So this sketch page is where I came up with the name for my sketch sessions.

I broke one of my main rules for this particular sketch. I normally don’t allow myself to have any preconceived ideas about what I will be drawing.

In this case I wanted to draw a samurai. But as I got into it I turned it into a child in his dad’s armor. Of course this was still done with no reference.

Looking at images of samurai warriors after creating this sketch I realize how many details are missing and many of the mistakes I made.

However I fell in love with the recycled paper and the white colored pencil.

As you can see by the similarity of fang and face, of this first page, it was not a fast start. But the intent of these sessions was not to create anything useful at all. At least nothing final. It is the result of using a tool I am using to break my reliance on reference material.

With this second page there are at least a couple of creatures that make me laugh. I am rather fond of the spider like creature doing the can-can and the spotted manatee like creature with 4 eyes. Also the Mohawk having screaming alien on the top right is kind of fun.

Most of the pages of sketches are really nothing to pay any real attention to, but the experience gained was worth far more. But as the pages started to pile up I started to find characters that jumped out at me, and personalities appeared.

This image comes from several sketches I did while the crows were doing their annual stop over. I was sitting out on our back deck happily drawing away, when this chap on the left landed on our deck railing and seemed to sit sentry on me. Maybe he was posing for me, I’m not sure exactly but he sat still for several minutes. Thanks to his patience I learned quite a bit about the way the feathers lay across the chest and head.

The second crow here is made up from observations of many other crows. Both of these where then rendered in ink and white acrylic separately. I then scanned them both in and merged them together into this image using Photoshop.

This is another painting that comes from my nightly samurai sketch sessions. This little tribe is about to be caught unawares by whatever it is that Gwaah here is pointing at. Just think of the horrors that could lurk in this unknown and alien wilderness. Monsters of unimaginable terror and power. Now that your thinking in the right direction I just want to have a small child with a lollipop far off in the distance, or a fuzzy bunny.

Speaking of bunnies, the time I spent as a medical illustrator taught me one very important lesson, bunny skulls are monstrous. Just one big set of jaws made for slicing things with those immense incisors. Truly terrifying.

But I digress. This image was created first in a sketchbook then scanned and painted in Adobe Photoshop with my Wacom Intous4. I tried to give it a little depth of field to put more emphasis on Gwaah. It is a painting that because it comes from a sketch and was not formally composed, I spent some time fighting. Because of this I learned a very valuable lesson regarding my process. Sketch -> thumbnail -> refined drawing -> painting.

It was originally a page in my sketchbook that I scanned in then painted in Adobe Photoshop with my trusty Wacom Intuos tablet. But where did it come from?

So it all started with the realization that I was Super dependent on reference images. As-in, I could not paint anything without them. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but let me tell you, it is very difficult to find a zombie or dragon when you need one, and even more of a challenge to get them to hold just the right pose.

This limitation was something I could never stand about my own abilities. How was I ever to create anything truly unique if every image I created was based off observable objects and beings?

So I went back to a method for improving my own abilities that I have come to rely upon. I completely cut out the crutch. I forbade myself from using any form of reference material. This rule is to stand until I can work completely without it.

This “self torture” is nothing new. I have put myself through this several times. The most difficult example was while I was trying to  draw “cartoon” style.

It usually starts with an opportunity, in this case I was paid by my university to draw a caricature of each of the 200 professors in the engineering college. Necessity dictated that I drop my realistic style and pick up a more appropriate cartoon style. Why? Because I did not have the time to spend even a half hour with each individual, and in those days a portrait probably took me an hour or more. As you would expect those first 20 or so caricatures were basically portraits with small bodies. However, by about the 200th one I was fairly proficient. It still took me another 3 years of drawing daily single panel and strip comics for the local paper (a job I landed because of the caricatures) to really get the hang of it.

So, back to this image. This painting represents my first creation that is a direct result of the “Samurai Sketch” sessions. I started doing these sessions to force me to take time out of my day to work on my skills. I would sit down for several hours every night with only 3 rules a sketchbook, pencil and marker:

1. Do not stop drawing at any point for any reason.
2. No use of any form of reference.
3. No preconceived ideas for the images.

Those first several months were really rough. Allot of my sketch pages from those days are full of absolute nonsense. I would also tend to get into the rhythm of drawing similar things. Many of the earliest creatures I drew in those session look eerily similar, and there is a ridiculous amount of heads floating on pages. but over time it got easier, and the results improved.

This painting is important step because it represents the first sketch from those sessions that was worth painting. I also rather adore the dainty hands and the domestic nature on such an otherwise horrific monster.

I found myself going back and looking at this sketch many times over the next decade. I really wanted to do something more with it, but it was too large to scan in and not be a huge headache.

So it gathered dust with so many other drawings and sketches, until one day I decided to give Corel Painter a go. Now, this was no small decision, I have been using Adobe Photoshop since it was called “ImagePro”. Making the adjustment necessary to a new application when you have more than a decade with your current one, is rough to say the least. Putting all my trepidation aside, I decided to give Painter X a try.

Rather than start from scratch with a new image, which I knew would not get me off to a good start, I decided it was finally time to scan the old goblin sketch in. It took scanning the image in 3 parts and then stitching it back together in, you guessed it, Photoshop.

With the digital version now “in hand” I opened up Painter and started to play with the tools. I spent a considerable amount of time grumbling over things not working like I thought they should, and brushes being too literal… However, some of the features were really compelling reasons to use Painter. I love the palette for mixing colors, the way the brushes pick up paint from the wet canvas and many of the other ways the media mix is awesome! No other way to put it, just awesome.

The end results is an image I am pleased to have created. It was an experiment with a new piece of software and an old drawing that seems to have worked in the end.

Yes, as per 90% of all of my images it was created entirely in Adobe Photoshop. And as always I was using my faithful Wacom Intuos tablet. At the time it was probably my Intous 2 Large format. I have since switched to the small version of the Intuos 4. I love these tablets. I have been using them in one form or another since the Digitizer and before that I had a Koala Pad on the Commodore 64.

I am a classically trained painter, and have a BFA. I love to work in oils, acrylic and watercolor, but digitally… man nothing beats control Z. Not to mention you can merge all the best aspects of each of the traditional mediums. There were techniques used in this painting that I learned in oils, and other times watercolor. Some aspects were treated like airbrushing and others like using conte’ crayon or ink. Though in and of itself digital painting has it’s own techniques, there is marked efficiency improvements by working digitally.

The freedom to try new things without risk of ruining an image you’ve spent countless hours on, allows you to explore and try new things. It also means you don’t have to start over when you make a mistake.

This was the last “formal” painting I did. I had great reference material before I started, thanks to my good friend Macavite and the models (Thanks Andrew). This painting marked a transition to a more experimental phase. I have spent the two years since teaching myself to work without reference entirely. It opened my eyes to the crutch that i relied upon. So I have practiced with no reference doing my “Samurai Sketch Session”. These endeavours have given me the tools I need to move to the next phase. I already know my next barrier and am working to bast through it as well. The fun and joy of life comes in finding and overcoming the next hurdle.

I may have spent a little to much of my youth watching Monty Python’s “Quest for the Holy Grail”.

This digital painting was created entirely in Adobe Photoshop. It was not done for any particular purpose, only because I thought it was a funny image and had to get it done. And yes her motorcycle is supposed to remind you of Ghost Rider, somewhat subtly.

This painting went through many revisions thanks to all of my Portland Oregon based illustrators and their constant feedback and critique.

Looking back on it now their are many things I would do differently, and that is the benefit of hind sight, but it is an image that still brings a smile to my face.

This is also a topic I am looking to revisit, kinda. I like the pseudo cyber/goth punk girl riding a motorcycle, though the new painting has a radically different setting. I am also going back over this painting to both up rez it and fix many of the little issue with it that have bothered me for months.