Category Archives: Finished drawings

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….

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….

Illustration Friday: Talisman

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The Year of the Rabbit
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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.

Happy New Year – Year of the Ox

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Year of the Ox

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.

Illustration Friday: Clandestine

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Leda and the Swan

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!

Illustration Friday: Rambunctious

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 The Mighty Hunter (page 4)

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!

Illustration Friday: Sugary

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Sweetness!

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!

Illustration Friday: Poof!

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Let Me Check My Notes…
Let Me Check My Notes… (click to enlarge)

So many possibilities for this week’s Illustration Friday topic! I decided to go with a post-poof moment this time. I hope the effect comes through ok with only inks, no time for color this week. Or a background!

I think I may be reading too much Girl Genius lately. Last week I lost an evening of productivity when I got book 7, despite the fact that I’d already read it online. I love the humor in the drawings and the writing, but there’s also an intriguing mystery afoot with lots of interesting characters. Phil Foglio has a great loose style that just works, with tons of little extra details hidden in the background. I deliberately avoided too many stylistic swipes in the finished drawing, but the influence is obvious in my thumbnail sketches:

Let Me Check My Notes… thumbnail sketches

Interesting (or not) trivia factoid: these sketches were done in the dentist’s chair while waiting for the NovacaineTM to kick in. The note in the corner was a leftover snippet from a trip earlier this year, and in no way intended to be a slur against taxis in general.

PS: More mad-science-y fun can be had at Narbonic… another clear influence at work here which I will have to re-read when I have a week free sometime…

Illustration Friday: Worry

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Excerpt from Feline Dreams - Detail

So, I feel a little bit cheesy about being absent for a month and then uploading another archive piece for this week’s Illustration Friday topic… and yet, that’s what I’m doing! This is just one panel from a short, 7-page story I wrote and illustrated a few years ago titled Feline Dreams. The drawing was particularly rushed in this panel but it definitely embodies “worry” to me — when I was drawing it I was really worried about finishing in time!

Here’s the full page this scene is from, click ’em to see ’em larger:

Excerpt from Feline Dreams

This is one of the series where I really hope my source files are hidden in my CD archives, because they didn’t make the move between my old computer and my current one… As part of my much-needed website redesign I’m planning on making space for this and a couple other more narrative projects I’d done about that time.

As for my long absence, let’s just say that two out-of-state conferences PLUS my big vacation for the summer PLUS coming down with a severe case of the traveler’s plague during the little time I was home this past month pretty much made posting impossible for me. Starting this week I’m getting back into my routine – new artwork next week if it kills me!