Monthly Archives: July 2009

Year of the Rabbit – in color!

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Year of the Rabbit
click to enlarge

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Now, in full color! The Year of the Rabbit, from the Chinese zodiac, is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and even T-shirts! I’ll be making more products available when the whole series is complete. Check out the details in this closeup:

Year of the Rabbit - detail

I have over half the zodiac inked so far, with three that are still in the pencil-drawing stage and two that I’m still mucking about with sketches for. That mischievious monkey just refuses to cooperate! I’m still playing around a bit with the colors, that’s the thing about a personal project: there’s really nothing to stop you from tweaking it forever and ever and ever. But the plan is to finish this series by the end of September at the latest, and that’s including my vacation. And I already have my next project lined up….

Work in Progress — the zodiac continues

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Chinese Zodiac Preview — the Dog

Here’s a very rough scan of the next piece off the drawing board! Another dramatic close-up preview, this time of the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dog. I may still be tweaking the drawing a bit, time will tell.

I’ve been working on this series in batches, which has the advantage of being much more efficient for me, but the disadvantage of not having any more finished work to show for a while longer. I have the next drawing half-finished and then one more before I start final scans on this set. I’ll need to figure out the coloring for this series soon; I keep thinking a looser approach than I usually use would be very fitting….

A sneak peak…

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Chinese Zodiac Preview — the Sheep

… hot off the drawing board! This is just a tiny preview of the next drawing in my Chinese Zodiac series: The Sheep. It was inked almost entirely with a Pitt brush pen, which doesn’t come to as fine a point as the Sakura brush pen but seems to be holding its shape better.

I’ll probably be a while trying to find a good brush pen, because I hate to have to lock the cat out of the room while I draw but I have trouble seeing any other way to keep an open ink jar handy and un-tipped-over. This one had a pretty good feel though, I’ll probably use it on at least a few more drawings to see how it holds up.

More will be on the way soon!

And now for something completely different…

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First off, a big hello to anyone who’s wandered over here from Dawn’s Dictionary Drama!

Although it doesn’t always reflect in this blog, I adore comics, cartoons, and graphic novels of all kinds. I do have some older sequential art work I should post here, but at this point in my artistic life I’m far more focused on my drawing than on writing. I have nothing but  respect for all of those out there who have the dedication and the vision to see it through, especially all of those independent creators out there bulling their way through with little or no compensation.

Dawn’s Dictionary Drama Preview

 While I spent last year experimenting with Illustration Friday, my friend John has taken that concept a step further with his strip. When he asked for some guest art, I was happy to fill in! He gave me three words in sequence, and I made a short storyline using his characters and those exact words in the dialog. Head on over there to see my story, starting with the first installment!

As if it wasn’t enough challenge drawing someone elses’ characters — and John’s style is very different from my own! — I also decided to draw this as much as possible with my brush pen. The practice is paying off, judging by how quickly I was able to ink my next piece….

Oh, hai!

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Oh, Hai

Hi there! Sorry about the long absence, it was a rather frantic spring. Between a hectic period at my job, the siren call (although lately it’s been more like frantic screaming) of my much-neglected backyard, and some freelance work and other side projects which I’ll post more about soon, all conspired to keep me away from my blog. I’ll spare you the details, unless someone out there really wants to hear about very amateur gardening and a growing feud with the neighborhood rabbits.

Instead, I promise to start posting regularly again, even if it’s just quick little sketches like the one above, a portrait of one of the other demands on my attention. Even now he wants to know why I insist on sitting at my computer, and keeps tapping me on the face to focus my attention where it truly belongs: on him.

In the meantime, why don’t I leave you with a preview of what’s currently on my drawing table, awaiting inks?

Chinese Zodiac Batch 2 Pencils