Adam's Blog

This morning's sketch was just some random heads from online babes.

After some frustration a few days ago, I decided to break out my gesture notes by Walt Stanchfield. In the book he mentioned writing notes on your drawings which I thought was a great idea. I do makes some notes but it's mostly stupid little sayings I come up with in the moment, not really ideas or critiques.

To keep me focused I've been keeping these two files by Glen Keane open. And I will literally write, if I demanded the attention, communicated the action, etc. It's been really nice to look at my drawings thru this perspective immediately, then make some changes on the spot.

For the past year I've been trying to mix up the media I sketch with. I always use blue pencils but I figured instead of using lead pencils so much I'd experiment with red Prismacolor pencils. It's been nice mostly because Prismas glide much smoother and since they have wider leads it keeps me from getting too detailed--unless I draw bigger.

These were some random sketches from cartoonist studies from my sketchbook. At the last minute I decided to paint the last gal in Photoshop.

Part of my todo list this year is to work in Painter more. I heard Andrew Jones say something the other day that was pretty profound for me. He said (and I wish I could remember how he said it verbatim) Painter is a better "creating" tool, and Photoshop is a better "finishing" tool. I realized all these years I always used Painter as a finishing tool when I really should be spending more time creating in it. So I did this little study from scratch in Painter. I have yet to find some specific brushes I like, but there's a helluva a lot of them to choose from so I'm not worried about it.

This pic was based on an image I found at Cartoon Retro. Niso Ramponi was also known as Kremos, google either name and you will see some beautiful artwork.

Garrett is having a contest for his Brom Kah anthology. Some info can be found at Digital Webbing or at his blog. I'm not "in" the contest because I'm working on the book regardless, but I think it's a great way to make $200 and be involved in a solid project.

I swear for the past few weeks I have been eating, sleeping, and drinking the gesture. Every since I found Rad's blog, he opened my eyes to being able to see gestures more clearly. This sketch is a little looser than normal because I approached it like a thumbnail then did a color test with the palette. So this is technically more like a rough sketch or a big ass colorful thumbnail sketch. I drew it in Photoshop, colored about 90% of it in Painter 11, then added a few things in Photoshop.

This is the cover for a new Terminal Press comic called I Am Become God. It's the brainchild of metal band front man Rob Dukes. It's pretty violent and creepy, ya know, being about a serial killer and all. It was a very cool project to work on. I colored this cover as well as the interiors. Garrett Adderley penciled the cover and the interiors.

This was a fun book to color. I don't know what it is about seeing a superhero beat up on a bunch of bad guys....

This is Dangerman-1973's character. He asked me to do this probably a year ago and I never got around to it. As I started coloring it, I now officially hate her right leg. Oh well, time to go to work.

The penciler (Matteo Lolli I believe) on this issue had more of a realistic style than I'm used to for MA Spidey but I thought he did a good job with it. I loved the storytelling on these two pages.

I don't have time to draw much of anything since I am moving this weekend, but I didn't want to go too far in 2010 without a post so I scanned in some gesture/contours that I did a week ago (from photos of course). I've been thinking a lot about some of the things I want to do differently as an artist.

Last year my priority was to develop the habit of drawing everyday and working on my anatomy. I succeeded because now I do draw everyday and my anatomy is better (though, still a long way to go). Now it's time to transition from daily half ass sketches to actually producing a good drawing some times. I was looking at LoopeyDave's stuff over at deviantart a few days ago and I'm always blown away by that guy. Among other things, it was a reminder that I need to slow down and put the time in to get the look that I want.

Happy New Year everybody!!!