A Fox

  Sorry I haven't been able to update as often lately. Here is a sketch of a fox after the work of the talented Rien Poortvliet.  <-- Click that link or google him and enjoy some more of his amazing illustrations (especially the gnomes. Oh the gnomes!) If you want to see more of my sketches you can browse through the archives or check out some that I've been posting over on my twitter lately. God bless, you guys and have a great day!

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"L is for Leadership" Amplifier illustration

Woah! this month is ending and I haven't even posted the illustration that is in the current issue of the Amplifier! Remember, if you are in the Knoxville, TN area you can pick up an issue to benefit the homeless. Cool huh? Well with out further ado, ladies and gents, I give you "L is for Leadership!" Hope you enjoy. God bless! :)

Click image to enlarge.

'Mt. Avengemore' T-shirt design

  A little while back I joined other talented artists and designers in a T-shirt designing competition held by WeLoveFine.com and Marvel. The purpose of the competition was create a T-shirt featuring the four main Avengers characters that will be featured in the upcoming movie (I'm excited about this movie, by the way!)  After designs are completed they are voted on and there are different prizes for judges' pick and the designs with the most votes etc.

  After submitting my design, which is featured above and below, I received an e-mail that stated my design was not approved for voting by Marvel's licensing department. Rats. I'm not sure what they weren't OK with. Maybe they thought Captain George Washington-America and friends looked too much like the actors in the upcoming film. Maybe because it spoofs a national monument? I'm not sure.

  Whatever the reason, its all cool. It was a fun and challenging experience. The good news is there are still some great designs that got in and were up for rating. You can see which shirt won here. Hope you guys enjoyed looking at "Mt. Avengemore!" ha ha Until next post, God bless.

Valentine's TV Raptors

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Howdy, folks! Here is a recent commission I did for my cool sister, Mary! She had the great idea of putting together a few of her husband, Chad (my bro in law)'s favorite TV characters in a watercolor and ink drawing for his Valentine's Day present. It was a bit challenging to work on but a lot of fun too! Here are some sketches and close up details:

A few weeks ago my crazy rad girlfriend, Kayleigh was texting me hilarious summaries of the Jurassic Park movies using quotes and short statements. It was funny, guys (and maybe during the Super Bowl?) As a little fun gift, I sketched up this part of her JPIII summary for her:

Thanks for stopping in and such! Have a great weekend and God bless!

K is for Knoxville

 

Hello! This is the illustration I did for this month's issue of The Amplifier.  It features the "Henley Street Connector" in Knoxville, TN as well as words written (as always) by Leslie Judson. You can see this picture in its "natural environment" in the paper this month if you are in the Knoxville area. Your purchase of the paper not only supports the publication itself, but also the homeless people of the area. Well, thanks for stopping by and Happy St. Valentines Day! God bless!

The Cool Cats of 5 Minute Marvels + Kermit

Hi. How are you? Oh man, thanks for asking, I'm great! I had the happy fortune of being the the 900th follower on twitter of Tim from 5 Minute Marvels and they invited me to suggest something for them to draw with me! What? You don't know what 5MM is? Well my interweb friends, it is an awesome site where Tim and his talented daughters (ages 6 and 8) draw five minute drawings of characters. They also invite anyone else to join them and send in their drawings. Yep, it is pretty cool. Check the website out for more info.

Anyways, they let me pick what they drew next and I chose Kermit the frog (I drew him as seen in Muppet Treasure Island.)  Their drawings are splendid! This is my sketch of the amazing amphibean. I hope you guys visit their site and maybe take part in the fun with them as well. Have a great night and God bless!

Hourly Comics Day 2012

 Hey Guys! Did you know that yesterday was Hourly Comics Day? It was! I've never participated before, but thought I would give it a go this year. It was quite the challenge, but I'm sure glad I did it! 

The idea is that on Feb. 1st you draw a comic (can be a single panel, two panels, or a whole strip) for every hour that you are awake. If you say, get up at 7:20 like I did, then you try to draw a comic of what you did that hour before it turns 8:20. Pretty cool right? 

Well, here are my humble attempts. They're pretty messy and the handwriting and scans are bad but oh well. That's what rushed work is right? I hope you all enjoy them. It was a great exercise and showed/taught me a lot about journal comics and my cartooning in general.

Did you like them? Haha I hope so. Want to see other people's? Go here. Or just click over to my tweet-tweet, I'm retweeting lots of comics that people share. Thanks, everyone! God bless!

Jonny and the BPRD? Fictional Covers for Fiction.

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Oh man! I finished this a good little while back (a few months?) and having other stuff to post first, completely forgot to post this. I decided to do a little some more comic book covers to practice and if any were awesome I could use them for my portfolio or something. They wouldn't be for an actual comic, just for fun/practice. I thought about how cool it would be if the gang from Jonny Quest teamed up with Mignola's Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. Very cool. So I made a comic cover for a miniseries mash-up that would be called something like, "The Fall of Zin." Zin was the only reoccurring Quest villain as far as I know and he fits nicely into Hellboy's world too.

I did a bunch of sketches, as you can see. I was trying to figure out a good composition that would showcase the awesome qualities and moods of both Jonny Quest and Hellboy. 

 I looked up lots of covers and art by Mike Mignola and the other Hellboy and B.P.R.D. artists for reference and inspiration. I ate up Doug Wildey's amazing concept and character art of Race Bannon (of Quest fame,) for inspiration as well.

 I finally pinned down which composition to use (a pretty straight forward 'classic hero pose' cover.) Then, drew the bad boy out on bristol board paper and went to inking it with my Faber-Castell PITT artist pens. I may have used my Pentel Color brush for the areas with lots of black.

I then scanned it up and adjusted in the ol' Photoshop. The 'before adjustments version' or 'raw' version is this one:

 I decided I would use a different method of digital coloring this time around. I usually use the 'Chiarello Method' for work I'm spending this much time and effort on, but decided to use the 'Dharbin' way instead. I seems to be a mixture of the way I quickly color things for online use and the 'Chiarello Method' of coloring for print. I found it to be another good way to color work and I'm still deliberating on whether or not I'll use some version of it as my 'standard method.'

Part of the 'Dharbin Way' of coloring is using a "color plan" to lay out what colors you want and where. It is often helpful to think of color shapes and palettes during this stage. After doing my color plan, I was glad I had because I realized I didn't quite like my choices. I decided to give it another go.

 Here it is! Finished! The jury is still out on the colors- I'm always learning and I think the more I learn about color, the more I need to learn! I'm pretty happy with it for now though. :) Which colors do you like best?  Anyways, I think it turned out better than my first go at a Jonny Quest cover I did a few months before:

Well, that's all for today. Thanks for stopping by! Remember that the article about my "Alternative Alphabet" illustrations is in this month's Amplifier. If you are in the Knoxville, TN area be sure to grab a copy before they are gone.
Also, don't forget that more of my work, daily musings, and things I dig can be found on my Tumblr and Twitter.
Until next post, God bless!

Nature, pets, and old Sassy makes an appearance

 Hey pals and strangers! Here are some more commissioned pieces I completed and the end of this past year. The person who commissioned this drawing really loves nature and river wildlife. As you can see, I had fun doing this one and let old Big Foot (Sasquatch) join in! (Click the images to see them larger) Here is that piece again in photo form. You can see the warmth of the tones a bit nicer.

This one was for my friend Leslie who is my "contact" person at The Amplifier. It was a pleasure to draw her pup (he likes T.V.) as a surprise for her hubby. He likes Snoopy, but then who doesn't?! 

Sorry again about poor photo. This one was too big to scan.

Whoah, I just realized I'm drinking out of a Snoopy mug right now! Haha weird. Well, thanks for checking in and I hope you guys are having a great MLKJr. Day! God Bless!

P.S. I forgot to mention that this month's issue of The Amplifier is out in the Knoxville area! Instead of my regular contribution of an illustration, this issue has a page about me. Yeah, I know! Its got a little nice article and little versions of all my Amp illustrations so far. Very cool. Those folks treat me well, don't they? So be sure to check the issue out- not just to see me and my article, but also to bring aid to the homeless of Knoxville! Thanks!

J Tramel Beats and Miyazaki meets Little Nemo

Hey gang! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had an incredible holiday experience. I enjoyed mine for sure. Part of that enjoyment was getting to work on a bunch of your commissions in the days preceding the holidays. So much fun!

This a work my rad friend commissioned as a gift for her talented brother ("J Tramel Beats.") I did a lot of preliminary sketches and such for it as you can see. I also did many sketches and designs you can't see here. After all that, I finally got the image down just right!

Another cool pal commissioned a piece for her bro, who I'm sure is also talented at doing things. He likes Little Nemo in Slumberland (she purchased one of my Nemo watercolors for him in the past) and the films of Miyazaki, so I mashed them up into this:

Sorry, this isn't the best photo of it.

I was pretty pleased with the results. Well Troops, I've got to go ant watch some "Murder She Wrote" reruns, so I'll post some of my other recent works another time. Thanks for looking and God bless!