Hey folks … I realize it’s been awhile.

I’m back into ‘work-mode’ after my European vacation, and I’ll be honest with you. I feel more exhausted than I did before I left. 10 countries, over 50 cities and a lifetime of memories. I didn’t have much time to sketch while I was out there since the tour was very regimented and scheduled, but I will have renderings of some of the great photos I was able to take. These will appear within the next month or so. Work will be a bit slower as my ailing PC took a nosedive and died last week. I’m currently functioning with a laptop and my workstation at the office, so it will make artistic updates a bit more challenging.

As for TWILL updates, those are going to stick around. I’m planning on doing more personal pieces, as well as the development of a Photoshop Effects Tutorial book and launchpad site for future tutorial projects (comic book drawing/inking/colouring/lettering techniques, etc). These are a few of the changes idrawdigital is going to go through in the next few months. This little blog has turned into a nice surprise, and with a push towards providing content and regular updates, I think it can turn into something bigger and better.

For all of you return readers, thanks for the support. I hope I can provide you all with more content that will be of great use to you, while showcasing some of my work. During the day, I’m a creative director for a local design firm and I don’t usually show off a lot of my “work” portfolio. This blog was meant to get away from my day-job stuff. But if some of you are interested, the company is called Signature Group. Have a look through some of our portfolio items to get a sample of some of the stuff I’ve had a hand in creating over the years.

So, here’s some random stuff to peruse….

These two illustrations are for a pro-bono commission I’ve been working on. Its taken a long time, and due to my comp crashing, I’ve been forced to start from scratch and work more efficiently to get the site running ASAP. The first image is a character design for the two guys featured on the site. They’re both actors and aspiring screenwriters, and are looking to have their site developed so they can showcase some of their work. The second image is a layout of their quirky cartoon village set high above the clouds on a mountaintop. The main buildings are designated as site sections, and will have some animations that correspond to their particular sections.

This one was done while I was waiting for information during a teleconference. I’m not the greatest at drawing super heroes, it was never my forté. I like Marvel and DC and Image and Dark Horse, et al. but I figure I’d leave those sort of things to the experts. I’m more into my own characters and creativity – not someone else’s vision, I suppose. Anyway – here’s a simple ballpoint pen render of the Webhead, chilling out on a rooftop.

Now for something a bit OLDER

I did this in college – it was my first attempt at creating an epic comic based on the Trojan war. Too bad that Frank Miller had already begun to wrap up 300. It took the wind out of my sails, since I had a long way to go in terms of storytelling, pacing and overall technique. It was a fun experiment though, as I tied a few different things to get myself accustomed to the procedures involved in creating ‘sequential art.’

This was one of my first inked comics. It was a short story called “The Birdman.” Basically, two hitmen wait to receive payment for a job, and are double crossed by the ones who deliver the cash. This panel is from the scene where a car-bomb goes off. That’s a LOT of glass. I rendered it with an ink pen in my typical even line-weight style. What can I say – I’m a sucker for cel-style flat line work. I’d like to re-do this one for nostalgia’s sake.

This is a tattoo I’m hoping to have completed someday. I have the Kanji character on my arm. I need to make the samurai less detailed and then book a block of time to get it inked. In the next installment, I’ll post up some previews of my latest webcomic work.

I’ve worked on various comics in my spare time which I’m in the process of converting to webcomics. One of the most enduring figures I’ve created is a hitman who goes by the name of ‘Diablo’, and is the star of a five part series. The artwork underwent serious style changes before the final run. The linework was done in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and all inking an colour work was done in Adobe Photoshop.

This was the first iteration. I found everything to be too flat and lacked dynamic movement. This panel actually turned out pretty dramatic, though. I liked the style and how simple the characters were, but the arrangement was all wrong. For every nice frame there were too many ‘blah’ frames.

This was the second run – I was unsure of the style and the way the art was presented in the panels.
But I forged ahead and did a few pages in this format.

I used some dramatic lighting and blur/glow/film grain effects to create mood in this trial. The process wasn’t really effective for realistic time frames I had set for production, so it will be shelved for something else until I can figure out how to pull it off quickly and easily. Too bad – this turned out really nice.

More of the same technique.

I decided that I would bridge the gap between the moody grey version and the simple linework of the initial version and I was more than happy with the result. I refined the artwork, changed the angle and dynamic of the pages and established a better foundation for the comic. One more final revision after this and the art test was complete. I was ready to move on and start developing the comic based on a style I was happy to call my own.

Here’s some of the sketchbook sketches I had lying around for development purposes.

I drew a lot of inspiration from the illustration used in Grand Theft Auto from Stephen Bliss. His extensive portfolio can be found at his site – he’s done a ton of work for Rockstar Games and I absolutely love his style which borders on realism/graphic representation and his use of colour to create mood. Check his work out at www.stephenbliss.com.