Update

I have been crazy busy over the last wee bit. I've been working on putting samples together, getting my stuff to publishers, so I haven't had time to do many sketches and post them up. I hope to have some news soon, and will get back up on the horse of posting, cross my bones and hope to terrorize the high seas*! (*FOR THE USA CIA: THAT IS A FIGURE OF SPEECH).

Another Day

Here is a quick painting exercise I did in ArtRage. I wasn't trying to be concerned with details, just color, and chiaroscuro. I don't draw/paint enough women, so I figured that I should really get busy on doing that. I did paint this from reference (not my own, I must admit).

In the days that I have not been posting, I was working on some sequential pages, which is viewable at my online portfolio (link is on the right side of your screen).

Why Not?

Suffice it to say, I did in fact attend Free Comic Book Day at my local comic shop yesterday. It was jam packed, with no place for parking! The artists were out in full swing, doing free sketches for people. I was luck enough to get two! I got one from Andy Smith and another from Nat Jones, which I was glad for, because I've been wanting a Nat Jones sketch for a while, but his rates at cons are usually out of my range of what I can afford to pay. I didn't see a whole bunch of great free comics available, but I picked up just a few.

The great thing about yesterday was that I got to hang out with my friends all day long. These days I don't get out of the house too much, so being able to put some things off my mind was nice. I didn't expect, however, to be out all day long! Phew! The day was filled with sweat, enjoying art and literature, and getting rained on; not to mention a dumb ass bitch that tried to blame my brother for hitting her car, despite the fact that he was nowhere near her car in the parking lot. I think she probably fucked her own car up and was looking for someone to blame. I guess Ron White is right - you can't fix stupid.

I didn't get a chance to really sketch yesterday, but I was able to squeeze one out before I went to bed. I've become an old geezer. I'm usually in bed no later than eleven o'clock and I'm up by 5am. But at any rate, I'm not sure exactly what this drawing is. This came out of scribbling all over the page, then just drawing around some of the lines. Why not, right?

ArtRage Sketch

I have found a great program. It's called ArtRage. I've actually known about it for a couple of years...or year...something like that. At any rate, I had forgotten all about it until a few days ago when I saw an ad for it in Imagine FX magazine. I downloaded the free trial version and loved it. It felt really natural to work with. I've come to the conclusion that it's basically a poor man's Corel Painter (priced only at $25 US! Who can beat that kind of deal?). Painter is confusing, with all of its options, live painting options, blah, blah, blah...but ArtRage is definitely more user friendly, and you won't feel overwhelmed by it. A good thing about ArtRage, is that it is completely compatible with Photoshop and Painter, so you won't be confined to using just this program.

The sketch posted is just one that I did with testing the trial version. I didn't have anything in mind, so I just let things flow. You can see all the eraser marks from where I was drawing, then erasing, then drawing/painting over that stuff. And even though that image is small, you can see the texture of the paint brush on the top and front sides of the helmet that the guy is wearing.

I'm going to attempt to do some daily sketching with this program, as I've come to really like tinkering with it.