Last week I was nominated by my friend Darrenn E Canton to share my work on Facebook. While I'm not a huge Facebook person I took the opportunity to share my work. Here are the first 3 days of images I shared.
Day 1- Sketches
Day 2- Ink Drawings
Day 3- Digital Illustrations
I've drawn in many types of sketchbooks over the past few years, I've been taking my sketchbook with me everywhere since High School. I decided to buy a sketchbook that could handle the abuse of travel. And so far the moleskine has been handling the travel.
Usually the spine of my sketchbooks break and tapped together to keep the book from falling apart. I've been carrying this book around for over a month and it's still holding up. Attached to the book is a pen with multicolored inks so I don't have to carry multiple pens. Plus I'll never forget a pen to draw with.
Here are some pages from my current sketchbook.
For a while now, I've been using the toned paper with ink. I saw some illustrators using color pencils and markers on the toned paper getting interesting results. I decided to give it a try.
My first successful attempt was the Eye Squid. It took a few tries to figure out what worked. Inking the piece first gave a clear drawing. Then I used some markers and colored inks to lay a base color. I applied some of the techniques I used in photoshop like using a flat base to render on top of. Then I tested each color pencil on a random piece of toned paper to see how the results of each color. After I began to add the pencil on the drawing and created the final image.
Since the technique of ink/markers with color pencil was a result I liked. I drew a larger creature, a Fate Warrior, and used the same process to create the drawing. The creature was designed in my sketchbook and decided it would be a good character to experiment the color technique on the toned paper.
I've only drawn Quillkins a few times and thought it would be another creature to use as practice. This time I used other colors to help enhance the base colors. For example, the belly was colored with a muted yellow then I used a bright yellow color pencil then an orange pencil to add more interest.
The toned paper, ink/marker, and color pencil technique has been an interesting experiment, there are many drawings I started that turned in technicolor nightmares. But it was worth the time in order to create a basis of how I plan to use color on toned paper in the future.
I recently finished my yellow sketch book that I previously shown in an older post. And I haven't shown any pages from it, so today is a sketchbook page collection.
Designs for a Basilisk for a monster codex type book for a roleplaying game. I am currently gesturing the idea down to figure out how the legs will look as well as the skin texture.
Satyrs are all over my sketchbook, they are one of my favorite creatures to draw besides Goblins. I experimented with design as well as used some markers to color parts of the sketches.
A beast design for a spot illustration of a Dwarf tracker in the snow. It took a while to discover the design that was working but all the exploration paid off in the final image.
What a usual sketch page looks like, its all over the place. On this spread are some thumb nails, goblin week ideas, and a dinosaur. Usually being all over the place is a good thing in my sketchbook since its free flow.
Sketches for another piece I'm working on that I was inking last night. It's exploring an old watercolor I did of a satyr sitting in his arm chair. For the piece I wanted to add more narrative which I think added much more to the final illustration.
Starkens also end up in the sketchbook as well, there were a few pages exploring poses and tattoo designs. The other page are the first ideas for the Orbis elementals. I posted two elementals for monster monday already, you can go back a few posts to see the final image.
Tomorrow is October, starting the count down to Halloween. Since this is the first October for Monster Monday, it's going to be a themed month. All characters and creatures from famous books, legends, and tales. Each week I'm going to draw as many portraits of characters as I can. At the end of the month all of the drawings will be available for purchase through the online store I'll be opening up. The drawings will first be for sale at The Comic Book Shop in Wilmington, Delaware for their Halloween weekend. The remaining drawings will be up for sale in the shop.
First up is Frankenstein's Monster from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. In high school, I read both Frankenstein and Dracula during my senior year to help pass the time. After finishing both books, I found that I was more interested in Shelly's book. It captured the isolation of man and the dangers of science in the hands of the mad.
For my version of the monster I drew from my imagination when reading the book. I stayed away from the Universal movie monster look of the flat top. I added electrode like contraptions to his spine to power his nervous system. There is also a heart monitor that shows his irregular heart beats. His jaw is metal and hinged to the skull, I figured the jaw of a corpse might fall off so the monster need reinforcement.
Next is The Phantom of The Opera from the book by Gaston Leroux. Like many people I became familiar with the story from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. But quickly realized that is wasn't a direct translation from the text. The classic Universal film is a great translation of the book, plus it has the power of early film make up effects. The phantom actually had multiple masks to cast different shadows for different lighting situations, that's dedication.
My phantom draws from both the pop culture design and original book. I've always favored the full mask since his whole face is disfigured. His clothing is theatrical because those are the clothing he has access to leaving under the Paris Opera House. The collar and cape are used to hide while wondering through the many corridors of the opera house and shield his identity from the workers.
Taking a break from a post about the Legendary Monsters. This week is full of creatures who fill my sketchbook. Keeping a sketchbook is important for me to brew ideas and designs, so I thought I would share sketches done in the past 2 months.
These little guys are going to be used for a series of chapter headers. It shows how the leaf sprite changes with each season, not just physically but emotionally as well. (i really like the little sassy sprite)
The left side of the sketchbook has some fish monsters that I designed to be used in a character spot illustration for a role playing game manual. The right side are designs of dragons, one thing I know that I should be able to draw better are dragons. After all they are important in my books and video games.
I show spreads of my sketchbooks to show that not every page is filled. Sometimes just to get a fresh feelings, I'll hop to another page. The right side is covered in lumpy, weird mushroom creatures. These guys mumble to themselves as they run around stealing real mushrooms.
More designs of forrest sprites. The orb was to glow at night and guide the lost out of the forrest and back to civilization. The other page was my first attempts are Ice Giants, I have more pages that explore the idea as well as compositions for the watercolor I completed a few weeks ago.
The Imp designs on the spread are being used for a watercolor of a thieving imp sitting on a wooden beam. It's another illustration that I can be seen used in role playing games, more for a written adventure. The Imp steals a valuable necklace of importance and its the adventures task to return it.
These are designs for the Irish Phooka, a known changling, that takes the shape of small animals like goats and cats. I used the animals as reference to make the phooka more animalistic.
I've been drawing my version of high fantasy elves for a while and haven't used any of the designs in an illustration. Here is the costuming and armor for an archmage high elf character for a role playing game character profile. The next page is my idea of how a explorer might catch smaller creatures of the wild. Many will-o-wisps trapped in jars, they kind of look like little ghosts.
And finally, basic rock elementals. I made it different from every other elemental using ruins to enchant the rock into an humanistic form. He has a strong body structure and cracked rocks of billowing smoke.
Thanks for checking out all of my sketches. I'll be posting one of these images a day of my tumblr.