Battery about to die...

That was the message that let me know that my sketch would not be posted tonight.

Well, that and the fact that I'm having a hard time staying awake right now.

Sorry, but there will be no sketch update today. I'm gonna pass out now.

See you all back here tomorrow, for a real, legitimate sketch update.

Iaijutsu

Good evening everyone.

Well, I missed another sketch yesterday. Honestly sometimes my days seem to get shorter as the week goes on.

Well I made up for it today by getting my sketch in on time. Barely.

I have found some great videos online of the Ogawa Ryu style of bujutsu. As such I decided to do another martial arts sketch. This time of course it is of an iaijutsu practicioner getting ready to start his draw.

This time I decided to use a pattern for the hakama to simulate the style of fabric that was very common for martial artists of the time. But I didn't stop there. I decided to rough in a background using shades of color more than linework.

Hope you all like it. See you back here tomorrow for the next sketch.

Jazz

Good evening everyone, and welcome back to ninjaboy's sketch-a-day.

Monday's sketch is of the character Jazz from John Byrne's book Next Men. This series became one of my favorite books a few years ago. Yes, I got into it long after the series had been completed.

John Byrne has always been a favorite artist and writer of mine. The amount of stellar work that he has put out over the years is just staggering. And chances are, if you were reading comics between the 80s and 90s you read a few of his stories, or marveled over his artwork.

Jazz was one member of the the quasi-superhero group Next Men. She probably went through the most human and dramatic events in the series. Her stories were always incredibly human and lifelike. I don't know why I suddenly felt like sketching her, but as soon as I started drawing she ended up on the page.

Anywho, I'm about to head off to bed. So I hope you like the sketch and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Frazetta week, the final chapter

Good evening everyone.

Well, the GF's sister gave birth to a very cute little girl today. So I'm technically an Uncle again. And I had a pretty busy day at work, so sadly I didn't have a chance to post my last sketch for the week until now.

My Frazetta tribute week comes to an end, with probably one of the best layouts I've done on this sketch blog. I didn't expect to do something like this today. Namely because I just didn't have a lot of time to put into a sketch. But that fact ended up in me roughing out a pretty nice layout.

What do you think?

It was done in CS3 on my MacBook using my (once again) trusty Bamboo tablet. As have all of the sketches this week.

Well, I'm off to bed. Have a great weekend everyone. See you back here on Monday.

Thursday by way of Monday morning...

Hi everyone.

I had a pretty busy night last night, so I didn't get around to posting my sketch on time.

Anyway, to follow in the theme for the week I decided to do a sketch of a Tarzan styled character. Leaping from the trees in the jungle. I also roughed in a fast background this time.

I wanted to keep the sketch very loose and not spend too much time refining it. I'm worried that due to my limited time to sketch lately, I'll be wasting time in trying to get the finer details in and end up sacrificing my time for the sketch.

So I'll be working with that philosophy today as well.

Hope ya'll dig and I'll see you back here later for the Friday update. Proper.

Loki, the redux

Welcome back everyone. Today's sketch is a double shot of inspiration.

I'm still thinking about Frazetta when I'm sketching this week, but I decided to do a sketch of Loki from the new Thor books written by J Michael Straczynski.

Once again Straczynski knocks another one out of the park. I've written about this before, but I got the second book in the series and it continues to be as great as the first installment.

Anywho, I'm about to call it a night so I'm gonna say good night.

See you all back here tomorrow.

A very belated tribute to the master of fantasy art

Hi everyone.

The sketch I'm posting now started out as my sketch for last Friday, but I didn't get much done on it, and I didn't get around to finishing it up that night nor over the weekend.

So I decided to do some more work on it yesterday, and while I got something I was OK with posting, I completely lost track of time and didn't get it online. Go me.

So here's my belated Friday/Monday sketch. My very small tribute to one of my favorite artists of all time. Frank Frazetta.

If you didn't already know he passed away last week. And I really felt that I should remember him, not just by looking at his artwork (which is amazing, and helped to define the sword & sorcery genre) but to also do a sketch inspired by his work.

I remember when I discovered his artwork. And walking down to the local comic book store after school and buying packs of Frazetta Trading Cards. Usually 2 packs at a time. And looking back at that time, I realized how often the owner 'bent rules' for me as he sold me the cards even though they were urged to sell them to 'mature collectors' as some of Frank's paintings have nudity. Kinda gives you an idea of how much money I poured into that local business. And man, do I appreciate it.

Anyway, this was sort of inspired by his queen of mars paintings and sketches.

And I think the rest of my sketches for the week will also be Frazetta inspired sketches.

So tune in again later. Hope to have another sketch up today/tonight. So hope you all dig this sketch and I'll see you back here again soon.

Makiwara training

Hi everyone.

I have a new sketch. Is it awesome. Not really. But at least it's something. LOL

I finally managed to get in a new sketch today, but had very limited time to get it done. So I slammed this one out. It's of a young Ryu, training with a makiwara pad.

It doesn't look like he's been there too long, but I imagine he can probably spend a long time on one before he really starts to feel the pain from those straw fibers wrapped around the board.

Anyway, hope ya'll dig the sketch and I'll try to get a new one up tomorrow.

Peace out.

I'm still alive...

But I haven't been able to get anything posted in a long while. As you can tell.

I ended up getting sick, and while fighting off a fever I didn't feel much like sketching. Then that next week I had super busy week at work. It seemed like every lunch time rolled around, I would end up eating food while I worked. Then my day would be over, and I didn't even have a chance to fire up CS3.

I thought this week would go better, but so far it hasn't. I'm really, really hopeful to get a sketch done tomorrow.

If anyone still cares to check back here tomorrow, I'll have something new for you to look at.

See you all then.