Daily Animal Sketch – Lion Cubs

Roly poly lion cubs

Daily Animal Sketch – Badgers and Caribou

Daily Animal Sketch – Cutie Ponies

I drew this little guy on a trip to South Carolina last year. I had just finished reading the Unico manga, and wanted to draw some cutie ponies of my own. :3 He’s part zebra, part donkey, part horse.

Daily Animal Sketch – Squirrels in Motion

Daily Animal Sketch - Cheetahs

Sketching cheetahs

Daily Animal Sketch – Polar Bear cubs

Underwater Bear

Thought I’d share a panel from the Last of the Polar Bears storyboards as I work on scanning all of them. The actual size of this drawing is only about two inches tall! I won’t be using this one in the comic, but I rather like it.

Daily Animal Sketch - Grizzly and Polar Bears

Studies of full grown grizzly bears and polar bears (plus one cute polar cub) done throughout December and January.

Foxes in Motion

Studies of Arctic foxes and red foxes. It’s a lot easier to find video reference of red foxes than it is arctic foxes, probably because they’re more abundant and much likelier to occur in areas inhabited by people, so most of these sketches are of the red variety.

While there are numerous differences between the red fox and the arctic fox, they serve as a decent substitute for studying fox motion. Plus, having much less fur, it’s easier to make out the body structure on red foxes. Arctic foxes look like white puffballs in their winter coats.

More studies of red foxes and arctic foxes. The first page looks at motion and posture, while the second page focuses on muzzles.

Fraggle Rock Character Sketches

These are some Fraggle character sketches I did a few months back to try out for the Fraggle Rock comic series currently being published by Archaia Entertainment / Jim Henson Company.

Finding the Right Pose - Archie Character Designs

Recently, I put together some Archie character drawings to try out for a penciling position.

Archie Character Sheet (inks). Pencils by me, inked by Jared Hodges.

Finding the Look

Working with pre-existing characters is different than designing your own. I first had to familiarize myself with nuances of the "house style" to draw the characters on-model. I did this by sketching the characters, while carefully studing the spacing and proportions of their features, especially their faces.

Finding the Pose
Once I felt comfortable drawing the characters, I did some thumbnail sketches for each character's pose, searching for the best character-appropriate gesture for each. It's worth noting that when I'm doing gesture sketches like this, I'm working small and fast. I'm not worried about proportions or details--that comes later. This is all about finding the pose.

Veronica
Veronica is the rich girl that pretty much gets what she wants. I decided to give her a hand-on-the-hip pose that emphasized her confidence and stylishness. For her outfit, a cute flirty dress, clutch handbag, and a bit of bling. I briefly entertained the idea of a more illustrative shopping scene for her (with bag carrying Archie in tow), but decided to stick with standalone poses.

Veronica poses

Betty
To contrast Veronica, I went with a sportier pose, and jeans and jacket outfit for Betty. I got pretty far in the drawing when I realized the pose was a bit too similar (hand-on-hip again) to Veronica's.

Betty - pose and rough pencils, next to finished Veronica for comparison.

Keeping the keywords "cute" and "sporty" in mind, I started over. Of these, the first two I did (upper middle, upper right) weren't right at all for Betty -- too sexy; too cutesy. After that, I stopped and reconsidered the character. Sweet and sporty. I liked the gesture of Betty twirling a finger around her hair to showcase her ponytail, so I kept that in the rest of the sketches. I ended up going with my third attempt (first sketch on the top left).

More Betty poses

Archie
Archie's your average, nice guy character that everyone gets along with. For his pose I decided to show him "just hanging out".

Archie poses

Jughead
Jughead's the goofy comic relief character. To capture his cartoony mannerisms, I tried to push his poses towards the extreme (without going too far). I thought it would be funny to show him tossing an entire burger in his mouth the way you might with a piece of candy.

Jughead poses

Polishing the Art
Once I had my poses selected for each character, I printed out the sketches at a larger size with blue lines so I could do a clean pencil pass over them with their proper details and proportions.
And here's the finished results!

The Last of the Polar Bears - promo poster

This is the promotional poster for The Last of the Polar Bears.

The Last of the Polar Bears is what will hopefully become my next graphic novel. I've spent the last year thinking about it and the last couple months writing and developing the groundwork for it. I just finished plotting out the story in detail from beginning to end, so now I'm ready to move forward with the creation of the comic itself!

This promo illustration, portraying an iconic scene from the first chapter of the story, had a pack a lot of punch with a minimalist execution. With so little detail, it wasn't difficult to draw, but every aspect of it needed to be just right.

I find it very helpful to create a number of tiny thumbnail sketches, to quickly try out different takes on an idea. Working with a general idea of a polar bear cub poking his head out of the den for the first time, finding himself surrounded by an unending sea of white snow, I created a couple of concept sketches:
In these examples, note how composition, placement, and size of the cub play a big role in mood and feel.

#1 is a strong close up on the cub's face, grinning as he takes a peek at the outside world - cute, but completely at odds with the title of the book.

#3 is closer in feel - the landscape is vast, the cub is small--there's a real sense of loneliness going on, but it's so far pulled out from the character that scene no longer feels intimate.

#2 is almost right on target. The cub is cute and awestruck without looking too giddy. But the centered figure is boring and predictable.

#4 takes the aspects of #2 that I liked, but moves the cub into the lower corner. The title is placed in the upper right corner to balance the piece.

Once I had the composition figured out, I set about drawing the character.

He went through several drafts (including some slight variations with him smiling, not shown here) before I finally hit upon a version that worked for the poster.
And here you have it, the finished line art of the cub seen in the poster (flipped in the illustration):

Stay tuned for lots more. I look forward to introducing you to this little guy and the rest of his family. :)

Ballerina - WIP

Yes, I'm back to the ballet theme again! :) Here are some studies I did while watching ballet performances.





So what are the sketches for? Figure drawing practice and warm-ups for my next picture, a sequence of dance moves starring this character. I should be finished with it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Invasion WIP 1

Here's a sneak peak cropping of the picture I plan on finishing up today.



These are the thumbnail sketches for the picture.



I decided to go with number 3 since it has the most action (boy leaping in the air), though I'm also fond of 1 and 2.

1 has a nice diagonal cut of water creeping into the image, and so many crabs that he is no place to put his other foot. Downsides - seems too posed, and the right leg pulled back almost looks like he's getting ready to kick crabs, which isn't my intention.

2 has a funny action of the boy pulling up his foot after a crab has snipped at it, causing the crab to also be launched into the air. I strongly considered it, but 3 won out for the stronger action and the sense that the crabs somehow snuck up on him.

From the Sketchbook - studies of polar bears and beetles

The polar bear studies are based upon photos I took at the New York Central Park zoo, with the exception of Knut, the famous polar bear from Germany -- too irresistibly cute not to draw. :)



The beetle studies were done for one of the Domo manga chapters in which Domo catches himself a kabuto mushi, aka a Rhinoceros beetle. They're popular in Japan and sometimes used in fighting tournaments. Before I could "toonify" the beetle's design, I made sure to do a number of drawings of the actual insect so that I better understood what I was drawing.



The final design ended up being just a tad different than the sketches here. See if you can tell the difference when the book comes out!

Treasure - WIP

Here's the next piece I am working on for my portfolio. This one will be getting a black and white treatment rather than color.



By the way, for any artists who want to take part in the daily speedpainting exercises I've been doing, here's the photos so far. Aside from the photo of the dog (speedpaint 10, which was taken by its owner), they are all my photos. I've been selecting them based on various challenges (fur, foliage, water, reflections, interiors, lighting, etc). If you decide to participate, I recommend focusing in on a portion of the photo rather then trying to paint the whole thing. Have fun! :)

Boy and His Gator WIP 3

Final picture in the series!


Tearfully, the boy returns the baby gator where he found it. Wild things belong in the wild. Aww.

The background lineart is rough because I intend to express the background details during the coloring phase. It's been my experience that lines tend to get in the way when it comes to organic scenery.

The Florida Everglades will be my point of reference for this background. As unlikable as this place can be in the summer (soooo hot outside right now), I'm excited for an opportunity to feature my home state in an illustration. :)

Boy and His Gator WIP 2

"Not in MY house, young man!"


Picture #2 for Boy and His Gator. Out of necessity to get Mom properly placed in the picture, and still show her displeased hand-on-hip body language, I changed the orientation. I had originally planned to make all the pictures in the series the same size, but a taller format just works better in this case.

Just one more to go and then I move on to coloring.

Boy and His Gator WIP 1

Here's the first drawing in a series of three about a boy and his pet gator. Who hasn't wished they could have an alligator for a pet? :)

Incidentally, I was at a park the other day, and had set down my purse for a moment to feed some seeds to a squirrel. When I picked up my purse, I discovered a small stowaway--no, not an alligator, haha--a baby lizard. When I tried to remove him, he scurried onto my hand and up to my shoulder and tilted his head to give me a seemingly quizzical look. I instantly fell in love with the little guy. Of course, I couldn't keep him, but I walked around with him for a bit before depositing him on a bush. He didn't want to leave. Friendliest baby lizard I've ever met. Good luck in your adventures, little lizard! *sniff*

Anyways, back to the drawing, I'm planning on drawing all three one after the other, and then doing the same with the coloring process. If I'm satisfied with the finished picture, the first one might just become the new picture for my next promotional postcard.


Here's a sneak peek at the roughs for the other two: