Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Sandmason Mouse

Earlier this year I did an inked commission of a Mouse from Sandmason on a desert mount.
The plan is that this piece will be included in the next Mouse Guard sketchbook (hopefully out mid-next year).

I've colored it for that eventual sketchbook and in today's blog, I'm going through the process for drawing, inking, and coloring the final image you see here.

The fan's request was a mouse from Sandmason (a location on the map of the Mouse Territories I've never taken readers to in the course of the books––but a style of dress I did show in the extras of the Winter book when delegates from various cities come to Lockhaven for a summit) on some kind of a mount in the desert sand ala Luke on a Tauntaun on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.

The only lizard in Michigan (and I know you're thinking Michigan isn't a desert––but we do have sand dunes, which to a mouse...) is a Five Lined Skink.

I penciled the lizard and the rock on a sheet of copy paper, the mouse on another, and then on a light pad with a fresh sheet of copy paper over the lizard drawing, I drew the saddle/seat and assembled them all together in Photoshop.
I printed out the above pencils/layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore Bristol 300 series. On my Huion Lightpad I was able to see through the surface of the bristol down to the layout to use as a guide while I inked the piece. The inks were dong using Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 nib mainly).

This piece had some tricky textures that had to be subtly managed: the scales, the belly, the sand, the rock...over doing any of those would not just make the piece too cluttered and unreadable, but also would lose the contours of those forms.
With the inks finished I started the coloring process. The first part of which is called 'flatting'. It's essentially a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines to establish what each area's flat base color will be (though, you can use colors that aren't in the final palette and adjust them later) no textures or shading.

It's also at this stage I added in color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) and I established those on the sand, the flag emblem, and the goggle glare).
The last step was to render the final colors. I do this mainly with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop, but on this piece I did use the paintbrush a bit too. I also will use the freehand lasso tool with a feather (blurred edge) to select certain areas to adjust the color balance on to make subtle transitions––like the skink's nose area.

Hopefully I'll get past my current deadline crunch and get to a point where I know I'll have enough finished images to combine into a sketchbook collection for 2025.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Plotmasters Project Re-Run


This week is Jesse Glenn's 50th Birthday. My best friend, the Kenzie to my Saxon and a collaborator for decades. Te celebrate, I wanted to go back and promote our video podcast: THE PLOTMASTERS PROJECT where we looked back and revisited our earliest stories and characters together. Below are all 10 episodes for you to enjoy as we share a fraction of our old artwork and ideas going back to the early 90's and then draw updated pieces to see what those ideas would look like today.


CATS TRIO


QUIETUS

BLACKCAT

DRAGONS pt1


DRAGONS pt2


PSYCHO-MANTIS


HERO SQUAD


R-WARS


FEATHER


CLAW


Gallery of updated pieces:

CATS TRIO: David 


CATS TRIO: Jesse


QUIETUS: Jesse


QUIETUS: David

BLACKCAT: David

BLACKCAT: Jesse



DRAGONS: Jesse


DRAGONS: David



DRAGONS: David

DRAGONS: Jesse


HERO SQUAD: Jesse



HERO SQUAD: David


PSYCHO-MANTIS: Jesse


PSYCHO-MANTIS: David


FEATHER: David



FEATHER: Jesse


R-WARS: Jesse


R-WARS: David


CATS TRIO - CLAW: David

CATS TRIO - CLAW: Jesse


Tuesday, November 5, 2024

VOTE!




vote.gov
For help at the polls, call the non-partisan Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE

 

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Halloween Trio Decorations

 Happy Halloween! 

To celebrate, I've provided high-res 8.5" x 11" files you can download, print and cut out to display and decorate. You can also glue the mirrored versions together so your decorations are two-sided.

These characters were from a Baltimore Yearbook and later a silkscreened poster I made to celebrate the spooky holiday. I've isolated them for these printouts as well as included the poem I wrote for the occasion


PUMPKIN SKELETON FIDDLER
(right-click and open in a new window to download full-size)



BELL CAT WITCH
(right-click and open in a new window to download full-size)


PIPE AND TAILS DEVIL
(right-click and open in a new window to download full-size)




Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Recent Commissions

Here are some Toned Commissions from mostly from SDCC, Baltimore, & NYCC


Lieam in the snow

A mouse with a flower

Mabel Heir to Cragflame

A Mouse rogue

Pet portrait of a cat with a hood

Beta Ray Bill


Another Mabel Heir to Cragflame

SkekSil The Chamberlain Skeksis

A Guardmouse with a rapier

A Guardmouse with Heraldic designs from Milan




Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Skelton's Keys To The Classics: Jungle Book

Skelton Crew has a line of 'Keys to the Classics' of keys designed by artists to summarize a book in classic literature. As you may remember, Israel Skelton and I did a line of Mouse Guard replica weapons years ago, so it was a pleasure to reunite when he asked if I'd design a Jungle Book themed key: 'The Key to the Ruined City'

I was given technical specifications for the thickness, width, height, etc as well as a caveat that I needed to pull visuals and details only from the original text instead of any popular adaptations.

My goal was to make the key look like a stone or bone carving of a portion of the ruined city itself that also featured Shere Kahn, Bagheera, Baloo, Kaa, and some monkeys (Not King Louie--as he was a Disney invention)


The job started with pencil sketches digitally toned of the key rotation where each side is a bit different (especially the monkeys) This stage took the longest as I had to keep making adjustments so that the silhouette of each side matched the other and that the side edge details wrapped around convincingly enough. 


Because I knew Skelton Crew would like cleaner linework to use as etched/carved lines in the key itself, I then did an inked version using the above pencil version as a guide to ink from on my Huion lightpad. While in some ways I think the stark lines take away from the softer and more subtle pencil version above, it did give me a chance to clean up bits I wanted to refine.



The last step before sending it off was to do a digital render on the inked drawing to help show the relief and form.


The key itself is available for purchase at Skelton Crew's Online Store:
skeltoncrewstudio.bigcartel.com

And I have a few available with signed boxes in my online store:
mouseguard.bigcartel.com



 

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Royal Taloned Octopus Dragon

Last week on my Twitch Stream, we did the #DiscoveringDragons Community-Draw-Along! It's a fun event where I welcome all skill levels to push their pencils (or whatever tools they use to make art). It takes place on the first Friday of the month.

I worked on my piece live on my Twitch stream while viewers worked at home and then on the following Monday we shared our finished pieces.

Here is my finished colored Dragon (twenty first in the series). And below are my steps to create it as well as the community submissions.


For #DiscoveringDragons, I post two or three prompt words for everyone to make into a dragon. It's a nice framework for artists of any skill level to focus some time on an 'assignment' to shake the rust off or get the pencil moving again––all while also being loose enough that there's plenty of room for individual expression and interpretation.

This month the prompt was three words: Octopus, Talon, & Royal

I opened several tabs of google image searches of octopus species, bird talons, and crowns.


I started on copy paper with the body form of a Blue Ringed Octopus and then added on a taller dragon head and a bit of a hood like a King Cobra (adding to the Royal prompt).  That loose sketch was taken into Photoshop where I added blocky colors to help refine and define the overall shape and silhouette. I also put in a pale green to be the underbelly so I could keep track of where a tentacle would have suckers or not. With that  rougher version bolstered with color shape design, I printed it out and did a tighter pencil drawing over it on a clean sheet of paper on my Huion lightpad. 

With the tighter pencil drawing done, I wend back into Photoshop and blocked in some flat colors to again help me see which parts were which (negative space, underbelly, top skin, shin pattern, etc. but also to just get me closer to envisioning what my goal was for the final image.

In some ways, this step was unnecessary and superfluous––I did a good enough job with the pencils that I could tell where the underbelly and suckers were to get the ink texture right in the next step...but I really do like trusting in this process of mine. It did make me think harder about how I was going to ink the skin pattern knowing what the final color issues would be. 

With the above design printed out at full scale and taped that onto the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol, it was time to start inking. Using a lightpad, I was able to see through the surface of the bristol as I inked the dragon. I used Copic Multiliner 0.7 pen to ink the art.

The inking on this piece was about balancing the lighter hand I needed to not overwork the underbelly and to get the details on the suckers looking fleshy, and then being more textured and heavy-handed when it came to the skin pattern.


I wasn't able to finish my inks on stream before having to sign off an wish every one success over the weekend with their Dragons. Later that same night after some dinner I finished inking the last few tentacles and then scanned the inks and started the flatting process. In addition to the basics of color flatting–basically professional coloring-in-the-lines, I also established color holds (an area where I want the ink to be a color other than black)––the overall lines became a dark brown, the skin pattern got two different color holds and the pupil got one as well.

Most of of the color selections were already established in the rough, but I played with the final value/hue choices for a while before getting to this point.

For the final colors I used a bit of the paintbrush to add some color variance to each area before using the dodge and burn tools to do the final rendering.
Below you can again see the final Dragon...



But, as this is a community event, I wanted to share all the other entries posted in the Discord. 


Capt.Nemo


Nathan Pride


Nuvalo



Nuvalo


RedSkwrl


Jonathan Towry


88UncleErnie



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