Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

[Snowdon]

Hi there!

I'm 31, a graduate of the Pittsburgh branch of the Art Institute fast food franchise of art schools. Been out of school since 2001, and was building a decent bit of experience as a freelance artist until about 2007 when life sideswiped me and left me for dead on the side of the road.

Recently I clawed my way out of that particular ditch and have been making an effort to get back on my horse and ride off towards that happy ending sunset where they pay me to draw.

I am currently without a functioning scanner, so everything I'm posting here is digital. I love my Intuos 3 and my brand new Tablet PC, but I've always been more comfortable with pencil and paper.

Inspired by an old art school comrade, I've been trying to do a sketch a day, spending about a half hour or so, of a celebrity or movie character. Realism has always been a weak point for me, which I see as a huge handicap. I intend to brute force my way past this handicap with lots and lots of practice. My most recent is General Jack D. Ripper from my favourite film, Dr. Strangelove.

I also spent a few hours at Denny's tonight, just doodling. I'd hoped to sketch some patrons, but the place was empty, so the sketches below are what happened instead.

[Snowdon]

Still on my Dr. Strangelove kick for my sketches.

I made Colonel Guano's mustach a lot thicker than it actually is, but I wound up wanting to play with hair a bit, since I'd been unhappy with hair in my previous sketches. I managed an effect I'm pretty happy with, so I'm looking forward to using it in my next sketch.

[Snowdon]

Aaaaaaaaand more Denny's sketches. Refining some updated ideas. Still at the rough, early phase. Will be using some further refined variant of these in my next comic project after my current comic is finished.

There's a good 3-4 pages worth of concepts which came before these. Getting closer to something I like. Pretty happy with the overall designs, just need to clean up and refine the details and I should have something to work with.

[Boywonda1]

love the cartoon-like values on post #2...

[Snowdon]

I'm visiting friends and family on my way to NYC for an internship interview. Took a break from drawing actors from movies to sketch this picture of my best friend's daughter.

He claims it doesn't quite capture the unbridled evil lurking beneath her adorable exterior.

[Snowdon]

Wow, been a while since I've prodded this Sketchbook thread with my drawing stick.

Fast forward, it's the year two thousand and twelve, the heroic Autobots have been driven from their home planet of Cybertron by the evil Decepticons. On the bright side, my attempt to pick myself up by the bootstraps paid off.

I'm back on the east coast, back in New York and, most importantly, getting a regular paycheque for drawing.

Most of what I'm doing lately is for a television show in production, and it's not out yet so can't show any of that work off but...um....here's a doodle I started on the subway ride home last night and finished on the subway ride in this morning.

Since my first few posts I've gotten a lot more comfortable working digitally and I'm using the same Toshiba Portege M700 tablet PC for drawing now that I'd picked up way back then. I even use it to do nearly all my work at the studio.

I did this all in Photoshop CS5, from initial sketch to final colours. No special tricks, just a few handy brushes like Goro's and Kikariz. Lots of overlay and multiply layers for the colours and shading. All in all about 2-3 hours work I think.

Once I get around to finishing my old web comic I plan to start a new one in this colouring style.

I deeply regret the tacky drop shadow and already want to replace it.

[Snowdon]

Over the past week I've been doodling on the bus/subway as usual on my way to and from the studio, but I decided to take a bunch of said doodles and combine them together into a single image and colour up the whole thing.

This is the result.

All done, drawn and coloured, on my Toshiba Portege M700 in Photoshop. Almost entirely done on the bus and subway over the course of about a week.

[Kambei Shimada]

Nice stuff man, the inks are really nice.

[Snowdon]

A couple more doodles, again from my daily commute.

Both done in the usual way, Photoshop on my tablet PC. I'm starting to consider an upgrade in that department. Been looking at some slates, which seem a lot more portable. Some of the tablets from Motion Computing look pretty durable, too, and seem to have longer life spans, if the website is to be believed.


Anyways, the comic cover style image is just playing around with concepts. Not actually for a specific book or anything. Just having some fun. Spent maybe a few hours on it here and there.

The other sketch is is just a doodle of the same character. I intend to make her one of the main characters in a project I'm outlining right now.

[Snowdon]

A quick and rough pencil test doodled on my tablet one day.

[Snowdon]

Between jobs again, but feeling good.

Taking it easy this week, but have a bunch of illustrations in various stages of completion. Working on my web portfolio Looking into possibly doing comic colouring for a while if I don't find another studio gig right away.



This is entirely unrelated to the show. A quick doodle I did, playing with light and effects.

Thinking of picking up a tablet to use as a slick digital portfolio. Wonder if I can find a cheap one that will do the job, displaying JPEGs and letting people browse through them with swipes? Don't think I'd need a top-end model for that.

[Snowdon]

NYCC was a blast, although I'm always lost without an art table to ground myself to. Next year I'll either have a table in Artist's Alley, or be a part of a booth promoting the show I spent the past year working on, so I'm looking forward to that.

In the meantime, here's a few new pieces from the con.

This first one I combined with the "soldier girl" pic from earlier and updated the piece on my website.

The guy was drawn mostly on the subway, and the colours primarily done while sitting around at ComicCon. Took maybe two hours, but it was on and off again working on it.

This was done entirely at NYCC, while sitting on the floor in incredibly pain, charging my laptop during day 3 of the con. No idea how long it took. I'd been arriving early in the morning each day and getting only a couple hours of sleep each night since the con began. Did most of the drawing while resting at a table in the autograph area. Did the inks and colours some hours later while charging my laptop in Artist's Alley. I wanted to have him holding something. Changed my mind several times as to what it would be. A cartoon style bomb. A playing card. Batman's tattered mask. Eventually just decided to skip it altogether otherwise it would have never gotten past the sketch stage.