bear in mind that these aren't entirely the finished article.. but then neither am I...

time to post something

I've been looking at Travis Charest's space girl strip.. and I like the format (http://groups.msn.com/travischarest/spacegirlcomic.msnw?Page=1), and I like what Gabriele Pennacchiolio is doing (http://gabrielepennacchioli.blogspot.com/) so I thought I'd copy from them and do my cowboy 'strip' one panel at a time (like a storyboard)..
have to decide whether to full colour it or greytone it.. but here's the inks in the meantime..

been drawing (some) just not posting.. however I haven't drawn every day so... one more time up the hill..
anyway.. tonight I 'built a set' for the first vignette in my western strip.. google sketchup.. it's free, it's fully 3 dimensional modeling and it's pretty damn cool.. if you draw anything with a repeating set (inside or out) I fully recommend mocking up the set with this thingy..
here's some 'flattened' jpegs of the set..

day 4, drawing 6..

and here's the (very) rough bottom panel...

day 4, drawing 5,

and here's the middle tier/panel...

day 4, drawing 4

the titular peacemaker..

day 3, drawing 3

tonight I redrew a panel of the strip..
so I'm posting a marker sketch I did for a friend.. he got a bum sketch from a pro (for way too much money) at the phoenix comic con recently.. so me and some of the other local boys gave him sketches to make up for it..

day 2, drawing 2..

here's a gesture drawing from tonight's life drawing class...

ding ding.... round two... day 1, drawing 1

Starting the 365 thing again...
here's some prelim stuff for the western strip I'm working on..

Right then.. essay time.
I haven't posted anything in a while (as you can see) for a few reasons..
some very private and some not so...
the "not so" is mainly that my (previous) writing partner of the comic we were developing is behaving very poorly (see early blog posts if you need background). Long story short I will not be contributing anything to the comic from here forward, while still retaining the joint ownership of the story/characters.

So... a redefinition is on the cards.

Part of this redefinition will be a recommencing to draw every day for 365 days..
part will be a slight revamp of the look of this blog.. as I plan to manage the links and such a little differently..
part will be that I've decided to 'practice my craft' by creating a webstrip (which will probably be hosted on pixelstrips.com), with a Western theme.

Anyway, I hope to provide my 'blog-readers' (hi mum) with more and better content going forward.

Thank you and I love you all.

Sept 6th.. catchup..

seeing as I "owe" some drawings.. here's three parts of a whole.. will post this as I progress through ruining it..

Sept 4th..

Haven't posted in a while..
thought it might benefit me to learn to draw..

will be doing a few 'studies' over the next few days/weeks.. these two are based on a couple of pieces by Claire Wendling.. if I could draw like Wendling/Springer/Lauffray/Bodart I'd be very happy..

Aug 28th, drawing 22..

thought it was time I made up for the recent postings o' poop.. so here's something I'm not embarrased to show (unlike the last post or two)..
btw.. if anyone wants to comment on anything.. even if it's to say 'you suck'.. then speak up mamma-jamma..

(oh.. btw it's after Guy Gerard Noel and the french poster for the killers (A Bout Portant).

Aug 27th, drawing 21..

another painter experiment..

Aug 26th, drawing 20..

drew lots tonight.. but.. it was all page 1 again (I know I said I liked it.. but I didn't).. then I washed my hands 47 times and locked and unlocked the front door for 20 mins...

joking about the last two.. but a little OCD over the first page (maybe)..

so here's another 2 min gesture sketch to take your mind off it..

Aug 25th, drawing 19..

didn't draw at all today (first time in weeks) as we got into a litle 3 car fender bender and I just didn't feel like it..

so here's a very old first pass at the main female character from the comic.. who has changed names several times since this was drawn..

Aug 24th, drawing 18...

and guess what.. I redrew panel 1 page 1 for the umpteenth time.. but now I'm happy with it..


had a bit of an epiphany actually.. was trying to learn to do too much at once.. so I thought "how about I just learn to pencil a comic right now and leave the learning of inking, lettering and colouring until later?", "splendid idea" I replied..

so anyway.. will still prob miss my self imposed deadline.. but at least I feel it's more approachable now..

Aug 23rd, drawing 17

hey look.. another 10 min doodle in painter..

Aug 22nd, drawing 16

not to sound like a whiny bastard but... I hate my stuff... I mean.. would you show this to anyone? particularly an editor? I think I need to go sit in a cave and learn to draw..

Aug 21st, drawing 15

did lots of thumbs for the comic tonight.. so nothing worth posting there...
so I took the 'spanish lady' sketch into painter for more playing.. it's come out looking like I could have done the whole thing in markers (which wasn't really the effect I was going for)..

Aug 20th, drawing 14..

did some more comic stuff today.. in fact, redid page 1.. which is why I'm so behind schedule.. cos I can't get past page 1..
soo.. rather than show you another similar version of a page you've seen twice already.. here's a marker sketch..

Aug 19th, drawing 13..

another 2 min gesture..

aug 18th, drawing 12

another before bed drawing.. if I didn't have a real/day job I'd actually like to draw in the afternoon sometime.. must be nice....
anyway.. more painter experimentation...

Aug 17th, drawing 11

had to knock this up between football practice and bed.. might take this one a little further sometime...

Aug 16th, drawing 10..

2 min life drawing gesture sketch...

Aug 15th, drawing 9..

redrew some panels, tweaked some others.. think it's an improvement..

Aug 14th, drawing(s) 8..

here are some less rough roughs for page 1 of the comic.. will tighten these up later (after roughing out some more pages) and then they'll be ready to ink..

Aug 13th drawing 7...

attended an on-line digital painting course today (Rob Ruppel through entertainmentartacademy.com).. it was awesome.. so I played with painter again.. and I was far from awesome.. did several studies.. didn't want to post any.. but..
here's a study from a painting by Robert McGinnis.. the face is awful, but at least I know what I have to work on eh?

aug 12th, drawing 6..

more roughs for page 2.. changing some of these..

Aug 11th, drawing 5..

had to knock this one out before I went to bed as I hadn't drawn all day/eve..
should draw this tired more often.. I quite like this one.. completely done in painter (even the underdrawing)..

Aug 10th, drawing 4

played with painter again.. the more I did, the crappier it got.. but I did say a drawing a day.. so here it is (don't look too close)..

Aug 9th, drawing 3

man this one just wouldn't come out...

Aug 8th, drawing 2b (bonus)

first attempt at using painter.. will get better, just you watch..

Aug 8th, drawing 2

here's some more roughs from the first page of the comic.. and yes.. they're very rough.. but then I don't want to give too much away.. do I?

Aug 7th, 2006, drawing 1..

here's a rough of the first panel from the comic.. and it's only taken me a week or so to get this far...

Something I knocked up for a friends 21st birthday (.. I know.. dodgy arm.. couldn't get it right..)

The lovely Jill..

.. on a roll...

and here's a marker mock up/design..
next.. a photoshop version.. if I can work the thing out..

more..

. and here's the cleaned up pencils.. next, on to the inks.. woof woof

a ha! bet you thought I was dead....

.. anyway.. here's an underdrawing of a character from the book.. will post it again as I improve/ruin it..

another gesture sketch..

gesture drawing - 2 minutes or less...

life.. and drawing it..

in an effort to fill space, I'm going to post occasional gesture drawings from my life drawing class..

coming soon...

dog stuff....

wanted to draw a little cartoon of my dogs for my mum's birthday.. so this is a study I did of my eldest dog Qanuk..




and here's the "cartoon"...... ===>

hey hey... drew something I don't want to wipe my arse with.. probably feel different tomorrow but..

as our main female character is spanish I sketched a spanish actress for some spanish flavour..

me likey..

.. and here are some initial sketches of Ian's head...

in the effort of filling dead space..
here's a first sketch/character design of Isa..

Going to start on some 'concept' art for the comic this weekend...

and I may take some photo's of previous life drawings I've done just so I can start filling this thing up and not feel like such a tosser..

still waiting for Jason's feedback.. but the chappie is way busy right now.. so I expect to wait for at least a little bit longer..

you know...
I feel like I'm 1 to 2 years away from where I want to be artistically, providing I draw a couple of hours a night..
however, parsing this out over the amount of time I actually do draw.. I'm probably 8 years away from being a working artist..

still.....


it's never too late, eh?

this waiting for feedback thingy is interesting, init?

crap.. this being creative stuff is harder than you think... I missed last fridays word (glamour) on illustrationfriday.com.. will prob' miss this weeks (chair).. and I have quite a cool idea for them both..
life (and things pretending to be so) is really kicking my arse right now..
but at least my writing partner (Perry Dawson) and I may actually have finished the first issue script for a comic we've been intending to produce for more years than I'd like to mention..
he's sending it out to friends for a final sanity check.. I'm going to send it to a comics pro (or two) that I know for some feedback.. and then... I have to draw it..
which I'm finding a little daunting, to be honest..
I feel like I can meet MY minimum requirements for acceptable art.. but, if a publisher decides that the book is a go, I'll need to draw every single hour I'm not in my day job (every evening and all day sat/sun) for the next 3 years to get the book out on a bimonthly schedule..
feel like I've torn off a huge chunk and I'm chewing like a T-rex with tourettes..

anyway...

as I get into it I'm going to post my workings (warts and all) up here, so that the one visitor I've had so far can see me flailing in the wilderness..

This is my 'entry' for the topic of the week on illustrationfriday.com... "cats"

btw, this is me.