Sketchbook 06/19/08

These first three are just me trying to warm up in preparation for the story I'm trying to come up with... it's about a girl on this weird fantasy/sci-fi world full of weird aliens and monsters, and she goes on this big NEVERENDING STORY/LABYRINTH style adventure.

Just trying a variety of things to come up with weird creatures... still trying to resolve the cartoonish VS realism issues... I find that I really like drawing necks, more than anything, even if I'm just making shit up most of the time because I don't have an anatomy book beside me at work.

My personal favorite of all of them is the guy with the testicle chin... I totally didn't even realize he has balls for a chin until after I'd started rendering it. It sort of fits though, and lends something to his character, which looks to be a sort of fancy pants alien Pope who's really into himself, even though he's got nuts on his face.



The Rorono Zorro (or Rolono Zollo depending on who's scanlating...) is pretty old... last fall maybe? I did this from a PVC statue I bought at FIRST MARKHAM PLACE awhile ago. Not a great drawing, but I like some elements of it. It feels structured at least. The sash was a worthwhile endeavor.

The last two are also really old... some drawing done from LUBA by Gilbert Hernandez, one of my recent favorite books. It took a lot of goading on Jason Azzopardi's part to get me to read it and LOCAS, by Jaime Hernandez, but he was right... I fucked loved it. I was particularly surprised by how much I loved Gilbert's art, as I don't usually like that kind of style, but he's a really solid cartoonist, with a brilliant sense of storytelling, and well thought out linework. I actually like his older art a lot better than his recent art, which I feel has become over simplified and sort of stiff. Jaime Hernandez on the other hand has really excelled as an artist, and is just phenominal... the guy is truly amazing.

New Art 06/10/08

Another piece of art from the story I'm trying to write. I'm too embarrassed to talk about any details until I get it more solidly nailed down, but it's actually starting to happen now after the last time me and Erik Kim talked about it, so maybe soon... I've got to write an overview first so make sure it's all as clear as it is in my head.

I did the original drawing in my shitty Selectrum notepad that I got from the dollar store to fuck around with at work, so if anyone catches me, it's not immediately clear I'm fucking around drawing. Plus I like to tell myself I can make story notes in it (though I find I hate doing that because my writing is so messy, so I wait until I get home and just type everything out).

I liked the drawing, which fleshed out the design I've been fucking around with to a point where I'm happy with it, so I decided to clean it up... only I suck at redrawing sketches for cleaning up, and I hated the cleaned up version. In a rare instance of ingenuity, I decided to photocopy the shitty lined paper drawing, taking the contrast down as far as it could go and then blowing it up, and just cleaned up over the almost invisible photocopy with a mechanical pencil, as I such at cleaning up with ink, and as that's how I learned how to do cleanup in school. So the line work is my actual pencils... which still look shitty, but WAY better than anything I could do with ink.

The background is completely digital, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, considering how long it's been since I've done anything this involved, and considering I took the challenge of painting water, which I've always tried to avoid, as I've always been unsuccessful in the past. I probably should have took the time to paint some more detailed trees in the front to "sell" that it's a tropical island, but I got tired of working on it, so I said fuck it. The sky is lame... I need to work on that.

Any thoughts?

LUPIN THE III: A Gift to Me, From Zack Worton

A fantastic drawing given to me by my boy, Toronto artist Zack Worton for being an ANIME NORTH He-Man.

A day or two after AN, Zack Facebooked me, asking who my favorite anime/manga character was, and if I could send him some reference.

I thought about it for a bit, and considered some different characters... Spike from Bebop, Casshan, Hurricane Polymar, Kamina from Gurren Lagann, Alita from BATTLE ANGEL ALITA, etc, but when it comes down to it, there's one character that I always come back to in any type of media, and in any era of my fandom, and that's LUPIN THE THIRD. I love Lupin... he's James Bond, the original Arsene de Lupin, and Cheech and Chong, all roled up into one guy... a charismatic, cunning, lecherous bastard always on the hunt for adventure, treasure, and pussy.

Zack's style fits Lupin surprisingly well... which is another reason I think I like Lupin so much. He's very adaptable to a variety of styles and genre's, be it more child oriented stories, more adult, comedy, mystery, action, etc.

The actual drawing was to big for me to scan properly, even in sections, which is why the middle of this is a little blurred, so I decided to throw down some quick coloring to try and hide my shitty scan job.

Thanks a lot Zack! I'm looking forward to both your upcoming projects.

You can find Zack online at his blog, which has some of his art (dude goes a very good Herge... I love Zack's Tintin stuff), BALLAD OF A CROSSHATCH JUNKIE. The irony being that he doesn't use much cross hatching. :B

*EDIT*

Actually, looking at it again, the blurring actually sort of looks like soft focus and gives it some depth... I don't mind it.

A MELONCHOLY GIRL

There were periods of "fuck-all-to-do" at work today, so I did some little sketches on this tiny memo-pad I keep on my pick-cart to do little sketches on when there's fuck all to do.

I've been trying to draw like Inio Asano, this fantastic mangaka I've found a few scanlations for. His book SOLANIN has been picked up by VIZ for their VIZ SIGNATURE line, and I'm TOTALLY excited about it. I think it comes out in November, or something, and will be a giant omnibus sort of like TEKKON KINKREET was, which is also awesome. I hope to GOD it does well, because I'd love to see his other works get picked up.

I'll do a post about Inio Asano at some point, but if you have some "fuck-all-to-do" time, look him up online. I recommend GOODNIGHT PUNPUN and NIJIRAHARA HOLOGRAPH.

This was literally done in, like, five minutes. I don't know why, but I'm much happier with my drawings when they're really really rough like this. I'm sort of happy with how this looks.

ARTING

This is my first "arting" in awhile... I'm slowly trying to get back into the "art" groove, as it's been awhile since I drew anything seriously.

I... have never been a very confident artist. I like to draw, and at one point I LOVED it... and I have to admit that I have come incredibly far since I first started seriously drawing... and I owe a lot of that to my schooling (as much as I hate hate HATED Maxine, I learned a lot at Max the Mutt Animation... it was once a good program... I have no idea what it's like there now), but I'm nowhere near being the kind of artist I wish I was... technically or creatively, and I'm very easily prone to discouragement. But... you persevere and you grow.

Anyways, this is a dirty pencil sketch I painted over... I was trying to get some ideas flowing for a childrens adventure story, and this was the only drawing I was somewhat happy with, and now that I have a working scanner again, I wanted to see if I could remember anything about Photoshop... I don't. But I didn't really know anything before. I should really get Painter and start from scratch. I'm sort of happy with the background, but overall this looks very 1998 fan art-ish to me. -_- Blaaargh.

Not sure how long this took, but it's pretty unGodly, considering how amatuerish it is.

Anyways, enough shitting on myself. I promise to never do this again.