Bits from the sketchbook

Time to start keeping up with posts more regularly! Here are a few things from the sketchbook:

First an old wandering wizard and his traveling companion.



I love winter for all the interesting layered fashions that people wear around the city. The bottom was a lovely woman on the subway with a great hat. The top figure was done from memory of a neat jacket a girl was wearing on the street.



I'm very lucky to be living in the heart of Park Slope, where there are so many interesting people on every corner. One of my favorite regulars is the Accordian Man. He sits out on various corners and plays some really lovely music- and I have always had a soft spot for accordion. So one evening as I was waiting for a friend, I sat at the Connecticut Muffin and sketched him for about 20 minutes.

Variations on a Theme

First of all- thank you to everyone who voted for me in the last Art Order challenge! With your support I won the game! So get ready for another round of pencil fencing, because here's my submission for this week:



Variations on a Theme asked us to take a race from the 4th edition D&D set, put it in a pose and do 3 variations of the armor. I chose the Deva mostly because of it's newness to the world, and the potential for some crazy design. It is described as having a persian/japanese influence so I went to town on reference and had a blast trying to find different ways to marry the two styles. I plan on working on some color this week, to really finish these up as I just enjoyed them so much.

So if you like my Devas, head over to ArtOrder after Tuesday's (tomorrow's) posting and leave a vote for me in the comments section. FYI, Jon is no longer accepting anonymous votes, so please remember to put your name in the appropriate box!

Concept Tuesday's Devolved Gnome

So I did this week's concept Tuesday challenge over at Artorder and wanted to share the results. The challenge was to devolve a Gnome from the 4th edition D&D manual and here are the results:



Here are a examples of the original concepts by Raven Mimura:

I thought that being a trickster fae, the Gnomes ought to be more primal and animalistic with their ancestry so, going off the original design, I based my devolution on the shape of the spider monkey. The Gnome, which now lives in the roots of trees, used live on top of them. Tails, long hands and flexible feet serve the early Gnomes in leaping through the branches and swinging from tree to tree gracefully. Tricksters from the start, their long tails and clever fingers and toes also aided in swooping down to steal shiny objects from surprised passerby and disappearing back into the leaves before anyone could register what happened.

So if you like my piece, please head over to ArtOrder.Blogspot.com and vote for me!

From the Sketchbook

Here are a few pages from the sketchbook from my visit to Nathan Fox and Becky Cloonan's lecture at the Society of Illustrators a few weeks back. First I tried my hand at capturing the likeness of Becky, Nathan and the moderator as they talked back and forth. Sometime after I ended up doodling the creepy dog and the strange cone-head man. I think this must have been post-Coraline.


Then I went upstairs to catch the last bit of life-drawing with some friends. This was my first taste of the SOI sketch/jazz night and I have to say, I liked it very much. Great models, great music and a stocked bar make for a pretty perfect evening if I do say so myself. And I do.




Cats and Things

One of the paintings I'm working on has an animal that I'm not quite sure about yet. After hours of sketching and erasing, I realized that I was going about it all backwards and started doing sketches of some real animals I might want it to reference. So here are some cats, a bunny, and a thing I started developing after the sketches.



Storyteller

Here is a character sketch for a project I'm working on with some friends. He's a storyteller who's a little bit shaman, a little bit skald and a little bit mountain man.


Maiden Voyage

Well I've gone and done it. Finally, after much kicking and screaming mind you, I've decided to do the blog thing just like everyone else. Really I just want an excuse to sketch and share more strange things that won't necessarily have a home on the website, so here we go. Let's see what happens...

News: One of my newest pieces, Legolas at Helm's Deep, has been accepted into the Society of Illustrators student competition show. A LOT of people enter this show, and only about 120 get in, so this is a huge honor and I am really excited.

Ok- a new drawing to start this off. Here's a girl who was reading a book.