Bugs from other cultures

A quick little sketch of an egyptian looking bug fellow. I've got a real weakness for these bug dudes.

Gift Art, and worst blogger ever

I might as well not even have this blog for as much as I update it. Bleh.

Anyway, here's a piece I've been working on for a friend. If I had it to do over again, I think I wouldn't have done the overcoat.



You can kind of see the last piece behind it. Getting some bleed through on the scanner.

Serpentine

This is a concept I've been playing around with for years. Something about a snake-like creature with arms/claws just fascinates me. I think I first drew a variation on this at age 14. Been coming back to it again and again ever since.

A change of focus

Between job and real life pressure, I really haven't had much time to work on posts for the ol' Sketch Pit here. With that in mind, I think I'm going to change the focus of the blog. From here on, I'll post sketches as I can and try to talk about process (or lack there of). I may include links to other artists or similar things as well.

That's it for now. Cya next time.

back

That hiatus has been a bit longer than I'd meant it to be. Chalk it up to the job. Meantime, here's a rough sketch:

intermission

I'm super busy with a new job at the moment. I'll upload some new stuff on Saturday though.

Alien woman

Heavily influenced by the films Species and Alien, this is another piece I'm working on for the aforementioned project. If I had it to do over again, I think I would have forgone the clothes and just given her chitin like plates throughout.

Zombie time

Just a super quick piece for now.



A quick (15min) zombie sketch I worked up for a project I'm doing. There'll be more up tomorrow.

Manbat

I must have had 3 or 4 false starts on this. I was trying to do a Man-bat hybrid creature (as made popular in such varied media as X-Files, the Weekly World News, and comic books.) Turns out, trying to blend human hands with bat wings is really hard. Anyway, here it is-

Clean

Here's what the lines for that last piece look like cleaned up.



I've sometimes wondered if it might be better to ink and color without cleaning up the lines firest, but there is just something I like about having the lines all ready for processing.

Rough pencils

I started something over the weekend and thought I'd go ahead and post the rough pencils



This is what a drawing looks like after I've worked out some of the basic shape, but before I've gone in to clean up the lines and refine the details. Just the raw form. Hope you liked the look into my process.

The hiatus

I'm sorry for the extended hiatus. Lots of personal life stuff, as well as a total redesign for my website. I'll be back to regular posting now.

First up, an image from my college portfolio that I always liked. Done for a Mask themed calendar, this was the month of August. I drew inspiration from the month's Roman origins.

Daoine Sidhe

My brother asked for a tough looking faery woman for a project he is going to do, so I worked this up while on vacation. I wanted her to look tough, but not like a tramp, so I actually tried out a few different looks before settling on this one.

Vacation

I'll be on vacation until the 24th, so check back then for new posts!

Recriminations and Cuteness

I missed 2 days last week. Between being sick (still!) and other issues I just couldn't make time to get the posts up. That said, the 5 posts a week schedule is really getting on top of me, so I think I'm going to be cutting it back to 3 posts per week for awhile. That will give me a chance to get more polished sketches up on the times when I do post, and you'll get to see less old stuff, so everyone is a winner.

Now, I did miss the last two days of animal week, so here's the make up. Two color pieces of animal cuteness for your edification.

In the barnyard it lurks

I'm barely awake as I write this. The new free expansion to CoH is really kicking my free time in the jim-jims.

But, on to more interesting things like sketches. Today, the common rooster. Another animal drawing done for practice.



Birds, such as todays rooster and yesterdays much larger one, are fascinating to draw to me because they are so unusual in structure. While they adhere to the 4 limb, 1 head basic scheme that almost all animals share, the wings and accompanying structure are so specialized that it almost looks alien.

Birds and trends

A sketch done simply as practice today. Saw a picture of an Ostarich (sp?) in an old National Geographic and thought it would be fun to draw. I added some head-dressy feathers for fun.



Considering today's and yesterday's sketches, I think maybe I'll make this a week of animals. We'll see tomorrow :)

Sick day

Older stuff today as I've spent the entire weekend being extremely ill.



Done several years ago. The idea was to make some kind of post-apocalyptic monster. I'd actually tried out a dragon/insect type creature first, but couldn't come up with a look that I liked. So I went with a lion and added some honestly cliche cybernetic details. The background was an afterthought. I do like how the mouth came out though.

Marvel Week, day 5: Black Knight

The Black Knight is pretty damn obscure for Marvel (DC fans, think of Booster Gold, as I understand it). It's not really a matter of lack of exposure, it just seems like the writers are shooting this character in the foot every chance they get. He basically Prince Valiant in modern superhero times with an energy absorbing sword. Dear writers, take a page from Witchblade, Darkness, or even Thor - have the magic weapon transform the entire character.



A quick rough sketch of how a more armored, more modern looking Black Knight might look. Just trying to give him a more sleek and organic look instead of the very archaic one he currently has.

Marvel Week, day four: Ghost Rider

Ah, another one of my childhood favorites. In retrospect, there wasn't really much that could hurt Ghost Rider, so I'm not sure where the suspense and action came in. Cool visuals counted for a lot though.



Not so much a redesign here as just a concept piece. Taking the phrase 'Ghost in the Machine', I worked up a sketch awhile back of Ghost Rider as he might appear in the world of TRON. It's a fun idea, but I think if I ever came back to this I'd start from a new sketch.

Marvel Week, day 3: Moon Knight

Long just the Marvel knock off of Batman, Moon Knight actually had some cooler stuff going on IMHO. Now he seems to be a blood thirsty maniac. Kids these days :P



Did this a few years back. I still like the idea though - a more armored Moon Knight, with a helmet instead of a cloak.

Marvel Week, day 2: Beta Ray Bill

Also known as Beta Ray Thor or Simon Walters. A slightly obscure character, BRB was my favorite part of Thor for a long time.



Didn't really change much here, just drew from BRB's past design, and borrowed a little from Ultimate Thor. The minimal top, lack of cape (why would any superhero have a cape in this day and age?) were inspired by the Ultimates redesign of Thor. I changed the wings on the helmet to a more art deco style, and gave him the fingerless gauntlets from his original, non-thor costume. I choose to give him Cosmic Stormbreaker rather than his regular hammer (I always liked the look better), but left his belt and boots as they've always been.

Marvel Week, day 1: Silver Surfer

It's Marvel Week here at the Sketch Pit. All this week I'll be posting sketches of my interpretations of Marvel characters. And to kick it off, Norrin Radd,the Silver Surfer



The original design for the Silver Surfer, by the great Jack Kirby, is both striking and original, but after all these years the flat silver physique and simple board are a little vanilla. Here, I was playing with the idea that the Surfer is pure energy surrounded by his solid silvery armored shell. I cut out sections of the armor to show the raw energy underneath, trying to mirror actual armor with the remaining solid sections without changing the flat physique. I added the inward curve to the board to give it a more alien look, and to indicate a shield, like greek shields from the bronze age.

The Surfer has always been my favorite comic book character.

Punk'd

A street tough sketch.

Inertial

This was the sketch for a commission piece. City of Heroes again.

Terror from the deep!

Another older piece. You can see the colored version here

Godlings, part deux

Another of the cartoonish little gods. Once inked and colored they should be nice compliments to each other.

Godlings

Cartoonish Egyptian god, which I'm going to try to get into a finished state.
I've got at least one more of these coming to.

Process

Having played Marvel Ultimate Alliance recently, I'm working on some sketches of Marvel characters. Specifically Beta Ray Bill and Silver Surfer. Here's one of the prep sketch pages.



Check back next week for finished sketches ;)

Eberron art

The rare 'female' warforged. Make of it what you will.

More Heroic Activity

Some head sketches, City of Heroes related.

The return of Heroics

Another City of Heroes sketch done for a friend.

Witchy Woman

It's almost 6 years since I did this, and I still like it.

Fantasy Island

Another fantasy trope - the elven swordsman

Hoods'n'things

Just a quickie today. Mysterious masked fellow.

Heroic Favors

This was a sketch of an aquaintences City of Heroes character done as a favor.

Reptile review

A cute little lizard sketch.

Comfort zone

I'm clearly more comfortable drawing mechanical and metal things. I'm not even sure when that happened, but it's true. To continue in that vein, I give you - an armored man and his mechanical pet

Sketch + Finished piece, again

Here's a pretty bare bones sketch



And the fleshed out finished piece it became.

Howdy Doody Time

Where else can you see a sketch of a teleporting cowboy?

The lines, they're back!

Here's the cleaned up version of the piece from before.

Older, finished work.

Here's a piece from a few years back.



You can see the finished version here

Unadulterated Lines

Usually after I'm happy with how a sketch is going, I clean up the lines. Here's a look at a piece before that process.

Cliche

Here's a concept you can see in virtually any RPG that came out in the last 15 years. Turned out well though.

Before....

Here is a piece that I'm almost done coloring. I'll put up a link to the finished version in a few days.

Check out the Kirby style bubbles

Here's yet another warforged sketch. I do a lot of these.

What's cooler than a Samurai or an Elf?

A sketch done for another friend. Aparently they have Elven Samurai in FF online. I had no idea.

For a friend

Did this for a friend for his D&D character. A warforged Psi-artificer.

Nostalgia

Like a lot of people, Planescape: Torment was one of the best video games I played. It's been years since then, and the graphics of that old game look like some kind of rough blur now, but the things that made it great, the writing and the inspiration, still endure. This piece was my take on the High Threat Mage Construct from one of the more hidden parts of the game.

Day 4 - Cetecean Skating

A fun little doodle inspired by the Moby album Play

Day 3 - Flashback

Lots going on tonight, so here's something older. A mech with an egytian theme.

Day 2 - Birds'n'things

I'm working on putting together some stuff to submit for consideration at GelaSkins, an Ipod skins site. This is one of the concepts I'm working on, but it is still super rough.