Friday, September 26, 2008

baltimore comic con 08

(from left to right)
hulk, invisible woman, gambit, nova

so it's baltimore con this weekend. oddly enough, i'm not as excited as i would like to be. but i think that's just due to all the other crap i'm dealing with right now. still, i find that being at the convention brings back the fervor to do these things so it'll be good to get back to that environment and remind myself why i draw for a living! =P
october is quite the busy month for me. first of all, my birthday's the first of the month but so is my nephew's. then i've got my Godson, my Goddaughter, and my niece's birthdays all in this month too! not to mention my bro-in-law whom we live with. so its gonna be fun times. lots of kids' presents to buy. then we've got one more comic convention in Ohio in the middle of the month and an expo to set up at for Big Heads Little Bodies caricatures.

so these are the new Artist Proof Sketch Cards that i've done for a couple folks. i just finished one that's not in this set yet and working on another one. BUT i plan on bringing blank ones to the con with me this weekend to do commissions on them. i just got the new set from the 3rd series that i recently finished so i've got 14 cards to sell now. woohoo!!!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

a friend of a friend


i did this yesterday for a friend's husband who wanted to give this to his friends as part of a wedding gift to them. i did one of them before and that's how they got the idea to have me do another one for their friends. so after about 8 hours of tracing shapes in illustrator, this is the finished product!
i took the photo into Illustrator and turned that into a template so it fades into the back. then i traced shapes starting with things that are towards the back. i used a lot of layers to make it easier to keep things in the back like shirts and inside of jackets behind stuff that are towards the front like skin and hair. the original photo is of the two of them in a bar so he was actually holding a beer bottle and she had a glass of wine or sangria or something. didn't think that would be quite appropriate to include in a wedding gift. (the glass of wine woulda been fine but certainly not the beer.) SO i had to get rid of those and make up stuff behind them - namely his jacket and shirt. having colored stuff in photoshop really helped to pick out the shapes of shadows and bright spots.
this turned out better than the first one i did of my friends which is unfortunate for them but inevitable just cuz one's bound to get better the more they do. it was also a really cute picture that i was using to work with. i was itching to take it into photoshop instead and start painting it since i'm more comfortable doin that now than selecting and coloring. =P
i don't know the two people getting married but i surely hope they like this!
(i opted not to post the original photo i used to respect their privacy.)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

more clouds in my stones



well, can't say i didn't warn ya! i'm going to try this sky out as much as i can so i that i can perfect it. =P this is a character named Witchie Boo that was created by a good buddy Pat Carlucci. he got me my first deviantart subscription and since then i can't really live without it! so i drew the lines for this way back when he got me the subscription with the intention of giving it to him as a thank you gift. but i never got around to it and soon it was lost in the many files.
however, since august he's been really sick and has been in the hospital with kidney failure. he's extremely friendly to everyone he meets whether ur a fellow artist or a customer at his booth. he makes u feel like u guys have been buddies for years even though it's the first time u've ever met him. that's a tremendous gift that only a very few people have. not to mention he introduced us to so many other artists that have eventually led to collaborations and friendships. he's got a lot of people worried about him including me and the husband. so since yesterday i had a sliver of free time, i decided to stop fakin and actually finish coloring this to show him that we're thinkin about him. i'm no good with mushy words of encouragement so this is as close to "i hope u feel better soon. we're here praying for u. God will not give u a test u can't pass." as it gets. (~__~)
if anything, it may give him a cool wallpaper just in time for halloween!

just cooked


yep, i just finished cooking this up last night. i think it came out surprisingly well, especially the wings. the sky was a brand new attempt for me. it was inspired by a similar sky look on a Kim Hyung Tae piece in one of his Oxide artbooks. of course, my sorry first attempt to achieve the look is very very far from his immense skills but i'm learning!

i used one brush to color the whole thing. after flatting the figure, i created the sky and gave it the colors i wanted. used purples, blues, and oranges. the moon and stars were on a separate layer set to Color Dodge as i "painted" them in with an orange color. used a star brush to place my stars and then took my initial brush to add to the "glow" of them. used some light blue highlights on the clouds closest to the moon. the eraser came in real handy with the clouds. (the eraser was set to the same brush as i was using to color.) then i went and fleshed out the figure using the same color palette. i really liked the wings. initially i was going to give them a rougher texture but then it just morphed into something a little more slimy and i liked it a lot! so i went with it. used some bright pinks to pull out spots. then i gave the figure an all-around glow to give her a more supernatural feel.

the customer liked it, i liked it. it's really a win-win situation. i hope to do more things like this so don't be surprised to see this type of cloudy sky in other pieces that i do. =P

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

marvel masterpieces 3

(from left to right, top to bottom)
Rogue, Captain America, Marvel Girl, Gambit
Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue (did i do enough of her?!)



(from left to right, top to bottom)
Jubilee, Wondra, Wondra, Wondra
Elektra, Elektra, Jubilee, Jubilee



(from left to right, top to bottom)
Elektra, Elektra, Elektra, Elektra
Emma Frost, Emma Frost, Emma Frost, Emma Frost



(from left to right, top to bottom)
Shanna, Shanna, Shanna, Emma Frost
Wasp, Wasp, Wasp, Shanna



(from left to right, top to bottom)
Kitty Pryde, Wasp, Nightcrawler
Kitty Pryde, Kitty Pryde, Kitty Pryde
Tigra, Tigra, Tigra



(from left to right, top to bottom)
Spider-Woman, Spider-Woman, Jean Grey
Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix
Spider-Woman, Tigra, Tigra



well i promised i would post up all 50 of my marvel masterpieces cards that i did for this current MM3 run. so here they all are in all their glory. while they can't all be my favorite, i do know that drawing on such a tiny medium is really tough for me. i mean i hate drawing on 8.5x11" paper cuz i feel it's too small of a surface and yet i draw on a card that's only like 2.5x3.5" or something like that. that's really tiny. i do feel that on most of them i made good use of the small space. some others, well, let's just say it could've been better. =)
so since i really wasn't looking forward to drawing 50 different marvel characters, i just chose a select few and drew them about 4 to 5 times. i even managed to throw a couple of guys in there! yay progress! i mainly used prisma markers to color them in. on a select few, i used colored pencils. i ended up inking all of them even though i swore i wasn't going to do that. but after pencilling all of them it was just too loose and felt like i was cheating folks out of a finished piece of art. i did opt to do the majority of them in grayscale only because 1) i honestly thought they looked nifty that way and 2) it helped tremendously with time management and looming deadline. if anyone has ever used prisma markers, the "clear blender" marker is actually quite helpful! i'm not sure if i'm using it right but sometimes it produces a real nifty blending effect - others not so much. but u win some and dimsum u lose. =P
i was really happy with the way the Tigra and Shanna ones came out. and even though i did a Rogue in the previous MM2 run, she is my favorite Marvel character so i had to get her in here too. i only posted my favorite ones on deviant. didn't really think anyone wanted to look through like 6 deviations of just marvel cards. at any rate, enjoy the 50!! (sorry, the scans aren't really in a cohesive order. i just kinda grabbed them and put them on the scanner as i picked them up.)
once i get approval for the Artist Proof Cards i just completed, i'll be posting those up too. those look a lot better because i took a lot more time on them considering they were for specific clients. but i hear the approval folks are a bit behind so it may be a few more days before i can post them. luckily, i have very patient customers. yay! ^__^

Friday, September 12, 2008

before i continue


i figure i'd update this before i continue with the long chain of stuff that needs to be done. i mean, really, that's what's supposed to happen isn't it? =P i've been working diligently on the current Marvel Masterpieces 3 cards (all FIFTY) that i hadn't had time to do much else. plus, since i had to get approval before i can post, i couldn't show my progress on here and now it looks like i've been doin nuthin but have my thumb in my navel. (anyone that knows me well enough knows where i got that from. ;P) but i haven't i swear!
still, instead of posting the cards at this time, i'm opting to show what i am currently working on that's on my art table since, again that's what i'm supposed to be doing here, right? since i finally finished the cards and got approval, i've been able to move on to other projects that i had neglected during that time. mainly this commission from a fellow deviant that i did that kirin centaur for before. she wanted a character that resembled her but with bat wings and a slick-lookin skirt suit with pinstripes and fedora hat to match. i was more than happy to oblige. ^__^ i have just finished laying down the flat colors and am in the process of fleshing it out (the fun part!). still, before i can do that i have to finish the cover of the custom comic i just finished lettering. so many things to get done, so few hours in my day and even fewer days off from the doggy place. T___T it's all good tho. so enjoy the progress. next time i shall certainly post ALL 50 marvel cards (which i won't do on deviant). something to look forward to!!!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

here we go again

page 5 of Spirit of Faith's custom comic


page 6 of Spirit of Faith's custom comic


oh boy, here we go. yet another time i have nothing to post. again, not that i haven't done anything. just stuff i can't show yet like the Marvel Masterpieces cards. i did manage to letter the mini custom comic that Identity's been working on for this church called Spirit of Faith. i suppose i can post a couple of those. but now i've got to get back to my grind of work. where did august go!??!