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."

#Mermay2020 fast approaching - aka Mer-Kat

Last year I dabbled with a character for #MerMay2019, the annual month-long mermaid illustration event on the Internet. If you use Instagram or Twitter, I'm sure you will notice a large number of mermaid illustrations being posted during May.

Quick color comp of Mer-Kat "In an Octopus's Garden"

Other Links for Mer-Kat:
https://arrrggghhhink.blogspot.com/2019/05/arrrggghhh-its-another-quick-sketch.html
https://arrrggghhhink.blogspot.com/2019/05/more-mermay-with-mer-kat.html
Oh, and the original pencils and ink images of this image are two posts below.

Months Later: More #MerMay with #Mer-Kat

Back in May, I wanted to do the #mermaychallenge, an online event where artists draw and share their mermaid illustrations during the entire month of May. But I knew I had limited time, with everything happening that month (buying a new home/moving/fixing up the old home to sell), and a full-time job.

The inked version of "Octo-Pussy", using a Kuretake brush pen on Canson marker paper

I created Mer-Kat, a hybrid kitten/mermaid. I felt this was such a fun new character to explore. Life underwater with a feline-based personality.

The original pencil sketch, the background was later adjusted during inking, to create a better composition

Above is the sketch I did some time at the beginning of May. Got busy. Put the image aside, which then got grouped into other piles of papers and sketches, transferred to the new home, and pretty much was temporarily lost. So here are the original "found" pencils, and the inked version I was able to do over the weekend.

I plan to color this image sometime in the future.

Giddy Santa 2019

THIS JUST IN:
It's that time of year when Santa is getting a little too giddy.

That time of year where I play around creating new character versions of Santa.

Inktober 2019: Day 03 - BAIT

As mentioned in my previous post, this image is coupled with my Day#2 image. Always fun to flip the roles of the characters, now having Scare D Katt in control over mindless Mouse.

The final digitally touched-up color image, due to using the wrong markers

I was having trouble scanning the color image of this drawing. Unknowingly, I used several fluorescent markers, which don't scan very well at all. Something about the luminosity of these markers doesn't register correctly on a scanner. For example, the yellow cheese looks nice and vibrant on the original artwork, but the scanner picked up a brownish-green muddy tone. So I had to import this image into Photoshop to correct those marker colors (especially that of the hanging cheese.)

The original pencil sketch

The Inked version of the pencil sketch

Testing out the grayscale values of the image

Inktober 2019: Day 02 - MINDLESS

I decided that Mouse would be the companion of Scare D throughout Inktober. You can now see the ring from Day 1 is placed on the collar and will be part of the character from now on. (So yes, these two are engaged.) 

Day 2: Final inked image with marker coloring

At first, I had the cat simply floating mindlessly, but I wanted some interaction between the characters. That's where Day #3's prompt word, BAIT, came into play. This allowed me to tie today's word with tomorrow's word, creating a fun sequential connection between the two images.

The original sketch, working out the concept. 

I switched the layout to have the mouse take control, knowing tomorrow, I will turn the tables on Mouse.

Original final sketch images before inking

For those Inktober fanatics who insist ONLY using ink during Inktober, here you go!

The Month of Ink Cometh! INKTOBER 2019!

Yes, it's that wonderful time of year again, Inktober. This will be the 5th year I will "try" to complete the daily inking challenge during the month of October. This year I will focus on using one character, Scare D. Katt, a former Inktober character created 2 years ago.

Here's my little promo for #Inktober2019 using the original illustration from 2017

I also plan to use the prompt word list which is given by Inktober's creator, the great illustrator Jake Parker. I plan to sketch in pencil, then ink using various brush pens. I don't think I will have time to color, I don't want to over commit since work and life do get in the way.

The official Jake Parker prompt list for #Inktober 2019

More #MerMay with #Mer-Kat

Another Mer-Kat image for MerMay2019. Borrowed a fish image I did a few weeks back. Encountering the obnoxious BelchFish.

Arrrggghhh! It's Another Quick Sketch Video: Mer-Kat ( for #MerMay2019 )

So with work, moving to a new home, and many other things making May insanely busy, I still wanted to do a few #MerMay images for 2019. This little character popped into my head as a good mascot for the month-long drawing challenge. Not only do I like the character concept, but the name is a great little play on words: Mer-Kat. (I'm sure fans of actual meerkats won't find it as amusing.)

First #MerMay image of #Mer-Kat for 2019

I decided to record the 35+ minutes it took to create this image and speed it up to a more Internet consumable 4-5 minutes. (I think I still need to edit out the boring fish segment of the video . . .  just runs on too long with not much happening.) The YouTube link is embedded below.