Blue Moon Blog

I’ve been having trouble sleeping the last few days, which opened the door to another cold which has settled in my chest. Fun! This exquisite feeling reminded of these two pieces I did long ago, back when I had even more trouble with sleep. I was experimenting again with the Hunt crow quill a lot back then, and with weird textures. For both of these pieces I dipped my digits in ink for fingerprint effects I thought helped get the point across, either for a wrinkles on a weary and weathered face, or twinkly spots before tired eyes.

Get used to seeing plenty of these two faces the next several months…and one of them come next January for the next four years.

Done with clutch and woodless pencils, both with HB lead, then tweaked in Photoshop. Not a bad drawing, but a failure in that it doesn’t really look like the subject. Oh, well…next time! This could’ve been a good one for Valentine’s Day last week, but Picklehead and Olive would’ve been jealous.

I still attend the occasional comic book convention, but usually only the local Minnesota cons twice a year, in the Spring and Fall. I take the opportunity to do a few convention sketches. The Thing from The Fantastic Four was heavy on my mind at this time, apparently, and this sketch now hangs on the wall of a fan.

Twenty years ago in my early days of self publishing, I’d cart my brush and ink with me to all shows, and eventually found it cumbersome and messy. Within a few years I developed a process of doing color sketches on colored paper. Dark paper works best, at least a mid-tone. I begin with a thin black line drawing, beefing it up and adding shadows with a thicker black marker, then add the punch with color pencils and Bic Wite-out pen. The materials travel easy and are virtually no-mess. I can execute these quickly and still achieve a colorful image that pops.

In the Summer of ‘75, I hopped on my bike and followed my big brother, Karl and his friend Barry to the Gateway theater to see my first movie for “grown-ups”, Jaws. I was eleven, and couldn’t have been more excited to be allowed to see the movie that was the event of that summer. It was all the talk, with were rumors of gruesome moments and scenes that would scare you out of your seat. I wondered how I would hold up, and did jump at the porthole scene (who didn’t?), but loved the movie, and still do.

Jaws was a transitional moment in American movies, the first new blockbuster which weaved in scenes till then seen only in independent flicks. There’s so much to love in it, and at age eleven I was taken with the suspense, the shark (of course), and the antics of Shaw and Dreyfuss. But I’ve come to better appreciate the fine, everyman performance of Roy Scheider as Chief Brody, which holds the movie together and gives it its heart. That touching and funny scene where his kid mimics him is powerful because it pauses the spectacle for a moment to show the vulnerable side of the tough and craggy man when he says, “Give us a kiss.”

He was also great in a lesser known thriller with Ann Margaret, 52 Pick-up, based on an Elmore Leonard novel. And he displayed many more talents in the exuberant portrayal of dancer/choreographer, Bob Fosse (directing the semi-autobiographical film), All That Jazz, for which he earned an Oscar nomination. Both are worth checking out, as well as many other movies from his long and solid career.

He ad libbed that great line from Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Nice job, Roy.

Another stab at Mr. Clemens, this time with a rougher edge.

Another stab at a quick sketch with the Cintiq, this time of Mark Twain. I’m certainly getting more comfortable drawing on the screen, but am still experimenting with file size, various brushes and effects. Not there yet, for my liking, better getting closer.

I am continuing to use the Cintiq for coloring storyboard work, and am pleased I’ve already been able to get more of the look I achieve with markers. Plus, I’ve been doing layouts on screen for a variety of jobs and projects. I’m not sure it’s saving me time yet, but I can see it will in a short time.

I’ve got to read more Twain. I’ve really only read Huck and Tom Sawyer, but have always wanted to delve into his other novels and short stories. Dare I make the resolution to fit it in before the Winter is over here in Minnesota? I fear it would share the same fate as my goal to read Moby Dick last Winter. I got as far as “Call me Ishmael.”

Still, Twain’s got to be easier reading than Melville, right?

Another round of sketches, the old-fashioned way: with pencil in a sketchbook. Some are impressions of actors or characters I drew while watching TV, others are wholly out of my head.

Tried the Cintiq for another quick sketch, this time using the NagelSeries33-Pencil2 Photoshop brush. This brush is wider and darker than the one I used for my last sketch, and I worked a little smaller, too, which allowed me to retain more of the loose pencil look I’m after. I worked with a “Multiply” setting, at 100% flow, adjusting the opacity percentages as needed

You can see more of the pencil effect in this close up, and before I tweaked the color for something of a sepia tone. This is closer to how it looked to me on screen while I drew.

Old man wrinkles are always fun to draw. I guess it won’t be too long before I’ll be doing more of those in self portraits!

While on the phone with my brother last night, we got to talking about one of my early characters, Demon Boy. Inspired by Jack Kirby’s The Demon, and his Moon Boy, Devil Dinosaur’s pal, I threw in a little Mowgli from Jungle Book, and…voila! Instant Original Character! He’s almost thirty years old, but the little guy can still scare the skin off a pickle, as this quick Demon Boy Sketchcast I did during our phone chat will attest.