Sketchnight tablet drawing 12/29/09

Meh-ow. Wow. The colors are somewhat different from when I'm looking at the tablet PC. Maybe a bit more saturated. Should probably try and use some reference to get the lighting and figure down better.

This will most likely be the last post for the year, so have a happy, safe, and prosperous new year, everyone!

Sketchnight works

Here are some sketchnight drawings to help finish out the new year...

Sketchnight tablet drawing

Here's a drawing done on the tablet PC tonight at sketchnight. It's fun to kinda mess around on but I'm not sure if the pressure sensitivity and resolution is up for doing more major work.

Fallcon 2009 Wrap Up

Made it back to Madison, safe and sound. Here are the few extra pieces I did for the show. The marker drawing of Supergirl was done for the art auction to benefit the Lupus foundation and the Comic Book Legal defense fund. It was paired up with the two volumes of my Sketchgames and ended up going for $150! Wow! Thank you whoever won the piece and for helping out those charities.

I can't really say enough good things about Fallcon. Nick and the crew are awesome as always and know how to take care of all the 200 artists there. Thanks for having us, we'll do it again next year. Saw many cool costumes. Great work on those, folks. Thanks to the fans that dropped by to check out my work, too!

Good Evening from Fallcon 2009

Well, the first day is over and it was great seeing all the people looking for books and through all the art there. Here are some pics of my table and some of the commissions I had done today.

Good Morning from Fallcon!

Baltimore, you don't know what your missing. This is the midwest. This is Minneapolis, MN. The weathermen warned of this and I was actually surprised to see it when I drew back the blinds of my hotel room. Yup, there it is. Snow. I think it'll be a great day. Looking forward to meeting and greeting fans and working up some commissions as well. Fallcon here we come!

Convention appearance: FALLCON October 10 and 11, 2009

Yes, it's been a while since my last post. No excuses! Shame on me. But just dropping a note for next week's show in Minneapolis, MN. FALLCON is once again nice enough to have me and my brother Phil out there this year and we are pleased as punch to attend!

If you're in town or will be going to the show, please stop by and have a look at my new sketchbook SKETCHGAMES volume 2. It's all new artwork (well, it's older work but since you haven't seen it, it's new to you!) and tidbits of my recollections of the time they were done. There's plenty of Legionnaires, Video Game Gals, and even some concept art from the first game I worked on; Star Wars: Jedi Outcast. I will also be doing commissions as always!

Hope to see you there!

San Diego Comicon 2009

All hands on deck!

As I write this I'm about 34,000 feet in the air. Using the wireless set up the have on this flight. It's nice and gives me something to do while I'm trying to stay awake and get back on central time after a late night of packing. Should also think to bring a DC adaptor to plug in.

All and all the convention was really packed, more than it seemed to be before. Lots more lines and lots of people waiting. But I think that's typical for this show now. My table set up, which I forgot to take a picture of was pretty typical, but probably lacking in something that would really grab the attention of people not familiar with me or my work. I probably did about 15 sketches for the show.

Wednesday we went out with some friends to LaJolla and along the sea cave there was a group of sea lions. From what I hear, there are plans to kick them off a beach somewhere nearby. Too bad. I think they're pretty cool to watch. Convention wise, it was Preview Night and it was packed. This was my day to say hi to fellow artists and trade some sketchbooks and buy various things.

Here's some random pics from the show.

Sketches!


Costumes!


Brush with celebs!


Rocking out to Lego Rock Band!


Weird swag!


Teaming Humanity!


I might have more when I get home and sort through my thoughts and pictures. Until then, I hope you were entertained.

SKETCH GAMES 2.0 IS ON IT'S WAY!

The book has been sent to the printers and I hope to have it for sale at San Diego Comic Con International. Sketch Games 2.0 is the long in coming sequel to my first sketchbook published in 2001. It's the same size and page count covering work I did on Legionnaires to some work I did on video games as well as sketches of various Video Game Gals. So please stop on by my table in Artist Alley and take a look at my new book and other sketchbooks from the past.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY SKETCHCARDS PART DEUX!

Here's the second batch as I'm ready to head out to Westfield Comics. Stop on by and say hi if you're in the area! Oh and bring the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition video game and we'll be happy to sign it for you.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY APPEARANCE: WESTFIELD COMICS IN MADISON, WI MAY 2ND, 2009!

Yup. I and a few other artists will be on hand for FCBD at Westfield Comics in Madison, WI. Stop on by and donate to the ACTOR charity and pick a blind sketchcard by me or one of the many artists doing them. I'm doing at least 16 cards and here's what I have so far.
Aside from the possiblity from getting cool art from artist for a good cause, you can check out some concept art I did for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition and bring your XBox 360 or PS3 copy out to get signed by some Raven Software people!

Sketchnight tonal

Late post for sketchnight, I know but here you go. Worked on a commission piece I'm coloring up and after talking with long distance sketch buddy, Paul Richards, and tossing around ideas, I really need to just stop and go basic with tone to kick things off. Granted, I need to relearn things about lighting and what not but I'll get there. We shall endeavor to persevere.

Something new, something crappy...

Yeah, this color thing is going to take a while to nail down. Lucky for me, fellow artist Eric Spray gave me a pdf of an Andrew Loomis book, Creative Illustration, and we'll see if I can manage to get some sort of theory into my brain. So, presented in all it's gaudy glory, my Rock Band avatar, Amber... again.

I'll have to see how these look on a different screen, since I'm working on the tablet PC the screen dims and i think I'm adjusting for that by having brighter, more saturated colors. Trying to work without line for me is tough too. I think I need to start doing some exercises from some good photo ref.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine profile

For the past two and a half years I was working on the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie game at Raven Software and soon everyone will be able to play the best Wolverine game evar! Bold statement? Am I full of it? You be the judge. Visit the uncaged web site for the game and check out the videos, screenshots and all the other goodies we have there. You can also read up on some of the people who helped bring the game to it's full realization.

BTW, My Q&A is up now. :)

Sketchnight 03.31.09

Okay, I'm going to start to dedicate more time on these nights to doing more digital color work. It's really the only way I'm ever going to get better at it. I'm using my Toshiba M700 tablet PC. So in all it's hideous glory are two pieces I was messing around with tonight.

One piece was done in Artrage using the pencil tool. Kinda neat, since it looks like color pencil. The other piece of just the head was done in Photoshop. Grayscale multiply layer with linework over a color layer.

The character I'm using is my Rock Band character Amber. They have a real nice character creation system. Although she looks way cuter in the game at this point...

KANSAS CITY PLANET COMICON 2009

Just when you thought you could get away from the snow. Blam!
Saturday had lots of wet, heavy snow, but that didn't deter many fans from coming out and seeing all the artists, celebrities, and Playmates. Many books and prints were sold and a good number of commissions were done as well. Thank you for everyone that attended! Sounds like next year will be even better! I am determined to get a new volume of Sketchgames done for San Diego. Wish me luck!

Sketchnight: Future Cop

I did this drawing over a few weeks. Not that it actually took all that long, it's just that I tend to work on various things at sketchnight. Sometimes I work on commissions, when they're not smutty, sometimes I'll try doing a little painting on the tablet PC. Still need to get a programmable keypad for those ever-so-useful hotkeys.

Also, I like the way the drawing was turning out, so instead of leaving it in some 3/4 finished state, I actually finished it. Maybe I'll try coloring it next time.

Waiting for meeting...

Killing time...

Still don't know what the hell I'm doing with color.

Christmas card rough and pencils

Happy new year everyone. Hope it's a good one. Here are the roughs and pencils from last years homage to The Empire Strikes Back card.

THE THUMBNAIL
Yeah. Kinda hard to tell what's going on but you know what? It reads fine... in my head.


THE ROUGH
A larger cleaner version of the idea was drawn in my sketchbook and was scanned in to be enlarged and printed for lightboxing. But before that I added Corrine's legs sticking out of the tauntaun, because it looked a little weird to me without it.


THE PENCILS
What it says at the top of the pic. Omitted the probe bot blasting the wampa. For some sick reason I really like the sad tauntaun face with it's manga tears.


THE COLORING
Over all the coloring was pretty fast. Shifted toward blue and on my LCD monitor it looks really saturated now. From here the card was put together with the lettering and framing. Another card done!