Paper Pusher

Hey Gang! I found out the other day that I will be taking over Illustration duties on Recalcitrant Jones and the Dead Beats! for those of you who don’t know Recalcitrant Jones is an ongoing story in the comic book Students of the unusual Which is published by the fine folks at 3 boys productions. Special thanks to J Chris for sending them my way, and extra special thanks to Terry Cronin for saying yes! Here are some rough character designs for the main character Trent. It should be noted that I’m taking a lot from J Chris’s design.

Here are a few drawings I did a while back of the town I live in (or I should say between). I was selling these framed for about $40 buck a piece at a coffee shop where I used to work. Some of them are still there for sale, but I sold most of them already. I wish I had some pictures of the really good ones I did early on, but they got bought up pretty quick.

Here is yet another vector drawing I’ve done for practice. I’ll start posting some non vector stuff tomorrow, It’s just that all the vector stuff is already on my computer and all ready to go. What’s that? you don’t care? and you think I’m a jerk? Well fine! I guess I won’t be telling you about the new stuff in the store section then.

I’ve been trying to learn how to work with watercolors lately, Partially because of Bill Pressing (see links) but mostly due to the fact that I’m going to be in art show in a few weeks and really need to knock out some kick ass painterly goodness. Too bad for you this is not said goodness.

I’ll do better next time. Promise.

This is another pin up girl for the book mentioned below. This will probably be used as the cover to the next issue of paper pusher too (that’s why there is so much dead space around her). I gotta give myself mad props for that gun, I mean Just look at it. Wow.

Here is a pin up I did about two weeks ago, It’s for a book of pin ups that I hope to0 have ready for heroes con in June. I know that sounds like a long time to put together a pin up book, but it’s not.

Hey! Hey! Day number two. Today I’m just posting this drawing of Dr Internet I did for our soon to be up and running video site. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more pics of props and art from the show as the weeks roll by. Stay tuned!

THE WORST WAY TO DRAW ON EARTH:
I should probably say that while I’m not a big fan of gradients, I do prefer them in illustrator over any way I know (so far at least) to create outlines. It might have to do with the fact that when I draw by hand, I focus so much on line quality, that this is kind of like a little vectorized vacation for me. I still find drawing on the computer a big pain in the ass. I’m using a mouse and not a wacom tablet (which I have). Maybe one day I will learn to love it or at least like it, but for now it stays in the closet. So I’ve been sketching in photoshop using a light blue (just like I would with a blue pencil in the real world) For some reason this color seems to be easiest for me to rough in. I like the idea of red, but it just looks like scribbles to me. Here is the “blue line” sketch of this drawing i did with the mouse:

Sometimes I’ll refine it with red but that is only if it gets too hairy, but even when I do, I still keep the blue lines around when I bring it in illustrator. I still prefer this to actually drawing on paper and then tracing it in illustrator, Partially because I end up liking the pencils so much more than the “watered down” vector version. But when I draw like this (with the mouse in photoshop) It gets the idea across in way I understand, but yet still looks like crap enough that It can only improve by being traced off in illustrator. Which is what I did next:

Bam! there it is. I changed the regular cop to a “Bobbie” and moved it around a little. I ended up flipping Dr Internet around for better composition and kept messing with the car too much. then I dropped in the background just as a place holder, as this will probably be animated (slightly).
So there it is, a drawing I don’t really like, and now that I’ve shown you how to make a drawing that you don’t like, you can open up all your fancy Adobe crap and spend a few hours on a drawing that would have taken you 30 minutes to complete by hand. I love vectors!