Futurama Fan Art: Leela

This is a spin-off from a sketch request. I was asked to draw Bender and figured that usually Fry and/or Leela are in the scene when watching the show. I did a quick rough of that sketch and it still needs a little work, which is where this came from. I am trying to get comfortable drawing the characters that will be in the scene so that I can make it look really good.

The request is from my wife again and the finished piece will be for my son who loves Futurama, we still aren't sure who his favorite character is just yet. I might end up drawing the entire cast just because I really like the show too.

Borderland Fan Art: Clap Trap

I was in the need for something to keep me in practice so I asked my wife what I could do for commissions or requests. She gave me two requests right off the bat with almost no hesitation. The first piece my wife requested is Clap Trap from Borderland, mostly because my nephew really likes the game. The second request was, well, you will have to wait until I actually get that one finished.

UPDATE: New Page

I decided to add a new page to the blog. I originally wanted to showcase my my skills and talents with this blog so, the new page will contain all things that are done completely by me. Some things might get posted more than once depending on the stages they are in(pencil,ink,color).

Harley Inked

I finally got around to inking my Harley sketch.

If you download, it is only to be used for coloring practice. The signature is not to be removed and all credits for the original line work must be given, a link back here to this post or my blog is also acceptable. If you upload your colored version back to the internet I would like to see it so leave me a link in a comment.

Disclaimer: Harley Quinn is the property of DC comics.

Back to priorities.

I think I have gotten all the little stuff out of my system. I have my Linux/Unix VM's basically how I want them and now I can get back to playing with art. I still don't have a way to get my traditional sketches into BSD through VMWare so I have to use Windows for posts that involve uploading art. I also found out the hard way that using GIMP in VMWare isn't a good idea either, at least not on this laptop I'm using, not enough RAM to go around.

I have done a couple traditional sketches in the last couple days, they will be posted below. I have also started a new color project with a piece from J0kersWILD, all the base colors are done and just need to have details and effects added, I will post that one too.

I still don't have a new strip to post as I haven't been able to get passed the block, basically nothing interesting enough to draw about. I am hoping to eventually get back to it and get the strip running a little more consistently. I have been thinking about having friends write scripts for me so all I have to do is figure out how to draw the scenes. I might even be tempted to use anyone's script actually just so I have something to post. If anyone has any ideas leave a comment, I'm not sure if I have added a mailto link to the page yet, I'll check on that.

Anyway, on to the art.


I found some color pencils and wanted to give them a try. The hard part was getting a fleshtone since there wasn't one, I had to use a light rose and brown, and then lightly erase until it looked right. I'm surprised it turned out as good as it did since I haven't colored anything like that since before High School(for a time reference, I graduated in 1992).

I had no idea I was going to be drawing Harley Quinn when I started this one. I just sat down and started putting lines to paper, after I got the face half done I knew who I was drawing. After I realized who was going to be the subject of the drawing the rest was on purpose.
I know the proportions and anatomy are off but, that doesn't really bother me. I know I still need work with anatomy and proportion/perspective so, I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

This is a piece by j0kersWILD from Deviant Art. She said it was inspired by the House of Mouse episode "A Match Not Made in Heaven". This piece doesn't have the artists signature in it yet so I disabled the linking to a larger version.

Getting back to MY Basics

I have been in kind of a slump lately. I haven't been able to come up with a new strip for two weeks and it is annoying. I decided to get back to my roots in the digital world and installed BSD and Slackware through VMWare. I know you might be wondering what this has to do with making comic strips. I realized that since my strips were based partially off of actual events involving me and then just adding other characters to tell the story or to make it longer, I needed more inspiration to work with.

I have become too complacent with Windows and everything being "easy". I started my days of computer tinkering when the Tandy 1000 and Apple IIc were new models. I remember having to work a little to make programs do what you wanted, sometimes you had to be creative. I noticed that since Windows doesn't require you to work for anything I lost some of the creative spark that made me me. Unfortunately I can't completely do away with Windows since I do like to play games and graphics programs are a little easier to find.

I am writing this entry on a default program that ships with KDE4 on FreeBSD called Blogilo, it works pretty good so far and I already know beforehand that it won't handle media uploads so, all my media posts will have to be handled a little differently than usual or through firefox. I am just happy that I have a Unix structure to play in again. Unix is one of those things that makes you feel smarter just by association, it's a good learning environment too.

I am in the process of finding a good Photoshop like program for Unix/Linux and I am open to any suggestions. I like to use GIMP for graphics editing but, it doesn't respond well to my digital pad, I have no pressure sensitivity.

That's all for this entry, maybe more later. I might update more often now that I have my preferred working environment.

Blocked

Just to update any who frequent my blog, I had planned to have a new comic strip for this last week but, as it turns out, I ended up with writer's block. My strips tend to flow from a base idea and then the first panel sets the rest. I had too many possible ideas and I just couldn't sort any of them out enough to try drawing the first panel. Now that I think about it, I haven't sketched anything all week, I'm not even sure what I have done all week. I'm hoping this next week will be a little less hectic and allow my brain to work out some new stuff, maybe I'll just sit down and draw up a bunch of strips ahead of time and then just color them before I upload them, that way if I have a blocked week again I will still have a strip to upload.