Hey, Look! Fish!

Today, at work, I am drawing fishes. They will be shrunk down to a very small size and placed in a graphic with charts that show the decline of their populations in the SF Bay Delta area. Here we have — from top to bottom — the delta smelt, the threadfin shad, the longfin smelt, and the striped bass. Drawn in photoshop, but not to scale.

Later: Eventually these fellows ran in a very small two column graphic... in black and white. And so it goes. Eh, I had fun.

Rough Painting Doodle

Here's something I slapped together. It means nothing. I got bored with it just as it was getting interesting.

Photoshop!

First iPad sketch

Done with ArtStudio, iPad and a Targus stylus. Kinda fun. It's a sleeping cat, if you can't tell. Maybe my next one will be better.

In Progress

Here are a few samples of my latest doodles. Nothing finished yet, so these rugged fragments are today's only offering...

Super-busy weeks ahead, but I'll try to add a few to my 2010 post total. Dang. I was hoping for 100 posts this year. I think I might fall short by about fifty...

The End.

One Out of Three Ain't Bad

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm trying to get into the habit of practicing character design in my spare time. I enjoy drawing people, the human figure and faces, so the motivation isn't a problem. But I need to find the discipline to create designs that might be appealing to the fans and consumers of video games, cartoons or comics. The characters I come up with should fit into the mainstream, commercial sensibilities of the existing styles of characters that populate those mediums. Oops.

Obviously, without adult supervision, I have a hard time sticking to that. I like plain, quirky, odd characters. In a sci-fi/fantasy illustration, I would rather see a giant robot in battle with a frumpy, pale little old man than a giant robot in battle with a bronze, near-nude, ultra-fit, super-hot blonde amazon. I am, however, brutally aware I'm alone in this. I'm trying to get in line.

The lady on the right was a drawing that I started a few weeks ago. I blocked in her body shape and knew immediately that I was straying. Okay, I said to myself, finish this one and then do a hot-chick for a sword & sorcery video game. No joking around.

The lady in the middle is what happened when I focused. It was hard. The temptation to get silly was enormous. I almost turned her into a Playboy bunny style cartoon character -- with more wildly exaggerated proportions -- but I reigned that impulse in. Okay, we'll let the little green glasses stay, but that's it. Stop. She's done.

Then, the woman on the left erupted into that empty spot. Couldn't stop her. Poof! There she was. Phew. Much better. For some reason, painting conventionally beautiful people does not appeal to me.

Boris Vallejo has been one of my favorite fantasy artists since I was 10 years old. The background here is based on lingering impressions of his work. He paints fabulously beautiful people in fabulously beautiful fantasy settings, and I've always particularly admired the dreamy landscapes in the backgrounds of many of his works. He paints snow-capped mountains or craggy peaks in the distance, strange colors blending in a cloudy haze, and it all looks so lovely. I didn't quite get what I wanted here, but it was fun trying. Dang! That shapeless lump of rock behind them could easily have been re-worked into the head of a slain dragon! Boris would've caught that...

Painted/drawn in photoshop.

The End.

It's that time of year...

This is the final version.

... and here's another holiday-related doodle. This was fast-paced fun and I had a good time making the drawing.

The business page needed a chart for this story -- that's pretty typical -- but the page designer asked me to do an illustration to go with the chart, if I could come up with something. No pressure, just "if you have the time."

She might have overheard me complaining about how little artwork I get to do on the job these days, and so she gently confronted me with a "put up or shut up" opportunity... but without the "shut up" part-- she's far too kind for that.

This is my original sketch.

I did a quick rough of a hand holding a smartphone, with the intention of putting the chart on the screen. Not brilliant, but hey, it's drawing! My favorite part of work! The designer responded to my sketch with a design incorporating the hand as the main art. My vision was more along the lines of using it as secondary art, down at the bottom. I envisioned a large photo up top, with my drawing/chart down in a lower corner.

This is my first shot at filling up

the space of the layout design.

Nothing says "Christmas" like

a pale, meaty forearm!

Well, she's the designer, so back to the drawing board for me. I had to finish the rest of the arm to fill the space. I did that, but it was a bare, naked arm! It looked extremely weird to me. Forearm porn, kinda-- if there is such a thing. I didn't show it to anybody (until now) because I knew it was wrong.

Then, for the first time, I noticed the headline was going to be "Shoppers' little helper." Ah-ha!  I just had slip Santa's sleeve over the naughtiness and it all came together. If you stay in pursuit of a solution it usually presents itself, but I always feel relieved and amazed when it happens.

Drawn and colored in Photoshop but I tried to make it look like pencil and sloppy watercolor or acrylic. All digital, tho.

The End.

P.S. Here's the final drawing at a larger size:

This is the final drawing on it's own.
A pretty large picture when you click.

Filler

Hello again. I haven't been doing much art lately. The iMac hard drive became ill and died a horrible death. It's amazing how dependent we've become on the machine-- I have, at any rate. I don't listen to radio or watch TV, so the computer is my only connection to the outside world. It was nice to be cut off for a few days but -- oh, I'd say about 4 days into the fast -- I started getting twitchy. 

Well, we're operational once more. Experts performed a hard drive transplant and the computer seems fine; there isn't even a noticeable surgical scar.

Here's a fragment of a character drawing I was working on just before our hardship. I have a couple of others near completion, so I might have something more substantial in a day or three.

Hm? Oh yeah, I have a blog! Now I remember.

Snow globe and ballerinas. Nutcracker ballet. Get it?

Initially, I was uncertain that snowpeople would be

recognized as Nutcracker characters. Was I right? Too late now.

Hello. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Jeff. I used to post here regularly.

I was kidnapped by pirates and taken to a faraway mist-enshrouded island. There, I was marooned and left to cope with wild animals and pre-historic savages. Using my superior technological know-how and 21st century intellect, I quickly became Emperor and ruled over all. I introduced the concept of democracy (to be implemented upon my passing, until then please keep feeding me those grapes, ladies) and had just put my best men to work on making color television when I was kidnapped by flying saucers and taken to another planet.

The sinister aliens had superior technology and wore very cool shiny, silver outfits, but they had forgotten how to tie a decent knot. I slipped easily out of their ropes, ran to the nearest highway and managed to hitchhike back to California.

Strange, but true!

"Oh! The logo goes over there? Is that new?" Know the format

before you start your illustration -- just a tip. I didn't want to let

go of the ballerinas. Just wanted to draw girls, I guess.

I'm fairly certain my adventure has sent me backward in time and to a slightly different dimension. Here, Jerry Brown is our newly elected Governor but, in the history of my world, it should be 1975 or so, and Gerald Ford should be President. But he is not. In fact, he's dead!

Even more curiously, the internet is already in full bloom but the Beatles are appearing for the first time. I'm a little confused. I'll just try to go along cautiously and blend in with all of you here in this alternate reality.

*  *  *

Here are some drawings I created for the cover of the TimeOut tabloid, which will be appearing today in all of the East Bay editions of the Bay Area News Group newspaper family.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season is upon us, and the snow globe is a handy symbol for all things associated with the two months of American Christian celebration. I know it doesn't snow here, but these are the visual cliches we are burdened with. I don't imply that as a bad thing, it comes with the trappings of a cultural history, but I wonder if this will have meaning for anyone one hundred years from now. (I think my traumatic abduction experiences and transplantation from my native reality have left me peculiarly pensive and contemplative, not to mention wordy and pleonastic!)

I left some areas unfinished on purpose. Most will be hidden

behind the crop, but I like artwork better when it isn't "done."

Maybe it's because I like to quit early

The top two drawings are, of course, the roughs. My first one, the one without the dummy logo, was done in ignorance of the cover's updated design. It has been over a year since I did an illustration for the TimeOut tab-- and, the last time I looked, it had a different name! Even though I used to do a lot of these covers, I hadn't noticed the change. Pay attention, huh? Well, they probably made the change while I was busy as Emperor of that island... far beyond the subscription delivery boundaries.

Drawn entirely in Photoshop over a few days whilst working away on other stuff, too.

The End

Warriors Fans and a Personal Lament

I created this illustration back in 2002 to accompany a story about the tortuous plight of the Golden State Warriors fan. Things sure were dismal in '02, weren't they? Hm. Hasn't changed much, has it? I suppose there was one happy bump in the road -- their solitary playoff appearance and celebrated ousting of the top-seeded Mavericks -- but that has been the only moment of joy in nearly two decades.

I enjoyed the Richmond/Hardaway/Mullin years -- I've never seen a team that played such a lively, watchable brand of basketball. Lots of scoring, lots of running, flashy plays, crisp passing... just a great, great time to be a fan. I concede they didn't go very far in the playoffs, but they were in the hunt every year and they were always fun to watch.

Tim Hardaway is my favorite ball player ever. Bar none... except maybe for Sarunas Marciulionis, who had the same kind of gimme-the-ball fearlessness that Hardaway had, but without the grace.

When Sarunas came off the bench it was like he had just snapped the leash that had been holding him there; he was a shooting, passing, fouling tazmanian devil from Lithuania. He left teethmarks on the ball and spittle all over the floor, and somehow he'd have 6 fouls and 28 points before they'd catch him in a net and drag him back to the bench.

After the Chris Webber/Don Nelson fallout, it was over. I stopped watching the Warriors and I haven't had the stomach for them since. Boring boring boring. I started to get interested when they showed up in the playoffs, but they fizzled before I fell in love with them again.

Fair weather fan? Maybe, but they made me one.

And on that cheerful note, let me say that I had fun doing this illustration! I remember working on it, and I was feeling it! I still had a strong affection for the team and absolutely HATED what they had become.

They were GREAT! GREAT, I tell you.

This is the onset of my cranky-old-man-phase, and I'm ready to embrace it. Things WERE better when I was a kid. You don't know! You weren't there! You and your fancy LeBron and your little iPods. There's nothing you've got that compares to Larry and Magic, nothing that compares to Hardaway and Marciulionis, either.

Roughed out in pen & ink and re-"inked" and colored in Photoshop!

Weird

This is bizarre, but... yes! I did this. Don't believe me? I don't blame you. It looks like it came from someone else and I am lying about it being mine. But unless you can prove I'm lying, this is my work.

I'm not too clear on what the story was about. Perhaps it was a "soccer-mom" thing. Maybe it had something to do with diet? This I offer because the food seems to be the center of attention in the composition... and as I type that, it almost rings a bell. Pasta, milk, fruit, potatoes... potatoes? Does that seem like a good mix of foods? I'm not a dietitian by any stretch-- I'm a pizza and pop-tarts kind of guy-- but that looks weird to me.

Stylistically, I was obviously trying to do something "different." Was it my idea, or was it done at the urging of an editor? Couldn't tell you. This is about ten years old and the clarity of my memory fizzles out about three hours into the past.

The characters were drawn in pencil and the coloring was done in photoshop. By me! Really!