I drew this piece quite a while ago for the Drawer Geeks topic "Space Girl", but I never got around to adding color. I'm really struggling lately with finding a color palette I enjoy, while still trying to keep my time invested into a piece at a minimum. That's not to say I don't want to give everything a good, solid effort but I do want to find that balance between creating a striking piece and having a steady output.

With limited time to put towards art (due balancing a full-time career and having somewhat of a life), I really need to be quicker. I will often burn time on colors just playing with levels and choosing a scheme, only to backtrack afterward. All part of the process I suppose. Hope you enjoy.

Labels: Drawer Geeks, science fiction, Space Girl

I really tried to avoid all the Evil Genius cliches for this Drawer Geeks entry, but I'm sure I hit on at least a few. I love the idea of a tiny little man piloting a giant robot, very fitting.

I haven't had too much in the way of free time this year so far, but I'm hoping to at least develop some sort of steady art output. To be continued...

Labels: Drawer Geeks, Evil Genius, giant robots, ink, Photoshop

I ran into some technical snafu's in the past month or so that made getting art completed and posted a bit of a challenge. Hopefully that's behind me now, so I'm posting some things that were completed recently. I'm also brainstorming on ways to add more content to this blog with or without new art to show, but I'll have to iron that out a bit more first.

First up is this week's Drawer Geeks, "Frankenstein":

I wanted to show a bit more of the messy business of stitching someone together of disparate parts. My Frankenstein is falling apart at the seams, literally.

Next up is another Drawer Geeks from the previous round, in honour of the film and book "Where The Wild Things Are".

Played with a whole new palette for me, as well as colouring directly on the pencils and skipping inks all together. Relatively happy with how this turned out, even if it wasn't anything like I pictured initially.

Finally, this is a pencil drawing of a duo that figure into a larger story brewing in my head at the moment. Not ready to talk about it yet, but I like the design enough to show it around.

Labels: Drawer Geeks, Frankenstein, Illustrator, pencils, Photoshop, Tree Spirit, Where The WIld Things Are

...does whatever a spider can! Not my usual thing, but a fun departure. Broke out some of the stronger crayons in the color palette as well for this one. Just trying new things all around. This was for Drawer Geeks.

Labels: comics, Drawer Geeks, pen and ink, Photoshop, Spider-Man

This week for Drawer Geeks the topic was "Monkeys", so I decided to draw Sun Wukong, The Monkey King. I've been so heavily focused on inking these days, it was nice to dust off the coloring side of my brain. Enjoy!

Labels: Drawer Geeks, ink, King, Monkey, Photoshop

Man oh man, I have had a roller coaster of a time these past weeks! I've been working on art, just not anything I can show. So what can I show? Well, for you technophiles out there, you'll now be able to hit this site on your phones and get a nifty little mobile version. It relies on some fancy javascript though, so for now it will probably only work on iPhones, or any other webkit enabled smart phone. I'll have to address that in the future, but it'll do for now.

Here's some art while I'm at it. These were all Drawer Geeks entries, some of which I didn't even get a chance to finish and submit on time. Thems the breaks as they say.

Labels: 8-Bit, Drawer Geeks, Pac-man, pen and ink, Photoshop, Troll

The topic this week at Drawer Geeks was "Classic Video Games", or anything that came out before 1985. I actually did 3 pictures for this one (one isn't scanned, and I'm not too happy with it). There was a big break over the holidays so I sort of chipped away at it here and there. I have always been a big video game fan, ever since I first played Super Mario Bros. on display at a K-Mart when it first came out.

First up is a re-design for Mario from Super Mario Bros. Sort of a grounded in reality, practical design. Not 100% sold on this one, but a good learning experience.

Next is just sort of an homage to the NES in general. I wanted to put a positive spin on the act of blowing dust out of the NES cartridges every kid who had one is probably more than familiar with.

Labels: Drawer Geeks, Excitebike, Illustrator, Metroid, Photoshop, Super Mario Bros., video games, Zelda

I had started this picture a few weeks back for the topic "Giant Monsters" at Drawer Geeks, but never got around to finishing it. Sort of plugged away at the inks over a few lunch hours recently. Came to some interesting conclusions about my art and where I'd like it to go after completing this one, but we'll see what happens with that later.


This was a character sketch I did after reading a friend's comic treatment. I'd love to be involved in this, but I have to be true to my prior commitments.

Labels: brush pen, Drawer Geeks, giant monsters, goblins

This is for the topic "Witch" over at Drawer Geeks. This was part of a challenge with an artist friend (Steve Ogden). The challenge was to finish the piece in an hour. I drew the original drawing in about 1/2 hour, then about an hour on the photoshop grayscale. So I guess I succeeded on the drawing, then failed in the Photoshop. One step forward...

Labels: brush pen, Drawer Geeks, grayscale, Photoshop, Witch

This is for the topic "Giant Monsters" over at Drawer Geeks. Probably the first time I've slammed together colors without looking back and nitpicking. Not that I'm saying it's perfect, but it was a good experiment. Done with brush pen, pen and colored in Photoshop, in about an hour or so.

True story, I got the idea to give this monster piercing blue eyes after hearing Stephen Harper described that way. I'm just sayin'...

Labels: brush pen, Drawer Geeks, giant monsters, Photoshop, Stephen Harper

Yeti. Drawer Geeks. Check it!

Labels: colour, Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Photoshop, Yeti

This week at Drawer Geeks... Zombies! Anybody that knows me knows that's a topic I couldn't pass up!

Labels: Drawer Geeks, grayscale, Illustrator, Photoshop, Zombies

Here are some of the things I've been working on. Character designs for a short story:





And a very quick color test for that same short story:


The last two Drawer Geeks, "Lone Ranger" and "Dinosaurs":

Labels: character design, colour, comics, Dinosaurs, Drawer Geeks, goat, Illustrator, Lone Ranger, pen and ink, Photoshop

"Samurai" was this week's topic at Drawer Geeks. I haven't had any real time to draw anything just for myself (which is actually an awesome thing... more on that later), but I couldn't pass up Samurai! That being said, I tried quite a few new things in this one, some successes and some not so much. Interesting experiment none the less. Enjoy!

Labels: Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Photoshop, Samurai

"Tarzan" was the theme this week at Drawer Geeks. I really tried to push myself this week. I took my time, and really tried to get down exactly what I had in mind. I'm happy to say this is relatively close to what I had in mind, a few happy accidents aside. I know as an artist I still struggle with putting down on paper what I had in my head.

Labels: colour, Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Photoshop, Tarzan

This week at Drawer Geeks the topic was "Monsters Under the Bed". I kind of just flew through this one, not a lot of time this week.

Labels: bed, colour, Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Monsters, Photoshop

"Galactus" was this week's Drawer Geeks topic. The focus on this one was getting a straight up cel shaded effect that I was happy with, and cutting down on my coloring time. I was pretty pleased I was able to get this one out quickly. I realized after finishing this that Galactus' pose is a bit like he's getting ready to scratch some records. Maybe he's a DJ on his off time?

Labels: colour, Drawer Geeks, Galactus, Illustrator, Photoshop

This was my original sketch for the "Lord of the Rings" topic at Drawer Geeks, but I ran out of time. I decided to finish it because I thought it had promise. This was done with a brush pen and Photoshop. The things I tried to focus on this time were limited palette, and no fancy Photoshop tricks such as blurs or fancy brushes. This was done using the pencil tool and a few gradients. Often times I get caught up trying to add more bells and whistles and really eat away my time.

Labels: brush pen, colour, Drawer Geeks, Ent, Lord of the Rings, Photoshop

This week at Drawer Geeks the theme was "Lord of the RIngs". I wanted to take some time and try out a few new techniques to try and speed up the way I do things. I also wanted to focus on value over hue, hence the grayscale. I think I'm going to use the Drawer Geeks topics from now on to try and push new ideas and new ways of doing things, at least for me.

Labels: colour, Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Lord of the Rings, Nazgul, Photoshop

This week at Drawer Geeks the topic was "Rednecks". For some reason, this was the first thing that popped into my head. More of a "red necks". I know, I know... Rednecks are obvious. I think I have too much giant monster on the brain or something.

Labels: colour, Drawer Geeks, Illustrator, Photoshop, Red Knecks