TMNT

Spent some time over the last few days watching Turtle movies and drawing Turtle sketches. I'm having a lot of fun with 'em, and now that I've added a few greens to my marker collection I'm looking forward to working some color into them.

Been a little worried though that I was focusing too much on Turtles and that especially for my sketches I needed to open up, so I've also started some League of Legends sketches that I'll be posting here as I wrap them up. LoL has some amazing art, and it's been getting better every month. I took some time to download a batch of the character profile pics and will be studying them for the next couple of weeks to see what I can learn. Even better, they've made available recordings of the artist creating each piece. Great color, dynamic poses, simple backgrounds... I friggin love these things. 

Sketch Dump!

I've been working away on various things over the last couple of weeks, but haven't really felt comfortable posting any of it. Part of the reason behind that is that a lot of what I have is at a mid point, and I figured I'd wrap it up soon and then post the finished product. Others pieces are for personal projects that are in such an early stage that talking about them just isn't an easy thing to do because I don't really know what it is I'm trying to say yet.

On the flip side, they're still cool drawings, so why not pop them on here?

So there you go. A quick peek into some of the stuff I've been up to the last week or so. I'll be trying my markers out on the TMNT/Superhero pieces soon, so don't be shocked if they appear again in a few days. As for the group up top, I'd love to dive into that idea more right away, but I've other commitments that need to come first... With any luck I can start devoting some serious time to them in November, and see where things go from there.

Cap sketch

Picked up a few Copic markers over the last month and finally had a chance to really put them to the test tonight. Had to do a little digital editing on this once I was done, but for the most part I think it turned out quite well. The markers are awesome and to those who are debating the investment I'd have to say their worth it. I'm looking forward to filling out the collection that I have with a few warm tones, but for the most part I think I've got what I need.

Hope you guys are into this kind of thing, because I'd like to get a handle on it between now and the next con, which means you'll likely see a lot more of it in the coming months.

-Dave

Storm

I've been feeling pretty jazzed with the drawing lately, so I thought I'd take Storm off the Req-a-sketch list. I did a hurried version of this a couple minutes before bed in a hotel somewhere in Utah, planning to get back to it once I returned home. Of course, once home, I promptly tucked the sketchbook that I had taken with me into a drawer and forgot about it (why use paper when you have a shiny computer, right?) until just recently. Pulled it out a couple days ago and finally got some time tonight to see where I could take it.

Clearly I took some  liberties with the character design, running off the idea that Ororo the weather shaping mutant was worshiped as a goddess by her tribe while growing up, and imagining where that might take her were she to have stayed. I played a lot with perspective here, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Hopefully it's something I'll be able to do more of in the near future.

In other, likely interesting to no one but me, news... I do believe I've made an official edit to my signature. As you can see in the above pic, I added the year underneath my little scribble, and I'm quite liking the way it looks. I used to put dates of some kind or another on my work ages ago, before I had really settled on a signature of any kind, and it's something that proves quite valuable. At times when you feel like you've hit a wall and just aren't growing as an artist, it's important to be able to take a quick look into your past to see where you came from, and understand your development as a function not just of effort and skill, but of time as well.

Aaaaand that's it for me. It's almost time for my wife to get up and head off to work, which means it's far past the time when I should have packed it in...

G'night! 

DD

I'm taking a lot longer with these than I'd like to admit (they're supposed to be quick, loose, and experimental) but I'm consistently pleased with the results, so I can't chastise myself too much. Spent between 3 - 5 hours on this one, which is about twice as much as I'd hoped. The goal here was to nail the expression, but I found myself spending a lot of time working, and then re-working, the lighting of the brow and the space around the horns. In the end though, I'm gonna claim success (largely so that I can move on guilt free), and ignore the fight for attention going on between the eyes and the rim lighting of his head.

Moving right along!