ninjaboy's sketchbook

Catching Up

2012-01-21T23:37:00.001-08:00

Well, my plan to stay on track with this thing fell off the rails a bit huh?

But even though I didn't post on Thursday or Friday, that doesn't mean that there wasn't sketching being done.

I got a page of sketchbook time in on Thursday, but wasn't able to get anything done Friday. However I did get a page of drawing done today.

I'm pretty sure that it might be hard to get my sketching done this next week as work is going to keep me CRAZY busy to make up for this week of snow days. Just a warning.

So, here is content for those days, just a little late.

The Intertubes are Frozen

2012-01-18T21:19:00.001-08:00

Hello again. Tonight is another mobile update for me. The snowfall our neck of the woods received (all day) managed to cause a power surge that killed our Internet. And our ISP is closed due to the weather.

I didn't get another sketch posted last night as our daughter kept waking up and the GF and I got sucked into the first season of Fringe.

But I did get some sketching done today. More Song of Ice and Fire character sketches.

Hope ya dig. And that you are staying warm.

Later.

Tuesday Mobile Update

2012-01-17T21:43:00.001-08:00

Good evening everyone. Sorry about not posting yesterday, the plan to move my sketches over via my phone hit a small snag.

So, here is my sketch of Cammy from Friday along with a page of sketches I did last night. I have a few sketches going today that I will post before bed. It's been an interesting snow day here that actually kept me pretty busy. But I will have something to post for today before I hit the sack.

Hope ya dig the doodles.

Snow Day

2012-01-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone out there still bothering to come around to my little corner of the internet.

I know what some of you are thinking. I didn't get my sketch posted Friday and I probably didn't even do one. Well, that's not exactly true. I did do a quick 5 minute sketch on Friday inspired by a cosplay video I saw on kotaku. But I didn't get the chance to upload it onto my blog at work and when I got home I found that I am still unable to connect more than 4 devices to my wifi router (for some reason). And those spots have been taken up by my Mac mini, Apple TV, PS3 and the GF's iPhone.

However, this morning I did have an idea. I am going to move my sketch to my iPhone, then transfer them to my Mac mini for the update.

I also want to do another sketch today (obviously, since I need to get back in to the whole 'sketch a day' process) so I'll try and do another update sometime later on.

Till then, if you are also finding yourself not at work due to some awesome snow, go have fun in it. And be safe.

Sketches of Ice and Fire

2012-01-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Wow, I was really not very good about updating my blog last year huh? Well this year I'm going to make an effort to be better about not neglecting this thing. Granted, I'm not off to a very good start in that regards.

Work has been really good at keeping me excessively busy. And every time that I think I've got it sorted out, the monster reveals its self to be more of a hydra rather than the normal dragon that I was expecting and I get to start the chaos all over again.

I haven't been to my martial arts in a few months, and I'm not sure how this month will fare in that regard either. Probably not well.

But that being said, I am going to be trying to get back on track with my sketch a day.

To help prove that I'm not completely ignoring my sketching, I have some pictures of some sketch book pages that I was able to get done over the past few weeks.

And of course since I'm working my way through the rest of the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (currently into book 3), and anxiously waiting for the first season of the show (Game of Thrones) to be released from HBO, the sketches are all of characters from this series.

Hope you all dig the sketches. I'll hopefully be seeing you all again soon, with new sketches in tow.

Who is this? Where am I? What's going on?

2011-12-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

Well well well. Lookit here. Someone found their way back to the internet and actually managed to update their blog.

I hope I didn't cost some of you out there any money (placing bets that I have completely abandoned this project). But if I did, well, shame on you for betting against me.

And not offering me a cut.

Anyway, I have done some sketches. Not much, but some. It has been a crazy ending portion of a year for me. Work has been, chaotic and unpredictable as of late. And one of my family members has just been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing surgery tomorrow. And that's just a few of things worth mentioning.

But I have done some sketches. And since I'm sitting here at work waiting for something to reproduce, and then will be on the phone with my family for the next little while, here is a small dump of them. I have an actual physical sketchbook page to add to this as well, but I haven't taken a picture of it yet. So you have that to look forward to.

Anyway, hope ya'll dig these sketches. And I'm hoping to get some more done on my holiday break.

See you tomorrow.

Appologies

2011-10-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

Wow. I'm at a loss for words. I have seriously neglected this poor blog o' mine.

I mean, seriously. If it were a child, CPS would have been called and it would be taken to a safe place, where it would receive warm blankets and hot food. While I spent some time in a hard, cold cell awaiting my fate.

Despite work being pretty crazy lately, I have been albe to fire up CS3 form time to time. I didn't get a sketch finished, but I have been working on a sketch of the character Shi the past few days. A minute here, two minutes there.

I have plans for the sketch that hasn't gotten realized yet, but I am hoping to get some time on it tomorrow. Perhaps while my daughter is taking a nap. We'll see how that goes.

Till then, hope you all have a good evening and a great weekend.

Making up for lost time

2011-09-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Look who finally got back around to his blog.

That's right. I'm back for a new update everyone (who's still bothering to come by my moderately neglected corner of the internet). And this time I'm bring you three sketches of varying content.

The first is from the other weekend, and was done while my daughter was taking a nap. We had just finished watching some more Avatar (which we finished last weekend, and it was AWESOME!). So I did another sketch of Ang and Katara practicing some tai chi / water bending.

The next sketch is from yesterday and was the product of only a minute or so. I was rather busy and my sketch-break ran very short. So it is nothing more than a gesture.

And lastly, is a series of sketches I did today. I wanted to treat it more as an exercise of warm-ups. Just to keep my hand moving on the page, not getting attached to anything and keep doodling till my break was up.

I also got a request for some artwork at work, so I will probably start working on that sometime soon as well.

So on that note, I'm gonna call it a night. Hope you all dig at least one of these sketches, and I'll see you back here next time.

A Mobile Update; Attempt 1

2011-09-12T20:39:00.001-07:00

Hi there internetland. I'm using the Blogger app for tonight's post.

Thanks to a topsy/turvy day at work I didn't get a digital sketch done. But I did do some sketchbook sketching over the weekend, so here is a posting with that page. Hope y'all dig and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Sketch Dump

2011-09-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Good evening to those of you out there who happened by my digital dojo tonight. I hope you all are well and having a splendid time in these final hours of a very beautiful Friday (here in the Pacific Northwest).

I'm very sorry to say that I didn't get my sketching or blog posting, done as originally promised this week. But I did manage to sit down with the ol' Bamboo tablet and rapidly aging stylus to do two pages of random sketches.

The first was done yesterday during my lunch break, while the second was done today during one of my regular breaks. In between working on document outlines and reading project documents.

I hope you all get a kick out of em'. There was some fun stuff here. I was particularly entertained by sketching the minotaur head on page 2.

So until next week. Have a great weekend.

Bad Bad Blogger

2011-09-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

Blast. I thought I would get more sketching done the last two days. But sadly when I sat down to update my blog all I have it the page of sketches from the other day.

These sketches were done while watching the excellent Seirei no Moribito. I'd like to say that the pencil wasn't inspired by the show, but I ended up sketching quite a few images of characters from the show. As well as one random sketch of another fighter.

I'm guessing that I'll be able to get a sketch done tomorrow.

Till then, have a good evening.

Razza Frazzin...

2011-09-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ha ha!

True story for you. I got home this weekend, and had some free time to work on some sketches for the ol' blog. My plan was good.
The execution, on the other hand, was a little flawed.

I once again brought home my Bamboo tablet, and it's USB cable. However I didn't have the much needed stylus.

Oops.

So I'll post some sketches done the old fashioned way, later today. I already have one page of sketches, but I want to do some more before I post any art.

See you all back here later today.

More Troopers

2011-09-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

Good evening once again.

My foot is really bugging me, so I'm going to make this fast before I go lay down in bed.

I decided to do some more sketch to work on the futuristic/slightly futuristic military trooper theme that I was playing around with yesterday.

I worked on a helmet design first.
Then I wanted to work more on the light body armor, and the storage that I would expect to be on the unit.
And I ended with a quick sketch of a grunt making his way through to the safe-zone with some aerial support clearing the way for him and his squad.

Hope you all dig the sketches and I hope to be back here tomorrow with another sketch.

A quick one before bed

2011-08-31T23:53:00.000-07:00

Good evening.

Sadly, despite how sexy the title of this update is, it contains no hanky-panky. Nor anything even close to sexy.

I had a few minute to do a sketch before taking off from work for the evening today, so I decided to do something I haven't sketched a lot.
A futuristic, foot-soldier. Perhaps on a planet with a less than hospitable atmosphere.
Perhaps on Earth, but wading through a warzone filled with hazardous gas and other chemicals.

We'll never really know as I didn't get any further than putting down a background gesture and started fleshing in the actual figure before I had to go.

But, at least it's something to post this evening.

Hope you all dig, and I'll try to get a better sketch done tomorrow.

Good night out there in internet land.

I did a Friday Sketch. Honest.

2011-08-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Friday did end with me having a sketch started. However, the actual posting of said sketch didn't really happen till, well, now.

Sunday morning.

Since I'm here with my daughter next to me watching How to Train Your Dragon, I decided I should be productive in one capacity or another. Other than babysitter.

So here is my sketch. I was intending it to be of a post apocalyptic woman doing what she needs to to survive. With a hockey stick.

But during the sketching, since I wanted this to be an under 15 minute sketch I kept everything pretty loose, and in trying to get the body pose refined I think I ended up making it look more like a dude than a dude-ette.

Oh well. At least it's a new sketch. Hope you all dig and I'll see you back here soon with another sketch.

Cutter

2011-08-24T23:18:00.000-07:00

Hi again. It's me. Ninjaboy back for another sketch for you.

I know, I know. I missed my sketch yesterday and I feel bad about that. But I managed to get the sketch that I was thinking about yesterday done today. Well, not really done. But at least put down in pixels and posted to the internets for you all to look at.

The sketch is of the character Cutter from the Elf Quest comic series. My brother and I were really into this series a long time ago, and he had all four of the original hardback trades. Which he let me take care of for him.

Hope you all dig the sketch and I'l see you back here for another sketch soon.
I have my martial arts class to watch (foot's still far from healed) tomorrow night, so I don't know if I'll get my sketch done tomorrow or not. I'll try though.

Have a good night.

Another Monday

2011-08-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Good evening to those of you out there.

Well, last week seemed to pass in a blur. I managed to get my post done on Monday, then Tuesday I went to the doctor to find out why my foot has been hurting. Turns out it's plantar fasciitis. So the rest of my week was taken up with busy days at work, followed up with trying to get this conditions taken care of.

And I went to watch my martial arts class so as not to fall to far behind in my studies. And while there I got some great advice on how to help take care of my foot.

I took Friday off to rest up my foot and purchase the insoles my doctor recommended for me. During the day I decided to whip up some sketches, so I pulled my Bamboo tablet and USB cable out of my laptop bag. But alas, I had no stylus. No digital sketching for me.

But I did manage to get a sketch started on Thursday. And another one today. I'm going to spend the week working in Manga Studio trying to learn more about the program. Especially in regards to getting the sketch saved for posting online better.

Anywho, I need to get some more ice for my foot so I'm gonna take off for the evening. Hope you all dig the sketches and I'll see you back here next time.

Monday Fantasy: Choose your own adventure

2011-08-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening. It's time for a much overdue Monday Sketch.

I had a super busy Monday as my project had to send out a major milestone today. But the good news is that we got the builds out the door before 6pm. Which was great for me as I have been having some trouble with my foot lately (weird pain in my heel, along the inside of my foot) and it was seriously agitated today from a lot of running from my cube, to my temps desks, to my producer's and lead programmer's offices.

By the time we were done with our tasks I was ready to not move around for a while, so I fired up CS3, started listening to the Final Fantasy Tactics soundtrack and began sketching.

I ended up sketching a young night looking at an old map. I really only spent around 10 minutes on the sketch, but I have an idea of the environment in my mind right now. He's in a forgotten portion of a castle's library. Looking at a map leading to a legendary treasure and realizing that a new chapter in his life is beginning at that moment.

That, or he's looking at some form of inkblock nude pinup he found in his Lord's chambers. Perhaps of the Lord's wife? Or mistress?

I'll let you decide what this story is yourself. And the fact that he doesn't have a face should help you come up with some great versions yourselves.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I'll see you all back here tomorrow (hopefully).

What a Week it Has Been

2011-08-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

I'm finally catching some time to update this ol' blog of mine. My absence lately has been largely in part to some rather big news at work, resulting in me now working for a new company and a sea change in the type of games my company makes, as well as a change in how we go about making these games.

There has been a lot to get educated on so far, with a lot more to come. And of course this is on top of continuing work on the project that I was already assigned to. So my free time has been rather sparse as of late.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to my martial arts class that I have now missed for an entire week, so that coupled with work doesn't lead me to believe that I'll be getting a sketch done tomorrow either.

So to make up for the previous lack of updates, and another one tomorrow, I'm finally posting some of the sketches that I've done recently.

Hope ya'll dig 'em and I'll try to get some more done in the near future.

Have a great evening.

Monday after an Absence

2011-08-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

Greetings and salutations.

I'm back. And this week I have given myself a hard goal to get a new sketch done every day this week. I got a few new art program demos this weekend and I really want to check them out. So I'll be doing some experimenting.

Also over the weekend I started watching the anime Seirei no Moribito. It's pretty damn good so far. So I decided to try out program number one with a sketch of the lead character from the show Balsa.

This program actually has a really good pencil simulation. It is one of the best I've seen so far. And I'm looking forward to getting some more time with it tomorrow.

Hope you all have a good evening. See you back here tomorrow.

Monday and Tuesday, Sort of Friday Too

2011-07-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

Good evening anyone out there that is still coming around to this blog.

Sorry for the continual lapses in my updates. I started to do a sketch on Friday of Soka and Suki from Avatar: The Last Airbender. But I didn't get much farther than some quick gestures, so I fleshed out the forms a little more on Monday.
Suki's right arm is crazy long, and I didn't feel like spending a lot more time trying to fix the layout. But I like the concept of the sketch and will probably re-visit it again in the near future.

Today's sketch is inspired by the upcoming Pixar flick, Brave. The teaser trailer looks pretty awesome. I'm a big fan of Scottish lore and love those settings, so this movie looks to be right up my alley. Plus the colors are amazing.

Anywho, I might finish this one up some more tomorrow. Or I might work on something else all together. We'll see what happens.

Have a good night everyone.

Tripple Shot

2011-07-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, guess what. I finally got around to posting to my blog.

I have three sketches for your viewing pleasure tonight. The first is a sketch of Conan I did on Saturday when I had a few minutes. This one was done in my sketchbook.

The second was an outline for another drawing of the Cimmerian, rescuing a princess. But when I looked at it again this afternoon I realized that it looked almost identical to the Marv and Goldie sketch I did the other day.

So I scrapped that idea and moved on to today's sketch of the Barbarian in the process of rescuing the princess.

Hope ya'll dig the sword & sorcery sketches. And I'll see you all back here again next time.

Bummer

2011-07-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well howdy there folks.

You might notice that this evening's posting is rather light on the visual material. Some might even say it's downright lacking in any artistic content at all.
And both of you are right.

I didn't get a sketch done during my lunch break today because I tried to work on my iaijutsu in a secluded corner of the office building. This is because I spent the evening feeling under the weather in our water closet at the apartment and didn't make it to class.

Then the day proceeded to get away from me while I was nose deep in Excel.
But I had the plan to do a pencil on paper sketch this evening at home.

But an animal emergency popped up causing me to make not one, but two runs to stores for products to help prevent any further blood from getting on the house and furnishings, as well as components to clean up said blood.

Bummer.

Well, I'll try to get a sketch done this weekend if I can. But it's gotten rather booked up so I'm not sure if I can really make that a promise.
I will try my best though.

See you all on the flip-flop.

And Now for Something, Completely Different

2011-07-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

Hope you all are having a great day. I had a pretty good one myself. Busy, but good none the less. And when I sat down to do my sketch today I felt like painting an environment instead of sketching yet another person.

I'm really sorry that I missed the sketch yesterday. It was another of those days that seemed to slip past you before you even realized what happened.

However, in doing so it's becoming very clear that I need a new stylus for my Bamboo tablet. One of these days I'll get a new one.

Anyway I hope you all like the sketch this week. I'm going to go and get some sleep in a few minutes. So, have a great evening and I'll be back here soon.
Maybe even tomorrow.

Two Sketches for this Monday Night

2011-07-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone.

Well I spent the weekend with a cold, and a sick daughter, but the family and I did manage to have some fun when we could.

But it is now way past time for bed, so I'm going to make this quick.

Here is the sketch from last Friday. It is of the character Briareos Hecatonchires from Masamune Shirow's manga Appleseed.

And today's sketch is another inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City. It is of Marv and his goddess, Goldie. Or at least, the memory of her.

Hope you all dig the sketches and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Two for...Wednesday

2011-07-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well, good evening everyone. Hope you all had a happy and safe 4th of July.

We've been having some fantastic weather here in the Pacific Northwest. I ended up not being able to post my blog yesterday due to the fact that, well, I lost track of time.

So today you get two super fast sketches.

Yesterday's sketch is of Natsuki and Kenji from the movie Summer Wars. I watched it last week and it was awesome. It totally surprised me. I wasn't sure if I was going to be very into it at the beginning. But by the time the movie was coming to a completion I was cheering for the entire family the movie focuses on.

And today's sketch was going to be of Sin City's resident bombshell exotic dancer, Nancy. But with more of a Brom styled twist. Though I didn't get much further than picking out the background/base color and started outlining the figure. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow Or maybe I'll do a new sketch to keep my pencil moving.

Anywho, have a good evening. I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Another Dose of Miller

2011-06-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

No, not the beer. It's time for another sketch in the style of Frank Miller. I got to spend a few more minutes on my Miranda sketch today. And now it's time to post it.

I have been having a hard time finding a brush in CS3 that I like for this style, but this one worked a little better than the one I used earlier on the Squirrel Girl sketch.

Her face didn't turn out how I wanted it to, and that's mostly because I was having a hard time getting the 'digital ink' to do what I wanted. Were I doing this in traditional media I'm pretty sure that it would have been a lot easier for me to get the eyes right.

And I found it funny that even though she is from a far more technologically superior universe/time than ours, I still drew her with a 45. I guess it was the subtle influence of the Frank Miller art style.

Oh well, at least I'm getting something up tonight.

A Work in Progress

2011-06-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

Welcome back for another installment of ninjaboy's sketch-a-day. I'm your host, ninjaboy.

Well I did manage to take 15 minutes today to sketch out the gesture for my Frank Miller - Miranda (take 2) sketch.

It's not quite as flowy as my previous/first gesture from yesterday, but it isn't a bad start. Hopefully I'll be able to start blocking in the fills tomorrow and get it ready for posting on Friday.

(I'm not confident that I'll have a sketch to post tomorrow as I have a busy day at work, then tomorrow night is my martial arts class and I'm usually pretty beat after that)

So until then, have a great night and I'll see you back here soon.

An update and a snafu

2011-06-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Well, hey there everyone.

I meant to post my sketch on Monday, but completely got distracted and forgot to pull the laptop out to post it.

So I was going to post it yesterday, along with a new sketch. But not only was it my daughter's b-day yesterday that meant that we were having a lot of fun but I also had a hardware problem with my laptop that resulted in my MacBook rebooting its self.

Before I saved my new sketch.

Awesome.

I'll try to get that picture re-sketched today if I get the chance.

But in the meantime, here's the sketch I was going to post on Monday.

It's of one of the comical Marvel heroes, who apparently is one of the most badass in the universe. Squirrel Girl.

However, as per Saul's suggestion I tried to sketch her in the visual stylings of Frank Miller.

It was really different trying to do this style digitally. I find it easy to do in traditional media, but after some more time I'm sure it will be just as easy to do in pixels as well.

Hope you all like.

Darnit!

2011-06-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well blast! I totally spaced on updating my blog last night.

So here's my late update from last night. I did a little more work on the previous sketch, fleshing out the adventurer in the foreground, as well as roughing in the monster behind him.

Not a lot of new work, but enough for an update.

If I get the chance to do another sketch today I will. But seeing as how I have class tonight, I probably won't be able to get one done and posted. We'll see though.

Setting the Scene

2011-06-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

Today I decided to work on another sketch that was more than just a figure posing in a positive field. So since I've been thinking about D&D again quite a bit today (to get my mind off some other sad news in the family) I decided to do a sketch of a character not exactly having the best of times during an 'encounter'.

I would like to work on this some more tomorrow if I can. But I do have another cool idea for another sketch (thanks for the suggestion Saul) that I want to get done later this week.

Anyway. Hope you all dig the super rough layout.

Have a good evening.

Water Bending

2011-06-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

Despite having a tweaked back I had a good chill weekend. My daughter and I watched some of Avatar's second season. When I sat down with my Bamboo tablet today, once again I decided to do another sketch based on this show once again.

Today's sketch is of Katara, from the Southern Water Tribe. I always really enjoy watching her water bending scenes because the animators do a great job using Tai Chi in really dynamic ways.

Hope ya'll like the sketch and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

A Week Condensed into One Post

2011-06-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hi again.

Well, I didn't get any postings done this week. And a bulk of that was due to the fact that we were once again getting a different internet provider at home.

Another factor was me having enough time to do a fast sketch (almost) every day this week, but the next thing I knew the day was over, and I had to leave.

So here is my week-long backlog of sketches.

First, is based on the elven archer from the upcoming game Dragon's Crown by Vanillaware. I was a big fan of their previous game Odin's Sphere and am planning on playing their Wii game Muramasa sometime in the near future.

Next up is sketch of Solid Snake, inspired by a conversation I had at work on Tuesday about game pacing. It's no secret that MGS was, and still is, my favorite video game.

Wednesday's sketch was a super fast, and very sloppy scene of Spider-Man battling his nemesis, Venom. I realized that I really haven't been doing much more than sketches of a figure with no environment, or actual story. While this may have worked for the old Marvel Universe Trading Cards, it really starts to look one-dimensional and boring for a blog.

Thursday's sketch was going to be a rendition of Ayame from the Tenchu game series. But I only had a very short amount of time to work on the sketch, and was planning on re-visiting it later to finish it up.

Sadly, Friday was super busy for me and I ended up not working on Thursday's sketch any more. Nor did I work on a new sketch for that day. Bummer. And I was doing so well too.

Oh well, depending on how long my daughter's nap is today, I may get some more work done on the Ayame sketch. Or I'll just start a new one. But we'll see what happens.

Have a good weekend everyone.

The Internets, I Has Them.... Barely

2011-06-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a week it has been.

We are once again firmly trenched in for another round of internet battle at the apartment. We switched to a different provider with the understanding that we would be getting more reliable internet signal, and a reliable billing process.

Only to find that the internet speed is a fraction of what was promised, and less than acceptable for this modern age.
Too slow for Netflix streaming (another reason we got rid of our previous cable TV).
Incredibly slow downloading games, or game related materials (it took me 16 hours to download the copy of inFAMOUS I got from Sony).

We are in the process of hopefully getting this all sorted out, but it really took a bite out of my week. And getting any sketching done.

Today I had about 5 minutes to do a sketch so I finally did one.

It's a really iffy sketch of a shinobi perched above his prey. Or the guard of his prey. Or is he just avoiding being discovered so he can exit with the information he was hired to retrieve?
I'll leave that to you.

Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll try my best to get back into the swing of things next week.

Saturday is the new Friday

2011-06-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Blast! I missed my posting yesterday.

We had some friends over for dinner after work last night and I got caught up with that so I completely forgot to open my laptop.

I did get in a sketch yesterday. And it is of Vanessa from King of Fighters. I have always liked her design, though I haven't played her much in the games.

I was liking the sketch yesterday, up until I started working on her face. Then for some reason I just couldn't get the eyes to come together at all. And before I knew it, the 10 minutes I gave myself for the sketch had come and gone.

Oh well. Maybe I'll come back and fix this sketch up in the future.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great weekend. It's already sunny and blue skies here. Play hard and be safe.

Fighting Game Gals, Part 3

2011-06-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

Just got back from watching class again and I wanted to get my posting taken care of before I forget.

Today's entry in the Fighting Game Gals line of sketches, is of Last Blade 2's Hibiki.

I played this game a bit years ago when I had my old Dreamcast. It was a lot of fun, and I loved the character designs. Hibiki was a particular favorite of my friends and mine.

I didn't get as much time to work on the sketch today. So I think I'll put a little more time into it tomorrow. Or at the very least some quick splashes of red.

See ya all back here tomorrow.

Ha Ha! Made it!

2011-06-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought for sure I was going to miss another posting this week. After I put my daughter to bed I got sucked into adding some new content to my iTunes and completely lost track of time.

I already missed my posting yesterday. I wouldn't miss another one.

So here is yesterday's sketch.

It's of my favorite video game karateka, Hitomi from the Dead or Alive series. Honestly, I haven't played the games with her that much. But I love her design.
The sketch is very loose, but that's to be expected as it was my first sketch for the week and I only had a few minutes to work on it.

Today's sketch is next.

In keeping with the fighting game girl trend, I decided to sketch Street Fighter's Ibuki. The pose for this sketch was inspired by the opening scene of the movie Shinobi no Mono. I just recently picked up the series and am really looking forward to watching them.
You should all probably expect some more shinobi sketches in the near future.

Well hope ya'll dig the sketches and have a great evening. I have to get to bed. I'm sitting in on another class tomorrow evening and need to be rested.

Good night.

Bad ninjaboy!

2011-05-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

Greetings internet-land. Hope you all are having a nice start to this Memorial Day weekend (in the states).

Well, I didn't get a sketch done or posted on Thursday. And I did get a super fast sketch done on Friday, but I completely spaced getting it online.

So here is my 10 minute Sumo sketch from Friday.

A coworker and I were talking about the Machida Vs Couture fight and I was reminded that Machida has also studied Sumo. Which we figured was probably a good reason why he was able to shake off Randy pretty easily.

So I decided to do a super fast sketch of a Sumo Rikishi.

And also to make up for the missed sketch from Thursday, here is the only sketch I did last weekend during our D&D game.

It's of my Bard picking flowers to please a certain character from the party.

Hope you all can forgive me, and if I get the chance today I might actually work on another sketch.

See ya'll later.

Oops!

2011-05-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Darnit! I can't believe I forgot to post my sketch last night.

I started the week with another sketch based off of the book Game of Thrones. This time of the young lord(ling) Rob Stark preparing for battle.

I didn't go into very many details with this sketch as I intended it to be more of a warmup sketch than anything else. I stuck with the grey tones for two reasons.
1. Grey and black are the house colors for the Stark family.
2. The book is rarely (if ever) written in black and white. Like real life, the story is varying shades of grey.

I did do one sketch over the weekend during our D&D game on Sat. I haven't scanned it, but I will probably take a picture of it and post it later.
To make up for the missed update yesterday.

This week I will be ordering some new art related stuff using some birthday money I got from my awesome family. I'll be getting a new stylus for my Bamboo tablet as my current one is getting very worn down through me using too much pressure two years ago (instead of checking on the tablet/pen settings). And I'm pretty sure that I'll be ordering Manga Studio Debut as well. I'm liking the way that program looks and I guess I can't be happy with only having 3 drawing/sketching programs to use.
But I'm pretty excited about getting these new tools.

Anyway, I'll see you all back here later with a new sketch for today.

Ninja!

2011-05-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hey all.

I guess the nice weather we had here really distracted me from getting a sketch done yesterday.

I got sucked into helping another project out at work, then we went for a long drive after work to enjoy the sun. Grabbed some dinner and had a really chill night at home.
Well, other than my daughter being completely over-tired and having some serious meltdowns.

But I do apologize for not getting a sketch either done, or posted yesterday.

But I did manage to get one done today. And I'm looking forward to doing a better version of an earlier sketch tomorrow.
For today I went back to my roots and drew, you guessed it. Shinobi no mono. Otherwise known as a ninja.

Hope ya'll dig it. And I'll see you tomorrow.

Tuesday, five minute sketch

2011-05-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

I had a few minutes today to do a quick sketch. During my lunch break I was watching some videos on youtube of some video games that caught my attention recently. And the funny thing is that they are ports, not new games.

Including one that I've been meaning to pick up for a while now. The new version of Lunar that came out recently. So when I had five minutes to whip up the sketch I decided to do another super fast sketch of Lunar's main character Alex. And it's another sketch in my growing series of drawings of people/characters that you really wouldn't be able to recognize unless I told you who they were.

Oh well. Guess I could blame it on the cold... but really, I'm just out of practice.

Anyway. I'll see ya'll back here tomorrow.

SF: Sketch

2011-05-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

I'm starting to feel a functional again, enough so that I went to work. And near the end of the day I took a small break to do my Monday sketch.
The inspiration for today was one of my favorite movies. Samurai Fiction.

If you are a fan of samurai flicks, japanese comedy and an all around good time, you should totally check this movie out.

The sketch was intended to be the main character, Heishiro. But, it really didn't come together as well as I would have liked. Probably should have used some photo reference...
Anyway, to help those that have seen the movie, I included his family's sacred sword behind him and the pepper balls around him.

Anyway, I should be getting to bed. My daughter has gotten sick, again, and I really want to get over this cold so I don't get sick again too.

Hope ya'll enjoy and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

UPDATE: LOL, I just looked at the sketch again posting it... and it REALLY doesn't look like Heishiro at all! Oh well.

Colds Suck!

2011-05-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hey again.

I'm sorry to report that I was unable to get another sketch done yesterday. I spent the vast majority of the day lying down (when I wasn't making tea, Emergen-C or pouring POG to drink). My continuous coughing would have made trying to get some sketches done a trial.

So depending on if I'm feeling up to it, I might try to get a drawing done, scanned and posted tomorrow (Sunday). But don't hold your breath.

My main goal is to be better enough to go back to work on Monday.

Have a great weekend. Or at least, have a better one that I will.

I lost an update!

2011-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess somewhere along the lines I either never actually posted my Wednesday sketch. Or the work being done on Blogger resulted in the post being deleted from my blog.

Either way, here is a sketch that I thought I posted previously this week, but may not have.

Again, not my fault

2011-05-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

Well, turns out I was thwarted once again from posting my sketch. More work being done on the site made it so I wasn't able to put up my sketch from yesterday.
Not a big deal, just made me laugh a bit. Two days in a row I had a sketch ready to go and I couldn't post them. Where as in the past, I easily could have gotten online, but I just didn't have anything to post.

Anyway, yesterday's sketch is of Ukyo from Samurai Spirits (Showdown). He was always one of my favorite characters to play. I loved his battojutsu style and his color scheme was really fun and fresh compared to the standard designs for other fighting game characters.

And this sketch was actually one of my favorites that I've done in a while.

I'm not sure if I'll be getting a sketch done today though, as I seem to have caught the crud that's going around work and infected my daughter. I'll try to get a traditional media sketch done this evening if I can. If not, chock this one up as a sick day.

Enjoy, and stay healthy.

What?!? It's Wednesday? What happened to last night?

2011-05-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Well crap. I totally broke my 'return to form' run on the ol blog didn't I?

To be fair, I did get a sketch done yesterday though. But when I got home I got caught up in, figuring out dinner, helping my daughter deal with having another cold, eating, and watching new episodes of Deadliest Catch and The Voice.

Then I got to work and fired up my laptop which then reminded me that, yes, I forgot to update my blog. Way to go dude. Not winning.

Anyway, I felt like doing things a little different yesterday so I did my sketch in SketchBookExpress instead of CS3 like I normally do.
I really like the digital pencil in this program, and someday, I plan on picking up the full version of it.

The sketch I did was once again of Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. While I was on vacation last week my daughter and I watched some more episodes from Season 1 and we both thought it was getting pretty cool.
Add to that the fact that I'm a serious martial arts nut, I'm totally jazzed about the fact that the Airbender combat style is based off of Ba Gua Zhang. So of course I had to do a sketch of Aang practicing more of this internal martial art.

Hope ya'll dig it, and I'll see you back here later with another sketch.

Super Fast Snow

2011-05-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

Well, what do you know. I'm back from my vacation and I managed to get a super fast sketch done today.

I have been playing Final Fantasy XIII quite a bit lately, and being the unoriginal artist that I am I ended up drawing Snow from the game while on a 10 minute break today.

But I didn't get around to the update until now, but hey, at least it's still Monday.

Now I have to make sure that I keep this ball rolling and get back on the sketch-a-day train.

Hopefully I'll be back here tomorrow.

Now I'm the Badguy

2011-04-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

I'm pretty excited to say that I was actually able to work up a quick sketch this evening during my dinner break.

Thanks in no small part to my daughter playing the movie Tangled over, and over, and over at home when I sat down with CS3 the first thing that popped into my head was Mother Gothel.

And to be honest I'm actually glad, because if she didn't I probably wouldn't have had a sketch this evening. I didn't have a lot of time, and any artist block would have ruined my chances of getting a sketch done and posted this evening.

Anyway, I hope you all dig the sketch and hopefully I'll be back here tomorrow with another new one.

I'm back for another long overdue posting

2011-04-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe how fast time flies when you're not sketching.

I actually have two sketches to share with ya'll today. One was done in a few minutes one night while I was eating dinner during OT. It didn't go much further than a quick sketch, but perhaps it will some day.

The second sketch was done yesterday but I never got around to finishing it, or posting it. Until today.
It was actually inspired from the last D&D session I played, and portrays my Bard, Marillion Frost meeting up with the gaming party. More specifically, meeting the Half-Orc, Ootah and trying to charm her with all of his wiles.

Anyway, I'll try go get some more sketching done this week. See you later.

Another Night, Another Missed Sketch

2011-04-08T22:59:00.001-07:00

Wow, 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty meager year in terms of my blog commitment.

I didn't get around to doing another sketch this evening. Work kept me steadily busy into the early night.

I had the thought of doing a digital sketch now, but of course in my haste to get the hell out of the office I forgot to grab my Bamboo tablet.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll work on some traditional sketches. Unless the cold that the girlfriend and daughter both caught finally grabs ahold of me like it feels like it's trying to do. But we'll see.

Anyway, hope you all have a good evening and I'll see you back here again soon.

Super Fast Rapunzel

2011-04-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

Ok, so I did this super fast sketch on Wednesday at some point with the intention of posting it either that night or yesterday. But alas, I just never got around to this blog.

So here it is. Late. And not refined at all.

If I'm lucky I'll get a new sketch done and posted today as well.

See you all soon.

So much for my Tuesday post

2011-04-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hi out there. Is anyone still there? It's been so long that I wouldn't blame you for not checking out my blog.

But I actually did a quick ten minute sketch yesterday. And planned on posting it before bed last night, but with a girlfriend and daughter now both having a cold, I ended up completely spacing the afore mentioned goal of posting the sketch online last night.

However, as I'm waiting for my builds to finish I am posting what should have been here yesterday. Now.

It's another attempt at me working out my new Bard character. Marillion Frost.

Hope you all enjoy, and I'll try to get another sketch done later today. Perhaps during my dinner break.

Still here

2011-03-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Well well, I'm finally getting around to another posting.

I have a few new sketches to show. Including one of the Dread Pirate Roberts. We showed the movie to our daughter for the first time recently and I couldn't help but do a sketch of it. I know there are a lot of flaws with it, but I had fun slapping it down on 'paper' none the less.
I'll probably re-visit it again at a later date. But then again, I've said that about a lot of my sketches...

There is also a sketch of a young Kaneda and Tetsuo horsing around.
Valiant Comic's character Rai in more traditional Japanese attire than the gung-fu pants that he is usually drawn wearing.
And, since my drawing hand is greatly influenced by media in my life, I did a sketch of Aang practicing some Baguazhang.

Hope you all dig the sketches, and I hope to see you back online sometime soon.

Sketches. Finally.

2011-03-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since my last posting.

Since then I've finally got internet in the apartment, and have had no time in the evenings to post my sketches.

So to make up for that I have two sketch files I worked on the past couple of days. These are of the new character I will be playing in D&D. It will be the first time I have played a Bard honestly. And so far I'm really enjoying this character. his personality has really been forming in my mind lately and now I'm trying to figure out his visuals.

Anyway, I hope ya'll dig and I'll see you back here with another update soon.

Still no home internets

2011-03-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone out there.

Well this last weekend was just as busy as I thought it would be. We had the big move from the condo to our new apartment and it went pretty darn well. Though there are still a few things that need to be moved yet, but at least we have a few more days to be completely out.

And I did manage to get a few super fast sketches done yesterday, however we still don't have the interwebs connected to our new digs. So when I got home last night and went to pull out my laptop to post the sketches, I realized that this was a fool's errand.

So I will post the sketches from yesterday now.

Each sketch was only one to two minutes. And I just wanted to get the pen moving again. Basically I started sketching out image A, then I realized that I didn't like the body positioning which led to image B. And when I was around two minutes into that sketch I decided to try another sketch which led to image C.

Not the best work I've done, but considering the amount of time between these and my previous sketch I'm afraid to say that I expected to see worse.

Anywho, hope ya'll dig and I'll see you back here for my next post. Which I will try to do before I take off for the evening today.

X-O, from a couple days ago

2011-02-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

I found that I actually had some time to whip out a quick sketch earlier this week. And I was feeling nostalgic so I did another of my favorite Valiant comic characters. X-O Manowar.

Kind of a silly name, but made for some really interesting stories.

I have to get back to work now, but I just wanted to take a minute to post the sketch before I forgot about it again.

The move is taking up all of my time outside of work. And the snow that has been falling off and on for the past two days has really been doing a great job of making this week prove to be rather interesting.

Anyway, if I get some time to do another sketch I will. Otherwise I'll see you all when the dust settles.

Heads Up: Moving

2011-02-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to let you know that this week my family and I will be moving. And as such I probably won't have very many sketches posted this week.

I'll try to get some done, but there is a lot of work to do this week so I don't want to make any promises.

Thanks for the understanding and I'll see ya' back here next week.

Yeah, I was wrong

2011-02-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

Well this sucks. I didn't get a sketch done yesterday.

I had a super busy day at work yesterday that went into the night and before I knew it, I was going to sleep around midnight and I hadn't put my stylus and Bamboo to work in CS3 or SketchBook Express.

Yikes. I'll try to get at least one sketch done this weekend.

See ya'll then.

My how time flies

2011-02-17T23:29:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's Thursday night already. I'm not exactly sure where this week has gone. But I do know that our housing situation, work and the periodical distractions of D&D books have been having a greater impact on time than I originally had thought.

I do know that I managed to work on two sketches this week so far. That's not good, considering I should have had 5 by the end of the day tomorrow. I will try my best to have a third done for posting tomorrow though.

The first sketch is me working out my new character in our next gaming campaign. I will be passing off the role of Dungeon Master to another eager companion and once again will be using my dice to combat baddies, rather than playing as them.
I have decided on portraying a Bard this venture, and I have some great ideas for the character. I really wish that I was able to play him from first level on, but the requirements of the next game are dictating that I start at a higher level so as to actually have a fair chance.
Anyway, this sketch is me working out what the character could be. Both visually and in my head. Not much to look at, but hey, it was a Monday 'warm up' sketch.

The second sketch is actually one that I have been working on a little bit over the last two days. It is of the oldest Stark children from the book A Game of Thrones. Sansa, as regal as ever despite her youth. Rob with his enthusiasm and desire to be the leader he knows he can be. And their half brother Jon Snow. The bastard with his own path to walk in the cold north.

Hope you all dig. I'll be back tomorrow sometime with my final update for the week. Though it looks like I'll have a few hours to myself on Sunday so perhaps I'll work on some more sketches to make up for the poor performance this week. Or maybe I'll spend that time playing video games.

I haven't quite decided yet.

And I'm spent...

2011-02-11T22:27:00.000-08:00

Hi there out there in internet land.

I am completely spent. I had two nights in a row of little sleep, and had a very draining day. So I'm going to make this short and sweet.

At lunch I started drawing a sketch of good ol' Logan. I really liked the head and face and was really liking the way it was coming together.

Until I drew the body.
Then it lost something. I'm not sure what. It may have just been me being tired, but I quit on that sketch and moved on to this one.

And I liked this one a little more. The head and face didn't have the same style I was going for, but the rest of it seemed to feel a little better.

Then I decided to start inking it. And that's when I ran out of time.

And now, I'm going to bed. Hope you all dig this Friday triple-shot. Don't get used to it. :P

Why I didn't post a sketch yesterday

2011-02-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

Well it happened again. I didn't post a sketch yesterday.
But I have a good reason for this. And mostly because it will also affect today as well.

First off work has me a little busy right now. But I should have this task handled today.

However, this weekend my gaming group and I are planning a power session to see if we can complete the campaign. So to prepare for that I have a lot of maps to draw before Saturday. I had to go get a pad of grid paper to help speed along the process last night. And boy, did it speed up my workflow.

In the past I had been either using the wet erase grid pads we have to draw out maps at game, or if I have the time I would make my own grid paper then draw the maps. This took a LOT of time.

Eliminating the grid drawing made it so I was able to blast out 3 maps last night, and I'm pretty sure I can get more done tonight. Which would be awesome considering I have 6 more maps to go.

So there you go. It's an excuse, but I feel that it's a pretty good one. I may not have sketched something, but at least I was still doing something artistic. And it is going to be used for the greater (geeky) good.

What happened to Monday?

2011-02-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

You ever had one of those days that seemed to go by at a normal pace. Everything seemed to be going good. Traffic wasn't that bad. Dinner was great. Then the next thing you knew it was midnight?

Yeah, that was my Monday. Probably the biggest factor in my sketch not getting posted was the fact that my daughter did not want to go to bed.
But that's not to say that I didn't get anything done yesterday evening. After she fell asleep I managed to draw out two of the last 11 maps for the D&D campaign that I'm running.

... when I should have been updating my blog. I even had two sketches to post and everything.
Oh well, that just means that you get 3 today.

The first is of one of my favorite green, super strong, comic book tanks. The Savage Dragon. He quickly became my brother and I's favorite Image character. I'm a HUGE Erik Larsen fan, and his Dragon stories were really fun to read.
Though at times I do wish he'd slow down and render out his pages a little more, but I completely understand his 'do as many books as I can to tell these awesome stories' method. And honestly, I don't mind.

The second and third sketches are of Red Sojna, everyone's favorite scantily clad counterpart to Conan. I picked up Savage Tales #1 in the Comixology app [iTunes link] the other day and it was a great read. I haven't been that into fantasy digest style comics in the past, but I had a lot of fun reading this one. And so, me being the unoriginal artist that I am, I decided to do a sketch of Red showing someone why they don't put their hands on a lady's equipment.

I'll let you figure out which equipment was touched on your own.

I didn't like how static the first sketch was from yesterday, so I tried to make it move lively today.

Hope you like all the sketches. I know I had fun drawing them. And I'll see you back here tomorrow.

A Dungeon Escape

2011-02-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

Good evening everyone.

I'm gearing up to head to bed for the night. But I couldn't do so before I posted my sketch for the day.

I only had about 15 or 20 minutes to get a sketch done today, and when I put my pen to tablet I found the sudden urge to sketch Link escaping the castle with the Princess Zelda.

Anyway, I hope ya'll dig the sketch. And I'll see you back here Monday.

Super Spy

2011-02-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

Hello again. It's me. And I'm back for another update.

I didn't think that I was going to do another female sketch, but while I was looking through some art saved to my laptop I had the sudden inspiration to draw Black Widow.

Honestly, I haven't followed her much past the early/mid 90s. I remember her being a pretty cool character, but she never seemed more than a secondary story element to me.
A good case in point would be the story arc in Uncanny X-Men, with Jim Lee at the art helm, where Logan teams up with her and Captain America in present times, which happened to mirror a mission during WW2 when the characters had a similar mission. Or at least, that's how I remember the story reading... I'll have to dig out my Jim Lee Masterworks trade to see if I'm totally butchering that storyline or not.

Either way, it was a fun story arc to read and she was a really interesting (if not easy on the eyes) character for this narration. However I didn't feel the need to find her in another comic to see what the rest of her story was.

I do know that in the Ultimate Marvel Universe she hooked up with Tony Stark, video taped them having sex, and was killed(?). All of this I found out in the book The Ultimates 3, Issue 1.

Anyway, I wanted to draw her more as her Spy role more than the superhero image. Not much to the sketch, just spent some time putting lines on 'paper' and then added a fill.

Hope you all dig the sketch and I'll see you back here again tomorrow.

I'm back, I'm back, yes I'm back

2011-02-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Well hello there internet. It seems like it's been so long since the last time I was putting words and pixels up here.

A combination of sketches falling apart, working on a different one and work keeping me busy I haven't had any updates in quite some time.

As you may remember, I've been working on a new Bonnie Lass sketch, trying to make a more polished/finished sketch for the super talented Michael Mayne.
The layout I started working on actually looked pretty good. Or at least, I thought it did. Until I started working on the environment some more. Then the piece just seemed to fall apart.

I tried and tried, but after a good amount of frustration I ended up returning to my first sketch and began refining that image. After all, I didn't want to keep everyone waiting forever.

So I present to you a better inked, flat colored version of my Bonnie Lass sketch.

Hope you like it. And I'll see you all back here again tomorrow with a new sketch.

What a week...

2011-01-21T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hey there internet land.

Well, as I expected, this week ended up being rather busy at work for me. And I don't want to post my new fan pic for Bonnie Lass until I've got it 'finished', so you will not be seeing update for that yet. Especially since I have barely had a chance to work on it this week.

Sorry. :P

However, I did manage to sneak in a super fast sketch yesterday of one of my favorite characters from the SNK game Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Khushnood Butt.
Terrible name. But he was a lot of fun to play as.
Thinking about that game made me really miss my old Dreamcast. I had an absolute blast playing that game, and it looked amazing. SNK really knows how to animate fighting movements. While I will always love Capcom's art more than SNK's realistic style, their animations always seemed to be a little better than the big C's.

Anyway, I hope you all dig the super fast sketch and I'll hopefully have a new fan pic to post sometime soon.

Reeesult!

2011-01-17T19:44:00.000-08:00

Wel well well... sometimes life can still surprise me.

Ok that's not exactly true. Life always surprises me. But today I actually came home to an empty condo as the GF and my daughter were out running some errands with the grandparents, so I was able to sit down and work on a quick sketch.

I wanted to keep it very loose this evening, mostly to just be sure to get a concept down on 'canvas' quickly, but also because I don't know when exactly my family will walk through the door.

I had a hard time thinking of something I could do really quickly, and in the end I still ended up working on a concept for another Bonnie Lass fan art. I will probably devote a good amount of this week to working on a new sketch so if I don't have any updates it will be because I'll just post the w.i.p after I post the final sketch.

In any case. I hope you all dig the 5 minute sketch and I'll see you back here for my next update.

Have a great evening.

Yay Mondays

2011-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone.

I was super excited to start work on a refined version of my Thursday/Friday sketch, or possibly a new Bonnie Lass sketch as the series' artist Michael Mayne found my sketch and put it up on his Bonnie Lass Facebook page!!!
That made my weekend. And I had a lot of fun this weekend, so that should say something.

Anyway, I got to work with an eagerness to open CS3 like I haven't had since AIS or immediately after. Until I unpacked my back.

No Bamboo tablet.

*sigh*

If I get the chance I'll try to work on a sketch this evening, but I'm not too optimistic that I'll be able to.

Keeping my fingers crossed though.

Back, as promised

2011-01-15T00:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe a little later than I originally thought I would get around to posting the next sketch. But hey at least it's going up.

The sketch didn't get as refined as I thought it would, but I did get to refine her a bit more. And yeah I was able to make her a little curvier than the first sketch. But not really as much as the character really is. I guess it just goes to show how much work I still need to do to draw different body types. Or just how much more practice I have to do period.

And yes, I just noticed that the left leg of her shorts is a lot longer than her right leg (if she were to stand up straight). Oh well.

Don't really have much more to say about it right now. I'm going to head to bed to get some sleep as it's now rather late.

Hope you all have a great weekend. See you back here on Monday.

Yesterday, by way of today

2011-01-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.

Really quick I wanted to prove that I was working on a sketch yesterday. But my time ran out rather quickly, and I went home to a very tantrum centric 2 year old so I didn't get the sketch either finished or updated.

So I'll post what I have so far now, and will work on it some more today.

It's of a character named Bonnie Lass and I found her book in the awesome Comics (iTunes link) application for iOS. It's a pretty fun comic and has some really great art by Michael Mayne. I really love his linework.
But while I was working on this sketch I realized that she was not curvy enough, so I'm going to work on that more today.

So enjoy the sketch. Pick up the Comics app (free) and buy Bonnie Lass and enjoy that comic.

See you later.

Tink for Mya

2011-01-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, today's sketch started with good intentions and then fell apart.

I was completely drawing a blank when it came time to sit down for today's sketch. I mean completely. I didn't feel like drawing anything, and I was completely uninspired.
Well that's not exactly true. I considered doing another sketch of Miranda. Or possibly another from the book A Game of Thrones. But I was feeling like I needed to take a break from my usual sketching fare.

So, as the day was slipping away from me I remembered back to this morning when my daughter asked me to do a drawing of Tinkerbell for her in her new notebook.
I managed to give her a rather fast sketch with some serious scaling problems, but she's 2 so she thought it was great.

With this in mind I sat down to do a better version of my earlier attempt at the world's most famous fairy. And sadly I had just as many, if not more, problems with this sketch. Proportions, expression, layout and all around execution was a battle for me this time. Not to mention that my Bamboo stylus is really starting to fail. I have been way to hard on it these past few years, leading to many technical problems with SketchBook Express.

So with a little bit of a heavy heart I'm posting today's image. It's far from what I was trying to do. And honestly I'm really not happy with it. But I'd rather have something I don't like up on my blog than nothing at all. At least this way my pencil/stylus is staying active.

See you all tomorrow with a (hopefully) better sketch.

A clandestine coming together

2011-01-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Good evening to all of you out there. I hope you all had a good weekend.

Today's sketch is very much inspired by Season 3 of The Tudors. There was a scene where the wife of one of the aristocrats slipped away with the king's spy to engage in some morally questionable activities, while her husband was still in the room behind them.

Not exactly activity I condone but it stuck with me as it really felt like this was something that you would probably experience in the royal court during those times.

Anyway, i decided to sketch it out in my own way, giving me practice on drawing figures together, as well as working on subtle background elements. In this case curtains, two hanging and one draped.

Hope you all dig the sketch and I'll see you back here tomorrow for another update.

What a new year it's been.

2011-01-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon everyone.

Well I managed to get a sketch done this week after all. And on Friday no less.

I haven't been able to get my sketching done on account of things being pretty busy for me this week. And I have been having some eye trouble as well, so until that was reigned back in sketching on the computer was a little agitating. But everything's on the mend and feeling better, plus I had a pretty slow day at work so I managed to put together a quick sketch.

Using a new application too. Fresh off of the newly launched Mac App Store, I found the application SketchBook Express. It is the lighter version of it's bigger brother but is pretty cool. In ways it reminds me of a mix between ArtRage (which you may remember is what I was sketching with before getting CS3) and Painter.

It has a really unique UI design that is pretty cool. And the pencil emulation is rather nice as well. I'll probably spend the rest of January playing around with this to see what all it can do for me.

So I present to you a very fast sketch of Jon Snow and his Direwolf from the book A Game of Thrones, which I am very much enjoying. This was not only an exercise in trying out a new tool, but it was also the first time I've drawn an animal in a very long time. I don't think it turned out that badly, but it really shows that I haven't been sketching much lately.

Have to fix that.

So have a great weekend all, and I'll see you back here on Monday.

I, Am, Return

2010-12-28T23:27:00.000-08:00

Well well well, good evening everyone out there on the internet. I hope you all have been having a great holiday season and that you got everything you were hoping for.

Believe it or not, but I actually did a pencil on paper sketch last week but I haven't had time to scan it in. And just as I predicted the holidays have kept me rather busy. Well, the holidays and a cold moving through my household.

I could have done some sketching last night, but instead I ended up getting sucked into the book A Game of Thrones. It really is a wonderfully written tale and even though I'm still in the beginning, I feel like I've known these characters for a long time. I'm really excited to see how the story progresses.

And tonight I actually sat down with my laptop after my daughter and my mom both went to bed (we're visiting Grammie to give the GF some peace so she can kick the crud she came down with). The first sketch is of Miranda from Mass Effect 2.

Yes, I know I'm like a couple of years late to get on this bandwagon, but I just played through the downloadable demo that was released on PSN on Christmas (while I was home with some of the crud as well... Merry Christmas to me) and I'm really digging the game. I was completely not a fan of Dragon Age, so I was a little weary of Mass Effect as I figured it would play the same as DA. Needless to say that I was wrong, and thank goodness for that. I'll be picking the game up on PS3 as soon as it comes out. Maybe I should try to play through the first one in the meantime...

And my second sketch is inspired by the afore mentioned book, A Game of Thrones. This time of a weathered king with a heavy soul burdened by the weight of his position in the lands.

Hope you all enjoy, and I'll try to get some more sketching done during the rest of my vacation.

And if that doesn't happen, have a Happy New Year. Stay safe and I'll see you in 2011.

I want to tel you something...

2010-12-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

Well, good evening out there.

I'm sorry I didn't get my sketch posted yesterday (Friday) but I ended up having a very busy day at work. It actually went to the wee hours of the morning.

So I didn't get to my blog when I thought I would.

Anyway, here is a quick sketch of Black Cat, beckoning to our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to come over for a... talk.

Felecia was one of my favorite Web Head 'villains'. Her romantic history with Peter/Spider-Man has always made the interactions between the to fun to read. One of my favorite stories about the two was done by writer/director Kevin Smith. The book's called Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do and I'd highly advise fans of Spider-Man picking it up for a read. Good stuff.

Anyway, I have to get running as the GF and I are going to a holiday party tonight and there's still work to do.

Have a great weekend and I'll hopefully see you back here on Monday.

Disclaimer: I'm on holiday vacation starting Monday, so I may not get my sketches done on time for the rest of the year. I'll try though.

Another step along the way

2010-12-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend is pretty darn awesome.

Since I missed the last WEC fight when it was live, she put our daughter to bed so I could watch the fights. And so far they've been pretty awesome.

I also managed to get the dishes done. Do my pushups (I started the hundred pushups program again). And I'm getting my sketch posted as well.

Today I spent a little more time working on the Laurana sketch I posted earlier today. The sketch actually had me experience something I haven't had to work through in a while. Frustration. I just couldn't get her face to turn out the way I wanted it to. Each time I worked it, it seemed to get further and further away from... well, looking good. So I would delete it and start again.
And it actually showed me how powerful sketching digitally is as I could completely remove the head, leaving the layout on the layer below allowing me to come at the head fresh again. Something I wouldn't have been able to do on paper. At least, not as easily.

And I also was able to fix some serious proportion problems by using the Scale functionality in CS3. Again, this would have been a massive pain in the ass to fix using traditional media.

Anyway, I hope you like the sketch and I'll see you back here tomorrow for my last 'work day' sketch for 2010.

Ok what gives

2010-12-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't done a posting yet this week!

I have some sketches saved and everything, but every night when I get home I either completely forget to pull my laptop out of my bag to do the update or we are super busy.

Well to make up for that I'll be posting a few of the sketches I saved through the week.

The first is a sketch based on the anime series Gakuen Mokushiroku: High School of the Dead. For those that aren't bothered by heavy violence, zombies and excessive fan service you should check it out.
It starts out pretty awesome, with a really well done 'horror' presentation. The zombies are really threatening, and you really feel the stress of the group of kids and adults that are trying to survive the world around them turning into harbingers of death.
Then the fan service starts to play a more prominent role in the story, and actually is slowly becoming the focus of episodes while the zombies are being showed less and less frequently.
That being said, this old time anime fan is actually enjoying the series.

The second sketch is a scene from the Dragonlance series Chronicles and Dragons of the Hourglass Mage. It is of Laurana as she is being presented to Lord Ariakas in the series. I won't go into more as I would hate to spoil anything. But it was a pretty cool scene in both stories. And it's a sketch I want to work on more.

Lastly is some more work on the HSotD sketch above.

Now that my build is done burning onto my devices, I have to get to work. So I'll (hopefully) see you back here this evening for another update.

A Skirmish in the Snow

2010-12-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

I told you I would be back later this evening with a new sketch.

Today's sketch is inspired by the awesome looking HBO mini-series in development right now based on the George R R Martin book, A Game of Thrones.

Honestly, I wasn't aware of this book series, or the HBO mini-series before today. But the morning stand-up meeting with my dev team ended with a very excited conversation about the show and then the books when I let everyone know that I hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about.
Needless to say, the conversation had me go to the HBO website while I was burning a new build and I was instantly anxious to see the show. It looks awesome.

And I'm hoping to get around to reading the books sometime in the near future as well. I actually have had two or three coworkers all volunteer their copies of the book for me to read. But if I do get it, I'll probably end up getting it through the Amazon Kindle app for my iPhone (since iBooks doesn't seem to have any of George R R Martin's work yet.
Which is too bad, because I like that interface better than the Kindle app's. Oh well.

Anyway, after watching the many videos on the show's website and blog, and considering the amount of environment art I've been seeing from peers online, I decided to do another sketch with an actual background.

The result of which you see here. An exchange of words between these two men resulted in a clashing of steel, that ultimately ended in death.
I hope you all dig the sketch. I had fun doing it, even though I'm still having a hard time getting pixels to behave like paints that I'm familiar with using. But you know what they say... practice makes perfect.

Go watch the videos for Game of Thrones if you haven't already. And have a great evening.

What happened to Wednesday?

2010-12-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

Something amazing happened last night. I got home and spent some time with my daughter while the GF wiped up a tasty dinner.

We ate said delicious dinner.

I put my daughter to bed.

Then suddenly it was super late and time for us to go to bed. The time to work on my sketch just seemed to magically vanish between the two bed times. I hate it when that happens.

So I didn't get a sketch done yesterday, I'll work on a new sketch today and I promise that there will be an update later this evening.

Until then, have a great day. And watch out for those time stealing gremlins.

The Black Lodge

2010-12-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

Well howdy-doo everybody.

It's time for my Tuesday update to the sketch a day. After watching the amazingly well done Dual Spires episode of Psych I found myself a little inspired by the source material/inspiration for this show.

Twin Peaks.

If you were a fan of Twin Peaks this was probably one of the best pieces of comedy you will watch on TV this year.
I can't say enough about how well it was executed. Flawless.

Anyway, I sat down to do my sketch and all I could think of was poor Laura Palmer and Detective Dale Cooper. So I started sketching, and found that I had put down a rough outline of Laura and Detective Cooper in the Black Lodge.

I think I'll probably go about finishing up the sketch tomorrow. I know, I've been doing a lot of sketch series lately. But I think I really want to see how this one looks more fleshed out.

I'm also really wanting to sit down and watch the series again. And I do have a couple weeks of vacation coming up, so it's a strong possibility to actually happen soon.

Maybe I'll see you all there. On the other side.

The Spider and the Rhino

2010-12-06T23:34:00.000-08:00

Well, good evening everyone.

I didn't get a lot of time to work on my sketch today, and surprise, surprise. When I put the stylus to my Bamboo tablet I ended up drawing another Spider Man sketch.

This time he's battling his longtime foe, the Rhino.

I'd be lying if I said that the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series didn't have more than a small part in my recent influx of Arachnid inspired sketches.

Wel, I'm gonna call it a night right now, since the GF and I just started to watch the Twin Peaks episode of Psych.

Peter and MJ

2010-12-04T00:46:00.000-08:00

My daughter has recently embraced her sudden love of Spiderman. Over the last month or two, every time we are out and about and she spots anything that has ol' web head on it and she starts freaking out.
"Daddy! Iis Spiderman!"
If you're al old Spiderman geek like I am, it's one of the cutest things you'll ever hear.
And honestly, she never had a chance. She was genetically predisposed to like Spiderman. I'm her dad after all.

So to help her out with the new obsession, I acquired the first season of the recent animated series The Spectacular Spiderman. The series had all of the characters designed by one of my favorite designers, Sean "Cheeks" Galloway, so I was already curious to see the show. This was that extra bonus to get me to finally pick it up.
And I have to say, it is really good. They changed some elements of Spiderman's past just enough to make it fresh, but they managed to execute his 'witty banter' and relationship drama better than any of the other animated versions of the character I've seen yet.

Too bad it got canceled. Oh well.

Anyway, I decided to do a sketch of Peter and his gal MJ. In this sketch Peter's either getting ready to go out, with the costume under his plain clothes. Or they're just getting home from spending a Spiderman free day together.

I'll let you decide which way it actually went.

Anyway, hope you all have a good weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday.

A Shifty Rat

2010-12-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I managed to get a few minutes of sketching time in at work today.

I put down some small lines on digital paper in CS3, and those lines sort of make up a were-rat like creature.

So just now I went in and threw down some flat colors to help define it's shape and make it less boring.

Hope ya'll dig. And perhaps I'll be back tomorrow with a new sketch.

G'night.

Helping family out...

2010-11-30T16:39:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.

Well in case anyone noticed, I didn't get a sketch done yesterday. And the reason for this is because I'm helping my cousin out with a Christmas present doing some image editing and testing for her.
Her project is super cute and will look really cool when it's all done.
Can't wait to see the finished results X-mas Eve.

Depending on her feedback this evening, I will probably not have a another sketch done for today either.

Work was quite a bit busier than I thought it would be, so my lunch flew by without me realizing it. And next thing I know it's almost 5 PM.
I might try to get in a fast sketch before I leave for the night, but I wouldn't count on it.

If all else fails I may do a pencil sketch after I decompress tonight and scan it in the morning.

But we'll have to see how the night plays out.

I'll see you all soon. And please forgive my lack of updates this week.

Holiday Week = Me Missing Sketches

2010-11-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

I doubted the weather predictions from last week.

"If, and I stress if, we see any snow this weekend it will just be a dusting," I said. Honestly believing that we weren't going to see any real accumulation of snow this winter. Especially this early into the winter.

And when it started snowing on Sunday, I wasn't really surprised. But it stuck. Then the damnedest thing happened. It kept snowing overnight, and we ended up having quite a bit of snow hang out for a few days (it's still here as of tonight as well).

Two snow days and Thanksgiving preparations pretty much sucked away my time and before I new it it was Wednesday and still no new sketch.

So to make up for it I decided to share some drawings I did at the end of last week with my daughter. She really wanted to color with daddy, so we opened her sketchbook, grabbed some crayons and went to town. I think she really improved my sketches.

What do you think?

Anyway I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and a safe weekend.

My oh my, what a weekend.

2010-11-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well how's about that. I finally was able to get to my blog.

Friday kinda exploded on me. I was at work till almost 4am, and I didn't get enough time to do much of my sketch. But I was able to get down a layout.
The sketch is actually based on a character from the D&D campaign I'm running my players through. I know, I know. I said earlier last week that I was going to stop working on a sketch that was inspired by my D&D gaming session. But I just couldn't help myself with this character.

I'll spend some time tomorrow (Monday) to finish it up a little more.

On that note, I'm going to finish watching the last episode of The Next Iron Chef, then watch The Walking Dead.

Have a great evening everyone.

Last in this series

2010-11-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

I think it's time to move on to something else, so this will be the last update to this sketch I'll be doing for a little bit.

I worked on the background with this update. I really needed to get the background darker to help make the figures pop out a little bit. But when I did so I realized that the figure lines were not as dark as I had thought so the illustration feels really unbalanced.

I guess I could just say that this was the rough outline for the sketch; working out lighting, composition and all that jazz. And from here I would take it and work on the final illustration.

If I were actually making this for a portfolio piece, or if I was back at the Art Institute, I would totally go forward with the sketch. But considering the gap in posting lately, and the fact that all week has been devoted to this sketch I think I can move on for now.

Oh yeah, I also moved the explorer's left arm to more of an angle to create a little more interest in the flow of the illustration. It's something I read about in that copy of ImagineFX I picked up and I'm trying to keep the concept in mind for the rest of the year.

Anyway, hope ya'll dig and I'll see you back here tomorrow. Which reminds me, I'm going to be at work late tomorrow so the sketch might not come until pretty late at night. Just FYI.

Sleep Happens, Then You Sketch

2010-11-17T23:12:00.000-08:00

Well I had every intention to post my sketch last nigh. But when I put my daughter down for bed, I ended up falling asleep myself. Which made it a little hard to post a sketch.

So I put some more time into the sketch today.

Hope you all enjoy the further elaboration of the sketch started on Monday.

Way past due

2010-11-15T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, good evening out there in internet land.

If you happen to check this blog more than once in a while, you may have noticed that I missed a posting last week. Or rather, all of them. Yikes.

Well, I'm getting back on track after a week of half days and a day off. Today's sketch is based off of the last gaming session with my group. They found themselves in a rather trying fight in a room with lots of water and some small standing areas joined by some old iron bridges. And yes, there were some skeletal foes in and out of the water.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to devote to the sketch today, so it's not much more than an outline. if I'm feeling like it I might put some more time on it tomorrow. We'll see how my inspiration and availability looks then.

So, until tomorrow I hope you like the sketch and stay warm and dry this evening.

Later.

Tuesday's sketch along with some Wednesday progress

2010-11-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well good evening everyone.

Time to show you the sketch that I missed posting yesterday. And for more bang for my blogging buck, I'm posting an update to the sketch as I worked on it today.

So when I sat down to work on a sketch yesterday, I found myself thinking about the manga of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was published in issues of Nintendo Power back in the early 90s. The game is among my all time favorites. Everything about it was spectacular. The story, the gameplay, the visual improvements and the music were truly amazing. But what the manga did better than the game was really develop the romance between Zelda and Link.

And that was what I was thinking of when I put my bamboo stylus down onto the tablet. I wanted to show that side of Link and his Princess. So I started by sketching out Zelda and, didn't really get much father than that.

Today though, I went back and started refining her form and then placed Link and worked on the environment a little more by putting his shield and sword.

Other than trying to convey their relationship, I also want to do more of a background with this piece that I have done in the past. We'll see how it all comes together, but at least I have something in mind as I work on it.

So until my next posting tomorrow, have a great evening everyone.

Belated Halloween and the Monday Sketch

2010-11-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hi again. Welcome to November.

Halloween has come and gone. And I ended up missing my posting on Friday. What can I say, it was a crazy busy weekend. And I have a feeling that it won't be letting up until 2010 is over and we've entered 2012.

But either way, I give you my last entry in the Halloween series. I refined the linework on the faces. I wanted to really bring out the eyes of the Vampire mainly. And I realized that his rendering was really light, so I went back and added in more darks.

I also sat down today with the ol' Bamboo tablet and I had a case of artist block. Even my trusty 'use a wallpaper to inspire you' trick kinda backfired on me. I have a Yoshitaka Amano illustration set to my background, but I couldn't bring myself to do another Vampire Hunter D sketch. But I decided to keep the sketch loose, like his sketches. His use of lines is absolutely stunning. All of my illustration instructors at the Art Institute all said to make each line on the page have a purpose, and to avoid 'pencil masturbation' (a habit I haven't really been able to kick) and I honestly can't think of many other artists that have mastered this as well as he has.

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

Halloween Sketch, Part 2

2010-10-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

I had some time today to do more work on my Halloween sketch again. Yesterday didn't quite work out for me, so I had to go another day this week without an update. I guess it's not that surprising seeing as how we're getting ready for our Halloween weekend. One party for us, and an fun filled day with our daughter. Time just slips away faster than I'd like sometimes. Oh well.

I refined the face of the vampire, spending the most time on his eyes. I was really trying to get the demonic frenzy of the Chiroptera from the OVA, Blood the Last Vampire. The eyes caused me to redo the vampire's face at least twice today. After calling it quits on his face, I decided to started to refine the girls face as well. Tomorrow I hope to finis the sketch up some more.

I hope you all enjoy the sketch and I'll see you back here, one more time before the weekend.

Halloween Sketch, Part 1

2010-10-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone out there on the interwebs.

You might be wondering where I was yesterday? Ok, most likely not, but there is a good reason I didn't post a new Sketch yesterday.
I was working on a musical project I'm trying to work on with my Uncle. We did a quick recording of a song concept that I am working on a couple of weekends ago, and he sent me the files to work the other day. And since we were super busy this last weekend, I didn't get to start playing with it until last night.

Anyway, today's sketch is part 1 of my Halloween sketch. I have been wanting to do a sketch of my version of the classic vampire for a while now. So here is the rough outline for the sketch. I may change the entire thing tomorrow when I start working on it again. But for now it is what it is.

Hope you all enjoy the sketch and I'll see you back online tomorrow for Part 2.

Good night.

A weathered veteran

2010-10-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

Another good evening goes out to you all.

I spent a few minutes today (well, maybe about 20 or 25 minutes) on a sci-fi sketch. The sketch features an intergalactic infantry soldier who has spent his entire career maintaining the safety of his planet, and those in the same system.

Oddly enough, the incredibly dangerous career he maintains is what has kept him in such great physical condition. All he has to do is survive a few more years and he'll be able to retire a hero, and a legend in the corps. Let's hope he makes it that long.

I hope ya'll get a kick out of the sketch and I'll see you back here tomorrow for my last sketch of the week before a very busy weekend.

Have a great evening.

Quickshot

2010-10-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

Welcome back for the Wednesday sketch update. I once again had to finish this up at the last minute, and so I'm gonna make this short just so I can actually post this on time.

I am not sure why I wanted to do a western sketch. But there you go. Sometimes you just have no say over inspiration when it strikes.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and have a great night's sleep.

D

2010-10-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

Good evening out there in internet land.

Hope you're all enjoying a nice fall night. Perhaps with a scary movie. Or a cup of tea or coffee. Or even a slice of pumpkin pie.

When fall rolls around, especially the Halloween time, the anime Vampire Hunter D jumps into my thoughts. I remember the first time I watched it on cable. If I recall correctly it was part of a mini-anime-marathon. I believe it consisted of Casshan, Robot Carnival, Vampire Hunter D and there may have been another one in there.

I started to do this sketch yesterday, and due to a crazy filled night didn't get it fleshed out, or posted. So I decided to continue working on it today and made quite a few adjustments along the way as well. And even as I was starting to flesh out the rendering I realized that I really should have raised D's right hand more as it's really static right now. Having the sword pointing down to the right corner would give the illustration the life that it is sorely lacking.

Which is kind of amusing considering the fact that D is half vampire.

Anyway, despite the lack of emotion/movement, I hope you like the sketch. See you tomorrow for my next sketch.

Thai Boxer

2010-10-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm getting this one in under the wire aren't I.

Tonight's sketch is of a Thai boxer. Practicing his leg checks. One of the most amazing things about Muay Thai kickboxing is their use of the shins.

They are both offense (destructive kicks with the shin bone to the legs, body and head) as well as defensive. They use the shins to block those kicks coming in to the legs using them like sharpened shields.

I've seen a lot of fighters unable to walk after a round of effective usage of Thai leg kicks. The muscles swell up and block the blood flow in the large arteries of the leg. Which of course leads to the leg starting to shut down, as well as some major discomfort. Obviously.

Anyway, tonight's sketch is a homage to that amazing utilization of the lower extremities. Hope you all enjoy it.

Have a great weekend.

Peter and the Love of His Life

2010-10-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone and of course it's time for another Thursday update.

Today's sketch is another Spiderman illustration. Oddly enough when I sat down to do my sketch today, my original idea was something a lot darker and more violent. But when I started working on the figure layout, I had the sudden urge to draw my favorite web slinger and his lovely wife.

Yes, as far as I'm concerned Peter and MJ are still married. Their relationship, and balancing their real lives with the super hero world was one of the most entertaining dramas I remember in Marvel back then. Tuning in every month was so much fun, not just because of the great action and humor that you expected to see during the usual Marvel outing. But you never knew what was going to find its way into the private lives of our heroes.

Anyway, I hope you all like the sketch. I'm off to bed now. Enjoy.

Nobody Owens and Silas

2010-10-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

I'm getting this posting in before midnight comes along, and my laptop battery dies.

Since it's October, and I've started reading The Graveyard Book again, I decided to do another illustration of Nobody Owens, and the undead that watches after him named Silas.

This book is charming in a way that only Neil Gaiman could achieve. I can't wait to finish it. But at any rate, I need to get to bed.

Have a great evening everyone and I hope ya'll get a kick out of the sketch.

Google Fu and Ninjaboy

2010-10-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

I know, 3 posts in one day from ol' ninjaboy. Pretty unheard of.

But I just had to share this awesomeness I stumbled upon. After my last update I decided to see if I could find any wallpapers of Chris Bachalo's The Witching Hour comic. What I did not expect to find in the first page of Google Image Results was one of my sketches. That of Miss White, from the mini-series. How awesome is that?

And something else that's pretty crazy, is that I did the sketch almost a year ago. It was done 10/15/09.

Spooky.

Anyway, I thought you'd all get a kick out of it. I know I did.

Sleep well. I'm about to do the same.