Creature Commission Cover

I caught a bit of the Halloween Spirit when Brian commissioned me to do this cover, saying "Do whatever you want". It took me a while to come up with what do, until I saw the Creature figurine on my desk and decided. "Eh, why not?" (Hear me talk more about this Creature toy on the Geek Fallout podcast here! )

Since posts about process get more views and comments I'd take you step by step through how I drew this cover.

Rough pencils to establish the most important shapes

Then I establish the darkest shadow eras and after that the finer details.

Then I repeat the process, but in reverse. 

With my brush pen I draw in the darkest shadows.

Then I fill in the small details with Micron pens.

Finally I double check to make sure I haven't missed anything 

and bumping up contrast between thin and thick lines as best I can.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about doing some rough sketching without necessarily preparing for a project, so that can be better figure out what it is "I want to do" for something like this in the future. Just trying to cultivate my artistic identity. Its weird having a blind spot on something so personal like "what do you like to do?"

Also I'm still taking suggestions and commissions for Halloween.

Sketch ya' later!

Collector's Corner Publication Party

Much like Coy's Comics over the weekend, Collector's Corner had their own Michigan Comics Collective Anthology Publication Party. The sketch requests I got at this event were rather few, but very unique.

Wonder Woman

Rocket Raccoon

Rocket Raccoon in Color!

Baby Zelda, Epona and Link

Sandman vs. Black Cat

Sandman vs. Black Cat in Color!

Joker on Bane Venom Steroids

Request for a "Cool" Batman

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Fantastic Four Collaborative Cover
with Sean Seal and Joe Freyre

In the meantime, I'm tinkering with some commissions while I brainstorm ideas for Halloween. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Sketch ya' later!

Coy's Comics Publication Party

This Saturday at Coy's Comics we premiered the Michigan Comics Collective First Anthology! To promote the book, the store featured plenty of sales and sketch events. We even had special custom cards made for the occasion!

Brian Hitsman's original team, The Global Defense Force

Carl Sagan

Samus from Metroid

Gambit

Galactus

Baby Groot

Jean Grey

Superman

Attack on Joker

Click to ENLARGE

This week, an oddball juxtaposition between comic book hero Batman and the anime series "Attack on Titan". The idea was to combine two similar things, the new Faceless Joker (which I think looks incredibly silly) with the Colossus Titan (which I think is quite scary).

Eagle eyed viewers may recognize that the parody product isn't an especially original image. The composition is taken from directly from this promotional image for the show. Also Batman was reversed and traced from this page by Bruce Timm. The pose was too good to pass up, not only did it match Eren's look, but was an example of Batman himself encountering a giant.

The motivation for this project (aside from the general goofiness of it) was to produce something simple that didn't require much planning so that I could concentrate on practicing in Photoshop, determine how to render something like the face, which has a lot of detail, without going overboard as well as experiment with different tools, textures and techniques.

Originally I was going to tinker with Elsa from last week, but thought that I might be more likely to want to continue if I was working on something I hadn't previously posted and considered "finished". That and its been a slow traffic kind of week and experience has thought me that mash ups with The Joker are ratings gold!

Sketch ya' later!

Warm Hugs for the End of Summer

Continuing with the commissions that I posted last week, Emily was eager to have me draw some other Disney characters as well. In her request for Olaf, I saw an opportunity to polish up a sketch I had done earlier this summer. I may tinker with this one a bit more, I could really stand to experiment with my application of color.

Another animated Disney sidekick who stole the show that Emily was looking to have drawn was Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy done up in this Alphonse Mucha Art Noveau style. 

I had hoped to make this a do a double theme with Olaf and Groot both giving hugs. Although tree huggers are likely to come away with plenty of splinters from Groot. Ouch! 

I may come back to that some time later, but its September now, so I'm starting to brainstorm ideas on what I should do for Halloween next month.

Please make any suggestions you would like to see in the comments!


Sketch ya' later!