More picking on Phelps.

I just did this guy today. Nothing really exciting. I thought the ink job was okay, but nothing special, and I hoped that a good watercolor job would pull it all together. But even with my good intentions, Im not to happy with it. I really enjoyed how the fleshtones turned out, but all the blue just really turned me off. Oh well.

Watercolor fiesta

I've come to the realization that my watercolor skills aren't quite where I want them to be (not even close) so I bought a new watercolor sketchbook, and I'm going to fill it up with studies over the next week or two. Here's the first four. Each took about 45 minutes to an hour, and I'm less than satisfied with my results. But rather than complain about it, I'm going to get back to painting.

I wanna draw comics when i get all growed up.

One of my best friends from high school (and former college roommate), who is attending UW-O has been writing movie scripts for a couple years now, and as he is in the film, TV, and media major, it comes as no surprise. Well he submitted several scripts to various competitions and this last one, he won at the state level and his script went on to the national competition. It was pretty exciting. He was going through one of his textbooks a week or two ago and there was a section devoted to UW-O alumni/current students who had won awards for script writing and to Jared's surprise, he found his name among them for a competition he had entered last year. No one told him he had won it.

Anyway, this most recent script he just got back from the judges who wrote comments all over it. Even though he won the thing, they just ripped it apart. It was pretty funny. One of the comments went on to say that the script and Jared's particular writing style would work much better as a graphic novel... so the bastard wants to collaborate with me and turn it into a comic book. I guess I'm pretty excited about it. Its going to be a great chance for me to go way outside my comfort zone since I've never read a comic book.

Well, I spose its bout time I quit writing. Above is a sketch I did trying to work on some wrinkles/drapery and a semi-action pose. There's a quick photoshop job in there as well.

More cartoons for my Monday Op Ed madness

Here's a few more cartoons. The first started off as just a random doodle in my sketchbook and I thought I'd make a finished cartoon out of it and see what my editor thought. The valentines day/cupid cartoon is going to accompany some sort of article about valentines day, even though the great holiday was this last weekend. I'm not to fond of the artwork, and I'm not sure if the gag will go along with the article as I the opinions editor never sent it to me. Oh well. I'll hope for the best.

Editorial mania

Here's two cartoons that I've done for the up and coming Stoutonia issue. Nothing really exciting.

Luke is finished.... I think blah blah.. sketch dump

Here's the finished portrait of my little brother Luke. The hair was a little tricky, and I'm still far from satisfied with it, but the drop off date for the juried show I plan on entering it in starts tomorrow, so we'll see if any improvements can be made by then. For the shirt and blanket, I did a red underpainting and when I initially blocked in the colors, a bit of the red showed through, the very point of the underpainting, so I didnt want to do much more to it other than add some tints, tones, and highlights. But now that I've done that, I feel like it's very unfinished compared to the rest of the piece. Whatever. I'll figure it out.

There's a few sketches in there too.

Acrylic adventures

I'm currently working on a portrait of my little brother with a working title of "The Brotherly Bond is Tainted When Paint is Applied" Not sure where the idea came from, but I like it. Anyway, it's still in progress, but most of it is roughed in. It's been a little while since I've painted any portraits so I really tried to slow up and nail down some flesh tones. Right below the portrait is a painting I did on my palette to use up some paint at the end of the day. It was weird and I did it in about 5 minutes, but I thought better of letting such a masterpiece go to waste.

One more for today.

Today was a pretty productive day cartooning wise. I drew up two new ones, and inked three. I'm pretty pleased with myself for squeezing all three in today between 5 hours of class. Not an amazing feat, but considering other homework, its been a busy day. Anyway, I tried to use a lot more hatching in two of these cartoons, and I have to say I was a little surprised with the results. Each probably took twice as much time to ink, but I enjoyed it, and I think they look much much better. Not nearly as sloppy, which is something I feel I struggle with at times.

Well, I finally got my Blagojevich cartoon out of the way. After his massive PR campaign, I wouldn't be surprised if he'll be in the news for a while. He's almost reaching that celebrity status, and judging by the way he handled the allegations and impeachment over the last few weeks, I'd say he's just dumb enough fit in with some of America's finest.

Bailout Bonuses... a thing of the past?

Here's a couple cartoons for The Stoutonia coming out this week. The first is a comment on the proposal for a salary cap for CEOs who are getting part of the bailout package. Sen. McCaskill of Missouri first introduced a bill after Obama had called Wall Streets use of the money "shameful". McCaskill went on to cite some $18 billion dollars that had been used for corporate bonuses. I would say that might be deserving of the word shameful.

The second cartoon was a quick one for an article on those silly people that don't dress for the weather. Gotta stay fashionable I guess.