A look back at January...

Alright, I'll admit, this is kind of a cop-out post, but I digs it anyway.  Drawsiness has been live for a month, and I thought I'd take a look back at the first month of drawsiness, so I fashioned myself this wallpaper (1680x1050 resolution) of all the drawings from January.  It's kinda cool seeing them all together.  Almost like they're hanging in a gallery.  That'd be something.

Also, it's cool, cuz now I have an "older posts" button at the bottom of the page!  That means it's reached TWO pages!  Oh yeah.

Lunch time doodles...

I dunno what Wolverine, Iron-Man, and Mr. Peanut are up too... but it can't be good.

Sometimes during my "day job" when I am not feeling particularly hungry... I'll borrow some office supplies of paper and a pencil and/or pen, and just doodle my lunch time away.  These are some of those doodles.


I drew Mr. Peanut from memory, so it turns out that his monocle is on the wrong eye...  ah well.

It all started with a mouse... (and a work schedule)...

I'm headed to Disneyland this weekend, so new Drawsiness until Sunday night (and probably Monday morning).  But I had to throw up something before heading off to work, so I was figured, why not the mouse?  I wanted to do something that would show the progress of the character though the years, but it fell short.  I don't want to say it's the overlapping black.. cuz I wanted that.  It was intentional.  But i definitely shouldn't have used Sharpie to outline the full bodied mouse.  Too thick, and loss some detail and beauty of the line work.

Live and learn.

How we gonna pay...?

Today started as an artist blocky kinda day... but I didn't draw anything yesterday, so I had to draw something.  Cuz I want to draw daily (in a perfect world).  So first I was gonna draw a Star Trek girl due to this little video by Meekakitty (if you want to save your sanity, don't play it).  But that drawing wasn't working at all...   So then I thought I'd take a crack at Mr. Shue from Glee, and try some portrait skills... but, that wasn't working either.  So... I somehow decided to approach Mark Cohen form Rent, in my usual cartoony style, and wah-lah!  A drawing that doesn't totally suck.  Actually I kinda like it.  I might try my hand at the rest of the Rent peeps in my toony style.  Be kinda interesting to see the whole gang together.

But speaking of Rent, and Glee, when are the Gleeks gonna do Rent?  I'd like to see that.

And the award goes to...

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning.  For once, I've seen at least HALF of the Best Picture nominees, and I hope to see at least 3 more (if not all of them), so this years Oscar race, I might actually care about it.  Most years, I'm lucky to have seen ONE film in the Best Picture category.  Overall, the nominees were what I expected.  I was surprised not to see Christopher Nolan get a nom for directing Inception (though it got a nom for Picture and Writing).  And although it wasn't a huge performance, I think Anne Hathaway should of got a nom for Love and Other Drugs.  It was a good performance, not a winning performance, but should of been recognized.  Sides, she's hosting, and her co-host is a nominee.  Would have been fun if they both were nominees.  To see a complete list of the nominees:  CLICK HERE!

Anywho, did a quick sketch and threw some color on it in Photoshop.  I tried captured the power of Hollyweird's golden statue, and the thrill of having one.  I think it works.

Mr. Fox

Decided to put the Sharpie/Ball-Point pen down that's been used in almost every post for the last 10 or so posts, and i picked up my Micron pen.  Baby steps.

Anywho, Micron pens (for those not in the know) come in various widths (much like mechanical pencils) the pen used above was a .25mm width, so it allowed for very detailed line work, and I was like "What the hell am i gonna do detailed line work with?"  Hair?  Fur?  A dog!

My best friend and his fiance have this adorable little dog, Mr. Fox.  I've wanted to do a painting of him for a while, but as mentioned in previous posts, the "studio" was buried in boxes.  So, I decided to do this quick sketch this morning, and the micron allowed for some detail that I'd otherwise skip out on.

Favorite Villian of ol' Web-Head

Oh Carnage, you're so awesome.

But seriously, Carnage doesn't get anywhere near as much respect in the mighty Marvel universe that Carnage should.  I'm trying to avoid using pronouns, cuz Carnage doesn't have a gender.  In fact, in the current "Carnage" mini-series by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain, Carnage latches on to a woman.  But the Carnage of my youth was a dude.  You'll never see Carnage in a Spider-Man film, and just glossed over in the cartoons.  Only in the comics is the awesomeness of Carnage ever explored... so go read a (comic) book!

In other news, they say it takes 21 days to establish new habits.  Most New Year's resolutions are desires to change old habits and replace them with new habits.  This blog was a resolution, to establish daily drawing habits... and overall, I say it's been pretty successful.  I need to ween myself off the ballpoint/pen and Sharpie drawings I've done for the past few posts, and do some more artistic exploring... but I do like that the drawing daily has established some very good habits, and I've seen artistic growth in only 3 weeks.

Now if only the weight loss resolution will be as successful.

A simple hand study...

There's a project I'm working on (that I'm very likely to go into far more detail on, in a later post) that will involve hands. I decided to do some hand studies before I jump into the deep end of the pool on the main project.  The above is the study.

I come from the mid 90s, early days of Image Comics school of art.  And one thing that era was known to skimp out on, in a lot of cases, was hands and feet.  Because... Well.... THEY'RE HARD!   Hands are a pain in the butt if they're not in some kind of fist.  (But wouldn't a fist be a pain in the butt?)  And feet?  Forget it.  I've drawn so many pictures of a person just relaxing with their hands in their pockets and their feet are either "conveniently" cut off the page, or placed BEHIND an even more convenient rock!

But i'm trying to GROW as an artist, and break bad habits... so...  HANDS!   And a very important project, is a project dealing heavily with... HANDS!   Feet will come later... there's plenty of rocks left in the world, right?

Google Image Serach: Random

So I sat down to some artsy doodling before work, and I couldn't think of anything to draw... So i decided to challenge myself, and let Google decide for me.

So I went to Google Image Search and I typed in the word "Random."  Then I started sketching/doodling whatever it was that came up, so there's a bearded ballerina, an old lady smokin a cigar, the apple logo, a turtle, a raven, some sort of lamp, and a weird looking doodle girl.

Sometimes exercises like this are good to free up the mind and relax the creative muscle.

Turtle Power!

So before I got all in love with Batman... I was crazy obsessed with... POWER RANGERS!


But before I was all crazy obsessed with the Power Rangers, I was hardcore obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Raphael was my favorite.  Kinda of a loner, kind of a smart ass, the only one who's colors didn't change when they brought them to TV in the 80s (yes kids, originally ALL the turtles wore red!).  Also, his name began with an R, my name began with an R.  When you're 8, that's important stuff!

Anywho, drew this last night in Sharpie and ballpoint pen (high tech, i know!), and then colored digitally.  Fun Fact:  The base colors before all the shading were taken from a pic of Raphael from the classic 80s Ninja Turtles cartoon.

I should take crack at the Shredder sometime...

Let the painting begin!

Okay, technically this painting began...  FEBRUARY of 2009!!!   Nearly 2 years ago.  But I've been busy, I moved, and the painting was buried in the "studio" for the past year and some change.  My girlfriend had me start this to get me to be more artsy, but it fell by the wayside.

But in an effort to get more creative, we finally got around to get the "studio" to be more studio-esque, and less like Matt Paxton's day job, so now I can attempt to get it done!  She's requested I finish it by her birthday, April 1st.  So we shall see.  The important thing is that it's now on an easel, and not buried under other art projects shoved behind boxes, behind a door, and then barricaded.   Now I can begin painting!

Congrats McFarlane and Co.

A quick sketch of Spawn today.  Yesterday, the 200th issue of Spawn came out.  I own every single issue from 1 to 200.  Over 18 years of story telling.  It's insane.  Why do I have every issue?  I'm not really sure.  I mean, I like the character and story, but I easily LOVE Batman more (yet I own very few actual Batman comics by comparison).  I have a Batman tattoo.  Not a Spawn tattoo.

Whether you love or hate Spawn, or think it jumped the shark early on, 200 issues is a milestone.  Almost 20 years of storytelling.  And not too many hands in the creative pot.  A character like Batman has over 200 people take the reigns of the story in 20 years.  Spawn's creative team has remained very very small by comparison.

Anyway, kudos to Mr. McFarlane and the the rest of the team that has brought us a character like Spawn over the the past 200 issues.  Keep up the good work!

She's baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Woke up this morning, and hopped on to the computer to read an article that Hollyweird is gonna make a new movie (or "reinvention") of Pippi Longstocking.  Probably in 3D too, since that seems to be the craze.


I don't remember much about Pippi, I know I saw the 1988 film when I was 7, and I think I saw the animated series that followed shortly after.  But other than her being a cute red head with a monkey, I don't recall anything else about her.  But, it seemed like it would be something fun to draw, and an hour or so later, you have the above.

Alas poor Yorick, your brains were well...

So, I woke up this morning, and I was like...  I want to draw a zombie!!! But, I want one of those skull exposed type zombies...  So i started with the skull... and I was getting all McFarlane/Capullo'esque with the line work on the skull, that i said... "Okay, I'm gonna draw a skull!"  And there we have it, a skull!

This reminds me a lot of my art classes in high school and college.  There'd always be a random skull thrown in a still life.  I've drawn a lot of skulls in my education as an artist...  But i haven't drawn one in quite some time, this was a nice throw back.  I should dig out some of my high school/college skulls and compare.  Be interesting.  Probably won't though, no sense dwelling in the past.

Attack of the grilled cheese...

So I work for a national retail chain, and as a "service" to the employees, they offer free peanut butter, jelly, and bread, so we can all eat free PB&J!  Yay!  (not really!).  However, at my particular store, one of our managers is deathly allergic to peanuts.  So, we get a grill and slices of processed american cheese.  So we can all have free grilled cheese!   Yay!  (not really!).


Anywho, I'm poor (did I mention that I'd love somebody to pay me to draw?), so I eat a LOT of the free grilled cheese, and after consuming my free sammich, I decided I'd start drawing, and one of my co-workers, said "Draw a grilled cheese monster!"   So there it is, a grilled cheese monster.  After showing it to my co-worker, and later my girlfriend, they both said it should have arms and legs, so I added those in later, and there you have it.

World of Farmcraft

Just a quicky sketch today.  I have had 2 video game obsessions in the past couple years, those obessessions being "World of Warcraft" and... Farmville.   Yes, I play Farmville.  A lot.  I would play more WoW, but my computer is getting old, and the gameplay is almost unbearable.  So WoW is on hold.  Which kinda sucks, cuz I really wanna get into Cata, but... can't stand the low frame rate and rendering.  Which sucks, cuz my computer was awesome once.  Come to think of it there was a stretch of Peggle for a while, should of worked that in.  Oh well.

So I thought it'd be interesting to see my level 80 (again, haven't played Cata yet) troll rogue go aggro on some crops, and that's where this idea came from.  And the idea is pretty much what i quickly sketched above.  This is about how detailed I get with sketches before doing a fully detailed piece.  I could see this becoming a painting, but I think I'll keep it digital if I ever attempt a serious take at this.  It's almost like a selfless-portrait.

For those keeping count, I didn't post anything on here yesterday.  This wasn't due to lack of drawing, I actually drew a LOT yesterday.  Just ALL of it was for a project that might see publication!  And although I haven't signed any NDAs for the project yet, it's wrong to post that stuff before it's released or I'm off the project.  But I'm very excited by a lot of it.  So yes, no post.  But still being drawsy!

Pascal in Progress (PIP?)

I do a lot of drawing that then gets scanned, and I usually finish it, color it, and polish it off in Photoshop.  But every now and then I like to color things by hand.  While you can mimic and do many things in the computer there's something aesthetically pleasing about crafting by hand.  That's why I enjoy to paint (hopefully I'll post some this year), you can't truly paint digitally in my opinion.  You can do things that look LIKE painting.  But a painting is a painting and digital art is digital art.  Call me old, but that's my belief.  They're different media with different tools.

Anyway, I had the itch to bust out some colored pencils (Crayola, specifically), and do some layering with them and developing up the form.  So I picked the ever lovable Pascal from Disney's Tangled.  If you have not yet seen this flick, go out to a theater and see it.  And if you can find a theater still showing it in 3D (though many have moved on to Tron and other 3D fare), go see it in 3D!  The scene in the boat, is stunning in 3D, and the story as a whole is handled very much in the classic Disney model, while still being very fresh and modern!  Go!.  Movie critique aside, I figured all the different greens (with some accents of yellow and blue) would be the perfect creature to build up in colored pencils. So far it's working, but it's time consuming (that's an advantage to computer coloring, time!)  Hopefully I'll finish it up later today or tomorrow, and post the finished thing soon.

Shameless Self Promoting...

When I'm not drawing random things, I can be found drawing pages for my weekly webcomic, Waste of Time.  That art is polished off by my beautiful and talented girlfriend, Amanda Wynne.  However, I like some of the feel of the backbone sketch work.  So above is what the drawing looks like before it gets scanned into the computer and all Photoshop'd up by Amanda, and then polished by me.  Kinda neato.  To see the finished work, and read an awesome webcomic, visit:  Waste of Time

Georgia O'Keefe I ain't...

Sorry for the poor scan quality on this, I was shading very lightly, as these are predominantly white flowers (I wanna say they're orchids?)

Anywho, I have a bad habit of not saying "No" when people ask me to draw something for them.  Instead of saying "sure" I should say "How much?"  That might be good.  Anywho, this is a work in progress (or "WIP" as we call it in the art world) for a co-worker.  She showed me a picture of these orchids? and said "Can you draw that and add the date of my wedding to it?"  And that was it.   A side note, if you ask somebody to make artwork for you... provide LOTS of information.  Never ask a guy to draw you something and they say "Do whatever you want."  I ain't Georgia O'Keefe, I don't usually do flowers.  Tell me how big you want it, how you want colored.  Do you want it realistic?  Do you want it cartoony?  What do YOU want for YOUR art.

Anywho, that's not what she did, there was a lot of "Whatever you want to do".  I want to sit on the couch, snuggle with honey and watch a zombie movie.  That's what I want to do.  I don't want to draw flowers.  But, I shall continue to work on this, I think I will go more stylized and cartoony/comic-book'ish as I continue to work on it.  And when I deliver the final product and she looks at it weird... and then says "That's not what I wanted"... I'll say "Hey, that's what I wanted to do, and you said whatever I want."

It's so fluffy!!!

Spent the majority of yesterday in a mild-moderate hangover, didn't do very much but eat greasy food (will start weight loss resolution later...), and watching BluRays.  One of those movies was Despicable Me.  So i drew  a minion on a fluffy unicorn.  Enjoy.

Wait till they get a load of me!

Hello 2011!!!

It's around 9:30am (PST) on this first day of a new year...  and this is the first post of "Side Effects May Include Drawsiness" (Love that word!).  I'm mildly hungover after a night of getting frunked (love that word too!), but it's "Resolution Day" and this year I have several resolutions!  But I'm only gonna talk about this one.

This is my art blog, that I just started today.  It's the resolution I think I'm most excited about.  But enough babbling.  Many artistic people do art blogs, and I am an artistic person, so here's mine.  Like most artist blogs, I'm gonna try to post something daily.  And like most artist blogs, that probably won't happen.  But the point is to get myself drawsy for 30min-2 hours+ every day... and then post the fruits of those labors here.  A lot of it will just be sketch work, or works in progress (we call those WIPs, in the art world!), but I will post fully finished works of paintings or commissions as they occur, and again, this will hopefully be daily.  I will then write some blurb about it.

The above art is once such example.  For a good chunk of last year, I kept having the urge to draw Batman's rogue gallery as girls (the ones that weren't already girls).  But kept putting it on the back burner of my mind.  But creating this blog would be a great place to showcase ideas such as this.  So here's the first... Joker.  I will more than likely continue to draw the rest, and post them.  Then I'll move on to other ideas as they occur. I  want to draw a zombie, I'll draw it.  I want to draw a ninja, i'll draw it.  The "whatever" ideas are what will be the bulk of this blog.

Okay, I'm gonna stop typing now, cuz hangovers aren't a good mix with typing.