I just pulled out Sketchbook Pro on my iPad and started doodling with a stylus. My current strategy is to just keep layering and reducing opacity on each previous layer as I go. I haven’t gotten into playing much with the brushes or colors so it’s all pretty simple.

Stage 1:

Stage 2:

Stage 3:

So yesterday, I (sort of) randomly drew a portrait for my daily doodle. I showed my wife and she was like, “Why didn’t you draw a picture of me or Ilya?” and I was like, “yeah… uh… I already thought of that. That’s what I’m drawing tomorrow.” So today, here’s a sketch of my wife. Beware that it’s a bit rough and the mouth and eyes didn’t turn out like I wanted. I’m going to ease off portraits for a while before getting around to drawing Ilya. I want to focus on building more of a comic book style form–and get better at shading. I have no intention of drawing portraits very often anyway–I’m going through a few drawing tutorials and haven’t quite gotten to those parts yet. So tomorrow, no portrait.

I went back to the art store to pick up some missing pencils. When I first went to the art store in August, I didn’t know the difference between pencil grades and I didn’t think I even wanted to learn much about pencil shading, which I’m still working on (a lot) so I just grabbed a range (6B, 2B, B, HB, F, H, 2H, 6H). They didn’t have anything beyond 6 in either direction so I figured I was getting the spread.

But I figured I should fill the gaps so I got the missing ones–or so I thought. After I left (and the store closed), I realized that when I reached into the 4H box, I grabbed an HB. So I’m still missing a 4H and I’d like to get an 8B or 9B (or maybe just some charcoal)… anyway:

(yay pencils)

I’ve got to spend more time with Manga Studio before I get the hang of inking my sketches but I figured I should at least pull out the 2B and 6B and darken up this one on paper:

My friend John Griffin (a musician from Tennessee) asked me to draw him a profile picture today. We’ll this is my first lunch break attempt:

I’ll have to get some more practice turning John into a comic character as he will appear, playing guitar on the sidewalk, as a cameo in my first graphic novel.

Got a little more time tonight to sketch so I went for a page of forward faces. Maybe tomorrow I’ll draw profile shots.

Continuing in the Marvel book, here are some cars. I like to sketch out with a 6H so they are pretty darn light but then I feel a little more free to just let lines go rather than be all meticulous. I want to get in the habit of drawing lots of rough sketches, scanning and inking over using my pen tablet. But I need my scanner, which is in Seattle. Soon.

Also, since Rob Guillory is freaking awesome and I’m totally obsessed with this comic “Chew”, which he illustrates to John Layman’s killer scripts, I figured I’d do a little learning from the master and sketch out a Tony Chu (I learn best through imitation). I love the way Rob angles features. It’s a really fun yet intense style.

You can find Chew here: http://chewcomic.blogspot.com/ (the chew blog) and here: http://amzn.to/bXCqBY (Amazon).

And examples of Rob Guillory’s sketches of Chew: http://bit.ly/aHz8EzMakes

Finding it tough to get time to draw around here. Had a really fun day with the family though. Got settled in the living room with bad lighting but managed to sketch this out before getting distracted again:

Last week, Lifehacker asked “What’s in your backpack?”

Well, I finally got time to dump it out and take a photo. Here’s what I carry around when I go to work at a coffee shop or elsewhere:

• Backpack (SwissGear IBEX Notbook Pack)
• Laptop (macbook pro)
• 320GB External hard drive
• Laptop Mouse
• Spare Phone Battery
• Spare Jester Footbag (for juggling)
• Headphones (BeyerDynamic DT 770 Pro)
• Headphones (for phone)
• Headphone Splitter
• Staedtler Pen Set (Mars Pigment Liner Set of 4)
• Sketchbook (Moleskine – Large)
• Drawing Pad (Strathmore)
• Pencil Set – Tombow (8)
• Eraser (Kneaded x2)
• Pencil Sharpener
• Business card holder (with cards)
• First aid kit
• Dental Floss
• Dental Gum
• Paracord (for knot tying practice)

Among many other books on comic book making, I’ve got a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, which I’m going to start using for some practice.

I’m no gun aficionado so pardon the lack of finesse, but here’s my sketches for today as guided from that book.

Looks like I need to buy a ruler and practice this a few dozen more times ;)

I want to go over this with a thicker pen and add more shading but I’m hitting that zombie dead tired state so I’ll have to attack this later:

Can’t wait to get back to Seattle so I can have a scanner again :)