One More Prehistoric Lady

This time she's with her pet Triceragriff.

Barbarrella

Sketch Dailies topic yesterday was 1968 cult sci-fi movie character, Barbarella.  The 60's-est thing I've ever seen.  And I love it!

Prehistoric Sabertooth Ponycorn

The Sketch Dailies topic from yesterday was #MYCOOLLITTLESHETLANDPONY.  I took some liberties and continued with my theme from the day before.

Prehistoric-ish Stuff

I decided i'm going to actually start taking pictures of what I'm sketching day to day like everyone else and avoid the inconvenience of scanning things daily.  And since I don't have a smart phone, we're going to have to do this thing sans instagram and vintage filters.  Sorry everyone...

Friends Along the Way

Whenever I sketch and draw for myself, I really enjoy that part of the process of starting with a vague story or idea that then develops into the drawing itself.  Maybe I just like creating strange and bizarre images,  but I do think it's fun to see how other people interpret what's going on in a piece.  

All I know about this one is that this girl is on some kind of grand journey and she met this guy along the way.  She's the more down-to-earth and rational one, while he, despite his intimidating appearance, is venerable and clumsy.  I'm pretty sure he has some kind of magical power though.

[Pen and ink, Grey Copic/Prismacolor Markers, Digital, Grey Illustration Board, 11''x17'']

Original Sketch

Mid-Toned Sloths

I recently purchased this tiny 5.5x 8.5'' toned grey sketchbook.  Man, working on mid-toned paper is just a ton of fun.  I thought I'd christen the sketchbook with a first full page of sloths.  [Micron, Copic Marker and white gel pen.]

Rendezvous

Just did this pice this week.  An encounter between two shady characters and a mysterious envelope.  [Pen and graphite]

More Kid Character

Added some color to this kid character for a project I'm working on.  Yes, more big-headed children.

Recent Tweaks

A while back, I did a turnaround of this kid genius character and his giant sucking machine, but I never did post the final illustration I did of it in action.  Recently I did a few tweaks on what I had and since autumn is upon us, and thought I'd make a post of it.

Also, here's the original turnarounds:

Upcoming Project Concepts

Here are a few concept sketches for a children's book I've been working on with a local author here in Troy.  More details to come!

Lakmi Beast Design

This semester, I've had the pleasure of working with a group of writers that have been developing a steampunk themed epic for the past year or so.  They've commissioned me to do some concept work for the vast world that they're building.  This first creature I designed is called a Lakmi.

The original basic directive for the creature was that it is a forrest dwelling primate similar to a Baboon with wolf-esque elements.  Oh, and of course, it has four eyes.  Here are a few progress sketches developing these elements.

I really wanted to design a four- eyed skull in which two different faces could be seen and recognized encompassing both sets of eyes.  I decided that giving the skull a front-facing and side-facing set of eyes would help make this work.

The Lakmi is nocturnal.  The second, bigger set of eyes is opened at night to let in more light or during the day to appear more threatening.  The claws were also really fun to design.  We wanted the Lakmi to have retracting claws, but also have slightly more humanoid hands with opposing thumbs.  Most animals with retracting claws, (mainly cats) have claws that fold in between the bones of their fingers (as seen in the lion claw sketch above on the right page of the left image).  To make this work on a humanoid hand that still would have any sort of dexterity, my solution was to somehow give the last joint of the finger a space for the claw to swing between and to store when retracted.  

The Lakmi walks and runs quadrupedally, but can also stand on two legs and walk short distances bipedally.

 Lakmis walk and run on the knuckles of their front arms.  If they need extra traction they can flex their claws slightly, acting as a sort of cleat.

Here is the final turnaround as well as a few details of various aspects of the Lakmi.

Shaved Lakmi.

Detail of the claws and relative scale. 

The baboon-like crest on the bridge of the nose is used to attract mates.  The vibrance of the crest also is a factor in determining a hierarchy in the herd as well as the alpha male.  This crest is also part of its eyelid, which closes from bottom to top.

Just for fun, I started thinking about the colors and markings Lakmi might have depending on what other types of environments it live in.

Forrest of Jungle

Savannah

Arctic

An "elder" Lakmi

 This type of fantasy concept art is something I don't do as much as I'd like, and it was a good exercise in inventing creature anatomy.  There will be more of this to come.  I can't wait till the story is finished!

Turnaround

I finished this turnaround of this kid character and his crazy invention a while ago.  The machine was really fun to design.  Basically the idea is he created this machine to do his chores quicker and easier.  It sucks things in like a vacuum, and ejects the equivalent mass in pizza, chocolate milk, or baby sloths (because who doesn't want a large amount of any of those things?).

Your average kid genius.

The Flip-Flopinator.  Great for cleaning your room
and acquiring large amounts of pizza.

Amy's Birthday Sketch

It's my sister's birthday this wednesday, so I thought I'd post this sketch i did of her.  Happy Birthday Amy!  No hard feelings...

Amy being negative, for whatever reason

RoboDog Process

Been kind of busy today, but here's a quick sneak peak of the subject of one of the digital paintings I'm currently working on.

What do you do if your mom won't let you have a dog?
You build a giant robot one, of course.

Short Story Illustration

I had an assignment in one of my classes in which I had to choose a short story and create a book cover for it as if it were a novel.  I like the way the drawings turned out, so I thought I'd post it.

Sketch designing the figure for the front cover.

The short story is "Sea Oak" by George Saunders.  A strange dark comedy in which a poor family's nice old aunt comes back to life as a very cynical undead.

Braaainz...

That awkward moment when your
aunt comes back to life.

Final book jacket design