UPDATE: Daily Quick Sketch: Lil' Squire

In the past year, I rewrote my picture book story The Squire. At first, it was going to be a story about a little girl playing strong roles often portrayed by male characters. Then I rewrote the story to also include a stronger message about equality. That's where the twins' idea came into play. After all, twins should be pretty equal, right?

Adding more humor to the main characters of THE SQUIRE

The story became more of a dialogue between the twins. More humor was put into the characters reacting off each other. Their arguments intensified; hopefully in a seemingly funny way. I also found an ending that I feel fits perfectly with humor and hitting the key message of the story.

The original pencil sketch of Erica and Oliver, including their lovable sheepdog, Max

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Below was originally posted on 1-28-13

Been a while since I posted a daily sketch.  This one is a little girl dressed in a knight's suit of armor. I was just testing out the stylus controls again, making adjustments to the pen line.  I thought of making a strong little girl with a playful imagination of adventure and action. I came up with this quick little sketch which I immediately named "Lil' Squire."

Mermay 2018: Octo-Tail Mermaid

This is the first year I'm doing the annual #MerMay online event where artists submit daily images of mermaids. Here's this week's image, the Octo-Tail Mermaid.

Rotated the image by 90 degrees, blotted and cross-hatched the background

Original pencil sketch

Cleaned up the pencil line with digital penciling

Laying down the base colors before adding highlights, shading, and details

The original "final" image of my #MerMay2018 Octo-Tail Mermaid
I wasn't happy about her ink at that bottom - so a change was made as seen above

Daily Quick Sketch: Perry Wanna Kracker. the giant pirate parrot

Today's quick sketch in pencil, brush pen and Copic markers. It is a supporting character for a little picture book story I wrote called Pirate Dreams. Perry W. Kracker is a huge parrot, abnormally huge, and he ALWAYS wants a cracker. He is part of the ship of misfits lead by the main character.

Pirry, the Pirate Parrot from Pirate Dreams. Pirry stands about 6'2" and weighs nearly 300 lbs. 

Mermay 2018: Shark-Tail Mermaid

The second image I did for the online event MerMay2018, where artists submit their mermaid illustration during the month of May.

My final version of a Shark-Tail Mermaid with various shy neighbors

The original color background before changes to make the main character "pop" more

The original sketch in pencil

Daily Quick Sketch: Picture Book Character Mash-up

I had purchased new brushes for Photoshop last week, looking for brushes that give a more natural feel than the current brushes available in Photoshop. Grut brushes are pretty impressive because most of the brushes are not cookie cutter stamp and repeats.

Highly recommended, with over 300 brushes for just $20. The site even has a free sampler for you to try: Grut Brushes Link

Playing around with two of my picture book characters: Bladimir Blarfarg and Little Boo
And yes, Bladimir is the one going to the bathroom in the lake

UPDATE Daily Quick Sketch: Cap'n Billy Buttons

UPDATE
So what's a pirate character without a parrot? I originally had a parrot on his shoulder, but really dislike the way it looked. I like this new little guy . . . introducing Cap'n Billy Buttons and his parrot companion, Pockets.

A new update: changed Mr. Buttons' colors slightly and added a new parrot, Pockets 

The original pencil sketch for Pockets the parrot

- - - Originally published on 4/7/18 - - -

Here's a character design for my picture book manuscript, Pirate Dreams. His name is Cap'n Billy Buttons, one of the supporting characters that join the main character in the story. He's is a kind soul that is trying to live up to the role of being a pirate.

A digitally colored version of the Cap.n Billy Buttons sans parrot

Cap'n Billy Buttons isn't taken seriously by other pirates, mostly because of his name. So he runs a crewless ship. Because of no crew, Buttons has to do everything on the ship, including the laundry . . . (which apparently he knows nothing about as you can see from the shrunken clothing he wears.)

Hand inked version of Cap'n Billy Buttons with (eech!) parrot (that needs to be revised)

Mermay 2018: Flying Fish Mermaid

This is the first year I'm doing the annual #MerMay online event where artists submit daily images of mermaids. I don't have the time to submit a new image every day, but I will be doing images at least once a week.

The final color image including a school of flying fish, created using Photoshop

My idea for these images is to create different types of mermaid based on their "fish-ancestry". I've more ideas for octopus, shark, whale and lantern fish mermaids . . . ( this is probably going to get very weird as I go on . . . )

The original pencil sketch sans fish

I'm thinking of doing this polaroid concept for all the mermaid images

Daily Quick Sketch: Fishface

No idea when I did this sketch, but I found this old scanned pencil drawing in one of my archive drives. I dropped it into Painter 2018 and gave it a few color layers and added some color lines. I believe this was created with a small drawing program called Krita.

FishFace, quick colored version of an old pencil sketch image

Krita had a nice interface and it did a great job of simulating a true sketching line on a tablet. But it had glitches, which would sometimes lose artwork from system lock-ups and/or program crashes. So I stopped using Krita for that major reason.

The original pencil sketch

Like most of the things I find, I threw it on this blog for safe keeping. Never know when I might need a character whose face resembles a fish.

Inktober 2017 • day 26 • Trick or Treatin' Monster

Inktober 2017: Day26
Trick or Treatin' Monsta

I felt like doing a big goofy monster trick or treating on Halloween day.

I have to admit, I think a lot of this goofy walking stance (and definitely its feet) is inspired by Mad Magazine's Don Martin. Don Martin was the king of goofy drawing when I was a kid. It was Martin's cartoons, Sergio Aragonés randomly gutter placed doodles, and Antonio Prohías' Spy vs. Spy that were the must-read pages whenever I bought Mad Magazine.

#Inktober Day 26: Wrong Toes, the friendly neighborhood gremlin.

Inktober 2017 • day 19 • Ghost Doodles

Inktober 2017: Day19
Halloween Ghost Doodles

Today's Inktober is just a bunch of ghost doodles (with a pumpkin basket thrown in.)
I used a very soft pen brush, hence the more shaky, sketchy and varying lines.

Inktober Day 19: Various Ghost and pumpkin basket doodles

Inktober 2017 • day 18 • Teen Wolf

Inktober 2017: Day18Teen Wolf
This little guy was a concept design for a Trick or Treat bag. Basically, he's rising from the bag's base. I'll need to simplify this design because TOT bags are generally very graphic and iconic in today's market.

Inktober Day #18: Teen Wolf Surprise!

Inktober 2017 • day 17 • Go Fish! (Bunnies and Monstas)

Inktober 2017: Day17
Go Fish (Bunnies and Monstas)

Those who follow my artwork will probably recognize this image. I've been working on variations of this concept for quite some time. This is part of a calendar idea I've had for the last few years.

#Inktober Day 17: Yet another version of Go Fish from my Bunnies and Monstas collection

Inktober 2017 • day 16 • Minya (aka Godzilla Jr.)

Inktober 2017: Day16
Minya (aka Baby Godzilla or Godzilla Jr.)

I always thought Minya was a strange looking monster. He had to be one of the worst creatures made in the early Godzilla movies. But with this character's introduction came so many questions about Godzilla. Was Godzilla the father or mother? Did Godzilla have a mate? Were there other children?
But the strangest thing about the character was its weapon: the smoke rings. They hardly seemed to do any damage at all. Seemed more annoying than harmful. Makes one wonder how he learned to make smoke rings, right?

#Inktober Day 16: Minya practicing how to make smoke rings

Inktober 2017 • day 15 • Were-Cow

Inktober 2017:
Day15 Were-Cow

This cow survived a werewolf attack; As soon as it was bitten, the werewolf realized he was a vegan. I'd imagine the horrible milk this cow would produce since it's diet is probably no longer vegan. It would be close to blood pudding I bet. Oh, and good luck milking this cow.

#Inktober Day 15: Scanned version of the Were-Cow ink drawing.

Side Note: After scanning, I altered the placement of the lettering from above and set it below the character instead. Better this way, IMHO.

Inktober 2017 • day 14 • Da Batman

Inktober 2017: Day14
The Batman gearing for action

Would be weird to not do at least one Batman image for Inktober. This one is based on a sketch I did while in Iceland. I gave that original drawing to a family member while there, so I thought I'd do another version of that picture for Inktober 2017. (Hope you don't mind, Victor!)

#Inktober Day 14: Batman is ready for battle with his trusty little Batarang

Inktober 2017 • day 13 • Lumpy Bumpy

Inktober 2017: Day13
The Lumpy Bumpy Monster

When pressed for time, but you still want to do a daily image for Inktober -- go with what you know. I've been drawing this character for decades now, so it is easy for me to quickly sketch one of my oldest characters, Lumpy Bumpy Monster.

Inktober Day #13: My old reliable character, the Lumpy Bumpy Monster

Inktober 2017 • day 10 • Deadie Bear

Inktober 2017: Day10
Deadie Bear
Did a similar character last year for a Trick or Treat Bag, (no one purchased the design.)
For this image, I thought of playing around doing sketchy lines. Actually, after finishing the image, I added even more scratchy lines to make have a rougher edge.

#Inktober Day 10: Awww, Deadie Bear is coming to you for a hug . . . 

Inktober 2017 • day 9 • Vampire's First Flight

Inktober 2017: Day9
Vampire's First Flight
I wonder how vampires learn how to transform and fly as bats. Is it similar to a baby bird?

#Inktober Day 9: Do vampires take a leap of faith to learn how to fly?

Inktober 2017 • day 8 • Little Witch

Inktober 2017: Day #8
Little Witch . . . 'Nuff said!

#Inktober Day 8: Cute Little Witch

Inktober 2017 • day 7 • Helium Ghosts

Inktober 2017: Day #7
Ever wonder what would happen if ghosts played around with helium?

#Inktober Day 6: Ghosts discover helium

Found a harder tipped version of my favorite Tombow brush pen (WS-BH 150).
I find it's better for my heavy hand, allowing me to add more pressure to get the line thickness I want. This allows me to draw thinner lines than if I used the soft tipped version (WS-BS 150). Because of this, it feels more comfortable. Overall, I think it produces a cleaner image, allowing me to add more lines and detail.