Sketch Break!

Happy holidays! As you can see, I've been taking a break from the daily sketches-- I've been travelling and running around for the holidays, and will continue to do so for a while yet. Daily sketches will resume soon.

Sketch-a-Day #15

Today's song: "Surd" by Babes in Toyland. They're the first band to appear twice in these sketches. Neat! Something a little more understated today. I read a little about the band's history today-- I didn't realize that they never necessarily associated themselves with the riot grrrl movement, though they influenced a number of riot grrrl bands. The more you know~ Anyway, enjoy the sketch!

Sketch-a-Day #14

Today's song is "Du Riechst So Gut" by Rammstein. The title's English translation is "You Smell So Good", and it brought to mind a werewolf. I wanted to show the beast during a moment of predatory concentration. It's not looking its fiercest here as it concentrates on olfactory processing. Leave it to Rammstein to pull up some creepy material to draw from :P

Sketch-a-Day #13

Today's song is "Jillian" by Within Temptation. The song's epic/orchestral qualities inspired something a little more serious than usual. Enjoy!

Sketch-a-Day #12

Today will be a double, since I missed yesterday. First off we have a sketch inspired by Nirvana's "Very Ape". Took this one pretty literally :P

Sketch-a-Day #11

Today's song was "Häxprocess" by Opeth. This one was a bit of a challenge at first; the title and most of the lyrics are pretty abstract. The lines "Tracks in the snow / Leading them to woe" evoked a specter with a lantern, lighting the way through the wintery night... but toward what? :O

Sketch-a-Day #10

Today's song was Rush's "The Necromancer". I found it a little harder to settle on a shape/pose for this one. They can't all be zingers, I suppose.

Sketch-a-Day #9

I realized while doing my sketch yesterday that I'd only done male or genderless characters since starting this exercise. Today's song was "Dust Cake Boy"  by Babes in Toyland, it's as if they and Bikini Kill had been sitting there in my library, pissed off at me for the transgression :P The song and Babes in Toyland's attitude inspired this character; she's kinda like... Tank Girl meets the bikers from Akira? Anyway! Enjoy "Bat Grrrl".

Sketch-A-Day #8

Happy 12-12-12 everyone! Today's song is the track "Ocean World: Abyssal Glouglou" by Christophe Heral, from the Rayman: Origins soundtrack. Here's an abyss-dwelling cephalopod-person for ya.

Sketch-A-Day #7

Today's song is Gorillaz' "El Mañana"! It's funny, I had listened to Demon Days this morning and then when I sat down for the sketch this song popped up again as the random track. Neat! I wanted to draw a robotic cowboy, resting by a tree after a long day's rustling.

Sketch-a-Day #6

Today's song: Anamanaguchi - "Power Supply"

Had to do something cartoony for this track :)

Sketch-A-Day #5

This cosmic entity was inspired by Cynic's "Uroboric Forms" rather literally. Enjoy!

Sketch-A-Day #4

Inspired by "E-Pro" by Beck.. Wandering the lands mending people's computer woes, this dude is an electronic professional. And he's got the jaunty swagger to prove it.

Sketch-A-Day #3

The song was Frank Zappa's "Dumb All Over". I was at a loss at first, but there's a line that mentions jogging. I decided to draw a really intense jogger, out there in winter with just a windbreaker and some terrible spandex shorts :P

Sketch-A-Day #2

Missed yesterday-- d'oh! Great start, right? Anyway: The song was Santana's "Say It Again", which brought to mind a creature with many mouths. This turned into a skeletal creature with a cape and a conspicuous number of skulls. Enjoy the Skull Baron! The top skull kinda looks like Red Fang's logo.

Sketch-a-Day #1!

Hey there! I'm doing a creative exercise thingy along with my buddies Eric Stirpe and Joe Rothenberg. The idea is a daily 45-minute character sketch inspired by a randomly-selected song. Perhaps the title, perhaps the lyrics, perhaps just the mood. Today's is inspired by the title of Hacride's "Fate"-- I instantly thought of some kind of cosmic alien bureaucrat who keeps track of the strands of destiny with his fancy clipboard. I present to you the Fate-Scribe:

"New" Layout!

Hey there! This one's been in the works in one way or another for a while now-- I did the prop design for the ship a long time ago. I wanted to redo the background and introduce some characters. Enjoy!

Character Lineup for Smart Bomb

Hey there! I just finished the character lineup for the main cast of Smart Bomb, the graphic novel I've been developing with the talented Eric Stirpe.

Here we have sentient weapon/maintenance-bot duo James and Franklin, minesweeping would-be war hero Slim, resourceful orphaned cyborg Lucy and junked stock oracle Marcel.

Cathedral Study

I've been working on a study from Genaro Perez Villaamil's "Seville Cathedral on the Side of the Steps" (1835) today, in preparation for an album cover. The study isn't super-polished, but I figured I should probably start working on the cover itself soon rather than massaging this copy indefinitely. I've never painted a cityscape before, and I wanted a bit of practice with the subject-- specifically something with yellow/gold-ish buildings and some ornate spires.

Back Again!

Hello! It's been a while, time to post some stuff! Here are some sketches of people from the coffee shop and some architectural studies. The towers are from San Giminano and the house is from Tibet.

Desperat-o

Just a quick doodle of some kinda bandit rat.

Shalaganga Cavern

Hark! A background! I did the lines for this quite some time ago, and a wonky color job several months back. I've learned a lot since then, and have recolored the piece along with some other adjustments. Enjoy!

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Antique Cars

A couple neat old cars from the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar!

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Figures

Hello! I'm wrangling a bunch of scans; here's a page of figure drawings I've culled from the madness!

BEARS!!

"Cannot lurk forever, bear..."
                     -Mikhail Bulgakov, Psychonauts

New stuff! Here's a page of figuring out hands from Jamie Hewlett's excellent Gorillaz art (blue and black pencil) and a page of vehicles from the American Military Museum this past Saturday (marker, pen, white pencil, white gel pen on toned paper) with Will Weston's Drawing for Composition class through the Animation Institute.

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Lonesome George

     I won't pretend that I was aware of Lonesome George's existence until the headlines about his passing emerged, but since I've been drawing tortoises anyway I figured I would take Sean's suggestion and do a quick portrait. Here's to George and his subspecies!

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Hi there!

     I've been meaning to start this sketch blog for the longest time, and my greatest impediment has been trying to make some grand construct of the thing before I'd even started it. This is often my greatest obstacle, especially where art is concerned, and I've resolved to combat this bad habit.

     So here it goes-- I'm just going to upload some stuff! A lot of it will be very rough. Some of it might make you mad, just looking at it. Hopefully you'll find a sketch here and there that you enjoy.

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     I'll be starting with some animal sketches. Animals are among my favorite things to draw, so this will surely be the first of many. Here are a couple pages of tortoise research and fun with flamingos.