Illustration Friday - Messenger

There's a little Mercury in every phone I bet. How else would you send messages so quickly?

Illustration Friday - Round

It must feel weird walking around this park.

Illustration Friday - Silent

Hmfff, mffff mofurrr mummeee mee mi mwmem.

Illustration Friday - Scattered

Scattered marbles! Have you ever walked on or fallen on marbles before? They seem so beautiful until you experience such agony.

My favorite one is the sky blue one :)

Illustration Friday - Ferocious

I usually draw all kinds of adorable and cute critters going about their daily lives, but sometimes I draw more sinister looking artwork. This is an older picture I made this year that happens to fit this week's word quite well.

Samurai werewolf does not look pleased

Illustration Friday - Boundries

ANGRY PIG CAN'T GET TO THE FOOD!

And here are some pig sketches as well.

Illustration Friday - Mysterious

I was originally going to post this picture for IF's word "influence", yet with the east coast being hit by hurricane Irene I was out of power for a few days and couldn't even see at my drawing table to color this image. Luckily this week's word is just as good for my completed illustration.

The magician badger! Impressing his audiences with his mysterious illusions and tricks.

Illustration Friday - Swell

   Little Betty longed to see the towns and cities she heard so much about. Sadly, she lived out in the country with no way of transporting herself to where she desired. One day some relatives from the city came for a visit and brought various gifts along with them to share with Little Betty. They told her about the splendors in the city and showed her pictures of where they lived. Little Betty wished to see it in person one day.

  After her relatives left Little Betty looked over her gifts they had left with her. One of them was a package of bubblegum that touted about the amazingly large bubbles you could blow with their gum. That's when Little Debby had a striking idea. "I could fly to the city with this gum!", she told herself.

  The next day Little Betty pulled out her package of gum to start her adventure. She chewed a few pieces till they were out of flavor. Then she added some more to her mouth and kept chewing until she had a large enough wad of gum to create a massive bubble. Once Little Betty mustered up the courage and strength to begin her journey she began to blow her bubble. It first started out small and slowly began to swell in size. As she kept blowing she found that her feet were beginning to lift up from the ground. Eventually her feet left the ground completely and a gust of wind pushed her up and away. Thus started the bubblegum adventure of Little Betty.

Illustration Friday - Imperfect

My sister has really crazy, frizzy hair when light hits it.

Done with colored pencils

Portraits are really difficult for me to draw when using colored pencils, yet they create the softest values which makes me want to use them every time.

Illustration Friday - Obsession

I don't have a problem! I. . . I. . . I just like to draw!

I don't often use watercolors so I'm really poor with them. The more practice with them the more accustomed with them I'll become I suppose.

I recently started a second blog for comics I've drawn. The ones I'm posting now have to deal with my last job and all the experiences I acquired from it.

Illustration Friday - Gesture

 Gesture Jester likes to jest jestfully about gests while gesturing. Although he is at a loss for gests to jest about right now.

Illustration Friday - Stay

Oh, just sittin' here, stayin' on the stairs. Good times.

It's like one of those awkward photos when your estranged uncle gets a new camera and takes photos of everyone.

I'd like to also mention that coloring a picture while envisioning multiple light sources without a reference can be mentally draining. There's probably some errors due to this.

Edit: Pick of the week?! Delightful! Thank you for all the comments. :)

Illustration Friday - Midsummer Night

When I see the words "Midsummer Night" I think of the Shakespeare story named A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instead of illustrating a picture relating to a drama-filled love story where someone becomes a jackass, I decided a simple scenery based painting would be suitible.

This was done in Colors on my DSiXL

Illustration Friday - Launch

Penguinauts ready for launch! I get such a kick out of drawing penguins in space related themes for some reason.

Illustration Friday - Shadows

I learned to draw from books made during the 50's and 60's so a lot of my style tends to copy the popular themes from that time era. Because of this whenever I draw people in comical form they look like advertisements from the 50's or older Marvel comic books.

This sounds like such a tacky film.

Illustration Friday - Asleep

I had(technically still have) this story idea similar to Nemo in Dreamland, but I never really wrote the story out. What has sorta happened is I've doodled pictures of the story itself, somewhat like a picture book, and the idea has stuck with me that way. Anyhow, I used this IF's word of the week as an excuse to sketch the rabbit character from my story once again.

I don't think that's "earth." I didn't use a reference.

Illustration Friday - Safari

Lost. So lost. Out on the serengeti. What a horrible place to be lost in.

Ignore the shadows. I have no idea what I was thinking.

Illustration Friday - Beginner

When I first learned to ride a unicycle I fell down a LOT.

Illustration Friday - Bicycle

This picture is rushed, but that's what happens when you wait till the last day to make a picture for IF when you're busy working on other things.

Hipster cat on a bicycle! I'm absolutely horrible at getting the proportions on bikes correct.

Illustration Friday - Journey

Leave it to me to post my IF drawings on Thursday right before the new topic comes out.

Videogames never make a whole lot of sense when you can carry items. It just makes you wonder where on earth they happen to be holding everything. It's like if you've ever seen/watched any of the Silent Hill games. You can see the character on the screen at all times, yet you magically pull weapons and items out of nowhere. It's as if they have pockets that lead to other dimensions.

Illustration Friday - Duet

I was never very skilled at playing the piano, let alone trying to play a duet on one.

Ignore the backwards notes. It's out of tune.

Illustration Friday - Toy

When I was little my dad and I would build model airplanes to fly at the park. Although we never made one that could carry one off the ground. That would be frightening.

This is actually done in a style I don't normally use. The other day I made another picture using the same brush pens only outlining and found it to be a lot of fun. Not to mention it's a whole lot faster to work in this manner.

THE COLORS! THE COLORS! Oh, wait, dogs are color blind.

Illustration Friday - Cultivate

I remember when I was little I would ride my bike through the countryside past wheat and corn fields. It always smelled really good, excluding when I passed the pig farms.

Baby wheat!

Ilustration Friday - Stir

I had art block due to being ill so I didn't attempt or find anything for last Friday. I'm feeling better now though so I created a picture for this week's word, stir.

Mmm, vegetable soup!

 I read a lot of Beatrix Potter's books when I was little, so I've always found rabbits wearing dresses and aprons while cooking in the kitchen to be rather amusing.

Illustration Friday - Swarm

IF's word of the week is swarm. Most of the time I would think of bees, locusts, or bugs in general when it comes to that word. I wanted to be different though so I went with a swarm of fish - Actually a school of fish, but I don't care since swarm is a good word to use as an excuse to draw fishies. Butterfly fishies to be exact.

Illustration Friday - Layer

I haven't done the Illustration Friday thing in a while because I've been busy with being sick, working, and just being uninspired. Tonight though I got around to finishing something based on this week's word, layer.

Warm blankets are always nice. Coffee as well.

Ilustration Friday - Dusty

Dust bunnies are not to be taken lightly. They can cause sneezing, respiratory irritation, carry mold spores, and in some people may cause asthma attacks. Did I mention they also populate like, well, rabbits? Get that vacuum out and get to work!

As a side note, I'm working on my own personal website for building my port folio on and will be looking into contacting various greeting card and book publishers about doing freelance work. If any of you who read this are knowledgable in that form of work do you have any tips or perhaps know of some good places to contact about such work?

Beach Day

I've been trying watercolor painting lately. It's still a fairly alien medium to me. Having poor quality brushes probably doesn't help all too much either, but at least I'm trying and practicing more.

Kite on the Beach

I was studying some of Eugene Boudin's paintings when I sketched this picture out. It sat around for a long time until I finally decided to attempt painting it with acrylics. I would love to find a beach that actually looked like this. :)

Publish Post

Done on 9X12 vellum bristol board.

Illustration Friday - Chickens

This week's word is chicken, suggested by chickengirl. You should read her 2011 sketch comic book she's been working on. It's a lot of fun to see her comparison of living in two different places.

 When I was little I went out to the countryside a lot because my great grandma had an upholstry shop out there. I always really enjoyed driving by the fields of corn and wheat and seeing all the small farm houses. Although I never did see any chicken coops - plenty of pigs and cows though.

Illustration Friday - Resolutions

This week's word is resolutions, so I went with something abstract relating to people planning things to do in the new year.

Bueller?

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is such an awesome film. :)