I've been doing a lot of personal sketching and whatnot, just not posting it anywhere. I thought I'd try out some of those techniques on this week's Illustration Friday topic, "Magic". It's been a long time since I'd participated, but with bowing out of Inktober, I figured I should try to get some art out in October. Feedback is always appreciated.

Labels: brush pen, faerie, Illustration Fridays, ink, Magic, pen and ink

As we're headed in to October, and Inktober is beginning, I wanted to post some Destiny fan art I'd done before I forget again.

I had done a quick 4" x 6" portrait just to try out dabbling in the Destiny world and trying to draw the intricacies of the Destiny armor with a brush pen. This was the results.

This one was for a contest, where the original art was given away. The winner got to choose the armor that was showcased, and they chose the Phoenix Strife, or crucible armor.

The second one was just for me (big Destiny fan here!) and I chose the Gensym Knight hunter.



Hope you enjoy!

Labels: brush pen, Destiny, Gensym Knight, Iron Banner, pen and ink, Phoenix Strife, Photoshop

The sum total of my Inktober 2017 contributions. I was actually pretty busy this month with the day job, plus a few impromptu illustration gigs so I just didn't have time to commit to the full 31 days. That being said I was happy to have kept with it and at least put some more personal work out there. I have some plans for some of these drawings, so hopefully this won't be the last you see of them.

Labels: brush pen, hearts, Illustration, ink, Inktober, Inktober 2017

One downside to working on paid illustrations is not being able to show the work you've done, and I suppose not having the time to do more personal work. So then the blog suffers a bit because I'm posting less and less here even though I'm still busy drawing.

At any rate, I finally got around to scanning some better resolution versions of illustrations that have made it onto instagram or my twitter. Feel free to hit me up there if you want!

Labels: brush pen, Copic, ink, ink wash, sewer, soldier, white ink

Here's some more Copic marker work. I'm fairly confident in getting the grayscale marker work to translate in a scan, but it gets a bit muddle trying to bring the blues in. This particular color is very close to non-repo blue though, so perhaps that's the issue. At any rate, I'm really enjoying working with markers and hope to find a way to incorporate this with my Photoshop work more.

Labels: brush pen, Copic, Forest, markers, wolf

I believe I may have posted this elsewhere, but not in a proper scan and not here on the blog. Some more Copic marker work. I enjoy the depth markers can give an ink drawing without having to go to a full blown rendering in Photoshop. There is something to be said for the subtlety of traditional media. I have some more of these to post up, and some more ideas on the way. Enjoy!

Labels: brush pen, Copic, demon, Forest, markers

I had originally done this for a friend as a birthday present. He's a bid birder and this was one of his favourite birds. He got the original but not before I'd scanned it in. I've never really had much luck prior to this scanning markers but I found a great tutorial on how to clean up marker work for scanning.

I really need to do more to get artwork back up on the site more frequently. I have been having a killer creative block lately, and what work I have done can't be shared publicly at the moment. It's been a long time since I've drawn just for myself. I will be uploading some other marker work I've done shortly though, so there's that. Baby steps I suppose.

Labels: brush pen, Copic, Goshawk, markers, pen and ink

Just like that, the first two weeks of November escape me!

I wanted to write up a brief wrap up of my Inktober 2014 experience. I would say for myself, overall it was a big success. All in all, I'd call 23 out of 31 a success. Probably the most art output I've had in a single month in quite sometime. Sure, there were a few failed experiments and a few duds, but I stuck with it the best I could given all other prior commitments and I got some new art to show off in the process.

Not only did I learn what I think works and doesn't work for me in terms of style, I also gained some new technical knowledge that I hope will help me going forward. From a bit better execution with a brush pen, to scanning markers, it's been a whirlwind for sure. I think ultimately, the thing that held me back was not having a focus, and really just making things up as I went along. I also get very leery of simply drawing other characters from the Big Three or pop culture. I'm not knocking those that do, but for myself it's a bit boring. I love the thrill of designing something new.

Next year, I'd like to try and output a cohesive story or set of images. A few of the artists that I follow did that, and it was great watching that play out over the month.

Up next for me is perhaps some more paid illustration work (which I can't show you) and adding some colours to the Inktober pieces I really enjoyed!

Labels: brush pen, Inktober, pen and ink