Odds & Ends

Here’s a buch of random doodles from the past couple months or so . . . this was the first of several blue pen sketches done on a notepad during some unit meeting or another.  Basically I was letting the sketch go wherever it wanted, then suddenly realized I had to stop since it was unintentionally starting to look pornographic.  Oops.

So I drew one of the presenters instead.

And some lady talking about stapler safety or something.

A meeting about lawn mower safety . . .

Next up was an itty-bitty drawing for a cocktail menu for Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore, the burlesque life-drawing class that Alexis and I run.  The drawing was originally done in pencil and then was colored in Photoshop.

And here’s what the menu looked like when it was done.

I think we ended up using the menu once and then tossed it.  Ohs wells.

Speaking of Sketchy related stuff, here’s the one half drawing I did at Sketchycon up in NYC this year.  I got halfway through it and then got distracted talking to other branch heads for the rest of the session.  This happened the year before as well – since it’s the first event of Sketchycon, everyone’s so interested in doing the meet & greet that most of the folks never really end up drawing.  That, and, well, doing shots with Bill and the bartender.

Next up, a crappy doodle I did on a lunch break while thinking about ideas for a Dr. Sketchy’s flyer.

And last (at least Dr. Sketchy’s-wise) was a sketch I did of Nicolette le Faye that was put in the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Baltimore’s first ever Art show.

Plug -> If you’re in the Baltimore area and are interested in attending Dr. Sketchy’s, the next one is July 12th with Mourna Handful.

Anyways, here’s two more sketches I doodled during a section meeting…

And a team meeting . . .

…and that’s the end of all the section/unit/team/group/floor/building/block meeting doodles.  Lord.  Anyways, a blog post or two back I said I’ve been teaching myself how to oil paint with Corel Painter.

This was posted before, but it should probably go up again.

Initial sketch . . .

That doodle with the arrow on the right is a note telling me to change the nose so he doesn’t look like Snarf from the Thundercats.

Which, APPARENTLY, I ignored.  Damnit.

Tomorrow I’ll put up the first two pages of the comic book I spent all day today working on.

I ain’t dead, no need to kick in the door.

October?  Really?  That was my last post? 

Alright, let me dig around and see what I’ve got to put up here.  Dr. Sketchy’s has been kicking my ass lately, as has travelling and working on the novel.  I’ve been doing a lot of work in Painter, specifically in order to build a website for the novel, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post and just do a generic sketch dump for now.

What do we have….[digging through folders]

Oh, I went to the life drawing session at 11 am on Saturdays at the Creative Alliance.  I was impressed . . . it was relaxed atmosphere and a good time.  I don’t know how often I’ll be able to get up that early on Saturday, but I’ll definitely do it again.

First sketch was crap . . . enough that it made me scribble some of it out . . .

Obviously not the strongest start.

 

I really liked that last one . . . so much so in fact, that I’m using it as the base for a painting I’m doing in Painter on the tablet, with the end goal of it being an illustration on the novel website.  I’ll show you how far I’ve gotten in that process in a later post though.

Next up, here’s a random doodle I did while some IT guys spent a DECADE installing a piece of software on my work computer that should have taken ten minutes.  I could see what they were doing wrong, but they wouldn’t pay attention to me so I was basically forced to doodle and eavesdrop on their technical chatter until I found a manual to read.

Anyway, here’s the doodle.  For the life of me I couldn’t find a normal pencil and had to use a green one.

The building in the background is sort of one of the buildings downtown that is visible from my window.

Next up, another work doodle, done several days later while waiting for a unit meeting to start.

I’ve been playing with this sketch in Painter as well.  The intention was for it to be the dwarf Donth in the novel, but in my opinion it looks more like Snarf from the Thundercats.  Painter improved that a bit, but in the end I’ll probably end up going with something else . . . over the years I’ve gotten into the bad habit of drawing dwarf noses in a certain way which, while pleasing in a comical sense, doesn’t always lend itself to more serious illustrations.

Before the Jason Webley show tonight I should have an hour or so of downtime at the bar next door, so maybe I’ll have a chance to give it another shot.

Tattoo starts and dwarf’s first coat.

Alright, well, I gave the dwarf his first oil coat . . . I have to be careful to wipe away as little as possible of the pencil beneath. Basically I just paint with a lot of medium and some white, letting the pencil tint the mixture as I carefully go over the drawing.  Occasionally you’ll lose some tonal work, but it’s easily replaced on the next layer as long as you don’t lose anything too important like facial features.

Obviously I can’t scan a wet canvas, so we’re back to the fool camera.

When that coat dries, I’ll go in with black and block in the tones correctly, deepen the shadows, and sharpen up some edges.

I also carefully applied the beginnings of a tattoo to the other painting with the intention of wiping it away if it didn’t look good.  It works for me though, so I’ll leave those basic lines and build a more complicated tattoo around them.

Still haven’t decided if the Maryland flag will go on the shoulder or not.  (I took the photo at an angle to prevent the flash from bouncing off it too badly.)

The flash is still washing it out a bit though.  (It’s a lot darker than what it looks like above.)  The top band is a little too dark and will have to be lightened.

Painting Update.

Well, it’s slowly still getting somewhere, where, I don’t know.  At least I’ve learned how to paint skin again and are getting better at hair.  There’s still something proportionally wrong with her head….not only that, but the painting’s layout sucks.  There’s simply no room for anything else except her back, and well, it kind of makes it boring unless I go crazy with tattoos or something.

It was just a practice piece though, so I may very well do that, even if it means ruining it.  At the very least I’ll have the technique for the next one, and hopefully the good sense to put some thought into layout before I start slapping paint around.

Dr. Sketchy’s tonight folks!

Yeah, yeah, I know I haven’t put any new stuff up yet, the last week or two has been utter hell, and has no sign of lightening up until at least Thursday.  Maybe I can do some scanning on my lunch break though, who knows….

BUT, busy-busy doesn’t mean bad . . . Dr. Sketchy’s is tonight with LiiLii Lipstick!

7:00 o’clock at Dionysus.  So if you’re looking for something to do on a dreary rainy Monday evening, and drawing the pretty LiiLii while drinking a cold beer sounds like something to do, come join us.

Check the main website for more details….