Playground

Foxes

Feeling Squirrelly

Mer-Kitty & a Pirate Cat

Kids

Girls, Girls, Girls!

I decided that this first young lady was just too excited about dying these eggs, so I didn't post it around Easter. But posted with some other sketches, I don't mind it so much anymore.

Sparrows

Even More Pirate Cats

For some reason, I gave this first one the big coat cuffs but forgot the rest of his coat. Oops! Even if you're a bloodthirsty Pirate Cat, your dog will still love you.

Dance Class

Some more sketches from my daughter's dance class.

Wahine

Another digital girl. I'm trying to be loose and not too hung up on letting the underdrawing show through.

Penguins

This last one is an attempt at some loose digital sketching with color. I'm not very happy with how much I had to work to get it even to this stage. The line quality and smoothness of the brush strokes are not at all to my liking, but I'm still getting the hang of all the tools and settings and the way the Wacom affects them. If this needed to be more painterly it would have been much easier but for some reason it's tough to freehand a simple cartoon look in Photoshop without doing all sorts of masks and stuff.

Digital Girl- Claire

Just more digital painting practice. I call this Claire because I'm reading Steve Martin's "Shopgirl" and Claire Danes was in the film version. It's not supposed to be a portrait just kind of inspired by her type. The nose on this will bug me till the end of time, but I've redone it too many times. I really intended this to have very simple shading with just a mid, dark, and light tone, but it's so easy to keep going and going and pretty soon you have something that's more complicated than you wanted. My final verdict is that it was a valiant effort but a mediocre result. Still, I learned a bit and that's what counts right?

Leanin' too

Miners, Desperados & Buckaroos

I have never really been into the Western Genre, but Chris Merritt, a friend of mine, is releasing a book about Knott's Berry Farm, a western themed Theme Park here in California. The book is called Knott's Preserved. So I was inspired to do some grizzled old cowpokes.

If you'd like to know even more about Chris and the book, you can listen to a fascinating interview with him here at the SeasonPass Podcast.

Animal sketch dump

I've seen many artists post what they call a sketch dump on their blogs- sometimes dozens of drawings at once. Well frankly, trying to put something new up every single weekday, I can't usually afford to put too many sketches up at once. However, I'm feeling a bit confident- a small pile of sketches I'm happy with as well as a new found resolution to put more digital work up have encouraged me to dump some animal sketches on you today- 5 sketches- count em, FIVE! That's like 5 days of blogging in one (actually it's more like 3 but who's counting?). Enjoy- but don't get used to this sort of thing ;)

By the pool

Rabbits!

Easter got me in the mood to draw some rabbits. I just drew one or two at first, but with rabbits, well, you know what happens...

Critter House

I've always loved the idea of little houses like this. I started this one planning on having a little rabbit peeking out the window, and was going to post it on Easter. I was going to have a little wooden door kinda crammed into that lower space and maybe some mushrooms for awnings or roofs but as it went along I really just liked it as it was though it's certainly darker in tone than I had planned. Anyway the latticework in that upper portion is the only real indication (aside from the light) that someone intelligent might live there. I'm still new at digital painting and even traditionally don't do a lot of environmental stuff like this, but it's certainly fun, even if it doesn't come naturally.

Leanin'

Though I never feel very successful at it, Pete Emslie's latest post has inspired me to try drawing some girls again.

What! Another Monday?!

Actually he might be scared because he realized he only has 3 legs.

Hoppy Easter 2010

Evolution of the Kitten

Nothing too spectacular today but I thought I'd post how a doodle can sometimes evolve. Generally, if I'm just doodling, I may abandon something right away if it's not working. But every once in a while I'll try a second or a third attempt to get it right, even if it's just for fun. When I'm working on something with a larger purpose, mind you, there are generally several dozen such reworkings. Anyway, from top to bottom, the first, second and third attempt at a basic kitten character, not done for anything in particular.

Elephant