Torchwood Cards!

All of the Torchwood cards, together and finished at last! Top row: Toshiko Sato (Tosh), Dr. Owen Harper, Captain John Hart, and Captain Jack Harkness. Bottom row: Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, a blowfish/lionfish who drives a sports car, and a weevil. The first prints from the Doctor Who set arrived the other day, and these are all going to look STUNNING for Otakon!

You're in Good Company

Last of the Doctor Who cards before I move on to Torchwood, Firefly, and all manner of good things. Also, there will be a poster of all these characters! These are all the (new) Doctor's Companions. Well, sometimes people count Jack, and Mickey, but I'm not one of those people.

Top: Rose Tyler and Martha Jones. Bottom: Donna Noble, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams

Bad Guys are Serious Business

More Doctor Who cards for printing purposes! This time, we've got all the big bad guys the Doctor and his companions tend to square off with. Top row: the Master (Harold Saxon), a red-eyed Ood, a Cyberman, and a (dormant) weeping angel. Bottom row: the Empty Child, the Master (End of Time version), an (active) weeping angel, and a Dalek. Enjoy!

Doctor Cards!

This is my Doctor set of postcard prints (as in, from Doctor Who). I would like to eventually tackle all the classic doctors, but for now my list of characters to draw is already over 100 so they'll have to wait. For now we've got 9, 10, alternate 10, and 11 :D I'm hoping to print the two colors of 10 as a double-sided card (because that would be awesome). If not that, I'll have to pick just one to print, because christ my printing costs are already through the roof as planned. So, enjoy!

LIttle Amaterasu

This is the start of a grand endeavor. In preparation for my first Artist's Alley table at Otakon next year, I am doing huge massive piles of adorable fanart. I'm not generally a fanart person, but that doesn't mean I don't have plenty of series and games I love and would have fun drawing. So here's a start. I plan to draw pretty much every animal from Okami, plus Waka, and make a whole set of darling 5x7 postcards of them. Look forward to the rest!

For those not in the know, this is Amaterasu, the main character from the absolutely stunning video game Okami. You control this wolf and move through a gorgeous sumi ink styled world restoring goodness and light by means of a magical paintbrush that is your tail. Also you fight creepy monsters sometimes.

VAMPS?

I realize comics aren't my forte--this, of course, being the same drawing four times--but I had to let the world know that this actually happened in my life. Illustrator and photoshop were both used, and the texture (like many that I use) came from bittbox.

Derp Derp Noel

This is a realistic portrait of my dog. She's a maltese/poodle mix, about four and half years old, and looks exactly like this.

Less refined than the space pussy image, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Space Pussy

Hey, anyone remember my gigantic cat? His name is Finnegan. Captain Finnegan Wake, actually. And this is a drawing of him wearing a space suit. It clearly belongs on t-shirts.

The Fox's Daughter

Obviously not the same setting as the other Fox and Fox's Children images, but this is a character named Jessamine Todd. She's been reinvented as a silver fox, black hair and copper eyes like shiny new pennies. This is all done in Illustrator with photoshop textures, even the "ink." I had fun playing around with this.

Fox's Children

Another image from the designs for the book Meg and I are working on. These are some of Fox's many children--cute, aren't they? They are the central point of the plot, even if they're not the main characters. See, they're not very fast or strong--they're small, but they're cunning. In order for them to hunt like Wolf's children, they need to hunt at night and sneak up on their prey, and that's the reason Fox goes to steal light from the Sun. He wants his children to be able to see in the dark. There will probably be 12-20 Fox children in the final book, but these are a few preliminary images.

Also, faithful readers, check out my other new blog! Little Paws, Little Claws is just getting started, but it will be a dedicated space for discussion and new images based on my Book of Many Beasts and its future related projects. Some of the images are new, some are older but with more in depth and behind-the-scenes info, but all of them are cute! I'll be updating regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the large backlog of images I have to post there will help me keep to that, so go check it out for twice weekly doses of adorable little animals!

The Wolf and the Fox

So, the start of a new project! Meg and I are working on putting together a children's book as a (belated) baby shower gift for her aunt. It's kind of an Aesop's fables/traditional story about when animals were people, and the Fox stole light from the Sun to give to the Moon. These are some first designs for the main characters, the Wolf and the Fox. I still need a Crow, a Sun, a Moon, maybe a few more animals with capital letters, and the children of the Wolf and the Fox. Until I get the draft of the story and the breakdown, I can't start sketching any compositions, but I can work on character designs and basic look and feel. Right now my thought is generalized modern setting, but the Wolf, the Fox, and their children, all hunt in the wild woods, and not with guns.

Linocuts

These should have been posted a while back, but it's been awfully busy with graduation, moving, etc. I finally managed to get some clear shots of my prints from last semester during the commencement show, so it's high time they got posted. These are all linoleum block prints, using bone black and a mixed red I made myself, and the two-color print is on two blocks hand printed with a registration system. Two of these are based on short stories by Neil Gaiman.

On the left is "Be Bold, Be Bold," created for the short story "The White Road." If you've never read it, you really should; it's a fairytale re-interpretation of the classic English story about a Bluebeard-style killer who was actually a Fox. The damning evidence thrown down at the end is a severed hand, but only the accused man realizes that it's actually a fox's paw.

This one is actually a re-print for commencement of a block cut my sophomore year. It was actually my first linocut, but I still really like it. This paper suits it a lot better, though; it's a paper called Nideggen, and I ended up printing on it all semester. The texture is really nice under the block ink, and gives almost a linen scroll look in person.

The last one here is called "Time Is Fluid Here," based on a mobius story called "Other People." It's about a demon who turns a man into a demon who turns a man into a demon who.... You get the picture. It can be read in round over and over, which I did once, it was really interesting. The description of the demon in the story doesn't match the one I drew, but I wanted to re-invent him a little and keep him more closely related to the human version.

I Wish I Knew You (Loved Me)

Chronologically, this drawing actually came before Patron Saint of Rock 'n Roll, but I just finished up the final texturing and processing for print tonight. This was done entirely in illustrator before the textures, and though I have a lot of things I would change about it if I had the time I feel better about the end result than I did initially. This is a companion piece of sorts to the Patron Saint piece, since they feature the same character and related themes and looks. This was a really valuable learned experience for me, even if the final piece isn't my favorite.

With any luck, the next post here will be photos of the completed Book of Many Beasts and the Commencement show!

Patron Saint of Rock 'n Roll

This is the companion to another piece I'm not quite finished with or particularly happy with, but I'm really pleased with the results on this one. This was surprisingly fast to complete, though I spent a lot of time fiddling with my texture layering. Rom makes a great rough-and-tumble angel, but I'm not sure he deserves that halo....

Oh, and just because I like it in this form too but it's not worth uploading to the main website, here's just the line work as well. Nice sharp pencils are one of my favorite things.

Mythos

I think I may have used this title before, but I honestly can't remember. This is "Mythos" now, I guess. Last in-class drawing from Illusionism.... Ever. I'm really going to miss this class, though I can think of a few others I'm glad to be nearing the end of. The idea was to work with something intangible; vibrations, magnetism, gravity, emotion, etc. I chose to consider consciousness; specifically, the collective consciousness of mythology and fairy tales. My idea was to make an image that feels like a story, but you can't think of what it is. You think you've heard it, but you don't remember the details. This is probably my favorite piece out of this class all semester, I'm really proud of how it came out.

Works in Progress: Illusionism out-of-class

So, for Advanced Illusionism, we have pretty much free rein on our out-of-class work. For me, that means I can devote some real and serious time to pieces I want to make but can't justify working on when I have homework to do. Right now I'm working on a couple of different things, and thought you all might enjoy seeing the sketches. The first is at the left, my current project, and is going to be heavily inspired and influenced by the work of vector artist Milk. I love her images, both in style and content, and wanted to try my hand at developing a distinctive and more realistic look in Illustrator. This is the image I'll be working on to achieve that.

Second sketch is below. This is a companion piece to the last one I posted with these characters; the greys are just to show a basic idea of the values, with the light grey being the darker skin tone and the dark grey being that same deep teal collage as was used in the previous background.

A Day in My Life

An in-class drawing from Illusionism, based on the idea of time and the ways in which we perceive it. This is a map of my typical day. Interpret that as you will.

Business Card Designs

As usual, exactly what the title says. Here are some new designs I'm working on for my business cards, and I could really use some feedback on these. I'm planning to print them by the end of this week, along with as-yet-undisclosed postcards (probably two). The beveled corner lines are where these will actually be cut; outside of that is bleed room. I'd really like to do all four, but money may necessitate just printing two or three of them. The plan is to do them glossy on the front (top row) and matte on the back. So, give me some feedback! Like the colors? The images? Yes or no on the gloss fronts, matte backs? Is something seriously wrong with the text? Which two should I pick out of these, if I can only print two? Should I scrap this idea entirely (say that, I'll probably ignore you, many hours have already gone into these).

Vinylmore 3

Hey everbody! Are you in Baltimore right now? Do you have plans tomorrow night (april 2nd)? If you answered yes and then no, I have a solution for you! Vinylmore 3, Munnyland, is a show featuring a whole bunch of awesomely talented people who made excellent modified toys. My Tatanka is in the show, along with work from my friends Max, Taylor, Mike, and several of my department teachers. It's going to be a great show!

The location is Atomic Books, an awesome store in Hampden; 3620 Falls Rd. Baltimore, MD. The opening reception will be from 7 to 9 pm tomorrow, and everyone who comes will be able to vote for their favorite munny. If I know you in person, I'd love to hang out with all you cool people and have fun, and if I've never met you in person, I'd love to meet you, hang out, and have fun!

The image here was not made by me; this is the official poster for the show. My name is in the little sign on the right arm's side of town!

I don't know who you are (I don't want to know)

New out-of-class piece for Illusionism. I'm really interested in the differences between basic vital statistics written about a person--in this case, of course, an imagined character--and the outward presentation of that person. For this piece, I chose two characters (one from Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, played by myself, and the other from the Pathfinder RPG and played by my fiancee) who look nearly identical on paper. Their stats, weapons, race, and purpose within a party are the same. However, as this presentation of them shows, they are also opposites. I may continue to work with them for my next piece, I already have a composition idea in mind....

Jessamine

Finally, some out-of-class work for Illusionism that I'm happy with. This is my character from an RPG in development by my friend Pio (the game is called NoC, and the character is called Jessamine). The drawing was done in pencil without a smidge of smudging--all shading is crosshatched in various hardnesses of lead. Textures and stock come from cgtextures.com, except for the noise, which was added manually in photoshop. I'm not sure what this piece really is, but I am sure that I'm glad I made it. The print will be 10"x18"

Linoleum Block Prints

I really like printmaking as a medium/technique/whatever. I have a lot of fun with the process, and find the end result very rewarding--especially because I do so much digital work, it's nice sometimes to end up with a finished piece you can hold in your hands, where the physical object is the original. Because I love it, and in spite of its time-consuming nature, I'm taking a class this semester called The Illustrative Print. As you can no doubt guess, it's a printmaking class with a narrative focus. So, here's some work from the class so far! On the left is my second piece for this class, which is titled "It Wasn't A Good Thing." My subject for the semester is Neil Gaiman's collection of short stories. This one is from "Closing Time," which is a very interesting sort of ghost story. It's a total of about 30 inches tall, hence the photograph instead of a scan, and I mixed that particular shade of red ink myself. Below is the first piece for the class, which was based on a limerick about a man with a beard and birds nest in it. Less compelling story, but I do like the piece.
And this is just something I thought people might be interested in, since those who don't do linocut often ask about the process. This is my current piece in progress--or rather, the sketch for it. When I work in lino, I like to do a super rough sketch on paper, then scan it in and go over it in photoshop to give me stark blacks and whites for a better idea of how the finished print will look. This one will be a two-layer print; the hand, in black, will be on one block, and the paw, in red, will be on another. Then I'll print both blocks, in their different colors, on a single sheet of paper for this layered effect. There's going to be a lot more texture, due to the cutting, but this is the actual image that I transfer onto the block and cut around. The source for this piece is a short story called "The White Road," which you should read. It's in Smoke and Mirrors, the earlier of Gaiman's two short story collections. I might upload a photo of the blocks while I'm still cutting them if people are interested.

Little Shields

So, this semester, I'm using the same source material for my thesis work, but I'm taking it in a different direction entirely. I really love the pieces I made last semester, but I feel like I've taken them as far they can go; they show technical skill, but continuing in the same vein shows little else. So now that I've done them realistic, I've done nitpicky pencil work, and I've done subtle, understated, naturalistic colors, it's time to show my flexibility. From the same animal descriptions and similar kinds of information, I'm now creating a mass-market and child friendly body of work. These are being completed in illustrator, and will be presented at midterm with 6 to 9 more that I haven't finished yet. Each will be printed on heavy cardstock, around 5 or 6 inches high, and cut out around the shield and banner itself. I think I'm going to mount them with those little foam squares to give them a nice shadow on the wall. Enjoy!

Oh, and in other news, I'm entering Tatanka the mini munny centaur in this spring's Vinylmore show, so wish me luck!

Basil and Rolf

Advanced illusionism is a great class. I highly recommend it for all MICA illustration students, seriously. This week, we had to bring in a childhood snack we haven't eaten in a long time and then do a drawing based on some of the memories that come to us while eating it. I ate an orange flavored Flintstones Push-Up--it was delicious, and it reminded me of Basil, the beagle I grew up with. It was a really pleasant experience to work on. To the left is a detail of the first little square panel, and below is the whole piece. Also in this post, the sketch for my out of class assignment. I'll be printing the sketch, lightboxing it to a charcoal drawing, and then scanning again for color and "old photo" treatment. Should be a lot of fun!

Nicolae (with and without coat)

I'm terrible over breaks, okay? Sorry about the lack of updates. I did draw something, though, so I'll post that. I also drew lots of people on the subway, but I haven't gotten a chance to scan those yet. But I have a good excuse for being away--I got engaged over Christmas. So! That's a good excuse for anything.

Here's one drawing, to make up for the lack; he's a new DnD character, a sorcerer named Nicolae. Two different versions; with and without coat.