Process for an album cover Part One

I recently took an illustration gig doing an album cover, the concept is about a blind street musician, whose a one man band, portrayed as some sort of multiple armed deity . It's not done yet, but I thought I'd post some process along the way. These two roughs were what we narrowed down to of about a half dozen. I really thought the top one had a great crazy energy but my clients preferred the second and given the concept, I'm not sure the first one was the best choice for the job.


You can see some refinements here in the pencil art and there will be a few more tweaks when I ink this. I'll post again after the inks and the cover design are finished.

...dr.sketchy's for april...




..this month's theme was classic video games, we got treated to odes to duck hunt and a much more attractive mario...fun drawing even if you're a weirdo like me who doesn't play them (video games that is)

...alchemy weirdness..in spring colors!


....if you haven't tried alchemy yet, it's worth the time...

New Environments: Step Three



To finish these off, I did a little bit of color toning in Adobe Photoshop. Each was done with a different method but they were all done with the same approach as color glazing a painting.

New Environments: Step Two


This is the markered art, I use Prismacolor Premeire Cool Grey Markers with one of their white color pencils. I'll be posting the finished digital images in a few days.

New Environments: Step One


This is the lineart stage, I'll be posting the marker renderings in a few days after I've used them as demos for my classes.

Two fantastic figure drawing books


I just got a review copy of DRAWN TO LIFE: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes from Focal Press Yesterday and man, is it impressive. This first volume is a collection of Walt Stanchfield lectures from his classes at the Walt Disney Studios and only thirty pages in (of 400!) it's already one of the most impressive books I've ever read on Figure drawing. I've been a big fan of Michael Mattesi's FORCE: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators since I first read it three years ago and I have my students use it in class every term. I cannot say enough about this text, every time I read it I learn something new and bring it over to my figure stuff and I'm already feeling that way about DRAWN TO LIFE. Both of these are from Focal Press and neither bothers with bones and muscles, but rather the essence of communication with the figure. Get your own copies as soon as you can and you'll agree, these are art altering books.

sketches to start April!

...Robot Police have a better fashion sense...
...Sean Knickerbocker is an old student of mine who happens to be a Norse deity...
...see he glows...