Stalker

A small test sketch trying out some copic markers.

About 2 hours.

First Kill

A sequential pen sketch of a scene from a story I've been working on for years now. The main character is battling a creature with very stretchy skin.

This is a rough pen sketch with the creature being a quickly-assembled placeholder for a better-designed creature in a future version. I feel like I've failed in showing a sequential action in a single frame (the rat-thing's head and arm swishing to the right), But I'm pretty happy with the over all feel of all the frames together.

6-10 hours

Problems with Blogger Images

For some reason this layout disables images from being clicked to enlarge, so I'll work to fix it as soon as possible =(

Father's Day- The Man With No Name

A belated Father's Day gift for my cowboy-lovin' great grandpa- started this at 9am this morning and finished at around 3.30pm. Fixed some food, played with dogs, and whatnot in between, so I don't know exactly how long it took.

Here is my workspace (and work in progress). I used a reference still shot from "Fistful of Dollars" and watched the "man with no name" series to keep me focused.

I believe I'm getting the hang of this Conte stuff =D

Life Drawing- African Garb

Trying out Blogger's new layout system. I can't decide whether it's distracting and irrelevant, or if I enjoy seeing my blog a bit more..

Anyways, here's some life drawings from yesterday:

10 minutes-

20 minutes-

40 minutes-

Mr. Gay's Lion Farm

Apparently there used to be a lion farm near Pasadena in the '20s and '30's that was "Disneyland before Disneyland". It would be for me too if I could ride a lion :)

3 hour study from this picture

Long Study- Portrait

2 hour portrait in charcoal. I'm happy with this one =)

Sketch Dump- Old stuff

Still in a major artistic funk.. hopefully posting this old stuff will get the ball rolling in my mind:

A few of the better pages from my sketchbook from Viscom-

Ghosts of the Mesa- I was trying to convert a black and white sketch into a fully rendered painting, but ended up losing the essence of the whole thing.

A couple weapon study speedpaints:

and a logo I experimented with:

No Vision

I'm in a weird artistic funk at the moment. I feel like I can't visualize or imagine what I want to create, so without a direction in my mind, there is no direction with my hand. I'm feeling really down about it; I've never been this unable to draw in my life and it feels like I've lost one of my senses.

I'm going to post the little sketches I make throughout the day. They're nothing good, but I'd like to show myself that I've at least done something, even if it's just a scribble.

Sooo... brace your eyes for some ugly ;-P

Birthday Sketches

Quick studies of some cousins and brothers at my little cousin Jessica's birthday (and a tag to fill in space from my brother Chris).

Busted Wacom

I think it's the pressure sensor in the pen.. will update when it's fixed!

SpeedPaint #4

I've been getting behind on this speedpaint business!

Japanese family armor, 1 hour.

Observations- Tanuki

It's been an incredibly busy past few days so I don't have so much as a quick sketch to post, but I thought I'd share some interesting findings in my explorations for inspiration on the internet.

This is a Tanuki, the Japanese Raccoon-Dog:

In Japanese culture, you'll often see them interpreted like this:

And yes, those are his gigantic naughty bits.

Japanese lore depicts Tanuki as a shapeshifting and wily spirit with a very unique and disturbing habit of morphing its scrotum into disquises, tools, weapons, blankets, and so forth.

One image series struck me with familiarity. They are a Kage-e (Japanese shadow picture), the picture on the left seeming to be a silhouette of a Goldfish while on the right it is revealed as a tanuki crushing a man with his scrotum.

Two Pokemon references come to mind:

1.) This is most likely where the concept for the commercial break indicator "Who's that Pokemon?" originated.

2.) This was undoubtedly (in my mind) the direct inspiration for the second generation Pokemon Sentret.

Separated at Birth?

What can I say.. Inspiration is everywhere, I guess? I think it's pretty amazing that someone took a cultural item that was totally indigestible by Western culture and morphed it into something suitable for five year olds.

Ken Bailey stylistic study

I'm feeling a little disconnected from the flow of having your own style, so I've decided to take a stab at other artist's styles: today is something Ken Bailey-esque:

There's this adorable black Chow Chow mix I've had my eye on at the local pound for the last couple weeks. She ties is beautifully with the hokey culinary innuendos, no?

I'm still not sure If I'm gonna get the dog, but the thought of her made for some worthwhile inspiration =) (You can't tell from this picture, but in real life she has a purple tongue almost as dark as her fur!)

Kitsune

The beginnings of a character design "Kitsune". I will update more later.

Old Sketchbook Found

This is a little 2" x 7" sketchbook I made back in 2007. There weren't too many drawings in there, but here's the cover and two of the better pages:

I'm particularly fond of the desert scene.

San Francisco MUNI sketches

Here are a series of observations I made on a 6 hour tour through the bay area on the metro:

You can tell here that it's been a while since I've taken a stab at life drawing.

Gaining a bit of confidence in this one.

Composing several observations and differentiating faces (The guy reading was taking peeks into a comic book called "Girls Girls Girls" while glancing around to make sure he wasn't watched. He failed to notice me >=))

Getting comfortable with environment/architectural elements.

People doing things and more character in the faces. The shifty-eyed girl in this one was sitting about thirty feet away from me in the next car. I thought she hadn't noticed me, but she walked up to me at the last stop and asked to see my sketchbook. I felt like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar, I was so embarrassed!

Here are some sketches while waiting at a clinic in Long Beach, CA. Leg poses, baby faces, heavier details, light shadowing.

Compiled half a page from SF and half a page from LB. I'm particularly pleased with the composition at the top and with the robot concept I started.

Now that I'm back in LA, I need to find some lowcost venues for drawing people and places. It would be nice if the metro system here was an option, but I may have to suffice with a trip to the local mall =P

SpeedPaint #2

My first environment speedpaint. About an hour. Meh.

Morning SpeedPaint #3

Hmm.. This one was a bit complicated.. I need to work more of my process. I really like this picture, so I might take a stab at it again some other time.

One hour.

Get It While You Can!

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials has gone out of print recently, so I'd suggest buying it off Amazon at the advertised 14 cents before it turns into $80.

I got mine in the mail this morning (which was a nice surprise considering I'd completely forgotten I'd bought it). Basically, it illustrates alien species (I'm assuming all sentient) described in many great works of science fiction. The book was originally printed in 1979, so the style is a bit reminiscent of '80s creature and monster design. I am a little disappointed that many of the creatures are humanoid or hybrid in nature, but there are many that deviate from this extraterrestrial norm, and some are just downright bizarre/inspiring.

I don't think I would settle with any of the final concepts in this book as one of my own, but it's filled with creative fodder to stretch your imagination for aliens a bit beyond the Star Wars level.

So.. go buy it. Like, NOW!

SpeedPaint #1

25 minute speedpaint.

Game Developers Conference

I'm heading to the GDC tomorrow. Unless a spot opens on the volunteer roster I probably won't be attending until the Saturday Career Fair, so I'm going to spend a lot of time exploring the city . It's going to be my first time in San Francisco and my first time travelling in a long while.. This is going to be an interesting experiment of life.