Birthday Ballerina

My niece Madison turned nine on Tuesday, so I wanted to draw something nice for her birthday. I struggled with what to draw but decided on a ballerina, because she's a really good ballet dancer and because I thought it'd be a fun challenge. A good chance to practice my lady drawing, which needs a lot of work. My gift was well-received by both she and her parents, which made me feel good. Hope you like!

This of course means is that we have a winner in the guess the theme contest! Andy guessed right, and will be receiving a requested new Michelangelo TMNT doodle. Thanks to all who participated!

I'm saving some of those other ideas for later, btw.

Here's the final. 6" x 9" higgins ink and and cel vinyl on watercolor paper.

The sketch ready for transfer (made a couple changes during).

Inked lines. I left the image unadjusted so you can see the paper texture.

Madison looks like a deer in the headlights, but still cute. I look pale, but still fugly.

Twoodles

Just a couple new doodles for your viewing pleasure. As you can see I got some new colored Pitt brush pens... not that you probably care. Here they are anyway!

A character design for a game at work. What is it? Your guess is as good as mine. I think I call him a unihorn, but I'm not sure.

Braces. Almost as cool as ice in yo' grill. Foo. I wonder if they make braces with what the kids are calling, "ice" these days? That's a million dollar invention, people! Or at least a couple hundred dollar invention.

Coming very soon: A birthday picture for one of my four nieces... can you guess which one of these themes it has? Soccer, pirate, princess, ballerina, pegasus, hippo?

EDIT: The prize for the person who guesses correctly first is a new doodle of anything they wish! Get guessing! Oh, and you only get one guess each, btw. :)

It's Howdy Doodle Time

Another batch of doodles from the little sketchbook.





I'm not in the habit of drawing ballerinas, but my ballerina nieces requested it. Really they did!

Some umbrellas at Seattle Center.



I decided to send off my coworker Rob by drawring an unflattering picture of him.

Bill Wray and Scott Wills Backgrounds!

Bill Wray has posted some stunning cartoon backgrounds that both he and Scott Wills painted for Samurai Jack and Ren and Stimpy. Go check them out, they'll blow you away. Do it. Just further evidence that these two are the best around, period!

Roger Ramjet

John K posted some great screencaps from Roger Ramjet with the advice to copy and analyze them in order to improve on construction. I found this guy to be the most interesting of the bunch, so I sketched him starting by blocking in the major forms and fine-tuning from there. Until drawing him, I didn't notice just how many directional lines there are in his face and body. It's so well put together, but you only really notice it when seeing it in the still. When finished with the sketch I felt like inking him and did so with a different brush pen than usual... a nice little Japanese Pilot brush pen on 11 x 14 textured drawing paper.

Here's the example.

Here's mine. AAAAH! My proportions are way off! He's too tall and skinny, his head is too small for his body and his arms are too big/too far from his body. I need to work more on construction!

It needed a little digital cleanup in Photoshop, due to a little sloppy inking (I smudged my hand through a wet line or two, and had a few lines that needed fixing). I tried to follow the principles of good inking as outlined in Katie Rice's great post on the subject, and it definitely taught me something... that I need to keep practicing! This has also taught me another thing, it's tough to draw from the computer screen.

Bonus! Here's my first try, with no cleanup. His nose is a bit wrong in this one, but the proportions are a little better... some of the same problems though. Plus, I got too heavy with the hat outlines.

Back to the drawing board!

More Dumpy Doodles

This one was inspired by a 1950ish children's book. My memory is going out, so I don't remember which one!

I have to apologize to Dan Thompson. I was doodling one lunch and this guy popped into my head. I had seen his business guy doodles a week or two prior and they really made an impression! Mine is a little different though (worse) and has a Roger Ramjet character butt. I wasn't consciously trying to imitate, but sorry anyway Dan!

More in the works with this character (and friends).

A bird in a glove?

My precious grey brush pen was drying out!

Sucky alien.

Loose sketch for a possible future painting.

Doodle Dump

Some recent doodles from my sketchbook.

Hip granny at a pizza place during lunch. Yes, her glasses were really that big! Well, almost that big.


Nose hair.

Co-worker Jesse. Everyone tries to spell his name wrong.