Last night I drew for the customer appreciation casino night for Indiana Members Credit Union.
Today I spent a delightful afternoon at WHO North America drawing their customers.
Today I drew for a company employee party.
(I’m trying something different. Plopping the new stuff at the top of the revised post, scroll down to see the earlier stages!)
Finished.
Worked on the background, started the painting of the female figure. Checked the text for hair color, all I found was “dark” but I noticed that later she lets her hair down from the “tight bun” so I went back in and changed the drawing of her hair. Also noticed her fedora is brown so I made her suit brown as well, switching the blue to the male. Made the window look more glass-like and painted the moon cakes in the window.
Inks on the female character, cleaned up the inks on the male character, flats on the foreground elements.
The second act, or chapter, of the book takes place in the late forties.
I spent a lot more time refining the sketch for this one since the background was rather complex so my next stage is a combination of beginning the colors and refining the line work.
Here’s the initial sketch for the third illustration of Act One;
Here’s the finished line work and the wood texture of an attic laid in;
Finished;
Second illustration, here’s the sketch, which you’ve seen before;
Here’s the finished line work with corrected perspective, etc.
Here’s the color flats, that’s a comic book coloring term indicating that the colors are laid in flatly waiting for modeling and final color choices.
Here the modeling has been started, the face is mostly done and shading has been laid into the rest of the flesh although it needs to be refined.
Now with the modeling completed and the line work colored, it’s finished.
I told you I’d keep you updated on this book illustration project. Well, after a day lost to no power courtesy of an Indiana lightning storm (15 hours with no power) and various other more mundane delays I was able to get back to it.
The Shelby Cobra won’t be gray in the final, I need to ask the client what color it should be.
And now I know it’s blue!
And now the background is almost finished. Lots of building details dealt with today but still more to do before I move on to the figure.
Finished line work and starting color on the female figure, still lots to do on this one to get the look I’m after.
I decided I needed to knock back the building behind the car a bit so I went in with the pastel tool in Painter to mute the colors a little and add some texture. I also ran a blur on the more colorful buildings on the left for the same reason. I’m going to call this one finished.
I’m currently (when I posted this, not specifically when you may be reading this) working on a book illustration project. Here are a few of the line drawings.
I’ll keep you updated on the various stages of this project.
See the previous post to explain the stamp.
Last week I had a quick turn-around on a commissioned piece for a birthday present.
Sorry for the overlaid copyright stamp. There’s been a lot of stealing of caricaturists work going on in the internet. Several of my pieces and those of other caricaturists from around the world were stolen by a guy in Dodge City, KS. and placed on his site to promote his caricature business. In many cases he removed the original artists signature and replaced it with his own. He did that with at least one of my pieces. Hence the overlay stamp. Probably won’t stop this criminal practice but it’s an attempt to make it more difficult.
I just shipped this one out to the client this morning.
Usually when a golf club pro contacts me for a commission caricature assignment it means clubs, grass, water traps and all that stuff. This one was refreshingly different.
Saturday I was in Fort Wayne, IN all day for the first annual Summit City Comic Con!
It was my first time in an Artists Alley promoting the League of Analogues comic.
I was lucky to have my friend and colleague Scott Story of Johnny Saturn fame along with me to show me how it’s done. Scott has been doing shows like this for years!
I sold some comics, did a few sketches,
This one I did in someone’s sketchbook,
and even a couple of caricatures, this young lady who, with her husband, drove up from middle Tennessee just for the show,
and Scott, costumed in his character’s Johnny Saturn suit.
All things being equal I’ll go back for next years con!
Last year I drew at the annual Planned Parenthood Fund Raiser and donated a commission gift caricature to their auction. It took awhile (I don’t know why) but the winner finally presented her certificate and claimed her gift caricature.
She’s a retired chef.
Thursday and Friday I was drawing all day at the NAMTA (International Art Materials Trade Association) Trade Show at the convention center. I do several trade shows a year and they are all enjoyable but to be in a trade show full of art materials was like being a kid in a candy store! A kid chained to one location in a candy store filled with delights that it was impossible to take home! Mainly because all the goodies on display were not for sale, but I certainly saw a lot of stuff that has intriguing possibilities!
I was working for ColArt using their newly acquired product Conté Crayons instead of my usual media for live events. They asked me to do portrait renderings and for the first day I did (with one exception). In an attempt to not make the subjects sit for too long, (they were there to do business, not be drawn by me!), for the first days portraits I used only the sanguine Conté crayon.
This gentleman requested a caricature.
Friday they decided I should do caricatures. Conté produces crayons in a variety of colors and I decided this was the time to try using their full spectrum color selection. I’ve never used them in this way, in a live setting, so I was learning on the job.
Starting to get the hang of it.
A little less finished because they were turning the lights down on us, trying to close the hall for the evening.
Today I drew at the third annual Head to Toe Party.
Friday I was booked for six hours at the AT&T Block Party concert featuring the Stone Temple Pilots held at the White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis. I was on the second floor of a two-story temporary structure built for this weekend of events. This is the view I had to my right, out the west wall of the structure which was entirely glass panels.
This is the German architect who designed the structure.
I recently finished a large corporate job, caricaturing over 30 award winning people. In a week or two, after their awards presentation, I’ll post some samples of the award format, that I designed and created, in which I placed all these heads.
A very appreciative and considerate client, one of my best.
I’ve been very busy with studio work this month so this posting of the drawings I did March 10 at the latest Troyer Food Show held here in Indianapolis at the Lucas Oil Stadium is late in going up.
Troyer likes themed events and asks me to do a pre-drawing to fit their theme, this year it was football so I did a cheerleader for the ladies…
And a football player for the men, yes I know it’s sexist but I always offered the player to the women and the cheerleader to the men!
But most people, especially those who were in pairs or groups went with my standard head & shoulders shot on the logo paper.
One of my favorite aspects of live bookings are the talks I get to have with my subjects. The couple above turned out to be my kind of people, science-fiction fans. I can’t recall how we got onto the topic but we spent the drawing period talking about Tarzan, John Carter of Mars and other things related to Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Last week I dropped off 10 copies of League of Analogues #1 at D’wntwn
Comics South, 8925 South Meridian Street, Indianapolis - (317) 885-6395.
Go buy one!
I’ve been too busy to do much, if any, blog updates but I took the time to show you this very fun project I just did for an ad agency in Pennsylvania. Corporate executives done up as super heroes for an internal presentation.
The top two rows were the first job. The corporation liked them so much they came back to me for 15 more, the lower ones. Lot of fun!
Actually, it’s mine and Dave Williams comic and there’s nothing “comic” about it, but those are the conventions when referring to a publication of sequential storytelling and Dave calls it “his” comic so I can as well!
I will see if any of the local comic shops want to have a few copies on their counter touting a local creator but failing any interest there any interested party can contact me and I’ll sell them one as long as my copies last. Eventually it will probably be available on IndyPlanet.com
The Indianapolis Art Center has had a new building since 1994, long enough that it probably isn’t considered the “new” building by anyone other than those of us who remember taking and teaching classes in the old facility. But even though the building was supposedly designed with artists in mind, to my way of thinking the artificial lighting in the painting and drawing studios is not good. The rooms have large north facing windows but in my 17 years of taking classes there I can’t recall ever utilizing that natural light. - Until today. Today we shoved the model stage toward the north side of the room, against the wall so no one need have a back view and we drew for three hours without a single artificial light being turned on! It was glorious! And I started a new sketchbook! (Not exactly new, I’ve had it laying around the studio probably 10 years and only filled the first 10 pages, but still…) It’s a pleasant surprise to grab a nearly empty, sketchbook and discover it has really nice paper within. Not just smooth white bond paper but something a little heavier with enough tooth to grab the medium used.
2 minute warm-ups.
Col-Erase pencil.
15 minute pose
Col-Erase pencil, brown.
25 minute pose
Col-Erase pencil, Sienna.
25 minute pose
Brown thin marker with brown brush marker outline.
25 minute pose
HB lead, soft, but thick.
20 minutes of a 45 minute pose.
Brush marker used like a dry brush effect.