New Avengers 100 Project

This is the sketch cover I did for The Hero Initiative's New Avengers 100 Project. I decided to feature the characters who were prominent in the book during the time I was drawing it, after all, at the time they were the New Avengers! Read more about the project and see some amazing covers turned in by some of the other artists involved here.

Hellboy Day 2010

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August 21st has rolled around again, and as always I celebrate the blog's birthday with a Hellboy sketch (commemorating the first post I made here). Since I don't have a lot of time for anything elaborate, I just did a quick digital sketch and then dressed it up with some fancy computer tricks. Even so, I kind of like how it turned out.

Usually on this date I also make a promise declaring my intent to post more often and then proceed to post even less, so this year I'm not going to do that. I'll just say thanks to all my subscribers and commenters and keep my intentions to post more to myself. That way maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised if it actually happens :)

Sketchbook 017

Sketchbook 016

Hey look - I drew in my little pocket sketchbook again! It's been a while but I plan to do more of this in the future. Hopefully I'll have a page like this to post at least once a week (and hopefully they will be better than this one). Click on the image above to see it actual size.

Sketches - Marvels Project

These are just some quick rough sketches that were done while trying to work out some figures in the first couple of issues of The Marvels Project.

Heroes Con '09 Sketches

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Here's a few of the sketches that were done at this year's Heroes Con. Thanks to all who came by!

sketchbook 015

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Wow, I apologize for the long absence from the ol' blog. I didn't realize it had been this long. Hopefully you all didn't wreck the place while I was gone. I should be back to my regular 2 - 3 times a week posting from now on, provided I can come up with something to show you. For now, here's another sketchbook page I filled up a while back but just now got around to scanning.

Sketchbook 014

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Sketchbook 013

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More of the same. I broke out the old crowquill pen for the three smaller faces on the right side.

These pages are all starting to look the same to me, but you can never get enough practice drawing faces. On the other hand, the same thing applies to figures, so I think I'll try to do more of that on future pages.

Alchemy Space Lizard!

In a previous post I mentioned Alchemy - a free sketching program that is geared toward spontaneous visual experimentation, and since then I've spent the past several weeks slowly transforming an Alchemy sketch into a finished painting. I say slowly because as usual, I only work on stuff like this a little bit at a time - usually 10 or 15 minutes in the morning while I'm trying to wake up.

Here's the initial Alchemy sketch. It's not totally arbitrary in that you can get certain shapes to go in specific directions as you draw, but a lot of what happens is completely random. In this case it is supposed to represent some sort of armored soldier -


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I used this as the starting point for the painting below and as you can see, quite a bit of what was in the initial sketch survived to the finished piece.


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What's cool is that there are dynamics with the shapes and how they interact that I would have never come up with on my own and I think they add a lot of visual interest. On the other hand, none of it looks very practical and I would hate to have to attempt to draw that armor over and over and from different angles.

Also - Alchemy Space Lizard would be a kick-ass name for a band.

Sketchbook 012

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More heads. A couple were from reference, the rest are made up.

Also, if you're interested, another Fallen Son sketch cover is on eBay here. Have a great weekend!

Sketchbook 011

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Alchemy

From the Alchemy website:

"Alchemy is an open drawing project aimed at exploring how we can sketch, draw, and create on computers in new ways. Alchemy isn’t software for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the absolute initial stage of the creation process. Experimental in nature, Alchemy lets you brainstorm visually to explore an expanded range of ideas and possibilities in a serendipitous way."

You may have already heard of this program. I first discovered it a month or two ago but haven't had much time (or any time) to experiment with it. It's free to download and looks like it will be fun to explore. After opening it and figuring out the basic interface, I did these two quick sketches (with a little photoshop flourish here and there)-



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Like I said, this was a month or two ago, and even though the nature of the program makes the sketching quick and spontaneous ( both of these took about five minutes each) these are the only two pieces I've done so far. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play around with the program some more soon. Download it here.

Sketchbook 009 and 010

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Sketchbook 008

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The center figure is a sketch of my daughter playing at her computer. The others are from the covers of some of her DVDs. Hopefully at least one of those is recognizable.

Two for Tuesday

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First up, a quick one from this morning. I had timed myself so that I wouldn't spend more than 45 minutes on it, so there's not much detail. I kind of like the mood of it though.

The second sketch is a commission for Steven Gettis' awesome collection in which he has artists draw their favorite literary figure, author, or character. I'm not going to post my contribution here, because I want you to go to his site and browse through the amazing array of talent he has commissioned over the past decade. You can see it by clicking the link below-

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's clobberin' time!!!

Sketchbook 007

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Sketchbook 006

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Some figures after de la Fuente.

Sketchbook 004 and 005

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The figures on the left of page 5 are after Leopold Sanchez.

Heroes Con tomorrow!

Sketchbook 003

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