I like planets with chunks of excitement in the sky!

Some kind of compositional sketches. This and body language and perspective and color and cars, and clothing, just a few things to work on. Faces and hands aren't work, they're play, 'cause I enjoy doing them. That's probably why they're a lot better than everything else I draw.

Stephen King's book on writing, called appropriately ON WRITING, has an interesting bit where he puts forth the idea that talent is what you enjoy doing, kind of where your passion lies, really. Someone who practices drawing because they love to draw all the time, anything they can, they have the talent for drawing. They enjoy it more than people who feel like it's work, and so they do it more, and so they get better.

I like that way of thinking of talent, because it doesn't completely dismiss people who say "oh you're so talented, I wish I could do that," because you are talented at that particular thing... but it also doesn't ignore the fact that you have to practice a lot in order to get that good, talent or not.

Anyway, that's my thought for the day. I ONLY HAVE THE ONE, so savor it.

Photoshop

The straight-out-of-the-box brushes in Photoshop drive me crazy. They look like Photoshop, and make everything I draw look like roadkill.

Most of the drawing I've been doing at work has been in Photoshop, and it took a couple of weeks for me to get really frustrated with the regular brushes. I managed to figure out a mechanical pencil, a big rough pencil, and a couple of brushpens/scratchy markers. It makes a huge difference, and I think it's neat that you can actually get real-media-looking stuff with it.

Underdrawing in imitation-mechanical-pencil, and the inking is with big chunky inky brushes. I'm trying to get something that looks like a Bic ballpoint pen (with the hard ink, not the slick stuff), but it's been giving me a lot of trouble.

Wizard World LA

Saturday was the worldwide Sketchcrawl #13, but I was down in Los Angeles demoing the Modbook.

Next Sketchcrawl is a big fundraiser for a relief organization called Emergency - it will be the 19th of May, and will be accompanied by charity auctions, gallery shows, and possibly an art book! It's exciting to see how much Sketchcrawl has grown.

The weekend at WizardWorld was a lot of fun. There were a lot of artists who were pretty excited about the Mac tablet, and Axiotron was giving away caps to people who did cool art on the spot. I picked up a Superman penguin, which is totally awesome and lives now on my desk at work.

Here are some drawings from over the weekend - all in Photoshop and ArtRage 2 on the Modbook.










(this one is a recoloring of a sketch from Macworld - Andreas said I had to sign my drawings, and I thought I should touch the horse up before I put my name on it...)

Sketches!

That last one I think is funny, but I'll pretend not to.

I'm starting to think about a sketchbook for this year's Comicon, but I'm not exactly sure what to put in it. Since I'm not looking for a job anymore, it seems like I could just go nuts and draw what I like, print it up, and see if anybody will buy it... the thought of drawing what I want to, regardless of whether it's polished or catchy to employers, makes me feel a little protective about my ideas. What if someone sees my drawings and rips them off? In reality I think my drawings aren't actually catchy enough for anyone to want to copy, though, and my ideas aren't getting hijacked by anyone as long as I've got copies here in my head.

Enjoy the sketches; I plan on posting more now that I have the internet hooked up at home. I have to get the December post off the front page and into the archives! I feel like a slacker!

New job

Drawin their doodz, (and on a cintiq!! I feel faint!) but apparently not very well. Is Mike Wazowski supposed to be that dumpy? He's supposed to have his hands on his hips, but being a ball he doesn't really have hips, so he just looks like he's pretending to be a monkey.

Sketchbook scans will be forthcoming next week, when I get the internet hooked up at my new apartment.