Commission for Father's Day

A friend of mine liked the drawing I did for my Facebook profile...  And she thought it'd make an awesome Father's Day gift to have her husband and their young boy dressed up like the dynamic duo.  So, after specifics were worked out, the above art was created.  And everybody was happy.

While working on this piece, I was falling behind in my timeline... and was looking for a place to save some time... I usually draw in pencil, and lately I've been hand inking.  After I scan the image, I adjust the brightness and contrast levels to get the dark blacks, and then color in Photoshop.  But, I didn't want to do that inking process with this piece... (mainly cuz the clean up is a time consuming bitch, and can lead to an "unclean" look) and took myself to YouTube to learn some new techniques in the land of digital inking...  I stumbled upon the below video and fiddled with that technique and applied it to the above art.  It turned out pretty well, I might of fine tuned it a bit more, but again, time was an issue.  So anybody wanna try it, here's the video.

Comic-Con 2012 Souvenir Book Submission

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 is less than 3 months away?  Really?  Holy crap, I gotta save up some money!  Anywho, just like every year, they give you a bunch of free stuff when you get there.  Among the things they give you, is the annual "Souvenir Book".  Some peeps collect these things (my former roommate, for one), and some flip through it mindlessly while waiting for something at Con.  But, 130,000+ people get the book.

The book takes submissions for art and articles, this year's themes include the 100th Anniversary of Tarzan, and John Carter of Mars.  Tarzan might of been fun, but I thought I'd keep my distance from John Carter.  There's also the 75th Anniversary of Prince Valiant (I hated that comic strip).  The 50th Anniversary of many of Marvel's greatest heroes including Spider-Man, Hulk and Iron-Man.  This could have been fun, but with the Avengers coming out I figured this would have been the over saturated category for submissions this year  Also, I did Marvel for last year's Souvenir Book.  So I would like to do something different.  That pretty much left me with the 20th Anniversary of Image Comics.


Image was just starting, and Spawn was among the first comics I started to read when I really began to get into comics.  I don't know if it was because I particularly cared for the character, or story.  But everybody was saying it was "THE hot book".  A lot of the early Image titles have since fallen off, and Image as a company has grown to be the destination for creator-owned properties.  Spawn?  He's still kickin it 20 years later.  Since it was there at the infancy of my comic indoctrination, it is apart of me.  And made sense to be my submission this year.  Though I did have an itch to do some Walking Dead art, but decided to stick with my comic roots.

Originally I wanted to do something that honored the core of Image when it began, and having a tribute of sorts to the key founding comics.  The problem is some of those properties are no longer with Image (Jim Lee's branch for one, is now owned by DC), and I wasn't sure if that would work with Comic-Cons rules of not mixing properties.  The Wild C.A.T.s were with Image, but now they're under DC.  Don't want to disqualify myself cuz I'm not sure how the legal umbrella is constructed.  So again, it came back to Spawn.

I did take a while to START this piece, and there was some crunch-time towards the end.  Sadly, my original "concept" did not pan out, and at the zero hour, there wasn't much I could do to work it in.  My original plan was to have the Image comics logo running down the center of the image.  Everything inside in the logo was gonna be in COLOR, and everything outside the logo was gonna be Black and White.  This didn't work because Spawn is mostly... BLACK (with shades of grey).  And while I did ad some blue to the greys of his body, it still was too close to grey that it didn't really work with the black and white concept I had.  So the end result is a pretty basic pin-up of the demonic-powered hero.  Which I'm fine with.  Just note to self, I need to start sooner next year, so if a problem comes up... I can draw something else.

Anywho, much like last year, I did not know if my art would be lucky enough to get published.  And I did not know until I got to Comic-Con and flipped through the book myself.  So... that will probably be the case this year I'm assuming.  So until July 11th, I can only wait...

I'M BATMAN!

I'M BATMAN!

After a brief artistic hiatus... I decided to pick up a pencil and tackle some art.  I've always liked the Batman.  And since I'll never be as wealthy or as fit as Batman, this is probably the closest I'll ever come to being the Dark Knight.  Short of trying on a Halloween costume (but again, would want to get more fit).

Anywho, I drew this up in 2 hours, cuz I wanted something new and different for my Facebook profile picture.  And I thought it be a quick and fun drawing exercise to ease myself into the groove of drawing after a month long absence from drawing anything beyond random work doodling.  Turned out to get a bit more involved... but I like the end result.

Coincidentally enough, I drew this up on the same day that Adam West (1960's TV Batman) got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

Valentine's Commission: Colonial Cassie

Hey all, this blog needed an update... so here's a new piece.  One of my co-workers saw the pirate piece I did for another co-worker.  And commissioned me to do something similar.  The above art is what came of it.  Her and her man are into the simpler life of colonial times, it's their thing, so she wanted me to draw them in that era.  It was for Valentine's Day, for her man. 

This was a bit of a challenge, as I tend to lean more towards a comic-book/sci-fi/fantasy/cartoony kinda vibe, and i was like "Colonial times?  What?"  But I think it worked out.  And it was good to draw something besides spandex-clad, superheroes.  But I like the end result.

Merry Christmas!

I go all of November, posting 30 new pieces of art, and all I can scrounge up for December is 1?  Love the holidays... really.   Anyways, one thing I DID do that was artistic this December was this little beauty here.  That's approx. 4 feet by 4 feet of Disney Christmas magic.

Let me backtrack a bit, last Christmas the girlfriend and I decided to check out the neighborhood nearby that is "known" for their Christmas displays.  Y'know the kind that goes all out?  So we check it out and walk around and I make the astute observation that most of the "characters" seen on people's houses and lawns are nothing more than painted things of wood (and some aren't drawn all that well, but I digress).  To which I say... "Hey, I could totally do that!"

She takes me up on the offer.  Lady and the Tramp is what we consider "our movie", so it became the natural choice for our balcony (cuz we live in an apartment, and can only go "all out" so much).   So we bought the wood, grabbed reference material and went to work.  I drew the characters out on pencil, we cut them out, painted them, glazed them and hung them up, and wah-la!

These took a lot longer to make than my cocky arrogance thought, so we only had time to finish the sign and the spaghetti eating dogs.  The chefs, Joe and Tony, remain pencil sketches on wood.  They will make their debut NEXT Christmas, joining these dogs.  It was quite fun to do, actually, and we easily have the best decorated apartment in the complex.  Yay!

30 Characters in 30 Days... MEGA POST! Part 3: The End

I successfully, completed the 30 Characters Challenge.  And a challenge it was.  But I'm glad I did, cuz it reinforced drawing whether I wanted to or not, and I grew a little bit artistically and learned a few new tricks and such in Photoshop. So all in all an excellent experience.  One thing I really tried to do during the challenge was to avoid humanoid characters.  I didn't want bi-peds with 2 eyes, 2 ears, a mouth and nose.  I wanted to... challenge myself.  So a lot of the characters (see previous 2 posts) were not humanoid.  It was fun.  As always, just the art will be here...  for the stories, go to my 30 Characters Author Page.

#26 - iKill

#27 - Deforester

#28 - Armah

#29 - Gloomy, the Skully Child

#30 - The Tired Artist... (Semi-Autobigographical)

30 Characters in 30 Days... MEGA POST! Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Now that I'm older (I'M THIRTY!!!!  AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!), and now that Turkey Day is over... I thought I'd give an update on my entries in the 30 Characters Challenge.  I haven't missed a day yet (though have cut it close MANY times).  Anyway, as the last post, I'm only going to post the art here, if you want to read the full stories on each character, check it out at my author page on the 30 characters site, located right here.

On to the characters....

#8 - Watchers

#9 - Ivan Schlingstein

#10 - Trixy, the Clown Prostitute

 #11 - Plusho

#12 - Thaddeus I. Turtle, Sr.

#13 - Nightmare

#14 - Salvador the Snail

#15 - P-Fin, the Rapping Penguin

#16 - Loch THIS!

#17 - Jerry

#18 - Chloallb

#19 - The Censor

#20 - 01

#21 - Steve the Coal Elf

#22 - Not-Sure-Of-Himself-Man

#23 - Fluffy

#24 - Flaming Turkey

#25 - No. 2, and Pearl, the Pink Wonder

My last five will be posted later!

30 Characters in 30 Days... MEGA POST!

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog... little bit of artist's block, combined with "day job" energy drain, equals... less drawing.   AND I HATE THAT!   But, I haven't been NOT drawing per se...  Infact... I recently began the 30 Characters Challenge!

 The 30 Characters challenge, is a bunch of creative types, artists, writers, etc.  To create 30 characters in 30 Days.  Nov. 1-30.  So... A character each day... there's no real prize, or penalty if you fail.  But it's just good artistic muscle exercise.  So far I've been able to keep up.  I told myself I'd post one character a day before midnight (in my time zone), and so far I've done that...   I plan to post them all on here (prolly in batches of 2-3 or so at a time).  But today, you get seven!  If you want to follow them on the actual 30 Characters site, you can find all my entries right here.  Or just come back here, where they will be re-posted.  However, to drive business/traffic to the 30 Characters, I'm only gonna post the name of the character and the picture here... if you want to read about them... read them at the 30 Characters site.  :D

#1 - Bob the Bowling Pin

#2 - Braaains

#3 - Chiang

#4 - Blarglflarp

#5 - Tigraax

#6 - Killjoy

#7 - Tiffany

Perry the Platypus... Doing the Spider-Man thing...

Okay, I know that proportionately there is a slight size issue between Dr. Doofenshrmitz and Perry the Platypus... but in order to the parody right, I only had so much I could work with...  I'll blame it on some Size-Proportion-Change-inator or something... those things are always faulty.   Anyway, here's Perry the Platypus striking the iconic pose from Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first appearnce of Spider-Man).  It was fun to do.


I was originally gonna do a different Perry/Doofenshrmitz drawing, but I inked it using a standard Sharpie marker, and it looked all childish and lame.  So a week or two later, I took another crack at it, but this time used the much thinner Sharpie PEN, and the line weight worked much better.  Then I colored it in Photoshop, as per usual.

HULK-du-ken!

So I started doodling this Hulk drawing...  and right before I started drawing it, I realised he was trying to summon up a fireball like Ryu in Street Fighter.  *shrug*  Weird...

Birthday Portrait Aarrrrrr-t

Holy crap, I haven't posted here in over a month!  Which is odd, cuz I have been drawing in the past month.  I need to post more here.

Anywho, the above is a portrait I did for a co-worker for her birthday (which is today... Everybody sing!  Happy Birthady to yo.... no?  Nobody wants to sing?  Fine!).  She's really into pirates, so I drew her as a pirate.  Which is very odd, cuz I'm not a fan of doing portrait work.  I hate drawing portraits actually.  I really do.  But I did it, here it is.  She liked it.  So yay!

It was kinda helpful that she has dark hair, I would of hated drawing all that hair had she been a blonde... cuz it was a dark I could hide a lot with the blacks, which was immensely helpful.

This is how my "day job" makes me feel...

Like and old, fat, ugly man...   Rendered in ballpoint pen.  'Nuff said.

Commissions, Submissions, and other work drawn for others...

Okay, PART of the reason (besides laziness) that this blog didn't see much newness in June was that I've been whoring my talents out for others lately... here's 3 such prostitutions of my talent...

First up is Peter Pan as a doctor... This might take some explanation.  This was a commission from a former co-worker of mine, actually a SECOND commission, so I guess that makes her officially a "collector"?  Anywho, her fiance was gonna graduate from college and start on the road to being a doctor.  Kudos for him. He either like Peter Pan a lot, or he's her Peter Pan, either way they're associated, so she hired me to draw up Peter Pan as a doctor for a graduation gift.  When I went to have this printed, somebody suggested to me that Tinkerbell should have been standing on his shoulder in a nurse's outfit.  That was an awesome idea, but I had already been paid for the art, so... it didn't happen.  This image was also transferred to the face of a watch, and also given to the hubby to be.  When I get a picture of said watch, I will post that here, too.

Second, also requires some explanation.... Some mutual friends of my girlfriend and I are having a baby, due in like a month.  And they were gonna decorate the baby's room with a bunch of store bought art and such, but they have a lot of talented artist type friends, so they decided instead to turn to their artist friends to come up with art for the newborn's walls.  The father is a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland, and the theme for the art was something jungle related, or Jungle Cruise related, or tiki, etc.  Not much else.  I was having some issues coming up with an idea I liked and wanted to pursue.  So my beautiful girlfriend came up with the idea you see above.  We call it "Playtime with Daddy", and it shows the father re-creating the jungle cruise experience at home with their daughter aged 4-6'ish.  I really got behind the idea, and made some changes and altered it a bit for my artistic sensibilities, and drew the above image.  Which I then handed back to my girlfriend, and she colored it in Photoshop.  The expectant couple LOVED the end result.  Hopefully the baby will too!

Lastly.  My "day job" is I work in the Photo Lab at a Target store.  In the break rooms at Targets all over this nation is "RED: The Team Member" magazine, and it's really just a magazine about Target, for Target, by Target.  But every month, it comes out and comes with stories about Target and team members and such.  It kills 15 minutes of time when you're on a break.  Anywho, for their upcoming issue in October, they are doing a story about the "Art of Target" and turned it over to the current team members to design the cover using that theme.  Above is what I came up with.  I kinda dig it.  Wish I had done maybe another parody or two of famous artworks, but... I think it works.  It was also a minor challenge leaving enough room at the top for the magazine logo and such... but all and all a fun project to work on.

A look back at June...

Wow... how much do I suck?  ONE entry for an entire month?   I need to get back into the game!

ToCATo

Wow, June is half over, and this is my first post.  So much for being a "daily" blog.  Actually, I plan to rectify that, and post more frequently... was just doing some inner thinking and what not...  Trying to figure out what I want to do with the blog, and as an artist, etc.  Still thinking, but yes, more art to come!

So this is a tomato/cat hybrid.  I didn't come up with it... I felt like leaving today's post up to fate, so I logged on to my Facebook account and posted "My "Drawsiness" art blog has gone 2 weeks with no new posts... I need to draw something and post it there... What should I draw?  First response I like, gets drawn... Go!"   And after the ball got rolling and people were sharing thoughts, one friend posted "a hybrid of a cat and a tomato", and my creative juices were a flowing....   and the above image is what my mind gave birth to.  Enjoy.

A look back at May...

I always thought it would be kinda cool to see my artwork on a billboard in Hollyweird or New York.  So this is prolly what it would look like.  Kinda cool.

May was the worst month in Drawsiness's 5-month history.  One of the drawings was even technically drawn in April.  But, that did work in my favor for the billboard thing... because I had a hard time finding a decent enough picutres of Hollywood billboards to accomodate even the 6 pictures I had... let alone a more healthy 20-something assortment of pictures.

On to JUNE!!!

Robin

I've been doodling Robin a lot in the past week or so... Don't really know why... just have... so, I figured why not post one here... so here's my warm up drawing of the day...   Robin.

Mermaids a'la Chalkin

So an artist friend of mine, said that mermaids are supposed to be the next big thing... so I thought.. what's better than a mermaid?   TWO mermaids...  And what's better than two mermaids?   TWO MERMAIDS MAKING OUT!

Alright, sex sells, I was hoping that maybe 2 mermaids making out would help traffic to this blog...  And it doesn't hurt that certain Hollywood blockbuster opened this weekend, happens to have mermaids.  But what I did decide to do was do an "homage."

Every generation has an iconic poster or image that adorns the walls of it's youth.  It was the Sailor kissing a Nurse, or a Bettie Page pin-up, or that famous Farrah Fawcett poster.  Well my generation growing up, the image every boy wished to have on their wall was the "Kiss" photograph, by Tanya Chalkin.

So "Kiss" was the big wall image thing growing up... Mermaids are apparently gonna be a big thing... so I mixed the two, old and new, and wah-lah... you have art!  Or sleeze.  I dunno, you be the judge.