Bumper

I visited Iowa recently to see my grandparents. They have this morbidly obese cat named Bumper. Still, even fat cats move a lot, so none of my sketches are that fantastic. It was still fun to play around with coloring them.

Watson (from "Sherlock")

Sherlock

Over the holiday, I also watched the show Sherlock. The main actor's face is extremely angular, and lends itself to a more stylized approach. It's really fun to draw from tv, because you have to come up with a likeness of actors without any still frames.

Marian the Librarian

Over the holiday, I watched The Music Man on tv. For those who haven't seen it, it's a musical about this swindling salesman in Iowa. I watched it a lot growing up, probably because my dad's from Iowa originally and it's the only Iowan pop cultural nugget they have. This also probably explains why I like Clerks . . .Anyways, Marian (the librarian) is his love interest, and she's the typical dreamboat stuck up librarian.

Tree Test

I'm at a crossroad. If I continue developing the background like I did with those two detailed trees, I will have to continue and develop the animals and foreground in more detail as well. Does this illustration look better with semi-flat color, or a more thorough rendering?

Chase

This is a work in progress shot of the book I'm working on. It's been a lot of fun so far.

Christmas Book Time!

For Christmas, I went to New York and visited Books of Wonder. Books of Wonder is probably one of my favorite stores of all time; it's a real treat to visit as an illustrator or a fan of children's books. I came back with really cool books (some of them signed). Tove Jansson is one of my favorite children's writers and illustrators, and I lived off of her books as a kid. She is whimsical and very Scandinavian, which is a nice change from some copycat American books. Books of Wonder had two of her children's books, so I had to buy them.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm wearing a paper Christmas crown

Good Morning

I wasn't sure which coffee I liked best, so I put them all up.

Amber Sketch

Messing around with more portrait sketches. Sorry Amber.

Unsavory Portraits

These are quick sketches that I scribbled into digitally. Sorry to Schuyler and Jai (especially Schuyler). I just loved that greenish skintone so I kept it. . .

Lunch Colored

Lunch

I'm in the process of writing a story about a rabbit named Lunch. These are some little character sketches.

Boar Gamer: Day 1

So I heard about this thing today where illustrators design 30 characters- one for every day in November. I'm a little behind, but I'll hopefully have 4 done by the end of today. This is my first one; sometimes, when I'm having trouble coming up with a character design, I start by drawing an animal doing whatever I want my character to be doing, then fit a person into that body shape and facial structure. It's a lot of fun, and it goes by really fast.

Backs of Heads

I know you're not supposed to sketch backs of heads, but that seems to be all I can get lately. People are so skittish. I must look like I'm up to no good or something.

Belated Happy Halloween!

Here's a witch

And some old man pumpkins

Scary Movie

I think I should've just stopped at the first sketch . . .

Prince Preview

Since I'm at work and can only really work on my computer, I end up messing around with Illustrator. This is a preview of a project to come.

Snacktime for Bear

Cartoony stuff isn't really my style, but I'm taking a cartooning class this quarter, so I'm trying it out anyways. There's something kind of fun about doing children's market styling with a dark twist.

Horse and Chicken

It's really feeling like fall outside now, so I thought I'd do a quick little sketch using some fall colors. This time I worked warm to cool, when usually I do the reverse.

Vet Office

I'm still going to make a lot of changes, but I had a lot of fun working on this.