Back to the Plaid Avenger Comic Issue #2

So, there are 12 pages left, roughly, to the 24 page comic (half way there) after a bit of a side track designing the Plaid Avenger website and doing World Leader Caricatures, I am back to finishing the comic issue, and I am more pumped than ever.

If you're a fan post up some comments to keep me pumped and ready to go!

PLAID AVENGER COMIC ONLINE

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New Post Every Sunday

Stephen Harper

So I did the inking over last weekend, and I didn't get around to scanning and coloring this until tonight. But here is the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper in all his glory. Read up on Stephen Harper on the Plaid Avenger website. His whole write up is supposed to be coming soon.

Concept art: Creature contest #159

Here is an update.

I'm getting happier with the color scheme. The rendering is starting to get sloppy, so tomorrow night I plan to tighten it up a bit. Then I'm going to go into deeper, more extreme, highlights. Here is the piece for now.

Concept art: Character contest #178-Universal Horror

Here is my take on Frankenstein's Monster! Again, I was studying Basil Gogo's style and tried to mimick him as best as I could. I'm really pumped on the results. I feel I've taken another big leap with this piece.

Concept art: contest updates

This weeks Conceptart.org Character Competition (#178) is Universal Horror themed character redesigns. Here are a few rough early ideas I threw on paper.


I'm trying to pull inspiration by watching the old films for lighting inspiration; Kelley (my wife) and I watched "The Old Dark House" while I drew this. I hadn't seen it before, it was really good. Also, I am studying Basil Gogo's style of art, he used to paint all the old movie posters. His sketching style is very scratchy, which is what I tried to accomplish with this sketch
ORIGINAL FOR SALE $25 just email me if you're interested 3d64klaus@vfs.com

Also, here is my latest for this weeks creature competition:

ORIGINAL FOR SALE $25 just email me if you're interested 3d64klaus@vfs.com

Concept art: Creature contest #159

My Moon Monster has recieved 6 Votes I'm tied for second place. If some of the blog folllowers wanna go over and help out, the first place only has 12 votes (I just need 7 more!)


This week's Creature Concept Challenge is crazy!

" In 1527, King Henry VIII constructed Southsea Castle in Portsmouth, England. Henry had built the castle with moneys from the dissolution of the monasteries of England, following his break with the Catholic Church. During the construction of Southsea Castle, and unbeknownst to Henry and his court, a terrific nest of undead, aquatic horrors were awoken and stirred. They would lie dormant in the sludge and waters off Southsea Castle for another 18 years, gathering strength by feeding off the offal of the sea, having slumbered beneath the new foundation of Southsea Castle for centuries. On October the 31st, 1545, Henry would return to Southsea to admire his naval ships in advance of an attack he had planned against the French Naval Fleet. During a dinner at the castle, when the full moon had reached its peak in the sky Henry and his court witnessed a horror unlike any in recorded history. Around the shores of Southsea Castle a great, roiling school of sea monsters broke the surface of the water, swam out en masse to Henry's vice-flagship, the Mary Rose, boarded it, razed the ship, killed all 500 sailors and crew on board, and sank the Mary Rose into the sea. The creatures disappeared into the sea and were never seen again. Bodies recovered from the massacre revealed vampire-like bite marks on each of the victims around the necks, armpits and ankles. Descriptions of the creatures appearance varied greatly, but most described them as vaguely human-sized and gaunt, with shiny, pale, hideous skin, and each bore a great, voluminous, curly mane of dark, oily hair. Some witnesses described them as 'fish-men'. Others thought they looked more serpentine with limbs. Upon realizing the extent of the massacre the creatures had caused to his Navy, Henry was said to have exclaimed "Bloody, buggery, curly-headed bloodsuckers!!" Although few in Henry's court would speak of their belief openly, many viewed this unspeakable attack as God's vengence for the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries and the use of the funds garnished from said dissolution in building Southsea Castle. "

I'm already getting heavy visuals in my brain, so I can't wait to start sketching out some concepts and putting the pencil to paper. H.P. Lovecraft is gonna be my MAIN inspiration. Specifically his invention of "Cthulu". for those of you who don't know who that is, here is an image.

I'm gonna go more for a shark mouth or some razor sharp teeth. I might mix it so the are tenticles with razor sharp teeth on them. I'm going to try to find some more reference for that oily black mane.

here are some color references I'm going to be using for inspiration.

Anyway. Keep checking back this week for some updates and paintings!

Halloween: Pumpkin Carving

Here is a pumkin I've carved. I tried to incorporate a couple stage of the pumpkin development so you guys can see how this thing developed. I love October, what a great month. The halloween season is the best; halloween wouldn't be complete without the annual pumpkin carving!

Moon Creature Update 2

Wow, arms hurt, I think 8 hour painting session is taking its toll! I need a break, here is where I'm at with the painting now, check out previous posts for W.i.p.

Moon Creature Update

I've been working on using a subtle greyscale. The main light source here is obviously the sun, which am trying to use a bit of a fill and bounce on the underside of his belly.

I fee like the overall color scheme of this picture is going to be blue, with orange highlights from the explosion (Very sublte orange). I can't decide what color the creature will be yet, I'm thinking a sort of deep aqua blue with a hint of brown, like a seaturtle.

I'm really trying to push little details here, so enlarge the image to its full size and check out some of the moon details as well as the wrinkles in the skin. I'm learning new techniques everyday.

What Lies Beneath the Surface of the Moon?

So this weeks Creature design contest for conceptart.org is:
Lives Beneath the Surface of the Moon!Here is the Contest breakdown:
"Thanks to DUMAN for the topic idea (though I reworded it slightly)... I think it's a timely topic, given some of the things NASA has been up to lately. I think it was last Friday, NASA essentially bombed the surface of the Moon with a probe called LCROSS. The point was to kick up a bunch of moondust with the hopes of finding water, ice crystals, below the surface. But what if the probe disturbed something far worse? Design a new creature that lives beneath the surface of the Moon only recently discovered by NASA's newest experiment.
"

My concept is:
What lies beneath the surface of the moon, what is on the mysterious "Dark Side" of the moon? A giant reptilian turtle alien who has been in hybernation for over a million years. After Nasa's bombing of the moon, he has now finally AWAKEN!

I'm going to try out a new technique this week. I'm going to do the whold drawing fully rendered in Black & White first (except the space background) and THEN go to color.

Here is an early sketch of the creature

Send all thoughts on the concept, thanks guys!

Concept art: Character contest #176 (Carnival)

Hey Guys, need some help, I have two versions for this contest I want to know which one you all think is stronger, A or B?

A


Here is the second version of the Carnival Challenge (A). It was a fun digital painting, I changed up my process a bit, sort of blended how I usually do comic book coloring and digital painting. I used a flat for selection purposes and a few blending layers and just painted over top of the main color layer. I like the results, it gave me a lot of control (painting was done in photoshop)

Here is the older version (B)

B

I decided to post the development in layers, just to show the breakdown of the process.

Concept art: Character contest #176 (Carnival)

Here is a shot of a w.i.p. painting development on my sketch yesterday. I didn't leave work till 8:30, but afterwards I actually had a nice relaxing evening watching an old horror movies with my wife and doing some sketching (which my scanner is broken and I didn't want to photograph them so I didn't upload).

But I did some painting from 12:15-1 am. Here are the results!

BIG ART POST!

First Off- I updated part of my website, check them out

Illustration Section
Concept Art Section
Graphics Section

Secondly




So, first of all, had some crazy stomach ache today, which sucked, because I had to lay down useless for about an hour. But, I felt relaxed afterwards and recharged ( I rarely stop during a whole days work. 8 hours at work 8 hours at home with art (and 8 hours to get eat, sleep and other things).

Mmy wife gave me some feedback on my Carnival Self-Portrait, and I decided to go another direction on the concept, but will pull from the same color pallette ( I think). I decided to create a more elongated figure with a bit more intrigue.

Also, I decided to post my studio space, it's not much but I got a drawing table and a computer area, its a nice comfy art room. My wife and I spend our time watching movies and doing art, it's a good life.



One last note (I Know this is a big post, that's why I called it "BIG ART POST") I went to life drawing with my wife last week, she is taking a class, and I did this shadow study. (45 mins or so I think)

Concept art: Character contest #176 (Carnival)

This weeks Character Contest is a 17th - 18th Centurty Carnival Masqurade party. This is meant to be a self-portrait of each artist who submits, here are the rules:

I also attached some early sketches of this concept. Kelley tells me this concept doesn't reflect my personality well, which I can see. The hope was to make it look like a kid trying to dress up as an adult (something I often feel like I'm doing!

Concept art: Creature contest #157

The Queen's Hatchings:

This female reptile keeps her hatchling babies in her sack for over 6 months until the babies are strong enough to live on their own. During that time the queen will paralyze victims with her tongue leaving them defenseless to the feeding of her young ones.

Curtis Ross!

This is the Aquisition Editor for Kendall Hunt Publishing, he is the Textbook connection to the Plaid Avenger. I had fun with this one, tried using some saturated colors to really make him pop! He is a fun guy, so I wanted his image to reflect that.

Also, I updated the colors for the Plaid Avengers image: