After reading Sean Gordon Murphy's journal entry over at deviantArt, this was the first picture that came to mind. The biggest thing I've struggled with, and something I think all artists do, is not getting the pictures I see in my head out on paper. The visual shorthand seems to be then to try and emulate another style (in an effort to at least get some sort of analog to what you're picturing). Lord knows I've done my fair share of riffing on other artists.

I think I am entirely guilty of trying to smash myself into some sort of house style, with middling success. In the past few years, I have felt more confident in my art, but I think I still get very complacent and not willing to try new things. This can make things pretty stale. Going forward, I think I just have to draw the creatures out of my head. Hopefully everything else will fall into place. If not? Well, simply drawing really should be the point anyhow...



deviantArt

Labels: Cave Troll, ink, Photoshop

As promised, here's my guest strip for PC Weenies. Krishna's a great guy, and has been championing webcomics for far longer than most. You should definitely check out his site. Full of solid cartooning and humour.

I chose Facebook as the topic, as I think all the privacy issues that have come to light should force people to really examine what they're willing to share online. I had a Facebook account myself, but found all the reasons I didn't want to join in the first place to be true, and regretted it shortly after. Their privacy woes were the final straw in my closing my account.

This was done with traditional inks, with Photoshop colors. I try to push myself with each piece of art I create, and with this one the idea was perspective. It's a simple concept on paper, but I think a lot of artists (myself included) tend to over think it. Hopefully you enjoy!

Labels: Facebook, failbook, giant robots, ink, Photoshop, webcomics

I had the pleasure of providing today's PC Weenies guest strip. I'll post the strip up here a bit later once it's no longer the current one there, but for now I thought you might get a kick out of seeing my older guest strips for Krishna. These were done when PC Weenies was a single panel format, and I believe they're no longer available in the archive. Enjoy!

Labels: pc weenies, webcomic

Part of the challenge of working on comics and art part time is coming up with a workflow that's relatively fast. Given less time (and energy) in the evening, going about things in the traditional roughs/pencils/inks/colors means can be daunting. What I've been trying to do is find ways to cut a few corners without compromising the visions I see in my mind.

These two sketches were done using mechanical pencil, and a few quick Photoshop tricks to simulate an ink pen. I'm going to try to color these soon and see what the end results are. Enjoy!

Labels: pencils, robot, sketches, teddy bear