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.

Comic Strip: Facebook debacle

Sorry for the long wait, here is the next episode. I still haven't come up with a name for the strip yet, I'm open to suggestions. To clear this up a little, this strip was spawned by a series of Facebook statuses that I posted when I was trying to make up a new character.

I might schedule the strip to one or two a week, especially if I keep using so many details in the color, I'm still working on that decision.

Update

I guess for those of you who do check in to see what I have done lately I should give you an update. I have been trying to figure out what to do for the next strip and it finally hit me, my real life can be funny enough sometimes, especially when I divert the physical pain to other characters.

The next strip will hopefully be at least a little funnier than the first few. I just started sketching it tonight so it might be another day or two while I work out all the details and get it colored and lettered. In the mean time I will show you what I was working on while contemplating this next adventure and I also took a screenshot of the first panel and will let you have a look at that too.

If you read my posts, you will remember a certain j0kersWILD from the post about awesome Deviant artists. The piece that had me occupied while I was hashing out the plot line for the next strip is one of her newest and the concept of the whole thing made me want to color it. If you want to check out the original line work you can find it HERE and her colored version HERE

As promised I will show you the first panel sketch for the next episode. I might leave the sketchy unfinished look in this "episode" as it seems to add more character, I will obviously make it look decent, I just like the look of irregular lines sometimes.

All Hell Breaks Loose

I probably would have had this one up sometime on Monday if I hadn't been so easily distracted. Anyway, this is an introduction to two of my characters Alin and K-7. The Cthuloid is just something I threw in for fun, I like the works based on Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos so I had to throw something in. Cthuloid may or may not be a recurring character, that is still undecided.

Giving in

I finally made up my mind. After doing for guest strips for Broken Icon's web comic I kind of got into a groove and decided to start doing one of my own. I have no idea of what kind of release schedule I will be using so, basically for now it will be whenever I finish one.

I will eventually make a page to keep the strips on so they will be easier to find. New strips will still appear on the main page when they are first uploaded and then be moved. If anyone has any code ideas to make it so I don't have all the strips on one page I would be very grateful and so would anyone that has to wait for the page to load.

I will be updating the first comic, "How to Fix Windows Update", by putting it into an easier to read format. The long four panel strip doesn't exactly work well when the text is small.

Here is a sneak peak at some art in progress, this one might be up sometime tomorrow or the next day.

Be careful what you wish for

Here is another strip following off the last one, "How to fix Windows Update". I changed the layout format to hopefully make it more readable.

Comic Strip: How to fix Windows Update

Something I threw together real fast, the art is basic but, the text is the important part in this one. If you are wondering, YES, that is me AND this IS something I would do. Actually I have done this before.

Enjoy

The last guest comic from me for a while

Here is the last guest comic that I was asked to do for Broken Icon. I'm not giving up on it, I'm just out of the rotation and the regular artist should be back in a couple weeks. I am posting the finished art before the text was added and the resolution made smaller as well as the completely finished version with text. The only reason I am posting both is the fact that I put a little extra detail into this one that gets lost when the resolution is made smaller.

The final art version

The completely finished with text version

BIC Guest Webcomic

Here is a another guest strip i did for the guys over at Broken Icon Comics. The line work and colors are mine and the text was added by the Chief Editor James Maddox.

These strips are fun but, I wouldn't want to do them full time, at least not with their release schedule. I agreed to do the strip as a fill in for the regular artist who has to be out for family matters but, I didn't know the release schedule was so tight. I thought it was just Wednesdays and Fridays, I had no idea that there was a Monday in there too.

Between the art, this blog and just trying to keep up with regular interests this last two weeks has been pretty rough. The strips have been pretty much all the practice I have had lately minus a few minutes that I used to try working out sketches for different angles. I am currently working on finishing up the last strip for this week as I write this, I needed a little break.

Have a look, click on strip for bigger version.

As always, Comments are welcome.

Old joke with a new Twist

I was sitting around one day being bored, and for some reason this old superhero joke came out of nowhere. The original joke is a bit much for illustrating here without changing the rating filter of the entire blog so, I will just upload the new twist sketch that I made. Keep in mind that this was a very quick sketch, probably the length of time it takes to smoke 2 cigarettes which is what I did when I sketched it. This was done in a composition book that I carried around with me for doing quick sketches.


Click the pic to see a more readable version.

Legal Stuff:
Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Flash are all characters of DC Comics and I claim no rights to the actual characters just the drawing of those characters in a parody/joke style manner. The invisible man could be anyone from anywhere so copyright credits are difficult to give. This is for entertainment only please DO NOT reproduce this image, I mean come on the art really sucks in this one.

Comments are welcome.

New sketch

I figured I would try something new and use a reference pic to sketch from. Normally I do pretty good at making my sketch look like the reference pic but, this sketch I did last night just didn't quite turn out like I had expected. I had this wild idea to draw Alice from Alice in Wonderland and maybe tweak it into something a little darker as I worked on it. I like to experiment with things like that. Here is what I ended up with.

The original image that I referenced was a younger Alice from Disney's version of the story which can be found here

I still need to do some work on it but, I will probably just end up redoing the sketch from scratch and try using one of my own characters instead. The whole idea was to get some practice with different views and angles. The fact that the reference pic still had the reference sketch lines in it helped me in the layout of my own sketch. I know the only difference is technically the face but, I still suck at drawing hair so I just referenced what was there, which still needs work in my sketch.

I don't have any formal training as far as art is concerned so, everything is self taught or picked up from watching others. I have bookmarks and hundreds of megs of files consisting of drawing tutorials ranging from american comics to Japanese Manga and pencil art for single pieces. I have plenty of material to work from, it is getting it from my head to the page that is the hard part.

I always cite my sources of reference if I can find them again, I sometimes forget to bookmark the link or copy it to notepad. Even if I can't find the original reference page I still list the reference source as best I can. I wouldn't want anyone to think I tried to steal their glory or anything. One thing that must be realized, while there are millions of facial combinations, the human body is only capable of so many poses. If a pose looks similar to something out there it is a good possibility that it was referenced since I don't trace work that belongs to anyone else. I have used a 3D program to pose a model and then outline trace that to make some quick sketches for game characters when I play RPG's. I haven't traced anyone's work since I was in high school and traced a few poses out of Family Circus for practice. Funny thing is I haven't actually drawn anything since high school which makes this whole art craze of mine about 20 years overdue.

I think that is enough bloggerific rambling one one night. Please comment or don't, it is your choice. Have fun and remember CITE YOUR SOURCES.

Just an off day

Today was just one of those days. I couldn't get any motivation going to do any sketching or coloring. I spent most of the day reading updates about the Fraud-who-shall-not-be-named. If it wasn't for that I think my week would have been rather boring actually but, that is dieing down and people including myself are just getting tired of that idiot.

The one positive thing that did come out of that whole ordeal is I got some character ideas for my comic book. I only plan to use partial names instead of likenesses since I can't draw that well and I wouldn't want anyone coming down on me for likeness rights. I figure that Sheriff Waid and Deputy Sciver should be homage enough to this whole past couple weeks. It would also serve as an awesome inside joke to those in the community to share. I haven't even reached that far into the storyline yet so that is still a long ways off.

That reminds me that maybe I should actually try writing a partial script for my storyline. The way I'm working it out now is frame by frame. I sketch in the frame and let the story flow from one to the next and then hope that I can remember the dialog when I go back to add the text frames.

My current predicament has me at the next to last frame for a page, I know what I want in the frame but, I don't know how I want to represent it with the drawing. Most of the frames I have up to this point can pretty much tell the story for themselves with maybe a little bump from narration. I haven't gotten into any Dialog heavy situations yet but, after I figure out the one panel I am currently stuck on that will change. The sad part is that I am only on the 6th page with 2 panels left, which when finished will only be 18 panels. I am so in over my head but, that's life, if you aren't in over your head how do you know that you can really swim? I don't expect this comic to be finished any time soon if at all given how my life usually goes but, I am going to try even if it is the only one that I ever get done.

I guess that should be more than enough rambling for one day considering I didn't think I had anything to really post. Comments are always welcome.

What am I currently working on?

Currently I am working on coloring an old line art piece by j0kersWILD from Deviant Art. I have had the flats done on this piece for a while and just recently decided to go in and finish it up. I have so many pieces that are waiting to be finished but, they aren't for money and don't have any deadlines so, I take my time and work on them when the mood is right.

I still need to finish the highlighting and shading on Harley and then go back through to do any tweaks that are necessary. Normally I don't like to show unfinished work but, sometimes people just want to know what you are currently working on. Check out her gallery here.

Awesome Deviants from DA

I thought I would do a post on the awesome artists at Deviant Art whose line work I have colored or just have amazing artwork. It would be insane to try going through the entire site and picking out artists so, I am just using those in my watch list which is still quite a hefty list and growing.

There is no particular order for any of these artists as saying one is better than another just wouldn't be right, they are all amazing and some are still perfecting their craft. I will list links to the artist's DA profiles at the end.

First up is j0kersWILD, an awesome artist from Australia whose favorite character happens to be DC's Harley Quinn. I have colored many Joker and Harley pieces drawn by her in which the line work could make you cross-eyed at times with the level of detail. She has recently gone to drawing other fanarts including some Pokemon (mostly Team Rocket) and some Disney characters. If I remember correctly she is either still an art student or takes many art related courses to learn new techniques and work out her style. Her gallery is definitely worth taking a look at.

Next up is Deamond89 from Germany. I have several pieces of line work from this artist waiting to be colored. The nice thing about Deamond89's line work is the fact that it is labeled according to how difficult the piece will be to color. The pieces are also usually in a very large resolution that is murder on a low RAM system. Most of the gallery is in a manga style and based on Original characters but, there are some fanarts like Link from Legend of Zelda.

Next is JosephB222 from the US. This artist's gallery is very sci-fi based with fanarts from Star Wars and Mass Effect. A very talented artist with other line and finished fanart works including Futurama, GI Joe, several DC titles and other cartoon favorites like Kim Possible. His Sith Princesses gallery is very entertaining, the thought of Disney Princesses as light saber wielding Sith death machines, Awesome and well drawn.

Next is CallMePo, an artist from Canada. This is definitely a gallery to check out if you like the girls/women of DC. I will admit that not all of his pieces are viewable by everyone and I have colored a couple of his more mature rated line works. CallMePo is very talented in the art of Power Girl from DC, he also has a section of his gallery just for Kim Possible. Many of the pieces in his gallery are commission based but, he does have some line work that can be downloaded and colored.

Next is KidNotorious also know as Charles Holbert Jr. This artist gallery is very diverse, you can find works from Marvel as well as DC and many old and new Saturday morning cartoon favorites and Anime. His line work is very clean and easy to color, my biggest problem is the ink work is usually so well done that I don't want to mess it up by adding color.

There are still several other artists in my watch list that have amazing work but, these are the ones that update the most often and whose work I have the most experience with. Other artists in my watch list are photographers and photo-manipulators who do great work as well but, their works don't exactly fit the idea behind this post.

Galleries links in order of appearance
j0kersWILD
Deamond89
JosephB222
CallMePo
KidNotorious