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

Be Mine

I hope you guys find yourselves snuggled up to whatever you love this Valentine's Day. Whether that be your beautiful bride, an Xbox 360, a plush Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or a box of tasty, delicious Thin Mints I don't care! Just snuggle up! :o)

This year I created a card for my wife and I thought I'd share with you guys the little illustrations I did for it. I've been toying with different methods of creation lately now that I've gotten the Cintiq. I'm trying new ways of rendering and styles I've not really worked in before. It was a fun experiment and it was tougher then I thought it was going to be. Going less is more can be more difficult then my painted, detailed approach I've found. I've really started to develop more respect for it over the last year.

Hope you and my wife like 'em! And Happy freakin' Valentine's Day!

- Ryan

Doodle, doodle, doodle...

Hey guys! I've been a doodlin' fool recently! I should of been throwing behind the last update's dwarf piece but I spent some time kicking around my sketchbook instead. It's still fun and productive! So all's not lost, right?!

The first couple sketchbook images are from a quick pose life drawing session we started at work and boy am I rusty! I haven't done this in several years and it really shows. I'm kinda ashamed of these but I like to post the bad with the good so I'm laying everything bare! Ha! It did get me in the mood to think about anatomy and posing a bit more then. And you'll see how the quick sketches affected the rest of my time doodling from my imagination through out the other images.

I spent the last year really trying to focus more on drawing and fearlessly getting ideas down on the paper. And with that goal in mind I'm quite proud of this last update because I feel I'm really starting to do that. No matter how messy and terrible things are I'm not getting myself hung up on renders and stuff as much. I'm just really trying to scrawl things out, move on to the next one and make it even better. Just use a sketchbook for what it should be! Sketching! Ha! It's been a meaningful exercise that I'm hoping will make my finished work even more stronger. 

My focus for this year? I'd like to continue on this path of sketching more and feeling more loose about my ideas up front. But this year I'd like to think more about the narrative elements in my drawings. I came across this quote recently...

"A drawing without a story can never be good, a drawing with a story can never wholly be bad." - Walt Stanchfield

...and I'm hoping to make it my mission statement of sorts. I'm hoping that I can create great designs as well as make them connect with the viewer in some way by creating a small story in each scribble. Hold me accountable to it! Then no matter how bad my drawing might be, it "can never wholly be bad." Haha!

So I hope you've enjoyed looking through my scraps! These are my favorite types of posts on other people's blogs. I'm not sure if everyone has the same fondness for this sort of mess that I do. Ha! But I hope so! See ya next time!

- Ryan

PS: The portrait of my on the 7th image was done by my lovely wife who hasn't drawn a thing in a few years! Not to shabby after all the time off, right?! Looking forward to more, Sarah! :o)

The Frozen Warrior WIP

Just wanted to drop quick update on this piece I started a while ago. I've worked on it off and on for a while now and it's finally starting to take shape. Painting is a painful process sometimes! Ha! But I'm determined to make this image as awesome as I can! I still have a few more nights to offer to the altar of this painting before it's complete. But I'm starting to like the direction it's moving now. Hope you guys are liking it as well!

Thanks for stopping in and seeing mah stuff! Sharpen your pencils, go forth and be awesome!

- Ryan

Sketchsplosion!

I'm running out of titles for these sketch dump posts! Haha! I told you I'd have a sketch dump by the end of the week and for once I've kept my word! Here are an assortment of recent doodles from iPad sketches to Cintiq Sketchbook Pro scribbles to ballpoint pen scratchings. We've got a bit of everything! 

I was, as usual, fascinated by dwarves and you'll find quite a bit of Hobbit inspired work in this update. (Loved the movie, by the way!) I also started reading Mice Templar and am enjoying it thus far (hence the rodent scribbles) and my wife and I watched the entire third season of "Downton" recently which brought about that quick sketch and awesome faced Mr. Carson.

I hope you guys enjoy these sketch dumps. I honestly enjoy posts like this much more then the finished work. There's just something fun, raw and through provoking about seeing the random bits and thoughts of an artist as they move through a sketchbook. The things captured in there never seem to be as awesome as the fully fleshed out work. But I digress. 

Thanks for stopping by and looking over my scraps! Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook and let me know what you think of my stuff or engage in ramble-y conversations with me! Ha! Take care!

- Ryan

Link and the Octorok

I know I said I'd stop back by when I had that mess of sketches scanned. But I haven't rustled up the energy to scan the pages just yet. I have something else instead though!

Tonight I was messing around in Manga Studio (I'm new to it as you can see by the image above) and gave inking one of my random scribbles a go. I've always heard great things about the inking tools and now that I have a Cintiq I wanted to explore them more. I've found them to be quite good! I rushed this a bit near the end but it was enough to at least get me familiar with it. I'm hoping I can figure out how the toning works as well. I'll need to watch some videos on that because I couldn't figure it out.

Anyway, I hope you like it! And I promise, this weekend, sketch dump time! Ha! Thanks for stopping in!

- Ryan

Von Kaiser - Punch Out

Just wanted to post a small update as we enter into the New Year! I have a several pages of sketches to post but haven't had the time to scan them all in. So for now you'll have to just enjoy this guy again! Sorry!

I spent some time tonight getting acquainted with my new Cintiq 24 HD. And what better way then to finish of paintings I started and abandoned?! Ha! I dug back into my Von Kaiser sketch and pushed him just a little bit further while getting a feel for the tablet monitor. I could think I could probably continue to push him even more but I think this is where I'll let this one rest. I'm pretty happy with how goofy he looks and I hope you guys like him!

How did I like my first night with the Cintiq? I loved it! I'm really excited for what this might mean for my digital work as the process just feels so much more natural to me then any of my time with a regular Wacom tablet. Since I have more control and confidence with my marks I find that I'm able to get an even tighter look when I'm developing the forms. I can't wait to see what this means for my future pieces as I continue to figure this sucker out.

So stay tuned and I'll try and get those sketches up before the week is over. May 2013 rock the crap outta your world! Take care.

- Ryan

Scribbles For The Holidays

Hey everyone!

Well, it appears the holidays are upon us! My family and I are heading out to St. Louis tomorrow to spend Christmas with my family but I wanted to try and get one more post in before hitting the old dusty trail. 

Nothing too spectacular but I'm unloading some of my recent scribbles from my sketchbook. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter some of these might seem old but there are bound to be some bits in there I haven't posted elsewhere. Also, I hope you guys like the roughness of these posts. I'm not trying to cover anything up. I mess around a lot and not everything looks as nice but I enjoy seeing the mess among the successes. :o) I hope you do too!

Hope you all have a safe and amazing holiday with your loved ones! Go forth and be awesome out there in the new year ahead! Ha!

- Ryan

Von Kaiser Sketch

Hey there blog faithful!

It's been nearly a month since my last update but I just wanted to let you know that I'm alive! We've had a lot of people visiting us in Chicago this last month or two and I've struggled to get back into a regular working rhythm with the kiddo. But I'm gonna keep pushin'! The weeks leading up to the holiday will surely be busy but I'll make sure to drop more art on your before the year ends. And you can always find out the latest goings on with me by liking me "Art of" page on Facebook for following me on Twitter.

I have some other stuff I could show but I figure I'll hold onto that for a more sizable update. Until then I hope you enjoy this random paint scribble I've been picking at! I've always been a huge Punch Out fan and I thought that one of the recent heads I drew in my sketchbook looked a like like Von Kaiser. I was looking for something random to pain and that's where this fella came in! I feel like I should probably get back to work on more important things but I still might pick at this guy a bit more over the next couple weeks. He's been a lot of fun to noodle around on.

Hope you guys are staying warm and enjoying the holiday season! Take care and keep being awesome!

- Ryan

Scribbles 'n Scratches

Hey guys! I've got lots of scraps for this update so I'll keep it brief starting out with this random old lady sketch. And her creeper dog too. ;o)

I missed self portrait day again last week since I was on the road to St. Louis, MO. I doodled a few portraits of myself and the one the lower right hand corner is by the talented Enrique Rivera.

During renders at work, where a lot of my scrawling happens, I managed a couple sketches of Link. Enrique, again, showed off his inking expertise with the one of the right. He always finds a way to make my craptastic sketches look awesome! I wish I was a fraction as good with a brush full of ink!

Random doodles. Kinda playing around with not caring as much about creating a rendered, fleshed out piece lately. Just kind of having fun jotting information down.

These next few I've debated sharing but I don't know what it hurts. Earlier this year I started writing a story that could perhaps be a graphic novel of sorts. I have a fair bit of work done on it but I've not really drawn much for it just yet. I took some time in recent weeks to doodle out the main character. I'd drawn him a ton but could never hit the design. The guy in the lower right is where I finally hit the nail on the head. Meet Aldric! At least I think his name will be Aldric. Ha!

I also have had these snippets in my head of pivotal scenes and landscapes. I took some time to scribble some of them out. Lots of work to do if I ever plan on seriously accomplishing this stuff.

And I figured I'd toss out another update on my dwarf image that I haven't touched in over a week. Ha! Still a long ways to go but he's definitely moving along! Hope you guys like how everything's turning out! Sorry for missing last week but I was out of town. I'll try not to make that a habit! Thanks for checking in! Go forth and continue being awesome!

- Ryan