Assjay #11 Cover Thumbs

Did a couple of thumbnails for the cover of the upcoming webisode #11 of Awesome Storm Justice 41 (check out the blog too!).

Thumb 1:

Thumb 2:
Based on feedback from Loston, I'm going to rework the first thumb, but make the reaching hand more prominent and flip Dennis' head so it's on the left. I must say, I do like the ominous Dennis in Thumb #2 though.

Picture dump!

So here's some other drawings I did today (yes, 3 drawings in one day!). Two are samples for a job with Marshall Cavendish Malaysia. I'm trying out as a book illustrator. Wish me luck.

The third is an itch I needed to scratch. It's a (pretty badly drawn) sketch of an elf archer - I forgot to draw the bloody elf ears -- firing an arrow from a kneeling position in a field. The more I look at it, the more things I hate about it. But one of my resolutions is to draw more and not worry about every piece being a masterpiece. Done super quick (5 minutes?) with a blue pencil, Copic brush pen and a Pentel correction pen for the white grassy bits and the bowstring.

Not particularly proud of it, but I did it, so there it is. The masterpieces will come. But I need to get all the crappy drawings and sketches out of the way first.

Oh yeah, these were scanned on my new scanner (WOOT!) -- a Canon 4200F -- which I picked up from Low Yat Plaza yesterday. The old scanner, a Canon FB310 is 9 years old and was really starting to show it's age (dodgy driver and slow as all hell). It still works, but was starting to be a real pain in the butt.

The new one looks slick as spit and the USB2.0 Hi-Speed interface is nice and quick. The heck is "USB 2.0 Hi-Speed" you ask? That, apparently, is the REAL USB 2.0 running at 480Mbps. If your USB 2.0 device doesn't say "Hi-Speed", it's apparently not really USB 2.0.

Apparently.

Bluelinin'

Holyshit. I can't believe it's taken 2 weeks to be able to post this. It's been nuts the past couple of weeks and I haven't had as much time as I'd have liked to draw. Or as much energy either. Let's just say I'm all IKEA'ed out and I'll leave it at that, 'kay?

Anyways, I won't make excuses. Here's the first of the bluelines.

More to follow. Soon.

Really.

The Elf & Mr. Ed

So I found a reference shot of a horse's head that was at the angle I wanted. Photoshopped a quick mockup and voila! Horse positioning problem solved. So I have my reference sketch/mockup.



On to the blue-lining!

Sketchpost #1 - Gesture/figure studies

"Study" is such a high-falutin' word for this. Am trying to expand my repertoire of poses and gestures. Each one took about 10-15 seconds. The idea is to work fast and capture the pose/motion I see in my head. The paper is left on my desk and I do one whenever I feel like it.

IMHO, the hardest poses are the most ordinary ones -- people sitting at a table, standing in line, etc. But I have a thousand stereotypical superhero poses I need to work out of my head first.

Jeez, I ramble on, don't I?

Doing The Elf

Right-o.

So there's this commission that's waaaaaaaaay overdue now (sorry Richard!). I've put it off again and again and it's time to get cracking on it. Fair enough, I took it on just before we moved house and had son #3 and in the ensuing chaos, thought it justifiable that I was late delivering this piece. But that was about 18 months ago now (!).

Richard's been great about waiting for so long without so much as a complaint. But a deal's a deal and it's time to uphold my end. So here we go.

It's not that I haven't done anything at all about this Sylvan Elf & His Horse commission piece, I have. Not being a huge fantasy geek, I've looked up reference material for elves, horses and forests and done sketch after sketch trying to get myself into the right headspace for this (note that I know it sounds like I made this monumental effort over this weekend, but in truth I've been researching and sketching in dribs and drabs on and off for the last 18 months - GAK!). And now, finally, after pages and pages of sketches trying to make headway with this and ending up spinning my wheels and going nowhere, I finally hit a pose I think is strong enough for this piece. The sketch is presented below (click for a larger version). I quite like it and will use it as the basis for the next stage - blue lining!


Note the seam line running across the drawing. I actually originally meant for it to be a landscape-orientation piece ending at just below the belt line and as such, I had ended up drawing it right to the end of the paper. But I liked the pose so much, I decided to try extending it to a full figure to see if it would work. So I taped another piece of paper below it and continued drawing. Hence the seam.

Sketched in 2B mechanical pencil on marker paper. Black border done with a Pilot V Signature series pen.

Phew. OK, so figured out the elf ...now to figure out how to pose the dang horse...

Walk with me

Second post and I've already changed the name of the blog. Yesterday, this was a newly-created blog called "Don's Place". Which is what my previous (failed) attempt at a personal site was called. But I decided I needed some proper direction. The big idea for this year is that I'm supposed to be putting together a submission package to the American comic book publishers. I need to get my stuff out there and make myself known. Part of that effort is a new web site. And part of that is this blog.

Long story short, I'm hoping this blog serves to chronicle this effort to get myself into the business. I'm also hoping it helps provides the impetus and the little extra push I need to keep chugging along.

So I've changed the name of the blog to better reflect this effort and direction. This blog is basically me talking to myself anyway. Or sometimes me talking myself into doing things.

Some day in the future when I've gotten home after a long day at the office and the kids have been difficult and my wife is doing her best to encourage me to keep at it and all I can do is stare helplessly at a blank sheet of paper desperately searching for the inspiration to start drawing, I can re-read this post and remember what I'm doing.

Corny as it sounds, this is a journey, I guess. I put my shoes on yesterday. And today? Today, I took my first step.

Now the trick is to keep on walking.

First time for everything

So I finally got my act together and started this thing. Time to take the art thing seriously and with the art comes the site and no self respecting site can do without a blog these days, right? So here I am.

Let's see where this goes.