More Lines
Haven’t done a recap from the last convention yet, but here’s some of what I’ve done since then. Thanks to great advice from Adam Hughes and Brian Stelfreeze, I’ve got some more direction.
Here’s the dump:
07/18/12
Category Archives: Uncategorized
06/17/12
Fathers day!
Wow! My first real Fathers Day has come and gone, and I gotta say it was pretty fantastic. My wife and 7 month old son made me feel so special today.
My wife made this super cute onesie for our son, incorporating my love of Spider-Man.
On an unrelated note, I’m headed to Heroes Con later this week and hopefully will have much to report.
Happy Fathers Day to all and to all a good night!
08/22/11
Branching Out
Wanted to play a little bit more with loosening up my style and setting more of an atmosphere with a piece so thats what I did this evening after I finished my daily figure drawing. I took pictures along the way so I can share the process.
(Side Note: Not sure why its stretching the images, its never done that to me before, but its 2am so they are staying that way for now. If you click on the images they will show at their correct dimensions.)
Started in my sketch book with a quick sketch:
Once I had a decent idea of where I was aiming I switched over to the Bristol board and resketched with more detail:
Usually I would ink next, but decided to do some shading first, the thought process being that I could be more efficient with my lines once I had a more solid idea of the lighting:
So after loosely shading with Copics I went back in and inked the lines:
Finally I went in and did the background:
And thats it!
I actually would have gone back through to do hi-lights but my paint brushes are in the bedroom and my wife is sleeping. I think it came out pretty well I already know some things I intend to do differently (like making sure I dont run out of my W3 
, using a wash for the background, planning the background a little more.)
Heres to effort and growth!
08/19/11
Friday Night Frenzy
Wow, a weeks gone by since my last post, but at least I made it back in time for the Friday Night Frenzy!
Heres what I was working on this week.
Lot of Assassins Creed fanart this week, suppose Im just excited for the new game and the beta that starts in just a few weeks.
First: Lucy HPA
Second: Desmond and Lucy back to back
Third: Random Assassin, not meant to be any specific character.
And besides all the assassin work, heres the next stage in the DC Universe image I posted last week. When its all done I’ll try to get all the stages posted in 1 post with a step by step.
Have a great weekend!
08/12/11
Friday Night Frenzy
Its friday and provided I can keep up the momentum this will be the first of many friday dumps. If it lasts I might give it a catchy title like… “Friday Night Frenzy”… or something, in the mean time, here are 3 projects I was working on this week.
First up a quick piece I threw together today. Playing with the Assassins Creed franchise, I did a few assassin character designs.
Next up a piece thats still in the early sketch stages. Ive got high hopes for it. It’s the busiest piece I’ve done in a while. Its a big DC battle scene.
Last up is a Lineart image of Catwoman at daybreak after a long night out on the town. Will color soon.
Everyone have a great weekend and stay tuned for more!
07/30/11
The importance of exercise
In anything you do, if you want to improve or even just maintain your current level, you have to exercise. The harder you work the bigger the pay off.
That said, in addition to the art I do for me, I’ve made it a point to spend a significant amount of time daily studying/drawing. People, animals, landscapes, right now mostly anything organic. I wont upload all those sketches that’d be a little overwhelming, and besides they are just practice but heres a sample of some of the figure drawing I’ve done lately.
Combination of 5-20 min sketches
Figure drawing is one of those things I feel you can never get enough of, but once you’re out of school, its hard to do. Some areas will have local art classes you can sign up for, and for others your only option may be hiring a model yourself (or with a group) or convincing someone close to be your model.
A friend of mine, a fellow artist, recently introduced this website to me. While the real thing is always preferable this is a wonderful tool for those who don’t have access to live models. It’s set up to help with timed figure drawing. Be sure to check it out!
07/19/11
Steamboat Marvel
During Disneys acquisition of Marvel, a myriad of amazing cross-over art hit the web. I did a few of my own, but other than that, I never really considered Marvel fanart.
Time passed, and I got some pretty positive response to my Steamboat Spider-man and Venom.
So I decided to play with the concept some more. Heres a few of the X-Men.
More on the way.
04/28/11
Getting Published!
So Capcom is a game company that has been around since I was very young, I grew up playing a lot of their games and I still play a lot of their games. One of there series that started when I was very young was Mega Man. Although Mega Man is a 3rd party video game character, many people would consider him one of the classic gaming icons, and you can expect to find him in any modern interpretation of gaming history.
Over the course of the years Capcom (in collaboration with Udon) has released a number of art books based around their different games, each containing game based art by a slew of amazing artists from all around the world. Their art books are always impressive. In recent years, they’ve started producing Tribute art books, by the fans and for the fans.
First there was a Street Fighter art book. I didn’t know about this book till after it was released but when I picked it up in our local book store, I was blown away by all the art inside. Clearly Capcom/Udon were on a quest to collect art from some of the top known artists as well as some of the top artists no one had ever heard of.
Soon after they did another tribute book for a less popular, but equally fun and creative game called Darkstalkers. I game I enjoyed in my youth and this time I was excited and ready to submit some art. I joined the masses and sent in several pieces I’d worked hard on, but to no avail. No small wonder, again, when I picked up the book in store I was blown away by the talent they’d found. I was disappointed, but excited for all those who had achieved their dream of seeing their art in print, along side some of the greats.
Earlier this year I found out they were opening up the doors for their next tribute art book. Mega Man.
As I said previously, I grew up playing Mega Man and felt it would be an honor if I could help to celebrate a character I’d devoted so much time to as a child, and still admired as an adult. I’d seen the first 2 tribute books and knew there would surely be more artists and more talent trying to earn their piece of nerd glory, but I was determined to give it everything I had.
I spent the following months thinking, sketching, drawing, and repeating the process. Amongst all the work I put in, I came to 5 completed pieces that I felt were worth submitting. I sent them all in, and then began the wait.
Due to some unfortunate snafu’s they were unable to announce the chosen when they intended. They asked us to wait patiently and keep our submissions under wraps until they could put our minds at ease. Days quickly turned to weeks. I found myself checking their website constantly and anxiously, hoping and waiting. Artists the world over fell silent with bated breath as 1 by 1 others began to give in. Every day I saw new Mega Man art posted online as others gave up hope and tried to end their anxiety.
Still I waited. Everyday I tried to remind myself to stay confident and patient. It was hard… but it was worth it. Well over a month later, after I’d given up on checking daily, I came home to an email that took me completely by surprise. I was one of the chosen.
And so now, as the book is being printed and prepped for its release at the 2011 Comic-Con (Jly 21-24), again I wait. This time, however, instead of waiting with anxiety and perhaps fear; I wait with joy and confidence.
I can’t post the image that made it into the book but here are some of the piece I did that weren’t selected.
Weight of the World
Night Attack
Weekend at Wilys
Mega Man Zero Art Nouveau
If anyone is interested in picking up a copy you can preorder it here.
Hardcover (There will also be a paperback for those who’d prefer to wait.)
Hard work pays off. Congratulations to all the artists who made it in and to all the artists who didn’t, keep it up. Their are so many gifted people out there I hope you get a chance to shine in the next Tribute.
-Danno Out
02/21/11
Inspiration vs Influence
Art is everywhere. Theres the obvious stream of media beamed into our homes through electronic devices as well as products such as furniture, clothing, cleaning products… anything produced has felt an artists touch. All of these things have the potential to influence or inspire. Artistic influence and inspiration dont have to come from other art but thats where my focus us today.
One of my biggest influences is Art Nouveau, particularly the line work. I like the strength of the lines that pop up often in this style whether in illustration, architecture, or elsewhere. There’s a certain flow through somewhat dramatic elements. I don’t often emulate the general subject matter you might find in pieces by art nouveau names like Alphonse Mucha, not so directly, but I strive to capture certain similarities in the feel of my lines. The other day I decided to step a little deeper into the style with a few pieces, some more than others.
Thanks to Uriel Reyes for the original photo. Amazing photographer. Beautiful portraits. Click to see more of his work.
Art Nouveau tends to play both the roll of inspiration and influence for me.
The problem comes when I stumble across pieces that inspire me, begging me to take from their pot, but I don’t feel they would be helpful in finding my voice. For example, the other day I stumbled across the art of Abigail Larson.
Sample (click the image to see more of her work, she’s quite talented.)
This was created by Abigail Larson. All credit to her.
I love the style of this piece. So much about it stands out to me and makes me want to create something similar but this isn’t where I truly want to go artistically with my own work.
There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, in fact I would say its encouraged for every artist and helps with growth; just that we toe a razors edge between where we find inspiration and where we find influence.
02/15/11
New websites
Ive been workin on a lot of projects lately, mostly web sites. The biggest of which has taken a LOT to get it going, but its finally live. Heres a photo taken from the last few days of tweaking it.
Seems excessive I realize, but trying to make something function on the maximum number of platforms and screensizes requires a lot of testing. There are 3 different generation and size Mac laptops there, as well as an Ipad, and the middle laptop is hooked to a wall mounted HDtv behind me.
After lots of careful scrutinizing and lots of hard work from me and the rest of the web department, the website is done and functions beautifully. www.shsweb.us . It’s only been live a few days so we are still keeping out eyes open for possible issues, but all seems to be running strong.
Stay tuned, soon I’ll be updating my web gallery. Removing the sites that no longer exist adding new ones, and fixing any broken links.