Post 336

Kind of a departure from what you're used to seeing from me, right?! Yeah, kind of different to me as well. I always had a bad relationship with portraits. I couldn't get past my own style to just draw what's there! Recently I've been doing a lot of direct observation drawings and I've really worked on visual memory retention to the point where it really helps in capturing specific ideas. a big area that helps is not using a pencil. Sketching VERY lightly with white, or whatever predominant color that is being used, because later it'll get covered over, it comes out so much better. But this is an example piece. I still have more to do, but I'm saving it for when I demo for my classes for when they start portrait work. I haven't gotten people to model for a photo to reference in many years! I used to get my best friend Ryan to do that back in high school, and it was always a lot of fun, and with good results. I'm going to try it with a Batgirl piece next!

This weekend Luan, Matt, and I will be at the Dallas Sci Fi Expo at the Richardson Civic Center. We'll be chilling with our homey Kristian, so definitely stop by and say hi!

Post 335

A rare look at what I do at the office! We're working on skeletons in different media: fingerprints, inking with nib pens (I went on a tangent with that example), charcoal, watercolors, then moving to something different today. The key is learning not to need a pencil and gaining more confidence in your ability to observe and place the lines where they need to go.

Post 334

This month has been like a blur. I barely feel like I'm at home every day!

Post 333

There are times where I feel like I'm doing so many different things that it's hard to stop and appreciate any one thing. I see pictures of folks having fun, and I'd like to be doing that, and that'll be the case this summer when I'm off, but right now it's hard to see people partying it up on the weekends when I have mountains of work to get through. The difference from previous years is I'm keeping positive about it all, and I have a lot more energy. I even jogged for the first time since my first year of college. I physically haven't been able to do that in years. My second year of college I injured my back really bad, and things kind of went away after that. You don't appreciate the small things like that when they're gone. I also ran for a few minutes. I haven't done THAT since high school! I can actually move pretty fast! So, I'll tell you tomorrow how good of an idea this was or wasn't depending on how sore I am.

Once I get through this month it'll be better. At least I have new shoes to carry me through this month (get it, a PUN...sorry...had to point it out...ah, whatever if you can't appreciate it)!

Post 332

Trying something a little different color wise!

Post 331

A lot of people get today off, not so for I...

Post 330

First, Happy Easter!!!

Secondly, here are some more sequential pages. I did these pages a little over a year ago, can't really say details, but I really wish things would have worked out, I still feel like they're really strong pages, and I was really inspired working on them. There are some storytelling devices I used on this that I still use now, they're kind of my "bread and butter" storytelling-wise.

But that's kind of it, you do these jobs and they don't always happen. Not because you didn't do a good job, just sometimes only one person may not feel you're bringing the proper vibe. You can't be mad about it, it's just business in the end. I just was really excited about it at the time. This has happened quite a few times over the years now, but I try and make it positive, so whatever I learn from any given project goes into my secret dream project.