How I spent my summer vacation 2010...

I haven't been in the studio in the last month or so. Working on some house projects. Below is the new mantle I built, it's across the room from the wall of bookshelves I made. Here they all are mostly done, I haven't put the doors on yet, and I'm still working on the floor...

Monster fest III

Even more creature sketches. Click on the images for a closer look!

When Hamsters Attack! Part II

Finished pencils, or as finished as it's going to get, of the below piece, I'm inking it now. And the plan is to eventually do a color version as well. Click on the image for a closer look!

When Hamsters Attack!

Here is a rough pencils of a piece I'm working on for my upcoming webstrip. Click on the image for a closer look!

Death and axes

This week I'm posting sketches of weapons and other props. This is a alien bug battle axe. Click on the image for a closer look!

Elf help.

 Some more character concept sketches, for a project I'm working on. Click on the image for a closer look! 

Monster fest continues...

Two more color monster sketches for the upcoming webstrip...

Monsters ink

Some more creature sketches. Click on the images for a closer look!

Alien dinosaur guy...

Just another full body sketch. Not finished with this guy yet, I was working out the anatomy, so no weapons, armor or costume yet either. Click on the image for a closer look!

More Alien Bug Girl...

A full body sketch, still rough, no real weapons, armor or costume yet. Click on the image for a closer look!

Alien bug girl

More rough character sketches. I was trying for an alien-bug-girl-next-door look. Click on the image for a closer look!

Miscellaneous monsters

Some character sketches from tonight. Click on the images for a closer look!

Dead rat, naked duck...

Here are some sketches from Hamm*Starr. Space duck without his environmental suit, and one of the less lucky passengers, from the intergalactic veterinary transport. Click on the images for a closer look!

Bright ideas

This is a marker rough for an unsold magazine illustration. Click on the image for a closer look!
 

One Night...

This was a six page editorial piece I did for the author, Alex Ness. It was done back in '08 and has been at at least two different anthology publishers. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Click on the image below for a closer look! Or you can read it now, I just posted all six pages in a folder in my deviantART gallery, click here... ONE NIGHT on deviantART
(text © Alex Ness)

Sad news...

Oscar, our 18 year old cat, died this week. He'd been fighting a series of minor infections over the last few months, until a really bad one he just couldn't shake, but he had been relatively healthy otherwise until the last few days. We noticed Tuesday he was having difficulty walking, he had stopped eating and drinking and by Wednesday night he had begun to rapidly deteriorate. We did what we could to make him comfortable until we could take him to the vet Thursday morning.

He was a tough guy. When he was younger he'd leap over a sofa to chase a tennis ball. He killed a lot of mice and even a few bats. He befriended a squirrel named Scar-face, who got trapped in our basement mysteriously. Trained two kittens, even outlived one, and struck fear in the hearts of two dogs. One was a huge Irish wolf hound. And only special people got head-butts. He leaves behind two people, a lab-beagle mix and two stray cats. He will be missed.

Gun control!

Here is the finished page! I still have to clean the scan up a bit, you can still see the blue pencil and the white out. 

Click on the image for a closer look!

Fresh ink

Another sample of the inks for page 28 of my first graphic novel, a collection of hard boiled western horror comics. Click on the images for a closer look!

Gun-shy

Here are some more art samples for my first graphic novel, a collection of hard boiled western horror comics. This pages feature a Machine Gun Kelly type gangster character and an aging Jesse James type character meeting in a gun battle. For most pages I draw each panel on a different sketchbook page, sometimes using a reference collage like below. The individual panels are scanned and put together on a page template in Photoshop. I then do the inks on a vellum overlay over a b&w print of the assembled pencil pages. But for pages like this one I draw them full size on bristol board, in non-photo blue after a lot of sketches.  

Click on the images for a closer look!

I'm a little "gun-shy," so I scanned in the blue pencil page so I could print out details to "test-ink" some details and experiment with the lines, light and shadows. 

Rocket science

Here is the finished drawing of a space craft. I ended up using a less detailed version for the finished logo. Click on the images for a closer look!

Retro Rocket

Another sketch for the veterinary transport space craft, used in the comic strip. I wanted to make the windows on opposite sides of the craft in much the same way as the eyes of a rabbit or a fish. Click on the image for a closer look!

Oscarface

Spent most of last week driving back and forth to the vet's office, taking care of pets. Oscar, our 18 year old cat, (pictured below), had a huge infection on his face. He spent three afternoons at the vet last week getting his face flushed, and we've been doing the home version since Thursday, with some goop the vet gave us. Re-opening the opening and squirting in the goop. He's been wearing a little cone too which he's not too happy about. Our newest rescue cat Vinnie, (named her after Vincent Van Gogh, since she has only one ear), she just got de-clawed last week and had an ear infection, so we've been giving here ear drops, antibiotics and pain meds everyday. Fun week! Monday, Leo our dog, goes in for his second of two flu shots, since when do dogs get flu shots?

Star treatment

The design sketch for the comic strip I'm working on. Click on the image for a closer look!

More pages

Here are some more pencils for my first graphic novel, a collection of hard boiled western horror comics, These pages feature Machine Gun Kelly style gangster and crew arriving in town. I'm drawing each panel in my sketchbook and assembling them on a template after scanning, before I'm doing inks on a vellum overlay over a print of the assembled pencil pages.

Click on the images for a closer look!