I’m not entirely happy with it, but Brandon made me promise to post it here. I was trying my shortcut method of drawing characters that wear mostly black with someone other than Darth Vader.
Posts Tagged ‘sketchercise’
Batwoman
Friday, July 15th, 2011New Sketchercise – Create A Fictional Concert Poster For A Real Band
Monday, June 13th, 2011It was past time to choose an idea for a new Sketchercise. Rico came up with: Create A Fictional Concert Poster For A Real Band
One of the more creative topics to be sure! Go to and do and let’s see some new posts!
Sketchercise: Fairy Tale Heroes
Thursday, March 24th, 2011It’s about time I threw this up on here. For the Sketchercise many moons ago for “Fairy Tale Heroes,” I did Snow White and the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
Sketchercise: Drinkin’ with Pee Wee
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Heather picked this round of Sketchercisin’ prompted by a pretty awesome SNL short that, c’mon, everybody’s seen by now, right? Anyway, I didn’t intend for this to come out such a downer but, man, when you start drinkin’ on that Mr. T Brand Guaranteed Sour Mash Whiskey Fortified with Milk and Cookies, you never know where it might take you.
By the way, Large Marge sent me.
Sketchercise: Mojo Workin’
Friday, January 21st, 2011
I still gotta go back and catch up on a Sketchercise but I just couldn’t resist jumping in on the musical illustration one as soon as I could. I chose to do a bit from the great Muddy Waters’ rollicking, gut busting masterpiece, “I Got My Mojo Workin’ ” but, you know, with dawgs. Really was a lot of fun to draw, especially the surging with power, Kirby-esque panel. Fun!
#Sketchercise – Music related art: Roy Orbison!
Friday, January 21st, 2011Not sure if that’s exactly what Seth chose for the topic, but that’s the direction I was going! I decided to go with one of the bigger musical influences of my childhood: the Voice…the incomparable Roy Orbison! This was taken from the album cover art for his triumphant comeback “MYSTERY GIRL.” For most people growing up it was the Beatles, Stones or Elvis…but in our house Orbison resonated the years of my childhood. The most amazing thing about it, no matter what age, what time period, his stuff holds up remarkably well!
This is part one of a 3-4 part process. This is the raw inks over my pencils. The next step is to clean it up a bit and add gray tones. And last, I’m going to add some white acrylic splatter to give it some atmosphere. I’ll post each piece as they’re complete. Hope you like it…now, go listen to some Orbison! 
step 1
step 1.5
I scanned in the drawing at 300 dpi and took it into Photoshop (CS2). I then proceeded to bump the contrast levels up to get a darker, more solid black. After that I went in and removed the areas I didn’t like. Specifically the hands/wrists. I tend to do a bit of contour drawing when I do hands and in this instance it wasn’t a good thing. I want the drawing to balance out, and the simplicity of the face was being overwhelmed by the rendering of the hands & writs. I’ll print this out and draw in the fixes over the weekend. (stay tuned!)
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Well after tweaking the brightness/contrast in photoshop it came to me that I was a few steps ahead of myself. It wouldn’t looks right to go back in on a high contrast piece, so I went back to the original and cut out what I wanted to redraw and left the contrast alone.
step 1.75
I reduced it a bit to fit an 8-1/2″ x 11 sheet and printed it out. I then went back in with a 4H pencil and drew the corrections. I used the same tools to ink these changes (Prismacolor pens, faber-castell big brush pen, prismacolor cool grey art markers) I then added a gradient behind his right hand.
step 2.0
I’m still unhappy with the right hand, so instead of adding in the white acrylic splatter I’ve decided to redraw the right hand first. Once I have it the way I want it I’ll assemble it in photoshop, print it out and add the splatter…stay tuned!
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Getting close! This is the scan from where I redrew his right hand. I finally got it to where I don’t hate it, so I decided to scan it and move on to the next step. These steps are taking anywhere from 10-30 minutes each, usually done over lunch. If not for this process blog I would have stopped or trashed it after the first step, but this has been pretty fun!
step 2.5
I’m going to print this one out and do a few touch ups. I may even re-do the gradient behind him just so that it’s crisper. All the scanning & printing have degraded it down quite a bit. Then after that, it’s on to the white acrylic splatter!
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Sketchercise – Music related art: Roy Orbison – part 4
Took a week to get through all the steps, scanning and posts, but here it is! I haven’t worked like this in awhile. I used to use Photoshop a lot more than I do now,
but I find that the drawings lose some of their life and personality when manipulated digitally. Besides, whatever commission I’ve gotten havre called for the entire
process to be done on one sheet, so I didn’t have the luxury of using Photoshop to help make up for my many imperfections!
I did some light touch ups around the hands and on his hair. I then added the gradient in two steps using all of the markers I have 10% – 90%. Not quite as good as I’d hoped or practiced, but I gotta
keep moving! I also added some greys to his glasses to help build the contrats for the piece (30% & 50% cool greys). I actually liked how that turned out!
step 3.0
I scanned it in this morning at 400 dpi and tweaked the brightness/contrast ever so slightly so as to not disprupt the gradients. I then went in with a burn tool and darkened everything up equally. I trimmed the edges arond the piece and there you have it!
step 3.5 – the final!
For the few who actually stayed with me or this I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
See you next time!
Sketchercise: Superhero Fairy Tales
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010If I’m not mistaken, this Sketchercise could either be a Superhero reimagined as a Fairy Tale or a Fairy Tale character turned into a Superhero. I opted to make a superhero into a fairy tale. In this case I chose the obvious, the Incredible Hulk as Shrek!
Sketchercise #2: Excitement in Riverdale
Friday, November 12th, 2010
Okay, here’s my take on our “Sketchercise” theme of Riverdale. This assignment was my bright idea. About time I actually did it myself. 
We were to take any 3 characters from the Archie universe and put them together into a single scene. This is my twisted, fun take on this. I also decided to draw these characters in my style (just go for it, outright and full on). I’m extremely proud of how this turned out. I learned a lot doing it, and relearned the power of spot blacks.
I know everyone was snickering when I announced the assignment (after the groans were over with, at least). I just can’t believe no one else went “there” with it. Me? I simply could not resist, especially when drawing such a hottie as Betty. And yes, I’m a “Betty” man (as opposed to Veronica). Instead of making this an “oh sh*t!” situation for our blondie, I decided to put Betty in charge and have her totally into it. So far the “Sketchercise” series has been a great learning tool for me, as I catch up. Now, onto #3. I only have like 7 or 8 more to catch the rest of the group.
Sketchercise: Easy Adventure
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
So, this is my first submission to Sketch Charlotte’s “Sketchercise” event. Y’all are on like, topic 9 or something. So I figured I’d at least submit one. So I went to the first challenge, which was to draw your favorite comic strip character. I spent a LONG time thinking of all the strips I read as a kid and teenager. Hours staring at the boxes in sequence were spent by me, as I was learning to read. There were sooooooooo many great ones. But my “favorite”? Damn, that was hard. Not easy. And then I realized that one strip that blew me away. It had T-O-N-S of adventure, trippy escapades in bizarre lands, colorful characters, and one fella who had no problem at all solving matters with his hands. That strip was “Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune”.
The strip and characters, Easy and the original lead, Wash Tubbs, just blew my young mind away, even though it was the Bill Crooks & Jim Lawrence Easy I was growing up with. I loved how the characters’ faces were cartoony and real all at the same time, and especially how the clothes had motion to them, even though a modicum of lines were used. So thanks to the Sketchercise challenge, I’ve rediscovered my love for this, my favorite comic strip character. For Christmas I think I’m going to ask for the Fantagraphics volumes reprinting Crane’s unbelievable Sundays. I mean, Easy is so damn cool … he’s old-school, but he’s just truly kickass. He doesn’t get dusty with the years. Every time I look at a strip, I think, “Damn, Easy lives. He’s so cool. Wow, I can’t believe that situation they’re in!” So, thanks, Brandon, for giving me the hard time about not submitting to “Sketchercise”. It has reconnected me with my love for the great strips which got me into comics in the first place. Now, we’ll see how much I catch up to the rest of you Sketchercisers.
Sketchercise: Tintin
Thursday, October 21st, 2010A character I’ve always wanted to get into but have never made the time to do so…Herge’s Tintin! Since I know next to nothing about the character I thought I’d do the obvious homage to the “Im with COCO” poster that flooded the internets this past year…hope you enjoy it!
