A friend and colleague, Teemu Matinlauri, recently did up a set of smilies for my forum (well, our forum - it’s pretty democratic), pictured below:

It’s actually pixelart that first got me interested in getting a graphics tablet. I wanted to make a little, 2D side scroller after having used a tablet to do touch up work during my old job as a graphic designer.

I used to do quite a bit of it, and still do for the handheld game publishing company for which I work during the day, but seldom for personal use anymore. I think that I get enough of it before I get home.

Teemu’s smilies are so awesome, though, that I felt the need to give one a shot:

It’s been awhile, but I still heart you, pixelart.

I don’t draw a lot of kids. I almost never draw babies. Well, an acquaintance of mine just spawned a youth, so I thought it appropriate to take the opportunity to practice. There was a certain look on the kid’s face that made me want to exaggerate the expression into a bit of a smirk.

Well, at least the baby doesn’t look like a 40 year old like most the kids I draw!

This is the first in a two part series showing me pencil, ink, and color a zombie’s hand. By the end of this video you’ll see the piece progress from pencils, to inks, to sketchy value work (in preparation for the spot color added in the next video).

 Download video.

I go to a monthly artist meetup at the Blick Art Store in Wheaton, IL. On my second visit, this past weekend, I was graciously given a free Moleskine and assorted other supplies by the owner, and a talented bloke in his own right, Kevin.

Now, it’s pretty common knowledge that I draw digitally. I’ve done a scant amount of traditional work, mostly relegated to doodles with ballpoint pens and the like. Going to this forum and talking with guys like Alex Wald, Dave Dorman, and Charlie Athanas had me curious, though. Might I be missing out on a lot?

So, I was really happy to get the little package of goodies from Kevin. It left me no excuse to avoid something new (I’d often balked at the $10+ price of Moleskines in the past - but have no problem saving up for a new Cintiq, heh!). I went about making a sketch or two with a 5mm mechanical pencil, but decided that I wanted to try for lots of value changes, and I suspect that wasn’t the right tool for the job.

I stopped back into the store a few days later, and Kevin fielded some painfully stupid questions. “What’s a 2H pencil and why do I want it?,” probably was the worst. He directed me to a few things, I bought a couple pencils, and continued home, the pencils burning a hole in my pocket for the next hour and half of driving.

These images are the first attempts with graphite or, really, any traditional value work. Only a few minutes a piece, half mechanical pencil, half 2H regular (regular?) pencil.

The Moleskine’s paper quality was really great. I even got one with predetermined panels for storyboarding/comic roughs. I was a bit trepidatious to jump into traditional work (I’m so back asswards), but I’m really glad I gave it a go. It’s exciting to get to draw everywhere I go, and I can’t afford a portable tablet laptop while saving for the Cintiq, so this fits that niche nicely.

Is it wrong that the prevailing thought while working with pencil was, “This works just like the pressure sensitive, flat variant of the pencil tool in Painter!” heh?

I’ve been drawing a bunch lately. Mostly sketches. Tidbits of finished pieces, really. It’s been refreshing to reclaim some time of my day for the exploration of non commercial work. There’s certainly a large part of me that wishes all my stuff was released Public Domain for all to share and mess with as they like.

I’m a vegan, Libertarian Socialist with Anarcho-Communist/Syndicalist leanings - this should hardly come as a surprise.

Given the nature of the industry (and the perception that giving away work devalues fellow illustrators -as if work is only worthy if it fetches a certain dollar amount) and the requirement that I eat in our “free market” economy, I’ve come to a sort of compromise. I’m going to offer personal work under a flexible Creative Commons license. The work I get hired to do can still exist in its rights restricted, totally unobtainable and unreproducible bubble. My personal works’ source files will be available as free downloads for you to share and print with as many people as you want. First, though, I need to actually create something that isn’t commercial work.

If anyone has a time machine…