This the illustration that grew out of the sketch I posted yesterday. It’s not bad but, honestly, I think would have done a better piece (and finished it faster) if I’d done the whole thing in pen and ink or in pencil. I spent a ridiculously long time playing around in Photoshop trying to get the look and effects I wanted. Still, I learned a lot in the process. (Mostly that trying to do everything in Photoshop was doing it the hard way.)
Section H Sketch
The Day Job has been keeping me pretty busy. Busy enough that I’ve honestly been forgetting to post. It’s a lame excuse even if it’s true.
This is the original sketch for the first illustration I did for The Black Seal #1 back in 2003. I’d learned just enough Photoshop that I deluded myself into thinking I could use the program to create an illustration from this sketch. Tomorrow I’ll post the result and you can decide whether I succeeded.
Bad Graffiti Day
Today’s post is an illustration from 1995 done in markers. I think this might be Dave from Bugfuck Palace.
The (Vampire) Kids are All Right
I spent yesterday getting readjusted to home and work and thus missed posting. My apologies.
This illustration was the last piece in the watercolor sketchbook that held the figure drawings and the previous post’s Black Molly illustration. As I think I written previously, most horror writers and fans have a vampire story they want to tell. This is a glimpse of what mine might have looked like if I’d started drawing it in 1992.
Early Black Molly
This painting is out of the same watercolor pad as the four figure drawings just posted so it’s from 1992 as well. It’s a very early version of my Black Molly character.
Yeah, those figure drawing classes really made a difference. This isn’t a perfect piece but it’s world more “real” than anything I’d been doing the year previously.
Figure Drawing 4
A final example from the figure drawing class I took in 2002. Taking figure drawing improved my drawing skills far more than I ever expected. Until I took the classes I didn’t realize how bad I was. It’s amazing how many wrong understanding I had about not only the human figure but how to portray weight and mass in general.
Figure Drawing 3
Another piece from the figure drawing course I took back in 2002. I tried to portray the woman as accurately as possible. I took a few liberties with the background.
Figure Drawing 2
Another example of a figure drawing from one of the classes I took in 1992 (and 93). This was obviously one of the male models. There were usually 2 female models to every male model.
Figure Drawing 1
In 1992 and 1993 I took figure drawing classes at the Santa Rosa Junior College. Most of those drawing were done on very large sketch paper that would be a real pain to scan. I did find a few pages that only required a couple of scans and a little photoshopping to knit together. This one was from one of the rare sessions when we had two models posing.
The World is an Environment Suit
An unfinished Sentient 39 universe illustration from 2002. It depicts a denizen of world that once had a thriving human colony that, for whatever reason, mostly collapsed. The world’s environment is toxic, the air unbreathable to naked human lungs. The humans now live as nomads in hacked together transports and ancient many-times repaired environment suits. As humans have done for thousands of years the nomads have personalized their homes, covered them with paint and talismans and friendly (or threatening) touches.
