Sketch Pages 1- Tin Salamunic

Sketch Exploration 1- Edward Kinsella

I find winter very inspiring and I thought it might be fun to do some winter themed pictures. This is a quick character study for one that I'm working on.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday and a happy new year!

-Ed

Sketches 1- Francis Vallejo

...cars? I've been given a great opportunity to work on a project where cars are the focus, so I did these doodles to warm up. Freehand, marker and pencil. I'm trying to avoid the ruler, but if the client wants them tighter I may have to dust it off.

take care!

-francis

Less Than Jake- Peter Wonsowski

Here was a great ADMAT I was honored to get to work on:

Everybody was really happy. It's amazing that I created this little character when I was a sophomore in high school, and 13+ years later i'm still being asked to draw him!

Sketches 1- Scott Brundage

Some recent sketches. The Hulk was inspired by the Marvel Mondays idea over at DAS.

And this is your typical sultry female Hutt. Get some space wine in her and you'll be wearing a bronze speedo with a chain around your neck. And, of course, Bella the Boston Terrier.

-Scott

Poe's William Wilson- Jason Raish

Illustrations for Scholastic Scope magazine, they adapted the Edgar Allen Poe story "William Wilson" into a play for kids. Basically William Wilson's "twin" follows him around through the years ratting him out and causing problems for him until he kills him in a sword fight and learns that he was his conscience.

Treeless Mountain- Edward Kinsella

This is a recent illustration for The New Yorker’s review of the Korean film “Treeless Mountain”. The movie looks quite depressing, but it proved to be great subject matter for an illustration.

Chazy River Fishing- Andrew R. Wright

I did this a while ago for Adirondack Life. This is a story about a guy fishing on the Chazy River. One of his memories dealt with trying to get a fish with lots of teeth into the boat without a net. His solution was taking his jacket off, wrap it around his left hand, and try to corner the fish. Needless to say the fish got away.


...and the final layout.

Golden Age of Pills- Tin Salamunic

Here are some illustrations for the October issue of Playboy. The article is about The Golden Age of Pills and how people take different pills for different occasions:

To see color variations and unused sketches, check out Tin's personal blog.

Spider-Man Sketch Cards- Doug Cowan

The Spider-Man Archives card set that I worked on in August was released this past week. I've added 28 of the images to the site. They are shown in my "sketch" section.

These were painted in watercolor and ended up being a lot of fun to do.

Financial Comic Pages- Francis Vallejo

-------- Crazy project. I was given a week to do these three pages, and some branding work, for an Australian financial newspaper. The AD provided the titles and the script. The stories consist of epic tales of 2 financial advisers who are turned into superheroes, and one story of a helplessly addicted gambler. .. I tried to have as much fun with it as possible. I enjoyed the challenge of having the whole story take place on one page. I found using all the comic elements - narration, speech bubbles, sound effects, etc - were all needed to condense the action to fit. And since it is for a newspaper, I colored it as such. I also posted the super rough layout sketches I did at the onset. I stayed pretty loyal to them, with some minor changes. All in all, I had a blast! Expect to see much more comic work. happy holidays once again! -fv

Vegan Treats Merch- Peter Wonsowski

hear ye hear ye! check out Vegan Treats to find out if some of the best desserts ever are near you!

also, check out these cool new clothing products available! they fit and feel awesome, and the screen-printing came out gorgeous as well

Cthulu Santa on tor.com- Scott Brundage

I had just finished reading some H.P. Lovecraft, so his flavor of awesome was still fresh in my mind. Usually when thinking about making these I go through lots of failed ideas before connecting something random to something else that could relate in shape or texture. I landed pretty quickly on Santa's beard being similar to Cthulhu's tentacle mouth. After that, I just needed classic scene to befoul, like a child in Santa's lap.
My first thumbnail and loose drawing was just to figure out a pose and loose shape to play with. I knew I'd have to fit batlike wings in somewhere so Santa's chair became ornate to fit those needs. You can see I was playing with sizes and shapes still in the rough sketch from the doubled up legs on the child. From here I grabbed a bunch of reference of classic shots of Santa, Santa's lap, happy or screaming children, etc. I wanted it to read as the quintessential happy boy waiting to tell Santa how bad he wants a bb gun type thing. Old illustrators and Saturday Evening Post covers are a great place to start for that timeless imagery, google image search helped with the rest.
Then I refined the sketch to get the folds and figures believeable. The chair became important since drawing simple ornate carvings bores me, and reflect in the drawing. So I dropped hints of Cthulhu into the before shot, which was a lot more fun. Photoshop helped a lot in that I only had to draw half and then mirror it to get a nice symmetry.
Then I gather some reference for Cthulhu. Its a little strange to look up photo reference for something that doesn't exist, but in this case it was necessary. I had Lovecraft's prose to go by, but he writes in a very old timey way that can be interpreted different ways. So, seeing what some other artists have done helped understand what I wanted to do. Since the jump from before to after can't be too dramatic, I've found the best way to work is to use a print of the sketch and tracing paper to get the shapes equal. When the shapes match up, I retool them to be the after shot. Even then I end up tweaking and resizing a lot in Photoshop to get it right.
The before shot of Santa obviously dictated a lot of the after shot of Cthulhu. I had to pay attention to both my sketches and the finished paint to tell me where to go with value and color. Tentacles are always easy to play with, and matching the gestures of the beard and candy canes definitely added a nice touch. To finish off the rollover, I laid the after shot onto the before and erased out some of the wings to show some of the chair behind it, making the transition much smoother.

Tor.com is now hosting this image on their site during Cthulhu month, and you can buy it on holiday cards and baby onesies if you think your toddler needs exposure to the maddening abyss.


Thanks for reading!
-SB

Sketchbook Pages 1- Chris Whetzel

Hello, all. Here are some new sketch pages for perusal while I am working on projects. Trying some new things in the sketchbook. I am producing lots of ugly pages and poorly drawn faces in the book, but here are some I feel ok about :)

I won't go into the aesthetics or philosophy behind my new sketchbook approach to spare you my whimsical "artsy" mentalities. Thanks for viewing:




I'm going to really try updating the blog weekly as I am piling up a backlog of work to share. Also, I hope to share some big news in the coming months. Sorry for the long time between posts!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris