and here's one more I've been working on just today. You may remember her from a previous post. Now she's got some personality. I'm working on this for my business card. My Binniss Card. (hee-hee)

Toodles.

Carmine Red & Indigo Blue

2006-05-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

Evenin' folks.

Got some new art supplies today. Couple colored pencils for quick sketches/drawings. Here's what I've drawn tonight. Some characters for a new story I'm working on.

This is the main character - early in her design evolution. Still workin' out the character.

This is one of the other pilots.

This is the main character's cat. It's a Cymric (breed). No tail.

This last on is Greta Garbo. She's got that perfect 1930s-40s look that I want for this new project. That's all for now. More to come - hopefully.

Girl Chewing Toenail

2006-04-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

'Morning folks.

Just the one image today. I think it's worth it's own post, though. I've been working on this most of the night - it's 6:10am. I'm tired. And I have to play guitar at church in just a couple hours. I had it almost all done around 3:00, then I watched some anime and tried to go to sleep. Didn't happen. So I got up and finished it. Now I'm gonna post it over at the Drawing Board. Check that out if you haven't. It's pretty cool. That's all.

Be good.

Veronica here is sporting a lovely gown by Vera Wang - available at a significant discount from bluefly.com, and a cute little Coach handbag - discontinued.

Zombieees!!! ...and Girls.

2006-04-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

A mishmash of drawings tonight.

First, zombies. Everybody loves zombies, right? Okay. I'm not very good at zombies yet. Last week I posted some sketches that included designs for a Walking Dead pin-up I wanted to do. My zombies weren't great, so I wanted to work on that a bit.

Plus, here's the layout I mocked up in Photoshop for that pin-up.

Ooh. Side note. I'm gonna be in a zombie movie! I don't know all the details yet, but the film is called Not Quite Dead, and I'll be playing Mike. Not a major role, but he's alive for part of the film and then undead later on. Plus -- two death scenes!! (ah-haa-ha-haaaaa...just thought I'd share)

Remember this girl? In that same post I had a very rough sketch of a girl chewing on her toenails that I was gonna finish up and sumbit to a Drawing Jam over at The Drawing Board. I've been working on this today - seeing as there's not much else for me to do, what with me being unemployed and all. I'll ink it tonight or tomorrow, maybe add a little color, and then post it.

And lastly, yet another girl from a previous post - all gussied up with color and attitude.

That's it for now. Be good. Leave comments.

Last Day!

2006-04-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Last day at Sam Goody - no, wait - that means I'm out of a job. Aw, nuts.

Oh, well. Time to look for something else to bring in the dollars to pay the bills. But I'll probably take a couple weeks off first. Vegitate a bit. Sleep. Play video games. Draw. Think. Eat. Sleep.

Anyway, here's the final installment of WorkDoodles. From now on, I guess they'll be HomeDoodles. Enjoy.

These first two fall into the Dumb Questions category. Once we started liquidating the store, we got qestions like this all the time. We started a stupid question checklist. These two aren't actual people - they sort of represent the collective of Dumb Question Askers. I wanted to do more, but they just never came to me - or I was inspired in different directions.

Answer: Yeah. There's signs. (point to any one of 50 different signs touting STORE CLOSING, EVERYTHING MUST GO, NOTHING HELD BACK, etc.)

Answer: *blank stare* -beat- How the poop should I know?!

These are a few terribly quick sketches I did based on some people I saw today. I like the old guy the best. He was cool. Came in, like, every week. 3 times this week alone. He had this fantastic beard and really long while hair. Cool dude.

Sometimes I just start somewhere and see what happens. I thought first of the idea of someone propping themselves up on one arm - with all their weight just hanging from that one tent-pole. I like how her right arm kind of folds up under her, but doesn't really carry any of the weight. She looked like she was going somewhere, so I drew in the ambiguous circular destination on the ground. Could be a pool of water in the middle of the desert. Could be a pool of blood spreading from her dying boyfriend's body. Could be anything. That's why I love to look at these kinds of sketches. Unfinished - yes. But with so much possibility. Once it's finished, the story is locked. I like possibility.

Same with this last one. I don't know exactly what's happening here. And I like that! This is one that I actually want to finish, but I like the organic nature of a quick sketch. There's a lot of life in these kinds of loose, flowing sketches. It's perfect to me, because there's enough here to flesh the rest out in my head. And what if I screw it up when I try to finish it? I'll hate it. But for now, I love it.

More Work Sketches

2006-04-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

Hi there.

I am so-ooo-oh bored at work. Only 2 days left. The store is so empty. There's absolutely nothing to do. So I draw.

I did this one yesterday. I've been thinking I should try a few pin-ups for some of the comics I currently read. These are some concepts for a Walking Dead pin-up. I'll post more of this as I work on it.

I did this one yesterday, too. I spent a good deal of Monday browsing the forum threads over at The Drawing Board.org. One of the longer threads was an attempt at 1001 drawings posted in 80 days. Quite the undertaking. This guy was posting 15-20 sketches nearly every day. It was some great stuff, and this character was based on some of the stylized girls he had drawn.

So here's some from today. These weren't all on the same piece of paper. But they were all people that I saw in or near the store. I love to see when artists do a drawing session at a coffee shop or somewhere - tons of quick real-life sketches. But I don't really do that myself. Perhaps I will next week when I've got all that time on my hands. I like to get a quick idea of a person/character that I see and then do my own take on them. Just draw what sticks out to me...

...then I try to put them in some situation - a little story just for them. Okay, so a couple posts ago I told a story about bumping into a jogger near campus - totally bogus. I really did see this girl, though. (If I'm ever lying, I'll tell you.) It was about noon. Not much traffic in the store. Then I hear this jingling sound. I'm thinking - "It's not Christmas - what gives?". Then I see this girl standing outside, leaning on the glass and staring in the store. I probably drew her a little too old, but she couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. But she looked like a normal girl/woman, just miniature. And with a big head. And she had this huge bracelet with these jingle bells! And they were loud. Now, maybe that was just her own little fashion statement, but I had another idea. Ha!

And lastly...this. There's actually a couple different things going on here - it's not one scene. I mentioned The Drawing Board.org. In one of the forums, they have what they call a drawing jam. Each month is a different topic/idea, and anybody can post their drawings for that particular jam. This months theme is April's Fools.

" This month's jam is about drawing girls playing around, acting dumb, foolish, or just plain retarded."

So this was my attempt to fit that criteria. I plan to re-work it and post it sometime next week.

Oh, and the idea - gross, I know - came from Junebug. Amy Adams was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in that film. She was fantastic. In one scene, she and her new sister-in-law laugh about the fact that they both chew their toenails. That's all.

Goodnight.

Monday Mugs

2006-04-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Evening, folks!

Had the day off today. Slept late. Checked out some art-related message boards. Saw a ton of art that made me jealous. But it also made me want to post. So here we go. Some faces from my sketchbook.

Most of these came from a book of facial expressions. I don't usually copy from photos, but I felt it'd be a good way to boost my "acting skills" with the pencil. Came in pretty handy. Got some inspiration.

That's all for now. I'm going to be working on my website a bit more this week - filling in a lot of the content with galleries and whatnot. Check over there in a week or so.

Whoa

2006-04-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

Another day, another post.

Y'know, this blogging thing takes some effort. I thought I'd be off and running - posting every couple days - but I'm just sittin' here with a mind full o' nothin'. Can't think of a single thing to say. 'Course, all I really want to do is post some more drawings anyway. Okay - let's do that.

So, I inked this jogger from my last post. Used a couple Faber-Castell PITT pens and some of the smaller Micron Pigma pens. I'm definitely happy with it.

Oh - I totally forgot to tell you where the inspiration for this came from. Last week, I was riding my bike near campus and wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I ran right into the back of a parked car! I sat there for a second to let the ringing in my ears go away, and when I looked up, this gorgeous girl was standing over me - kind of giggling and smiling simpathetically at the same time. She said something, I think, but I couldn't hear. Then she just kept on jogging... (sigh)

Okay. That didn't actually happen. At all. I just felt like it needed a good story.

Anyway, here's just the beginnings of some color. The hardest part was the clouds. I must have spend, like, two minutes at least scouring Google Images for a decent sky. Ha. I'll post her again when she's all done. Now, I know nobody actually reads this blog yet, but if any of you artists out there have any suggestions, let me know.

Here's a sketch of a Sheriff. Crazy perspective. Unfinished. (I went to Tombstone, AZ recently.)

And... here's a little cast of characters I cooked up for an online comic I may or may not do.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try to post some project-related stuff soon. Collections. Some finished stuff. Bye.

Liquidoodles

2006-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Hello, Blog-Land.

I'm currently working at a Sam Goody that will be going out of business very soon. We are currently being liquidated and there's not much to do, so I've been doodling. Here are the results.

I met Ellie at the store last week. She had just been to Build-A-Bear, but she'd built a Monkey instead. I didn't believe her, so she proved it.

I was so happy with this rough I'd done at work that I scanned it in, blew it up, and fleshed it out.

I'm pretty pleased with the result. I hope to ink it soon.