Welcome to the Lair

Kind of me (cigarette drawn for fun, I don't actually smoke and yes I know the eyes are too wide apart):




Representation of my friend Bryan (no, he doesn't smoke either lol):

Did a couple drawings for my friend in a new style I'm trying to develop. Still in infancy. Working on it.

Also,

This is kind of my art blog, and since I haven't been doing much art lately, it hasn't gotten much attention. I've been focusing on my writing a lot more (since, well, that is my major now so it's kinda helpful to focus on it). So, I made a sort of 'writing-themed blog' which I am posting in now, which you can find here.

My goal is to create a modernized film noir detective story filled with elements of action and adventure.

I will attempt to develop memorable characters through plot advancement and camaraderie. The characters will bond due to their shared cynicism and experience in the unnamed city of nightmares where they reside. During the course of the story, they will face challenges both mental and physical and follow a dark path through the oppressive danger on all sides. This project is mostly a practice attempt to train myself at drawing in various ways and positions and finding out how to combine writing and graphic into a flowing story. I don't expect this to be a great piece of work, but more of a learning experience to do something serious and time consuming later. I will also be training myself to work faster and not focus too much on individual frames or details but the story as a whole.

Timeline:

I plan to complete a 15-20 page chapter of the comic by the end of the semester, completing the first part of the story and bringing the first goal to a conclusion, while hinting at a further, larger goal.

By next Monday I hope to have a general idea or outline for the overall plot and a rough draft of the first 5 pages.

The next week I will fill out the outline and rough draft outlines of several pages ahead, while working on completing more pages as well.

Once I have the outline of the story completed, i can begin roughing out the rest of the comic and continuing to make final drafts of them.

I am also trying to develop a film noir type feel, emulating the old detective stories from the 40's and 50's....

....but adding a more modern twist, strongly influenced by Japanese manga.

I've been trying to find my own art style lately. It will just kill me if I try to emulate some perfect manga style, I need to find my own. My art definitely has strong influence from Japanese manga and anime, though. One such is the manga Dogs: Bullets and Carnage. An  intriguing shoot 'em 'up with well defined characters and dark, mysterious undertones, it manages to create a well balanced mix of seriousness and comedy. The art is one of the most attractive parts about it to me, however. It's very flowing and smooth while still being somehow angular and realistic in the right amount. I'm using it as the main influence of the art and overall style of my comic.

I also really like the art style for the band The Gorillaz, (which I think was done by the same artist who did Tank Girl), it helped me initially when I was trying different styles in order to define my own.

Just finished Matt Wagner's newest graphic novel in the series Grendel. It's also the first I've read, though I've heard about the others. Luckily, it's pretty much a standalone, I enjoyed it nearly to its fullest extent without actually having read any other Grendel comics. It was great; a story of depth and perception. The art and presentation were awesome as well. I loved it, it inspired me to draw and read the other Grendel comics!

My cousin, who plays guitar, always says he can hear things in music which I cannot. However, he could not notice various subtle nuances in style and appearance which I noticed in pieces of art.

Well maybe, like musicians and their hearing, artists have a 'finer gaze', which allows them to see beyond the scope of normal human ability.

Just as writers must be able to recognize deeper themes behind words, and mathematicians require the ability to see through numbers and equations to the logic beneath, I think that each person has a varying degree of higher intuition into the skills which they find come natural to them.

I think that is the mystery of each skill which is not our own. We can sense something deeper, meaningful, and terribly important  - but just out of reach - in that which we do not possess, do not understand, but merely know of.

Philosophers, then, can open their minds to encompass the universe.

Another character design. Tried to go for a more rough, quick, stylistic approach with the coloring.

Character face concept art by Eva Widermann, who does lots of art for the Dungeons and Dragons book:

No More Heroes character art:

Working on a character concept. Swordswoman Rose/Rosa. More practice with body sketching as well as different methods of coloring.

For the past week I was in somewhat of an art slump...just couldn't put anything out. However, a couple days ago, my bro Brennan showed me the website of a guy named Craig Mullins...with extremely legitimate art!  I ogled over the pictures and was finally inspired to draw again..I looked at his art half that day and drew for the rest of it. I absolutely love the style; so profound, so flowing with light and color and shape and line... Anyways, here are some of my favorites:

Based on a design for merpeople I sketched yesterday. Working on background and coloring. I layered colors with a splatter brush to attempt and create a scaled, underwater effect. Need to add more depth and refine still.

Lately I've been thinking about mythology, and the art based upon it, this idea partially sparked by reading Japanese manga with references to Japanese mythological beings, of which there are many. It started me thinking on all the great mythical beings and legends and rich mythical backgrounds to many other countries, such as the tale of King Arthur in Europe, etc. I realized that America is the only country lacking a true mythical background. For a long time, I've thought about how America is increasingly lacking it's own individuality, with so many people of different backgrounds that have become part of it over the relatively short time it has been a country. I've always wanted to create some sort of solid legend story and personification of purely American values, events, ideals, and associations. A series of drawings or a book, even a comic book. It would include such rich, purely American genres such as the Wild West, and such 'Mythological' figures as Uncle Sam, yet done in a very fantasy, indirect and modified comic legend story. I've started researching some purely american figures in America's history, such as Uncle Sam, who would be a key player in the story, like a god or wise old man (Zeus, Gandalf) or a god disguised as a wise old man. I would create a sort of alternate universe fantasy version of him. To begin this, I'm researching the previous art of Uncle Sam. Obviously, I have to start with this, the popular propaganda poster by James Montgomery Flagg:

Here's a practice attempt with solid-color shading and coloring.

I've been playing a Japanese RPG for the wii recently called Phantom Brave. I really like its simplified and colorful style of art. I like how Takehido Harada uses only a few basic colors for everything including shading.

Still working on it, also testing with background.