Mac To The Drawingboard

{ 11:32 AM, 5/27/2007 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Found and baught Ben Caldwells books. I think they're a great buy for anyone wanting to practice this style. He goes into more detail about why you draw things a certain way with little call-outs on the drawings. You get a mountain of information with his books. Hopefully I'll post some some things SOON, showing what I've learned from his books and forum: http://daredetectives.com/phpBB2/index.php

Titans Go

{ 10:37 AM, 5/27/2007 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Man, time flies when you're not doing what you should be doing. These are a handful of sketch pages I did trying to get into a cartoon style of drawing. Just grabbing images from several Teen Titans comics. Trying to lock in on a style to do a web comic. Torn between doing it full detail art like standard comics or using a more simpler cartoony style. I kinda feel like I'm cheating myself and viewers by not doing detailed illustrations, but then I know me, and I feel I might get more done if I draw it in a easier cartoon style.

Mac by Tomo

{ 7:15 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

This is a portrait Tomoyoshi (Tomo for short) did of me. I keep it hanging next to my drawing table.

Akiko

{ 5:28 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Akiko was another one of the "Rat-pack" (Yukiko, Akiko and Tatsushi) that I hung with. I've lost contact with her. She was funny and energetic and she helped me big-time when I was in Japan on the second trip. I would've been homeless for a couple of nights were it not for her asking one of her Shorinji-Kenpo classmates (Tomoyoshi Maeda who has become one of, if not THE best friend I have in Japan) if he and his family could put me up for a couple days.

Yukiko Now

{ 5:24 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Thirteen years later, going to Japan with my family, I get in contact with Yukiko. Here I am with my two kids, Yukiko and her son.

Motoyama

{ 5:22 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Yukiko

{ 5:11 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 1 comments } { Link }

After my first trip to Japan (1990) I met some more exchange students at UofL. There where three that I kinda hung out with a lot. This is one of them Yukiko, I asked her to let me borrow a photo album she had with her, picked a picture at different age levels and did this. The writing in the middle is her name Motoyama Yukiko.

The one above it is of her parents.

Yin

{ 3:26 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

A Chinese student at the University of Lousiville, I got to model for my camera once.

The drawing is done with Prisma Color pencils on black board. I liked the look of the pencil on the black board quite a bit.

Contessa

{ 3:12 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

When I was going to college and a member of the schools newspaper staff, I met a Journalism student from Brazil named (taking a deep breath) Vivian Maria Bacchin Dutra Da Silveira-Maghalis. The Maghalis (spelling may be wrong) was added after she was back in Brazil a few years. We kept intouch for a while (I should try and see if I can look her up someday.) Contessa was a nickname I had for her (heard it on some old, but great, animated movie "Animalympics") It sounded spanish to me.

Sakurai Portrait

{ 2:18 PM, 8/16/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

In response to Matthew Forsythes comments to the Autographed Celebrity Portraits on the Drawingboard forum: "Do you have a website where you've collected all of these?" I'm posting some non-celebrity portraits here on the blog.

This is the Sakurai family from Tokyo Japan. The first time I went to Japan I stayed with this family. Back when I was planning to go to either China or Japan (the deciding factor would be whichever I could learn the most about first), I met the oldest daughter Hatsumi through a pen-pal service. She sent me a video; showing different places around Tokyo and on it were scenes of the Sanja Matsuri (Sanja Festival). It looked like a fun time to be in Japan so, by this time I had already decided that Japan is where I would go, it looked like a fun time to be in Japan. I told her I would plan my trip around the time of the festival. Her mother, Mieko, said I would HAVE to stay at their house otherwise the festival would be meaningless.

As travel time approached I started drawing a portrait of the family using various photos that had been sent to me over the course of our penpalship. The day I left, I hadn't finished it (needed to draw the youngest daughter Ami and Shigeji the grandfather (two on the left). I was actually working on it during my layover in Detroit. When I arrived (Thursday night) and met the family and showed them the unfinished portrait, Mieko, sounded as if the sky itself would mourn if I didn't complete the portrait by the morning. Because the festival started Friday and they would have many, many visitors stop by and she wanted to show them their "Family Treasure". I finished it and she hung it in the main room, where everyone came to rest and eat and socialize during the festival. And everyone that entered their home she showed them the portrait. I really wasn't expecting all of that when I started it, I just figured they'd smile and accept it then set it in the corner or in the closet somewhere.

Just doodling

{ 2:59 AM, 8/3/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Cartooning

{ 2:49 AM, 8/3/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Practicing to draw in a cartoon style, from the book "How to Draw Cartoons for Comic Strips" by Christopher Hart. A book I got when I was in the book store looking for some stimuli. It may not be the best or very good but it got the job done.

Inking continued

{ 2:46 AM, 8/3/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Playing with ink

{ 2:42 AM, 8/3/2006 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Playing around with ink, while waiting for my kids to get out of school.

Back To The Drawingboard!

{ 2:31 AM, 8/3/2006 } { 1 comments } { Link }

I've been whinning the past couple of years that I need to "not spend so much time in front of the computer" and start drawing again. As, I'm sure with many of you artists out there, you're going along fine then life happens. So let's see if I can remedy that.

This blog (Thank you Drawingboard.org) is a shot across the bow for Barry and Shane. Two of my friends at work who are in the same boat as me and (Barry anyway) has the same complaints as I do... I need to steal time here and there and get my drawing skills back. I need to stop using my drawing table as a "Catch-all". I need to stop oogling other peoples work and start creating and posting some of my own. Thank you for the push, Drawingboard.org and the artisans there in.