Dammit Dexter! #01

"Dammit Dexter! Fine! I'll fill up your damn Kong! Seriously, how do you always end up with the most embarrassing things to run off with?!"

And this is what I get when I make Dexter wait more than 2 minutes to fill up his Kong with food. I never leave anything on the floor either, he'll knock over my laundry basket to achieve this.

I also now have a tumblr! Come follow me there - I'll be trying to include more process work on those updates.

Thanks for lookin'!

HGTV Portrait

It seems to have been a while since my last post so while I continue work on a current personal illustration, here's just something that's been sitting in my sketchbook.

I've recently been watching way too much HGTV, particularly House Hunters, House Hunters International, and Property Brothers. I was sketching during one particular episode of House Hunters International in which a rather wealthy family was looking for a place somewhere in the Caribbean... I think. It was tropical. My point I'm getting at is that I thought the realtor had a cool look and just decided to sketch up a portrait of him between scoffing at the nit-picky complaints of the clients and wishing I could immediately move in to the house being shown.

Thanks for lookin'!

Spontaneous Sketch 01 - "Faux Figure Studies"

Hi there!

I have here just a quick itch that needed to be scratched. "Faux" figure studies because I didn't actually have a figure or reference I was working from. Maybe these should be called gestures? Whatever the case, I just needed to doodle a little bit and this is what came out. Very different from the fashion/outfit idea I had originally sat down to do, but we'll get there. Baby steps. Maybe my original intention for a doodle will pop up in the near future. We shall see.

Anyways, consider this itch scratched; I've realized my typing ability at 12am is sadly pathetic and I should quit before I hurt myself or the keyboard.

Thanks for lookin'!

Quick Sketch Paint - Talim

Soul Calibur II Talim sketch - about 4 hours.

Another piece, this time a quick paint over an old sketch I've had laying around of my favorite character from Soul Calibur II, lil' miss Talim. With this one I wanted to try another painting style. I still haven't gotten the hang of it but I'm learning a lot from it, even if this didn't come out at all how I'd wanted or originally intended it too. For one, it was supposed to end up not having visible outlines... We see how that turned out. Overall the sketch wasn't much of a success in the sense that it didn't end up the way it was intended but it has definitely served to teach me some things about my painting process and things I should try to work on - working from simple, big shapes and working my way in to detail for one is proving to be a tough practice for me to do - I tend to start out with that intent but almost always start trying to add details as soon as one section is blocked in and it really impedes my ability to get a composition I like. Note to self for next time: STOP THAT!

Thanks for lookin'!

Woods Witch

Here's a sketch I've been slowly picking at over the last couple of months and thought it was at a point that it could be shared. This concept is actually loosely based off of an old sketch (below) I'd done of some sort of moth/woods witch. I still liked the idea but wanted to update it a bit. I'm not sure it's 100% improved from the initial concept but maybe that can be worked on. One element in particular that I like from the old sketch more than the new one yet is the amount of fraying of the clothing. Hopefully I'll get around to painting this and including a background to bring it together once I get a few other personal illustrations that are on the back burner completed.

Old concept sketch of a
moth/woods witch. -2007

Thanks for lookin'!

Of Animal Sketches and Noisy Tapirs

In an attempt to get in some more animal gestures and sketches in to my sketchbook, I'd utilized my membership to the fullest and visited the Minnesota Zoo three consecutive weekends. I'm still not sick of going. The first trip resulted in me forgetting I was even carrying a sketchbook around for the most part but there are a couple of doodles from day one included here. Day two consisted of attempting to sketch while wearing mittens. It was still pretty chilly out but discovered I could still grip my pencil decently well with mittens on, so I spent a good few hours at the outdoor exhibits.

The third weekend I went later in the day, and it seemed to make a huge difference in what animals were up and moving around. The tapirs were especially playful so I just sat and watched them for a bit while I sketched. I'd never seen them do anything besides lay around before.

I was able to capture some footage of the two up and about, might come in handy sometime. Apologies for the rather shoddy quality video, just a point and shoot. 

I would like to go a few more times soon and do more style studies of a particular animal or work in some marker value studies. We'll see what happens!

Thanks for lookin'!

Caricature Lunch Sketches

Ta-da! Here marks the first of my sketchbook posts and it's none other than subject matter that is different my usual, and in a style that's not particularly representative of my usual look. I wanted to start to get myself to focus on working on areas that are terribly lacking in my body of work, this session focusing on males.

Usually, when I tell myself to draw a male character, it ends up being a fantastical creature such as a centaur where I can replace the head with that of the animal rather than the human. I thought I was so clever, avoiding having to draw male faces an' all that. So, over a few of my lunch breaks I made an attempt at moving away from that and actually working on drawing some male faces but didn't want to start out with too serious of studies so I played with it and exaggerated some shapes and lines.

These were done without any sort of reference, regrettably, and it's noticeable - I found I need to study more about the shapes around the cheeks, under the lips and over the brow. I'm not exactly happy with these but I feel it's important to track my progress and post these types of things to learn from.

Thanks for lookin'!