Cedar Point Caricatures: August Edition

By the end of the summer I had really gotten comfortable in my position at the park and relished being able to draw caricatures with wild pop culture themed bodies!

Survey Corps from Attack on Titan

Anna and Kristoff from Frozen (with Olaf and Sven)

Raptor Trainer from Jurassic World

Rick and Morty

Ghostbuster and The Silver Surfer

Some days it feels like the whole world is against you...

You've just got to power on through.

A Few of my Favorite Themes: The Intruder

The Intruder

Here's where you can see the influence of classic suspense thrillers growing up, especially the works of Alfred Hitchcock.

You may also be able to detect my introverted personality in these illustrations of someone who just bursts onto the scene to spoil the tranquility of solitude. 

Sometimes its a foreboding omen of things to come.

Or maybe someone just doesn't understand personal boundaries

But it can also be an unexpected source of seasonal comfort and charity

I even made a whole Pinterest board of this theme for inspiration:

Now I want to hear from you! 

What's your favorite example of "The Intruder" be it in my work or other art?

What other themes would you like to see in this series?

Weekend Caricature Collection

I had two different interviews this past week for a job as a park caricature artist, so in preparation I drew over 100 caricatures. Here are some of my favorite selections:

Jonathan Banks

Peter Capaldi

Anne Hathaway

Jennifer Lawrence

Michael Keaton

Lupita Nyong'o

Christoph Waltz

JK Simmons

Sketch you later!

MCC Weekly 17: Witchblade

MCC Weekly Sketch #17 Top Cow

This week's challenge was Top Cow comics characters. Witchblade, The Darkness, Cyber Force, Aphrodite IX, etc. My only exposure to any of those characters was Witchblade, specifically the Japanese anime adaptation, which I'm sure is 100% accurate to the source material and made no deviations whatsoever! 

As a bonus, here's my original sketch for the project!

Sketch You Later!

Terminator Thursday

Just looking to experiment with my markers and produce a card without drawing any outlines.

While I love these sketch events and enjoy drawing Disney and Marvel characters, I'm always hoping to get broader geek culture requests like the T-1000 here. 

Tomorrow: Top Gun!

"Doc Wizard" Illumination

Happy Daylight Savings Time everyone!

This bizzarre time of year help spark this idea of Doc using magic to generate light to show the contrast between himself and the tech centric world he inhabits.

Plus I was still digging that value study from Friday and wanted to find a way to mix it with this concept that has gone over so well.

Sketch ya' later!

"Doc Wizard" Development

Rough Pencils to Rough Digitals in Ninety Minutes!

Back in January I talked developing an original character. 

Since then I’ve been working on a few ideas.    

Here we have a rough for an illustration focused on a young wizard battling monsters and masked miscreants in a mid century metropolis.

I was inspired by a number of things I enjoy; A young magician establishing themselves in a modern city comes from Kiki's Delivery Service. The pulp hero in the big city with a flare for the fantastic is taken from cartoons like Batman The Animated Series and The Legend of Korra with the big monster being battled by super psudeo-science is borrowed from Lee and Kirby's run on the Fantastic Four. I also want to give a shout out to Michael May's Adventureblog for his recent King Kong posts that helped fuel the fire.

Still working out were I can go with this and how I might be able to involve mechanical men, femme fatales and other colorful characters!

One Wonderful Value Study

Grayscale Study inspired by Akira Kurosowa's 1947 film "One Wonderful Sunday".

The original image reminded me of that scene in "Citizen Kane" were Mr. Bernstein recollects seeing a beautiful woman in a crowd. It just appeals to the hopeless romantic in me.

It was also a bit different for me, painting values rather than drawing outlines. I almost felt like Pascal Campion for a while there. I could really stand to do more of this.

MCC Anniversary Event!

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Michigan Comics Collective. Put together a sketch party to celebrate at Coy's Comics, complete with cake!

Some of the guys really got into it!

Age of Ultron Captain America

Australian Techno Pop Band
"Empire of the Sun"

Thor Woman

Jareth from Jim Henson's "Labyrinth"

Spongebob Squarepants

Tracer from "Overwatch"

Sketch ya' later!

Magic The Gathering...Gathering (Day 2 of 2)

I returned to Collector's Corner for the second day of the Magic tournament and a whole new batch of sketch cards.

Caesar handing a crayon to Rocket Raccoon

The Polar Express

Squirrel Girl, FINALLY!!!

Tyler and Marla from Fight Club

We've got another sketch event happening at Coy's Comics next weekend, so see you then!

Magic: The Gathering...Gathering (Day 1 of 2)

Collector's Corner invited me to do sketches at their big Magic: The Gathering tournament.

Here I am working while wearing the Spongebob Squarepants T-Shirt I helped design.
I've also surrounded myself with some of my previous sketches.
(Such as Caesar, Elsa, California Raisins, Edward Scissorhands and the Power Rangers)

I understand that on your world this is a symbol.
It means...Love.

Supergirl themed Valentine's Day card

The Great and Powerful Trixie!

The dad who requested asked if I did My Little Pony drawings. 

I showed him the Rarity I did in November and explained that this wasn't my first rodeo.

Hey-O! 

Goth Tinkerbell

Pop Funko version of Nicol Bolas

Goblin Raider

I'm going to be back at this again tomorrow, so sketch you then!

Let it Go! (Elsa Step by Step Process)

This past Christmas I received several markers as gifts that I've been itching to test out, especially since some of them were very specific shades.

I wanted to do an illustration of Elsa since I had requested many of these colors with her in mind. I worked from this promotional image. While I would have liked to have made something original, I was more concerned with coloring rather than composing at the time.

Roughs with a mechanical pencil on 6 x 8 Bristol Board

Spot Blacks with a Faber-Castell Pitt Pen and technical pens for the small details

I bought an "Eggshell" Prismacolor marker to better match her platinum blonde hair. I also finally got my chance to try out Copics with a new "Skin White" marker that looked to match her pale tone more so than the "Light Peach" Prismacolor I had been using previously. 

Add in some classic comic book Kirby Krackle!

Snowflakes courtesy of a Uniball brand White Gel Pen 

(I don't know how I ever lived without this!)

And the final, with some blues over certain snowflakes, a few grayscale touch ups, trim the excess around the edges and I'm done. Whew!

Sketch you later!