Andrew's Sketchblog

Troll

2011-07-31T17:24:00.000-07:00

Oh man - is July over already? Things have been busy and I have not been keeping on schedule with my Face in the Frost illustrations, but just so I have something to show, here is a quick sketch of the troll from Chapter 2.

Panda

2011-06-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

A quick drawing of a panda I did while testing out some brushes.

Eowyn and the Nazgul

2011-05-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture I did for the latest ArtOrder challenge - the scene in The Lord Of The Rings where Eowyn confronts the Witch-King of Angmar. It's worth checking out the other takes here, there were a lot of really good interpretations.

The Face in the Frost

2011-05-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hello, Internet friends! Have you heard of the website Picture Book Report? On their site, a group of illustrators decided to illustrate scenes from their favorite books from childhood. They have closed down, but it is still worth looking through.

Anyway. seeing the site got me thinking about what book I would have chosen, and eventually I dug up an old favorite, "The Face in the Frost" by John Bellairs. Bellairs mostly wrote gothic horror stories for children; this was his attempt at a fantasy novel for adults.

Meanwhile, I have just recently finished taking another art class. As a final project, we had to produce a portfolio piece, so I decided to do some illustrations from "The Face in the Frost"

Long story short, here is the illustration for the first chapter. In it, two wizards, Prospero and Roger Bacon, are catching up after a long time and are discussing ominous portents and mysterious wizard business.

I still want to fiddle around with the colors a bit, but this is the general idea.

You can read more about the book at bellairsia.com. I have some ideas for some of the later chapters as well that I will hopefully get the chance to post here.

I'm Not Dead

2011-04-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello blog, it's been a while. I've been an unfortunate combination of unmotivated and busy with other things. But I have some hopefully interesting things I am finishing up I can share with you soon! In the meantime, here is a picture of what I would look like as a muppet.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention I did this as an activity for the website Apedogs - you can see the other entries here. I also forgot to use the word "muppemorphosis".

Bonus Spookiness!

2010-10-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple sketches I did while trying to come up with ideas for last week's Illustration Friday topic of "spooky":
More...

A spooky raven

A spooky raven and a spooky vulture have a "spook-off" to determine which bird is spookiest. (The winner, in a surprise upset, was owls.)

The ghost of Professor Von Spookington explains spooky action at a distance in a spooky haunted house full of mummies (I might have gotten carried away with the spookiness on this one.)

IF: Spooky

2010-10-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

This illustration is super late, and I still wish I had more time to work on it, but for once it's not because it was hard coming up with an idea, but because it was hard narrowing down my choices. Should I draw a spooky ghost? A spooky haunted house? Spooky action at a distance? It was hard to decide. Finally, I realized I should draw one of history's spookiest people: writer, poet, celebrity absinthe endorser, and international monkey detective Edgar Allan Poe.

The Punwich Horror

2010-10-12T12:47:00.001-07:00

Sorry, I had to get it out of my system.

Mi-go-a-go-go

2010-10-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the colored-in Mi-go from the last post. Unfortunately I didn't have as much time to work on it as I would have liked. But I did get a title with a horrible almost semi-pun, which is the important thing.

Indescribable Horrors And How To Describe Them

2010-10-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of drawin' weird monsters and there are no monsters weirder than those created by H.P. Lovecraft. So I was interested in participating in this challenge on the blog Art Order to draw a creature based on Lovecraft's writing.

More...

So far, I have this sketch of the Mi-go, the Fungi from Yuggoth, which Lovecraft describes as:

“They were pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membraneous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would ordinarily be.... As it was, nearly all the rumours had several points in common; averring that the creatures were a sort of huge, light-red crab with many pairs of legs and with two great bat-like wings in the middle of their back. They sometimes walked on all their legs, and sometimes on the hindmost pair only, using the others to convey large objects of indeterminate nature."

And here are some other sketches of Lovecraft creatures:

And one from the story, "The Color Out of Space"

Hey Kids, Puppets!

2010-10-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

The video I posted the other day of Jim Henson making puppets reminded me that a long time ago I made some puppets for an environmental education center where I once interned. I thought they might be worth putting up to share:

More...

IF: Old-fashioned

2010-09-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

Speaking of birthdays, here is a quick self-portrait for this week's Illustration Friday topic, which is "Old-fashioned." Dang, Illustration Friday, that was cold. You didn't have to rub it in!

Your Newest Favorite Superhero!

2010-09-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Today is Jim Henson's birthday, so I am posting this old drawing of one of my favorite muppets, Captain Vegetable.

Clip here.

(Other birthdays today include F. Scott Fitzgerald and also me, which I mention because it's a good sign for my secret plan to produce "The Great Muppet Gatsby")

Update: Jim Henson teaches you how to make puppets!

Important Things I Saw On The Internet, Part 2

2010-09-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

As you know, I always try and keep you informed of the latest videos of animals riding backwards on other animals, so when I saw this, I had to do a quick sketch.

Update: Related

Update to update: It's like a week later and I still have this song stuck in my head, so consider yourself warned.

Happy Anniversablog!

2010-09-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Wow, so one year ago I started this blog with this picture of Christopher Walken. In retrospect, it seems like a hilariously bad way to start a blog, but you have to start somewhere, I guess. Anyway, here's hoping next year will be even better!

IF: Immovable

2010-08-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

For Illustration Friday. Sometimes a creative block can be as immovable as a real one.

UPDATE: Edited to more accurately reflect my own personal creative block:

Important Things I Saw On The Internet, Part 1

2010-08-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, on the Internet...

A komodo dragon had a birthday party

A hyrax rode around on a tortoise

IF: Caged

2010-08-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Hi Illustration Friday, just a little drawing of a shark cage in honor of Shark Week.

RIP, Car

2010-08-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

I made this little drawing as a memorial to my old car, which broke down a few weeks ago. It's *sniff* in a better place now.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Free Movie Tickets

2010-08-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Did this little Scott Pilgrim fanart for a contest at Geekadelphia. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but it was fun to draw. Also, it won me free tickets to an advance screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World! The movie was pretty great, I definitely recommend it.

(Also recommended: Geekadelphia, for all your geeky-things-happening-in-Philadelphia-needs. Thanks guys!)

Escape From Illustration Island

2010-07-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of illustrator Thomas James' website, Escape From Illustration Island. Finally, a website that combines my interests in illustration and escaping from islands! It has great podcasts of interviews with illustrators and a ton of illustration resources.

Periodically, there is a "Share Your Illustration" thread, and I did this quick scribble of an image that always pops up in my head whenever I see the title.

IF: Ripple

2010-06-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Been a while. This week's Illustration Friday topic is a special one, the theme is "ripple" and it being tied in to a fundraiser started by illustrator Kelly Light to help with the Gulf Spill. Participants are donating sketchcards which you can purchase by giving $10 to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies or the International Bird Research Rescue Center.

More information and all the other cards are available here.

Here are mine - I got pretty depressed drawing oil-soaked birds and turtles, so I tried some more inspiring images, which somehow turned into a series of propaganda posters for birds:

The Hoopiest of Froods

2010-05-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Super late on this one, but I just learned that today (the 25th) was Towel Day to mark the passing of Douglas Adams and I whipped up this quick sketch.

Zero 2 Illo - Week 5

2010-05-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

I think we're on week six or seven already, but I finally got around to my next set of illustrations - things have still been a little hectic around here. And these are still pretty rough, but I thought I would put them up and hopefully get a little feedback.

Anyway, this first one is based on a folk tale called "How the Squirrel Became A Bat" Long story short, the sun gets caught on a branch, all the animals look for it, but the squirrel climbs the tallest tree, finds the sun, and chews off the branches holding the sun. In the process, his fur gets singed, the skin on his arms melts into wings, and he loses his eyesight. I think the moral was, "Never do any favors for the sun."

The second one is just another one of the things I draw when I can't think of anything else - wizards. So, uh, here is a wizard eating a sandwich.

Griffin

2010-05-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

I think I'm pretty much finished with this griffin picture, geez, finally

Benthic Bushido!

2010-05-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

Oh! And also, a few days ago, Warwick Johnson Cadwell drew this cool picture of a deep-sea-diving samurai duel and even though I have, like, fifty other things I need to be doing, I had to try drawing one as well.

I had him fighting a giant samurai crab, because it seemed appropriate.

The Latest Puffin-Related News

2010-05-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

I redid my first puffin piece, it is a little more stylized but hopefully not as stiff as some of my first attempts. I don't know if it's worth putting in a background, though.

Secondly, while I was working on my griffin piece, below, things got mixed up in my head, and I made a puffin-griffin.

Illustration 2

2010-05-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Still super-behind on my Zero2Illo challenges, I am reworking the puffin one based on some feedback I got, and here is the rough sketch for the second one.

If you slogged through my earlier post about the kinds of things I wanted to illustrate, then a) why did you do that, seriously, and b) you would have seen that I was thinking about focusing on editorial illustration. However, a few upcoming conferences have caused me to change my plan, I am going to try and get in a few more children's illustrations for my portfolio, and maybe one or two science illustrations if I get the time.

Thanks again for looking!

Sketchbook Science

2010-05-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

Another quick doodle based on this article about the artistic choices involved in producing the images from the Hubble Telescope

Zero 2 Illo - Week 4

2010-04-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Whew, had a rough week this week, plus I had a bad case of creative block and all of the ideas for illustrations I thought I would do suddenly seemed like they were either stupid or too hard to pull off. So I did what I usually do when I can't think of anything else to draw: I drew some birds.

Specifically, I drew a puffin.

It actually started out as this drawing, which I did about a year ago as something to possibly put on a business card. See, it's supposed to be clever because he caught art supplies instead of fish.

So then I drew this, adding a body and a little background (He did have feet at one point)

But it seemed pretty stiff, so I redrew it. I obviously have more work to do, but hopefully this will make a better composition.

Not So Much With The Science

2010-04-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

On a different subject, I am a fan of the webcomic Awesome Hospital and did this fanart of one of the characters, Dr. Space Baby.

More Science!

2010-04-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Viruses Harnessed to Split Water

Science Experiment

2010-04-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

Here is something I have been kicking around in my head lately: I try and keep up on science news, and every once in a while I see an article or headline that gives me an idea for an illustration.

Unfortunately, most of these ideas come in the form of goofy doodles that have nothing to do with the actual article. For example:

Ventriloquist Birds Call to Warn Friends and Enemies

and:

Moray Eels: The Most Cosmopolitan of Reef Fish, But Why?

Anyway, I had a couple of these, so I thought I might as well post them here to see what people thought of them.

Ink Wash

2010-04-15T17:12:00.001-07:00

Just experimenting with ink washes...

Too Much Information

2010-04-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

For the first week of the twelve week challenge I just joined (see previous post), we were given the seemingly innocuous question "what do you want to illustrate?" But it is a question I have struggle with a lot as I try and pin down my personal style. To try and answer it, I have kind of been thinking over where I was headed in the past and what that was pointing towards in the future.

(Like I said in the title, this kind of rambles on and is probably pretty boring for anyone who isn't me- feel free to skip it if you want.)

So, first of all, I had graduated from college with a degree in biology. I had started to take a few art classes for fun, and I had the vague idea I could combine the two interests by going into scientific or medical illustration. I was lucky enough to live near a college that offered a major in scientific illustration and I was able to take some of the classes they offered.

Here are some of the pictures I did:

I really enjoyed the classes and would still like to do this kind of work (although I abandoned medical illustration partly because I lacked some of the requisite classes and partly because, ew, cadavers). However, I was sort of struggling to find work and make it a full-time career.

While I was figuring this out, I met a woman who was working on a children's book. So I ended up illustrating a children's book, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. People seemed to enjoy seeing funny cartoon animals more than they enjoyed seeing, for example, a drawing of a spleen, so I headed in that direction for a while.

Here are some children's book illustrations:

Finally, most recently, I took an illustration class which focused on print illustration for newspapers and magazines and the like. It was a bit of a shift in subject matter, for instance, here is a series of illustrations for an article about a brother with schizophrenia who fell through the cracks of the health care system:

I really enjoy the process of coming up with ideas for these stories (finishing them is another matter of course), so for the 12-week challenge I think I am going to to try and push myself to do some more editorial-type illustrations do develop that section of my portfolio.

Whew! That was way longer than it needed to be. Thanks for bearing with me!

Act-together-gettening

2010-04-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

So, for a while now I guess I have thought of myself as an aspiring illustrator, with some vague notion of someday becoming an actual illustrator. But that would require getting my act together and actually accomplishing things, something I am notoriously bad at.

Recently, however, Jonathan Woodward of the blog Zero2Illo also decided to work towards becoming a full-time illustrator and put together a 12-week challenge designed to help him achieve this goal. He also invited others to take part, and already there is an impressive number of talented people joining him.

It's a little intimidating, but I am hoping to follow along.

(Thanks to Mr. Woodward for organizing this!)

Happy Little Puffin

2010-04-10T12:11:00.001-07:00

He really is.

Lizard with a Hand Grenade

2010-04-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Lizard with a hand grenade!

So easy...

2010-04-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

...even a caveman could draw it.

Ahem. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, this is another drawing using Artrage, which I am slowly getting the hang of.

The Valhaltese Falcon

2010-03-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

I think I heard that Viking Detectives was going to be the next zombies or vampires or vampires that were bitten by steampunk werewolves so they turn into zombie vampires or whatever, so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon while I still had the chance.

(Update: Hi Illustration Friday! I figured this fit the week's theme of "detective" pretty well.)

Frog with umbrella

2010-03-26T15:24:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of a frog with an umbrella because hey, why not.

Hey there

2010-03-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

Did you know I still have a blog? I don't blame you, I had kind of forgotten about it myself. But I am going to try and be better about posting more frequently. To start off, here is a little scribble I just did.

Valentine's

2010-02-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's another holiday in February. Huh. When did this happen?

Anyway, happy Valentine's day.

Oh my God, Charlie Darwin

2010-02-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, happy Darwin Day! It is Charles Darwin's 201st birthday today. To celebrate, here is a quick sketch of Darwin throwing a lizard into the ocean - for science!

IF: Wilderness

2010-01-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

A while back I downloaded the most recent release of the program ArtRage, a painting program which simulates using natural media. It is fun to play around with, but I'm not sure I've got the hang of it yet. Anyway, I drew some trees, which seemed to fit into this week's Illustration Friday theme.

IF: Confined

2010-01-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

My take on this week's Illustration Friday topic, "confined".

RESOLV'D

2010-01-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it only took a couple days for me to fail all my new years resolutions. But, here is a picture of a caveman riding a giraffe, so... I got that going for me.

Resolutions

2010-01-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

I would imagine a lot of blogs make resolutions to post more often around this time. Not me though- this year I'm resolving to fix my many personal problems. Once that's taken care of, however, I should have plenty of time to post silly doodles on the internet.

End-of-year sketchdump

2009-12-31T18:33:00.000-08:00

Just a couple sketches I never got around to posting. Have a safe and happy new year, everybody!

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-19T15:01:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays, everybody! Here's hoping the Holiday Yeti throws lots of presents through your window, as I understand is the custom.

IF: Hatch

2009-12-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

For this entry I drew a turtle with a hatch on it for some reason. Also, I did the shading using the technique of cross-hatching.

Thinking back, I may have been influenced by other entries of turtles hatching from eggs. I maybe should have stuck with something like that - this turned out pretty weird.

Another Dragon

2009-12-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

Oh, hey, speaking of dragons, here is another stupid little drawing I did a while back.

IF: Crunchy

2009-12-09T19:00:00.001-08:00

I had trouble thinking of a good illustration for this week's topic, "Crunchy", so I went with the provided quote: "Meddle not in the affairs of the dragon; for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup." - I figured it was a good excuse to draw a dragon, which is always fun.

Tofurkey Day!

2009-11-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! To celebrate, here is a picture of a turkey chasing some tiny pilgrims:

I suppose it could also be a giant turkey chasing some regular-sized pilgrims, but "Tiny Pilgrims" is funnier to say.

Enter the Hippodome!

2009-11-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I always try to keep up on the latest news about crocodiles fighting other animals (see, e.g. here and here), so this news story about a crocodile trying to climb over the backs of a herd of hippos was of particular interest to me, and inspired me to do a quick sketch. (SPOILER: It doesn't end well for the crocodile).

Anyway, I have been pretty busy lately, but I have a few more drawings I will hopefully have the chance to post soon.

(Via BoingBoing)

Giraffe? Giraffe!

2009-11-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, I was able to put the giraffe from a few Illustration Fridays ago in a more climate appropriate background.

IF: Blur

2009-11-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Quick digital sketch based on an old idea I had for a painting, this is entitled:

"Stupid cardinal won't sit still while I paint it (number 48 in a series)"

Ironically, this is one of the few pictures I've done digitally where I haven't used a blur filter.

Boo!

2009-10-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

Just in time for Halloween, here are two pictures.

Ghost clowns...

...and a vulture. Spooky!

IF: Frozen

2009-10-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, this one probably needs an explanation. I couldn't come up with a good idea to illustrate the topic, but I had a vague image of something frozen in a block of ice. So I thought, what is the funniest thing you could find frozen in a block of ice? Again, I drew a blank. So finally I thought, "draw a giraffe, giraffes are always funny" and called it a day.

Assorted Nonsense

2009-10-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more sketches:

TIME CACTUS!

A Moonotaur!

And an octopus eating a banana.

Robin

2009-10-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sketch of a robin.

More Flying

2009-10-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is last minute and it's not even finished, but I had to post this because I remembered the best quote about flying there is.

"There is an art" goes the quote. "or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

The quote is from Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams. The illustration is based on a scene from the book in which the protagonist, Arthur Dent, succeeds in missing the ground.

Sketchdump!

2009-10-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some sketches I scanned in recently. Enjoy!

Art By Committee

2009-10-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Another activity similar to Illustration Friday that I have been interested in participating in is "Art By Committee", hosted by James Gurney at his always-interesting and helpful blog, Gurney Journey. The idea is that we are given a random snippet of text from a science fiction novel to illustrate. Here is my entry:

If you can't read the text from the illustration it says:

"I became immediately and irrationally angry. How dare this six-foot chicken
with a silly red crest on top of his narrow foolish head say that we humans
were deficient in feii? I controlled"

I still don't know what feii is, but I felt I had to submit something, because I mean, giant space chicken. How can you refuse?

IF: Flying

2009-10-11T15:02:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! Have a busy week this week, but fortunately I have this quick little doodle that seemed to fit the topic.

Update: I have done another illustration here, based on the best quote about flying there is.

IF: Germ

2009-10-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

It's the germ of an idea, of course!

Yeah, sorry about that.

Scanner Update

2009-10-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

So, the issue with my scanner is, I need a new scanner. While I figure out what do about that, here is a picture of a bird with a beard.

(What is the deal with animals with beards? I guess it is another recurring theme.)

Old Sketches, pt. 3

2009-09-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

Apparently crocodiles fighting other animals is a recurring theme of mine - here are some sketches from another nature documentary of otters chasing off a crocodile. If I recall correctly, the otters were successful!

Old Sketches, ctd.

2009-09-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

So, the old sketches I did eventually led to this nonsense:

And his opponent, Sumonoceros!

I posted these on a board where someone suggested I add a kung-fu crocodile for balance. So I made this:

Old Sketches

2009-09-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

So while I resolve the issues with my scanner, here are some old sketches I did while watching a nature documentary about hippos and crocodiles.

IF: Infinite

2009-09-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

I wanted to come up with something profound and original for this week's IF topic, "Infinite", but I couldn't, so I just went with the old "infinite number of monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare".

Technical Difficulties

2009-09-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hmm, I had a whole pile of drawings I wanted to post, but my scanner doesn't seem to be cooperating. In the meantime, here is a picture of a bear with a beard.

IF: Welcome

2009-09-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason I started this blog was to participate in an activity called Illustration Friday - every Friday you are given the chance to make an illustration based on a word or topic. I was going to wait a little while until I had fixed up the blog a little more, but this Friday's topic was "welcome", which seemed like as much of an invitation as anything.

So here is Christopher Walken as The Continental, welcoming you to his home and offering you a glass of fine champagna.

And welcome to my blog!

Hello!

2009-09-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

Hello! Just testing to see if this works.