Naive

I'm only motivated enough to draw in this minimal, naive style I started with yesterday. Plus I seem to be suffering from some doldrums. I think the universe is kicking my ass and telling me to shape up, if my astrologer is to be believed.

Sylphy

This was inspired by... oddly enough, Dunkin Donuts. I was passing by one of their branches and took note of a really naive rendering of a cup of DD coffee, and with the bright colors and rounded fonts, this images coalesced in my head. It's a little more colorful than what I had imagined, but that's because I decided to just go with the flow. Just to do something different.

Leaning, Adjusted

Frustratedly toying with this face... the perils of drawing without a reference.

Leaning

Facial foreshortening is always tricky, but when I'm just drawing line by line (as in, I'm not really planning a particular drawing) every other line is reactive until the image forms, and before I knew it she was looking up. I always have trouble getting everything to angle right, mostly I think because I was never taught anatomy so I draw by mentally tracing the outlines of someone's shape, facial or otherwise... and not building from an understanding of the skeleton on outwards.

Rainbow Brights

Okay, so I can't leave well enough alone. I tinkered a bit more with the painting in Photoshop, and while I don't care for the rendering of the figure, I do like how the glow effect looks now - it has that shimmery effect I had originally thought of. Part of the problem with this sketch is that I was designing the look of the image well before I even had a costume design (for the uninitiated, this was for a comic book character costume design challenge online), so the outfit is nothing more than an amorphuous silhouette.

Tabula Rasa, Blackground

Despite saying I wouldn't, I toyed with it further. I like the glow against the blackground, as it looks like what I had in my head. Well, moreso. But it's still enhh.

But since I did this this morning and am too tipsy from ginger mojitos toght, I shall call this this evening's update (plus Chad can have both versions to compare).

Tabula Rasa, painted

Well, this is as done as I want to make this - the character is supposed to be glowing and generating spectrums of light from her hair (I started with the idea that she's a light-skinned black woman, then thought, what if her skin was actually made of light?). Anyhow, I think I won't be playing with this any further...

Tabula Rasa

This is a character design for a shape-shifting character made of hard light, named Tabula Rasa. Painting this idea is gonna be a bitch.

Nancy Drew

I kept going back and retooling the drawing of the 'private eye' challenge drawing for CBR, but was never really happy with it. The face was one of my standard model faces (or one I imagine looks model-ish), so I spent the past several days changing and removing details, shapes, silhouettes, etc. He's supposed to be a fashion-y young hipster named Andrew, nicknamed "Nancy" Drew for the fact that he loves to dress up so much. These were versions over the past three days. I'm thinking it's finished, rough as it is.

Affinity

An online acquaintance, who goes by mojo and Affinity, drew this wonderfully languid character for the CBR design contest going on, and I just loved the fluidity of the sketch. I tried to recreate the feeling here for his "Wonder Beaver" (yeah, don't ask).

Sitting Duck

Still designing away so here's a throwaway duckie.

Projectra

I drew a quick sketch of this 70s Legion character while between design saves since I spent a lot of time doing design work these past few days. I tried to do a simple line drawing like I used to back in my teens. It doesn't really work. And it seems my faces have gotten longer and bonier, haha.

Drew

The CBR contest online started with an design challenge for a modern day private eye. While I didn't think the SOP hat and trench look gets any merits for creativity, I thought of the fact that hipsters today wear a lot of the updated short trench looks (a little late to the game, since I stopped wearing those in 2007) and fedoras are really strong this year, so maybe it would be fun to do a young fashion victim private eye from Williamsburg.

Qwacky

Quick Quack

A three minute duck, in (digital) pastel. He's kinda funny.

Ororo

I spent most of my creative energies researching fonts and dreaming up new interface ideas yesterday, so by the time I got to sketching I was a little low on creative energy. I opened up the Storm pic to do more work, but after a few adjustments to the face, I lost interest. Just one of those days.

Wondering

Interesting changes are unfolding at work, but seemingly positive for me despite my misgivings about what might transpire. I suppose I just need to trust that things will turn out well.

Triste

I got overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness as I was drawing tonight. Could have been the music I was playing, could have been the conversations I was having all day with an acquaintance online, could have been the dreams of dead loved ones over the past two days. Or all of the above. I didn't want to draw anything, but this formed anyhow.

Storm As Fashion Model, part 5

Continuing the leee-e-e-etle bits of actual drawing I want to do since I'm so not motivated to finish this...

Storm As Fashion Model

An image popped into my head of the X-men character Storm in a full-on fashion stance. I didn't realize until after I drew it that it was very Tyra Banks. I wanted a particular dress that was fitted at the waist yet had a looser panel attached to the seam, but could not decide how to go about it. Which is why 4 days went by without me posting as I vacillated on a really unimportant design idea. Oh well, we all have those days... and here are the sketches from the past 4 days.
Wednesday: The stance and initial silhouette. I was happy with it and decided, okay, enough sketching for today. Yes, cop out.

Thursday: The hair was my fave part so I decided the outfit needed to be as flowy. Except the wind patterns are kinda conflicting.

Friday: I think she actually wore something like this in issue # 97!

And this is Saturday's detailing - more like her costume. But now that I write about it, I kinda want to do an updated outfit from Uncanny 97, when they 're at the airport...

Delaying

I had an idea for a drawing and did little bits here and there, and while I count that as actually working on drawings, I've delayed putting them up until I feel like a reasonable amount of work has been accomplished on the piece. And now I'm having trouble continuing it, haha!

Bear In Mind

Got some hard decisions to make and I'm kinda decided, which feels good, but doubts can bring you down, so I've been preoccupied somewhat tonight. With that in mind, I just needed to draw something that didn't need any conscious thought.

Redhead, 2

Playing a little more. The techniques I'm using still need to be refined... this is not my usual coloring technique, so I'm trying to see what works now that I've switched the painting over from Painter (where I seldom really paint) to Photoshop (where I usually do my coloring work).

Redhead

All throughout the early 80s I loved the character of Phoenix, an X-men mainstay who had fiery red hair and was the most powerful figure in the book. I would draw her constantly, so much so that it was written into my bio in one of my high school yearbooks. I still love the character but my style has changed through the years, and the comic-book rendering I once favored is a little more realistic, based on fashion photos (and quite possibly, shampoo commercials). This is a drawing from over 100 days ago I've revisited, as I have done with other sketches this week. Not fully satisfied with the rendering just yet, but that's the beauty of being able to rework things when I feel like. I'll just revisit it again later.

Revisiting

The nice thing about digital media is you can go back again and again to retool things, experiment, or just plain go apeshit. I opened up and touched up yesterday and a couple of days back's faces, just to play. I like how the Kate-inspired face fleshed out, esp. since it's an made-up piece with no reference. I ran across a few drawings by comics great Adam Hughes, and he likes to sculpt out noses with color, so I tucked that technique away in my head to try for later. It's a nice technique to use. Makes me think of how actress Sarah Michelle Gellar's nose is so full of planes and facets.