not really a vehicle lover so here’s a pimped out pixie instead for drawergeeks pimp your ride topic.

it’s the first cool day here in tampa! i’m finally starting to get into the fall spirit- still my favoritest of seasons despite not many color changes here in florida. there’s a crispness in the air, the humidity level lowers, and a ton of my favorite bands decide to release their new albums.

speaking of which, has everyone downloaded the new radiohead yet? you really don’t have an excuse since you can pay however much you want for it. i was listening to it on my way to work this morning and, despite it’s short audio length, think it’s a perfect album for this time of year.

one in color:

one in black and white:

miss cleo was the topic of this week’s drawergeeks. my cleopatra battles the evil xerxikes, invaders from the planet xerx.

yeah- i made that up. i have no idea where xerx is. or if there even is a xerx. or even if they are evil. if there are xerxikes somewhere out there and they are a peaceful race, i’d hate to start spreading rumors. so don’t listen to me!

new david crowder is out this week! i’ll be picking that up with the new athlete album that is also out. and maybe the new foo fighters. there’s also new iron and wine, jose gonzalez, eddie vedder, band of horses….

sigh. that time of year i guess…

jen and i will be seeing david crowder in november. with the awesome phil wickham. who i, by taking the time to link to him, just found out also has a new album out on tuesday. jeez!

for fist-a-cuffs’ arena-girl challenge:

her name is hannah. why hannah? because i asked jen what her name should be and she said, “hannah”. that’s creative processing at it’s finest, folks!

another break from pixies (those of you who are waiting, i will get back to them soon) to show my completely overt dean trippe inspired girl wonder for the stephanie brown meme said dean trippe started:

i hope to draw some more sketches of her, but we’ll see if time will afford me that opportunity. you can read about stephanie’s sad short career as the first female robin over here.

a brief break from pixies to draw a clown for drawergeeks.

like sarah, regular clowns kind of creep me out too. so this is my take on the topic which ended up being eerily similar to hers. creeeeepy still! but i do think some of the clowns from cirque du soleil are actually pretty cool. which is what i was kinda going for. for some reason i was also thinking of helena bonham carter while sketching this even though she looks nothing of the sort.

sure, they look harmless…

i’m going to draw pixies for a little while if everyone’s okay with that.

evil rotten rasputin was the topic of today’s drawergeeks.

apparently, as legend has it, ol’ raspi was nearly impossible to kill. after several assassination attempts on the guy (including being stabbed and strangled) his body was eventually found frozen in an icy river. he was found poisoned, shot four times and severely beaten. after all of this, the autopsy report showed that his cause of death was hypothermia.

of course, that’s just legend. but it does sound like raspi wasn’t a very popular russian (i mean- he was evil). maybe he just died of a broken heart?

all this week, project rooftop is showcasing costume re-designs of bart allen (aka: impulse; aka: kid flash; aka: the flash) in honor of mike wieringo who co-created the character with mark waid back in the 90’s. the tribute is strangely appropriate since just this month, in the last issue of flash, bart allen died suddenly and far too early. i choose to take on a redesign of bart’s initial impulse identity, since that’s when mike first drew him (and when i was reading him).

impulse was actually my favorite DC title and character back when waid and ramos (wikipedia links aplenty this post!) were working on it. he was just a twelve year old kid who lived up to his name with impulsive decisions and cartooned scenarios pictured in thought bubbles. and I really didn’t see any way to improve on that first costume either. but I did like the idea of how he was having trouble containing the speed force (the force that gives him his super speed powers) in his far too brief flash stint. so I tried to combine some of those things and make his costume somewhat of a containment suit for the speed force when he’s using his powers- LEST THEY DESTROY HIM! even if in my drawing it doesn’t look like the suit is doing a very good job of that. ;)

drawergeeks topic this week was hotdog stand. i owe jen for helping me come up with this idea:

bands i’m really into right now: bloc party! i still remember has been my catchy fun song of the summer. i’m so late catching on to this band and i have no idea why. their music is highly addictive. as is wolf parade’s! i’ll believe in anything has been stuck in my head for over a week now!

and at work this morning, someone brought in cupcakes with cow sprinkles. i didn’t even know they made cow sprinkles! they taste just like regular sprinkles but better because they are shaped like cows.

hooray for fridays!

last week, a couple of my friends were drawing mermaids. not wanting to be left out, i drew one too, and just got around to coloring her this morning.

not quite as unique or cool as their mermaids, and a bit too ariel looking, but at least now i can add “have drawn mermaid” to my resumè.

and joel carroll pointed me to this really sad news this morning as well… :(

i only knew mike from online- from his blog and forum chatting and whatnot. but from what i gathered, he was an extremely nice guy and an insanely talented artist. you could tell his love of art, and especially the comics medium, in every post and comment he wrote. the news of his passing comes as a shock and is a great loss to both the comics and internet communities. his family will be in my prayers.

this was for today’s drawergeeks. i couldn’t figure out how to draw henchmen without their boss so unfortunately mine came out more like they are burgling rather than uh… henching.

i wasn’t planning on doing anything this week. i just have so many other things going on and i didn’t really have a good henchman idea in mind. but then i just started scribbling and this sorta came out. and then i decided i should add some shading to the doodle but i didn’t really have time so i experimented with just using the dodge and burn tools (with very faint splotches of color). then i added some noise to everything because, why not? the result came out sorta… messy. i don’t think i’ll ever try this technique again. but you never know.

i don’t usually post the work i do for… well, work, but i kinda like the way this one came out.

i was assigned to draw the hookah smoking caterpillar for a drug course at the school i work at. other than that i pretty much had free reign to do what i want. if i ever had the opportunity to draw illustrations for an alice in wonderland book, i’d take it before the queen of hearts could yell, “off with her head!”

so, as i mentioned before, jen and i are the proud parents of a new wii. and one of our favorite games is rayman raving rabbids. it’s got to be one of the funniest designed games i’ve played in a long time. anyhoo, there are these bunnies in the game that crack me up and, since this week’s drawergeeks theme was ‘rabbit’, i couldn’t think of anything else to draw:

unfortunately, i’m all kind of busy right now and had to kinda rush through this one. so it doesn’t do justice to the bunnies at all. maybe i’ll have at them again when i have a little more free time on my hands. still, they were as fun to draw as they are to fight!

this was a commission drawing (yes- i’m taking commissions now) for jean grey. i decided to draw her as phoenix because i think that has to be one of the best superhero costume designs ever.

i saved a bunch of the stages of this as i was working on it. you can see some of my process behind the cut.

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this was a quicky for drawergeeks this coming friday. topic was aliens. not really sure where this idea came from though…..

and with that i’m off to new york! i’ll be attending the MoCCa art fest this weekend, june 23-24. i’ll have cow & buffalo books, some postcards, the very last handful of seed minis i had made and i’ll probably be doing some drawing there too. also really looking forward to visiting some old friends, some more recent virtual ones and maybe meet some new ones while i’m there too. should be a blast.

after that’s it’s off to massachusetts to meet up with even more friends! so i’m really looking forward to this vacation. so many projects have tired my brain.

be back next week!

so every so often i get a request to show how i go about coloring my illustrations. i don’t usually comply with the requests, however, because honestly my approach differs from drawing to drawing- and often depends on the drawing itself too. but with this latest sketch, i thought i’d give it a shot and see how well i could explain myself. a friend of mine commissioned me to draw a red songbird for a tattoo she’ll be getting and here’s what i came up with:

a bit more detailed then i originally intended, and to my fault as well since i discovered it’s going on her foot! so this won’t be the actual tattoo. i’ll draw that one another day. but to see how i developed this one, just click below:

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those evil step sisters! keeping poor cinderelli from going to the ball!

yup, drawergeeks topic this week was cinderella. i came up with mine rather hasty and also ran out of time to give it any exciting color. but maybe the drawing’s better for it? the inclusion of red was a last minute, late night decision too. looking at it with a fresh eye this morning, i’m not really sure how i feel it works now. but i am glad i found time to submit something! it was tough last time missing the indiana jones topic…

what am i excited about this weekend? seeing BRMC on sunday! wooo!!

yay! i did find some time to color that sketch last night!

it’s a quick coloring job, but still- better then none at all, right? okay, time to get back to important stuff…