Illustration

04 Jan

Posted at 00:55h in Illustration
After viewing my last post, artist Robert Miller wrote me and asked:
What do you use to ink your art? These are cool rabbit illos!
I thought his question would make a good blog post, so here goes. Earlier this year I bought a Cintiq and started inking everything digitally (more on that below), but for many years I experimented with various inking methods on paper. Pen and Ink. I first learned how to ink by using a dip pen with Hunt 102 nibs and a bottle of good-old India Ink, and inked my drawings on smooth bristol board. This was back in the late 80's, before computers, when cartoonists were still using rubber cement and x-acto knives to create layouts, and inkers used white-out to fix their goofs. I used the Hunt pen tips for many years, and with them I was able to get a clean, cartoony line.

03 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Illustration

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I recently illustrated the new book Chasing Skinny Rabbits by John Trent. Here's a few of the final illustrations for the book. Each illustration required a different rabbit character, but they let me use the original rabbit design to add some humor to a chapter on marriage: Chasing Skinny Rabbits can be purchased here....

02 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Character Design, Illustration

A few months ago I was hired to do some spot illustrations for a new book for the Christian market entitled Chasing Skinny Rabbits, written by John Trent and published by Thomas Nelson. The concept is that, like a hunting dog chasing a scrawny rabbit, there are "skinny rabbits" in life that can lead Christians away from obeying God, until...

27 Dec

Posted at 00:00h in Illustration

One of the wonderful things about drawing is that it allows you to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a flat, two-dimensonal piece of paper. But pulling this off is not as easy as it looks. It is not uncommon for artists to struggle when attempting to create a convincing sense of depth (or "perspective") in a drawing....

29 Nov

Posted at 00:00h in Illustration

Thanks to the Drawn! blog, I've just learned that Wacom, Inc. is manufacturing a smaller, portable version of the Cintiq. To that I say "Yipee!", "Awesome!", and "Woo hoo!" Earlier this year my studio went all-digital. I traded in my traditional drawing board for a Cintiq, which lets me draw and paint directly onto the computer screen. It's greatly simplified my...