Zonin' Like a Ronin

It's been a long Spring for The Graphitist.  You wouldn't know it by reading this blog (haha) but I've actually kept pretty busy on the art side of things. One big focus was knowing me and the rest of the FR crew would be attending Heroes Con in Charlotte.  It's been almost two weeks since I returned, and I have a lot of thoughts on it (upcoming in a new post,) but for tonight I'm reflecting on the frame of mind I've been in lately.  

I had initially been up and down my first week back. Now, for reasons I have yet to figure out, I have been tuning in a lot more than usual when I'm on the pad.  More often than not after a day of work I skip the traffic and go to a Starbucks to get some drawing time in, and my mind has been a lot...emptier for lack of a better word.  I still take my breaks, check my phone, and watch the people, but when a pen is in my hand I just seem to zone out and focus more than usual.  The pressure of creating something perfect and the inevitable thoughts of where this hobby of mine will take me have temporarily disappeared.  I'm taking that as a good thing.

The pic above is from a few days ago, and, while it's not any better technically than what I've been drawing, it felt better when it was completed. I'm taking that as a good thing too...

Peace!

Hard At It?

It's been a long, I shouldn't have left you...

For real though, it's been forever since I last posted something, it's crazy to me. Even crazier though is that I've still been steadily drawing. Art, unfortunately, isn't my 9 to 5; my real job sends me all over the country for 60+ hour weeks, and sometimes I just get lazy about the actual posting. I could go on with this, but really, to paraphrase a great quote, "Make drawings, not excuses."

This is a work in progress, done in between stints of work and Coronas, and really serves as something to test my new Copic greys on (check back tomorrow??).

Peace!

Doooodlin..

I'm still playing around with designs for this character, and when I like one I draw it for real to see how hard it's going to be to draw over and over.  This is a pose that's always been hard for me, so no reason to shy away from it, right?  I'm collaborating with another artist on the design, my fellow Ronin in crime The Liquid Lead.  It's tight to see how we're contrasting running with the ideas, and it'll be nice to see the amalgamation that comes from it.

The character is an ex-samurai out for revenge, so I wanted to throw some samurai gear on him to stress that, but I wanted him to look mobile too, and not weighed down by a full armor. And of course the hood, that's staying for sure.  I'm hoping to bring a lot of updates about the process I'll be going through while illustrating this, maybe we'll see some improvement together.

Peace!

Just Flowing...

Wudup interwebz?!  I had a busy weekend, chilling out with the FreestyleRonin crew at Richmond Comix in Richmond, VA.  We were invited to join a show for local artists of the comic variety to connect, network, and showcase some of our stuff.  A good time was had, and I'm looking forward to doing it again.  I also found some renewed inspiration, and I want to do more than just doodle in a pad all the time.  I've got a really good project to work on, and this picture is just the beginning.  I'm still playing around with designs, and I know this won't be the final, but it feels damn good to start.  Definitely more on this to come...

Peace!

Designs

These are some designs for a future comic I have the privilege of drawing.  Character design has never been my strong suit, I see my stuff as being too generic for the most part.  I'm trying to go all out with these though, so there will definitely be more and better coming!

Peace!

It's Not Supergirl...

Today was a good day!  I was worried about going to back to work after a nice vacation,not so much because of working, because I don't do much of that regardless, but about how it would affect this at-least-one-drawing-a-day thing I'm trying to commit to.  So after a nice shift I brought the pad to the closest Starbucks (so poser I know) and laid it down.  Mission accomplished.  Icing on the cake was sketching in my Moleskine at IHOP later.

The pen in this pic is a disposable Zebra brush pen.  I've become a huge fan of my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, it's easily the most versatile tool I've used (my fellow FreestyleRonin artist Antonio commented that it was almost cheating to use it).  It's also very hard to control for me so far, so I experimented with some other brands.  This one has a dual felt tips (medium and fine), which has been a problem for me with other brands.  They seem to fray and wear out too quickly.  This one got excellent reviews about the ink outlasting the tips, and ,so far, I'm confident that will be true.  My Pentel can make hair thin lines, but I find myself still using tech pens instead for fine details.  With this Zebra I can do a whole drawing with one pen.  It's not great for filling in blacks, but for sketching and inking this disposable is a solid pen.  The Pentel is still my favorite though, for the record.

TheGraphitist is wordy tonight...

Peace!

Swamp Thing thing

I thought I'd close out my red eye theme with a character I've never drawn before, someone that I thought would be challenging.  I've never read a Swamp Thing comic, and I really don't know a whole lot about him outside of the wikipedia page I visited earlier this evening.  I think I need to check out the Alan Moore run for sure.  

This started as a sketch that turned into more than I could finish tonight, but my blog kept telling me "upload something!"  The whole picture will probably be up on FreestyleRonin sometime this weekend, so check that out soon!

Peace!

Tobito

So the whole point of this drawing was to draw a character with a red eye, and what's the one part I get completely wrong?  That's Murphy's law I suppose...I'll be that much happier when my white pens arrive.  This dude is from the Naruto manga, he's been a badass so far.  

Peace!

Darkseid

I'm still having a thing for drawing characters with red eyes, and I don't think I've ever drawn Darkseid before.  I still remember being young and not knowing how to say his name, I must have called him "Darkseed" for years.  

Peace!

It's...Wolvie

I was trying to think of a theme to take through the whole week, and although I didn't come up with anything I did crank out a quick sketch of Wolverine.  Maybe more X-Men to come?

Peace!