Cellar door

Part of what I'm working on this week. I was pretty into 'Cellar Door' by John Vanderslice when I was in high school.

Venom

Hahaha....oh boy. What an awful drawing.

Happy Marvel Monday!

Drawings from this weekend

I did a lot of drawing this weekend, trying to flesh out a couple of ideas for an upcoming show (more about that later) before finally settling on something.

I'm getting more comfortable with drawing directly into photoshop in the sketch phase. It's something I find really helpful when drawing more intensive environments by hand, as I'm able to draw my figures roughly digitally and move them around more easily.

The top drawing is a set of environments as I went back and forth between ideas. The second is my first run once I hit on my concept, while the third is what I'm going with. These are all about trading card size.

I'm trying to get better at drawing complex environments. One of the ways I'm trying to get better is to not care too much about perspective.

Here's a scary monster:



Here's the first trial run of coloring one of those ink drawings digitally. Some success, some failure. Something to play with in the future.



I think Marvel Monday will be back next week.

Cicada Magazine

John Sandford and Pamela Bonesteel (BONESTEEL) are two of my favorite people. Immediately after getting the job to do the Muse cover (here), they asked me to do a cover and some interior work for the November/December issue of another Carus magazine, Cicada. Not only that, but the topic was hugely open: transformation. That's it. The above illustration is the result.

There were quite a few hiccups trying to get this image to print. For whatever reason, the editor was unsure if the image was "safe" enough to be the cover of a young adult magazine (14 years old is the younger side of the scale). I don't want to get into the whole story (words like "predator," "scary," "testosterone," and "Jacob from Twilight" were thrown around), but there was a meeting involved with the owners of the magazine who, after some back and forth, gave it the go-ahead. John and Pamela went to bat for me the whole way. The best!

This second image was printed with a short biography that Kali wrote about me and states that I am, indeed, the spot artist for this particular issue of Cicada.


Again, a totally open page for me to play with. MYSTERY. LITTLE PEOPLE. You know me by now, of course. The spots were all older sketchbook things which I won't bother posting.

Both images are ink, pencil, and digital.

And Kali's biography, painstakingly researched and offered to you now for the first time ever:

As his longtime researcher and cataloger, I must first warn you that Sam Bosma is not for the faint of heart. Luckily, it is not likely you will meet him, for he is elusive and not easily photographed. Though he has no identifying marks, he possesses a particularly determined demeanor and uses great dexterity in the handling of tools. In fact, it was his skillful zoological engravings that first drew the attention of the scientific community, later culminating in the discovery of a cache of mysterious renderings that are yet to be deciphered. For those who may seek him out on the barren moors and pine forests of his homeland, his presence may be detected by the sounds of wistful humming and badly disguised birdcalls.

Have a good Halloween!

P.S.

The website has also been updated.

Workshirt

Hairs up

Collars up

With regards to Corto Maltese.

Pettigrew

A small thing for Alyssa Nassner's Harry Potter zine. I always liked that graveyard part of book 4.

Seattle Weekly Cover

Sometime last week I got a phone call from Darrick Rainey from Seattle Weekly with an interesting assignment for me. The project was the cover for their upcoming issue whose main headline was about a girl who had been denied food and water from her parents as some sort of bizarre punishment. The article goes on to talk about how this is not all that uncommon a practice and details several situations where a child has died because of this sort of active negligence. In this case, the girl survived, but was only 48 pounds when her parents were arrested.

This was a relatively short turnaround --especially in the sketch phase. Call on Monday night, sketches by Tuesday, final by Friday.



The first round of sketches I sent in didn't hit right where the AD wanted them to, so I went at it again with a few notes in hand.


The AD wanted some sort of tension between the girl and her mother (or both parents). He wanted the piece to be more about that relationship than about the effects on the girl (which was where I was leaning earlier). With a difficult story like this one, it was great to have the AD actively know in what direction to push the final. We ended up going with number 1, but I was asked to put the parents in the background in some way. Another round of sketches later...



...and it still wasn't quite right. We went with a mix of 4 and 5, but with the parents facing away from the girl and the cup tilted upside down.

All in all this was a really challenging assignment that I'm pretty pleased with in the end. Every once in awhile it's good to really hammer away at an idea with as many sketches as possible until you chisel it down to exactly what's needed. I should have taken a photo of the drawing table with all of my paper laid out on it while I worked -- I redrew the piece (to a finished level) three or four times and sketched it out a whole lot more than that.

Also, it's always strange to do a portrait-style piece of an existing person when you don't know what that person looks like.

Final in ink, graphite, and Photoshop. AD Darrick Rainey.

Story and layout can be seen here: http://www.seattleweekly.com

Ankylosaur

Carnotaurus

The girly show

Wolverine

I always thought Wolverine should be casually ugly and probably one who would fight dirty. Less ninja assassin and more Solid Snake with a bunch of knives coming out of his hands.

Head and shoulders

Another iteration of the man in the last post for the current project. I toyed briefly with having these ink drawings in the final but it looks like it'll be a little incongruous with the rest of the image. Shoot! I'll get it someday.

Reading

No time for an ink drawing today, but this is part of a rejected sketch for a freelance piece I'm working in.

Rooster

I'm surprised I didn't make a dick joke.

Hulkin' out

From life.

Man with DS

Somebody just lost a pokemon battle.

Have a good weekend!

Girl with backpack

Nobody's gonna steal your Jansport, honey.

Man with book and soda

Kali said he looked like a stalker.