Self Pic Cutie - Complete!

Here is the finished piece. Ink and watercolor on 4 ply Bristol Board. Digital "flash" added. Today is both the 182nd day of the year and my 182nd post. I'm going to consider today the half way point even though half way would be 182.5 days. A big THANK YOU to everyone who checks out this blog! 

Tiki Room progress

Spent the morning working on the Big Job. Last minute touches to it for the first presentation this week. Then spent some of the afternoon painting my wife's mural. Today I worked one of the Tiki. He is about 90% done. I will get the other one up to the same point before I finish them both. In case you might be wondering what the two tiki are looking at, my wife has several colorful ceramic and metal lizards that will be placed on the walls. One will be on the leaves between the Tiki giving the mural some dimension.

Self Pic Cutie - inked

I promised a cute girl today and I delivered. This is inked on 4 ply Bristol Board. I will be adding color using traditional watercolors. Picked up a very expensive new set of paints that I can wait to try. Happy Saturday!

Whiteboard Jungle

I forgot to share these pictures. These are boards from earlier this week. It was a full day of 3 year strategic planning and 1 year action plans. Another hard working group that made a breakthrough in planning their future thanks to the Labs. The group left with a very positive attitude about the process and what they took with them. A good day if there ever was one.

Cute girl tomorrow. :)

Sketchbook Thursday

Warmups from this morning in my sketchbook. I have a lot to do for the BIG JOB by Monday, so my weekend might be booked up. Unfortunately I can't show any of it here. There are some fun pieces in the BIG JOB that I think everyone would enjoy. Today's post is done in ink, pencil and color pencil in my sketchbook. About 30-45 minutes. Back to work! 

The Notorious Bettie Page

A page in my sketchbook for today. My very first attempts to draw 1950s pin-up queen, Bettie Page. It's interesting doing my take on such an icon. Anyone who knows of Bettie, knows what she looks like. But to sit down and really analyze her features is different than just looking at a picture. Her hair and in particular, her signature bangs, are giving me a little bit of trouble. And because her hair is so black, it's hard to make out the way the hair lays. I'll get it though. Mostly by doing some structure drawings of her hair in order to work it out. These pieces were done in pencil on a sketchbook page.

Key West Cutie - Complete

I had a full day at the Labs today but still managed to finish up our scooter girl this evening. She will be part of the next package from CILM. I'm hoping for a July release. Anyone interested in my work that is available at CILM, here is a link to my page on their site.

I'm Plastic Man!

It's a sketchbook Monday folks. Today's submission is a page I did this morning in my sketchbook. I am doing a commission featuring Plastic Man, Woozy Winks and a notorious 1950s pin-up queen. It's a fun piece. Since I have not drawn Plastic Man or Woozy before, I thought I should do some warm up sketches to get a feel for him. Woozy is done a little more towards the realistic side because the finished piece will be along those lines. I'm looking forward to getting started on it. One thing about Plas that I am not sure of, and maybe someone reading this can help me: Does Plastic Man ever have the bulging surprise eyes like the ones I have drawn above? I'm not sure since I think he puts the goggles/sunglasses on his face and it is not part of his body. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Key West Cutie - color progress

Just a quick update on the progress of this piece. I spent a little time today blocking in the colors and separating the background line art and color from the foreground lineart and color. This is the process of getting a piece ready for CILM. I might be able to finish her up tomorrow.

Key West Cutie - inked

I had some time today to ink this piece. Next step will be coloring her in Photoshop. You can see her here in pencil.

Collaborative Day

It was a full day at the Labs today doing my whiteboard thing. It's been a while since I was actually doing an event in the Labs. The last several Lab events have been out of town in different facilities. Nice to be back in the home field, as it were. Today was about substance abuse, recovery and mental health. You would think this would be a pretty somber group but not at all. This group knows how important their work is to others but that doesn't stop them from having a good time while working hard. It was a real pleasure to work with them today.

Tiki Room revisited

My free time (before 7:30am and my lunch break) were spent working on the mural for Deena's Tiki Room. Here is the progress on the second corner of the room. Some of you might recognized the two tikis from one of my island girl pin-ups. My wife like them so up on the wall they go. The lunch break was spent inking the scooter girl from a couple of days ago, but she's not finished yet. Today was a full day of putting a few projects to bed. Both were logo designs for two separate business. While the rest of the day was spent on THE BIG JOB. Still working up styles and designs. But with a presentation fast approaching, things are getting busy.

In somewhat depressing news, I realized that I would be at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina about right now if not for my work load. HeroesCon starts tomorrow. I been going to HeroesCon since 1994. Only missed a couple of years, unfortunately this year is one of them. It's a great show with some great people who attend. I'm really going to miss seeing everyone. Sigh.

Self Pic Cutie

Another amazingly busy and very productive day. Here is the finished pencil art for another of the pin-ups I will be doing for my next batch of art for CILM. This cutie is taking a sexy little digital picture of herself in her bathroom mirror. This was done in pencil on 11" x 14" Strathmore Bristol Board. I will ink this and color it in Photoshop. 

Key West Cutie

I didn't think I would have a chance to work on one of the roughs from yesterday but by starting at 6:30am and quitting for the day at 8pm, I found the time. The little shop behind our scooter girl is an actual place to get Key Lime Pie in Key West. Since I took so many pictures down there last week, I thought I would use this one for a backdrop. This was done on 11" x 14" Strathmore Bristol Board using a pencil. This will be inked and digitally colored when I have time.

Another Sketchbook Monday

The week started as expected. I had to hit the ground running. The next two weeks are going to be full so I don't know if I will have an opportunity to have any finished pieces to post. Today's submission is something I did while eating my lunch. I thought I would try to come up with 6 new pieces for CILM for July. Or August, depending on my schedule. I'm pretty happy with all the poses but I am particularly happy with the one on the bottom left. That one will be fun. I always like drawing girls on scooters. :)

She's not a bad girl, I just drew her that way.

The latest and last piece for CILM and the June release. This is ink on 11" x 17" Canson Bristol Board with Photoshop colors. And a big Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there.

Return to Planet X

Just inking a page today from POPX 2. This panel features Princess Odyri. I plan on finishing the page tomorrow. This is done in ink and pencil on Strathmore 3 ply Bristol Board.

Mermaids and Reefs

This little sketch was done in my sketchbook this morning before heading to the boat for our snorkeling adventure. Had I done this piece after the adventure I might have used quite a bit more green. The same green I was as the catamaran bounced all over in the rough waters. Just trying to swim from the boat to the reef was a big energy drain as we were tossed around by the waves. Shortly after that, I did not feel so good. But that is not that important, the important thing was the reef. We were told that it was the third largest in the world and that it is dying. After seeing it myself, I would have to agree. It was not very colorful and there was not a lot of activity where we were. I have snorkeled in Jamaica and seen some beautiful coral, this sadly looked nothing like that. Pollution and visitors are two big problems. Even in our group, some people were careless and kicked the coral, bumped into it and one person stood on it. Not good. It all seemed pretty sad. If you are interested in the ocean and it's survival, check out rozsavage.com. Roz Savage is rowing a boat across the Pacific by herself. She already rowed the Atlantic. There are interesting blogs from her on a daily basis and she also does an interview with tech guy, Leo Leporte. Roz doesn't hammer you with a message, it's actually a very gentle note really. It's a fascinating adventure she is on. You might find it interesting.

Oh, and I did not get sick.:)

Greetings from The Southernmost Point in the U.S.A.

So here we are in Key West. Had a chance to get away for a day or two and we took it. The drive wasn't bad. It is only 7.5 hours from our house. We saw some beautiful scenery on the way down. One thing that is amazing is all the scooters and rental buggys running around. As our cab driver put it, they are like mosquitoes. Harder to clean off the grill though, was what I asked him next. Anyway, had a great meal overlooking the marina. Lobster, Filet, and all the fixings. And naturally I couldn't skip doing some artwork for the blog. Deena even took a picture of me working on it at the restaurant. Inspired by the scooters I submit my scooter girl. A quick sketch, sorry. But see that martini next to me. It wasn't getting any colder. After dinner we walked into a Ron Jon Surf store and saw some of my work for sale. That was cool. I had to take a picture of the display. Now, how am I doing all this on the road? Pictures were taken with my iPhone, emailed to myself, opened on my laptop, edited in Photoshop, and uploaded to the blog. Whew! Tomorrow is snorkeling at a reef and then we head home in the afternoon. More tomorrow!

Lean back, relax in color

Here is another sketch that I completed for CILM. I need to get one more done for the June release. This is another in the series of Pillow pieces. I will be on the road for the next three days. Had an opening in the workload and figure to take advantage of it because starting next week it's going to get very hectic. I will be posting from the road. Now, what road will that be? I will let you know tomorrow. :) This piece was done in acrylic and watercolor on 11" x 17" 3 ply bristol board.

Teddy Bear

I promised a cute girl for today and here she is. This is a watercolor painting on 11" x 17" 3 ply bristol board. This will be part of my next release from CILM. In a way, it fits my "Pillow" theme. Well, sort of. :)

The Tiki Room

The images above are of a mural I am doing for my wife. We have two rooms that open to our lanai and pool area. One room is going to be my wife's retreat. And it will be the Tiki Room. The mural, when finished, will span all the walls. The beach area will cover the two main walls while the jungle will go up and over the arch way from the dining room and over the hide-in-wall patio doors. She has been picking up little things like ceramic lizards, to hang on the walls "leaves" when the room is finished. You may also see the netting with shells above the doorway. Furniture and tiki bar are in the near future. All of the plants in the mural are actual plants. Not making anything up here. Our backyard provides a lot of the inspiration, as does the beaches here. The last photo is a shot of our banana trees, sea grapes and white bird of paradise. These are examples of the plants in the mural. Since this is something that can only be done in my down time, you can imagine the patience my wife has. :) The mural is painted using acrylics. Hope you all enjoy the change in pace here. I promise a cute girl tomorrow. :)

Manhunter from Mars

Played with the program PAINTER X today. This is probably an hour of work. Most of it was done with the Artist Oils brushes. I didn't do a lot of blending because I wanted the brush strokes to show. This program is going to be very addictive. I need to make sure I don't go overboard. :) This piece was done completely in the program. I roughed it out with big blocks of color, no contour, or outline drawing. Fun stuff. And yes, I realized after I was done that his collar should have been blue. Oops.

Sitting Pretty

Just a little sketch from the book this afternoon. Sorry I have been wordy lately. Been pretty busy. I do appreciate the visits from everyone and I try to make it worth the time for all who do drop by. Thanks again! Now back to work! :)

Sketchbook Friday

Happy Friday everyone. Just a couple of sketches from my book this morning. Way too busy on the Big Project to do anything else. Still playing catch up from the lost time on Thursday. Have a good weekend.

Cheeky!

Another, even quicker, quickie for today. Going to be gone all day today but I wanted to do something before I leave. Might be too tired late tonight when I get home, and this gives me an excuse to play a bit more in Photoshop with some of the new brushes. This piece was done as an attempt to get the cheek right. The rest of the face didn't matter except to give the cheek some context. Otherwise this would look really strange. I'm fairly happy with it. I got some of the depth I was shooting for, but not completely happy with the color. There is a lot more I could do with the color. I stuck too much with the pinks and purples. Need to loosen up and really get adventurous. With time I suppose. I was using a wet oil brush and a watercolor brush set at different opacities. The line art itself was done using the conte pencil brush. Completely done in Photoshop, in 30 minutes.

Green Eyes

Just a quickie today. Working on BIG project and inked another page of POPX2. This was done in Photoshop in about 1 hour. Spent too much time on it but I am still playing with some new brushes in PS since getting my iMac and upgrading to CS3. Probably be worse tomorrow: PAINTER X should be here any minute. That will be a distraction even worse than Photoshop. :)

BACK TO PLANET X!

Been a full day of work but I managed to ink a page of PERILS ON PLANET X. These two panels feature Ravyn, bodyguard for Princess Odyri. When we first started working on the book I wanted to do some textures to the art because it was going to be done in black and white. Now we have a colorist and I wasn't sure if this would work very well. But after seeing the colored pages that have come in, I am very happy with the results. So after penciling, I ink the page and then erase all of the pencil marks as normal. Then I go back and establish some values with graphite and black Prismacolor pencils. The panels above are a good example. If you want to see a colored page go to the POPX blog.

Moonstone Crime Wave!

Cue the music, it's plug time! As part of MOONSTONE PUBLISHINGS CRIME WAVE MONTH, on page 332 in the June 2008 PREVIEWS you will find MCCANDLESS & COMPANY: INSECURITIES ONE-SHOT by series creator J.C. Vaughn and myself. This is 56 black/white/graytone pages for $4.99. These stories once appeared in a much larger collection with a very limited print run. If you have that book you know the printing was terrible. Hence the limited run. My stories were originally supposed to run as a one shot and now they are.

I have posted several panels from the book. And a process for the cover on the left. The cover on the left is the cover for the book. The piece on the right is the original cover. When Moonstone picked up the book, they wanted a more noirish image. Sounded like a good idea so we went with it. I even did the title and credits in a look of the 1930s and 1940s movie posters. I just thought it would be fun to show the original cover here. I believe it is in the book. Michael Avon Oeming (POWERS, MICE TEMPLAR) has done a variant cover. They will ship in a 50/50 ratio. Okay, everyone back to their meals. Plug is over. Thanks for listening. 

Take your stinking paws off me...

I think everyone knows the rest of that post title line. No one mentioned yesterdays post title. Maybe no one got it or it was so simple it just didn't need mentioning. Either way, penciled the last two pages for PERILS ON PLANET X #2. I will start inking the second half of the book tomorrow. Nice to have the pencil portion done. I can only work on the book when I have time and time is something I just don't have much of. But this weekend cleared up pretty good so I gave it a go. This week is going to be very frantic as I put together some designs for a rather large project that I am gearing up for. The designs have to wing their way to Pittsburgh and will be presented on Wednesday. So, busy, busy, busy. Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend!