The people you draw-you know?

Do I know the person drawn above? No, but when you spend time staring at a person, you develop a bio for them. Many drawings are loosely based on what I see in the mirror. Most artists keep a mirror around to help with facial expressions, and I know animators use a mirror frequently. The woman above, to my mind, is a 40ish half-asian villainess of the James Bond variety. Is that what you see? Maybe not. But as I draw, I develop a background for the character. When the bio doesn't fit the story you are working on, it ends up in the scrap heap, or the back of your portfolio. I don't really have a portfolio anymore. Almost everything I draw is intended for publication of some sort, so it is all scanned into the computer and ink smudges and goofs are Photoshopped away. I haven't used white paint to correct mistakes in quite a while. Also, digital Zipatone is a miracle. Imagine having to buy this stuff and cut out adhesive sheets to apply to your art. They also had sheets that you applied by rubbing a pencil over the top of the sheet. These were quite frustrating as the dots rubbed back onto the Zipatone sheet as easily as the rubbed onto the art. I tried it once and gave up!

More Tony Jaa in 30 Minutes!

My hand can't seem to take more than 20 minutes of detail work. You need feedback from you hand to draw or paint. When my hand goes numb, I can't control my inking and it starts to fall apart. It is the same with drumming, when you can't feel you hand, and speed or finese is lost. So, these were done very quickly. Thankfuly the brush adds personality when my hand shakes or goofs. Pens and quills seem to just look rough and sloppy. This is why I almost always ink with a brush. My sloppy work looks more like a style than a mistake. To further speed things up, I also don't fill in any large black areas when I am inking. That is alll done in Photoshop with the "paintbucket" tool. I also correct any errors, or ink smudges. When you are inking rapidly, blowing constantly on your paper can keep you from ending up with smudged ink on your palm. I read that the early comic book artists inked with a brush because it dried faster than a pen. Speed was the primary concern back then as many 20 page stories were dashed out ver a weekend. The brush inking in comics was a huge influence on me, and it is interesting that it was not an aethetic concern that made that the standard!  Often black and white can look flat or the reader can have trouble dicerning the foreground from the background. Great cartoonists like Milton Caniff or Jaimie Hernandez can do straight black and white without gray tones and pull it off. Not me. My stuff becomes hard to dicern. So I usually add gray tones in Photoshop. If I use dot tones like you see in these Tony Jaa drawings, it is to give it a distict comic book appearance. Most black and white comics use the "zipatone" patterns to give the drawings some depth. Underground comics use these quite a bit and the Japanese manga artists are masters of zipatone. We don't really need to use them anymore as printing of all sorts has gotten much better. I use them simply to give a certan look, so I often make the dots larger than they should really be. The other issue with dot patters is that if your computer monitor's resolution isn't the same as mine, the dots might not appear as dots, but break up into random patterns.

A T-Shirt Design from Zazzle.com

I have posted some fun t-shirt designs on Zazzle.com. Here is an example.

Tony Jaa!!!!! Again!!!!

A quick sketch of Tony Jaa. India Ink by brush with tones added later. Finished in 30 minutes. 15 minutes is all my hand can take right now for drawing. Toning and computer work is easier on my hands. Please go rent Ong-Bak. Did I mention Tony Jaa is amazing?

The Worst Character Trademark Ever

This is it. Take a moment to let it sink in. Really look at this. Yes, It is a Bigfoot (yetti, stink ape, etc.) with hot dogs for feet. He's got a funny hat and looks like a hippy. This is the worst...ever. Ever! If you have worse, please send it along. I'm offering this as the worst and as a challenge to others.

Mystery E-Mail Poetry

These are strange e-mails I have receicved. I am assuming to get around spam filters, they are randomly generated. warranty near scythe meditates but omphalos behind bounce a grain of sand surprised raping penetrating freshest girls in their blossoming make you lose your head gonad from ski lodge secretly admire pork chop beyond then defined by hockey player daydreams food stamp defined by wheelbarrow daydreams a photon of hides; however, for toothache compete with...

A T-Shirt Design from Zazzle.com

I have posted some fun t-shirt designs on Zazzle.com. Here is an example.