Not-daily, daily sketches

I'm working on getting in the habit of creating warm up sketches and drawings, but I haven't been perfect in this goal. I'm happy with the results so far, though. It is helpful and it means I have somethings to post online regularly as I work on the other projects that aren't able to be posted yet.

The Wolverine drawing I did last week got me on a bit of an X-men kick. Here are a few others that I've finished recently.

Wolverine

The big news in my life is that I - after almost fifteen years - have quit my fire alarm sales job. I'm going to draw full time for as long as I can. Hopefully that will be for the rest of it, but we will see. I'm sure I will post more about that soon, but for now, here is a drawing of Wolverine I did today.

I'm trying to get in the habit of drawing and sketching before I begin the "real" artwork for the day. I will do my best to keep up with it, but I'm sure there will be days were time restraints keep me from following through.

Family superhero commission

This is a recently finished commission of a family as their favorite superheroes. Well, at least the heroes that the commissioner felt best represented each.

We are Venom!

I had a table at iMagicon in Minot, ND about a month ago and was commissioned to draw Venom. I didn't get it finished before the convention ended so I had a chance to put in more detail than I typically would for a commission.

Jean Grey inks

Digitally inked version of the Jean Grey/Phoenix piece I did a few days ago.  Working on my inking.  Fun to try some new things.  Not too skilled yet but I feel comfortable working like this.

Jean Grey Phoenix

The "good" version of Jean Grey's Phoenix.  That explains why she doesn't look pissed off.  There probably wouldn't be much more a difference than that.  I think I'm going to put some digital inks on this too.

Convention sketches

I've had the pleasure of attending a couple of local shows/cons in my home state of North Dakota recently.  I'll post a few of my commissions here but I unfortunately forgot to take photos of all of them.  Oh well, I'll just remember to have more beers next time.  That will help, right?!

Captain Marvel digital inks

I recently purchased a Yiynova MVP20U+FE tablet monitor.  I've worked mostly "traditionally" to this point but have recently been feeling an increased desire to branch out and start doing more digitally.  I considered purchasing a Cintiq but, given the price, felt that a less expensive alternative would be a better starting point.  If this digitally thing doesn't take it's probably easier to be out a few hundred bucks than $1000+.  The Yiynova products were getting some very good reviews so I thought I'd give it shot.

Hyperion

I started this while sitting in my hotel room a couple of nights ago.  Finished it yesterday when I got home.  No specific reason for choosing to draw Hyperion, just kind of a spur of the moment thing.

Captain America shield up for auction!

Almost two years ago, at Valleycon 40, Alan Lindahl donated a sweet custom painted Captain America shield to the charity auction.  As the story goes, he purchased the shield (sans Cap paint job) at a renaissance fair about five years prior.  Since he couldn't find anything to do with it he decided to paint it up and donate it to the auction.

Nova inks

Working on my inking again.  The original pencils were on 8.5" x 11" but I printed the blue line on 11" x 17" and inked over it.  Nova was done mostly with brush.  The backgrounds were a variety of mediums.  It was beneficial for me since I hadn't inked some of these effects before.  I do NOT like the feathering on the effects.  I think I did okay (by my novice standards) on the feathering on Nova himself.  Just not good on the background.  I suppose there are better ways to tackle these effects (especially the starry background) and hopefully I'll learn those over time.  Mixed bag but it was fun and I think I learned some things.

Nova pencils

Back with another sketch.  I'm back to working on Young Gladiators, the creator owned project I've been involved with, and since I can't post those pages yet, I'm afraid my blog output may be a little low for a while.  I'll try to find some time to work on some things other than YG and post those when I can.

Inking!

It's been a while since I've worked on any inking so I thought I better pencil in some time.  Er, I mean, INK in some time.  Right?  Anyway, I decided to try my hand at the Daredevil piece I recently finished and a Captain Marvel I did a couple of months ago.  Daredevil was inked mostly with a brush, the brick work was done with a nib and the background buildings with pens.  Captain Marvel was done almost entirely with a brush with the exception of some of her costume details.

Daredevil sketch

Daredevil sketch with a fairly simple city background.  I usually go for more detail in the buildings I draw but I think it's worth trying some easier to draw designs that might be effective in a smaller character sketch like this.  This was done on a 9 x 12 sheet of bristol board.  I'm going to try and ink it as well.

Magneto

I did a drawing of Magneto a few years.  Figured it would be a good inking exercise.  Some of it turned out relatively well, and some I really think I struggled with.  It was done mostly with a brush and I know using it can really make some great looking long, flowing lines.  But, I still use my wrist too much rather than my whole forearm or arm and it really puts a damper on my range of motion.

Dr. Strange (da return)

Yikes!  It's been a while since I paid much attention to this blog.  I think one of my problems has been that I have a habit of spending time explaining my process instead of just posting images.  While I do enjoy talking about what went into the creation of the piece, it is time consuming and makes it difficult to keep posting when time is a factor.  So, I'm going to try my best to keep this updated and will start with something I created recently.

Thor vs. Dr. Doom

Ugh!  It has been a long, long time since I've paid any attention to this.  I know my subscribers measure in the single digits (actually, single digit.  As in one.  Hey, Neil!) but one of the points here is to keep up with it and make people want to read it and use it as a promotional tool.  Well, someday at least.  So, I need to get back in the swing of things.

Heroes for Hire sample page 3

Well, I had more of a layoff from here than I would have hoped but I'm back.  Before my somewhat extended absence from blogging I had been posting pages I was working on for my Comicsexperience.com Intro to Comic Art class.  So, without further blathering, here is the final page of the assignment.

Iron Man!

Been a little while again.  I'm just about finished with the last page of the Heroes for Hire samples.  In the meantime I worked on a gift for my nephew, Max.  It was his sixth birthday a few days ago.  He and his younger brother are the only grandkids for both sides of the family so it's safe to say their birthday present loads are pretty substantial.  Considering this I thought I'd take a different route this year.  He's been an Iron Man fan for quite awhile and since I have the ability to make a half ways decent Iron Man drawing (I hope) why not do that for him instead?  Here's what I came up with:

Heroes for Hire page 2

I've been away longer than I had hoped but I finally have page 2 of the Heroes for Hire sample pages I'm working on ready for posting.  It's been done for a number of days now but I've held off posting it here because something was just a bit off.  There are things about the page I like and things I don't like.  That's pretty usual.  But something about the page was bugging me just enough that I had to let it sit for awhile.  I finished making some changes tonight and I am happier with the page now than I was before.  Here's the "finished" product: