Illustrations, scripts, or other visual content I’ve created.
I don’t know what the rules are about being late, but I am now late in finishing my day two and day three drawings. I’m still going to publish them and still try to get 31 done this month, and the weekend will help.
I had to work late two days in a row because of an unusual end-of-the month paperwork crunch. Things should get easier.
I haven’t done this before, and it’s been at least a year since I’ve even looked at Instagram, so I don’t remember if I’m allowed to use color or not. So I played around with a little. I probably won’t do it again for the rest of the month- I honestly don’t think I’ll have time. I plan to do much quicker drawings in the future.
So what did I draw? I won’t go into the details here of the dream I had last night, but it involved my grandma. The anniversary of her birthday is this week, and it’s been four years since her passing. In this drawing, my cousin and I are picking blackberries during our annual family camping trip when we were young. Back then, we strayed away from the campgrounds to find these giant berry bushes, and picked as many as we can carry (we didn’t have a backpack, like in the drawing, but “backpack” is the universal inspiration for Day One of Inktober 2024, so there you go). When we returned to camp, my grandma saw our berries, and called us into her tent trailer. She prepared some of the berries that we gathered with sugar and half-and-half. I had never had them prepared that way before, and they were delicious! She told us not to tell our parents that she gave us the sugar and cream, and I never did, heh heh. (Sorry Mom, if you’re reading this right now.)
Something else about this drawing that’s noteworthy: it’s the first digital inking that I’ve ever done. My wife and I just got an iPad with an Apple Pencil, so I figured that I would give it a test run for this event. Honestly, it feels like cheating to be able to erase my inks when I mess up. But because I didn’t need to be so deliberate like I need to be with real ink, I was able to finish a lot quicker than I do on paper. We’ll see what I do moving forward.
And crud: I didn’t finish this post before midnight. Does that mean I didn’t do Inktober right?
Powerhouse is a villain from the comic series Savage Dragon. He was a character that Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen came up with as a kid (hence his ridiculous look). Despite this, he’s a serious threat in the book, and a fan favorite. I love him, and I originally drew this pic when I was in high school. I finished coloring it this week.
It’s been an incredibly busy past couple of months, but I was able to do some quick deck box decorations. I used markers this time instead of water colors.
One thing that was different this time around in doing art on a box: I drew on older boxes that have already been beat up. I had less investment in the finished product, since it was already something old and well used. As a result, with less emotional investment, I was able to work faster and not worry so much about mistakes. You wouldn’t think so, but markers ended up being faster this time around than watercolors. And I’m not sure if that’s because of the medium, or the emotional investment. With the markers, there was also one fewer steps, as I didn’t bother to seal the boxes using contact paper (moisture doesn’t ruin ink like it it does watercolor). Anyway, I expect more of these to be done, given the speed with which I was able to work.
It’s my first issue of Monster Chompster!!! I created Chompie years ago when I was in college as the main character of a comic strip. I think I drew maybe 20 three-panel strips, and IIRC, like 4 of them were actually printed in the University newspaper (I have a few copies of the papers somewhere). Most of the time that I spent “creating” the character was devoted to building my website, writing up character bios, drawing desktop wallpapers, etc. I talked more about what I planned to do instead of actually doing it.
This time around, I’m doing things differently. So far, I have 5 pages penciled, and the rest of the issue is plotted and more or less scripted. Being that I’m going with a full-on cartoon style, the actual drawing is very fast. The much larger barrier is the emotional resistance that I have. For some reason, I have to push myself to draw each panel. I suspect that maybe it’s because I’ve wanted to see this project done for so long, that I’m terrified of seeing it realized, and that the final product will be less than what I was hoping for. Or that people won’t enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed it in my own head. I don’t know.
The important thing though, is that I’m doing it. Even if it’s slowly progress, at some point I’m expecting to break through the psychological barrier, and will be able to throw down pencils speedily. I’ve got three stories written so far, and my pencils are the biggest barrier to sharing them.
I drew this years ago; colored it tonight. People may not remember when Gambit was a member of X-Factor, but it was one of my favorite books Marvel’s published. I’m sad that we may never see the Quicksilver/Remy friendship again, but at least I can still draw from that era (pun intended). #gambit #x-factor #allnewxfactor #x-factor #krita
Character designs. I’m learning to use at markers, and really enjoying them. I love this story so much, I can’t wait to tell it!
I haven’t posted in a bit; here’s a little something from my sketchbook. Catniss inspired.
As a follow up… I finished Xavier. I’m not happy with the results, but it’s better than I was expecting it to be. #xmen #professorx #professorxavier #charlesxavier #x-men
