Castro Monday?!

So, today I drew Fidel Castro... No idea why, but I did. So that's him below. By the way, my personal opinion is that he's dead, and the Cuban Government is covering it up. Dude has to be dead, he's been sick and old for so long.




Don't know what else to say, so this is a short blog today?

Joker, possibly a painting?

First up, daily sketch. I've actually been drawing and redrawing this. I think I have three tiny sketches of this in my little sketchbook for work, if you look at the previous posts, then you can see an older rough of this:



So what do you think? Is the pose decent? Face decent? different angle? bigger teeth? smaller head? anything? I really want this to look nice, I've never really drawn or painted fanart before, so its important to me to have this look good. Joker has always been laughable to me because I never read how macabre and sadistic he is. To be honest I haven't read much Batman until a month back when I read Gotham by Gaslight and The Killing Joke. The new film really opened my eyes to appreciating Joker so much more. Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson just don't have the screen presence like Heath Ledger.


So, my brother is better. Thanks all of your for your kind words, they meant a lot to me. I guess his heart naturally went back into normal rhythm, it was the surgery that threw it into a-fib for awhile.
Let's see. I've been thinking about things to write about, and now I'm drawing a blank. Oh yes, I wanted to mention that I noticed a trend in my favorite comics. Some examples off the top of my head that I have been currently reading: New X-men, Young Avengers, Runaways, Blue Beetle, New Avengers, Scott Pilgrim. What's the thread between these? A: Children. I love it when young kids get super powers and have to deal with extreme situations. It was my dream to have a super power a kid, and I suppose I'm living that dream through these comics. B: I love team books. It's more bang for your buck. New Avengers made me want to have an comicgasm because it has Spider-man, Iron Fist, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, plus more. Holy shit what a line up, favorite characters all around, in one comic.

So, that's about it for the moment. I've been terribly busy and frustrated, so my daily sketching has minimalized for a little bit, but honestly I am trying to keep a decent update.

New Painting

I've been wanting to get back into my painting, so here's what I'm working on at the moment. I haven't done a traditional portrait in some time, we'll have to see how that works out:



Besides the painting, I've been pretty lazy this weekend. I wanted to work more on my comic, but I just can't get in the mood to do serious work.
This week I also have to see a financial aid adviser, to see if I can take Spanish. I'd love to take it from the college on top of what I am doing, but they might not let me because I already fulfilled my language requirements. We will see, once I know that, I can plan out my schedule a bit easier. I'd like to take Spanish and Health this quarter. Something interesting and something necessary. Taking a daily Spanish class would really help my learning curve, self study and once to twice a week private lessons isn't enough in my opinion. I'd like to accelerate at a faster rate, which means daily doses of Español. I never hear enough Spanish in the day. I watch Telemundo when I can, and I listen to a few Spanish radio shows, but that's just little bits, interaction would be preferred.

The seam at the crotch of my pants tore open at work today

Yeah, so my crotch tore open at work today. I had to borrow some OR scrubs and finish the last quarter of the day mismatched. I thought it was pretty funny, but I try to not take things too seriously.

So, I'm trying to get some sketches ready for potential paintings. I want to do the battle maiden, the knight and witch, and Joker. So in light of that, I have been working up the Knight and Witch illustration:


This is what Ive been doing in my tiny sketchbook. I like the positioning of the characters, but I hate the knight's face, and his hand looks like he's grabbing for some boob. I also need to find a cat reference photo, because I also obviously can't draw cats! Sorry, never owned one or paid enough attention.


and this is my idea for a painting. I was thinking it would be awesome to have crazed Joker staring off at us in a straight jacket. Another thing I can't draw is straight jackets. I haven't really seen one, so I need to find another reference for that.

What I need to do now is photocopy my tiny sketches onto bigger paper, and redraw them onto a new sheet and clean and detail them. a wallet sized sketchbook doesn't cut it for details.

I'll hopefully have comic come art up soon, all this drawing has been hopefully prepping me to draw some pages for the comic. I just felt I was rusty before taking on my comic. The (pseudo) daily sketches is helping a lot. Its getting me in rhythm, and more in practice.

Also, the spanish blog will be here soon as well. I'll probably write it up tomorrow. I'll also have a translation below, so those that don't speak the Español can still follow along, and those that do read the language can correct me!

A few daily sketches!

Okay, needed to make up for some missing days :D Actually, I was so tired this morning, I accidently left for work an hour and a half early! So I sat in the cafe, drawing and listening to podcasts.


A witch, I'm working on an idea for another painting of a witch and a templar knight.


Brother Diego :D


A girl


Lastly, this is very rough, but this is the idea for my painting of the knight and the witch. I'll need to work on this on a larger sheet of paper so I can work on details, and add much more. I think the background will be in a cometary. Very bizarre, I know.

Approved & Daily Sketch

First, the daily sketch. I was going to upload this yesterday but never got around to it, so today I added a bit more details to it at work.

I'm thinking of working this on a larger paper, flesh it out more, and painting it in acrylic. Its very Frazetta themed, so I'll probably start sorting through his works for a color scheme if I decide to take this to completion. One thing I need to do is give her more hips, and figure out a top, because I don't think Valkyrie Battle Maidens were just topless, though that would be a great distraction against male enemies.


Okay, now onto my excitement for the day. I was approved for financial aid, which means I will be attending college again in the Fall! I'll be taking Spanish in the mornings (on top of the private lessons I already do, I really want to be fully bilingual), and I'm on a waiting list to join Astronomy, which will be an online class. That will be ten credits, and I'm excited for both!
Oh, I'm also thinking I'll be starting a couple blog entries a week all in Spanish. I don't get to practice my Spanish as often as I'd like, but I post blogs at least 4 times a week (should be daily since I am doing "daily" sketches), so I could turn this into an exercise in language. Don't worry non Spanish speaking friends, I'll post in English as well. For those that do speak Spanish, please make suggestions, or point out my bad grammar!

Breaking Bad Habits in art

First off, my daily sketch. I did this in the early afternoon. Jean Grey, going for the original X-men costume. Decided to toss her hand out front, because I never play with cool foreshortening/perspective jazz like that. I'd say that was the only thing good about this quicky, I really need to work on longer, bigger, daily sketches... working on it.


As for me, I ended up getting really sick at work yesterday. I started sweating, I felt like my head was in a fog, headache, congestion, and a nasty runny nose. As soon as I was done with my first break, I had to ask to leave, it was getting gross. I was constantly blowing my nose or sniffling, yuck. I went home, took a shower, took some medicine and slept for about five hours. Later that night I was up for maybe four more hours, feeling still sick, I went back to bed.
This morning, I was still feeling pretty bad, called work to tell them I'm still not feeling well enough, and slept until noon.
I hate sleeping, I feel like I'm wasting time that I could be using on art, or doing something important. I also hate to call into work. I feel like I'm letting down my co-workers when I'm sick. Well, I only get sick a few times a year, and I'm getting over this one. A few hours ago, I started feeling less sniffly, less congested, but my head still feels like its in a fog. Hopefully it will be all better by tomorrow. Tomorrow I am supposed to be off work, but if I'm feeling better, I'll call to see if they need me.

As for my art, I feel like I am hitting a wall at times. I have a bunch of bad drawing habits from my youth that just need to be broken. I'm reading Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing, Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing For All Its Worth, and watching a Glenn Vilppu dvd, hoping to find some techniques to break my bad habits. This is really frustrating me right now, if anyone has any good art books to check out, please let me know! I sometimes feel like I am drawing with the wrong mindset, and there is an easier way, but I'm just forcing my work. I don't know. I think in part, I need to loosen up, work on bigger paper, try more dynamic poses, and be more comfortable with anatomy. Long winded blog, I'm just trying to vent and mentally sort out some thoughts here.