Dot Lion Attack

Sketch for page 4 and some different designs for what I'm calling the "dot lion". Not sure if the design I settled on is the most exciting, but I can't use up all my wackiest designs right out of the gate.

Stick Pages 3-4

More finished lines for page 3 and page 4. As you can see I'm experimenting with a grayscale "marker" look in this last page I've done. I think it helps bring this page to life (or death?) a bit. Let me know what you think!

Yoda Sketch

Sketch I did for my Dad's birthday. When fifty years old you reach, look as good you will not.

Stick p3 (rough)

Amanda and I decided to make a ski/board trip this weekend, so I won't have time to finish this weeks page. So here is rough line art I've completed so far and below it is the original Walmart sketch.

Pokemon Redesign Process - Drapion

For many years now I've been periodically redesigning Pokemon in a semi-realistic style. Originally started in high school, I made it through the original 151 and have been doing a few here and there since then based on requests. Here is a look at my current process, starting with the original Pokemon.

Drapion

Next I grab a few photo references of animals I'd like to base it on. Here's an example, usually I use about five.

Whiptail Scorpion, up close and personal

I start drawing very loose, using an adjustment layer to lighten up the lines as I draw on top. I'll usually starting painting in the flat colors under the sketch, then refine the lines over the top.

Rough sketch

Refined color lines (dodge/burn)

Painted with colors from original Pokemon art.

At this point I'm not really working linearly any more, just painting, playing around with layer settings, different brushes, etc... until I get to something approaching realism. I'll usually start painting with colors picked from the photo refs and adjust transparency to find something in between.

Uglier, more realistic color layers.

Finally, I throw on some adjustment layers to give the image a little more impact. Since I'm not going for photorealism, I usually bring back more of the color and contrast lost in the earlier stages. Here's the final image. Sometimes I'll paint a background if I really like the Pokemon I drew.

Adjustment layers (levels, gradient maps)

Stick p2 Sketchbook

Again, I prefer the overall feel of my rough sketches more than my digital inks, but they're just too rough to pass off as "professional". I just need to keep working to get better at drawing digitally. I've never really liked real inking either, it's slows down my drawing and the lines always look wobbly to me. I do like how the final ferns turned out compared to the simpler bushes below.

The toothy creature is simply called a "Dot" - it's sort of like a piranha frog. Anybody who knew me in elementary school should be getting a kick out of this. Notice how it's got four limbs above and below I tried out several ideas before deciding to go with the simpler pair of legs. I may use the spider guys later. Also below are my rough thumbnails and again all these sketches were done during my breaks at Walmart.

Hope you've enjoyed these first few posts, I'm hoping to hit my stride the next couple weeks, when I'll need to occupy my time while Amanda gets buried in school work.
-RtR

Stick p2

Scraps from the Past - Moses

I enjoy drawing characters from the Bible. I've done many illustrations over the years for the Show and Tell Bible, starting with the Exodus in high school, Judges & Ecclesiastes in college. I'm currently working on the Gospels. Moses is one of my favorite characters, perhaps because he's one I'm so familiar with.

Here is an example of how I drew him for the Show & Tell Bible while I was in high school (2004-06).

Anime hairdo, deformed arms and  legs; it's sort of embarrassing to look at, but keep in mind this was drawn nearly ten years ago!

Here's an example of a sketch I did of him a couple years after graduating college, in one of my infamous Walmart sketchbooks. Pencil and fine Sharpie pen. I wish this was the Moses I'd been drawing for the Show & Tell Bible.

Here is a very quick sketch I did tonight in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. Based on still from "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston, although I picture Moses' appearance/demeanor somewhere between Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood. The older sketch is arguably drawn better, but I've been trying to refine a more stylized approach to my character line art. Let me know what you think.

Stick Page 1 Sketches

I was going to draw this Stick Man comic in a regular comic book format, but since I originally had wanted to do this as a weekly, year-long web comic, I thought the horizontal format would work better on computer monitors. Then again, most people use cell/tablet devices nowadays so the vertical format might have worked alright as well.

These sketches were done in pencil during my lunch breaks working at Walmart. As you can see, my original line art has a much more organic, energetic feel to it. I scanned it and traced in Photoshop using my Wacom tablet. I'm hoping that eventually the "feel" of my digital work will match the look of my pencil art, with the flexibility of cleaning it up a bit and adding color without worrying about making a mistake.

Stay tuned for page 2 on Sunday!

Stick p1