Adam's Blog

A quickie for the ISCA forum. I noticed something strange tonight. When I do a digital sketch for some reason my caricature button gets turned off. I don't know if I'm too close to the pic or what...but it's weird. Had I done this on paper she'd probably have a huge nose and forehead.

This is page 15. I'm pretty sure Lolli drew it, not sure on the inks, and my colors.

I just saw this at RoadKill Tshirts and cracked up.

Here's the cover for the new book. I'll give more info later, but it will be out around Comic-con.

This is page 12, 15, and 16. It was very nostalgic for me to be able to color an episode with Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi and my fam go WAY back. Plus beating up ninjas is always fun...

This is the cover girl for my next sketchbook. Not quite as...revealing...as I might normally do but of course there is a reason for everything. I'll have the whole cover uploaded soon.

I'm not much of a TV person as far as continuing shows and sitcoms are concerned but one show I don't miss is True Blood. I loves me some True Blood and season 3 starts this weekend. I had to work right off the back this morning so I didn't have much sketch time. I did the pencils this morning and the B&W paint job tonight. Bill is ok but I lost the likeness of Sookie. I tried to fix it in Photoshop and I swear it's worse now.

I saw Christina Aguilera's freaky new video on MTV, and I thought ho boy. Not that she wasn't a lil hoochie on the last album, but I think she's trying to out sleaze Lady Gaga. Christina's proving GaGa's not the only one who'll wear latex and kiss a girl. It's amazing how far we've come. I remember when Madonna did such antics and got boycot everyday. How things change...

Usually I spend 30-60 minutes on my warm ups but I figured since I wasn't too busy I'd spend a little more time on this one. I also wanted to do this so I could paint a not so saturated pic. Pale/muted tones can still give me fits so this was a nice exercise. This is my second "exercise" for the morning, so I don't know if I'm in the mood to work today.

The whole point of this little exercise was after I drew the picture I'd scan it in so I could have a B&W copy of the original art. After I scanned it in I colored the whole thing in Photoshop without even thinking about it. What is my probblem? it's like I can't stop using Photoshop.

This is my friend Lesa.

About a month ago I jointed the ISCA. In the forum they have daily drawing topics and since I TOTALLY didn't feel like working this afternoon I decided to attempt today's which is Suze Orman. I swear I only attempted this because I wanted to draw her pointy teeth. I'm not that happy with it, but it's blogable (my Tom Bancroft word for today).

I did these sketchcards for the CEC Expo. They are for a fundraiser for the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (say that three times fast...). It was fun to do. Like the last cards, I had to crank these out pretty quickly but I'm starting to get a feel of how I'd like these cards to look.

Now that I'm doing live caricatures for parties and what not, I make sure I add a "live" sketch or three into my daily drawing. This guy (like most) are just random pictures I find online. Once I start doing some people I know, I'll start taking pics. It's always nice to see the caricature with the person it's supposed to be. I mean, how else can you tell if it sucks or not? LOL

I did this with a Copic but I scanned it in and colored it in Photoshop.

I saw this girl last night walk past me and I knew she was going to end up being a "warm-up" sketch for the next day. Yes, she was pretty smokin' hot in her little black miniskirt but that's not what impressed me. Later that night I saw her dart across the field and I was totally impressed how quickly she could run in 5" heels. Not to mention none of her junk fell out the trunk. I'm thinking she used double sided tape...

I was drawing a face (the first one) with intent of using it for the business card I am working on. Then I just got carried away from there....

The TV show V went from a mediocre show that I was surprised I watched every week to a show I can't wait for. It's not great...you know, like True Blood...but it is a lot better and worth watching now. One big shift was Morena Baccarin's character (pictured here) Anna. She was emotionless and pretty boring--which is the nature of the aliens, but bad for TV. Now she's all evil and conniving and what not so...you know how I am about my evil bitches. :)

I did this quickie while pausing the TV. Looking at it now I should have changed (or caricatured) her mouth. Just to sell the fact that she was devastated. I'm just not selling the whole teeth quivering thing here, even though that's similar to how her mouth was in the shot.

I think the theme of the last week is 'types of drawings I haven't done in a long time'. I kicked today off with a color study of a Gil Elvgren painting. Gil was the man!

It has been a while since I've been able to make it to the mall and draw. It felt good hanging out sketching again. In Phoenix the temperature is in the 90's and girlies are finally getting back into shorts and tank tops. Truthfully there are weirdos like me that wear shorts year round but ain't nuttin' like Summer. :)

It's official, two warm-up sketches in the same morning means I don't feel like working today. Scarlett Johansson was pretty hot (though I'd say that anyday) and convincing as Black Widow. I thought she did a descent job. I would have given her arms had I thought I was going to take this drawing this far. Don't look now, two half ass drawings done today.

This morning I decided to paint the Pres in Photoshop. I initially did it on a reddish background but the whole thing was too dark so I just decided to delete it. I did the color without ref and I don't like it. It seems, I should have used ref. Oh well, on to the next one.

I'm looking at doing live caricatures (probably in a retail setting) so I need to not only practice drawing but test media as well. I did a few quick caricatures this afternoon with different pens to paint/color them later. I figured I'd scan in this Obama and maybe play with it in Photoshop later. But for now I decided to post it before I butcher it further with markers or gouache. LOL

I feel like I haven't posted anything in FOREVER....which is kinda true I guess. About four weeks ago I took on a second non-art job and that was the beginning of my ass whoopin'. Now things are closer to normal and I have time to sketch a little. These were some caricatures I warmed up with yesterday. Just some quickies with a ball point pen.

I've been following the new V TV show and it is painfully mediocre in my opinion. I think I'm going to watch tonight's episode, and if it doesn't get any better this will probably be my last episode. It's sad that this version is so weak, but when I figured out that they didn't use the creator of the original series it all made sense. That's like doing the X-files without Chris Carter. Geez.

As the commercial goes, "life comes at you fast..." Well, so do bills. So I'm doing $20 sketches for a limited time--that includes shipping and digital color. My DA page has a little more info.

I found out about two months ago that artist Pat Carlucci was fighting Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I had no idea what his condition was but I assumed it was something relatively new. Today I saw Pat passed away. Pat was one of the first babe artists that I found online. It was so refreshing back then to see a fellow babe artist doing his thing. I didn't know him personally, we traded e-mails and stuff a couple of times. I always thought he was really cool and approachable. Rest in peace big guy.

Paul did a really cool analysis of a Gil Elvgren painting yesterday so I felt compelled to do more of a headshot today. And who's got a head bigger than the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland? LOL

Actually I finally had to admit to myself, I LOVE evil bitches! I'm sure Helena Bonham Carter plays all sorts of roles but I absolutely adore her when she can play mean and wicked! And in Alice in Wonderland she's pretty darn evil.

Thru two-thirds of this issue Chat beats up on Emma and chases her down with animals. Then as you can see here...Emma gets a little pissed. This was a helluva fun issue to color! The only thing missing was these two wrestling in a pool of water wearing white t-shirts. Damn all ages titles.... LOL

Pencils: Christian Nauck
Inks: Terry Pallot
Color: me

Today's warm up was inspired by St Patrick's Day. ...now it's time to do a shot of vodka and pick a fight with my brother! ...just kidding. I originally wanted to give her one of those blank kinda faces so her eyes would look huge, but she looks more like she's frightened. Oh well, happy St Paddy's Day!

I haven't done that much sketching in the last couple of weeks, and most of the stuff I have done truthfully sucks. I've been in an experimenting phase and things just haven't been coming out right. So I decided I'd post this sketch I did today. Nothing special, but it's something.

Some quick morning gestures I did a few weeks ago. I did them with grey prisma markers but I added the beige tone in Photoshop. I had to scan a few B&Ws in tonight, so I figured I post these two.

While watching the Super Bowl I saw Charles Barkley's new Taco Bell commercial. While watching I was like, "WTF?" Do you remember the old days of the Old Spice and the "I am not a role model" Nike commercials? Now Chuck Wagon is promoting fast food...oh the irony. Nothing wrong with it of course, I just think it's funny. Especially considering how much weight Barkley has gained since he retired.

I didn't use ref, so there's not a big likeness. Just some fun while I was with child.

This book keeps getting more and more interesting to work on. Spider-man has girlfriend problems and to make it even worse he thinks the X-men are screwing with him--and he gets uber pissed. Writer Paul Tobin has brought so many different elements to MA Spider-man, it may be an all ages title, but it's a damn interesting story.

My colors. I don't have the book so I can't confirm the inker and penciler.

Today started off innocently enough, like most days. I drew this drawing in my sketchbook in I'm guessing 15 or 20 minutes then I figured I'd color it then get on with work. I knew I was unhappy with her hands and I figured I'd redraw them in Photoshop. I fought in Photoshop for over an hour with this image--and that was before I colored it! Right now I sit totally annoyed and I really need to get moving with my daily work load.

Moral of the story is, not too long ago I would have given up, not pushed forward, and tossed this drawing in the trash. But I didn't quit. So no matter how much one could hate this drawing, at least it's finished. ...now where are my meds?

After being smothered by my Spider-man deadline, I was finally able to come up for air today. This morning I attacked the angles and tension section in Walt Stanchfield's book. I'll post some of those sketches soon, but in the mean time here's some mall quickies.

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!!!