sketch: Serena

Moving beyond faces to the whole figure. Although I can't help but feel there's something wrong here – Serena's the one sitting in front of the TV, drink in one hand and remote in the other. Perhaps if I watched more sports (i.e. didn't go to art school) I'd be the one on the couch.

Along those lines, the other day I had a dream that I was being stalked by a bear. When I told Serena she asked, "Was it polar, panda, or koala?" Koala?!? Sure, I'm an artist and all, but I hardly find koalas terrifying. At least she didn't add "teddy" to that list.

Computer Illustration: The One That Did Me In

This is the last one I worked on for Little Green Riding Hood on computer. It's unfinished – you can see that some of the outlines are still red (I always trace my rough sketches in red. I sketch in pencil, then adjust them to black and white images, and import them into Illustrator. So it's easier to trace in red, than use a black line over a black drawing).

I liked the composition, I liked the effect that Illustrator brushes give me for the lunar surface, but all the little tiny details that I would still have to do from this point on drove me back to traditional illustration. See all the segments on his space-suit arms? Each one needs a highlight and a shadow. And that's not including the shading on the rest of the alien, complementary splashes of color in the craters, details on the sand castles, reflections of the rings onto the dome of the spaceship... it could go on endlessly. All of which would be a lot more fun with a paintbrush.

So I did The Gingerbread Policeman. And the bear painting. And now the alphabet book. After that, there's the Christmas book to do first, but it's only a matter of time before you'll see some painted versions of the Little Green Riding Hood computer pics that I posted earlier.

Interlude - Little Green Riding Hood (II)

Little Green Riding Hood answers the call. She's supposed to go to Mommy and Daddy's Work (in the story, the actual name of their workplace), but suddenly remembers she doesn't know where it is!

Still into the computer art on this one – for some reason, I like the hamburger in particular.

On their way to Mommy and Daddy's Work, the trio run into a bear. The bear I painted not too long ago was my first attempt at the new illustrations for this story – he's sneaking up on them. Not to worry, though. Little Green can watch out for herself and her siblings.

Interlude (II)

The final bear. Next, we return to our regularly scheduled trolls.

Interlude (I)

I was doodling a bear (obviously a motif that's on my mind lately) and when it was done I was really pleased with it. Here it is, in its original notebook paper form:

Really rough, of course, and he has three hands, but I liked it. Usually, I'd slap this on a light table and do a tight tracing of it, but I liked the sketchiness of it – made it look more furry to me, somehow. So instead of re-doing it, I took it into PhotoShop, and:

Still sketchy, but at least with the right amount of hands. So then I took it to rough color:

Needs more work, but getting out the watercolors for some fun fluff is good practice for the big troll drawing I'm about to start (it's transferred to watercolor paper at this point, so ready to roll). I'll put the final of this on as well when I finish, but that'll take a bit longer than these first quick steps.

Well, that turned out radically different

When I posted the first version of this, I mentioned that I might change the position of the bear and the boy a tad. Instead, I completely re-did it. I got here after about half a dozen different comps (if I can get them in any sort of shape I'll post them too, but right now they look like blobs on paper, as I was trying to work out the composition).

The next step is to bring it to finish. It'll be in gray tones, instead of color, since it's an interior illustration for the book I'm working on, and in those books the illustrations are always black and white. I'll put it up again either when I'm stuck trying to figure out what to do with it, or when it's finished. Hopefully the second.