Woodless

I want to put all of my readers at ease and say that my surgery Monday was a complete success. Woohoo! I got a hernia repaired but I want to share with you all some of the weirder risks they told me about. Death, perforation of the bowel and/or organs, infection, and other such things are all negligible and routine in my book. Almost all surgical procedures carry those risks and these surgeons do this all day every day so they know what they're doing. However, my surgeon told me about 2 risks that I've never heard before. The first was nerve damage and just required pain medication for an extended period of time as it would not be permanent. The second was more exotic though, the loss of the use of a testicle. I didn't think that would be too bad but then the surgeon went on to say things like, "I'm obsessed with testicles." It's not everyday you hear a respected surgeon who is consummately straight say something like that so stifling my chuckle wasn't possible. Anyway, I've got the usual two treats here.

Loathing and Fear

Crocodile

The first is my attempt at recreating the poster I had in my room for the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As I type that I realize how typical that is, to have a fear and loathing poster. Let me assure you, my love for Hunter goes deeper. I remember doing this one very quickly with a woodless 8B pencil. Use an 8B or 9B sometime, it's like drawing with butter and is usually a new experience for pencil artists when compared to there 2Bs or HBs. I used a little bit of crayon on some of the lines to give a hint of color to it. The entire piece only took a few minutes and I think that's why it looks so chaotic and the lines so confident. The second piece is a sketch of a Crocodile. I felt like labeling it and simply writing "crocodile" didn't seem right. This was just pencil of varying hardnesses on my Strathmore 400 Series pad and is part of my attempt to draw lots of animals. I'll be posting again soon so keep your eyes peeled. I'm thinking about including a new type of post but we'll see. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

Who Would Pay That Much For Markers? I Would.

I thought I'd post a little review again just to keep things fresh. I had an great night last night and this weekend should prove to be pretty damn awesome as well. As I've informed you all I will be going in for some routine surgery this Monday and have to spend at least two days in the hospital but it could be more. So this is me continuing my burst of posts before a possible week of silence. Anyway, here is another one of those posts in which I review a product I use or have used. I previously reviewed Strathmore 400 Series Drawing Pads and Moleskine Notebooks. This time around I'm gonna tell you about my little collection of Prismacolor Double Ended Art Markers and how awesome they are to work with.

Prismacolor markers come in a huge array of colors of which I currently only own seven. I know, I know, not really a collection worthy bragging about but I don't have tons of money and so I tend to buy them one at a time. The lack of local art supply stores in my vicinity forces me to shop at Michael's but you can print out a 40% off coupon pretty consistently. Their regular price is $4.49 per marker. It's not much worse than Amazon's price and with the 40% off it becomes even cheaper than Amazon. Expensive? I think so. Worth it? I know so.

These markers come in a huge variety of colors but I think the best thing about them is the ability to mix colors on a palette. That's right, rub the marker on a plastic palette, I use a plastic plate, and use the colorless blender marker to lift the colors like you would with a paint brush. Mix them elsewhere on the plate and then simply draw. Cleaning the colorless blender is as simple as wiping it off on a paper towel. So even with only seven colors, I feel like I have more. But wait! There's more! These markers have fantastically vibrant ink. It'll bleed through drawing paper or sketch paper so I've been using them in a small watercolor pad where the paper is thicker. Oh, and did I mention they're double ended? One end is a fine point and is great for detail work while the other end is a chisel tip suitable for multiple tasks.

In short, these markers are the best I've used so far. If you use cheap markers, like I still do sometimes, that can be fine for practice but if you want to make something truly beautiful, use Prismacolor Double Ended Art Markers. They're pretty awesome. Now on to the bonus drawing.

Steampunk Flying Tugboat

BONUS SKETCH
I included this drawing for two reasons. First off, I think its pretty good. Secondly, I copied this picture from the same magazine I got the dragon from in my last review so it's not my concept. Copying from pictures in magazines and from photos is good practice. Drawing from life is much better but where am I ever going to see a flying tugboat or a dragon. Use the internet, magazines, pictures, TV, movies, comics, books, cards, anything. Just don't copy something and claim it's your own idea. It may be your hand that drew it but it's not your mind that came up with it. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

Links

Prismacolor Double Ended Art Markers

More Routine

Another day, another post. I'm totally not feeling well and chances are I won't feel well again for another two weeks. Hopefully I'll be getting drained before the weekend but if not I'll have to wait until Monday. I'm getting some routine surgery Monday and they'll have to drain me in order to perform it. Anyway, let's get right to the art. One more update, two more pieces.

Masks

Bat

Alright, so the first is my usual graphite and Sharpie Marker mix. I had gotten so used to the Sharpies and had so much fun with them. They don't smear and they have very little bleed out although they do bleed through. Unlike other markers I've used, Sharpies were cheap, permanent, and were great with regular smooth paper. They're not easy to work with and as far as markers go they're really not the best but they still provided what I needed, color. The second is a sketch of a bat. It's pretty self explanatory. A sketch of an animal to increase my creature design skills and dragons, a very common creature in fantasy art, has bat-like wings. I just used pencils for this. Anyway, that's it for this post. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?

No update in a while because I fell ill again. It's really not that big of a surprise as I am chronically ill and so these things crop up quite often. Today I'm feeling well enough to post so I'm doing just that. I'll try to keep posting as long as I feel well to make up for the time lost. Anyway, here's two sketches/pieces for your enjoyment.

Bleeding Jersey

Shark 2

The first is a simple red sharpie drawing of New Jersey (my home state) as if it were shaped by dripping blood. I love New Jersey and sometimes I imagine if I bled enough it would end up in this shape. My blood courses with New Jersey pride. The second is another sketch of a Shark and yet another in the long line of animal drawings I've done. I don't like this one as much as the other and I almost considered not uploading it. It was a fun sketch though and was probably one of my first animal drawings so I thought I should show it. It's done in pencil but that should be obvious.

I've got a buttload more pieces to share and finish a couple more every day. Stay with me and keep reading. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

Fun Weekend

Sorry all for the radio silence. It's been busy and pretty fun weekend for me. I had gotten my ascites drained on Thursday and went from around 210 to 172 in one day. It was a little more than a day until my innards settled but once they did I went out and had as much fun as possible. When my ascites build up I feel very sick, when it's drained I feel pretty normal. Needless to say I took advantage of it. So without further ado, here are the two drawings for this post.

Surfer 2

Shark

The first drawing is called Surfer 2 and is, surprise surprise, the second surfer drawing I did with crayons. As with the previous surfer drawing it's concept art for a game I designed awhile back. The second drawing, Shark, was another animal sketch I did in order to up the ante on my creature design. I find that drawing various animals in different orientations is extremely helpful when creating one of my own. Shark was done on my favorite paper, Strathmore 400 Series Drawing. Check out my review of the paper in my previous post. Anyway, that's all for today. I'm hungry and going to get a snack. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.