DAILY WARM-UP SKETCH 2013

Peter Urkowitz wrote:

Haha, those Indy Hunter posters are awesome!

Fat Wolverine is a great idea, Guy!

Thanks Peter. I figured healing factor or not, all that beer has to go somewhere right?

Hahha, I'm not taking a dump actually. I just got done clipping my hair and shaving which you can see all over my shoulders and stuff.

It's just a weird angle. The toilet is off to the lower left in the back acroff from that rack with the hangers I'm a the sink.


I was thinking this goofy pic could use an ocean scene or something....Ghetto Aqua-Man or a Savagely Bald Sub-Mariner scene.

Guydc3 wrote:

Nothing can top Hunter taking a dump in the pic above but here is my first warmup sketch from this morning. It sucks, luckily the actual finished work I did was well, wth, is Hunter actually dropping a deuce with a smile up there? Oy...

FATWOlVIE is awesome!!!

"I'M THE BEST THERE IS AT WHAT I DO! AND WHAT I DO IS GREASE!

I got some rough thumbnails layouts I've been doing as a warm-ups. I've been working on actual layouts so it seemed like the thing to do.

Joe Lee wrote:

I got some rough thumbnails layouts I've been doing as a warm-ups. I've been working on actual layouts so it seemed like the thing to do.

Oohhhh! Niiice!

What size do you do yours at? Those look good, and why do you add the colors?

Those are pretty cool with them added, just curious if there was a function as well?

Damn, today's my day to draw something....think I'll work on more Alvin and KNobbes stuff.

J.M. Hunter wrote:

What size do you do yours at? Those look good,

Everybody is different, but for me it depends on the project , what stage I'm at, how much detail I want to convey, the more detail you can convey the more you can anticipate issues, or strengthen the composition.

Some people do complete color maps too. Often to see if the color works with the layout. The superman one page, with lois left behind was about actual size, so I could do two up on a 8.5 x 11. But I generally prefer four up or more on a page. But no more than 8. But four up gives you breathing room. I wanted to use the cape's color as part of the storytelling, it changes the pace in the second to last panel then helps convey emotion in the last panel. At least that was my intention I don't know how successful it was.

The rest were all done in a 8.5x11 hardcover sketchbook, because I want to save it as a reference of solid layouts and compositions I liked from other sources, not all of them are whole pages some are individual compositions juxtaposed for space. Some are from comics, some are from animated shows. If you are familiar with them, you might be able to recognize one page with Birdman calling Falcon 7, and Space ghost is flying below but it worked together, another page is frogmen operating a laser cannon, from Johnny Quest.

The four-up page is the size I like to work at when I want to convey detail, each page is roughly 2x3

J.M. Hunter wrote:

why do you add the colors

Usually there is a reason. Color might be part of the storytelling like above in the Superman page. Or in the green one, it was to show the position of a specific character through the page.

The red in the other page was to show the speaking character in that panel, which wasn't obvious from the composition

J.M. Hunter wrote:

Damn, today's my day to draw something....

See! This shit works.

Ok, I've sharpened up some Col-erase Copy-Not non-photoblue pencils

Some Col Erase Venus Blue color pencils/erasers


and some Sanford Prismpa colore non-photo blue pencils.


Gonna try these again.

OK, guess which one was done with the col-erase non-photoblue and which one was done with the Prisma colore non-photo-blue?




I just scan them in and post them. Are you guys playing with the levels/hue/satur/curves before posting them? I haven't done any rendering to these yet...was thinking of going over them with the two pencils and maybe a white color pencil to fully render them as solids even though these are just structural/form practicies.


yea, they're not that well done. I need to do some serious form studies.

I'm thinking I'd like to break each limb/muscle group down to shapes and forms and get to know them better as an older more "mature" artist.

Here's another try....I'm really not happy with my structure/form/anatomy capabilities....




Really thinking about maybe taking a door knob and just practicing drawing that and then taking it apart bit by bit for more practice. Get in the form of taking things apart and putting them backtogether again such as a shoulder or a knee.

J.M. Hunter wrote:

Here's another try....I'm really not happy with my structure/form/anatomy capabilities....




Really thinking about maybe taking a door knob and just practicing drawing that and then taking it apart bit by bit for more practice. Get in the form of taking things apart and putting them backtogether again such as a shoulder or a knee.

The Kirby is strong in this one my son. Digging it. Black mannequin...great stuff. Keep challenging yourself with the different poses. I actually think your anatomy is stronger when the characters are moving or turned in some way. The standing straight up, sort of facing forward shots can sometimes look a bit stiff or, in the case of the right arm there, slightly off. But that's fixable. The middle shot and the face shot have some good energy. It's like the reverse of most, who nail the look-at-me-flex pose but can't show emotion or movement. Good stuff Johnny. Another cool thing to try is the Alex Ross approach...have your wife or a friend take action shots of you or take shots of other people to get an idea of how the characters would move in real life. Then make a bunch of sketches based on those.

I like the idea of practicing on inanimate objects. Some good lessons to be learned there.

Thanks Guy! I could on the sly try to say the standing still poser is due to him being in his Mannequin state, stiff as a board, which is his power but I honestly can't remember if I was going for that or just goofed up the drawing in the static pose. So I'll just work on having a bit more natural flow when it's the standing still poses.

You know, in my better form, younger self I would have people snap pics of me posing for reference. But once the big ol' gut got in the way and I couldn't move as well I sorta tossed that out the window, haha!

Maybe that's motivation to go work on getting a "Summer Body".

I'm gonna be switching gears here this week. Most of the sketches will be focussed towards Ed Quinby's commission that's long over due. I need to see if Ed's cool with me sharing the photo reference, because I'd like to show my step by step process for "Monsterfying" someone.

Is that second one gonna be the Eradicator?

more stuff for my layouts reference sketchbook...

J.M. Hunter wrote:

Is that second one gonna be the Eradicator?

It's the Max FleicherSuperman, the other one, the clone superboy, started out being superman too, but I was on a phone call with a client and started doodling and added the glasses and the other stuff the longer the call went on

I was going to work on my comic strip today, until the client call. I have authors alterations to a logo

Damn, I really wanted to draw today.

What are you doing today

Joe Lee wrote:

more stuff for my layouts reference sketchbook...

Those layouts are pretty tight.

First one was inspired by Hunter's Black Mannequin piece. I started off doing a version of Hunter's dude, then went in a slightly different direction. I thought, what other characters would populate that world. Thus, The Ebony Brain was born. And how would they team up to stop the menace of...The Dark Agent!? Dun-dun-dun! I watch entirely too many Exploitation movies. That and I've been immersed in re-reading my old MOKF issues.



Rhino sketch:



Next week will probably see me focus on more personal sketches. I have an art show coming up and no ideas for it yet. So, yeah...time to get weird again. Not that a black superhero with an exposed brain and a brain logo isn't weird.

I love both of these man! Yea I have fun coming up with "Ridiculous Heroes" as I call them. I have a whole group of these.

One day I'll show..."The Plank!"

An old friend of mine created a character called Cinder Block, a guy who tranformed into a brick. That's it just a brick, a regular lay there and do nothing, brick.

He never did anything with it.

I love the Rhino and the brain guy, great fun.

Some more rough warm-up sketches from the last few days. Still working on the book full of references to favorite panels from comics and cartoon shows...

Ditko Fan TPM wrote:

An old friend of mine created a character called Cinder Block, a guy who tranformed into a brick. That's it just a brick, a regular lay there and do nothing, brick.

He never did anything with it.

I'd read that.

Could he turn back to a human? Because otherwise that would be a really short story.

This first one is actually from yesterday. Quick fun with a sharpie and a white gel pen.



Character sketching. Redemption Falls. Wondering if the The Faustians' true faces are something like this:



First sketch of the day, The Gottverdamte Uber-Men.

The Havok piece is very striking. Are you gonna do the FX in photoshop?

First day back, working off a checklist of stuff I need to get done. A military scout robot converted to a prosthetic body for a fish...