Summer School

As I sit here typing this I have one last final to take until I'm out for summer. Awesome, right? Well, my posting pace has been slowed a lot by school so maybe now I'll post more, right? Wrong. While I will rededicate myself to posting I'm afraid I signed up for classes during the summer semester. My first two art classes and the only comp sci class they offer that I need. I guess that means my personal art will take a back seat to art school assignments. However, I will try to post those assignments so this blog doesn't hit another dry spell. Here's some of the digital art in my final project for my Multimedia Design 2 class. They're both recent and look, I now have a signature. The first is the Pokemon Parasect from the original 150 and the second is a vulture. Anyways, thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

Parasect

Vulture

Long Time No Post

So I fell a little behind on posting. It's been about 5 days since I last posted and, well, I have an excuse. I think its a rather good excuse too. I got my computer fixed and my Wacom hooked up. I've spent the past few days getting used to the Wacom and let me tell you. It's soooo much fun. It's been a while since I've used Photoshop so it's been taking some getting used to. Each time I draw something I learn something. I can't wait to post some of my work. Anyway, here are two more ink drawings from Magic cards.

Troll

Cliffrunner Behemoth

New Scans And Good News

I just scanned in my last sketchbook. I don't mean the last one I'll ever do, I mean the last one I have previously completed. I spent a lot of that sketchbook practicing figures so not really much to upload from it. I'm happy to say that although I am practicing my figures and faces in my new sketchbook I am also breaking it up with some pretty sketches that I can upload. I also have a quick health update for everyone. I have officially been moved from the post surgery transplant clinic to the medicine transplant clinic. Basically, this means I'm doing much better. They've already removed the picc (peripherally inserted central catheter) line from my arm and talked about reducing my medication. Hopefully soon I'll be returning to normal life and get a job and go back to school. Alright, that's it for the health updates. Here are the sketches. The first is a Magic The Gathering card and the second is from a fantasy and scifi drawing game. Thank you for reading about my brainsplosion.

Hovermyr

Sushi's Revenge

Snow Day Special

My friends in warmer climates constantly say they wish that it snowed by them. I say fooey! While I love how the first moments of a snow fall are incredibly beautiful, snow is just a pain in the butt. Eventually it gets dirty and brown, you have to clean it off your car in the morning, driving conditions are usually terrible, and grumble grumble grumble. So I'm pretty much snowed in and might not be going out at all today. As a result, I am making this post. I'll even include an extra piece. That's right, three pieces today! Thank you for reading about my brainsplosion.

Robot Speedster

Horror

Dragon Turtle

I'm Alive But My Computer Isn't

I wanted to drop in and say that I'm still around. I feel pretty awesome at this time but something horrible happened! My computer is no more. I'll be setting up this old laptop so I can scan some more art in but my new wacom is kinda useless right now. Digital art is on hold. I'll be back to updating by the end of the week hopefully. Here's a bunch of art to make up for my absence. Actually, it's the rest of what I have uploaded. Enjoy. Thank you for reading about my brainsplosion.

Cartoon Cats

Heart

Robot

Robot Freddie Mercury

Screamer 4

Skull

Animals Inked

Bookshelf

Climber

Hay Bales In a Field

Hay Bales In a Field (Inked)

Coastal

Bone

Leaves 1

Leaves 2

Red Mask

Primitive Dock

Sea of Wheat

Treant

Treefolk

Warbles

Weasel

I Forgot To Title This Post

Well I've had some week how about you? My hernia surgery went off without a hitch. They gave me some oxycodone for the pain and then sent me home the next day. The pills had no effect until about 3 days later when the pain calmed more. By Saturday I was able to go to my friend's BBQ, Sunday I bought a bunch of Prismacolor markers on sale, and last night I went out to get some wings. Overall, I would call that a good week and I'm back to posting. Here's the usual 2 pieces.

Groovy

Elephant

The first drawing is of one of my favorite characters of all time, Earthworm Jim. Earthworm Jim, while a strangely difficult video game, was also a cartoon I watched as a kid. Just some pencil in a Canson sketch pad. The second drawing is obviously of an elephant. I still draw all types of animals in order to up my creature design skills. Lizards, fish, and winged animals are great references for dragons but hopefully I'll be drawing more creatures than just the standard dragon. This I used my very favorite pencil for sketching, an HB Derwent Graphic. The sketching pencil is a little too soft for my taste but reviews on pencils will be touched upon in one of my little reviews eventually. Hope you enjoyed my two pieces. Thanks for reading about my brainsplosion.

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.

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.

My First Strathmore and Moleskine

I never really paid attention to what paper I was drawing on until this past August when I decided to take a more deliberate and serious approach to my art. I was in the hospital and you can only watch so many movies and TV shows, play so many card games and board games, and sleep so many hours before you feel you're going to quietly die of boredom in your sleep. I had some ideas I wanted to put to paper and asked my parents for a notebook, a sketchpad, a pencil, and a pen. They came back with a Moleskine notebook and a Strathmore 400 Series 6"x8" drawing pad.

The Strathmore 400 Series drawing pad is great. Spiral bound so it lays flat and pages aren't easily removed. It's the perfect pad to take with you everywhere. Amazing with pencil drawings and India Ink. I've used it for markers (crayola because Prismacolor and Sharpie will bleed through), color pencils, and charcoal. I find that 6"x8" is a great size as it's not too small but small enough that it's portable. I also have pads of other sizes for less portable applications. I've bought other drawing pads and sketch books but the weight and texture of this paper is my favorite.

Now a quick note on the Molskine brand notebooks. Moleskine pads and books has several great aspects to them that make them worth their elevated price. They have usually have a built-in book mark, an elastic band attached to the cover that helps keep it closed, it always lays flat, and it has an expandable pocket that is useful for storing scraps of paper. I only possess a ruled notebook but I've seen and felt their watercolor paper and I have wanted one ever since then. I use Strathmore Windpower and 400 Series for my watercolor and mixed media works but the Moleskine watercolor paper seems a little heavier and smoother. I'll let you know more about it when I purchase my own.

Gesture Dragon

BONUS SKETCH
Did this from a picture in a magazine. I used a graphite stick and didn't erase. If you've never tried it, don't erase at all in a sketch or two. I find that it's a good exercise in building confidence.Thanks for reading about my Brainsplosion.

Links

Strathmore

Moleskine

Sharpie

Prismacolor 

Getting Into The Groove

I have two more pieces for all my readers out there just as promised. I've been determined to stay away from updating every day as I'm afraid my huge backlog will disappear and then I won't be able to keep up with the demands of this blog. I'm right on schedule with this post even though I was in the throws of medication side effects for the passed couple of days. I won't go into details but even though I've discontinued its use I'm still feeling its effects. Anyway, here are the two pieces I've promised.

Catch Yourself

Iguana

The first piece is a mixed media piece. I used pencil to sketch the hand and sharpie markers to color the blocks. This was around the same time I did Brainsplosion and a lot of the other pieces I'll be uploading. The second is a sketch of an iguana from a picture I found on the internet. This and the previous brown-headed skink sketch are from a series of animals I drew to try to get the hang of real animals in an attempt to bolster my own creature design. That's it for this post. I'll keep you all updated and hopefully no more medications or medical disasters will keep me down. Thanks for reading about my Brainsplosion.

Something Old and Something New

I've got a considerably large backlog of sketches. I've filled several sketchbooks and continue to do so. My plan is to share with you at least one old sketch and one new sketch each post. So here they are. First is something old, then something new.

Brainsplosion

Brown-headed Skink

The first piece, "Brainsplosion," was a pencil drawing that I colored with sharpie markers. I have quite a wide array of sharpie marker colors and a lot of my early color work is done with them. The second piece is a sketch of a brown-headed skink. It was from a picture I saw in an over sized book on reptiles from the clearance section of my local Borders. It's probably one of my favorite places to sketch. Thanks for reading about my Brainsplosion.