Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Kunoichi, part 2


Welcome back everyone. Hope you all are having a good Tuesday.

It's beautiful and sunny here, and I'm looking forward to my drive home. Windows down, music blasting. Absolutely my favorite summer activity.

Anyway, today's sketch is the continuation of the Kunoichi piece. I have added cleaner lines over top of the image, and have started some rough coloring. Her skin, hakama, shin and arm covers, as well as her chest wrapping have received their basic coloring. I wanted to get more done for today's update, but them's the breaks.

See you all back here for the next installment in the sketch-by-steps.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Kunoichi, part 1


Hi everyone.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm completely spent after my daughter's 1st birthday on Sunday, but it was a lot of fun. Lots of smiles and laughs, not just from her. What an amazing event, that I really never thought I'd be a part of.

Anyway, enough parental gushing. Today's piece was going to be more finalized, but I thought that doing a progression of a piece might be fun. So today is the rough sketch of a kunoichi character.

Tomorrow I will refine her and work on the finished lines.

Hope to see you all back here for Kunoichi, part 2.

Have a great evening.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Friday's Sketch, a day late and a dollar short



Hi everyone. Due to the fact that I was unable to finish Friday's sketch on time, and the fact that my girl and daughter are still sleeping, I decided to finish the sketch this morning.

How I landed on a Kratos sketch was simply due to the fact that every sketch of a woman I was trying to do before hand was looking like crap. I had a few good ideas, but way more bad ones. But even the good ideas ended up being executed poorly. So, after my 20th or so screen clear I just let the pen do the work and ended up with an action pose. After working on it for a little while, I decided that it really should be of Kratos - the BADASS from the God of War video game series.

I think I might start another theme for the sketches next week and draw some of my favorite game characters. That could be fun.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend. And please forgive this lowly 'artist' another late posting.

PS: I've included one of the bad sketches I did, and saved. Just to prove how poorly things were going before this sketch.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Deadly little Miho



Hi everyone. I have to make this quick as I'm running late to get home.

Today's picture is of everyone's favorite hooker-assassin from Old Town, Sin City. Miho. She's probably one of my favorite 'bad girl' characters. Even though she doesn't say a word, she's one of the most vibrant and alive characters in the book series.

Gotta love her.

And to make up for the missing post yesterday, another random sketch from yor.

See ya all back here tomorrow.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Dragged to the abyss


You know what's awesome? Missing a posting due to a hectic day. Oh well, I had a great father's day weekend.

Today's sketch was inspired by browsing through Bruce Timm drawings. I really wish I had a fraction of his ability to use markers. Seriously, he has to be my favorite character designer of all time. You all have seen his work on the Batman and Superman animated series. But he also drew some of the comics that came inside He-Man toys back in the day. The guy is a drawing powerhouse, and one of my artistic heroes.

I hope you all enjoy today's sketch. It was done very quickly, but I think its pretty fun.

See you all back here tomorrow for another installment of ninjaboy's sketch-a-day.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Weapon X


Sometimes inspiration appears without any real triggers, or warning. Such is the case with today's drawing.
Originally I was trying to sketch out a jedi woman entering combat in a dramatic way (there hasn't been many actual action shots in this blog) but nothing was working the way I had it in my mind. And after the 5th screen clear I just decided to start sketching.
The results of this freeform doodle is a sketch of Weapon X.

Cool comic. Awesome art. Great character origin (I call it an origin as it explains how Logan became Wolverine, not because of his Origins comic from a few years ago).

As Logan was a man with few words in that story I'll keep this brief. Hope you all like it, and I'll try to do something more exciting tomorrow.

See you next time.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Jesse and Tulip


Welcome back everyone.

Today's piece is a fan sketch of the two main characters from Vertigo's book Preacher.

It's been quite some time since I've read the entire story (probably since '98 or '99) but I have read the first two trades within the last 2 years. And one of my coworkers brought in the first issue today. It made me miss the book. This was one of those series that really shook up my comic book reading. Preacher is a kick in the 'junk', and while you're down it buys you a new house.
Garth Ennis planted an elbow in between my eyes and I still haven't recovered from the blow. It was such a visceral experience, following Jesse on his quest to find god (literally, not figuratively) and he did some things that really made me mad. And laugh. Hard. And cheer. And groan.
It was everything a graphic novel experience should be.
I really feel like Preacher set the bar for all of his future work, and everything I've read since then has really been a continuation of what he accomplished with this book. Only more over the top.

Anyway, I felt like I had to do a sketch of Jesse and Tulip. So I hope you all enjoy it.

See ya back here tomorrow for more sketchy fun.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Revisiting the Ranger


Hi everyone.
I had a really busy day yesterday, so I have to apologize for another missed posting. I'll try to make up for it by doing a 2nd piece tonight if I have time. I'm going to have the house to myself for the evening, so if I don't get caught up in cleaning I'll try and get another piece done.

I managed to find a few moments here and there today to put together this quick sketch. I ended up revisiting the Ranger I sketched Friday. This is a little bit of a different look for the character, but I'm having fun with him. Hopefully I'll come upon a design I like a lot.

I'm also playing around with a new style of Photoshop drawing, where I'm doing a loose layout on one layer to get a pose I like, then I'm adding details to a layer above it.

Anyway, hope you all had a great weekend and I'll see you all back here tomorrow.

Friday, June 12, 2009

That Moment (Friday Bonus)


I know what you're thinking. Woah dude, this sure is a departure from your usual fare of daily sketches. Indeed, it is.
I always have been, a hopeless romantic. One of my dream projects is to illustrate and write/cowrite a story about the romance between Peter Parker/Spiderman and Mary Jane. They've been my favorite comic book 'couple' for as long as I can remember (hear that Quesada, an old fan of Spiderman LIKED them together!!!), and I've always enjoyed reading about their relationship trials. Especially while married. It's always struck me how powerful their love must have been for them to stay together through all of the chaos and torment that the life Spiderman brings home.

Anyway, I was listening to some Prince while I was sketching and before I knew it I had drawn a pair of young lovers. Of course they're both over 18. Get your mind out of the gutter. :P
This was actually started yesterday, but I didn't decide to finish it until today. I'm actually rather partial to it. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Anyway, I just got some good news that I won't be working this weekend, so on that note I bid you all a fantastic weekend.

The Murky Wood


Happy Friday everyone. I downloaded the free version of Puzzle Quest on the iPhone yesterday, and even though I have only played a few minutes of the game, I was already inspired to draw a ranger. Perhaps I'll refine the character and make it 'my' ranger from the game. But we'll see what happens.
Once again, this was done in CS3 on my MacBook using my Bamboo tablet.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'm not exactly sure what my will bring, but I'm hoping to see some good music late this evening.

Have fun and I'll see you all back here on Monday.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Do you remember Eric Draven?


Hi everyone.

Last night the GF and I caught part of The Crow on MTV 2 last night. I love this movie, but not as much as I adore the original graphic novel. However, I was completely blown away by the fact that they aired the movie at all. The editing on it was horrendous!
I mean, if you're going to butcher the movie with your edits then don't air it at all. The entire scene in Funboy's House was just awful to watch. It made no sense, and seemed to have no order. Just a series of events that led to Funboy being hauled into the bathroom.
I mean, they edited out some scenes of violence, but not others. They edited out all references to drugs. They edited out the cussing. I couldn't even watch further than the scene where Eric dispatches T-Bird. It was absolutely terrible.

So to help myself forget that atrocity, I decided to draw Eric myself. It's been a long time since I drew this character. But it was a blast. I even tried a refinement on the style of coloring/sketching in CS3 that I made a mess of yesterday. I'm starting to get my own rhythm and style. I think.

Anyway, hope you like it and I'll see you all tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

A Messy, Messy Ninja


Hey there everyone. I had a fun filled day today, so I didn't have much time for a sketch. So I decided to play around with some custom brushes I got for Photoshop and the result is this very messy, almost not worth posting, sketch of a ninja.

At least this time the ninja is going to get the better of the Samurai.

Done in Photoshop CS3 on my MacBook with my Bamboo tablet.

I'm still getting used to Photoshop. It's been a long time, and a lot has changed since Photoshop 7. Bear with me, I'll get back in the swing of things. Maybe I'll even do sketches in ArtRage and import them into CS3...

Hmmm....

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Wow, I suck at this blog thing...


Well, I did it again. I missed another post. But to be fair, I had a super busy day yesterday. Both professionally and personally. It wasn't a bad day, rather it was one of those days where you constantly have something to do and when you finally take that breather you realize that it's now time for bed.
I'm sure you've all been there.

Anyway, I managed to get a new program to do my art in. And as such, I decided to try and do today's piece in the style of Jason Chan. I've been watching some of his videos available from Massive Black and to say the least I've been inspired. I'm really branching outside of my normal 'digital sketching box' by trying his method. But I must say it's a lot of fun. I hope to get some more pieces like this under my belt. And who knows, maybe I'll start to get better at it.

Today's piece, while being inspired by Jason Chan, is also inspired by the last PSP game I played. Jeanne d'Arc. If you haven't tried it you really should. It's one of the best tactics styled games I've played in years. And it's one of the best looking PSP titles I've seen in a long time as well.

Hope you all dig it, and I'll see you all tomorrow.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Missed Me!



Hey everyone, here's a fast post.

I ended up doing another Street Fighter pic. this one is of a young Ryu going up against Guile. Hope Ryu didn't just give the fight to Guile with this missed kick. One small mistake can be catastrophic to a fighter. Especially against an experienced fighter.
Anyway, it was a very fast sketch as I had a super busy day today.

The other is another Caine sketch that I did last night. It's the softer side of the wandering monk.

Hope you enjoy the sketches and have a great weekend. I'll see you all back here on Monday.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

My name is Caine


Today started off with a bit of sad news. David Carradine passed away. I won't get into the particulars of how or why, that's not my place. Especially since I am completely not in the know, or in Thailand right now. But I will say that I was really saddened to hear this news.

Obviously, I was too young to watch Kung Fu on television. I was around for Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. But was actually disappointed with the show, so I wasn't a regular viewer. However, I did LOVE the Kung Fu movie. David captured my imagination as Kwai Chang Caine. Not to mention the fact that Brandon Lee was in the movie too. It was hokey, and had a very predictable plot. But it was fun.

Then a few years ago they released the original series on DVD and I fell in love. It is a refreshing dose of television, not just for its time, but today as well. It teaches such basic life lessons that people often overlook, but that martial arts training has always tried to instill in its practitioners.
Caine's search across america is nothing short of wonderful. The characters he interacts with are varied and colorful, and at the end of each episode you truly feel like he touched the people in the episode.

So today's sketch is inspired by Kwai Chang Caine. Is it a perfect rendering of Carradine? No. It is none the less an interpretation of the character. One that became an influence on me, even long after its prime.

If I have time I may do another sketch showing the softer side of Caine. But we'll see what happens.

Have a great day everyone. Enjoy the sun.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Rise Centurion


We are working our way through The Tudors at home. Granted very slowly (it's hard to sit down and watch something new for an hour with a baby running around the house), but we are working through it.
But recently if we have some spare time at home and need something on that I can tune in on from time to time, I've found that I'm watching episodes of Rome again. And yes, this show is fantastic on second viewings as well.
I'm not going to go off on what makes the show great, again. So instead I'll just let you know that it inspired today's sketch.

It was done in the free version of ArtRage on my MacBook and using my Bamboo tablet.

Hope you all dig.

The painting I did in the background for yesterday's image was fun. And I think I'll try my hand at digital painting again in the near future. We'll see.

Have a great day everyone. Enjoy the sun.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Storm


Hi everyone! Welcome to the Tuesday installment of sketch-a-day.
One of my favorite authors is none other than Neil Gaiman. When I was a lad, I started reading his spectacular Sandman series. Yes, I started reading them at an age that was probably under the suggested reader base as illustrated by the "Suggested for Mature Readers" label on the books. But not by much. I was in my teens. Just more to the early than late. But honestly, I felt that I was more mature than many of my peers at that time and that then let me into the group of authorized readers for the series. But honestly, that series was fantastic. It really changed the way that I looked at funny book writing at that time, and I honestly feel that if I hadn't read that book I'd still be reading the shit that the big 2 are pumping out to the masses today.

But I hadn't read one of Neil Gaiman's books until a couple of years ago, and the first one I read was American Gods. Wow, what a fantastic book. My girlfriend is mega awesome as she had the copy of the book which led to me finally picking it up for a read. It's such a great story. So much so that I secretly harbored thoughts that my first male child would be named Shadow. But then reality set in and instead we dubbed a stray cat around my girlfriend's townhouse Shadow instead.

Today's illustration was inspired by a photo of an extreme thunderstorm I stumbled upon on the internets. And I decided to try and do a 'digital painting' of a thunderstorm. And while I was finishing it up, I just decided to draw a character inspired by American Gods into the foreground. I'm not saying that it is intended to be Shadow. But I felt that the overall feel of the piece reminded me of American Gods more than anything.

I created this piece in the free version of ArtRage on my MacBook, using my trusty Bamboo tablet.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Kunoichi


Hey there everyone, and welcome to a Monday installment of Sketch-a-Day. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We had a really good one here in the Pacific North-West.
Today's sketch is of a random kunoichi, or female ninja. She's probably getting ready for a mission, or is about to receive some instructions from her sensei. I'll let you draw your own conclusion.

I hope to revisit this character in the future. There are elements about her that I really like, and elements that I really wish I had planned out better.
I also used her as a vehicle to try out a new style of drawing faces. Hopefully it starts to evolve into a more cohesive style sometime in the future.

Anyway, I hope you like it. Once again it was done on my MacBook using the free version of ArtRage and my Bamboo tablet.

See you all tomorrow.