A couple of new sketches: Self Portrait and Cutthroat Trout

The first one is a cartoon of myself. It was done with a Uniball gel pen. I love the way the ink flows onto the paper with these pens.
The second one, the Cutthroat Trout cartoon, was done with the gel pen also. Then it was colored with the computer using my Bamboo pad.

A self Portrait

An ink cartoon colored digitally

Cartoon: The She Creature of the Darkest Lagoon, How I did this.

I thought for this cartoon I would show and tell how the finished version was made. Maybe this would be of some interest. I just figure out a little bit at a time, but I am glad to share what I know with anyone that is interested.

First there was the sketch which was inked and cleaned up. Next I scanned it and worked on it with my digital pad. I don't have a fancy pad, but the one I have is pretty good. It is a 6"x9" Wacom Bamboo Pad. I am very happy with it.

With the digital pad, first I cleaned up the drawing some more using Gimp, which is a free program. Then I simply colored the drawing using Corel Painter Essentials 3 which came with my Bamboo pad.

That simple.

Just another word about Gimp. It is a great program that does a lot. For a long time this was the only image manipulation program I had. I used it mostly for resizing, rotating, cropping, colorizing and cleaning up my drawings. Oh, yeah and did I mention that it is free?

This is the sketch that was inked scanned and then cleaned up with the computer

This is the final product, but I could change something about it if I wanted to.

A doodle colored with my Wacom Bamboo Pad

I doodled this drawing with a gel pen and decided I liked it. So I scanned it and colored it with my Wacom Bamboo digital pad.
It must have got in my head because Easter is approaching.



Also, I am listening to Laura Veirs, who it turns out lives here in Portland now.





Here is a little political cartoon. I was thinking if I made a cartoon world what kind of animals would be politicians. :)

A cartoon about snails

Last summer I went to visit my brother in California. While I was there I noticed the snails. I had completely forgotten about the snails.

Sketching with a School G pen by Tachikawa

I got this pen for Christmas and it is a great one. At least for me it is. It's a School G pen by Tachikawa.
What fun! It is a fountain pen, it uses cartridges and has a flexible nib.
Here is a sketch I did the other day, just for the sake of drawing.

Christmas Again?

I can't believe it is Christmas again. It seems like only just a few weeks since the last one.
Anyway, here are a couple of Christmas rough ones. Maybe ideas for something in the future.

Found Picture at a Portland Thrift Store

A few years ago, when I could get around a little better, I used to volunteer at the William Temple House Thrift Store as a volunteer. It is a very worthy cause and while working there I talked to several people who were helped by the organization.

One day while folding clothes I found this picture. It is an old wallet size picture like from a photo booth. They said they couldn't sell it and that I could have it. I brought it home and hung it on the refrigerator along with some of our family photos. When someone asks, according to my mood I'll tell them it's my wife's sisters. Or maybe my sisters.

I don't know why I like this photo so much. Maybe because of the oddity or maybe because I was having a good time when I found it. Mostly I just wonder about the people in the photo.

Another pencil sketch

This one was done with a harder lead. I am putting it in a letter and I hope it won't smear so much...

Raccooon and Frog

Just a sketch from the other day. Plus this song that I was thinking of earlier. It takes a few seconds before you can hear it.
The name of this band is Mr. Loco. I am linking to Mr. Loco's MySpace page here.

Another pirate cartoon

Here is one I did for my own pleasure, as most of the ones I do lately are. It is just pencil on paper. I added the text with the free open source program Gimp.
AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!



Also, I found this version of "Turkish Song of the Damned" by The Pogues on Grooveshark. I love this song and I can picture this being sung in a darkend pub somewhere in pirate land. I know, I have linked to other streaming versiions of this song on this blog before.....