Sketch Runner

2012-01-27T00:05:00.001-08:00

Heres a painting I was working on for waaaay too long. It's too big to scan, so a photo with my mediocre camera/lighting setup will have to suffice. Eyowyn Versus The Nazgul King!

2011-12-26T21:16:00.001-08:00

Alright one more post for today. I've been updating my main website-blog lately, but the spam filter plugins that I've found for Wordpress seem severely lacking in comparison to whatever Blogger uses. So I might just stick with this blog. I dunno. Anyway!

I did a series of drawings and paintings leading up to Halloween. Here's a couple of 'em.

2011-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

This was a Birthday card for my wife, Julie. Featuring the gang of animals that do their best to distract me from my work all day long.

2011-09-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Hi Everybody,

I've got a new portfolio/blog site up at www.roehling-animation.com, so if you're inclined to click on strange links, give it a look. I'll probably be updating both this blog and that one simultaneously, if I can figure out all that Wordpress php mumbo jumbo.

2011-07-18T12:02:00.001-07:00

Yup yup yup, another warmup. I got a sepia tone Pentel pocketbrush, and I'm playin' around with that. Goes great with brown paper, so it seems. This one's another shaman, I dunno why I get stuck on certain design/characters like this. It's like I've gotta flush it out of my system before my brain can move on.

I did kind of a short body cleansing thing this last week. You know, aside from showers. I realized how ridiculously hooked I was on caffeine, so I went a week without caffeine, alchohol, sugar, etc. Aside from the headaches the first couple days, it wasn't so bad. Today I had my first cup of coffee, and damn, it's crazy what a week can do to wipe out a built up tolerance. Halfway through one cup I had to stop, I'm jittery as all hell. Maybe I should do this cleansing stuff more often, given that I typically go through a bag of coffee beans in a week. Hmmm...

2011-07-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

Here's some recent work for Wizards of the Coast's June issue of "Dragon Magazine." It's been published, so I think I'm safe putting it up here. The linework was done on bristol with brush and ink, and then all the colors and flashy bits are Photoshop.

Wizards of the Coast has been on my list of dream clients since I started freelancing, so that's awesome. I've always been a huge geek for fantasy art. The art director I worked with (Jon Schindehette) was great, and he even brought me in for a tour of their offices. Man, I though Video-game studios were nerdy, but I've never seen so many figurines, posters, and other knicknacks in one place. It looks like a pretty cool office to work in, as far as offices go.

2011-06-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

I needed to practice drybrushing in a focused manner, so I decided to do a pinup image. The main cast of "DangerGirl" seemed to fit the bill.

It seems it's much easier to completely screw up rendering the female form than it is for the male form. I've read that the fewer ink lines on a female face the better, and I do find it true that very few artists have made pen and ink rendering on a drawing of a woman's face look... right. Too many lines on a female face, and she starts to look craggy and unappealing. Maybe it's just that we have the built in expectation that the female form should look softer than men. Or maybe we're unused to seeing heavy shadows on women in popular media. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm overthinking this and should just draw instead.

Anyway I don't know if the drybrushing is entirely successful, but I like how it turned out overall.

2011-05-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

A couple more sketches in the toned paper sketchbook. These are sketches of fellow patrons of a local coffee shop.

2011-05-31T01:05:00.000-07:00

I've been sketching on toned paper with some Col-erase pencils and a Pentel pocketbrush. Good times!

2011-04-14T19:08:00.001-07:00

So this is gonna become one side of the postcards I'll be mailing out this month to editors and such. I tried limiting myself to a 3 color palette, and MAN that shit's hard! But worth it, you're guaranteed to have color harmony if you pick your 3 colors well.

2011-04-14T18:49:00.001-07:00

Hey, lookit, I finally got a watercolor to look almost-sorta right in the photo! Overcast lighting, with the painting facing where the sun would be seems to work pretty well. Being that overcast is Seattle's default weather, I guess I'm in luck.

more inks

2011-03-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple things I did as my morning warmups. I've been practicing inking fast and dirty every morning to try and get a little faster, as well as to kick my brain into gear.

2011-03-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

What's this? Two in a row? Preposterous!

2011-03-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

Some more experimentation. I was trying to stay reaaaally loose, and use the same brush the whole time, a Pentel pocket brush.

2011-03-12T11:23:00.001-08:00

Hey look, new Woodsman stuff! I've been experimenting with different materials/techniques. Some are working, some... not so much. I somehow got a bad sheet of Strathmore 500 series bristol (supposedly the best stuff they make). The ink was bleeding out like crazy all over the place. It might have been all the tears and sweat soaking onto the board, but that's another matter altogether.

2011-03-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

An illustration for Corning Life Sciences. The whole idea was superstitions in the lab, which proved to be difficult to convey with the camera angle they wanted. I think it worked out though.

2011-03-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

A sketch from a sketchgroup meeting a couple weeks ago.

2011-01-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

Sketch dump! So these are some studies, and some watercolor practice. I'm really seeing what people mean when they say watercolors are the hardest medium to reproduce, because no amount of camera/photoshop tweaking seems to get the colors right. I think I need a few white-light bulbs and a better camera lens.

Oh, and Julie handed me an owl stamp while I was inking, that I felt compelled to use. Totally completes that last one.

2010-12-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here's the Christmas/new years card I sent out this year. I need to work on getting a decent digital reproduction of watercolors. I tried both scanning and photographing it, and neither was capturing the subtle tone and hue shifts. I had to do a whole lot of photoshop tweaking, and I still couldn't get it very close to the original painting. I might have to use a professional scanning/photographing service next year. Ugh.

2010-11-27T11:40:00.001-08:00

Here's an illustration I just finished recently. It was for a weekly contest on a forum I frequent. It didn't win, but I think it turned out decent. For those who aren't familiar with the characters, these are from Mike Wieringo's Tellos

2010-11-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

Playing around with some heavy brushwork combined with hatching. It didn't turn out too bad, especially since this is pretty much my first attempt at inking water. The contrast on the ripples seems a bit too high, but I'm pretty sure halftone hatching on the water reflections would look really, really bad. I'm gonna have to research some pen and ink artists, and see how the masters handled it!

Anyway I'm either gonna throw some quick watercolors on this, or maybe just photoshop tones.

2010-10-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

Playing around with the idea of making a Halloween card. I realized halfway through that the illustration was way too dark, but I threw this together anyway.

2010-10-12T13:54:00.001-07:00

another pen/brush/ink illustration for the heck of it. There are a few areas that are like acid on my eyeballs (some of the clothing folds, etc), but for the most part I'm happy with this one.

2010-09-19T21:20:00.001-07:00

Damn, I really fell off the wagon with this blog thing eh? Well I intend to get back on! I've got a few more woodsman strips that just need some touching up, and I can continue with it to where, you know, something actually happens. That'd be cool right?

In the meantime, I've been playing with ink some more. I've been trying to really nail down the steel-nib pens, and I feel lately like I don't completely suck with them anymore. So here's a warmup from today, this was about a 90 minute piece.

Whats that you say? Stop stalling and post more Woodsman stuff? Sure, it's just, uh... I'll be right back.

2010-03-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

#11.

I had some issues with this one. I screwed up the first panel, and tried to cut it out and replace it using a technique Matt Bernier goes over on his blog. Well, suffice it to say, I should have given it a practice run before diving onto my bristol wielding a razorblade. I did, in the end, manage to replace the panel with a shiny new chunk of bristol, but I had to digitally remove a few wobbly cut lines that strayed into the panel borders.

Anyway, next week: Talking heads! Exposition! Nudity?

2010-03-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

#10

2010-03-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

A warmup study from a photo of an old-school bodybuilder. I threw some half-assed tone and highlights on it in photoshop. Did I say half-assed? I meant crazy awesome. Anyway, I'll have some more "The Woodsman" panels up later today.

2010-02-23T14:28:00.000-08:00

2010-02-23T14:25:00.001-08:00

2010-02-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

2010-02-01T22:46:00.001-08:00

2010-02-01T22:44:00.000-08:00

2010-02-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

#4

I decided to change my formatting a bit, I'm putting a white border around everything. Should make the lettering easier, as I can intersect the bubbles with the border this way.

2010-01-16T01:29:00.000-08:00

Well the next panel is inked, all but the text/dialogue or what have you. So I'll have to get 2 panels up tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a bit of life-drawing from last night. The "one minute" poses the model was doing were more along the lines of 15 second poses, so I ended up spending most of the session drawing my fellow artists. I wish I would have got this guy when he was sporting his leather cowboy hat.

2010-01-14T10:46:00.000-08:00

Panel 3. My lettering is balls, hopefully it won't take me too long to get the hang of it.

2010-01-13T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here's panel 2. I'm a bit frustrated with my scanner, it blows out to white about 5% of my ink washes. I'll have to go a bit darker from now on, bump up the contrast on the page. I'm already catching a few bad habits with my technique, so this will be a good chance to squash those before my next freelance assignment pops up.

2010-01-13T23:14:00.001-08:00

So since freelancing has slowed to a trickle lately, I've decided to keep myself occupied by doing a comic-strip. I'm going to do one a day for as long as I don't have any work coming in. I figure this will give me a good reason to work on my writing, landscapes and environments in general, and my inking. Oh yeah, I'm going to keep these 100% traditional, so I'm going to have to suppress my ever present urge to redo everything in photoshop. I have very little idea where this is going, and I haven't written any short-story type stuff since college, so bear with me here. It's gonna get messy.

2009-12-16T15:50:00.001-08:00

Here's a piece that's far enough along to post. A character from a friend's comic script. I figured I could kill 2 birds with one stone, get some solid character designs for my sequential pages AND get some decent portfolio pieces. The white space is going to have text at some point, a basic character bio.

So I should have a couple more of these in the coming week or two, more shirtless men than you can handle!

2009-07-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Did this for some weekly contest thing, it didn't quite turn out how I wanted. I did it on regular sketchbook paper instead of bristol, so the ink washes wrinkled the hell out of it.

2009-07-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Just playin' with ink and carbon pencils (and super quick digital colors). They make a good combo, but it seems that the pencils will actually gum up if you try to draw over thick ink lines, dry or not. I've been using Speedball superblack india ink, I'm wondering if the brand might be the culprit.

2009-06-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

Today's warmup got a little out of control. I don't know what my obsession with screaming orcs is, but I can't stop drawing the damn things.

2009-04-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

Here's another warmup sketch of Invincible. Seems my drawing obsessions last a little over a month before they burn out. The girl is Invincigirl, another awesome character design from Cory Walker, the dude who co-created Invincible. The dude's got an amazingly simple, yet volumetric drawing style. I'll link his blog up here so you's all can check it out.

2009-02-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

So the new movie wasn't all that great. It had it's moments though, and the new Jason, Derek Mears, definitely did the character justice. Long live shitty slasher movies!

2009-02-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

Here's my warm-up sketch from today. I might throw down some inks on it for a warm-up tomorrow, but we'll see. I'm not known for my attention span, and tomorrow robots or superheros or some such nonsense will probably be fighting for a front seat in my brain, instead of evil apprentice wizards.

2009-02-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

And here's something I did for the hell of it inbetween working on some freelance stuff. You'll have to have read Invincible to know what the hell is going on... speaking of which, if you haven't read Invincible, shame on you. For shame!

2009-02-11T00:25:00.001-08:00

Heya! Revisited that speeder, futzed with the composition and colors a bit. I think it works better, even if the speeder still looks like a toaster.

2009-01-13T12:45:00.001-08:00

And here's something I did for an online competition. The snowspeeder, in retrospect, looks more like a toaster oven. Oh well, I'll nail down a better design next time.

2009-01-13T12:39:00.001-08:00

Some sort of Imp, the colors are all Prismacolor markers.

2008-12-15T12:12:00.001-08:00

So here's what I've been working on. I'd call this one 85% done, but I'm gonna give it a day before I visit it again, I've been staring at it so long it's getting hard to be objective about it. There ain't jack out there for jobs right now, it would seem, so I've been been burning away at some new pieces for the ol' portfolio. I'll have a couple more things to post in the coming week.

2008-10-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

I just put this up on the Art Jam that me and some fellow artists are doing. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I'm heading down to Colorado to help my wife's (Julie) mom move down there. I'll fix up some of the issues with it when I get back.

We're gonna try to hit up the Arches in Utah while we're driving down, maybe I can do some quick watercolors or something while we're there. Landscapes are something I don't have a whole lot of practice on, it'll be a good opportunity to get some desert landscape practice. Now it's off to play a half hour of FALLOUT 3 before I crash for the night.

2008-10-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

and here's some girl clad in leather.... FROM THE FUTURE! I'm assuming she beats ass with that glowing rod, but hey, I'm not from the future. Wouldn't know myself.

2008-10-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a Doctor Strange I did today. My boss Andrew pointed out he looks more like the Punisher... that bastard! Andrew's right though, and a dashing young entrepreneur to boot. I guess it's just my preference for the Punisher showing through.

2008-07-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

A quick ink sketch that I threw some color on in photoshop. I'm not sure if the color helps it or just beats a dead horse. Anyway, I'm trying to work out an illustration for a contest on Gameartisans.org, so lemme know what ya think.

2008-05-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

Alright, savin' the best for last (which means you'll see it first). Here's a color illustration of one of my portfolio characters, and a few pages of the sequential samples I took to this year's Emerald City Comicon (also containing one of my portfolio characters). Lookin' at the sequentials now, I tried to pack in way to many panels, the focus gets lost... anyway, I'll let you be the judge.

2008-05-28T23:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I haven't posted in a long time. So this avalanche of stuff has been building up for a while. Almost all the artist types and I at my previous place of employment got laid off, so I've been payin' the bills with a bit o' the freelance. That and working on my portfolio like crazy. I'll be posting all the new stuff in rapid succession, mostly tear sheet stuff. Here goes....

2008-03-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

This is some quick character study stuff I was sketchin' out. He's a possible character in the comic me and a friend have been working on for a while.

2008-02-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

'nuther one. Like I said: Obsessed.

2008-02-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

Some girl owning the shit out of Jason! For some reason I get re-obsessed with these movies a couple times a year.

2008-01-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

so here's a character painting I've been bangin' out in my free-time. Too bad that said free time is a distant memory.

03

2008-01-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

... aaaaand here's another. I gotta fill up some of this blank space, it's killin' me. Sketched this at a local pub tonight.

02

2008-01-08T23:43:00.000-08:00

So here's a Wolverine I sketched the other day. It proved to me without a doubt: I can't draw cowboy boots.

Jedi... kinda...

2008-01-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

Yeah, pretty much an excuse to draw a scantily clad chick wielding a phallic energy sword!

The Adventure Begins!

2008-01-06T17:16:00.001-08:00

So I finally got around to setting up one of these "weblog" type thingies. These "Inter-webs" are all such strange new worlds to explore! But yeah, gonna post some art. Maybe talk a bit, in an Roosevelt, Fireside Chat sort of way.