Sketch Dump: Life Drawing, Pirates, Dragons 'n More!

I've been sitting on my sketches for the last month in the hopes that I'd actually do more. Sadly, I haven't had as much time but I feel like I've still been drawing a ton thanks to the sort of projects I've been taking on at work recently. There has been a lot more drawing and painting for me these days at work. It's been nice but I also don't seem to feel the urgency to create personal work when I'm getting my creative juices flowing at work.

Excuses and excuses! I need to try and do a better job of getting my nose down in my sketchbook and getting some work done. I hope you like this mess of sketches anyway. I think there are some fun things in here. I'm particularly drawn to the pirate scribbles as I've been considering a pirate themed story for the future. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of them!

There's a lot still that I'd like to say but I'll keep this post short for now. Thanks for looking and be sure to track me down on Twitter and Facebook! I love to hear from the people who take a gander at my stuff. Thanks again and I'll try and find my way back here soon!

- Ryan

Space Mutt

I haven't abandoned you guys! I've been busy at work recently and haven't been doing as much of my personal work. But a friend of mine gave me some of his Photoshop brushes and I thought I'd mess around with some of them a bit tonight. Hope you enjoy the sketch! I'll be back soon with a more substantial sketch update! So stay tuned!

- Ryan

Old Crow

Yesterday after work I took some time to try out a new brush I found within the massive collection I've acquired over the years. I seldom use different brushes but I thought this one was kinda fun and kept my painting style a bit looser then I usually work. Tonight I brought it home and pushed it just a bit further on the Cintiq. I'm still not used to working on this thing and really need to find a better balance to painting with it. I get really hasty when I use the Cintiq for some reason and stop thinking as much. It seems to effect my "eye" as well for some reason. It's very strange.

At any rate, I hope you guys like my Game of Thrones inspired scribble! No character in particular but I just imagine he's one of the many defending on The Wall. Looking forward to more of Season 3 and further entrenching myself into the audiobooks while painting away at work!

- Ryan

Spaceman

After I uploaded that mess of sketches last night I got the itch to slap some paint on one of the portrait doodles. After a couple hours of messing around this fancy space guy happened!

I find that I'm more likely to do little impromptu painting sessions now that I have my new Cintiq. For some reason it just feels so much easier to jump into something and quickly get down something that looks pretty nice. I just have a tough time knowing when to stop!

At any rate, I hope you guys like him! Until next time... see ya on the interwebz!

- Ryan

Scraps

Well, I promised a spread of sketchbook doodles and I hope you'll find that I delivered. Ha! Lots of randomness the last couple weeks in between the work I've been doing for my day job. You'll find a bit of gestural figure drawing in there too. 

I always feel like these posts are all over the place but that's what a sketchbook is supposed to be, right? Ha! I hope you find something to enjoy in my madness. Take care and thanks for stopping by!

- Ryan

The Last Airbender and Totoro

Hey everyone! Welcome to March! Hope this update finds you all doing well. I'm still amassing a nice sketch dump for you guys but I wanted to show you more of my watercolor paintings I've done lately.

I dove in after my Merchant painting to try my hand at a Totoro image. If I'm honest, Miyazaki's watercolors are what drew me to the thought of trying this in the first place. His paintings are so simple and yet they inform the viewer of so much.

After exploring Totoro I tried my hand at drawing our favorite airbender from "Avatar!" This was a really fun image from and from the start of the thumbnail I thought I had something special. I might even do a few more of just Appa alone since he was so freaking fun to draw. 

I'm still really enjoying the process and I'm finding that I'm starting to get better at painting more loosely. It's a really freeing process compared to the way I paint digitally and I love the energy you can capture in the results. I hope you guys like them too!

If you're interested I've posted both of these paintings up for sale over at my shop as well! Click here if you'd like to jump over to my online shop and purchase one of them.

That's all I've got to unload for now! Go forth and be awesome!

- Ryan

The Merchant

A friend of mine, Mandy Napper, did a watercolor demo at work this week and I've been wanting to mess around with it for a long time as a means to add something fresh to the ol' sketchbook. I really love the quick, washy quality it gives you. And some color as you flip through that mess of sketches is always welcome.

The last image of the plant was a painting I did over one of her drawings. Then last night I took a bit of time to quickly try my hand and doing one from scratch myself. I seriously had a blast! I can't wait to do a few more of these little guys. They're really a lot of fun to do. And after it dried I went back in with some colored pencils to really pop it in some areas.

I put this one up on in my shop for sale if anyone is interested! Click here to see the listing!

Hopefully I'll have a few more of these for the next update as well! Thanks for stopping in!

- Ryan