Tuesday, November 24, 2009

hey kids, ALLIGATOR!!!...

'cuz everybody loves a repeat of a step by step process post...

first: start with a dire need for a new portfolio.


next, dig around for some recent sketches. anything will do. say, a recent petarding of a close friend and creative partner...

now drain out all that comics junk, 'cuz art directors think they're oogy... and make it orange.
now paint it. paint it like there's a mortgage payment due. paint it like you don't want to have to wear a paper hat... ever. paint it like you've no intention of calling a thirteen year old "sir". paint it with love.*
now get your rep to try and sell it to some business magazine... or something... whatever... remember, you're a private dancer. a dancer for money. do what they want you to do...


* by "love", of course, i mean a mix of fear and panic...

hey kids, PROCESS!!!...

... and who doesn't love a little bit of procedural navel-gazing once in a while? now that i'm a regular-type illustrator i've been trying to build up some kind of cohesive portfolio again.

well, maybe not "again" as i never really had one to begin with. i went straight from college to alcoholism to animation to deeper alcoholism to fantasy/gaming illustration to penury to comics to... well, nothing really. i've done the odd "straight" illustration job here or there, but never frequently enough to build anything out of, and the real shame of comics is that after twelve years of doing primarily comics all you have is a portfolio full of... comics.

so it behooves me now to start developing a process by which i can meet deadlines and show some consistency on more conventional illustration jobs. after playing around a bit i decided to approach it very much like i do my comics work (at least it was valuable for something... *), and i'm really happy and excited about the results!

first: the sketch.

this is the cleaned up sketch. i'll save you seeing any of my scratchy, crazy-pants doodles. this would be what the client sees. just a simple pencil drawing on typing paper, once i've worked out all the compositional elements in the doodles.

second: a cleaner inked sketch.

this was done with markers right over the first. it's really just to clean everything up for me and incorporate any changes or added elements the client may suggest after seeing the first sketch. in this case "the client" being my european rep and the concept being his, there weren't a lot of changes to be made...

third: now here's the fun bit. i took it into photoshop and, fiddling around in utilities, turned the black ink line into an orange/sepia colour that i often use when laying down my underpaintings.

this is exactly the same technique i use when i'm bluelining layouts for comics and advertising work, just playing around with the rest of the spectrum instead. the benefit of this is getting a perfect transfer of what the client signed off on AND keeping all the spontaneity and energy of the original drawing. i blew this up and printed it off onto 2 ply strathmore with my tabloid printer.

four: ...er... then i painted it.


the final painting was done with whatever dead brushes were at hand and daler rowney gouache. (btw, if anyone knows a good online source for DR that isn't prohibitively expensive in canada please let me know. i'm starting to run out and there really isn't anywhere to get it in ottawa anymore). i like daler rowney paints because, as i think i've mentioned before, i find them to be "creamier".

if i've done my job the right the final should resemble something approaching what is to my mind the pinnacle of gouache paintings: the 1969 poster for "the computer wore tennis shoes" that's hanging in my studio.



(* sorry if that sounds a bit harsh or negative, but the last four months or so haven't left me terribly well disposed toward the industry. that said, for all my belly-aching, i'd probably jump right back into it if it gave me the slinky wink... )

Monday, November 16, 2009

new commission... and a question.

here's the latest commission. again, both in greyscale and bitmap. i really can't decide which i like better.




soooooo... one look at the sidebar will show that i really need an update of how this blog archives things (AND a little twitter window, AND a little followers window...) all of which i believe are readily available if i update to the new blogger. my problem is that every time i've started the process of updating, i get a little message that more or less says: " you may lose some content".... and there's the rub. i don't care if i lose the links in the sidebar (they can be replaced easily enough), but i do not want to lose any past posts.

has anyone out there updated their blogger blogs from the beta version? what/how much did you lose? did you lose anything? did you and blogger rent a cabin in the woods and spoon all weekend? did it touch you in an uncomfortable place? did it leave you in a puddle of tears and regret? did you have to sue it for custody of your pomeranian: admiral fluffikins mcwhiskerface? why hasn't it called? can't it see you love it? roughly? etc...

thanks for your help/experience in the comments...

Sunday, November 15, 2009

two new commissions...

here are the latest two commissions:

and here's how that last one looks when i play with my new (11x17 1200 dpi) scanner...


also, thank you to the astoundingly talented mr. guy davis for the shout out over at his marquis blog, where he includes a little blast from my past. (although the link he includes is to my portfolio, but i'm not picky...) EDIT (they're both there now. apparently i'm a little picky...)

when you're not reading and buying MYSTERIUS (available feb.9th) you should really be reading and buying something by guy...

Sunday, November 08, 2009

big monkey and 11 o'clock...

i sat in with the 11 o'clock guys on wednesday night. it was a lot of fun. i'm sorry i probably should have posted about it on thursday, but i got a bit distracted by sickness and work...

here's a picture of a big monkey from my new advertising portfolio. colours by keith garletts...