Scribbles & Scribings

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The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Tiger is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts. I’ve ordered one of the T-shirts — being a Tiger myself — and I can’t wait to show it to you! The rest of the zodiac are in progress, I’ve scanned in all the inked ones and a couple are partly colored already. This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the background is the Chinese character for the Tiger.

(I thought I’d posted this last week, but I guess it didn’t “take”…)

 In addition to finishing the Zodiac, I have plans afoot for this blog. Soon, very soon…

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The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Rat is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts. The rest of the zodiac are in progress and coming soon! This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the foreground is the Chinese character for the Rat.

You are probably a Rat if you were born in 2008, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948, 1936, or 1924, but double-check the exact dates if your birthday is in mid-January to mid-February because the Lunar New Year is on a different date each year. Wikipedia’s Chinese Zodiac page is a good starting point for more information about all of the signs and their meanings.

I have the next three animals scanned in, they just need to be colored, I hope to have one or two done by next week.

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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:

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….

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.

 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….

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic fits very neatly into my current project: portraits of the animals in the Chinese Zodiac. This is the Rabbit, accompanied by a symbolic stone with his sign. I’ve already posted the Snake and the Ox, and more are on the way. I debated whether to include the stones in these images, but I really liked having a concrete sign of why I was making them… a talisman of sorts. It turns a simple drawing of a rabbit into a symbol of something more, representing one piece in a whole intricate structure of meanings with an ancient history.

These images will all be for sale at my RedBubble page, if you want a card or print. I’ll be making more products available when the whole series is complete.

I’m about one third of the way through drawing the series, although I still need to color them all. It’s been fun using the brush pen again… if I think I can cat-proof the arrangements I’d like to start using a regular brush with ink again. Along with dip pens, they’ve been sidelined in the interest of keeping the ink on the paper and off of the floor.

I celebration of the Chinese New Year, I have this little offering. It’s just the first finished from a series - I have one other inked and two more in pencil stage.  When I’m done I’ll have the entire Chinese zodiac.
Thanks to a bout of stomach flu last week this is a bit late… but just squeaked by in time for the holiday. I’m still not entirely happy with the background coloring and the typography, so I’ll probably do some more tweaking before making it available for sale.

Another from the archives for this week’s Illustration Friday topic. Click the image to enlarge it! This image illustrates the ancient myth of Leda and Zeus. Zeus, also known as Jupiter, was king of the gods but had a weakness for mortal women. His wife, Hera, was the jealous sort so he had to be sneaky about it. He took the form of a swan and seduced a noblewoman named Leda (this sort of thing happened a lot in the old Greek myths for some reason) and she ended up birthing two eggs which resulted in four children who all went on to become legendary figures as well:  Helen and Clytemnestra, who were key figures in the Trojan War, and Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins. I’m not sure how Leda ever explained all this to her husband…

This picture is available for sale at my redbubble site, in a variety of sizes and formats.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a fabulous start to the new year!

Another one from the archives for this week’s Illustration Friday topic, a page from a short story I wrote and illustrated a while back called “The Mighty Hunter” It’s told from a housecat’s point of view and was inspired by my own cat’s antics, particularly his intensity and focus when he’s in “hunt” mode, and his obliviousness to how goofy it may seem to us. Click the image to enlarge!

I’m actually not sure if this is actually the final version of this piece, but the source files are offline at the moment. That overdue archiving project keeps coming back to haunt me!

Holiday shopping alert!

Right now my CafePress store is featuring a wide variety of items with my drawing “The Holiday Courier” just for the holidays. Today is the last day to get express shipping for free in time for holiday delivery! http://www.cafepress.com/Critterwings

I have several pieces on display and available for purchase in my RedBubble Gallery too. Although it’s too late for Christmas delivery from there, keep it mind either for yourself or your next gift-giving occasion: http://www.redbubble.com/people/stephsmith I’ve purchased a few items from this site already and they are all gorgeous! If you’re a member, look me up!

I’ll be adding more pieces to both galleries over the holidays. If there’s anything you’ve seen here that you’d particularly like, let me know!

This illustration was made for a holiday card, but it seems to fit this week’s Illustration Friday topic: “repair.” There sure are enough things in need of repair here! Click to enlarge.

I hope everyone has a very safe and fun Halloween!

Mmmmmm, the inspiration for this week’s Illustration Fridaytopic was served at my office yesterday for someone’s birthday and it was delicious! I don’t even like cherry-flavored things but this chocolate cake was sooo rich and yummy I had to have a piece.

I’ve been surrounded by sugary things lately. Between the wedding and baby shower I was involved with there’s been a lot of cake lately (and I suspect there’s more cake at the office again tomorrow….) Now I’m trying to get back on the wagon - both for my nutrition and for this sadly-neglected blog. I did sketches for a couple of the weeks of Illustration Friday I missed, but nothing even worth posting. There’ll be more soon!