Street Fighter Sketch Madness!!!

Sorry my friends for lack of posts lately. I've been incredibly busy working on multiple projects that, unfortunately, I can't share with all of you. So in place of the void (of finished paintings) I give you Street Fighter Sketch Madness!!! It's funny drew a picture of Dhalsim and posted it to Instagram and Facebook and firends started requesting characters. These took about 30 minute to create. I had a ton of fun re-imagining some of my favorite SF characters. Any suggestions for the next round of Sketches? Post 'em down below!

Massive Sketch Madness

Those who know me know that I love to draw! Besides my family, it's been the one great constant in my life. Ever since I can remember I have loved to draw! The first Sketch that I can recall really liking was one I did of He-Man when I was in kindergarten. I thought it was so cool that I could take a crayon put down some marks and be proud of what I was able to accomplish. Fast forward many years to the present and I still get the same satisfaction. I love to draw! It's a big part of who I am. Rarely will you find me without my drawing gear and something to draw on. I wish that I had some of those very first drawings from when I was a kid they would be great to see! I know that my mom still has a few I'll track them down for you to see. Anyways have a great day and keep on sketching!!!

Even More Sketch Madness!!!

What's up everyone!? Thought it was about time to post up some new sketches to the good old blog! If you follow me on Instagram or facebook you have probably already seen a few of these.

Sketching is a very important part of my creative process. It helps get the "artistic juices" flowing. Before I sit down to a project I spend a good amount of time drawing thumbnail sketches. These are tiny sketches no bigger than an inch or two. Sometimes I will have a pretty good idea of what I want to create but, I find it extremely helpful to sketch the characters in a variety of different poses and compositions. My friend Will Terry, often teaches that if your painting can not read at thumbnail size go back to the drawing board and fix it.

The nice thing about working at thumbnail size is that you aren't concerned with the minor details. It's more about value and shape and how they relate to each other. When drawing caricatures it's really helpful to work this way because you are focused on the simple shapes that make up the person. I feel that I can usually get a better likeness if I bust out several thumbnails of the person first.

Now I have to come clean with all of you... getting in the habit of drawing thumbnails was a pain in the you know what. Most, if not all, of my college professors and instructors will be the first to tell you that I was not the best at planing out my designs in the thumbnailing stage. A lot of time was wasted fixing compositional problems that could have been solved a lot earlier in the process.

I've included a few thumbnail sketches so that you can see kind of what I'm talking about. I created a scaled thumbnail grid in photoshop  and printed them in gray paper. Using an assortment of warm gray markers I can quickly block in my ideas. I still have a ton to learn and look forward to more an more thumbnail drawings!