Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

Entangled

Thomas Jefferson said: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." Unfortunately, we've strayed so far from his advice that I believe the snake is about to swallow us whole.   Have a nice day :)

Pencil Sketch on stenographer's pad.

Illustration Friday: Shaky

The little fellow is quite shaky being out in the woods alone at night. There is something disturbing going on here, but he cannot quite put his finger on it.

Two week in a row I have an IFriday entry---whoa. I rock. This pencil sketch was done in a Strathmore 400 Series sketchbook with a Papermate Mega Lead .7mm mechanical pencil.

Your comments are encouraged.

Illustration Friday: Worn

This fellow with the worn jacket was drawn during a down period at the office. I used a .05mm OfficeMax mechanical pencil in a Pastel Rose steno book. As an aside, does anyone actually do stenography/shorthand anymore?

Illustration Friday: Parade

This week I included the original pencil sketch—most of my stuff starts out as some type of pencil sketch—sometimes vague geometric shapes that only make sense to me. Other times the sketches are detailed like the one with this entry.



I take the pencil sketch into one of four apps (Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash) depending on what I want the final piece to look like and trace over it. More often than not, I will modify the final from the sketch as I go.



This is the AI art board with the layers pallet opened up showing the number of layers this screen. I like to keep each element (eyes, head, hair, body) on it’s own layer and then grouped by major element (skateboarder, girl, balloon boy) in a super layer. (Click for larger image)



And finally, the completed version. For the record, I did the pencil sketch with a .5mm Techniclick II mechanical pencil in a Moleskine notebook. The final version was created in Adobe Illustrator CS.

Your comments are encouraged.

Sketchbook: Things I Sketch While Watching TV

On Carrying a Sketchbook and Why You Should

There is a great series of articles written by storyboard artist Mark Kennedy about why you should be carrying a sketchbook with you. Read it; you'll like it.

Illustration Friday: Small (Now with original)

The first thing I thought of when I saw the theme for Illustration Friday was good things come in small packages. My wife is a good thing (well, great really) and she is small.

Added:

Some of you asked to see the original pencil sketch before I did any Photoshop clean up. The faces in couch as well as the texture came from whatever was on the flip side of the sheet when I scanned it. My wife had been watching TV, but I lost interest in the background once I had completed her and the couch.

Thanks for the feedback.

Original:




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