Ultrasketch

I fell on my space halbred.

2012-01-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

The finished version of that school project. I't could use some more work, but I think it tightened up pretty well.

Cats

2012-01-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

One of many pages I've done lately focused on cats for thank you cards. Lots of just doodling and messing around with something until I come up with something. The gray square with the colored circles are a coloring and blending excercise I saw here that I thought was interesting. Otherwise there is a head and some mannikins.

WIP Fall of the Pax

2011-11-26T18:08:00.000-08:00

An unfinished school project that I am currently working on. An Art Deco poster for a book called "Endymion" By Dan Simmons. Very good read. A fun project. I wonder what I can do with it?

Some poses

2011-11-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

Im just trying to keep the blog moving. Here are some more poses, split between today and yesterday. Almost all 30, 40 and 60 sec. poses in photoshop for warmup.

School'd

2011-11-01T17:43:00.003-07:00

Three point perspective drawing for an assignment on school. One of my favorite drawing assignments so far. The assignment was to draw a hanging garden. I went with a Dr. Seuss-esque castle bastion.
The perspective parts werent that bad (i cheated a little and lined it all up with photoshop), but getting the concept and design all worked out was a bitch.
In the end I got a B. I was dinged for the vegetation being too iconic and not realistic enough, which I can grant. I didnt do any research or have a single reference for that part.

Blush

2011-06-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

The two portraits are based on my girlfriend. Looking back through the archives she probably pops up quit a bit. A rare example of colored pencils on those two. The third picture is a mannikin. Just a simplified little creature for working on poses.

Three kings.

2011-06-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

Three subjects from my sketchbook. The naked guy is a rough shot at some muscle groups, the guy with the apron is a self portrait, and the portrait is a co-worker. Draw what you know right? The intent of these is to do my work from my head, stretch my creativity and skills and fill up space in my notebook.

Just need to host this for a sec.

2011-04-09T15:01:00.001-07:00

test

My new warmup technique.

2011-04-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see how many gestures I was doing so I started doing them like this where I draw little circles around the gestures for each day, and put some notes at the bottom.

Starkers

2011-03-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

Still struggling with consistent proportions in the figures I do from my head. This barbie dolled figure is ok. It actually started as a study for girl hair dos. I wont bother listing the problems I see with it.

Lookit that

2011-03-24T09:08:00.001-07:00

A line drawing study from a model on deviant art. His eyes look a little close together to me.

Kitties!

2011-03-17T11:06:00.001-07:00

Trying to get a feel for how cats work. Ended up as a finished piece! Will need to post that as well.

Lots of gestures

2011-03-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

I try and do about 15 of these a day, or some other warm up. Im pretty sure I havent posted these yet.

Astronaught

2011-02-04T11:09:00.001-08:00

Another idea for a t-shirt.

Pirates need food too.

2011-02-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

Idea for the next t-shirt contest.

Buck fifty

2011-02-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

One hundred and fifty gesture drawings of random poses. Im going to slow it down and just do fifty a day until my next day off, then I'm going to double this one, and finally get to my goal of 300 gesture drawings.

Mostly sketches.

2011-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

More gestures. But this is just a taste. I want to do 120 today. Time for action.

Doubled!

2011-01-27T09:04:00.001-08:00

Twice as many as yeterday! Woo!

I'm a poser, but not a poseur.

2011-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here we have thirty, sixty second poses off the useful posemaniacs site.
Pose gestures are about as fun as fronting shelves at a grocery floor, but while Im doing them I kind of reach this zen moment. My hand and eye are just one extended machine, that is, no brain to get in the way.
This is all inspired by this guy.

I'm naughty

2011-01-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

That was a longer break than I wanted it to be. I dont know why it took me so long to have enough to post. I'm not doing much.

This picture here is a bunch of gestures from references on deviant art. And one colored portrait. I was reading about a guy who would do 300, 60 second gestures a day. Madness. Theres a bout 25 on this page, and I had a fair amount of free time today. I'd have to do five more of these to do that. I'll have to work on going faster.

More sketches

2011-01-20T21:04:00.001-08:00

Mostly anatomy stuff, kind of drifting around here. A big ol eye there.

Eye render

2011-01-18T15:07:00.001-08:00

A render of an eye. Took me maybe three or four hours. Working off a reference but I kind of took some liberties. The reference is here if you are curious.
The iris is a very complicated structure, which I have not given justice to here, though I think a pretty good aproximation could be made with the right brushes.
The shadowed areas feel very desatured and muddy to me, I'm doing something wrong their, but I can put my finger on it right now, and this thing has taken up enough of my time already.

A dutch duke.

2011-01-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

Something I'm playing around with. The basic pose is shamelessy ripped from some famous dutch portrait. I really need to draw from my own imagination more. This reference thing is becoming a crutch.

Another house

2011-01-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

The finished version of the house I posted a few updates ago. I printed it out on card stock, colored it with markers and then boom, thank you cards for christmas presents. Now I just have to write some happy thankful platitudes and then on to something else.

Al fresco

2011-01-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

Shes naked, so its not safe for work. From a reference, but I've "misplaced" the link. A study of anatomy and another astist's style who I admire. Pretty simple line drawing.

Also I mixed up my save order and accidentally lost a bunch of stuff, including the original and all the layers of that nice bird study I did. How frustrating.

A good foundation.

2011-01-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

I don't do much architecture and Im a little distracted so I didn't really enjoy this much. The perspective is totally wonky, but I wasn't really shooting for a complete likeness. This took way longer than it has any right to, so im going to do an in progress for my daily sketch.

Whats up there?

2011-01-10T22:01:00.001-08:00

A face! A reference.

Bird of prey, in the sky.

2011-01-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

A bird study. Fun to do. Not finished, but Im tired. Here's the ref'

Oh lawd

2011-01-08T22:35:00.001-08:00

Red

2011-01-06T22:38:00.001-08:00

Did this this morning. Needs more work.

Bedtime for bonzo

2011-01-05T22:36:00.000-08:00

A quick post before bed. Some gestures.

A digital paint post.

2011-01-04T16:28:00.001-08:00

A girls face from some random reference I got from somewhere. Kind of a cartoony style. Started and then abandoned as I tend to do.

A sketch today?

2011-01-01T11:03:00.001-08:00

A gesture drawing, some random stuff and a semi rendered face. I feel horribly out of practice.

Self portrait

2010-12-20T08:07:00.001-08:00

Me, on cardboard with ballpoint and gouache. Done while I probably should have been doing other things.

Gestures

2010-12-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

Two one minute sketches and nine five minute sketches.

Jason recomended I start doing these again and it seems like a good idea. Resources are off this gesture drawing tool.

Real quick!

2010-12-15T10:37:00.001-08:00

Just some stuff!

A quick revision

2010-12-07T21:32:00.001-08:00

Im getting sick of Scanlon's face. Maybe one of the trucks for awhile.

More drop and form shadows

2010-12-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Still working on that last problem. Did a little empirical work.

I think the color balance on these is a little off which explains the ten percent difference, but its consistent enough that it seems to reinforce what ive read. Shadows dont stack. The darks stay the same and the light parts get darkened.

I was unable to test it with a point light source though. I feel that would change the results. Anybody else have input?

A question for any readers.

2010-12-05T15:23:00.001-08:00

So Im drawing characters and props from the movie Sorcerer. The image on the left is Roy Scheider playing a character named Scanlon. The image on the right is a WIP copy Im tring to do by eyeball and maybe a little super imposing and tracing, though im trying to avoid that as much as possible.

Im trying to decide if it works better to have his faced shaded very flat under the brim of his hat or more rendered. Do shadows stack, or flatten out? Any opinions on that or other constructive crits would be very welcome.

Scanlon/Dominguez

2010-11-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

Scanlon/Dominguez. Part of a project I'm doing for my own entertainment. Characters. vehicles and locations from the movie "Sorcerer".
This is a character study. Next I'm going to render it out in a softer style. I like the simple aliasing of the edges and shadows.

Mannikin

2010-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

Just a quick little manikin. Still working on proportions

Hugbot

2010-11-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Woke up kind of early today. Heres a kind of cell shaded robot.

More digital painting.

2010-11-05T11:01:00.001-07:00

Not strictly... interesting or anything, but this is what Ive been doing lately. Trying to get better at digital painting and choosing colors and shading and stuff.

Quick!

2010-11-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

A test with a paint over. Wasnt working for what I wanted, so i stopped working on it.

My studio!

2010-10-26T15:22:00.001-07:00

This is where I do stuff.

A dump of stuff. The dumping.

2010-10-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Some of the stuff Ive been working on lately in no particular order due to the subtleties of blogger escaping me. The skulls are all something that a friend of mine from work asked for. Inspired by Posada. I haven't heard from the guy for awhile. I hope hes still interested in it.

After that is a bunch of odds and ends. Sharks and skulls and shit. The portraits are all for another project for a friend that was rejected. Oh well.

A ref' sketch

2010-08-26T08:37:00.001-07:00

A marker sketch of some picture I saw on deviant art somewhere. Even though its lit from the bottom I did the line art upside down with the darker parts on the bottom. Thats what happened when you line on automatic.

High Contrast

2010-08-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

After reading a book about tonal values I decided to do this;

Its kind of muddy and rough, but its a start. Its also fanart for my goodbuddy Jason.
It looks like a velvet elvis or something.
However it does fit my emotional state lately. Being chased by rabid dogs in the dark.

Some fanart

2010-08-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

So this seems like a good point to pause and post what I have done so far for this fanart for my friend's webcomic 'Billy the Dunce'
Here is the cleaned up lineart. I've already started coloring it, and I was doing very well but then I bogged down and am restarting it. Maybe Jason will see this.

Reddit University Project.

2010-08-11T14:46:00.001-07:00

Ive been taking a class at University of Reddit and even though its been a little bumpy so far (I havent actually been able to see any lessons due to hosting problems), the first homework assignment has been very informative. It took much much longer than I would have liked, but I figure since its my first serious attempt at digital painting that's ok.
I know its really rough. I could keep working on it, but technically it was due on sunday, so Im going to stick a fort in it.

Post of many heads.

2010-07-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

Some older stuff. Its amazing how long I can stretch this out. Just random odds and ends. My dad is in there and one of his friends. A number of random deviant models. Just trying to get sketching bodies down a little better.

After that is a few more heads. Some are old and some are new. Almost all of them are either from my head or referenced off models from deviant art. Id link to them, but it would take a really long time.

Lining these pictures up is really hard in the blogger editor. Maybe I should learn html. I like the fellow in the suite. Oozing malevelance.

Also I lost my sketchbook! A horrible thing. To compound that I had my tablet stylus with it for some reason. Time to start putting the pieces back together.

Some Color.

2010-07-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

Uughh, what a week. Really a drag. I dont know what has been wrong with me lately but it seems like everything just takes way more effort than it should.

So here's some stuff. Still part of the megadump which means its about a month old.

As you can see. there is a bit more color in this one which Ive been trying to work on more. Ive started using markers so I am slowly developing my artistic-ness.

Looking back on some of this stuff is kind of weird. The blue and purple astronaut was part of the t-shirt contest that my job has. Kind of a sore spot for me due to a lack of winning.
The heads are just random drawing that I went back with markers and pencils. I dont really remember the circumstances of a lot of it.

Naughty

2010-06-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

This one gets its own post because its so naughty.

Sketch!

2010-06-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

Some drawings from the megadump project. I like feeding these out a little bit at a time. Keeps you wanting more.

A fair mix here. I like the dude in the bottom left. The rest is just practicing poses from my head. A little concept work from the t-shirt contest.

Do zombies dump?

2010-06-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked for a drawing of a zombie for a tattoo. Heres a dump of some of the roughs.

And then a more finished version that was rejected by the client.

Guillotine Gallery part 2. Welcome ladies.

2010-05-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

More heads. These are the first of the ladies. I tend to draw more women than men. More of a challenge, and more gratifying results.
These look like they are mostly older sketches. Its hard to tell though. I mean, look at all these heads!
This particular Guillotine Gallery seems to have the optimum mix of left looking and right looking heads. New achievement earned!
Also note to self, don't mention things like "tomorrow" or specific dates when talking about future posts.

Getting a head

2010-05-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here's my first guillotine gallery. A bunch of heads that I've drawn lately. These all happen to be guys and include a picture of myself. The Do-er.
This is semi-random, but I still seem to have a bias towards people looking right. Not bad really, as long as I get practice for both directions.
More heads tomorrow!

Mega dump: The prequel.

2010-05-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

The upside of me not posting very much, is that when I finally do, I have tons to post. Ill do one or two a day while I'm getting them all cropped and pasted together.
I take all the drawings and sketches I've done since the last post (which looks like it was about two months ago, not the girl with the eggplant but the stuff before that, the framed stuff) and pick out all the pages with the best looking stuff, maybe like half the portable sketchbook stuff ( I love my little customized 9x11 sketchbook, but it just feels so cramped. I feel like a lot of the work I do in it is a little sub par and when I'm doing plein aire sketching it gets even worse. Too bad that's the stuff everyone looks at, "ooh, can I see your sketchbook?")
Then I scanned all the pages and copy pasta'd the stuff I like into categories like 'faces' or 'poses' which are then mashed together into a kinda collage of sketchy.
And boom, you get something like this.

Click. It gets bigger.

So that's the first finished one. Random stuff from the t-shirt project mark 4, and the Zombie Tat project. More as its finished.

A quick drop before work

2010-05-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

My finished entry for this years t-shirt entry. Needs more work, but it will not get it.

Also a quick drawing of a skinny me in astronaut garb

Some dumpers.

2010-03-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Ive been really busy lately so I've only been able to sketch in inconsistent fits and starts. My confidence has gone down a bit so I've been mostly using pencils lately and I don't have time to ink the stuff I do anyway.

I have managed to get a few things. These three are collected with my travel sketchbook.

A few sketches

2010-02-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

Im taking a life drawing class at the local college. A few of these are from that.

Girl with the bright smile

2010-02-03T17:25:00.000-08:00

Got some new mi-tientes paper. I love how things come out on it.

Dump

2010-01-20T15:02:00.001-08:00

Twenty and ten.

2010-01-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

A new year! A new post! A new sketch journal!
I saw Jason, and he said to post something, so I will post a dump soon.
Been drawing more lately. Holding to my new year resolutions. Trying to do more color. It just slows everything down so much! A color drawing is like three times as long as a black and white.

Someone wants me to design a tatoo for them. I'm nervous. Never done that before, I hope I can draw something good enough.

Also drawing thank you letters for awesome Christmas presents received. Hopefully even better than last years. If number of presents I got this year is any indication, hand drawn Christmas cards are a good thing.

Face I saw

2009-11-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

I was doing some warmups with graphite and I ended working in this one a little longer.

2009-11-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile. Heres a few things I did recently. Nothing very amazing

That seems to be as big as blogger will let me post a picture. Thats a shame.

Garth

2009-11-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

A co-worker of mine. He looked like this on the day after halloween. He tells me it was worth it though.

Billy's had a day.

2009-09-19T15:07:00.001-07:00

Something for a friend. Fun project. It still doesn't look done, but its a lot more done than a lot of stuff I do.

50 Friends

2009-09-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

More work on the fifty friends project. This is Jesse. He's in a punk band.

Ultradump

2009-09-17T12:10:00.001-07:00

I think I like posting sketches better like this.

The rough

2009-09-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

Just the rough needs a little more work

A dumb

2009-09-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

More stuff. Stefano Demerra from 'Days of Our Lives', some sort of leggy biwhale. The bear and the helmeted man are from this crazy book jacket I found.

The boom box just came to me. Not sure who the girl is.

Its big.

2009-09-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Poor Itsy. She is so frail and tiny, and now she has a big red tumor on her face.

Nother profile

2009-08-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hey look! A profile of someone, and they are facing to the right! Why, Ive never seen such a thing!

Owl

2009-08-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

An owl. Might be fun to color.

Geoff again

2009-08-04T21:17:00.001-07:00

Its kind of stiff, i gotta work on that.

Some people

2009-08-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of portrait. The older gentleman is a random flickr ref. while the other guy is part of a project I'm working on. 50 drawings of people I know from memory. That's Geoff being threatened by a dead chicken. Hes probably going to show up again.

Faces...

2009-08-04T18:25:00.001-07:00

Been a while since I added anything to the blog, but it's hard to compete with ol' Milky.

Still, here's the latest sketches I've manage to do. Most of the work I do lately is finished, so sketch time is very precious.

Digital painting

2009-07-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

We are the goon squad, beep beep.

2009-07-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Some linework that I want to work on coloring. The Mammoth may seem familiar as it is featured prominently on my last project.

They are pigment markers on bristol.

A bird!

2009-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

So umm, lets learn how to paint with photoshop why dont we?

A project

2009-07-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

Something Ive been working on for a Tshirt design contest. Quite a bit of work went into it, and the results were interesting. It doesnt really belong in the sketch blog because its finished, but here it is anyway.

Stella was a diver.

2009-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

More stuff with watercolors. I cut out the diving helmet from a discover magazine and drew the rest in. A fun little exercise. Of course now I have no excuse for the brass on his costume being colored completly wrong. Ill just say he has a solid gold belt buckle. Fresh.

The barrel thing on his back is colored a little better, but it still doesn't really have that brass color on his helmet. It almost looks like it has purple or something in it. I don't, maybe ill play around with it in PS some.

Some pigmentos

2009-07-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

Messing around with water colors.

Whales

2009-06-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

I dont know where this whale kick came from. I think it has something to do with the uniwhale from earlier that i liked so much.
I'm starting to get tired of ballpoint.

Boy girl

2009-06-18T09:08:00.001-07:00

A failed attempt at drawin a sexy girl picture. An unfortunate amount of androgyny resulted. Boney butts, not sexy.

A dump that burns

2009-06-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

A few odds and ends Ive been working on lately. Everything with a © I copied from somewhere.

The finished airplane picture. It still feels a little bland and cartoon-y to me.

The standing girl and the old man with the hair bun are from photo refs but I didnt figure it was important to have the source.

I went to the art library and copied a few classics, re:the Schiele and Hokusai. The large man near the fish is Hurley from lost. My girlfriends current obsession.

Nude man threatened by claw.

A fair number of photo refs on this page.

The robot is an unfinished project ala the airplane at the beginning of the post.
The girl in profile is my girlfriend.

A fuzzy post

2009-06-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

This is the only thing I've drawn since my last post.

Learn to Swim!

2009-06-13T11:00:00.001-07:00

Pre-lim sketch for a t-shirt design going to the swim program my mother-in-law runs. I like it!

Mirror mirror

2009-05-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Some stuff I did in class. The teacher dragged out this huge mylar mirror and we were supposed to draw the model and his reflection. As usual I managed to get in the worst possible position for it and you can hardly see any of his reflection, negating the whole point. It came out pretty good though. I like ballpoint and this class has been helping a lot. I even got myself in one of them. I should do a self portrait.

A pause before continuing....

2009-05-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Im working on a Doug Chiang style drawing and I thought this would be a good point to stop at for a second and get my bearings.

I plan on going back in and grunging it up some more and then add highlights with gauche.

Markers, and pigment pens on 360 paper.

Fleshtones

2009-05-14T09:42:00.001-07:00

An attempt to render fleshtones in marker, a quick sketch of the other contributing artist from a myspace picture and an attempt to draw a geometric shape I once saw in a book of crop circles from memory. I cant remember if that's right or not.

Ball point for the weaktit sketch, markers, gel pens, pigment pens and a little bit of paint marker on the girl and markers and pigment pens on the shape. All of it on 360 paper

Failed fan art

2009-05-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Fanart from Weaktit's soon to be released comic. I was coloring it and my computer crapped out on me and reverted me to a very early version and I dropped it. It had taken too long already. My someday Ill work on it again.

Beetle and gun

2009-05-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Markers, pigment pens and gauche. I like the results.

Also, this is too fucking cool.

Find it and watch it.

More finished, less not-finished

2009-04-22T15:26:00.001-07:00

A more finished looking linework. Turned out better than I thought it would. I also found out that my screen compresses things on the vertical axis. Thats annoying.

Quick! Like a bunny!

2009-04-16T11:23:00.001-07:00

A real quick upload before work of a drawing I did in class that I liked. A watercolor wash non the less.

Pencils!

2009-04-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

Pencils for a poster assignment in class. This puppy's going to get blown up the 40" x 80" if I'm lucky.

Scanner woes

2009-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

This combo printer, scanner is for crap. Especially for my big old 18X24 sketchpad, which is a shame because I like working on the big paper more. The little journal is nice, but way too fiddly.

Turns out a digital camera held at arm's length works even better.

Powa Armaaaaaaaaa!!!

2009-04-07T17:47:00.000-07:00

This is the nearly finalized design for my asteroid miner's powered armor. Need the big leg on the same side as the big arm, and I'm gonna move the backpod to other side for balance...but it's pretty much there.

Squid dump

2009-04-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Jason, I know that you were always an octopus guy, but my heart was always held in the cold rubbery embrace of the squid. Here are a few older examples on that theme. Not including a bunch that I decided to draw in nonphoto blue for some reason. Roughly chronological order.