Drawergeeks: Rednecks

The theme on Drawergeeks this week is Rednecks. While it has a definite connotation for me, I kept coming back to this image which to me says "hillbilly" more than "redneck". I tried a couple of other options, and even Googled Jeff Foxworthy's material to figure out what a redneck is exactly. His comments frequently mentioned roadkill, going shirtless, and facial hair, so figured I was safe with my initial idea. Pretty happy with the way it turned out. You can check out the other submissions here.

Standing figure with Drapery

A quick 3 minute sketch from a figure drawing class.

A crayon portrait

Just a quick portrait I did over the Thanksgiving weekend. Sabrina and I did lots of coloring and drawing to pass the time.

Drawergeeks: Starbelly

The original inspiration for this week's theme on drawergeeks.com was the Dr. Seuss story "The Sneetches".

But as you can see from my entry below, and the others, people have done some other interpretations of the term "starbelly".

Now to give credit where credit is due: my design owes a ton of inspiration to artist Frank Cho, creator of the Liberty Meadows comic books. His drawings, and specifically his covers, of his main character Brandy are awe-inspiring. The pose in my initial sketch for my Starbelly design bore quite a resemblance to his cover for Liberty Meadows: Eden Book 1. Ok, maybe it isn't a big mystery why, because that is the only copy of his stuff that I have, but it really wasn't an intentional imitation. Once I went to clean up my drawing, I noticed the similarity of pose and intentionally imitated his color and shading style- hey there's no shame in imitating the best is there?

Fellow Students

Often I would come out a Figure Drawing class with passable drawings of the model but great drawings of the students.

Here are two that I found. The top one is actually Disney Imagineer Gene Wiskerson who oversaw the class and who was sculpting the model in this session. The other is a student.

The lady on the table

A quick sketch from my figure drawing class.

Gorilla sketches

A pair of gorilla sketches from the LA Zoo.

Figure Drawing

These are some figure drawings I came across in one of my sketchbooks. They're unusual in that I drew the model several times from different angles.

Send in the Clowns

Yikes! Has it really been over two months since my last post?! There's nothing I hate more than a blog that goes for weeks without an update. I did these quick sketches for Drawergeeks a few weeks ago.

You can check out the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Rabbit

The theme on Drawergeeks this week is "Rabbits". This entry has a lot of influences: It's a little bit "Little Golden Books", a little Richard Scarry, a lot of Uncle Remus' Brer Rabbit and maybe just a little "Prarie Home Companion" (since that's what I watched while painting it, though the whole concept came to me much earlier). I think the Golden Books (Poky Little Puppy and Tawny Scrawny Lion especially) stuck with me a lot when I was young, and even though the illustrations were somewhat simple by today's standards, they were very effective. Even living in Orange County suburbs, I think I liked the little illustrated peeks into the forests that these stories always took place in. So anyway the theme "Rabbits" instantly conjured up one of the cuddly clever animals from these mid century storybooks.

There's no more to the story than this verse, but it may be fun to write the rest of it someday. Check out the other entries here.

Drawergeeks: Aliens

Another quick Drawergeeks entry this week: Aliens.

Man, seeing some of the great stuff the other artists contribute I really wish I had more time to spend on my entries. Course, I'm greatful that it's work keeping me busy and not, say civil war or chronic hiccupping or something. This is another quick pencil sketch with some digital shading and text. And, you can view the other entries here.

Cinderella just loves mice...

This weeks theme on Drawergeeks is Cinderella. Doing Disney Princesses all the time, you'd think this idea wouldn't excite me much, but really, I was kinda interested in rethinking something that's so firmly established in everyone's mind. I mean, Disney's isn't the first or only Cinderella, it's simply the most heartily ingrained in everyone's mind. I mean, you could do anything to reimagine the story and characters. I could go with a gritty harsh view of the class system in France in the 1600's, with Cinderella as a sickly but beautiful abused girl living as a slave in her own home. Or I could have done an ornate heavily illuminated take, where the characters and sets are just filled with lavish details worthy of an expensive engraving. So what was my take? I did what all non Disney studios do when they decide to tackle something with such endless possibilities- I changed all the characters to cats.

Inspired, I know. Now all it needs is a cutesy pun in the title. Cinderwhiskers? No. Whiskerella? Um no. CinderFluffyTail? You might want to check back, this might take a while... In the meantime you can check out the other drawergeeks submissions here.

Princess Leia

This weeks theme on DrawerGeeks is Princess Leia. Here's mine:This is my first submission to DrawerGeeks that I've painted traditionally. The others may have used a quick sketch but were mostly digital color. I want to try and make each submission unique in style and approach. Check the other artists' submissions here.

The Titans

This week's theme on Drawergeeks is "Titans". Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to devote to such a powerful theme, however I'm still pretty happy with the two things I came up with- constraints (time, financial, or otherwise) really do force you to be creative. Anyway below are my two submissions. The first is a quick sketch with some quick digital tones thrown in. The second is all digital.

Gorilla My Dreams