The might of Thor!

Pin It Now! Okay, so in honor of the new Thor movie, here are some concepts of what Thor might look like. Of course, I'm not really doing the comic book Thor. This is Norse mythology Thor.

With facial hair... without... hard to say what looks better. He's quite the brawny man-in-repose though :)

Anyone see the new movie yet? I haven't yet but plan on it.

Later.

Dwarves

Pin It Now! Okay, so I know the first dwarf looks really sad and haggard. But I made it up to the dwarves in the next one. Look at him in his heroic glory!

I've been drawing some dwarves for the story I'm working on and so the two appearances pertain to the story. I decided once again to indulge my Norwegian side and make these dwarves from some sort of Norse culture.

I'm still spending a lot of time on the writing aspect of the graphic novel I'm working on, but I like how it's coming together so far. I've formed a writing group with some fellow creative people and we met for the first time over the weekend. Looking forward to that being a great help.

That's all for now!

Illuminated Letters

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This is a bit of a change of pace from fantasy character drawings, but this is something that I also really enjoy doing: illuminated letters and page designs. I drew the above letter this week kind of as an example for one of the drawing classes I teach (but more just because I wanted to have fun drawing it :)

I love the style of ancient illuminated manuscripts, as well as Norse and Celtic design motifs. I thought the Norse style (and Viking ship) would be well-suited to my last initial of "N", since I am a quarter Norwegian.

The intricate border design is taken from historic carvings found in a church in Norway, though I had to design corners to link the sides together.

The ultimate illuminated manuscript to my mind is, of course, The Book of Kells, found in Ireland. Here's one of the more famous pages, the "Chi Rho" monogram design, that's formed from the first two Greek letters that spell Christ, that look like an "X" and a "P" combined. By the way, total random side-note: it's because an "X" is the first part of the word "Christ" in Greek that the abbreviation "Xmas" came about.

And speaking of like holidays, hope everyone had a great Easter! Yes, I am 35, but my mother still sends me an Easter basket from New York. Thanks, Mom!! Mmm, Cadbury Cream Egg deliciousness!

still here...and went to a fun art event!

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Hello all,

I've been absent for several weeks on my blog, but I'm still here. A combination of factors are to blame: moved to a new apartment; starting a new art project that involves writing a story as well as drawing it; busy with some events.

The new art project is a graphic novel I'm trying to get going. I haven't done much in the way of comics/graphic novels before so I'm learning as I go. And right now I'm needing to spend some time writing the story that will be illustrated. Hopefully I can post some pictures related to that soon. My hope is to get a sample chapter done in time for Comic Con this July.

Here's a fun thing that kept me busy over last weekend. I attended a 2-day Illustration Workshop with amazing illustrator Jon Foster.

Jon Foster is an artist I've noticed and been a fan of for a number of years, having seen his work in Spectrum's Annual, as well as on some book covers that have caught my eye. I was really excited to have the chance to take a workshop with somebody I would love to emulate, within driving distance in Pasadena.

Here's some more of his work:

and this:

Pretty cool.

He was a really down-to-earth, helpful, humble guy. He talked about his own journey to where he is now, and gave a lot of hope to those of us who feel like we should already have "arrived" with our illustration careers. Jon talked about his process, talked about the importance of thumbnails, and talked about how he approaches value and color (values first, then colors).

Jon demo-ed an oil painting the first day, then took it into Photoshop and demo-ed digital painting the second day. Oh, and he also had all of us in the class do a series of thumbnails for a cover of Midsummer Night's Dream that he looked over and critiqued.

Overall, it was super inspiring--and raised the bar yet again on how I need to push myself to get better.

Cyclops

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Well, I've been working on some other stuff that I'm pretty excited about... but not sure I'm ready to post any of that artwork right now. In the meantime, here's a couple of cyclops sketches I did today.

I started out planning on drawing either trolls or ogres. As soon as I can figure out the difference. But then I felt the need to make my troll/ogre like creature have only one eye. Hence, a cyclops. I guess I also felt the need to have him grinding bones--though it's supposed to be giants that do that, right? Ah... I'm always muddling my mythologies.

By the by, I'm moving this weekend (different place, same city) so I'll be pretty busy. Hopefully I can still get a new post up but if I don't, that's why.

:)

Fairies.

Pin It Now! Okay, so this week I've got some fairies to post (just for you, Sean!). For some reason I felt possessed to add some snarky gender commentary--if you can see to read it. Feel free to ignore it. Or add additions in the comment section :)

I found I could only picture fairies with butterfly-type wings. And mine all seem very benevolent in nature. I think the historical view of fairies has been that they have more of an impish, even malevolent nature. Or maybe it just depends on what kind. Anyone have an idea about that?

In other BIG news, I received notification this past week that I was accepted for "professional" status for Comic Con in San Diego this summer! You have to go through these steps of proving that you are a professional in the realm of games, comics, fantasy art, etc. I've never applied before and wasn't sure my credentials would be enough. Yay, I've been officially recognized! Now I need to really push myself to brush up and prepare my portfolio of work to show, as well as mentally prepare myself for the absolute craziness that is Comic Con.

Anyone with any helpful advice for me, please share.

:)

Gnomes

Pin It Now! This week I thought I'd go for something on the cute side: gnomes. I saw an ad on a bus for that new movie, Gnomeo & Juliet, and it put them in my mind, I think. I don't know much about gnomes really. When I was a little kid I do recall that I had a little 4x5 or so notebook that had these really cool gnome illustrations on the cover and some of the pages. Who knows where that little notebook (or should I say gnotebook) went, but I think I'm trying to harken back to it here.

Not sure what the deal is with those pointy hats that gnomes wear. A bit like dunce caps. Anyway, I think they have somewhat of a scandinavian origin (gnomes that is, not dunce caps), so I was thinking of that somewhat with their costumes. I have no idea why I gave them pointy/curly shoes though.

In other news, I am trying to get myself tickets to Comic Con in San Diego this July and having absolutely no luck. Any of you fortunate jerks out there going? I failed to get regular tickets during the last ticket sale window. So now I'm trying to get "professional" tickets. It's quite a process, I'm finding. But I've sent off what documentation I have to prove professional status and am hoping I get chosen/they haven't run out of pro tickets yet. Until next time...