The Half Moon Tribe: Sword and Dagger

Whew! So I finally finished this commission piece, for Kyle. I'll try to keep it short.

So this piece was a lot of fun. It's a piece for a story that Kyle is writing, and I liked working with characters that actually had a back-story.

So when I'm working on a commission, naturally I want to please the commissioner. He gave me a lot of information, and I tried to use as much of it as possible. Originally, the composition wasn't going to show the sky or forest. But as he described the setting to me more, I realized it was important enough to have it shown and set the setting in the picture. On top of that, I think the sky and forest helps add interest to the picture.

I knew the background was going to be broken. I honestly thought it was either going to make or break the piece.

So originally, the temple in the background was pretty simple, as shown below (paying attention to linework, not color):



But as you can see in the finished piece, I fleshed out details in the temple, which I think really helped. Imperfections such as cracks in the marble, I thought was also important to really make the picture feel more alive, rather than some perfect modeled out drawing.

It was a lot of fun to work on overall.

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Kyle's Description for the picture:


The Half-Moon Tribe. A society of magic, stealth, speed, and strength. Ruled by their Council, each of its members represent a unique aspect of their society: the mages, the striders, the scouts, and the warriors. The council is headed by Arch, their Alpha and supreme protector. These five people work to better their tribe and live peacefully with the other packs and tribes, most notably the leopards.

Slayn, the Alpha-Strider for the Half-Moon Tribe, is responsible for coordinating the intricate network of messages, reaching not only in their territory but to other tribes all over the known world. New to his rank and unsure of himself, the presence of Arch makes him act out of character. He must learn to not only fill the role of Strider-Alpha but realize his personal opinions and feelings are not always the best leads to follow in the course of life.

Avalon, a new member of The Half-Moon Tribe, was given the rank of Gamma-Warrior. He arrived during a turbulent time in Slayn's life. Honorable, strong, and brave, he naturally protects people who need his sword, making Slayn a prime target for his attention. His desire to protect Slayn puts him in harm's way, risking his new rank, his place in his new tribe, and potentially his life.

Halloween 2009 - Jack-o-lanterns

Halloween 2009 just hit us, and it hit us hard.

Personally, I have not been in the spirit for Halloween this much, for years. I've been watching a lot of horror movies, I drew Halloween art, I read more of my Zombie Survival Guide, etc.

Jack-o-lanterns.

Growing up, my parents never have been very much in the spirit of most holidays. In all the years growing up, I think there was one time, maybe two times, of my life where my I've carved a pumpkin. My family never really helped either, they simply handed me the pumpkin, and I carved it myself. My brothers were never into it either.

So anyways, as soon as it was suggested that me and my friends carve pumpkins, I was excited.

So they emptied the pumpkins, I sketched the patterns, and we all transferred and carved our own pumpkins, and I think they came out pretty good.

Transferring wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, but we basically secured the sketch onto the pumpkin, and pricked tiny dots all along the lines, then carved out the pieces.

Out of the few times I've carved a pumpkins, these were easily the most complicated ones.

It was a lot of fun though, because art for pumpkin carvings have a few challenges, like making sure it all connects to the edges of the pumpkin, you have to consider the details you CAN reach with your carving tools and the details you can NOT reach with your carving tools.

I wanted to TRY and keep things simple, and so I wanted to work with only carved and uncarved, rather than mess with partially carved that all the fancy pumpkin carvers do. It felt like I was doing vector art in illustrator or flash. Which is fun. I had a good time carving this with my friends.

Happy Halloween everybody, and I hope you all had a good and safe one. :)

(Click for Full-View)

Keto


Vason


Radjin


Kashra


Three of them on a table (Radjin's candle ran out)

Tiberius Commission WIP2

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Sketch is finished. I worked with the composition of this piece a bit, shifting the characters around, and playing around with cropping and such, and this is what I ended up with.

I think this will be a picture where the background will really help make the picture overall. The characters are sitting on top of the staircase of a temple in a forest.

This one's gonna be a lot of work.

All those damn stones in the background will look great I think, but it's going to be kinda tedious.

But hey, I'm being payed, and I gotta do what it takes to satisfy. I can't half-ass it.

These characters are part of a story he's writing, so I feel like I wanted to not only portray the characters, but as well as the setting to help encompass the world that he's writing about.

I have a friend who's going to help me fix some of the form in the bigger canine's legs and arm. I'm not use to drawing muscular characters, and my friend is, and I 'ain't 2 proud to beg'.... (TLC reference)

I was streaming this picture live, and TLC came into conversation....

Tiberius Commission WIP1

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Here's the first (two) WIPs for a commission I'm working on.

The first character you see here, is Slayn, an agile and swift anthropomorphic wolf.

Right now, I'm currently just working on his physique.

What you see above is a comparison of my first attempt (left) and my re-editing (right). Because the character is suppose to be agile and swift, I had to actually edit his formerly more muscular physique.

This Slayn character is part of the commissioner's story, and he was very specific on his physique, so naturally, I want to be as accurate as possible.

The character's physique is important to emphasize and compliment the character's role in the story he's in. There will be a second character, who will actually contrast the lean-physique of Slayn, with a more muscular physique.

Working with specific body types of other's characters other than my own, or characters I'm already familiar with, is really interesting and fun... reminds me of Life Drawing classes I use to attend, which were amazingly fun and felt incredibly productive and educational.

I miss it really.

But hey, I can still practice on my own, and just get general feedback from other artists and non-artists alike using this blog and streaming live.

Keto Shoe Project

Click Thumbnails for Full-View

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Finished.

This was a fun little first-time project. I actually really enjoyed it and even learned a bit.

I really wanted something on the toony side, which I honestly don't do enough of.

I learned about sketch transfers (refer to previous journal for details), to next time use MORE masking off when I'm spraying the acrylic sealant spray, to relax when I ink and not be so uptight as that only causes more mistakes, and also I realized that I SHOULD HAVE worn the shoes first, and walked a bit to realize where the shoe will crease, so I know what areas of the shoe I should have the details of the picture avoid.

I COULD have used a cheap old crappy shoe for my first test, but really, I rather risk buying nice shoes that I'd actually want to wear, and trust in myself, that I'd do a decent job, enough to where I'd be willing to wear it... and I'm glad I did that. I'm anxious to wear these. :)

I dig skater clothes for the most part, except for the really busy stuff. These are very simple.

But, next time, I'll do better, but I'm currently pretty happy with this.

I don't expect these shoes to last forever, especially because they're white, but I'll try to save them for nerdy special occasions that don't involve mud or something.

Thanks a ton to all the people who watched me stream this shoe live while I was working on it. Not only were you guys fun, but the participation from you guys helped with the finished product.

Fun stuff!

Shoe Art Project - WIP1

So I've got a pair of White/Black Osiris shoes:


I've seen a few shoe artists here and there in the past couple years, and since I first discovered the community in shoe art, I've been wanting to give it a try myself.

Customization has always been a big draw for me. The idea of having a pair of my own customized-drawn shoes immediately appealed to me. So I bought the white Osiris's a few months ago, but my lack of knowledge of even where to begin caused me to hold off on the project.

I've finally tackled the project though.

My first worry was deciding how I'm even going to attempt this. My second worry is how I want the finish product to look. I thought a lot about what I wanted, and I decided on a black and white image.

But again, 'Where to Begin' is always my first worry when I attempt something new, even if it's a fun process.

Issue 1: Sketch- I knew I'd need an idea and a sketch. I wanted a picture of a character I've drawn a few times, named Keto. I'm a sucker for cute things, so I knew I wanted a cute style used too. I found myself confronted with a problem though; how will I get my sketch onto my shoe?

So obviously, I thought about sketching directly onto the shoe. I decided not to go this route though, because that has problems. Sketching involves a lot of construction lines and mistakes to be made. The last thing I want to do is put a ton of scuffs on a white shoe, with stray lines of graphite that won't erase. On top of that, the shoe is obviously not perfectly flat, so that would also cause problems. I'd prefer to sketch on a flat surface.

So I decided NOT to sketch directly onto the shoe. I'd need to sketch it somewhere else. This led to my next issue.


Issue 2: Transfer- I had no idea how to transfer my sketch onto a show accurately and easily. I thought I could sketch it on paper, then just try to copy it on the shoe with as few lines as possible, but that lacks accuracy.

So I started to think of what I already knew. I knew there was a way to transfer using a marker on the backside, but I didn't have the materials for that, and it required ink, which I didn't want to use because it's too permanent, and I wanted to ink it by hand at the end.

So then I remembered Michelangelo actually, and the 16th chapel. It might sound silly, but I remembered how he transfered his sketch onto the chapel's ceiling... He sketched it out onto giant sheets of paper, then pokes tiny tiny holes alone the sketch lines, then lined up the paper along the ceilings, then painted over the paper, and all the paint seeped only through the tiny holes he made, and like magic, his sketch was suddenly on the ceiling. But again, the problem with this is that I don't want to use inks or paint at this stage, because I want ONLY black ink on the shoe, I can't hide any mistakes with white paint, because the white paint won't match the white shoe exactly.

But this at least gave me direction. So I went out and bought some thin tracing vellum paper, and got to work: (Click For Full View)



A. This is the outline I traced over the area of shoe I wanted my art within. Because the show is not completely flat, I needed to trace a border of available space I can do art in. This is the outline trace of the front of the shoe.

Then I drew Keto's face, centered.

B. This is the first background idea I had. I used a thin hatching style that was inspired by another artist who goes by Voln.

C. This is the second background idea, more of a thick ink-blot style idea.

D. This is a combination of the two styles in B and C, where I used a thick outline of shapes, with thin hatching on the inside.

I eventually chose to stick with style B, because the thin lines worked best as a background, as to let Keto's face take prominence in the visual hierarchy (what catches the eye first).

Then I cut out the shape. The little drawings you see on the right side are my practices sketches, trying to figure out the amount of "tooniness" I wanted.

So now back to transferring. So remembering Michelangelo and his 16th chapel transfer, it led me to remember some old technique I remember hearing about, but never tried.

I darkened up my sketch on the vellum, making sure I put as much graphite powder onto it as possible, then put it face down on the shoe, with the graphite power side facing the shoe, then I held it in place and still and tight, then used the back side of my pencil to rub over my graphite lines, to push the graphite powder onto my shoe, and hoped for the best.

It worked out perfectly.

Next to come is the finished product.

Team Building Exercise: Zombie Tested, Kid Approved

Most of my thought process is on the sketch post below this.

BUT here you have it.

Halloween. Zombies. Makeshift weapons. Kids. Costumes.

When kids have to fend for themselves, surviving zombie mayhem is possible.

This is what I love about Halloween. I love how it feels like an adventure, where kids go out together, their friends, and no parents, and they roam the streets on their own, using their own lingo, their own trust in each other, and in a zombie apocalypse, you need this.

I miss this about Halloween. I love the idea of young kids pulling together like this, because it's something adults don't expect to see. Kids being resourceful, using teamwork, not letting little differences separate them, and just sticking together, while learning tons about each other, about themselves, about the zombie-filled world around them, and so on.

Happy Halloween. :)

Halloween 2009

Here's a sketch for a halloween picture I'm working on. Zombies.

Zombies. I love zombies, and it's Halloween month... I just HAVE to a quick zombie picture. I love the horror genre.

I'm also a sucker for cute things, so why not mix the both?

With this piece, I'm going to pay extra attention to the balance of cute and gruesome. I don't want it to be too cute, but I also don't want it to be too gruesome. I want a nice even balance.

It's just Keto and friends, all as kids. Halloween night.... you would think everything would go fine, and the kids with go trick or treating...

But BAM!!!!!!!

Out of nowhere, a zombie apocalypse emerges.

What do you do? You fight back of course, and these kids know that.

I love thinking up makeshift weapons for these kinda things. I was reading my the Zombie Survival Guide I got from friends for my birthday, and actually learned from it, and it helped me decide what weapons I COULD give to these characters, and what weapons I DID NOT want to give these characters.

For example, Radjin (Wolf on the left) was about to have a chainsaw... but the Zombie Survival Guide made a good point about such weapons.... They're clunky, heavy, and once they run out of gas, are useless. Not a great choice of a weapon.

So instead, I gave Radjin an axe. It's decently lightweight and doesn't run on fuel or ammo.

Another thing I paid attention to for this piece, was to make the weapons something accessible to all the characters.

An example of this.. Kashra (the dog on the right) is a german shep in a chemist costume... I struggled finding him a weapon. I wanted it something science related, and I had people help brain storm ideas with me, and people had these awesome ideas, like napalm, and chemical gas, and all that... but none of those a even semi-realistically accessible to a kid.

We ended up deciding on a Bunsen Burner. It's DECENTLY accessible at a school (granted, a high school, while Kashra is only in elementary), especially for a nerdy little kid who was determined to snag one during a zombie apocalypse.

So this one has been a fun picture so far, using the zombie apocalypse scenario, and playing with the kid-theme. I love the kid-theme... the idea of kids on a rampage during mayhem, and being more organized than most would assume, and being united by their youth and innocence, and using each other's skills together with team work.

Arguing Ks

So I've got a close friend who writes. I enjoy drawing. It was only a matter of time that the two of us put our heads together for a collaborative product.

We have a finished prequel comic, and plan to continue it. Here's a little offshoot picture from two of the characters in the comic, Kashra (left) and Keto (right).

Working on comics have been very educational and a new experience. It really IS a different world from just illustrations, because you can't spend as much time as you want on a single frame. You have to balance quality and quantity.

This is one of the reasons I chose to use black shadows, and solid flat-colors, in an attempt to speed things up.

On top of it all, my friend and I collaborated heavily. It wasn't just him writing, and me drawing. Him and I brainstormed, built ideas together on both the story and the artwork, we'd go over numerous work-in-progresses, and so on. Every single frame in the comic, was a collaborative effort.

And luckily I get along well with him, and his ideas and my ideas, his art and my art, all compliment each other nicely, if I do say so myself.

I am, by any means, a comic professional. So I learned a lot. There's a lot of things you have to worry about in comic, that you don't usually have to worry about.

In a comic, you have to worry about fitting an entire story, within a limited amount of space and pages. You have to worry about flow of the frames and make sure you get the story across in an effective and efficient way, while trying to keep every frame interesting and making sure every frame is important. You also have to stay consistent with everything, meaning you have a million things to keep track of.

Then you have to pay attention to page-breaks, and use it to your advantage when you can. When the reader turns the page, or goes from one page to the other, that page-break is important to either make flow well, or to take advantage of to create a sudden action in the story, or a surprise, or something along those lines.

When sketching, I thought about leaving space for the talk bubbles, in order to save me time for when I color and ink. But really, as I went on, I figured it's worth just drawing the ENTIRE frame, for flexibility sake.

When I only do a single illustration, I only have to worry about that ONE image. I can afford to put all my concentration into just that one picture. I have to tell only a partial story with JUST imagery.

Doing comics, you have to have the art and text compliment each other, to avoid redundancy. Everything has to be efficient this way. You have to avoid having the dialogue explaining the same thing that the art is explaining. You need both art and text to BOTH pull their own weight to push the story forward. And this gets difficult at times.

I can go on and on, but that's a good intro for now. We may create a blog in the future, for the comic alone, and have more organized thoughts and details and wips and so on.