Dark Treat Inktober 31

31st and last of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

Finished this in Winnipeg and scanned on my Mom's wee all-in-one, so apologies for the scan quality.

Have a great Halloween everyone!

Added a better scan now that I'm home in my studio.

Hangs a Tale Inktober 30

30th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.



I couldn't go as dark as the last one and eveything else felt off or trite after, so I went a little lighter even while drawing a devil. . . .

~R

Closure Inktober 29

29th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” plate 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

This one really fought back.  I actually finished a different version, but decided it didn't really deliver what I was seeing in my imagination.  The second attempt was going much better until a the dropper from an ink bottle was knocked across it.  Almost gave up and went with the lesser version, but scanned and saved what I could of the ruined version then printed it out in blue so I could ink it again.  I think it might be the most disturbing of the Inktober drawings I've done, so I guess that makes the trouble worthwhile.

~R

That Innsmouth Look Inktober 28

28th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

Witch's Heart Inktober 27

27th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

One More Nail Inktober 26

26th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

Figure this one is a huge fan of Clive Barker. . . . .

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

Respite Inktober 25

25th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

Acolyte Inktober 24

24th of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

PS - Just realised this is a bit of a call-back to a sketch I did back in 2007: http://burningmonster.blogspot.ca/2007/03/tentacular.html

Inktober 6 Colours

Added colour to the 6th Inktober drawing, Freshest.

~R

Satisfied Inktober 23

23rd of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

Now with added video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TQaLTmVhVg

~R

Once Bitten Inktober 22

22nd of the 31 Inktober drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

I uploaded a video of the drawing to youtube: http://youtu.be/2kl6wzetatY
~R

Unseen Inktober 21

21st  of the 31 Inktober  drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to the project; I’m limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5” vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol.

~R

Harvester Inktober 20

20th of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5.5 x 7.5" vellum 400 series Strathmore Bristol

~R

Aloft Inktober 19

19th of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.



Ink on 5.5 x7.5” extra heavy cold press Arches watercolour paper.
~R

Slaking Inktober 18

18th of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

Ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

~R

Unearthed Inktober 17

Seventeenth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

I shot a little video of my working on this with my web cam to try different settings out.  Once I edit it together, I'll share a link here.

Ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

Blades Inktober 16

Sixteenth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

I shot a little video of my working on this with my usual camera to try it out.  Once I play with the editing process a bit I might share the result of that.

Ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

Slither Inktober 15

Fifteenth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

I shot a little video of my working on this with my webcam to try it out.  Once I play with the editing process a bit I might share the result of that.

A little underwhelmed by the web cam's supposedly HD quality, but it was fun to put this together http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wHZgKcLGA

ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

Lover's Tongue Inktober 14

Fourteenth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.



ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.



~R

Queen Inktober 13

Thirteenth of 31 ink drawings for the month.

Of course I had to restart the thirteenth drawing after wrecking it while inking the spider.

ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

~R

Observers Inktober 12

Twelfth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

~R

Perch Inktober 11

Eleventh of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

~R

Harvest Inktober 10

Tenth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Fabriano watercolour paper.

Witch of the Inferno Inktober 9

Ninth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

Ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Was worried I wouldn't be up to doing one today as i spent most of the day fighting off a nasty migraine.  I'm still six behind, but it's still better than seven.

~R

Howl Inktober 8

Eighth of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.



ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Mourning the Vampire

Seventh of 31 ink drawings for the month. Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.



ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Freshest Inktober 6

Sixth of 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

~R

Gag Inktober 5

Inktober



Fifth of 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.



ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Spillage Inktober 4

Inktober

Fourth of 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Face Inktober 3

Inktober
Third of 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

~R

Tangled - Inktober 2

Inktober
Second of 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I’m going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I’ve a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7” hot press Arches watercolour paper.

Pumpkin Girl Inktober 1

Late to start Inktober, but I like the idea so much I'm going to try and catch up.

It's 31 ink drawings for the month.  Decided to add a few other elements to it; I'm going to try limiting myself to scrap paper from around the studio (I'm a significant amount of high quality papers of various sorts laying about) and everything has to have an October/Halloween feel to it.

ink on 5x7" hot press Arches watercolour paper.

~R

imagineNATIVE film festival

So, the imagineNATIVE film festival put up a video and its PDF catalogue which both contain my artwork and character designs.   It's certainly a cool thing to be a part of, but there was a good deal of work that went into this, much of it wouldn't be readily apparent from just seeing the end result.

I was approached by Terry Lau of Beehive Design on behalf of the imagineNATIVE board to design and illustrate three characters that would evoke the Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman trio as much as aboriginal Canadian culture.  Below is Terry's mock-up of the three covers as one image.

The first meeting covered the basics and I left with the direction to draw powwow superheroes.  The plan was to avoid clichéd native representations while utilizing real cultural imagery as much as possible. So, the result I went for was powwow costumes that would feel appropriate for Batman. Superman and Wonder Woman.

This turned out to be a dead end, but served well in helping the board get closer to what they really wanted.  Sometimes a client doesn't really know what they want until they see the result of what they ask for. The direction shifted from powwow heroics to characters clearly in the superhero mode.  Wonder Woman became Skywoman, Superman became Nanabush, and Batman became Raven.

So, we were making progress, but more revisions were made - -here are a few of them:

Which got us to the point on final versions in ink.

 

Then it was time to colour.

 Raven was too much of a silhouette and had to be redone from the inking.

We were mostly there by this point and it was time to do the background.

Being this close to the final triggered off another round of revisions and the initial layout/approach was put aside.

And Skywoman, which I approached as a Canadian flag with a touch of green, wasn't working, so:

Which didn't work either, but then it was decided the belts weren't working either. 

And we going to move everything toward this design:

Which entailed some new background drawings as well as some other small revisions along the way.  The number of revisions are typical of commercial work and Terry made everything flow seamlessly even as another assignment complicated the deadline. 

The festival starts on the 16th and I should be able to see all three covers printed then.  I'll update this entry with a pic of them as a group when I do.

~Richard