Run You Fool Version 2

I've often said that I wanted to redo a lot of my old cat and robot pieces. Here, I've finally realized it. This is a completely redone version of an old piece that you can see in this old post by clicking here.

I like the redo, although I'm not completely sold on the dog. I'll try to get a color version of this up soon.

Abstract part 2

More abstract work.

It's nice to Meet You Mr. Pollock

I love doing abstract pieces and the computer allows for a lot of unpredictable experimenting. For this picture, I used a program called, Alchemy.

 I wanted this to have a street art feel to it, which most of the stuff I do in Alchemy tends to feel that way. I think it's energetic and fun.

Illustration Friday: Toy

Oil Pastel on Rag Paper.
My illustration Friday entry is a reposting of an older picture I did a while back. It's an oil pastel drawing of a toy octopus my mom gave me. Since the thing was suitably strange, I decided to honor it with this portrait.

Where Does Personality Come From?

"Are your characters based on you or someone you know?"

 It's a question I get a lot. In most cases, it would be easy enough to say that I base most of the characters on aspects of my own personality, while a few are based on people or pets I know or have lived with. And that answer would be true enough, even if it is overly simplified.

However, there is one character that I have that defies that explanation. Esau the Donkey is based on Esau the Donkey.

 To be fair, Esau is actually a creation of mine and my friend Andrew based on silly stories we would make up while doing improv together. He's a character born of collaboration, and by far, the easiest of all my Last Resort characters to write for.

When I'm plotting scenes for Esau, I finally understand what authors are talking about when they say their characters tend to write themselves.

Swarm part 2- Carl Doesn't Get To Enjoy His Honey

So here's the colored version of one my earlier posts that I did for Illustration Friday. You can see the original here.

I tried to keep to a French Rococo period color scheme using mainly blues, golds, and pinks and I'm pleased with the results. Let me know what you think.

Where Orange Juice Comes From

Admittedly, I doodle a lot of really stupid things, but I had to post this one. Here are Esau and Orange answering an age old question about the origin a certain breakfast beverage.


I won't ruin this moment by typing much more. The drawing was done in a free online program called Harmony.

The Legend of Zelda- Doodles of Link

The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite all time video game series out there, with my favorite chapters being Wind Waker, and Link to the Past. Here are some doodles done in homage to many hours of adventure and entertainment. Yay Link!

 Thank you Nintendo, for making my childhood a bit more entertaining.

Illustration Tutorial- The Bear Who Hated His Job

A preview of the finished image.

Today's tutorial shows the process in making the cover of my Bear Who Hated His Job graphic novel. In this tutorial, I will break down my how I constructed the image including my inspiration, and give a step by step layout of how this image came together.

Step 1) The Sketch

I made a simple pencil sketch on regular sketchbook paper to get a feel for the pose and the shapes. I then ran some very basic inks on the drawing with a pen just to get a feel for the lines and shapes. Now on to the inking for the finished drawing.

Step 2) Inking

I took this drawing into Adobe Illustrator to tighten it up, simplify the shapes, and "ink" the drawing digitally. While it is extremely time consuming, I love the precision and control I have with Illustrator.

Step 3) Line of Action and Line Weight

By applying the principles of line of action (or flow of action) and line weight (or line variation) to the character, the drawing will be more interesting to look at.

Line of action helps direct the viewer's eye across the figure and it creates movement to the piece. In the piece above two diagonal lines of action are used to suggest movement. The more vertical line is tilted to show our bear leaning back, and the more horizontal of the lines follows the flow of the knife to the bear's gaze.

Line weight brings a visual weight to the lines. If all the lines were the same width, the piece could not sustain the clarity this version has and the viewer would have a harder time reading the image. Notice the heaviest line along the back of the bear to weight him from that direction.

Step 4) The Logo

Every cover needs a title logo. For this one, I chose to stretch the text all the way down the page and emphasize the words, "bear" and "job". The stretched text also creates a looming feeling to the piece.

When I place the text in the composition with the bear, it's almost as if the word "job" is sneaking up on him. Now, it's on to the colors!

Step 5) Colors

 I decided before I started, that I would use a limited color pallet of red, white, black, and gray.

First, I start by laying down the flat color.

 I could have stopped here if I wanted to, but I like adding texture to create some extra visual depth.

Step 6) Extra Touches

One trick I like to do is add some scanned paint textures into the piece. I insert the paint texture into a layer in Photoshop, set the layer mode to "multiply", (which means the darkest elements of it can be seen, and the lightest will be see through) and then I set the paint image at about half transparency. Remember, it's only there for depth.

The added texture gives a nice backdrop and I also add another beam of light behind the first one at a lower opacity.

Next, I add some gray tone shading to the bear himself and I desaturate the colors a bit more for the whole piece. And then it's finished.

I hope you enjoyed this piece and found it informative. Comments, suggestions, and questions are appreciated.

Musings From a Dinner Napkin

In movies, there always seems to be this romantic lore about doodles and drawings an artist might place upon a napkin. It typically either depicts an artist so desperate to create and record the images in his head that he must record them on a napkin, or it shows a boredom induced bit of scribbling that turns into genius.

 I'd like to set this matter straight by telling you that these stories are 100% completely based on fact. This napkin doodle above was an act of desperation just like the ones in the movies. You see, the building I was in had been set on fire by arsonists and if it weren't for some quick doodles on this napkin, the whole building would be nothing but ash. The mayor called to congratulate me.

 In all seriousness, it does show some concept pre-sketches I did for a client, a logo idea for my Captain Blacksocks show in the upper left, and an inane doodle on the upper right.

The first explanation was probably better, though.

Finnigan Doodles: Which Bear Should I Choose?

I found these doodles in one of my scanners yesterday. They're a few months old, and rougher version of these characters, but I like them. Esau the Donkey is always fun to draw.

Here I was experimenting with the look of some of my bears. I threw Finnigan and Orange in just to provide some interaction. I'm really torn on the look I want for Carl the Bear (The second and third bear designs) Any feedback would be helpful.

Which Carl is more appealing?: The squat bear with shorts on the left, or the taller, more inquisitive version on the right?

Illustration Friday- Swarm

 Poor Carl just wants some honey to curb the longing of his always persistent sweet tooth. Of course, bees don't tend to like that very much and have given Carl some lessons.

 I hope to color this soon. The sketch was completed on paper with ballpoint pen. (that's been a trend for me lately)

It was a battle to get this entry for Illustration Friday's topic: Swarm up before the deadline. My microtek scanner is down. Luckily, after some searching, I found out I had a backup scanner.

The Bear Who Hated His Job: The Missing Pages Part II

Here's another page from my tale of dissatisfaction. This was supposed to be the splash page where a grizzled man tells two young children in a museum a story about a circus bear.


It took me a while before I was happy with the colors, and I'm still not entirely happy with the bear "painting" on the left. When I redo this story I think I might not use color at all, unless it's very basic.

Thanks for looking. Comments are welcomed and appreciated.

The Bear Who Hated His Job: The Missing Pages

A few months ago I decided to start a little comic called, "The Bear Who Hated His Job". It was about a Bear, who once was the world's greatest knife thrower, but now he has been hired by a different circus who thinks the only thing he is useful for is dancing on a rubber ball.

It's a story about pursuing what you truly love.

I've decided to post one of my pages from that story here. This is page two, which starts a flashback. I hope you enjoy. Lines and lettering were done in Adobe Illustrator with the tones made in Photoshop.