Unzipping, 2

I just wanted to tweak yesterday's face a bit. I still wanted her to appear a bit mannish especially since she was wearing what could appear to be men's underwear-inspired, but I wanted to keep it all very soft and sketchy still... it's not a style I often do but I was inspired by seeing some other artist's looser work online. It's fun to do, certainly.

Unzipping

As I crossed the street to get to the gym, I saw a magazine page on the curb with what looked like a lingerie/women's underwear ad on it. It was a woman wearing panties and a tank top, but what I saw in my mind was a one-piece bodysuit with cutouts where a pantyline might normally be... so I made it into a zipper detail. It's nothing you wouldn't normally see if someone were wearing a normal panty and tank top, but for some reason as a cutout it seems more risqué.

Digital Pencil

I seldom ever use the pencil tool in Painter. I don't feel like it looks like pencil work. I wish there was a way to approximate pencil work more. This was a trial I attempted, but considering the shading didn't pass muster, I decided to leave it just as an outline.

Zenaida In Repose

I can't believe I've been drawing this character for over 20 years. All my other cartoon characters I've stopped drawing, but I keep coming back to her. Funny how that is...

More Lovelies In Latex

I did a bit more to the drawing I started yesterday because I didn't like her face - she needed to be less ethnic and more adult looking. And more of her!

Not loving the shadows on her face, but not sure how to render them properly. Right now, it's looking a bit stiff, like some of the X-men comics artists attempting a more noir look but looking a bit wooden...

Lovely In Latex

I was walking home from the gym and spotted a woman in a very sensible, almost schoolmarmish pencil skirt, and I got to thinking, how can I subvert such a plain Jane look? Well, in latex, of course! I love the idea that the miniskirt is actually part of the leggings which are part of the shoes, so there's a bondage undertone to how one would walk (or at least try) with this fetish garment on.

Maybe this is what the ballerina from my post two days ago wears when she's off stage. ;)

Tess and her friend Heron

Tess and her friend Heron know they look good in white, Labor Day fashion rules be damned.

Tutu Much

I worked 14 hours straight yesterday, from the time I got up until the time I went to bed, which was 4:30 am the next day. Ah, the perils of web design. But today, after answering a comment from a browser regarding an old drawing of a latex ballerina, I decided to revisit the drawing. I went a bit crazier than usual, playing with the accidental rose pattern in Painter's Image hose function. Since roses and florals in general are having a moment in fashion, it seemed right.

Supersizedsweatshirt

One of my favorite pieces at my friend Robbie's show tonight was a sleeveless hoodie in very 80s proportions. This wasn't the outfit it was shown in, but it's what I remember... especially after the After Party and a couple of vodka tonics.

Salmon

Forgot to draw something... arrrgh! This is a makeup drawing, inspired by a male model I saw at a show as well as at an after party - pretty stunning in person, this Frenchman. But the title has nothing to do with the subject, just the background color. I was in the thick of working on a website that has me consumed with production so this is definitely after the fact. Still, I think this brush tool makes for an interesting line - it makes me do more hard shadows.

Zenaida's Night Out

Thursday Night was Fashion's Night Out, so in honor of the evening I had Zenaida put on a skirt and get a bit groomed. Funny how adding on more clothing makes her look more vulgar, haha!

Floored and Trussed

I don't know why procrastination is so part of my process, but when I end up processing over 400 images for a website, I'm reminded why I delay working on big websites that I have to program myself. So while I had Photoshop up and running, I had no desire to create a new file and try and start anything new, hence the additional doodling on yesterday's doodle. But hey, can't make a new masterpiece all the time!

Floored

I spent a lot of time avoiding work on the website I have due, as is my natural process, and spent a good bit of time online with the Stavrinos group, debating the merits and authenticity of various pieces from his career. So while my monitor was filled with stuff I shouldn't be doing, I picked up a sheet of paper lying on my desk and doodled on that.

Illyana

I was reading an article by Joss Whedon on the new site for teen girls, Rookie. The writing in this blog is awesome, and it boggles the mind how accomplished its founder, Tavi, is at her 15 years (although considering she was the youngest blogger ever to be invited to haute couture shows in Paris, many great things are expected of her). My life seems to have revolved around pop culture aimed at teens a lot of the time, between my origins in comics to my obsession with Buffy, so it made me think of one of my favorite teen characters from when I was a teen, Illyana Rasputin. This started out inspired by a photo of Tavi herself, but it soon morphed into Illyana just by being blonde (and the fact that the drawing was destined to be a quick one). Anyhow, this was based on my memories of Illyana when she was drawn as a teenager by the late, great Dave Cockrum.

Wheeeee! Labor Day!

Whee for the extra day of a long weekend... Whee for the smoothness of the the sable brush tool in Painter... Whee for Zenaida as easy breezy as ever... Whee for having more time on a deadline for a website! Wheee!

Strawberry Blond

I didn't want to draw, but I also didn't want to work on the website that I've been laboring over for the past few weeks. So after perfunctorily checking my email accounts for whatever distraction I could, I came upon a link for some actor/handyman/model being interviewed on YouTube. It was the most annoying, stereotypical mememememe type screed, but it kept me distracted enough to draw something (well, doodle, actually) somewhat decent. He looks like some 30s-style lifeguard or something. Or a 'teens (as in 2011 and up) version of some retro 30s lifeguard.

Neko

I was watching a video on Japan's Cat Island on YouTube. Not teeming with felines as I thought it might be, but enough to make me draw a fat ol' puss similar to the ones they have in Japan (I didn't know they all kinda look as rounded as Maru!).

Heavenly Streaming

I opened up an old sketch again and tinkered with it. I really like this composition but don't really know where it's going. Ah, maybe it will just be one of those unfinished drawings that gets updated from time to time...

Pomped Up

I was so enamored of the sable brush I looked for an old sketch to gussy up a bit with the brush, and this one, "pomp," got a quick makeover. I do think it makes quite a bit of difference.

Freaky Bride Thing

I did a few stroke corrections using the sable brush tool, but I enjoyed the free strokes so much I didn't bother detailing this drawing like I thought I would. Perhaps it's done now!

Mary and her friend Heron

Mary and her friend Heron's visit to the dog groomer ended up with decidedly mixed results.

Pale White

I was going through a few links on mannequins and the styling of one particular photo made me think that what I assumed was suppose to be a bridal type deal could look interesting as a comic book character. It's a rough initial sketch and it's looking a bit Gaga, but that's not such a bad thing, I suppose.

Red

I didn't have the wherewithal to draw much tonight - we're in the middle of Hurricane Irene and I'm just dreading the possibility of a power outage. Plus I decided to invite my next-door neighbor in for frozen margaritas, so my sketch tonight was quick, perfunctory and rather crude.

Off The Runway

I was watching the latest episode of Project Runway online and sketching on an envelope during ads, doodling like I used to do back in Manila when I would talk on the phone or watch tv and doodle on the calendar next to the phone.

Early To Bed

I have an 8 am conference call tomorrow and haven't the wherewithal to start anything involved, so a quick little impression of a faraway friend, and away we go...

Happy Birthday, Pete!

I could just eat you up! ;)

A little in-joke for a very special friend. :)

Ana

I took a couple of hours after today's earthquake (that I didn't even feel) to stop by my friend's apartment and sketch her as a present for her husband. I think considering how informal it was and how bad the lighting was, I did okay, but I can't help but look at it and wish it were perfect. I've done better sketches from sessions where I don't car that it looks like the model, but perhaps that's because I tried so hard. Still, they seemed to like it. I'll probably make a new one that really resembles her, just to be all Virgo about it!

Dan and his friend Heron

Dan and his friend Heron were forced to take separate flights due to office budget cuts.

Fashion Sketch Meetup

I had so much to do today that I was reluctant to go to the illustration meetup I had RSVPed for over a month back. But I'm glad I went. While I didn't do perfect work, I got a lot of good practice doing watercolors, by having to really lay down color and linework as confidently as possible, especially because there's no time to second-guess yourself with the medium. This sketch, while not as pretty as the actual model, came out fairly well. I knew what to do to get the tones I wanted, and for the most part everything worked. Now I realize I really need new progressive lenses because sketching up close and studying the model from afar just didn't work with the single vision lenses I was wearing. I kept on looking underneath my frames like an octogenarian studying a menu...

1980s Venice Beach Teen Hooker

That was what I decided the look of the blond kid in 20s was wearing as I crossed 5h Avenue at 1 am to get to the West side... and I mean that in a good way. As horrid as the look may be, when done by someone who was too young to wear the look the first time around, it becomes ironic style.

But he still looked kinda slutty. :)

Tessa, Revisited (and Spied On)

My experiments with the sable brush in Painter made me conclude that it might be easier to ink my old Tessa comic with it - and it was! The old version of Painter Essentials that I have has a really smooth sable brush, and it flows really easily for some reason. So I redid an old panel that I never got to ink before!

Hair Zo(zo) Long, 2

I'm rather enjoying these mindless reinterpretations of existing photos. This sable brush in Painter is fun... and for some reason I really am very free with my strokes. granted, I'm not trying for an exact likeness, but that's the fun of it - what I'm getting is fun using the photo just as a stepping point. It's playing.

This guy's hair reminds me of a Marvel villain called Angar The Screamer...

Hair Zo(zo) Long

Another quick sketch from a Zozo image... actually from the same product. Not as fun nor easy as the last one but I was busy watching a DVD at the same time so I was a bit distracted.

Beauty & Youth

This is a makeup drawing since I forgot to draw last night, which is odd since I didn't actually have anything to do except watch videos. So in an effort to make something quick, I pulled an interesting photo from one of the Japanese sites I often shop, and the product shot for apair of pants by the Japanese brand Beauty & Youth, hence the title. I was all prepared to do a really throwaway drawing, and using the sable brush in Painter, I didn't care how this turned out at all, which resulted in a very confident line. I really, really like the line quality and how fluid this sketch looks. Plus it was SUCH a quick drawing, I barely erased any lines (maybe twice, if that). Spontaneity can be a beautiful thing.

Happy Birthday Zoe!

Since I couldn't get her anything in time, I decided to make something with her and our current mutual favorite internet star, Maru. Happy birthday to my favorite (albeit my only, but never mind about that) niece!

Great Gray

Earlier tonight I was heading home from the gym and crossing the street when a young Asian woman passed me by with a very simple but cool, clean outfit. She had gray tights and gray wedge boots in pretty much the exact same color, and she wore a lighter gray loose-fitting top over it. I did a double-take to catch more details, but she was walking too quickly. Anyhow, this is my image of her from the brief few seconds' glance I got as she crossed through the traffic in the dark.

Randy and his friend Heron

Randy, Nina and their friend Heron accidentally get separated during their tour of Beijing

Pompaneue

I wanted to a sorta reinvented rockabilly pompadour, sinpired by listening to late 80s / early 90s music (Martika's Love...Thy Will Be Done in particular) and recalling all the black and blue tones of the early 90s videos and styles.

Zenaidance

After watching a marathon 4 hours of the show's finale tonight (DVRed so we could see it all at once), I had "So You Think You Can Dance" on my mind, and thought about how some of the dance poses are SO intense and contorted nowadays... so I thought I should put Zenaida in one of them.

Fleshed Out

Well, more like pinks and peaches, especially since the color "flesh" in my Crayola box was so obviously based on white skin, it was phased out for being racially insensitive. I wonder what they call it now?

Anyhoo, this face reminds me of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman's second incarnation.

Angelic Androgyny

I started out drawing a woman's face, but after clicking on a link from a Facebook post of a friend of mine, rather serene Pat Metheny music began to play, and I started getting affected by it. While I put in stronger features (after the eyes, the nose came next), I found myself softening it, until the image I was working with in my head was of an angel, which were supposed to be neither male nor female.

Thank You, Sebastian.

And yet another Tessa panel...

The Tesst

Another panel from my Tessa origin story that I had to redo, with her waking up after failing the Test.

Tessa, Revisited

I had wanted to continue drawing /inking my Tessa mini origin story that I started back in college, but when I went back to look for the pages I had done in 2010, I discovered that the inks I had made back then were suddenly gone. No amount of searching turned up the original artwork, save for the exported, low-rez gifs I used to post here. Undaunted, I decided to just redo them, and in my current style, regardless of the pencils I had put down originally. I suppose I was going to use them as breakdowns instead of finished pencils, mostly because they weren't finished anyhow, and I wanted to just draw the way I draw now. Heck, if I try to recreate how I drew back in the 80s, I'd never finish this! And it's already over 22 years old!

Unborn Again.

Lazy lazy lazy... I could barely even start this drawing of Phoenix, stillborn before I even began. Oh well, some days are like that.

So 80s

I ate too much Filipino food at dinner today, something I wasn't planning on doing, so I'm a bit too zoned out to focus on drawing...

Lars and his friend Heron

Lars and his friend Heron could never settle for just smiling and saying "cheese."

McQueen Frame of Mind

FINALLY going to get to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit tomorrow morning with my friends Robbie and Ana, and I've got impressions of his clothing on my mind (even if they're not outright accurate sketches of his designs). I always loved looking at his women's things in the store near me, but the runway designs that don't make it to the store are a cut above the rest, and I can't wait to see the real things up close and personal at the Met!

Dolman Woman

I was walking to my favorite frozen yogurt truck in Flatiron when a couple of Asian women emerged from a building and went to the curb to hail a cab. I did a double-take because one of them was wearing this huge navy dolman sleeved top over black or deep indigo jeans (I can't recall), accessorized with an enormous gold necklace. It's been a while since I saw such serious fashion in Flatiron. I had to draw her.

Squiddy

I did a few strokes and it became a squid. A cartoony squid. Funny how I color it the way I know a squid to be, which is pinkish in hue... when it's cooked. Kinda morbid a bit.