Category Archives: Art Process

03/6/12

Megacon Recap

Just a couple weeks ago, a friend and I attended our first real comic convention. We loaded up the car and made the drive down to Orlando for Megacon.

I’m told that Megacon is pretty much the smallest of the big cons, and the largest of the small cons; either way it was huge to me and what an experience. So much to see and do.

We met up with several other friends while down there, one who was able to introduce us to a lot of cool people like the amazing artist, Brian Stelfreeze . We spent the first day of the con taking in the sites and riding the roller coaster that is nerd-dom. On day one I got to watch several artists get critiques on their work; something I had no intention of doing while on this trip but I learned so much just from watching others get crits, it seemed ridiculous to pass up such a great opportunity.

That said, on day 2, I mustered up the courage to show my work to a few super talented artists in the hopes of some useful feedback. I have to say, the responses I received were way more helpful and way more informative than I could have imagined.

My critique from Brian Stelfreeze was especially helpful. Whether he was born that way, or he picked it up over time, the man is an amazing teacher and has a great eye for his craft.

When I returned home I couldn’t wait to put what I learned to practice and so far its been going great. I’m still working hard ro produce as much as I can, as often as I can. Heres some of what I’ve been working on…

 

Heres to growth, and continued learning!

-Danno Out

10/29/11

Not all Princesses need saving (Late FNF)

I missed the last friday night frenzy due to overwhelming schedule (and a lot of playing Batman Arkham City.) Heres 2 pieces I’ve been working on.

Princess Zelda, with a little role reversal.

 

Batman and Catwoman: Monochromatic Prismacolor Pencil (Not finished, but I got bored so I probably wont finish it. )

 

Thanks for checkin in. Stay tuned for more.

-Danno Out!

10/14/11

Friday Night Frenzy

This week was a little out of the ordinary as far as art. I was lacking ideas so each of the pieces I’m posting tonight was in response to a different person/situation. As such, I shifted my style on all but the first 1. Some of me definitely shows through on each of them but they clearly are not my usual.

1: Tech guy (My own interpretation of a character designed by a friend)

 

2. Art Challenge to create a Goth character named “Jack-0-Lantern.” I wanted to make him awkward and creepy so I intentionally made him hunch and gave him a burned hand with which he can create fire, as well as a knife for “carving”. Unfinished background was going to be looking out a window onto rooftops, with sort of an art nouveau vibe. Kinda like in the next piece.

 

3. Along with that goth character there was supposed to be a goth lolita character named black cat, again I decided to go significantly more eastern in style since the concept was very eastern.

 

4. Modeled to match the disney princesses. My friends little girl told her that “princesses dont wear glasses” so someone suggested I draw her a picture of a princess with glasses. So I pulled up a picture of her in her easter dress and drew her as a fun princess with glasses.

 

5. This is for a challenge to merge both a classic movie monster and an anime character. I chose the alien from “This Island Earth” and Astroboy. I like how it came out.

 

Thats all she wrote! Check back theres sure to be more soon and I’ll see if I cant get some colored work posted.

-Danno Out!

 

09/30/11

Friday Night Frenzy

This was a long short week full of long days. Trying to catch up on life and in dong so I didn’t get as much drawing done as I normally do, but I feel the 2 I did complete are pretty strong. Since there are only 2 images this week I’ll go into a little more detail on each one.

 

1. Star Wars [Original Character]

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan. I enjoy them, but I dont hold them nearly as high as a lot of my friends do. A friend of mine was working on a picture of Asajj Ventress when I realized, “Ive never drawn anything Star Wars.”  Immediately I had the image in my head, I just had to figure out how to make it work. The base concept was a Sith (or Jedi) standing on a downed X-wing. As I worked it through, in my preliminary sketches I decided it might make the image more complete if the figure was interacting with someone.

When I realized just how big X-wings were I was a little disappointed that I couldnt fit as much in the image as I planned. Maybe in the final I will expand and add more of the ship. Main light-sources will be the burning x-wing and the light saber.

 

2. The Chemist (Original Character)

In the final of this piece expect to see writing in the foreground, like she is writing on one of those clear dry-erase boards.

I was reading various articles on the new DC launch such as this one by Michele Lee or this one by Laura Hudson. Both articles expressing a disappointment in the portrayal of females in comics books. Now we all know thats a battle thats been fought for ages, and while I don’t agree with EVERYTHING in the articles they make a lot of strong points that have brought me to some realizations of me own. For example I feel like the bust-size of women in illustration isn’t only a product of the male , but also a result of good ol’, run of the mill, everyday, laziness.

Seriously, draw a picture of a woman from the front without giving her large breasts. Now look at it, either you succumbed to the urge to increase the bust or theres a good chance it looks like  a man. When are a thing of beauty the world over, and when we try to portray the beauty we want to make sure its clear. “This is a woman.” But when we step back and take our time, there are more subtle ways to portray the female form. It’s late so I’m rambling. :P

Anyway, with all this in mind, I approached this piece aiming to do a slightly more realistic woman.

 

Tallahassee Drink and Draw is this weekend so hopefully some more good art will come out of that. Have a good weekend.

-Danno Out!

09/26/11

Old Hero, New Beginnings

With all the DC Reboot talk (Relaunching of a portion of the DC Universe consisting of 52 titles) a lot of people have been speculating over different ways they could have gone with the new looks for some of their flagship characters. It was a fun concept to me so I decided to do one of my own. Heres a pic of the new Superman the way I might have redesigned him, and the process that went into completing it.

First the planning stages…

Honestly there wasn’t TOO much thought that went into it but there was a very key element. Superman has a job to do, but he is also very much a symbol. I was thinking about this in relation to different armed forces and militaries and I thought, “They often have multiple uniforms.” When you see marines on posters or nn parade floats they wear one thing but when you see them “actually” in action they are dressed differently. As a symbol I thought perhaps Superman might use 2 different outfits 1 for battle, and 1 to enhance the majesty of the symbol.

So this was the first outfit I designed.

 

 

Though a little showy, this would be the one for combat. Hope you like! I appreciate all comments.

-Danno Out

09/23/11

Friday Night Frenzy

Another week already, wow. Heres what I put out this week.

1. Drink and Draw Monster (Obj. Teeth, Tentacles, and Horns)

 

2. Drink and Draw Gender Swap (Femme Thing)

 

3. Demona – Gargoyles (Done for an Art Jam)

 

4. Shiver (Character Design for my wife)

 

5. Shiver Logo (for the above character)

 

6. Zangief – Street Fighter  (Quick Portrait)

 

7. Dan – Street Fighter (Quick Portrait)

 

8. Viper – Street Fighter (Quick Portrait)

 

9. Rose – Street Fighter (Quick Portrait)

 

10. Tyrone ( Idea for shirts for fall frisbee season)

 

11. Superman Redesign (Done for a Deviant Art group)

 

Thats it for this week, some of that thanks to last Sundays Drink and Draw. Stay tuned.

-Danno Out!

09/18/11

Painting in the Red

In my last “Frenzy” 1 of the pieces I posted was line art of Red Sonja. In all honesty I dont know a whole lot about the character, but she just kinda popped up in 1 of my fanart binges.

Still trying to improve my digital color skills and find a style that goes well with the line line work I produce. I think this one came out fairly well so I’ll post a visual break down of the process that went into it.

 

 

 

And heres a better look at the final.

 

 

So yeah, I’m pleased and I think this look is a fairly strong progression of what I’ve been trying to do. I’m gonna have to start coloring more stuff this way and see how it works out. Stay tuned to see how it evolves.

-Danno Out!

09/16/11

Friday Night Frenzy

This weeks spoils…

1: My interpretation of Arya from Game of Thrones. I dont usually draw younger people. It was fun. Dont know if she looks younger or not but I was aiming  for 12-14ish.

 

2: Sakura from Street Fighter

 

3: Red Sonja

 

4: Project Ruin (Character Concept)

Thanks for tuning in. Lots of great things brewin around  in my brain right now. I’m excited to get them all down on paper so I can share.

-Danno Out!

09/13/11

Figure Study Update

I spend at least an hour a day doing figure drawing, and in the past month I’ve seen it really help to improve my art. When I first posted that I was doing it I believe I mentioned that I wasn’t going to flood my site with figure drawing sketches. Thats still true but I recently switched from doing it on 11×17 paper in pencil to 18×24 newsprint in charcoal pencil not HUGELY different but certianly different, here some of the work from this week.

(Note: I left the pencil on the page to kinda help see scale. Also, please forgive the low quality pictures as I used my phone.)

Warning Some Nudity

09/2/11

Friday Night Frenzy

Got plenty to show from this week. Theres a lil more variety this time around. Lets get started, first up…

 

Character sketch for project RFI (note she was intended to be riding on a golemn):

 

This was intended to be the afore mentioned Golem. He ended up much larger than originally intended. (Then for fun I started playing around with the idea of a “steam punk” golemn. I know everything is “steam punk” these days. It was fun, theres a lot more I could do with it though so we’ll see if another one doesn’t pop up at some point. Still playing with ink. really enjoying it:

 

Random attempt at a muscular guy. Dont draw them very often, just trying to stretch my capabilities. Not really pleased with the outcome, but hey its all part of progress!

 

Lil guy … nuff said.

 

Still doing my daily figure drawing and 1 of the poses that came up was similar to this one. It reminded me of some of the old Pin-up art by folks like Gil Elvgren or Alberto Vargas. (Of course there are tons of others like my favorite artist of today Adam Hughes) . So I ran with it:

 

 

Up next we’ve got a slew of Street Fighter portraits. I dont do portraits all to often, which is a shame because its quickly becoming one of my weakest areas. Thats why I put in a little practice tile doing quick portraits or already made characters ranging from 10-20 mins a piece.

 

Ken:

 

 

Chunli: (Edited in PS her right eye was buuuuusted, so I cloned the other real quick.)

 

 

Cammy:

 

 

Dhalsim: (pardon the quality. Lost the scan some how so I just took a picture with my phone.)

 

 

Blanka: (or as I like to call him in this picture. Blankgeta)

 

In fact blankas, resemblance to a Super Saiyan makes me wanna do all of the street fighter characters in the DBZ world.. … or maybe the other way around. Ideas to play around with, we’ll see what happens. Thanks for tuning in!

-Danno Out