Workin' Vacation

Merry Christmas to all! I am blogging from my inlaws house in South Carolina. I don't have a great connection and no scanner so not much of an update today. My mother-in-law DID get a new digital camera so I can at least show you my work set up while on vacation here. NOt very glamorous but it works. It's a working vacation which means that I am trying to only work half days and spend the rest with the family. I did take off the first few days for Christmas and some much needed rest. It's been really great and I am enjoying being with the family. Hope you all are too!

THE HULK

The next Drawergeeks(.com) assignment is "the Hulk" and the comic nerd in me HAS to do it. We have a ton going on but it's that age old "art thing": whenever you are working around the clock on an assignment, THAT's when you can't wait to draw something else! I was working into the midnight hours last night and it was all I could do not to grab a piece of paper and start doodling! "Stay focused and go home and sleep, Tom"....Well, I finally got a chance today to doodle since we are starting to catch up here on the paid work. These are a few Hulk sketches to get warmed up. Not loving anything yet, but they were fun. Some bad anatomy in these parts, don't look too closely. I actually grabbed a green Prismacolor pencil by a flook and it helped put me further into the mood.

Wonder Woman

Whenever I want to draw a female superhero (which is what I always draw when I draw superheroes), the first one I always think of is Wonder Woman. I don't read Wonder Woman, except briefly when Byrne was doing it (old habits). I just love her costume and the dark hair and the, well,....the whole package. Fun to draw. Anyway, this was a quickie so don't look too closely. It's based on a pose Rob strikes alot.

Frustration!

Ever have one of those days? The days were the drawings don't look like they do in your head? Yeah, me too. The above drawing was created for my Character design book, but it illustrates some days I have had more recently. Those are the days I love having another artist in the studio. Rob and I have had - and still have- tons of work we have to get out before we take our Christmas break! OR we have to take work with us...sigh. NOT what I want, but it's starting to look like reality. Believe me, I don't want to complain, we are being blessed with work and (more importantly) relationships right now. We love our little company, but sometimes you miss the paid vacations where someone else does all of your work while you're gone! Here's to "good drawing" days!

Lord of the Beans!

Go out and buy this new DVD from Big Idea Productions called "Lord of the Beans". It's got some really funny spoofs of the live action film with the similar name and if you have kids, it's got a great message for them. The above is some unused art we created for a project with Big Idea. The first are my design/inks and the second is the final color by the talented Jon Conkling. I think this is one of his best pieces working with us! You go Jon!

Character design process

These three images where for a little job I did for fun. ("Job" and "fun" together? This really mean that I didn't get paid for these, it's spec. work.) Rob and I were getting to know (and possibly work with) a local Christian "girl group" that will remain unnamed. They are made up of three ladies. I did this mostly for fun and I thought it would be cool for the younger members of their audience to have some stickers or T-shirts with manga versions of the group on them. Anyway, these three drawings show a little bit of the process I did. I actually created a couple more sketches but they are not here. I include all 5 sketches in my character design book that I mentioned in my last post, so buy that and you get the WHOLE process. I didn't do a bunch of exploring on this as I was pretty happy with the middle version of them and jumped right to a final pose with that design (the color one). Enjoy!

Finally! The Character design book

I've been patient, but I can't take it anymore! I gotta sell....uh...mention my upcoming character design book! Over this last year I have been writing and illustrating a "how to" character design book called "CREATING CHARACTERS WITH PERSONALITY" that comes out from Watson-Guptill in Feb! Not long to wait now. I may even get some preview copies this month, so I REALLY can't wait. Above is the cover as well as a sample page layout and even a piece of art from the book to illustrate rhythm in drawing women. As with any job I do after hours over a long period of time, it's not all my best work but I think the overall feel of the book is gonna be good. My biz partner, Rob Corley, wrote and illustrate the chapter on designing creatures and it looks awesome as well. In addition to that, I was blessed to get contributors like GLEN KEANE (FORWARD), BUTCH HARTMAN, PETER de'SEVE, JACK DAVIS, MARK HENN, J. SCOTT CAMPBELL, AND MORE! I'm telling you, I would by this book just for their contributions! I'm gonna cry,,,,hang on...okay, go to Amazon.com and preorder it today! You get the discount right now. Whatyawaitnfer?

Another quickie!

This is a quickie as in it's already done, not a quick sketch. These two images are for a pamphlet we worked on for a anti-smoking campaign directed to preteens. I had to redraw the girl's body three times! Turns out my automatic "default" setting for drawing girls is set on "Sexy". She's supposed to be 8-11! Oops. I did the sketches and inks and our great buddy, Jon Conkling did the colors. Nice job Jon! I'm gonna start posting about my character design book soon. Get ready to get SOLD to!

A brave new world

I did the this drawing to try my hand at a manga style. It's based on (though not exact) a character from "Shaman King". It's fun to try new things.