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.