If it Wasn't for the Darkness of Night, We'd Never See the Stars

That's the theme behind my live piece that I'm painting tonight during the Independent Artists Week event at the Fillmore in SF. And here's a series of sketches to guide my layout when I'm up there. Enjoy!

There'll be a few more things in the final piece that will make the title make more sense, but I don't want to spoil it here. Check my previous post if you want more info about tonight's event. Hope to see you there!

A kinda DM

So there I was, happily working on my robot project late at night and someone on twitter just happened to mention ADM (Appropriately Dirty Minds)... soooo of course I had to stop everything I was doing and draw an appropriate ADM piece. Although, now that I think about it... ADM is actually a bit dirtier than this... ah well... here's my progress shots :D Enjoy!

All this was done in flash, I just like the drawing tools there cause they feel more natural. Even though Illustrator CS4 has a similar brush tool, it still doesn't have the same feel as flash always had for me. Seeing as how I have 4-5 projects waiting completion, I didn't want to spend hella time on this. Maybe 2 sessions or so... but... for some reason, I just can't leave it alone. Hopefully I can finish it soon!

Team Fortress 2 - Scout Girl Update 2

Here's the scanned sketch turned blue so I can see the lines as I trace it in Photoshop. And here's the beginning of the outlines... I'm really trying to pay attention to line quality on this one. Also notice that the bat is easier to read... It's all about readability son! Enjoy!

Slump Breaker

I'm pretty good at being rational when it comes to bad things that happen to me. But every now and then, I can be pretty hard on myself for making mistakes or not doing something I know I can. Case in point: Last night while Issa was watching TV I decided to sit down and sketch a new project out. After about an hour I had nothing but blank paper with a lot of eraser smudges. I was at an artistic block. I had the pose (or some semblance of it) in my head, but I just couldn't put it down on paper. I was soooo frustrated... it seemed the more I tried to just work through it, the worse it got. I just couldn't nail the pose down. So I took a breath, and ran through an old drawing technique I learned in my drafting/life drawing classes. 

There's many ways to draw a person. Some people are able to just lay down the lines of the body and clothes, a lot of people draw basic shapes like squares and ovals and lay down detail over the framework... but last night I went a step further... I can't remember the name of the technique, but we used to use it in life drawing. It involves taking your charcoal/graphite/pencil and essentially scribbling the pose from the inside out. You dont focus on the contour whatsoever. Instead, you're trying to get a sense of mass and volume of the body. Needless to say, It took one try to nail it down. 

The original sketch is in the top left corner. after nailing down the pose I outlined the contour, then drew a bigger version that I scanned and am now working on digitally coloring. In her right hand is a bat that I'll make more apparent as you can't really see it from the angle it's at. I'm happy with my perspectives in the right leg and arm as well as the silhouette. I can also feel the weight and power in her legs, which is something I was trying to push. At this rate I can't wait to see the finished product. 

The idea for this drawing came from a character in the popular game, Team Fortress 2, which I have recently gotten attached to. While on a late night session, I started thinking: "Hey! I love the style of the characters in this game!" then... "Hey! There aren't any girl characters!" then... "Hey! I like to draw girl characters!" then... "Hey! I should draw some of the characters in the game... as girls!"

So I chose the scout as I like how animated he is and thought I could get a pretty good pose out of it. I almost wish I could finish working on this instead of going to work today... but I got bills to pay... Hope you like it!