Illustration Friday: ICE (UPDATE)

Illustration Friday: Every Friday a word is given on the website, IllustrationFriday.com. Artists and illustrators then submit an image that represents that word all during the week.

This week's word: ICE

Wrap design made for inflatable swimming pool

Originally posted 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012

This is a very busy week for me, so I had to pull from the archives.

This was a design I made recently for an inflatable swimming pool wrap (the image repeats several times around the pool.) I made this thinking how fun it would be seeing playful polar bears and penguins swimming around icebergs during a hot summer's day.

I kept the image very blue and cool, limiting warm colors to just a few highlighted small areas. The composite for this was very important to balance out the polar bears and penguins so that they seemed to mingle all together and not just hang within their own species. Hopefully, when looking at this image, kids get a friendly, fun and cool feeling.

The artwork is vector based so that the image could be enlarged, reduced or re-arranged to be used for other items like beach balls, beach umbrellas, swimmies and life preservers.

RE: Illustration Friday
If you would like to join in on the fun, head over to Illustration Friday. It's totally free, no need to login or sign up for anything. You can view all the submissions from this week (and past archives of previous words.) Have a sketch to show? Send your own artwork up for others to see.

UPDATE:
Below is an image of the finished product. The repeat turned out great. I like how the clouds cast shadows on the inner lining of the pool. This image was taken outside of the factory near Shanghai, China.

The one thing that bothers me is that the tube around the polar bear's waist should be red. I feel the yellow tube competes with the sun in the sky, but at least it's a warm color against all the cool coloring below. Don't know why that change was made.

Image of the finished product using a repeat pattern of the design above.

Inktober 2016: Lost (#07 of 31)

Today's word of the day for Inktober 2016: Lost.
This word brings me back to one of my very first cartoons.

During my college years, I was the college newspaper cartoonist doing weekly drawings. One year, I won the national Columbia University Golden Circle Award for Best Cartoon from a Collegiate Newspaper. This inspired me to try going professional. I drew up about 3 dozen cartoons to submit to the New Yorker, Playboy, Reader's Digest and several other popular magazines. All were rejected. With good reason . . .

Rehashing an old cartoon I did while in college.

After all the rejections, I changed my focus and started doing a comic strip called Home of the Brave, which ran monthly in a fanzine for 2.5 years and then was reprinted/rehashed for a Spa/Health magazine for about a year. This old lady became one of the regulars in that strip (years later, she was also used in my first children's book Bobby's Biggest Bubble.)

Original pencil sketch

I'm going to search for the original old cartoon and post it (even though doing so will bother me tremendously -- looking at how I used to draw! Bleh! ) If I find the image, I'll update this post.

Inktober 2016: Hidden (#06 of 31)

Today's 6th Inktober 2016 image is based on the word: HIDDEN.

Not much to explain on this one. Just keeping the jokes gross, dark and uncomfortable . . . (because those are the drawings that are getting the most attention! Go figure.)

Alien Hide N' Seek professional Mr. Glorp playing with the Elf on the Shelf (he's hiding, kinda.)

I will admit I do have a bit of hatred for the Elf on the Shelf. He just seems to be the most obnoxious and shady elf in the world. Glad I put him in his place with this cartoon . . . 

Original pencil sketch of Mr. Glorp (sans the elf . . . )

Inktober 2016: Sad (#05 of 31)

Okay, I'm already going dark in the very first week of Inktober. Nothing wrong with a little dark humor, right? (I have to admit, I found myself giggling a few times while doing this image.)

Here's my Inktober image for Oct 5th. The prompt word for this day was "SAD."
I thought of all the saddest characters out there -- Pooh's friend Eeyore easily made the top of my list.

Oct 5th's Inktober image for the word "Sad", made using a pencil, brush pen, and Copic gray markers

Now I don't ever remember seeing Eeyore happy or smiling. That was the first part of this image, making Eeyore super happy. Once I sketched out what he'd look like . . . I started to think of what could possibly make him so happy. That's when everything turned dark.

I first focused on this key element of the drawing -- I found only one reference image of a happy Eeyore

Recalling my youth watching cartoons of Pooh, I've always disliked Rabbit. Face it, he was a jerk most of the time. A snoop, a bully, a control freak and just too darn excitable. So it was easy to make him be the fall guy for this joke. 

The rest of the image was roughed in around the Eeyore character, with the tragedy emphasized in the foreground

I needed to really make his death be totally abnormal with the environment of the characters. I went all Donny Darko and decided to drop a jet engine on poor old Rabbit. Wanting to not over offend people, I toned down the violence and kept it on a comical cartoony level. (No blood, guts, or gore.  I made sure to hide Rabbit's face to help soften his tragic death.)

Inktober 2016: Hunger (#04/31)

Today's Inktober word on the prompt list: Hunger.
Immediately zombies come to mind. Generally, that's is their entire life . . . eating, walking and looking for more to eat.

There are so many unanswered questions about zombies and eating:
1.) Do zombies ever get "full"?  2.) Do zombies only prefer "fresh" food?  3.) Why don't they eat each other?  4.) Do zombies poop?**

Image #4 "Hunger " for Inktober 2016, made with a mechanical pencil, Kuretake brush pen and Copic gray markers

This drawing touches on one of the things I always wondered as a kid; would a zombie ever eat itself?  If it did, that would be such a great efficient ecological system . . . am I right? I mean, if zombies can do that -- it'd make them have the smallest carbon footprint in the world!

Original pencil sketch of the self-sustaining zombie named Earl

(**Anyone have answers to these questions, let me know!)

Inktober 2016: Collect (#03/31)

Today's Inktober word on the prompt list: Collect.


SpongeBob SquarePants immediately came to mind with his impulsive hobby of jelly-fishing. I remember an episode where a giant jellyfish started to attach SpongeBob, to stop him from collecting little Jellyfish. I thought I'd take from that event and exaggerate the size of the bigger Jellyfish (and add more monstrous features like the teeth.)

Sketched, inked and highlighted this SpongeBob image on Toned Tan paper

I used to draw SpongeBob many times during my former job as a Creative Director in the Amusement business. It's been about 12 years since I drew this character. Back then I would design new outfits and concepts for new plush SpongeBob toys.

No sketch for this image since it was penciled and inked on the same sheet of paper.

Inktober 2016: Noisy (#02)

Today's Inktober word is "noisy", I started thinking of characters that were loud. The first character I thought of was Godzilla, but I already did Godzilla last year. So, thinking Sci-Fi, Chewbacca came to mind with his loud growl. I thought of this little joke where Chewbacca would amplify his voice.

Inktober 2016: Oct 2nd NOISY -- inked with Tombow brush pen and shaded with Copic markers

What actually took me some time was trying to make the megaphone look like something from the Deathstar. I thought, "What would Darth Vader use as a megaphone?". (I know, Vader wouldn't use a megaphone, he'd just used the force with some Jedi mind cast instead.)

Original pencil sketch of Chewbacca with a megaphone

Starting Inktober 2016: Fast (#01)

For the last few years, October has been the month for creating daily inked drawings thanks to Jake Parker's Inktober. Artists from all over the world partake in this creative event by simply drawing and posting their work online with the hashtag #Inktober (or more precisely #Inktober2016.) You can find out more at Jake's site here: http://www.inktober.com/

Last year, I did drawing based on childhood memories and concepts. This year, I'm going to follow Jake's Prompt List, which is a listing of random words for each day of the month. Oct. 1st's word of the day: FAST.

Inktober 2016: Oct 1st FAST -- inked with Tombow brush pen and shaded with Copic markers 

Just like last year, I'm doing dinosaur images right out the gate. I'll admit, dinosaurs are fun to draw and those images seem to get the most attention (along with dog and superhero sketches.) Since it's the Halloween season, I'll be doing many monsters, creatures, and science fiction related images.

The original digital pencil sketch of Oct 1st FAST 

Now technically, it's just supposed to be the inking with no wording . . . but I like adding humorous captions to the images. So this year I'll submit wordless images to my Twitter account and post the captioned images here on the blog and Facebook.

Original pencil rough of the concept.

Not happy with the character sketch, I scanned the image and started to change the character's features, details and positioning in Photoshop.

Illustration Friday: Weapon

Illustration Friday: Every Friday a word is given on the website, IllustrationFriday.com. Artists and illustrators then submit an image that represents that word all during the week.

This week's word: Weapon

For this week's submission, I simply took from an old image I did of my character Hairy. The page had Hairy getting ready to battle a monster in the closet, using the best toy weapons he could find.

Hairy loaded and ready for battle. Image taken from one of my oldest picture book stories.

Below is the original full image from which this image was taken from. This page is  #14 from the story, "Timmons and the Lumpy Bumpy Monster" back in the early 90's.

Original full colored dummy book page from "Timmons and the Lumpy Bumpy Monster"

Daily Quick Sketch: Roller Bot

Playing around with an old Wacom stylus that I connected to my backup computer, I quickly rough sketched this robotic character. I used the default pencil setting in Photoshop, which has a nice feel to it - makes it feel it a real pencil on the stylus.

Robot character created on an old Cintiq 1200W using Photoshop

Daily Quick Sketch: Octopus Character (for another children's book concept)

It's been awhile since I posted on the blog. I'm in a bit of a low creative mode lately due to work and general stress. Yet, another concept for a children's book idea came to me recently during the night. I woke up and created this character sketch to get that concept down on paper.
(Too many other ideas have floated away when I didn't do the same . . . )

ADDED: Just added a quick color version of the sketch above.

Digitally colored using PhotoShop

Inked Octopus character for a children's book idea set in an underwater setting

The first thing I thought was, "I need an octopus character." I've drawn many octopus characters over the years, often created with a typical look and style. So I thought I'd change my usual technique and think outside the box.

Original pencil sketch design of my Octopus character for my newest children's book story

I thought adding a long neck/torso would make the octopus look unique enough. I also envision him walking on four arms and using the remaining limbs as arms. Like all characters I create, this one will be redrawn, adjusted and hopefully improved to have a unique character look.

Watercolor + Pen variation

Daily Quick Sketch: My dog . . .

He's a quick sketch I based on my little dog, Brady. She's an Australian Cattle Dog, which is simply a ball of hyper energy wrapped in fur. She's an attention sponge that loves pampering. She also seems immune to pain, will oppose any size dog and is fearless on most grounds (except thunder and fireworks.) When she wants your attention, her ear-splitting yelps make one wonder, who's the master and who's the pet . . .

This little image was created shortly after Brady was in an angry and demanding mood 

Here's the little girl in a silent moment.

Daily Quick Sketch: Octopi Emojis

Here's an idea I played with about a year ago, simply a grouping of several cute octopus emojis doodles.

Sampling of several octopi emojis made with a brush pen

I'm not a fan of emojis. I rarely use them. But there seems to be a huge Internet following for emoji. If I find time, I'll update this image with a color version.

Daily Quick Sketch: Witch Nazel

UPDATE: B+W Image Colorized

Digitally colored in Photoshop

Quick note on the information below. I mention publishing an eBook version of the story, but after reading up on the market, eBooks aren't really catching fire . . . especially with children's books. Parents still want higher quality printed books and are willing to pay for that quality.

The major problem with eBooks is that everyone can make one - and it seems like they do. This creates a huge glut of poorly edited, poorly drawn and unprofessional picture books, which in turn makes any worthy eBook harder to find among all the clutter.

Bottomline: I'm no longer considering eBook publishing . . . going to try the old fashion way of submitting and waiting. We'll see if I can break into the business the proper way.

Originally Posted on Friday, December 20, 2013

I just purchased a new set of Copic Cool Gray markers and wanted to test them out.

I already had Warm and Neutral Grays . . . so I thought it would be best to try to create a wintry image with the cool grays. This was also a good opportunity for me to develop one of my supporting characters, Witch Nazel.

This version of Witch Nazel is more feminine, friendly and less freakish looking.
Marketing wise, this would be a better choice for her design since she would be accepted by more people. But the wacky side of me prefers a weirder looking Witch Nazel, (or at least not as clean cut as she appears in this image.) So, this may not be the version of Witch Nazel once the eBook is published. (. . . or . . . maybe it is . . . too early to tell.)

Gray toned image of Witch Nazel made with a cool gray set of Copic markers

This image of Witch Nazel is taken from one of the pages in my eBook, Worm Wire Glasses. I altered the background to make it more of a winter scene. Below is the original pencil sketch. You can slightly see a hint of the monster, Bladimir, flailing about in the lower right corner -- kicking a garbage can. This is from the scene where Witch Nazel floats over the ruckus that Bladimir is causing below on Halloween.   

Original pencil sketch of Witch Nazel flying on her broom during a Halloween night

Throwback Thursday: Milo

Here's an old character I have been keeping for a certain story I wrote over 20 years ago. I named him Milo, after the main character from my favorite story when I was a kid . . . (Norton Juster's) The Phantom Tollbooth. That story captivated me like no other book, filled with crazy characters, wordplay, and imagination.

Old color comp of my character Milo for a picture book story

My character, Milo, is a smart nerdy little kid with a troublesome baby sister. Their story takes place on a Saturday morning, the time of the week when Mom & Dad sleep late -- appointing Milo the "Saturday Morning Boss of the House."

The first pencil sketch of Milo wearing pajamas

I originally pictured Milo differently with a big blockhead and very angular features. I was never satisfied by his look. Years later, looking at random sketches in a pad, I added big glasses to a doodle of a little boy's face . . . and that created the Milo character I was searching for all this time.

Pencil sketch of Milo readying for a major confrontation in the kitchen

One of the first major changes to the character was his clothing. I originally had drawn him wearing shorts, sneakers and a t-shirt (even a baseball cap in some sketches.) But since this story happens during the early hours of a Saturday morning, Milo should be wearing his pajamas. It made sense, though it never dawned on me until years later. Sometimes figuring out little details takes time . . .

Daily Quick Sketch: More Monstas and Bunnies sketch stuff

Had this sketch laying around since the end of last year. The sketch was an idea I had envisioned and quickly jotted down on paper before forgetting it. It helped that it was the holiday season, which inspires this type of work. Looking at the image now, a half-year later, there are many changes needed to improve the composition. Mostly the sizing of everything is off. The characters and the tree need to be bigger with less emphasis/detail to the background.

Inked rough sketch of a concept for a Monsta and Bunnies calendar

I would like to create a calendar of this subject one day. This one would be December's image. I know the subject and images would work well, but I'm still undecided on what style medium I would want to use for final images. Time will tell.

Original pencil sketch of the holiday concept

Daily Quick Sketch: Zookeeper Earl and The Burpy Bear

UPDATE: Color version

Updated the post with a color version of the image below

These characters are a part of a silly little poem/story I have about a burping bear in a city zoo. The story needs to be longer and several other characters will need to be developed. That'll take time which I never seem to have anymore.

Zookeeper Earl and Burpy Bear inked with a pen brush and gray toned with markers

I tried to alter my usual style a little here, especially with Earl who is very inspired by The Far Side cartoonist, Gary Larson. I think the Burpy Bear needs some work. He needs to be more comical and likable (and the big tooth just isn't doing it for me.)

The inked version of Burpy Bear

Inked version of Zookeeper Earl

Old Sketch found: Bladimir Blarfarg Trick or Treating (from the story Worm-Wire Glasses)

Found this image on a memory stick. It's a scan of my character Bladimir Blarfarg from my Halloween picture book story, "Worm-Wire Glasses". This was done with pencil, brush pen and finished with markers.

Marker sketch of the star character from "Worm-Wire Glasses", Bladimir Blarfarg trick or treating

Daily Quick Sketch: Doggie Doodle

Found this doodle among pages in a lined paper pad. I don't remember doing this image, so it's a true doodle. A typical dog doodle with many features I usually draw. It's really just a smaller and more compact version of my character, Woger (from Bobby's Biggest Bubble.)

Sketchy ink pen doodle of a dog on lined notebook paper

The loose and angular line strokes make this image look different enough for me to archive and possibly use for future work one day.

Daily Quick Sketch: Baby Elephant

Few years ago, I created a story that needed a small elephant (and several other creatures.) This sketch was one of the first I created trying to develop a look for one of the main characters. While it is a cute elephant, I quickly rejected it because it just wasn't a proper fit for the character of the story.

Digitally colored image made with Photoshop

My overall feeling of this character is that it is too generic. In other words, if I needed to draw many elephants together, this would be the typical look all those elephants would have. A key character needs to have something more.

Original inking of Baby Elephant