Dino Riders

Here's a character design sketch for a comic idea I'm working on for my nephew. He's only 4 so anything with dinosaurs is golden. Throw in some spaceships, robots, as well as a few pirates and you've got an entire saturday morning lineup!

Birthday Greetings

Here's the artwork for the birthday card I created for my good friend David. He's in the visual effects industry and shares an appreciation for some of the old-school effects methods the industry was built on so this was a fun piece to develop. Normally I have the layout nailed down in the pencils/rough stage but in this piece I was constantly playing with it adding things and moving them around up until the final hour. It was fun. Kinda like being George Lucas for the day.

Daily Digital Doodles

Here's another daily digital doodle.

Digital Doodle

Here's today's digital doodle.

Zombie Color Sketch

Here's a quick color sketch I did this morning as a warmup. Nothing too detailed. I was simply trying to get a better feel of sketching/drawing in Photoshop. I did a grayscale wash over the line work and then a layer of color on top of that set to multiply. This technique is a little different than my more graphic stuff and I'm still "finding my legs" with it. I like how the energy of the initial sketch carries through.

Don't Run With Scissors Kids!

I'm doing things kinda backwards at the moment. Here are a few projects that I have completed a while ago. I'm down to one page left in my sketchbook and when that's filled up I'm going to go thru and scan some of the better pieces therein. Until then enjoy some of the things I've worked on over the last few months.


This was the artwork I created as a giveaway for a local Magic: The Gathering event I ran back in January. Yeah, yeah, I'm a gamer. I know you're all shocked.



Kids with Foam Swords



Mascot for a local business.



Presentation



This is the card I created for my wife for our 3rd wedding anniversary.

Coofffeee!!!

Here's another piece I've started. It took me a great deal of time to ink this one. HOURS! I'm slow and meticulous to a fault on stuff like this. I keep working and working this stuff getting it just the way I want it to look. In a lot of ways inking digitally is both an additive and subtractive process. Creating and honing your line art through your inks and removal of (portions) inks. I wish I could just get the exact line weight I want in one pass but it rarely happens. I tried inking this piece in 20 minutes and that version was horrid. I'm sure a Cintiq might help along these lines but I really want to test drive one before taking the plunge. All and all I'd rather have to toil and have it come out looking half way decent than it be something I wouldn't even consider posting.

I heard something in passing on a much different subject that gave me a little hope on the matter. It was an podcast linked from the recent VFX Townhall discussions. In essence they said that even though something appeared not-up-to par shall we say they kept working at it until it looked right and that was the difference between an average demo reel and what the pros create.

//EDIT: Here's an updated version with the colors started.

WIP - Turkey Inking

Here's an updated version of the my Turkey!

//EDIT: While a banana isn't the most imposing weapon it might be a bit more in line with the feel of the illustration I suppose.



From one holiday onto another. Here's another work in progress. Its still rough in some areas and I hope to smooth it out over the next day or two. He probably needs something more interesting, like a turkey baster, for a weapon.

The more I ink digitally the more I get use to it and the more comfortable I feel about my decision in finishing my work digitally. I'm constantly learning a little bit more with every piece and surprising myself with the results. In this piece, like most of artwork, the sketch is inked at the huge resolution of 1200 pixels per inch. This allows me to have a nice super large backup if I need it down the road. From there I color at either 300 or 600 ppi.

Tweet the World!

I'm now on Twitter! David Stripinis, my best friend from college, gave me a shout out to his followers so now I really have to step it up. Thanks David!

Final Submission

Here's the final version of the piece. I'll still probably play with it even more but for now I'm going to move on to other things. I still have to finish color the School Kids piece from last week as well.