Graveyard Hippy

I was having a bit of fun with my cool grey markers again, with this sketch.  I was actually going to make this a little comic page and it was going to be revealed that the hippy was shaggy from Scooby Doo and that he was standing in front of Scooby's grave.  Unfortunately, the midnight hour was fast approaching and I had work early in the morning so I never got that far.

Admiral Ackbar

Ever vigilant, Admiral Ackbar is always on the lookout for possible traps.

I got these new Prismacolor brand, cool grey markers to shade my ink sketches with. They're pretty neat. A couple of the lighter ones don't show up when scanned though. Ackbar actually had some spots on his head that I made with one of the light ones.

I'd definatley recommend these markers for sketching with. My only complaint is that the pack includes three black markers, which isn't all that big of a deal but the entire pack could have been cheaper otherwise. Plus, I don't think I'll be needing the black ones as much since I'm using some Copic pens for the line work.

The Wiz and friend

"Nothing can stop me because I'm the Wiz!" Remember that from Seinfeld?

Anyway, I wanted to try shading some ink drawings with markers. I always liked the way it looked. It's basically flat cell shading but because it's marker on paper it doesn't lay down completely flat and there's a little texture to it.

I wanted to buy a pack of cool grey Copic markers but holy geez they're expensive! They're great markers but I don't want to pay that much for a sketching tool. So, I settled for a light blue Prismacolor marker which I had lying around. Eventually I might buy the Cool Grey Prismacolor pack which is half the price of the Copics. It might be neat to shade the drawings and then colorize them with Photoshop or something.

Ballpoint Pen Sketch

These sketches were done with a ballpoint pen. There's something about a ballpoint pen that feels real nice when sketching. It's like the in between of pencil and ink. You can create light and dark lines like a pencil but the lines are bold, and smooth like ink.

featured in this sketch is Rudolph from my comic Rudolph The Hideous Abomination. I've been inking the final chapter of that lately and the character has been on my mind. Even though I've finished penciling the comic I was still trying to improve upon the structure of his design a bit. That's something I always do even if I'm no longer using a character. I do it all the time with the Disappointmentville characters. I think it's like a test for myself to see if my drawing ability has improved.

Viking Lady

So, this here is a Sketch Of The week but I'm gonna stop putting "Sketch Of The Week" or "SOTW" in the blog title. I feel like it's a needless amount of letters and words. I'll still include the "Sketch Of The Week" tag in posts though. It's my blog, I do what I want!


I'm sure you'll love this sketch if you're a nerdy male between the ages of 18-34. Or possibly a nerdy lady who likes strong female characters who don't wear a lot of clothing. Either way you're probably a nerd.

SOTW: Park Guy

Last week I attended a local festival in the park. This guy was walking around the festival and was the only one celebrating a french holiday that was happening that weekend. He was quite the character and a good accordion player. He said that he was going to wear his french hat but was afraid that it would rain and instead wore a cowboy hat with a mask fixed to the front. The hat had some autographs signed on the brim, although I'm not sure who's they were.

He actually stopped and talked to my sister and I for a while and sung us a song about some birds that were eating a dead fish carcass. He had made it up when he was hanging out in the park one day and witnessed that very event.

SOTW: Sigh

Boy, This guy sure is sad or tired or both! This is one of my favorite sketches in my current sketchbook. And that's all I've got to say about that.

SOTW: Watercolor Zombie

I'm still trying to get the hang of watercolor. I love the way it looks with black line art. It adds some great texture and doesn't distract too much from the drawing. There's a lot of little happy accidents that occur too. It's not an easy medium to master but it sure looks neat.

SOTW: Brain Crazy

Is your brain going crazy? Well then, you've got the Brain Crazies!

Maybe somebody you know has the Brain Crazies and they look something like this. Be careful when approaching them or you might get lassoed by one of their crazy-arms.

SOTW: The Fartman

Guys, I don't even know! I really have no idea what I was thinking when I drew this. Maybe I've lost my mind! What I do know is that I was having some fun using my Copic brush pens and I managed to produce a fine looking ink drawing in doing so. So let that be a lesson to you kids; If you're having fun, you'll produce some good work...or something.

SOTW: Angst

Welcome everyone to another edition of The Sketch Of The Week! Beginning last week I started abbreviating the title to "SOTW". I hope this doesn't confuse anyone but I wanted to make make the URL's a little shorter.

Anyway, Let's move on to the sketch. I must apologize for presenting you with two weeks worth of somewhat depressing concepts. I certainly hope I'm not bumming anyone out too much. This one is a bit of a joke though. I'm sure many of you have had a similar experience when you were feeling rather anxious or depressed while laying down; you're quite the opposite of relaxed, your body becomes rigid and it seems as if you are attempting to press your head into the pillow as hard as you can.

SOTW: Something Dark

Most of the time, regardless of my moods, I'm content doing my usual straight-forward-happy-go-lucky cartoon doodles. Even when I fall into a somewhat sadder mood they seem to provide some kind of escape. But on occasion the emotions that I'm feeling are so particularly strong that my usual art provides me with no comfort. So, it is during these times that I feel a need to capture the emotions onto paper, to the best of my ability.

When doing these more personal, emotional sketches I usually don't do a lot of planning. I just focus on what I'm feeling and illustrate the imagery that pops into my head. Many times I fail to capture any coherent composition or properly convey my feelings, but in this case I was able to do both. In fact it turned out so well that it was as if I'd ripped the emotions from my mind and trapped them onto a piece paper. It's quite therapeutic and I think I'll try doing stuff like this more often.

Originally I had no plans on sharing this with the general public. I suppose out of some discomfort with sharing something so personal. But a couple of things changed my mind. One being that the emotions I was feeling had faded away a bit since I had drawn this. Another being that I myself always enjoy looking at an artists personal work. It's like a window into somebodies psyche and it makes you realize that you are not alone in what you are dealing with as a human being. And you know, there's a lot of people in the world, So there's always going to be somebody that will be able to relate or at least take something away from the art.

Sketch Of The Week: Cowboy

Today, I was out at Wild West Days, a yearly old west themed street festival, selling some of my t-shirts along with my screen printing pal Nick. The weather was quite horendous and not really all that appropriate for any outside festivities but we all braved it regardless. Not because of any passion for what we were doing, just because our space rental fee was nonrefundable.

Sketch Of The Week: Lummox

I guess this guy looks more like a brute than a lummox. Oh well he's already been branded with the lummox "L" so it's too late.

This is just a quick little sketch I did one day to test if I was learning anything. I've been trying real hard for the past couple of years to move my artwork away from the trendy flat cartoon drawing. I have more of an appreciation for really cartoony stuff that doesn't completely neglect practical 3d shapes. You can do so much more with a character that has a 3 dimensional form, like effortlessly drawing their head in any position.

In retrospect this sketch probably isn't the best example of what I've learned but it definitely shows improvement in my understanding of three dimensional forms. Just check out some of my old Disappointmentville comics and see for yourself.

Sketch Of The Week: Insomnia

I recently found this sketch just hangin' out on my hard drive. I drew it about two years ago with intentions to turn it into a full illustration but for whatever reason I moved on to other projects and forgot all about it.

Sketch Of The Week: Weird Doodles

I haven't been doing a whole lot of sketching recently since I've been a bit busy. I have, however, been doing some doodling.

I enjoy looking back at doodles like this more than any other sketch that I've done. I suppose it's because I don't really remember drawing a lot of it. Nor do I really remember what was going through my head at the time. They're stream of consciousness doodles that I do when I'm on the phone or have my focus occupied in some other way. My hand works almost independently from my higher level of thought. It's like a glimpse into my subconscious and boy, is it weird.

Sketch Of The Week: Charlie Sheen

I'm sure everyone's sick of all the Charlie Sheen business by now. Well too bad!

While looking through a recent sketchbook for this week's sketch I found this one that I had forgotten about. I think it would be great if they let Sheen back on Two and A Half Men and made his character go through a similar breakdown. It might actually make it a good show then. Zing!

Sketch Of The Week: Rabbits

Not much to say about this sketch other than it's a page of rabbit doodles. Plus some other mystery rodents.

Sketch Of The Week: Nosferatu

Recently, for the first time I had the pleasure of watching the original silent film Nosferatu. It was a beautiful film. The visuals in this movie were moody, creepy and fantastically composed. It was a motion picture in the truest sense. Each shot looked like a photograph that came to life. This only served to heightened the creepy factor.

Speaking of creepy. Max Schreck looked amazing as Count Orlok. He is now one of my most favorite movie monsters.

Sketch Of The Week: Coffee Lady

This may look terribly absurd and it is, but I've seen this very image in real life. Working in a grocery store means you encounter a lot of interesting and strange individuals. Working in a grocery store in my home town means they are the majority of grocery store patrons.

One day after work I decided to do a little shopping of my own. I found myself over on the tea and coffee isle perplexed by all the different types of tea. As I stood there trying to make a decision on what flavor of green tea to purchase, I heard a nearby voice.
"Coffee. Coffee.", the voice repeated.
I thought it very strange that somebody would just repeat the word "Coffee." over and over as if it was some sort of statement. Assuming that I was just hearing it out of context, I went back to making my tea selection. Then suddenly the shrill female voice returned,
"Coffee. Coffee!", her voice increasing in volume with each instant of the word.
I still could not imagine why somebody was yelling out "coffee", without even an inkling of a question mark.
"Coffee!! Coffee!!!", the voice came again as if calling for someone named Coffee.
Finally, I just had to turn around to see what was happening. There, dead center in the isle, staring me down was a short heavy set woman, wearing a moo-moo dress and propping herself up with a tiny cane. A look of confident purpose on her face.
"Coffee." She said again, still making no indication whatsoever that she was asking a question.
"A-are you asking where the coffee is?" I stammered, astonished that she had been standing there repeating the word Coffee and not once considering that using a full sentence would be more effective.
"right there..." I faded off as I pointed her in the proper direction. "I'm sorry...I...uh..." I struggled to find words as I was dumbfounded by the situation I had been faced with.
"Don't worry about it, We all have those kind of days." She said as she hobbled by me. I couldn't believe it; she still hadn't realized her mistake. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with me, lady! I usually give answers to actual questions.