New Wave of Mobile Messaging!

Here's an illustration that ran in the Bay Area News Group papers a couple of weekends ago. The excellent story by Troy Wolverton is here! It doesn't really feel like an illustration to me, but that's the case whenever I work in vector. All I did here was trace app icons, create a wave and arrange them until the editors said "good enough!"

I'd say my lack of enthusiasm for vector art is an old-school bias against these new-fangled computer-thingies, but I draw freestyle in Photoshop almost exclusively, having neglected pencil and paper for several years now. Something about adjusting lines with little handles makes it feel more like putting a model together rather than drawing. But at least you don't have to wait for the glue to dry! That always put me off model-making. Anyway, where was I?

Open in new window for giant size image.

Here's how it looked on the page designed by Daymond Gascon:

Don't bother clicking. Doesn't get any bigger.

That's about all I have to say this time 'round. Except for...

The End.

Just Messing Around

Trying to get back into the habit of having fun and enjoying the process of drawing and painting characters out of my head. I haven't been feeling the joy lately. So, this weekend I goofed around and whipped up these three characters based on heads I doodled for fun last week.

Open in a new window for a pretty large version.

I gave myself until last night to finish them, but I cheated a bit this morning because the lady on the right had no legs. Much better now. I'll probably tidy it up later and re-post because I can see a bunch of simple things that annoy me. Looks like I wasn't up for drawing shoes at all, doesn't it? Weak-ass crap that is.

Again, just for fun! Figures drawn mostly in Manga Studio 5, tweaks and some drawing added in PS.

Coping With Fear

This was fun to do! Here’s the story by long-time colleague Jessica Yadegaran.

Open in a new window for a very large image.

This illustration was pretty much done straight from the initial rough. I tried to keep it cute –– as I often do –– but I tried to be cute in a different way. I'm trying to diversify my cartooning styles. I've been flattening things lately, leaning more toward an animation flavor rather than my Mad Magazine tendencies. Everything I do would look like a poor man's Jack Davis if I just sit back and scrawl.

Rough drawing on the left, line work and flat colors right. I made that blue guy less interesting as I went along, didn't I?

In preparation I spent time looking at lovely animation-style art on Pinterest and tried to lean on other artists’ tendencies rather than my own. I drew these character’s bodies while looking at other artists’ cute kid drawings.

In retrospect it looks like I drew my inspiration from artists who draw a little bit like me. I’ll be darned but the proportions of the final figures look almost spot on with my roughs. Oh well.

And my characters’ hands look like the kind of hands I’d draw, too. I was purposefully trying to do them differently but they looked wrong when I tried to steal their style from other artists.

Here's how it looked on the page. Ace designer Jennifer Schaeffer
always makes good-looking pages, no matter the dross I toss into hopper.

Drawn in Photoshop.

Just A Head Scribble

Found a little bit of time tonight to mess around with the painting tools in Manga Studio 5. I really like the oil and india ink brushes. This is about a 10 minute scribble out of my head.

I appear to still be mired in a catastrophically huge art-slump. I'm not very happy with my artistic output on the job, and the necessary time and energy for personal art isn't quite happening right now. I should try more of these 'round midnight scribble sessions and see what happens. This is kind of fun.