Some New Warm-up Sketches...

Mucho Apologies for the lack of post. Tons of thanks to everyone who's reached out to make sure I'm 'okay'.  Also thanks to Karel Kelly who threw up an interview with me here. 

Started a new sketchbook.. probably no new lines I have to make, but sometimes a different size or colored sketchbook makes us *feel* as though there's a fresh start.   New possibilities. Some sense of hope.  Here's some more surreal Trout doodles.. ( or Twout as it's sometimes spelled).. 

My therapy is... usual escape into creativity and doodles... here's a spread from a Mars attack comic that's eventually coming out. A wistful post-martian-attack mom.. fits the mood I'm emerging from. 

You probably already know the drill we all go thru.  Defaulting to "hermit-crab" status... during the impending pre-thanksgiving- and pre-christmas-cluster.... 

....that makes some of us all plunge into various forms of our own private holiday regression. 

No excuses. Not seeking pity. Mostly lack of posts are because of whatever cyclothymic moods I'm trying to push my way through. The good news is... i've remerged and more or less back. 

Most of these are material from either Worlds sketchbooks 2 and 3, 

.....or Nola and Dana sketches. 

But you've probably already figured that out, from all the "Dana" and "Nola" scribbles. 

Plus various other weird little disintegrating faces here and there.... 

just quick most little warm up sketches.. 

Trying to ease back in. Hope everything's cool with all of you guys too - 

... I wish you all the BEST.... a Stress-Fress-Holiday ( whenever possible ). 

Take care,

Sam

Rough Hand Sketches and.... Oval Eyes?

Rushed today as an old artists friends are dropping by today, Alex Pardee of course i've known for years, and and a new guy, an artists Skinner who's work i've enjoyed for years, but never met in person yet.

Here's a few hands i doodled for the Second World's Art book, since I'm already compiling material for that one.

Here's a curious old wooden cup with a vintage Trout Ad on the side ~ this is just luck, but notice how at the bottom.. how the patterns on the wood swirl into the folds of the paper in the Trout ad?  Too weird.  I mean.. what are the odds of that happening? I didn't plan it, i just notice it afterwords.

I don't know why i got so got into crazy rendering this hand with a pen...  must have been in a  Way$hak mood.

Here's that curious effect where even with the same light on my drawing table, depending on how the camera catches the image, it either looks yellowy warm or colder blue. Not thebulb either.

Always a good idea to look at your own hand every once in a while and draw it. Course my vines aren't nearly this pronounced or visible. Or.... my last two fingers quite so distorted as these.

...and sometimes.. Grrrr ~ i just can't draw a hand at all.

So lemme try something else.

This will probably wind up being a nola drawing..

her face is really rough.. eyes totally simple so far.

wondering if i can pull of trying for keeping her simple oval eyes, but do a little shadow around the edges? Implying there's some skin folds those eyes are embedded in? 

but for now let's juts finish her hair. 

why not go for a dramatic swirl at the bottom? 

okay, now i wanna *avoid* darkening her hair, for a change. Least at the bottom... keep her lower hair and figure light and diffused.. 

only get detailed up by her face... 

or as detailed as i get on this one.. which is to say pretty damned simple. Pastels to wake me up a little. Breaks me of the color pencil-ink cycle i usually lapse into so often. 

some warmer skin tone shades, crimson, vermilion, 

maybe a little vandyke brown. some pale orange.. but not to much. 

mostly intuitive choices.. possibly mistaken ones. 

just seeing how they mix together. But outside of her eyebrows, nose and llips... i don't wanna get her too over-rendered.   

So, it's getting there. I think the colored pencil hair and red-ish top is a nice contrast to the thicker more oily pastels on her skin.  a little shadows around her oval eyes too.. 

kinda disturbing when you try to render Nola isn't it? 

Kinda funny how often we see these round hallow eyes... Little Orphan Annie, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbs.. i don't know why i'm so drawn to them. 

Sometimes people ask me why i gave Dana and Nola dot or oval eyes... sometimes i revert back to 'normal' ones in a panel or two... but it is something that just makes characters seem ... more lost? vulnerable? 

I remember one of the producers of the aborted Four Women movie ( back when there was one, which i was directing... a lifetime ago).. movie telling me how he never realized how much my round eyes made the cindy character's revenge against the rapists seem so much sympathetic, even than the other woman who had 'normal' eyes. 

What do you think? 

... is there something compelling about oval eyes?

Birds, Chickens, Foxes, and a weird little pink creature

Just a few odds and ends today... not taking today off, just enjoying the quiet as others do their fourth thing-ys.

The drawing (above) is a Junko... least i think it's a junko. Some sorta puffed-up kinda bird.  There's probably about sixty or so little animal illustrations i've done for my wife over the years... most  fans haven't seen 'em yet. Figure they can be spread through-out the three 'Worlds of Sam Kieth' art books, just to add some variety.

This one isn't me, i wish it was. Jon's in fire lately and kicking my ass, in a good way.
Dunno if any of you have been keeping up with the last 5 or 6 pages he's done on Chickens ... but he's pumped NEW LIFE back into it,

Above a sliver of a panel from my batch of my chicken contributions.

Jon's latest has re-inspired me to do another batch of nine pages in a row, following his Worth checking out if your into his/and/my stuff.  They way i plan to deal with Jon's fantastic hot streak is to pull against it. Where do worse art... but ... when his gets furious and detailed, i'll tried to go soft and muted. Course we're BOTH so all over the map by now and changing styles in nearly every  page, that any modulating to each other... is out the window.

But that's a good thing actually. It seems to have a momentum all it's own now, after the 6 month of flaking (mostly my fault).

Meanwhile, this little guy is something i threw into the hollows book. Chris Ryall asked to add a 'sam creature' into the story, so this is what came up with. It's a low rez scan, but i kinda like how hand drawn and soft leaded it looks..

While this book had some digital stuff, (mostly blackened panel borders... a few hand done washes i drop into backgrounds), but MOST of it is possibly the most 'organic' looking book I've done at IDW so far.

Here's a couple panels i'm finishing today, it's got this quirky scientist dude (who flies around with weird mechanical wings, (he's body's not finished yet, obviously)..  and another city tree above too. The whole thing just sorta grew naturally from things i liked to draw, even though it's Chris plot.

I need to get a cover for the first issue done this week.

This Fox above is also drawing done for my wife. I did it on recycled paper ages ago.. butI decided to to lose the brown texture in photoshop, but the white version has lost much of the subtly.

Can't decide which one should go in the art book though, any preferences?

Dana & Nola Update: YAY - I've also found a way to pump up the PRESSURE on myself to finish Nola: each week i'll do one page strip of it. They're deliberately drawn 'simple' for the most part ( panel on the left) .. but sometimes i'll go a little more detailed on some faces ( right panel)... it just depends. Nola is comedic telling Dana off she she's cartoony there, and Dana sighs in a more quasi-realistic panel. ( as realistic as i get)

Part of the hold up on finish this book was, some pages are wild off the wall painted and stylized, and others more nine grid less flashy 'story focused' pages. I couldn't decide which goes where, graphic as over 150 painted, stray-toaster style painted ones are DONE. Those were easiest to do. All i need to do left is the sedate traditional strip type pages, but i couldn't seem to finish any.

I realized a page each week, MOTIVATES me to pile up pages. It helps them come alive for me as characters too. I don't want you to have to wait a year to see who they are. Also it gets them lettered by Oni, so you can get to READ these two sisters story. And i'll throw the finished page up either on this blog, or a new one.

So it's on a (more or less) REGULAR schedule now.  Better than nothing huh? Give me a couple of weeks after San Diego to get them lettered and THEN thrown up to read,  okay?

What else? Chickens, up again. Dana-Nola? Back on track. Hollows, first issue is 98% done. Just fill in a few empty panels. Also, wrapping the last chapter of aliens this week too, so THAT will be done too.


This is off topic... but does  anybody else really into Junko Mizuno's Chibi drawings? I know she's been around a while, (i saw one of her books ages ago).. but i've rediscovered her lately.  Just love her stuff.

Go watch things 'Explode in the Sky' for me, because I'll be fast asleep by then.

Daily Thoughts as i Work...

Sorta had some... creative indigestion the last week and a half - butt looks like the ice is thawing. Thanks for everyone's patience.

Instead of the usual talking about what and how I paint, i though today I'd what thoughts pop into my head during my usual daily routine.

MORNING:

3:30 am ~ wake up, look at clock, still not 4 yet. Getting up earlier than 3 usually makes me feel like i was up all night. Why so early? Had insomnia for years, the two low budget movies I made cured it. Hauling my butt up at 4am, almost ALWAYS means my heat hits the pillow like a baby that night.

I dreamed something about a roof shingle.

3:46: Still not 4 yet. Try not to check my clock. Think of other stuff. Various deadlines, juggled in my head. Some late. Some not. Remember a painting i wanted to start this morning, using a roof shingle I  found while walking our dog yesterday. It's lying i my studio. Visualize what i might be able to look forward to today, and what i'm dreading finishing. Feel guilty about not posting on the blog.

3:54:am: ~ Lie in bed, watching the clock for the next six minutes, waiting for 4am so i can officially get up. Stupid because i'm awake anyway.  Decide not to beat myself up about being late on the blog.

4:00 am ~ Okay - NOW... i can get up!  Tip tow down the hall past the dog so i don't wake him up, slip into my studio and flips on the lights, since 'it's dark outside still. Love working mornings, no distractions and there's a peaceful quiet, perfect for whatever floats to the surface.

4:03 am ~ always save any really creative ideas for this time of day, later it goes, the less creative it usually gets. It took me three minutes to muse over this trivial idea. I see the Shingle in my studio, lying on the floor. Inspired. Determined to post on the blog today, with a new painting.

4:05 am ~ Breaking out the pens and brushes now.  I like the grainy texture on the shingle, decide to use it in a painting, see if i can match the colors/textures with paint and sand and pumice.

4:10 am ~  Several other jobs call to me, but i figure if i can get this Nola painting done in an hour,  won't feel too guilty. I decide the back of the shingle has this soft feathery texture, and it's MORE interesting than the shingle's top side. So i glue that front down to the canvas.

430 am ~ I mix up a combo of Acrylic, glue and detergent in a cup.. have to work fast before the glue dries.. kinda pointless because acrylic is like glue and hardens too, but i love the weird surreal textures glue makes, (esp. with bits of other debris trapped in it.)

4:45 am ~ Am having fun now.  decide to add a few different nola faces on this page, very random and raw looking, the dirtier the better.

5:01 am ~ More faces. Their all over the place now. I cut out and down a bit of bristol board now, and ink and color Nola's face right over the back of the shingle. My hand starts to itch a little, must be tired.

5:25 am ~ going past my deadline now to finish in an hour.. hand feels like splinters. - then it DAWNS on me what this weird texture on the back of the shingle is, it's Fiberglass!!!!! Holly crap. I rolled around in some of that as a kid, took forever to get the hundreds of glass splinters out of my skin - Yikes!

5:30 am ~ I quietly ( so as not to awake wife and dog) wash, soak actually, my hand on warm water, trying to work out the splinters on the kitchen sink, cursing my idiocy for not realizing it was fiberglass!

5:43 am ~ amazingly, my hand didn't get too many stickers on it, just the palm side. Back to the studio. Now what do i do? rip it out of the backboard i glued it on? I actually glued it onto the cover of one of my big brown sketchbooks, so it'll get all over my table every time i open it. Double crap!

5:50 am ~ Sneak the sketchbook out into the shed and use a hack saw (as QUIETLY as possible) to cut the sketchbook cover off the book itself. Lucky it comes off pretty easily. I think of what a weird funny little story this might make for the blog, but right now, it doesn't seem so funny.

6:00 am ~ already lost an hour on the fiberglas-hacksaw fiasco, I decide Screw IT, i'll just KEEP the shingle in the panting. Won't scan it for fear the glass fibers  might scratch the scanner surface. Just snap a photo of it, that'll do.

6:00 am, editors at DC are getting into work now by 9, or checking their emails/text. I get a few, one editor is happy with a short 5 pager I did. Still have not looked at the printed Batman Hatter book DC sent me a comp copy of. I cringe at any printed work i do. So there it sits.

I have an hour till my wife gets up at 7 and we start breakfast, get the dog up. Meanwhile, from 6-7 i get some pages done for various companies.. I think back on how many fans I inspire or disappoint, or both? Maybe both at the same time?  This idea cracks me up. I start a painting of nola's  mother and father, Nola's mother's tummy pregnant with Nola.

Seems a nice gentle thing to draw between vampires, super heros and zombies. Which are cool too. Both side of my brain enjoy feminine softy fuzzies, and little boy gross-out, power fantasy stuff.

I get four more pages done, finish the nola painting, pencil Nola's parents, and start a...

Tree painting for an upcoming IDW project. It's almost 7:00 am.

My wife opens the studio door and our little dog jumps on my lap. Thus ends my morning... and time for breakfast. After that i'll dig into these post comments and see what's up!