Sketch Spillover

I've been kinda slumping this year on bigger projects, so here's a sketch dump. Not sure what of these I've posted before, if any, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

Nat'l Cathedral Bishop's Garden bench, some creature thumbs & a rat sage.

Fairy concepts for garden sculpture.

Beasts of burden.

Pen doodle. Mutant at a space bar.

1st round sketches for Thorn Apples album cover.

Final design for the Thorn Apples.

Final exterior & interior album art for "Oops, It's the Thorn Apple

Whistling Teeth in a Storm

While I was waiting for the train to deliver Lisa, I ended up sketching two images based on random people in the parking lot, in two very different styles. One seems to be a nod to Eric Orchard's work.

In case you missed the late evening twitter post, here's the two graphitey things.

These were drawn with one of these huge mechanical pencils that grasp chunky thick graphite sticks. I don't know what they're really called; I got mine in Paris and have yet to use up the lead it came with... I'm a wee bit worried that when I do, I won't know how to find replacements.

Horror movies and reasons to look sad on the Metro, we are GO.

Prodding at the Digitals

Poked a little more at the digital painting. I now feel like I want to keep painting, which is a big step for me. Any time I was using a tablet before, I felt like I was trying to shape antithetical butter. You know, not soft at all. Contrary, even. This isn't even Cintiq-centric. I did most of the further work on the Intuos.

Learning stuff. Huh.

I think it's a goblin.

On a side note, if you like hedgehogs or newsletters, there's gonna be an interview/article thing about me & my hedgie adventurer paintings in the March/April e-newsletter from the Hedgehog Welfare Society.

Trying out a Cintiq

I haven't had much any opportunity to try the Cintiqs, so I just snatched the one left behind by a departing graphic designer this morning. 21UX, for the tech minded, and it's BULKY. Huge thing, but got it connected and doodled a little to get the feel.

Gotta say, I do like it a lot, even if it's weird to use Photoshop as yet.

How to travel in the finest Imperial fashion

Well... I found some sketches! How did I never post these? I think this was intended to be an ArtOrder Challenge submission, but I never got around to finishing it. Anyway, here you go!

Sometimes, you just gotta ride the fish.

Barreleye Messenger Model C3

Greater Reef Guard, Royal Issue 

The fun part of finding stuff sitting in your sketchbook is realizing that I still want to make these into a painting. I mean, BIOMECHANICAL FISH BIKE; what's not awesome about that?

Initial Sketches

Nigh doth they twinkle

There's a terrible thing coming. It's known by various names, across time, across nations. Often, you can hear it creeping nearer when the right season comes, even sometimes seeing its baleful glow in the darkness. 


I'm talking about those seizure-inducing light displays that are put up by certain tasteless neighbors. Who clearly have something against neural function; or maybe they only hate the idea of a warm white glow.

The Horror!

The Nixies of Spa Creek

A quick doodle done the other day in my big moleskin, while waiting on the IT folks to install Snow Leopard on my work box.

Spa Creek Nixie

I love the creepy, duckweed-trailing river faeries of myth vastly more than the singing, sunbathing merfolk of most people's imaginations. Jenny Greenteeth for the win.

Based the setting on the grass-choked estuary near our house. There are nutria there, we discovered.

Cover Sketches for Fantastique Unfettered 3

Back in April I finally finished the cover for Issue Three (Prolefeed) of Fantastique Unfettered, an excellent print magazine of SF&F stories. It was an awesome project, and I did a bunch of sketches before the editor finally settled on one for on the cover. Brandon is a great editor to work with, too; he had some neat ideas and is real easy going.

These sketches I did that weren't chosen... I still like a lot of them. I'd love to pursue some as finished paintings, even though they won't be printed in the magazine.

The final cover is a few posts down on the Fantastique Unfettered site. The issue should come out on or around August 31st! What a neat birthday present!

Beholders

Some new sketches for the ArtOrder stuff coming up on the 19th.

D&D geekery for the win.

 

Human fighter in the woods with a beholder, armed with a longsword.

Hellhound

Working this large moleskine sketch up for The Alphabeastiary Challenge's newest topic - H. Gonna color it tomorrow.

Sketchery and Hello!

After working all weekend on it, yesterday I finally finished the painting of the Elephants' General that I put away for six months. Since I've yet to get the finished painting scanned, have some sketches from 2008. These were interior work for Leading Edge SF/F Journal.

Been sketching some more random stuff, which I'll share if I get around to scanning it anytime soon. : )

Lots has happened in the month or more since I last posted, but really... I twitter more these days than I ever blogged, so if you're on there, come on by. Lots of great creative folks huddling about the 140-character bonfire these days. One really awesome commission was working on a pair of matched, custom SF/F bookplates for a fellow in Australia. It was such great fun, and so glad he and his friend (for whom one of the pair was a gift) were happy with the final run... of 100 hand-pulled prints.

Worked on laying out my folio tonight; will probably send out some mailers in the morning. There was also a horrendous experiment with a recipe for pumpkin spice latte in a crockpot, but no more will be said on that score...

Buggish blighted beasties

As mentioned a few times before... the fine folks at 826DC have contracted my wife, our friend, a NatGeo designer, and myself to illustrate some of the exhibition paraphernalia for their soon-to-open Museum of Unnatural History, in Columbia Heights, Washington, DC. Well, we were really stoked about this project despite the short deadline (September 1st!). And now, some views of the final sketches for my set of creatures:

New work to see. Not New York. But that'd be cool, too.

The time has come! I have new work! And more, that I can't show you yet. Bothersome! But, as for the days going by... good news on the continuance of I and Lisa's show at Sova: three more pieces sold while it's been up. : ) *jangly dance*

This piece was newly done for the show, but isn't what sold:

We do so like when people like the work we do. Sold were two of the pieces I'll post up here in a moment, and also the ever-popular Hedgehog Fighting Dragon Pterodactyls on an Airship with a Steampunk Blunderbuss:

I'm really happy I'm doing another couple pieces for different clients in the next month or two... or I'd be short on work for our next show. Next Lisa/Evan joint show, details coming soon.

These are the thumbs for my cover at Crossed Genres' Bildungsroman issue, though the one actually chosen isn't shown here:

And of course, we have the other pieces I did 'specially for the show, that we finally went up and scanned today... getting thoroughly in everyone's way and making a racket.

Blogging to resume soon, as the CG cover and my final art for StarShipSofa Stories are both due soon! I won't be quite so busy... though I did join ChildrensIllustrators.com the other day, so hopefully that turns into more work; I'd love to pick up some new projects.

The Elephants' General

Value study for new watercolor. Nothin' else doin'. Reference courtesy of the ever-kind Natalie Paquette, and a dozen photos of pachyderms.

Tailspinning Sketch 2 Final

Here's the final sketch for my new watercolor. Finally got a change to do some reference searches and finish up the ziggurat and the backpack.

So... trees to remain pale, graphic shapes against industrial darkness? Or perhaps trees to become dark, graphic shapes against a lighter background? Hrm.

Art update and your daily cookie

Frankly, I'm not sure what havin' a new blog will accomplish, as I'd all but abandoned the old one in lieu of Twitter and Facebook, but perhaps the shift in connotation (demiadolescence to grownup 2.0) will rejuvenate my webloggery habits.

Thankless day of too much heat, not enough breezes, and far too many amorphous gaggles of bar people around the city docks tonight. Lisa and I took a 4 mile meander broken by a frappe-and-cookie moment at Hard Bean Booksellers. The joyous moment was quickly erased by noisy vehicles, smelly smokers gathered against facades, etcetera.

Quite lovely however, was the last night of full Luna on the bright surface of an airliner contrail. That makes a good sight to follow home, no?

Squarely into inking the newest watercolor I've got taped down to board right now. Kid with glowing sphere and angled birds-eye view at night. It also has a dragon. Because night scenes with odd light sources need that extra fantasy trope. And something about a serpent guarding some golden pears. The kid's based on a very solemn boy who I drew at BWI two weeks ago. He was messing with a gameboy like it was life or death in his hands.

Comp thumbnails and the airport kid above. Sorry about the huge signature... I was in rush need of business cards a week ago in LA, and figured I'd just make color copies of him.