We interrupt our regularly-scheduled cover progress update with this piece I found on my backup drive. Unfortunately I’ve had to do a lot of running around today and haven’t yet put in too much time on that cover, so it’ll be a late night tonight in order to make up the time…

Tomorrow, back to the cover!

Here is day twos progress on this cover. This time I left the blue underdrawing, done on a separate layer (in MangStudio 5), to show why I haven’t completed the 3rd woman’s leg and hand– There’s going to be someone squatting down in front of her!

If you squint you can also see the difference between my layout and the finished drawing. An adjustment of an arm here, a tilt of a head there, li’l things that come up while looking for reference. I tend to “fudge” the main figure, because I like the looseness that you get when making it all up, then when it comes to the head and hands I look for reference to make sure that things are as accurate as possible. If I just draw off the top of my head, eyes tend to get too big out of proportion, or float if the head is turned or tilted.

Of course, now that I’ve said that, you’ll probably never look at one of my drawings the same way again…

Tomorrow, hopefully, will be the rest of the figures, then at least the start of the background!

I can’t believe this is number 36 already, but then again, it is the last day of Feb… Anywho, here is one of the characters from a book cover I am working on. It’s due by the end of the week and has a bunch of bits to it, so I think this week’s posts will be a series of process pics as I bring this one in for a landing– Let’s all hope it doesn’t skid off the runway and explode into a fiery ball of misery.

Today’s Sketch of the Day again comes from our Thursday night figure drawing sessions. This one, from a 20 minute pose, was probably my most successful sketch from the night…

In honor of what would have been his 73rd birthday, here is another sketch of my favorite Beatle, George Harrison.

And, here again is the one I did during “randomly felt like drawing British people” week.

Down to the wire on a couple deadlines so not much time for sketching just for fun, so today’s Sketch of the Day is from a recently-finished children’s book project.

For today’s Sketch of the Day, here is a piece I did when a Krysten Ritter fan page asked for submissions for a gift they were putting together for her on Valentine’s Day.

End of the month with deadlines fast approaching, so here’s a quick scan of a piece from last weeks figure drawing session!

…And final! I think, as far as an experiment in style goes, this one was pretty successful, even if it is not the greatest drawing you or I have ever seen. 95% or so brush (her face and belt were done with Microns) so the lines flowed (or flew, I guess) pretty well, and worked toward the goal of moving quickly and more confidently.

I think I am going to try and apply this approach a bit more on my next Perfect Storm project…

For today’s Sketch of the Day, here is part two of my Bruce Timm Batgirl sketch cover. As you can see I’ve tightened up the drawing a li’l, especially in the face, but overall it’s not too terribly different from my first pass rough.

Which brings to mind something I’ve noticed in my work- While my original intent was to draw in a more traditional superhero or illustration style, the more I draw the more I like working in this more simplified style. Simplified meaning less noodling linework, not lack of actual drawing ability. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, because you can hide a lot of sins under a bunch of cross-hatching. You need to have a much more confident line, because that one line you put down needs to convey everything about he form and structure of the figure, or whatever it is you are drawing.

So, my goal is to finish this with the minimum about of noodling in the inks. Wish me luck…