I’m posting super-late again, but at least it’s a real post and not some cobbled-together BS. Here’s a cartoony, but still very pissed-off Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher:
Less talking, more sleeping.
I sketched this up for Dustin last weekend during the Long Beach Comic Expo, inked it up when I got home, and colored it this week. And here I am posting in a reasonably timely manner, as promised:
I did my best to channel Alex Toth, Bruce Timm, and Derek Fridolfs when I drew this (please go to Derek’s DeviantArt page, look at his awesome black and white ink sketches, and give him some compliments–it makes him very uncomfortable). There are some other influences at work as well… the general leanness of form is from Neal Adams (whose influence I’ve discussed previously), and of course the crescent moon eyes are from Dick Sprang. I think there’s a little Jeff Matsuda in there too.
This started out as a pretty static sketch, but I’m trying to be more dynamic these days, so I consciously tried to move away from that. The big experiment for me on this one was spotting blacks heavily. I usually do all my lighting in the coloring stage because I’m uncomfortable with my ability to execute heavy inks. I feel okay about the result though–you can tell because I was actually willing to show you what the original lineart looked like.
(For those who care about such things–of course he has the yellow oval on his chest.)
Sometimes, like a jerk, I waste hours and hours playing Angry Birds, a game meant to be a casual distraction, which has instead become an obsessive… obsession. Other times (still like a jerk) I post a super-late blog. Here is such a blog post now:
On Friday night I was too tired to draw, so I went to bed with the intention of playing a few levels of Angry Birds and then going to sleep. Fast forward to: me staying up until 9:30am, when I finally went to sleep (cursing at myself all the while). Woke up a few hours later and headed to the Long Beach Comic Expo, where I hung out with Dustin and Peter Nguyen (they are not related!), and drew this. Peter was kind enough to lend me a pen so that I could ink it. I drew another piece too, which I came home and inked, and will be posted this week in a timely manner, unlike today’s sketch.
I’ve been in sort of a rut lately, in addition to being busy with assorted other things. It was very eye opening to me that I was able to go hang with some friends, and even on very little sleep, bust out two drawings very quickly. I guess even weirdo recluses such as myself need to occasionally leave our secret lairs and get a change of scenery.
(But seriously, Angry Birds is really fun.)
THIS GUY!
*gesturing to self*
Blog is painfully late, but will be posted tomorrow (Sunday).
Hey kids, look! A super simple drawing (which I had lying around) dressed up to appear to be a real blog post! But at least it’s super late as well!
I want you to know that I’m giving myself a judgemental look:
I’m powering up right now, which is my shifty and dishonest way of saying that today’s post is merely a preview of a real post. Started an iPad sketch that got a little too ambitious to complete with time in short supply, so here’s just a portion of it:
The entire complete sketch should come next week! Sorry I’m such a lazy slacker these days!
A late post, a multi-layered nerdy title, and another practice sketch from my iPad 2:
All is right in the universe. Or not, but what are ya gonna do?
Been a looong week (note extra O’s), so I’m about to give myself a little break and get started on my copy of Pokemon White. Before I go, here’s a little something I drew in Sketchbook Pro on my new iPad 2, with a capacitive stylus from Boxwave:
This is rather primitive, but it was fun to draw. I will be posting the progress of art that I produce on my iPad over the next few weeks and months, and I might even write up a super boring post detailing my thoughts on the device. But for now.. TEPIG, I CHOOSE YOU!
Have a good weekend, and please donate to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief in any way that you can. Here are a few ways:
– Text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10
– Dustin Nguyen art auction
– FansProject Blessser
Time is in short supply. Work on vaguely referred to stuff continues. Come back for a real post late Friday or early Saturday. Word is bond.
Heh… heheh…
Been a little busy, working on stuff not yet ready to share, and I found myself banging my head against the wall trying to figure something out. I figured it out though! Will share progress as soon as possible (which won’t necessarily be all that soon). Love, Me.
In a bit of a time crunch this week–here’s something I drew while the blog was on hiatus:
In the interest of full disclosure: the gun was loosely photo-traced for the sake of pseudo-accuracy–that’s not a technique that I typically employ. And for those who are interested in such things–it’s a Heckler and Koch UMP 45. And lastly, I will end this post with… an awkward sentence… thing… like so.
Today’s post features Scratch from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the cohort (and brother) of Grounder, who I posted a drawing of last week:
As I did with Grounder, I interpreted Scratch with more of a Super Robot feel. This time I was specifically going for a look that resembled the animal-themed Mavericks from Megaman X. I think the final result is a little more tough-looking, while (hopefully) maintaining the cartoony fun of the original.
More Sonic fun coming over the next couple of weeks… but not next week… in case you were wondering.
._.
For the sake of expediency, I spare you from excessive rambling, Dear Reader. The subject for today’s post is Grounder, one of the villains from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. I revised and elaborated upon his design as per my own sensibilities, with the intention of giving him more of a Super Robot look:
Enough! It is the weekend at last; go and be merry!
Crushing sinus pain + cumulative sleep deprivation. Post will be up late Friday night or early Saturday. So swears J.Ho!
I set up another Sculpey project for my niece and I, very similar to last year’s project. It’s not just the Year of the Rabbit, it’s the Year of the METAL Rabbit, so I chose a robotic rabbit as our subject. Here are the results:
The gold rabbit with the red eyes is mine, the silver one with the dark blue eyes is my niece’s, and the terra cotta one at the bottom is the prototype that I made while planning the project. If you’re curious about the process, please check out last year’s project (the process we used for this year was very similar). I would point out that my rabbit has extra “rivets” in the ears–I wasn’t sure how I felt about that (maybe it’s too busy?), so I didn’t have my niece add that to her sculpture. All in all, I think these turned out nicely!
One of my brothers-in-law observed that the rabbits have a Cylon-esque quality. However, knowing myself, if there’s any subconscious sci-fi influence at work here, it’s probably from the Daleks! For the record, if this post had been made a month later, the title would have been EASTERMINATE!!!
Today is Chinese New Year’s Eve, which means tomorrow is Chinese New Year, which means the Year of the Rabbit is nigh! Nigh, I tell you! Here’s a drawing to commemorate the occasion:
I crafted this piece to stand in contrast against the one I drew last year. And yes, her bling is a gold carrot pendant. Hey… carrot, karat! How clever am I? That wasn’t even on purpose! I am crushing it today!
Gong Xi Fa Cai, you nerds!
A whiiile back, my buddy Dylan (AKA Super-Munkyboy) had a contest on the He-Man.org fan-art forums–the goal was to create a new “big bad” for He-Man’s rogue’s gallery, and the prize was to have the newly created villain drawn by Dylan, Jazyl (AKA Two-Bad), and myself.
The contest actually ended in a tie, and one of the winners was Patreek, who I have previously drawn a fan character for. Here’s my interpretation of his character:
You can check out the thread here, and see the other prize drawings here. Art of the other winner will be posted soon!
Real quick like: For those who enjoyed the step-by-step walkthrough from the last post, I’ve compiled it into a single huge image file–you can get it on my DeviantArt account here.
But back to today’s post…
I yammered on forever in the last blog, so I think I’ll try to keep it brief today. It’s Red Claw from Batman: The Animated Series:
During a typically nerdy late night conversation, I was talking about B:TAS with Josh, and was reminded of this bad-ass villainess, so I decided to draw her. Sometimes it’s just that simple!
(EDIT, 01/20/2011: for those who are interested, I’ve compiled this step-by-step walkthrough into a single huge image file–you can get it on my DeviantArt account here)
I talk a decent amount about my artistic process on this blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever really given you, Dear Reader, an actual step-by-step glimpse at what my process looks like. So I thought today it would be nice to take a look at how a finished drawing by J.Ho comes together. Let’s get right into it…
STAGE ZERO: The assignment and the character.
The “assignment” in this case was not a blog post (although it has become, a blog post), but rather a cover illustration for a book. My old crony Charles produces an e-zine of speculative fiction called If-E-Zine (pronounced Iffy Zine). He was planning to compile some of his work into a book, and I offered my services for the cover.
The cover was to feature the e-zine’s mascot and sometimes ‘host,’ Iffy the Ifreet, a horn-mohawked, skull-faced demon, garbed in leather, chains and spikes (very metal). Charles has dressed as Iffy for Halloween a few times (link, link, link), but always with a slightly different appearance, so I was given free reign to come up with a unique character design, as long as I met the basic criteria.
STAGE ONE: Basic concept for character design, and rough thumbnail for pose.
At this stage I’m just loosely sketching Iffy, figuring out what he’s going to look like. Combining my favorite aspects of Charles’ past Iffy Halloween appearances, I’m able to decide on the proportions of Iffy’s face, and the configuration of his horns. I sketch him with a powerful build, and very quickly I stumble upon what will become Iffy’s pose for the final illustration–Iffy will be a menacing figure, stalking towards us, with a dangerous warhammer hefted over one shoulder, and a hand aglow with mystic fire.
I start working on some of the details of his costume and his weapon’s design, but before I get any further, I send what I have to Charles, to make sure he likes where it’s headed. He gives me the go ahead and I move forward…
STAGE TWO: Working out costume details.
A character like Iffy should have a costume that isn’t to symmetrical, but on the other hand, you want the elements to feel balanced so that no one area feels too busy or too bare. One of the changes I make here is to change the barbed wire to razor wire for a more streamlined visual read.
STAGE THREE: Rough cover layout.
Not much to see here–I just take the rough pose that I’ve come up with, and put it in a template matching the dimensions for the cover, so that I can figure out how the type will match up with the illustration.
STAGE FOUR: Color study.
Now I’m ready to start the actual drawing… but not really. I’m planning on a very particular backlit color scheme, and I feel the need to do a quick color study over the rough cover layout. This piece isn’t crazy-involved, but I want to make sure that what I’ve got in my head (in terms of layout, type placement, and color) will actually work out on paper. Once I’m satisfied with it, I clear it with Charles, and start drawing…
STAGE FIVE: Loose pencils.
This probably seems like a complex step, but once the costume details and pose are set, fleshing out the drawing is relatively straightforward. If you look carefully, you can see that I’m contemplating a flame pattern emblazoned on Iffy’s coat, but I’m not crazy about how it’s looking. Charles decides the flames on the coat are too busy, so the final version won’t have them.
When I’m inking my own work, it’s usually unnecessary to tighten the pencils further than this, so I leave it as is and move on to the final inks…
STAGE SIX: Type treatment + final line-art in layout.
When I finish the final inks, I scan them, clean them up in Photoshop, and place them in the rough cover layout. Charles wants a retro-horror-looking title font, so I research some, and hand-draw a treatment for the title. I place that in the rough cover layout as well, and now we’ve really got an idea of how the final piece is going to look.
STAGE SEVEN: Colors.
I might have mentioned never shut up about what a slow colorist I am, so for me, this step is particularly time consuming. Someday I’ll make a step-by-step post about my coloring process, which is a whole thing unto itself, but for now I’ll just give you the basics.
Usually I just start slopping some colors around to nail down my color choices. Once I’ve got that figured out, I clean everything up. To keep things flexible for revisions, I tend to keep like-colors in separate layers, and give lighting effects (like the green flame and green highlights) their own layer as well. Color-wise, the important thing with this piece is the dramatic lighting created by the backlight and the green flame, so that’s my focus as I bring this illustration to a close.
Charles is happy with what I’ve done, so that means the illustration is finished, and I just need to finalize the cover layout…
STAGE EIGHT (FINAL): The result.
Charles gives me a template for the cover, as well as all the pertinent copy for the front and back covers. I make a blown-up, faded, monochromatic version of Iffy to use as a design element for the back cover, and insert that, along with all the copy. Behold, the final result:
You would like to buy a copy, yes?
