Been a while since I have put up a post.  I've been plugging away, trying to keep practicing digital painting.  I did this one in about 3 hours and I ended up liking the way it turned out.  This is all digital; there was no scanned in sketch.  The basics really help: edge lighting, contrast, using blue glazes to push shadows back.  I created a color palette that was on the top right of the image so I could sample a value range of purples, blues and reds.  Other than that I just had fun creating a creepy look.

Animal Drawings

Jaguar. This guy did a great performance. He was scratching his face against a tree branch here.



What a strange creature. Mother and baby. And baby doing what babies do well...




California Condor named "Leadbelly".

Cafe Couple

It rained at the zoo around 2pm so our instructor took us to the cafeteria at the Autry museum across the street. We drew people sitting in the cafe. Here's an old guy with a handlebar mustache that caught my eye. This is sepia in and watercolor wash.

Animal Drawing

I'm taking a class by Glenn Vilppu on Animal Drawing. Every week we go to the zoo and draw animals. The goal is to capture the gesture first by sketching the basic shapes of the form. Then we can go back into the sketch and add details as we observe the animals.



These sketches were done in sepia and black ink.

My sketchbook is both digital and paper. My work includes speed paintings with the Wacom tablet, studies from life and concept art. Most of my sketchbook is modified Automatic Drawing. From what I have read about surrealist drawing, pure Automatic Drawing doesn't recognize any forms, but rather lets mark making come only from the subconscious. I like to start this way, but once I start to see forms, my imagination fills in the rest and the result (while non-objective to start) becomes representational.

I find that this is often a good way to practice character design because it frees me from any restrictions and keeps my marks very loose to start. As I warm up, I can get more detailed.


This began as a speed painting in Corel Painter. I liked the haunted look of the character without pupils.

This is a concept for a zombie or a vampire mage. Entirely in Photoshop. The only reference was for the house in the background.