Sketch Suggestions 5

Well, here we are, at the end.  These are the last of the sketches that were suggested by you guys, over on my Facebook page. It's been a heck of a lot of fun and it's given me some good practice too. We will definitely do this again!

Anyway, here's the last  of the sketches, all suggested by SirRichard Lee LionheartedGrahn (yes that's what he calls himself on Facebook.).

Mr. LionheartedGrahn writes, "DRAW near to God and He will DRAW near to you. DRAW a conclusion. DRAW water from a well. DRAW straws. DRAW bridge. . . . . ."

The result: I drew this picture of myself drawing near God.  If you look closely you'll see that I'm drawing a picture of some straws and a bridge. I suppose you could say that the water under the bridge was from a well and that God also counts as the conclusion.

After SirRichard's first suggestion, he was teased about not giving me more butt themed suggestions. So, he decided to join in and gave me some rather  odd ones.

He replied with, "Draw two butts walking down the street, one says to the other "hey, we look like a couple of peaches!"

In my illustration the speaking butt is saying his dialog in butt language.

The Lionhearted one followed up with, "Two butts stand on the street corner as they see another butt walk by wearing a leather jacket and a pair of devil horns. One butt says to the other "look, a bad ass!"

 I drew the "bad-ass" in the back of a speeding pickup to add to his badness.

Sketch Suggestions 4

Well, here we are again, with more sketches suggested by the fine folks over on my Facebook page.

This first one comes from Russell, who writes, " I still say: A Zen master Cat mad at a fellow house cat, for crapping in his carefully groomed 'Rock garden' which is also the community catbox. Yep, and also a butt..."

He says, "I still say..." because he had previously suggested this previously as an idea for a Daily Doodle.  Well, Russ your wish has come true...sort of. It's not a Daily Doodle but I did draw it and post it on the internet.

Next up, is another suggestion by Kurt who previously requested that I draw him.  Kurt writes, " i was also thinking you could draw a western scene with some banditos with their guns aimed, yelling 'DRAW!and an artist cowering, saying 'please, not the face" 

I am aware that a Bandito is usually a mexican bandit but I liked the imagery of  the cowboy bandits for this.

Sketch Suggestions 3

Welcome to part three of Sketch Suggestions. You, my loyal fans, have given me your suggestions on what you would like me to draw and I have drawn them. 

Today's sketch comes from Vanessa, who asked me to draw Godzilla in a bikini.  So I did and he looks to be having a wonderful day at the beach!

Sketch Suggestions 2

Last week I asked my Facebook fans to give me some subjects to draw during my lunch time sketch sessions.  You can check out the first of the sketches here.  So far it's been a lot of fun.

This next sketch was suggested by my girlfriend Rebekah, who is always full of good ideas. She writes,

 "I was going to say a butt too.

But, now I think I will say you should draw Seymoure Butts. A man with a large butt who has a company called "Cleaning Butts" and he goes around cleaning cigarette butts off the city streets. But people mistake his company for actual butt cleaning...he is constantly having to explain his business. And pimps get mad at him cuz they think he owns a secret escort service with women who have exceptionally clean Booties. Oh the situations he gets into!

When I say large butt I mean like a Dokes butt from Dexter."

And this is the resulting sketch: 

You'll notice that I got the company name wrong on the back of his shirt. That's because I didn't have the comments open while drawing this.

Kurt, an old High School aquaintance, wrote, "You should draw me."

 So, I produced the following illustration, which isn't so much a portrait of Kurt but more the image that comes to mind when I think of him.

Sketch Suggestions

Yesterday, on Facebook and Twitter, I asked people to give me some suggestions for subjects to draw on my lunch breaks. I got quite the response on Facebook.  With suggestions such as a butt, politics, and more butts.  Yes, lot's of butt themed art was suggested. You can read the whole thread here.

 Anyway, For the next couple of weeks I will be taking these suggestions, turning them into sketchbook drawings and then posting them here on my blog.

This first drawing is a combination of the first three suggested subjects which were; Something hopeful, a butt and politics.

Shrimp Sketches 2

So waaaaaay back in June I posted some sketches that I did for a freelance project, I was doing, in which I was designing a shrimp mascot for a clothing line.  Anyway, I did quite a number of sketches to get the look of the shrimp down.  This is the last three rounds of sketches.

With these five sketches I was attempting to make the shrimp have more of a cooked shrimp shape, based on the request of the client.

 The cooked shrimp idea was the right direction but it needed to be a little more stylized. It needed to be a little simpler too, so that it would work well on clothing.  The client decided that they liked the one with the Popeye style arms but wanted me to work on improving the face a bit.

So, I came up with these final five designs and both myself and the client agreed that #1 was the best.

Next time I will post the final Illustration of the Jumbo Shrimp.

The Fantastic Three Sketch

I ran out of room to draw Thing  so it's just The Fantastic Three. Also, I'm not sure what Mr. Fantastic is thinking about. Coffee, maybe?

One of my favorite comic books has always been The Fantastic Four.  I love that it's a product of the 1960s and hasn't lost that retro scifi feel, for the most part.  The best part about it is that it's a team of adventurers dealing with all manner of crazy science fictions stories while living within a very real world and dealing with real problems, and that leads to some very humorous moments as well.

There's two versions of The Fantastic Four that I've always wanted to see in other media.  The first, is a big budget marvel movie that takes place in the 1960s.  Out of all the superheroes that were created in that time, The Fantastic Four was made for it and, I think, works best in that era.  Rumor has it that they are working on a re-boot, and with the success of X-men First Class there's always a possibility that it Could get made.

The second thing I'd love to see, is a really cartoony adventure cartoon, much in the style of my sketch.  I would love to see something that played up on the comedic real life moments more and had some good animation to it.  Imagine using the classic squash and stretch animation techniques on Mr. Fantastic.  We've had plenty of realistic, stiffly animated cartoons with these characters. I think this approach  would be refreshing and extremely entertaining.

Sweater Man Sketch

I've been doing a lot of sketching with a sharpie pen lately.  It's pretty fun.  It's not as bold as the Copics that I use to draw with.  I like the way you can create a sort of sketchy look to the lines.  You have to go over a spot several times to make it as bold and broad as you'd like.  It gives it a really unique look; something I've tried to do before but never really had the proper tools, I think.

Something interesting about working with different types of art supplies is that it can dictate the way a sketch will turn out.  Not just in the stylistic elements but in the actual structure of the drawing.  For instance, if I was using a brush pen to draw this character, his proportions would probably have come out a lot different.  Also, I might not have been compelled to do all those little wrinkly bits on the front of his sweater or the stubble on his face.  You kind of just go with what feels right with the utensil you are using, and every art utensil is different.

Face Sketches

These are a couple of cool looking faces from the pages of my sketchbook.

The girl was drawn with some slightly worn out copic brush pens and multiliners.  I used a red pencil to do my construction lines. I really like the Copic pens. They are probably the best I've used for inking stuff. I use them to draw installments of The Daily Doodle.

This creepy looking fella was drawn with a Sharpie pens.  It's a nice pen.  It works okay for sketching.  I wouldn't recommend it for any finished work. The ink doesn't really flow real well and you can't do quick strokes otherwise the lines will come out too light. Excellent for writing with though!

 

Sketchbook Doodles

Just some interesting doodles from my current sketchbook.

I don't really think much of these things when I'm doodling them but later, when I go back, I often see things that I really like.  In this case, I really dig that fly guy.

Family Guy Nonsense

Real People Cartoons

Real people inspire me a lot. Working at a grocery store means seeing a lot of interesting characters, regularly. So, I like to draw them.  It's good practice too. I often get freelance jobs that require me to caricature somebody or draw a cartoon version of them.  Doing sketches like this keeps me limber. It teaches me to be observant of people's defining features and how to properly exaggerate them.

 

I see this guy a lot. He's sort of a very sad man with a seemingly happy attitude. I'm sure his mind is going too. He rides around on the electric cart and wears his dead wife's clothes.  He also has this little dog that he  has spoiled so much that the dog is horribly obese.  The dog is almost literally a round ball of fur.

I draw my friends a lot. So much so that it's down right creepy.  I see my friends a lot though and I get a good sense of their features and mannerisms. So it's fun to try and interpret them from memory. This is a very exaggerated sketch of my pal Nick. I'm sure if he sees this he will not be happy but I think it's funny and I wanted to share it.  Sorry Nick.  I've drawn Nick a lot, anyway.  I've done some cartoon-Nick-characters for him before for his cooking websites that were a little less offensive. Here's a more stylized one that I did for his cake business a couple years ago.

Fairy Sketch

I was sitting at work one day and noticed a drawing somebody did of a fairy. I was reminded of a sketch that I did for a coworker, a long time ago..  The sketch at the time was a more realistic, comic book style drawing. It was much different than how I draw things now. I realized that I hadn't drawn a fairy since then.  So, I decided to do this sketch for the fun of it. I like to do that from time to time to see how my art has changed.

The sketch is very John K inspired (The creator of Ren and Stimpy).  John K has been a big influence on my work , since about three years ago when I discovered his blog. It really changed my life and taught me more about drawing and cartooning then any schooling I'd ever had. Thanks John!

Casino Girl

This young lady is an employee of the local Indian casino. I was attempting to sketch her from memory but failed.  I didn't quite capture her likeness nor did I get her nonchalant, relaxed expression quite right. Whenever I'm at the casino I see her strolling along and find her to be rather interesting.  She is rather attractive and appears to take a lot of care in maintaing that attractiveness. Her hair and make up is always done to the extreme. She looks more like somebody on a TV show rather than a change person at the casino.

Some other things I failed to remember were the bagginess of her work shirt and the change pouch that she wears like a fanny pack. Perhaps I will try again later. Or maybe I'll just go into the casino and ask her to stand still while I sketch her. That doesn't seem too weird or anything.

Tricky Dick

Now that I have Netflix I watch a lot of documentaries.  It seems like, in most of them, they will mention something horrible that Richard Nixon did. In one documentary they showed a clip of him on stage with his wife, after winning the election and he was moving his head back and forth waving at the crowd while fluttering his long eyelashes. It was totally weird, like some kind of super villain trying to pretend to be kind and innocent. Needless to say, I was mesmerized by the fluttering of his long eyelashes. I always thought he looked and acted like a real life cartoon but in that moment he reminded me of a celebrity caricature in one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons.

Retroviruses

I did this sketch for my friend Alison who is going to school to be a doctor.

Story Sketches

 My pal Dylan asked me if I would provide him with some sketches to use as story fuel. So I went through a few of my recent sketchbooks and found four images that I thought would inspire some good short stories. I love this idea. Hopefully we'll be doing it a lot in the future. The stories will eventually be posted on his fiction blog once it's up and running. I'll post a link to it  once it's all done.

Hardbodies Bully Sketch

Sure you'll watch the 1984 film Hardbodies for the excessive nudity but you'll keep watching it for this guy.

Small Sketches

These are a couple of small sketches I did in a small sketchbook. My sister gave me these little sketch books and they're rather fun to sketch in.  I really like the way the sketches turn out.  I think when I'm sketching in a larger sketchbook I have a need to fill all the space on the paper.  So usually there would be a lot of little sketches or doodles, like these, that fill up the page but when I'm doing it in a tiny sketch book one little sketch takes up the whole page and it becomes it's own little drawing without all the extra clutter. It's really quite fun.

Coffee Dude

Today's sketch is the Coffee Dude. This is a tiny sketch that I did in a tiny sketch book with a regular sized pencil.

On another note, I think I might stop posting a Sketch Of The Week and start doing a Sketch All Of The Time.  I feel like this weekly structure is starting to restrict me a bit. Sometimes I'd rather post a finished piece on the weekend and some sketches during the week, or maybe no sketches one week and lots of finished work. Hopefully that will result in me posting more cool art.