Inktober Day 22: Little Red

Inktober Catch Up Day 21: Just let me in

This sums up 95% of the nightmares I had as a kid.

Jinxy's Retro Lounge

I just finished this Cover Illustration for the Facebook group, Jinxy's Retro Lounge.

Gouache on illustration board with digital text.

First Year Hufflepuff

Remember this guy? I posted a sketch of him quite a while ago . Well, he's all painted now. By an overwhelming majority vote on Instagram, he was sorted into Hufflepuff House.

"We've come for your daughter, Chuck"

I painted this for a Tim Burton Tribute Art Show back in October. 7x15in Gouache on Illustration Board. The original ($300) and one print ($35) are still available. Please contact me through the contact link on the right if interested.

It's from Sirius!

Wow- It's been so long! I'm ashamed to say that I've ignored my blog for over a year. I'll admit the simplicity of just snapping a picture for Instagram rather than scanning it at my computer is primarily the reason I've been so negligent. But with the upcoming new year I resolve to do better. I'd like to start with sharing this small painting I did for my daughter, a huge Harry Potter fan (ok, so are we, her parents). In fact, I've been away from blogging for so long that apparently I didn't even share the initial sketch, which I only decided to paint several months later. I did the sketch in about 15 minutes, with a light grey Prismacolor Marker for the rough drawing and a Pentel brush pen for the black lines. A few months later, as her birthday approached, I thought I decided to flesh it out into a full painting. As you can see it's basically the same but with many subtle changes. Check out the video below to see how I refined the sketch in Photoshop before painting.

 If you compare the two versions, you can see some subtle differences. I refined the likeness a lot, and improved on the pose, hand positions, etc...

Here's the final painting. If you'd like to see a quick progression, showing the Photoshop refinements to the sketch, here's a short progression video.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day 2013

Yellow Dragon

I haven't had much time for any of my own artwork lately- thankfully I'm very busy with freelance projects. However I saw Monsters University tonight and seeing all the fun characters made me want to doodle the night away on my Yiynova tablet monitor. I decided to take one of the many monster-ish drawings I've done previously and color it. In fact I modified it a bit before delving into color. You might remember this little guy:

 

Well I had labeled him "Yellow Dragon" when I first saved the image. I think that was because I wanted to remind myself if I ever colored him that he should NOT be red like Mushu from Mulan. Well here's how he turned out:

 

 

Definitely a different type of character from the initial sketch, but that's how it works out sometimes.

Red Dot Auction for the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity

Once again I'm submitting a painting to the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity's annual auction. Over 100 artists are anonymously donating paintings, with the proceeds going to benefit the Center. It's a great organization that not only spreads the word about Chuck Jones' lifetime of work but also spearheads creative activities throughout the community. Because it's anonymous I'm not going to reveal my image until after the auction but you can check out most of what's been donated at this link and see if you can guess mine. And if you're in the Southern California area, why not stop by the auction this Saturday?

Threadless Fraggle Rock Competition

I grew up watching Fraggle Rock when it originally aired on HBO (at 8pm, which as a young kid seemed strange to me at the time). So I was excited when I saw that Threadless was having a Fraggle Rock TShirt Design Competition. Here's my design. It's called "Chase in Outer Space" and is up and available for voting! If it gets ranked high enough, Threadless will print it as a shirt! You can find it here: http://www.threadless.com/fragglerock/chase-in-outer-space/ . Thanks for your vote!

Girls

Little Old Ladies

I went through Google and doodled some old ladies to try to improve my caricature skills, which aren't too sharp. I'm happy with this first one, but the others feel a bit clumsy.

 I find that I can't do a caricature in just one pass. The first attempt, like those above, usually just yields a simplification of what I'm seeing- it's a bit cartoony maybe, but doesn't feel exaggerated enough, sometimes not at all. However, I find that once I've done that first obvervational drawing, I'm a bit more comfortable with the subject. Having already converted it into a line drawing it's a bit easier to then take that and exaggerate it as I've done below.

The one on the left was my first attempt, from a photo. The second was done without the photo, just using the first one as reference and then attempting to caricature it. Admittedly, the second one probably doesn't bear much resemblance to the original photo, but it feels like a more pleasing drawing to me. Once again, the lesson here, that I keep having to remind myself it seems, is that just because it's not right, doesn't mean you can't fix it.

Cat-erwaulers

These poor Pirate Cats have been sitting around half painted since before Christmas. Finally got around to finishing them.

 

Rhino Dragon

Friday Girls

Questionable Companion

Another Cruise inspired sketch.

Welcome to Hogwarts!

Something made me want to draw some Harry Potter characters, unnamed first year students, perhaps just arrived and waiting to be sorted into their houses. I'm a big Harry Potter nut so these were very fun to do.

Vacations are for making friends

 

Something about that cruise I was on had me drawing dogs a lot. This one is running along the beach with one of the locals.

Pull up a stool, Matey...

I'm working to flesh out some of my Pirate Cat designs. I posted a sketch of this guy over 2 years ago and thought he had such great personality that he was a natural cantidate to paint. The fun part was figuring out just what type of cat he should be. Here he is, in a shadowy corner of the Keelhauled Kitty Pub, regaling listeners with a tale of his adventures.

 

Gouache on Illustration Board

This reminds me of something Neil Gaiman said: “Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.”

Expo Ahoy!

I'm going to the Creative Talent Network Animation Expo this weekend, so I threw together this postcard to promote my blog, and specifically my Pirate Cats.

 

Will you be at the Expo?