Throwback Thursday?!

I've been feeling nostalgic lately...Much more so than usual. Watching a lot of anime and thumbing through old comics, artbooks, and collectible cards. When I think about some of the things I came up with in my college days, I always laugh quietly to myself. I was such a try-hard!
These characters, Venus (a half-human dragon who transforms into...a sort of armored, winged, nakeder version of herself) and Miles Coltrane (a young martial arts jazz fan with a dark past), were the main characters in my magnum opus "Giant Steps".
This was drawn back in 2001. I had just gotten a new Rapidograph that was so fine, it practically cut through paper!

So I've been in kind of an artistic funk lately. HOWEVER, I've been seeing a new girl (who will be referred to as "GF"). Still not feeling the drawing, so I just sketched her out in my super-deformed style. Also it would take a week to fully capture the curliness of GF's hair...

Anyway, what I absolutelyhad to share with you guys is the cat thing. GF has a cat who's generally afraid of people. Yes...a "Fraidy-Cat". The cat usually hangs out in her closet, but sometimes, I feel something peering at me from across the room. Its the cat! Staring at me from the cracked closet door like a creep! At first she would hide behind the door, but now she comes all the way out, sitting perfectly still and staring at me. If i make a sudden move, she dives behind the closet door! ....creepy ninja-cat...

Sharing sketches with friends...

So, me and some of the guys have been sharing sketches with eachother by way of smartphone camera. I don't have a lot of time to sketch on an average weekday, but here are some of my personal favorites. The first two are characters from my graphic novel and the 3rd is WWE superstar Alberto Del Rio.

Life drawing at FTS Gallery...

So, apparently there's an open life drawing class in Stratford. Win! Didn't bring many supplies, figured I'd just check it out...get some work in. The model was pretty good. Did nice poses. Hardly moved. At one point I started drawing her in crayon just to mess with her a little. She smirked. It was fun. Also, I kind of failed at the one where she sat down, so i started drawing it in a super-deformed cartoon style...which was fun, of course.

Unintentional chibis...

So, I'm planning to run a D&D game, and as I was writing the history of the deep dwarves, i felt compelled to draw the deep dwarf princess. Think I might use this to study some digital painting in the near future...

As i'm drawing this graphic novel, I keep bumping into snags. I haven't really drawn a comic since high school, so things like "Oh, I can't ACTUALLY draw those" or "What does this character wear again" pop up frequently. This is a little diagram of the main character outfits.

2012 Sketch a day: 001, 002, 003, & 004

First day back home from the long holiday adventure. Here are some scans of sketches done in the last couple of days...mostly. First is actually from a few months ago when Blizzard announced the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft. They released a lot of concept art, but none of female Pandarans. I figured i'd try my hand at it using influences from...well, fighting games and Kung Fu movies.

Next up, Spider-Man is a busy New Yorker, so i imagine sometimes he has to take bagels down in one bite.

I've had this idea for an animation about the adventures of a bard. The style is derivative of the Final Fantasy III remake for the nintendo ds.

Finally, one of the characters from my graphic novel is just...I dunno, she needs work. So this is me fiddling around trying to pin down the design of "Giest".

More character dev for the graphic novel

So, for those of you just joining us, I've been working on a graphic novel...The Great American Graphic Novel! As a side note, character design is kind of my thing, so I have A LOT of development sketches.

Ok, so a colleague asked me how Amazona's battle kilt worked. Basically, its made of twelve alternating strips of a heavy leather-like material.  Even numbered strips on the outside and odd on the inside. So, it falls like a long skirt with slits, 'cause sometimes a lady needs to axe-kick people.