Canada Goose

A speed painting I did today of a Canada goose.



I took the reference photo for this in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island this August. I'm pretty impressed with how well this turned out!

Just for comparison, here's the reference. I followed it pretty closely. One of these days I should branch out a bit more.



* * *

Looking at it on the work computer, I am reminded that I need to do something about my monitor at home (the power button on the LCD died, so I'm back to using el ginormo CRT). The goose head is much lighter and more blue on the work monitor. It's not a *terrible* look, but not quite what I intended.

Cone

A pine cone I had sitting around on my desk at work:



And this is just experimenting with looks for a possible future comic. I want to know how quickly I can make a colour comic-type drawing if I don't obsess over every small detail.

January 8th

Today was just a crappy day for drawing. I had a ton of work at work, a comic deadline at home, and we missed our bus to boot and didn't get home until 19:00. The first bus was too crowded to draw and the second had almost nobody on it, so this is all I have to show for the whole day:



It's kind-of embarrassing, so I'm posting a couple more bus people I did in December or thereabouts.

Sage

A speedpaint based on a sketch I did sometime last year. I work at a University, so there's no shortage of guys who are one robe away from being a fantasy book cover.



Just experimenting with colour. Plus it's been a busy day at work, I've got a mother of a headache, and I didn't want to post comic stuff again.

Rock Star

Screwing around in Photoshop while we had a couple friends over to play Rock Band. (There are only three instruments apart from the mic, and no one wanted to sing early in the evening. A couple glasses of scotch later and we had plenty of reluctant volunteers.)



Next time maybe I'll try for a more dynamic composition.

The Fuzz

I've spent most of today working out the kinks in this week's comic page, so that will have to be the daily sketch. A very unhappy policerabbit:



Okay, I also played Rock Band. Stupid, wonderful Rock Band.

Mask

We've got this guy haging by the front door, right by the coat closet. To make people feel welcome. And also because there was already a nail in the wall there.

On the Bus Again

Ah, winter bussing. What would I draw without you?



This guy had a really cool profile with unusually prominent lips, but turned away just as I started to get it down. He steadfastly refused to turn back, and then I had to get off the bus. Grrr.

Happy New Year!

It's another year, and I have a resolution: to try doing a sketch for every day in 2008! I won't be able to scan every day (or post every day, for that matter) but the plan is to post only those sketches that I do on a certain day on the blog for that day. At the end of the year, I hope to have 365 sketches up.

I don't guarantee that they'll be *good* sketches though. As the NaNoWriters say, quantity, not quality!

I got the idea for this resolution in the middle of the night, so all I have for January 1st is a couple of drawings of waves that I did for my comic:




Waves are not easy to simplify.

24 Hour Comic

I cheated my way through 24-hour Comics Day by making a tiny comic out of index cards. 24-hour Comic Day for people who like to sleep!

Bus Stop Girl

An inked version of the sketch in the previous post:



Hopefully this image keeps working. I'm having some upload problems with Blogger.

Again with the Bus People

A cleaned-up version of a bus sketch I did back in June. I plan to ride my bike this winter, but I'll still ride the bus a couple of times a week.



A rougher bus sketch, from September. This girl was sitting at the stop just outside my bus window.



Actually... now that I look at them... they both have the same expression. The first woman was reading a book, while the second was talking to her friend... but I think I managed to catch her while she was texting someone. Weird!

Sketchdump

I'm about to finish another sketchbook. This one was quite fat 'n' sassy! Here's a few faces I should've been posting as I went along:



The girl on the far right was my idle take on Faye of Questionable Content. Pointy-eared girl may be the main character of some future comics.

I also went to another life drawing class last night, so I should have a few more things to share on the weekend.

Tablet

I've been thinking about t-shirt designs lately.



Also, I bought me a 6x8 inch Intuos3! It's... interesting.

Bloodsuckers

A quick something I threw together for a jam while sitting at the loading screen in Bioshock.



Mmmmm. Bioshock.

Update

Phew. What a busy month it's been! The work server was starting to get unreliable at about the same time I got a few good plugs for my webcomic, so I had to set up my own site two days before my vacation. Thank badgers that I set up my old site in a way that allowed me to just zip the whole thing up and plop it elsewhere without too much fuss. Also -- I love ISPs that give you shell access. I'm going with nearlyfreespeech.net, and they're also great because you only pay for what your viewers use -- which means you can spend just a few dollars to keep a small website running.

The whole process has been much like moving out of one's parents' house for the first time. Suddenly I can put whatever I like on there -- but I have to pay the rent.

Then I went to BC for a couple of weeks, which would have been all right except we apparently despise driving and I caught a cold on the second day after arrival.

Just a few days ago I discovered that my comic has been accepted to one of the bigger subscription sites (although I've chosen to continue providing it for free -- I think building an audience who will eventually buy merchandise will probably work better for me in the long run) -- so transferring the archives over is going to be a metric buttload of work. Also, I will be on a webcomics panel at a tiny sci-fi convention here in town in October. It never rains, but it pours! Really, September is a terrible time for change. In about a week, I will have a hundred students lined up at my door, looking for help. And -- AND! -- I've got Bioshock to play. Why does everything all happen at the same time?

But there, I shouldn't complain. Here's a speedpaint I did today, in the finest spirit of procrastination:



I was experimenting with some brushes I downloaded. Done from a reference photo I took while on vacation. Kinda blobby, innit? Maybe I should dig out my ancient copy of Painter and see whether I can re-do it with more natural-looking brushes.

Chalk Flower

I saw a little brown paper sketchbook at the art store yesterday and picked it and some pastel pencils up.



I'm not sure about the chalk pastels. I think one of the pencils is all busted inside. However, the sketchbook should work just as well with pencil crayons.

Don't Run with Scissors

Just a marker & pencil crayon doodle on some cardstock. I was leafing through my old sketchbook and he looked like he might go well with green marbled paper.



Creepy dude says "don't run with scissors!"

More Colour!

I coloured the line-art for the forum superpower cartoon. I like it quite a bit better this way.