The greatest (Jack and Jill related) comic of all time!

 

So while I realize these crude sketches of the story of Jack and Jill going up the hill aren't very impressive, I basically just wanted to say that it is a fun exercise from the book "Drawing Words and Writing Pictures" by Abel and Madden. It's a very comprehensive book about creating comics, guiding you through organization, layout, character creation, and some comic-specific techniques like brush inking and lettering. It's not a how to draw superheros book, it's how to make a solid comic strip or book on any subject, even without mind-blowing art (yay!). It's got lots of homework assignments and challenges to do to get you involved, and even a website where it helps show some example critiques of people's work on these exercises, it's a very cool read for anyone who is into comics at all! Also good are DC's Guide to Inking/Coloring/Writing Comics, they are more geared toward hero comics and have good examples, but they're not as interactive as Drawing Words and they're spread out over several books.

Too fast for Illustration Friday

Wanted to draw something quick, looked at Illustration Friday theme of fast and thought of frog's tongues of course.

Monday Artday - Pumpkinhead goes trick or treating

Here's the character that combines my love of jack-o-lanterns with my love of Batman, on his way to trick-or-treat. It's going on Monday Artday for the "jack-o-lantern" challenge, of course someone beat me to the concept of a pumpkin-head kid going trick or treating, but Batman trumps everything. This little guy was supposed to just be a part of a bigger composition for that challenge, I didn't think I'd have time to finish the sketch though. I also was having trouble getting the human head jack-o-lanterns to look grotesque enough.

Photoshop skills

Ah, technology! I can now answer the question, " What would my brother look like with Joaquin Phoenix's beard" without waiting for months!

Sketchy Sketchy Sketch Sketch

These are... sketches!!!

Illustration Friday "Pattern" - Dino Wallpaper

Here's my pattern, using Photoshop to draw, color (with 2 filters), and arrange a bunch of dinosaurs into a wallpaper. I wanted to submit this link tonight before the new word of the week comes up, so Brontosaurus sadly did not make the final cut.

As a bonus for the "pattern" topic - here are two patterns I stared at a lot in my youth. First, the DC characters wallpaper, featuring short shorts Robin, and Shazam, who is remarkably like Superman with the Flash's color scheme and lightning bolt symbol. It's still up there, even though the youngest kid in the house is 21, and the other walls of that room are a bright orange and yellow.

Then there's the speckled desk in the speckled room, the desk has some darker trim and speckles so you don't walk into it. Here is our old word processor, it was cool because it had a screen like a computer, but when you hit print, it started click-clacking away with typewriter keys and would take about 5 minutes a page.

Monday Artday - Fast Food Farthing

Here's the colored penny farthing, cartoony style. When I saw the term bike, the old-timey big wheeled bike sprung to mind, and all I had to do was think of somewhere to put one. I'm going to try to work more on my coloring, just coloring in the inked in spaces makes it look a little flat. About 5% of the coloring was done with my fancy new drawing tablet, my early b-day present, those things are cool.

Penny Farthing - Still the Greatest Invention Known to Man

Monday Artday is closing in on the end of its "bicycle" challenge. People have already submitted cute robot on a bike, a crazy bike that looks like it's made of squirrels and antlers - but so far, there is no representation of the greatest bike ever......the penny farthing! I must admit it was hard as hell for me to figure out the spokes, and they wound up a little arbitrary. Also some of my earlier tries had pretty wierd looking legs, so congratulations to anyone who can draw a realistic bike! I was going to post it yesterday, but got addicted to Plants vs Zombies, a pretty fun game where you plant attack plants to protect your yard from zombies.

Illustration Friday "Infinite" - Smashing Pumpkins

"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" is one of my favorite albums ever, and I guess going with a music themed Illustration Friday last week left my mind primed to do another. This time I tried to do a little more realistic drawing - I know the guys in this band aren't what I'd call pretty boys, but here they look a little on the mutant side. The guitarist on the left wound up looking like a fish man, and poor John Chamberlain looks like a retarded caveman. Corgan put on about 90 pounds in my interpretation as well. Oh well, I guess that means Smashing Pumpkins won't stumble across my blog, decide the picture kicks ass, and take me on tour with them. I used a ref pic of a classic poster of the group.