Sketch-a-Day 59/365: Clobberin' Time!

Well I don't think I'll be penciling for a Fantastic Four issue anytime soon, but it was a pretty fun sketch none-the-less, and what better way to bring February to an end than with The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing? I'm sure there has to be a trick-of-the-trade that I'm totally missing when it comes to drawing his skin texture and I may have to do a Thing Week somewhere down the line to try and figure it out. Well enjoy the sketch and I hope everyone had as good of a February as I did!

Sketch-a-Day 58/365: Throat Pain

You know that feeling when you're just starting to get sick and you know you're getting sick? It starts as a lump in the back of your throat that you just can't seem to swallow down and get rid of. It then turns into a dry spot that no amount of water can re-hydrate and before long it feels like you swallowed a cactus and it's just kind of lodged there...yeah, that's how I'm feeling today.

Sketch-a-Day 57/365: Tin Man

Today's sketch is kind of odd. I stopped by the Outcast Studios Daily Sketch Challenge and saw the R.U.R. challenge in place. That's not what makes it odd. The odd part is the search for reference turned up a LOT of typical metal tin man looking robots, including pictures from performances of the story, when in actuality a Rossum Universal Robot was described as being easily mistaken as human. This means I really could draw ANYTHING and say it's a R.U.R. That put me in a bit of a bind and in hindsight it may be the whole point of the challenge. At any rate I opted to go with something more closely related to the on stage visual representations of our modern perception of a robot humanoid to what Karel Čapek described.

Sketch-a-Day 56/365: Demonic Mage

Don't worry folks, sketches are still happening daily it's just difficult at times to get them scanned and posted. As a result you'll get a few multiple posts on one day from time to time. Here's a Demonic Mage type character for you to enjoy from last night.

Sketch date: 2-25-13

Sketch-a-Day 55/365: Wanna see my knives?

One of many random nameless comic character types that will be gracing the posts of my sketch blog.

Sketch date: 2-24-13

Sketch-a-Day 54/365: Shakira

Saturday's sketch brings you back to the 80's with Shakira of DC Comics' Warlord series.

Sketch date: 2-23-13
Posting date: 2-24-13

Sketch-a-Day 53/365: The Shield

Shields are primarily seen as being a defensive type of armor, though they can also be utilized as an offensive weapon.

Sketch Date: 2-22-13
Posting Date: 2-24-13

Sketch-a-Day 52/365: Professor Chaos

Tonight I went with the Outcast Studios Daily Sketch Challenge of South Park's Professor Chaos!

Sketch-a-Day 51/365: Be the Pencil, You Must.

Some of you may get this right away, most of you probably won't, so I'll explain. 

I was just sitting there reminiscing tonight about the days of old and remembered an idea I had once that I sketched out but don't recall if I ever shared it. Back in the old message board days my usual hangout was the Digital Webbing Forums where I became familiar with many wonderful people; you all know who you are. Well, at one point we were making quick re-imagings of each other based primarily off nothing more than our screen names and a good time was had by all. Tonight's sketch is a throwback to that period of time with the subject being none other than our own resident JediPencil. These days you'd know her as the awesome Ingrid K. Hardy of Rabid Horse Artwork and this is her re-imaging that she never got to have.

Sketch-a-Day 50/365: Logo Sketching

Some preliminary ideas for the Gulapocalypse title logo.

Sketch-a-Day 49/365: The Masks

Tonight I was gently reminded that I have to finalize a logo for The Gulapocalypse because I was kicking around a few of them a bit ago and never did much else. As a result, tonight's sketch entry is a series of ideas for part of the logo. While everything is subject to change the idea at this point is to have some stylized lettering (I hate lettering btw, especially since I'm still in need of serious vector training) with one of these masks as the O.

Mask 1: Incorporates my old Gula v2.0 logo and is probably my favorite at this point.
Mask 2: While I like it, I think its a bit too detailed and it kind of reminds me of a Stormtrooper helmet.
Mask 3: Very simple O design with a gas mask canister...my daughter said it looks like a light-bulb though
Mask 4: Very basic gas mask. A whole lot of images just like this one everywhere. Literally.
Mask 5: I don't know what I was thinking with this one and at the same time I feel there's a lot of hidden potential. Like it's a good starting point that just needs to be whittled down and refined into something awesome.

Comments and critiques are always welcome so don't be afraid to use the box below!

Sketch-a-Day 48/365: eXtreme Walker

Wrapping up eXtreme Week in conjunction with The Walking Dead being on tonight gives us the result of eXtreme Walker! I'll do my best to not make Sunday a regular zombie pic...unless you guys like that and wouldn't mind. Should probably let me know. So what does next week bring? I have no clue but I had a lot of fun with eXtreme Week and I hope you did too.

Sketch-a-Day 47/365: eXtreme Steam(punk)

Day 6 of eXtreme Week introduces a steampunk variant to the redux.

Sketch-a-Day 46/365: Pre-eXtreme

Before eXtreme Teen was eXtreme, he was high school dropout and all around troublemaker Max Johnson.
Entry five of eXtreme Week!

Sketch-a-Day 45/365: eXtreme Cupid

Valentine's Day...and with all the other holiday images flying around, I figured I'd go ahead and make part 4 of eXreme Week fit in to the holiday theme by making... eXtreme Cupid! Happy Valentine's Day...or as I like to call it, Thursday.

Sketch-a-Day 44/365: eXtreme Redux Part Tre

Three days, three variants. No hood this time so the dreadhawk is visible. Came out a little more "tech" looking than I was going for, and I ran out of paper to do the hammer he's supposed to be holding. Oh well, eXtreme Week just keeps rolling right along!

Sketch-a-Day 43/365: eXtreme Redux Part Deux

Another idea I had for changing up eXtreme. A modified version of the outfit of when I created him.

Sketch-a-Day 42/365: eXtreme Redux

Exceeded my time limit tonight but I was having fun bringing new life to an old friend of mine. Still have a few other ideas in my head so it may be an eXtreme week here on The Sketch Side...or just a few days. Whatever happens.

Sketch-a-Day 41/365: Braaaaaaaaains

Since it's the mid-season  return of The Walking Dead tonight...

Sketch-a-Day 40/365: Hand It Over

"Just hand over the catnip and nobody gets hurt." Happy Caturday everyone!

Sketch-a-Day 39/365: Whip Arm

I have no idea what I was doing or where I was going with this one.

Sketch-a-Day 38/365: Witch Hazel

Today's daily sketch topic is brought to you once again by Outcast Studios Daily Sketch Challenge. Keeping with the witch theme this week the challenge was to draw Witch Hazel of Looney Tunes fame. I'm kind of undecided on how I feel about this one. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and another sketch :)

Sketch-a-Day 37/365: You. YES YOU!

Don't fear the Reaper, bro.

20 minute sketch. I'm really diggin this time limit thing.

Sketch-a-Day 36/365: Klarion

Today I discovered the Outcast Studios Daily Sketch Challenge community on Google Plus and figured I'd join. The topic of the day was Klarion the Witch Boy. Admittedly I only know of the character from the DCUonline Halloween event this past year and about 20 seconds of a Young Justice episode I caught a glimpse of once so I'm not terribly familiar with the subject matter :-P

Oh and I'm happy to say this is the first of my timed sketches. 28 minutes!

How much time on a sketch is "too much"?

I've started to feel like I've been spending too much time on my sketches for my Sketch-a-Day challenge. So much time in fact that they exceed what a sketch is in my mind. I've been producing more and more near completed works lately in lieu of sketches. Don't get me wrong, I'm THRILLED with what I've been posting, I just should be spending less time with less rendering. A sketch should be loose and fun! It should be a rough interpretation of an idea for later production. I think what I need to do is start to recognize at what point the lines on the paper stop being a sketch and start being an illustration. Once I see that I can snap a picture, call the sketch done, and if I desire THEN continue on to render the image. To start with I'm going to impose a 30 minute time limit for my sketches to try and regulate myself. Let's see how this goes for a bit!

Sketch-a-Day 35/365: Tevara

She's more dangerous than she looks. Most mages are though. Character design for something I've literally been kicking around since 1997.

Sketch-a-Day 34/365: Beware the Dibman

Now that I've gone a full month of all original creation sketches I can relax and have a little fun. Kind of like with this amalgamation of Invader Zim's Dib and Batman to create... DIBMAN!

Sketch-a-Day 33/365: Helmets

Working on some helmet designs for Heritage tonight.

Sketch-a-Day 32/365: Design Work

Character design sketches for Heritage