INKtober, Day 11!

Tetsuo Mutates
6 x 8 technical pen / brush pen / brush and ink / wash on mixed media paper

From one of my favorite scenes in Akira. Drawing the bio-mech hand was an engaging challenge: I referenced screen caps from the film and Katsuhiro's manga pages, and I also improvised a bit.

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Preliminary work: 

INKtober, Day 8!

Stand down, Uyné
9 x 12 pen and ink / ink wash on smooth bristol

Left: sketchbook page from late last year. Right: tracing paper draft.

Finished pencil draft.

I start inking with the Hiro 45. It yields well to varying pressures.

The Hiro 60-1/2 is excellent for inking very fine lines.

Ezthlitofett's head and neck were inked with a Hunt 107 nib.

Uyné (the larger of the two) and Ezthlitofett hail from my fantasy story, (working title) Legacy. Uyné is a godling tasked with devouring the souls of the wicked. When it is poisoned by a vengeful rival, Uyné attacks and kills one of its siblings. Ezthlitofett takes it upon himself to calm the distraught godling - easier said than done. 

I haven't drawn backgrounds in ages, and I think it shows. Nonetheless, I wanted to push myself with this piece; I'm happy with it overall. I miss my ol' fantasy critters something fierce and this was a lot of fun to create. 

This is supposed to be a bloody scene. Somehow that slipped my mind! Ezthlitofett is also missing his sword and scabbard. He's not crazy enough to take on a godling with only his bare hands...

Working on Day 8's piece would not have been nearly as engaging without the following epic background music (damn you, Attack on Titan, for being so beautiful).

Sketchbook_Creatura Pages 1 - 10

These are the first ten pages from a new sketchbook, Creatura (I've been naming my sketchbooks for the past couple years and organize their files this way). Seeing as I have not posted any sketchbook pages in some time, I wanted to update with some loose, warm-up type drawings.

All sketches are based off of older drawings ranging from 2004 to 2006. I don't use reference when I redraw selected sketches; I like to see how I've improved by using only the older sketches as a starting point.

Pages 7 and 8 show rework concepts for Katlin's Beast, a creature my friend Katlin and I created in high school.

Costumed Figure Drawing: week 6 in-class work, plus bonus!

The model that was supposed to show up this day called in "sick" (yeah, on Valentine's Day), so Lee taught us how to draw clothing folds and later had us draw from photos. I used my beloved 513EF nib for the studies.

My second 7" x 10" watercolor sketchbook is officially done! The horse skull study and simple cat were drawn at The Original Hotcake and Steak House; same night I introduced Allyson to the restaurant.

Costumed Figure Drawing: week 5's home studies!

Here are some drawings I'm eager to share. Rather than continue the 'painterly' fad, I decided to go back to what I feel is one of my core strengths: pen and ink drawing.



^ Drawn in my 6" x 9" Canson watercolor block with Speedball Super Pigmented Acrylic Ink and a 513EF nib; light wash added with a water brush. I went off of my personal notes and tried to emulate Peter Chung's (Aeon Flux) work a bit.

As much as I disliked the single line technique in the beginning drawing classes way back when, I incorporated some almost-single-line drawing in this study. I like the effect.


^ A repeat study, this time in my 7" x 10" watercolor pad (second one!). I used the 513EF nib again, but the ink is Higgins Calligraphy Waterproof Black Ink. It's far more subtle than the Speedball ink. Speedball is the best ink I've used.


^ Back to Speedball. For inspiration, I looked through my books on Eugene Delacroix and Henrich Kley. Their draftsmanship is unparalleled - particularly Kley's, if you want my biased opinion. These two studies were a lot of fun!


^ Final study for the day (now yesterday; I need to stop feeding my night owl habits). I think I'll turn this guy into an angel-type figure with a broken wing.

THIS is the direction I want to push forward in, something more illustrative and catered to my strengths. I had fun with the first few projects, but I want to use the inker's approach for more of my projects.

Costumed Figure Drawing: week 5 in-class work!

Warming up took a while, but I'm pretty happy most of these pages, and I'm fond of the last seven. They were done with a Tombow Dual Brush Pen and an Aubergine Derwent Graphitint pencil; both are watersoluble, so mixing them produced interesting results.

We had our first male model this night. He was dressed as a waiter, though that's barely discernible from my sketches.