Portrait Contest

This is a quick sketch of Carolina, which was done for a portrait contest at one of my comic submission sites. I was pretty happy with the results, so I'm gonna post it. More cartoons (and big news) later.

-E

Digital Illustration from a gesture

I had mentioned last week how I really liked this gesture drawing, so I decided to take it into Photoshop for a little "refining." I'm pretty pleased with the resulting illustration as well. Everything you see here was produced digitally - including the gesture drawn straight into the computer from life. No traditional materials (pens, pencils or paper) used at all.

Enjoy, and Happy Weekend!

-Ed

A local cartoon - a national issue

We had a tragic accident occur in our neck of the woods last week. A small party boat carrying 14 people crashed into a tug on the Intra-coastal waterway killing five people on board, and injuring many others. My paper covered the incident with professionalism, tact and compassion for the survivors and the family's of those lost. But in many ways this was a doomed boat ride from the start, and several pictures popped up on Facebook pages showing some of the same people a week before (some on the very same boat) engaged in some of the very acts that may have caused the accident. The newspaper reported this, and the reporter and my editor walked into a full on shit-storm. Here's my editor's response to the situation. And here's this week's cartoon.

This cartoon speaks to a larger problem that is going on all over the Country. Quality news has been supplanted with "safe," homogenized reporting that is both a danger to democracy and also limits the ability of the public to "know." With all due sensitivity, this was a news story, and was reported as such. I feel fortunate to have an editor who still has his head screwed on straight and is not about to bow to advertisers and irate readers. News is news. We report it. That's our job.

Friday Cartoons!

I finished my final syndicate cartoon of the week this morning. Here it is. I knew I either wanted to do something on Dick Cheney's tortuous ways coming back to haunt him, or the Pakistan situation - which is basically the Pakistani Prime Minister and husband of former Prime Minister Bhutto, giving away a giant swath of his country to the Taliban in exchange for them laying down their weapons. Guess what? They didn't lay down their weapons, and are now within 60 miles of the capital and all of those juicy nukes. Asif Zardari, also known as Mr. Ten Percent because that's what he always took in kickbacks (no I'm not kidding) is running that country...into the ground. Kinda makes one miss the ruthless dictator Musharraf (well maybe not).

Figure Drawing Posts

Here's a few more drawings from last night. I'm not going to post everything, as I was feeling a bit "off" in class. Here's the highlights - a couple of gestures and a few 20 minute poses. Enjoy.


The model wanted to leave her shoes on (which was fine by me). She also brought her ballet slippers, and put those on for a couple of poses as well. This model has a very well defined (and small) upper torso. As a ballet dancer, the bulk of her power is centered in her hips, butt, and legs. She held this leg up (and still) for the duration of this 20 minute pose. Not an easy feat. For one pose she actually held a "toe stand" for 15 minutes. Ouch!

















I like this gesture.


Another gesture.

















A 20 minute pose.













And, one more 20 minute drawing (notice the "toe-stand?").

Developing a finished illustration

I wanted to post a bit of the process that goes into one of these drawings. First, I usually pick a drawing that I did in figure class - like this one. If I don't have time to add color (which is usually the case) I'll at least make a note as to where the heavier shading is with a series of small "X's."

Then I'll take this drawing into a program other than Photoshop for inking. I find Photoshop's brushes to be a little limited for inking. Here's the ink (vector).

Finally, I'll bring it back into Photoshop, build up some layers, and break out the crayons. The whole process takes about 2-4 hours depending on my work load for that day. Here's the finished drawing with color. I've got a few more drawings from last night's class that I will be posting shortly.

-E

Lots to post today

First I'll post an illustration that I sketched out a couple of days ago. We missed figure drawing class this week, so I decided to do some extra work on the wacom tablet.

I'm enjoying stylizing these figures in Photoshop. I'm also doing some interesting stuff with layers and blurs.

Speaking of figure drawing class; they had another one last night, which I attended, and I'll be posting some stuff from that class after lunch.

Enjoy.

-Ed

PS - To all of you "peeking in" on this blog, please be sure to leave me a quick note, or sign in at the bottom of this page as a follower. To all new followers of the blog - thank you - and welcome! Hope you're getting something out of it.

She's baaack...

The return of Astro Girl and her little friend.

Enjoy, and happy weekend!

:-)

She's...super sexy

I really enjoyed working on this one.

I read a really interesting article this week about the co-creator of Superman, Joe Shuster. Seems he was doing some racy Pulp Books on the side, complete with good ol' Clark and Lois participating in some S & M, spanking & various other sexually explicit activities. Soooo cool. So, in his honor, I came up with this extremely well-endowed & sexy Supergirl. Enjoy.

Tuesday syndicate cartoon

I'm blogging this in the middle of a thunderstorm. I know, not too bright. Anyway I wanted to get it in this morning, tomorrow being tax deadline and all, so here it is. I used a little more Photoshop/Layers than usual in this cartoon, but I think I like the results.

Enjoy, and let me hear from you!

Cheers,

Ed

Another Digital Sketch

Still messing around with my new Wacom Intuos4 Tablet. Guess it's about time to do some cartooning! In the meantime, enjoy this sketch that I completed this morning. If I haven't already said it a few hundred times, I'll say it again. THIS TABLET ROCKS!

Enjoy.

-Ed