So I’m thinking about trying my hand at illustrating children’s books. I want to create my version of some classic fairy tales in an art nouveau influenced style. My style is already pretty heavily Nouveau influenced, but I want to push it a little further for this project.

I’d also like to accomplish a few other things with this project:
1. Have finished products that I could actually sell more than once.
2. Include under represented groups in my telling.*
3. Possibly even produce prints of individual pages for sale at shows?
4. In my more ambitious moments, I like the idea of telling fairy tales from under represented groups / regions. *

* - As a middle aged CIS white male, I won’t lie that this makes me nervous. I feel it’s EVERYONE’s job to lift others up, but I wonder at how such efforts will be received by the world at large. ie - how many times will I hear “Why didn’t you hire someone from those same groups to write or illustrate your book?!”

I'm very behind on my normal life blogging here, but I just wanted to point folks to my most recent Dragonbones post. Last night I wanted to get warmed up so I did some 5 minute portraits of some of the crew from True Blood. Check it out here: http://dragonbones.net/2012/06/12/true-blood-5-minute-portraits/ - and as always - I welcome all feedback.

So a while back, I did some 3 minute portraits for fun. I have an idea for a project / exercise that would have me doing a lot more of them. I love doing these partly because it appeals to my ADD nature by changing the subject matter (at least) every three minutes.

As I want to improve my portraiture skills as fast as I can during this exercise, I was thinking that I would start out with the most recognizable subjects. I also would like to get people involved with the project on some level right from the get-go.

So here we are.

Who among the public figures that you are familiar with, do you think has the most recognizable physical traits? Or put a bit more simply - who do you think I should start drawing first? Feel free to leave more than one response. :)

I've had the chat with many of you before about how I draw things. Well, today starts a new feature over on Dragonbones - Ask Me How to Draw!

I did a couple of marker renderings this afternoon for fun. Hope you enjoy them!

[2-16-2009 : edited to update thumbnails/links]

So anyone who knows anything about my web browsing habits has heard me talk about the ConceptArt.org forums. It's an amazing place chock full with some of the very best artists alive today. Thing is, that's not really what makes it amazing to me. What really makes it rawk is the willingness of a large number of those artists to be helpful and give constructive critiques to... well... to guys like me. They do this free of charge (so long as you show genuine effort) and are doing an amazing job of building a community of artists who bolster one another.

It's often a wonder to behold.

Okay, now that I've brought those of you who aren't familiar with the forums up to date, I would like to introduce one of the members. Phuzion has long been one of my personal favorites. I've probably not said more than a couple of words to him online, but there's a simple enough reason for that. I don't want to be 'that fanboi'. I make it a rule on the rare occasion that I get to meet someone that is reaaally talented to not say "Geee... ur work is like teh HAWESOME!". They get that all the time. I want it to mean something to  them. I want to show that I was paying attention. Problem is that when I see most of his work - even the 'sketchbook stuff' (note - some artistic images may NOT be safe for work), I'm really struck dumb. (As a side note: he's not the only one that this happens with on ConceptArt, which speaks volumes about the caliber of their artists.) All I can think to say is "Wow."

And like I said - I don't want to be that guy.

In a recent post (which regrettably you may not be able to see without the creation of an account) he talks about how he learned to draw like he does now. He talks of art school and a 90 page per week sketchbook schedule. This only becomes vaguely possible when you take into account that "3/4 of that had to be from life in the form of gestures". I don't know about you, but that still sounds like a shit-ton of drawing to me.

It's more like what I should be doing.

I would love to quote more of his post, but I'll wait until I have explicit permission to do so. In the meantime, go check out his gallery site, sign up for the forums and meet some of the other amazing artists, and just generally enjoy all the amazing art.

Just remember that's only the surface. It's artists like Phuzion that make it important.

Wow. Nothing like the last damn minute. I took an extra day off work to have a three day weekend. How was I productive in that time? Well... not in an art way. That's for sure. It's ok though - I've got a beautiful woman who's able to be in town for a change, and we had a lot of fun (and got to hang with kar0na to boot!) so I'm really not complaining.

But here I am... at just before midnight - when I have to be back at the office at the crack of ass o'clock tomorrow - trying to cram a long weekend's worth of art in before I go to bed. Uh huh.

I fixed the dragonbones.net crest that I did a while back. I hadn't realized that it was b0rked until I looked at it again this weekend. Can you tell what I changed? Here's the old version and the new version. 10 points if you see it.

Why fix it? Well, I wanted the crest to be a decent example of the sort of thing that I was trying to describe in my last post about custom crests. xtingu  pointed out that it was a little confusing what I am offering, so here's an attempt at a better description:

I want to offer custom crests as an option for my creative services. What could these custom crests be used for?

• tattoo flash
• corporate identity / logo
• website graphics
• other?

I want to make them fun and fresh, which (for me at least) leads me away from the old standards (pun intended of course). I want to add something of a modern feel to these things. An example might be tribal designs instead of ivy. Golf clubs instead of swords (ok - so that's a little bit sad, but you get the idea).

So what's next? Well, to those of you who've jumped to the call, please post a response here with a description of a crest with your wildest ideas. Go nuts and assume that nothing is impossible. That's not to say that I'm going to do them all to the exact specifications, but this is an experiment. One minor stipulation for this stage - black and white only. I will likely add the option for color later, but for now I'm working on black and white concepts.

Next up? The Little Warriors. Nope - I haven't forgotten about the little buggers. It's just tough to find more than a couple minutes in front of my PC. As some of you may note, I've made some adjustments to the Little Viking. I moved his shield and rolling pin to mimic those of the warrior behind him. I think that it adds a huge level of 'bond' between them. It now looks (to my eyes at least) as though the two are linked. I've also been doing a bit of work on the little one's face as I've been told he looked a little too Chucky to be cute. We're  getting there folks. Unfortunately, that will have to be it for tonight as I have to get some sleep for work tomorrow.

This seems like a really great idea. I'm posting about it more as a note to myself to check it out more later, but I thought that some of my artistic friends might appreciate knowing about it.

I've again been honored by a friend who deems what I do worthy of embedding in their flesh for all time. boutell went out and got inked. The concept and original roughs were designed by him alone, but he came to me for the finished design. He posted about it here, including some detail shots if you would like to see them.

My friends are likely to inflate my ego.

Looks good bro.

Hey kids - for those who are interested, the latest 1100 update is up. :)