Cartoons
The Cartoons are by far the easiest of my drawing skills. They seem to come quite naturally to me, I guess because I've been doing it the longest. Those that are around me a lot know that if there is pen and paper around, then I'm guaranteed to be doodling cartoons. I just can't help myself. :)
I've did a comic strip for the college paper called Bobcatman for most of the years I was there getting my music degree. That helped to give me experience with doing a steady comic strip. I always had a writer to help brainstorm ideas for the comic, so I mostly focused on the illustrations. For several of the years we won either first of second place in the Nebraska Golden Leaf Award for best college cartoon.
I've done cartoon artwork for a friend of mine on a book as well.
I also want to mess with doing web graphics and clipart. The majority of the clipart I draw will end up being in the form of cartoons doing various things. I want to make a CD of all my clipart and see if anyone would be willing to buy it. Since it's something I do all the time, I figure I just might be able to fill an entire CD with it.
I am currently working on illustrating a childrens book for a friend of mine. I'm looking forward to the finished product of that project as well. I have worked on website graphic projects that have gave me a reason to use my Wacom tablet that's hooked to my computer to draw some toons.
Comics
Since I've had the doodle bug, I've sketched and drawn many kinds of things. One thing that I spent a good deal of time on was comic books. My eye was drawn to the artwork immediately. It seemed like a more realistic version of the cartoons I had drawn so far. They were grown up characters, not as goofy looking. They weren't drawn for a laugh this time.
So at first I bought comics that caught my artistic fancy. I began sketching from the pages of such artists as Jim Lee, Sam Keith, Todd McFarlane, Stephen Platt, and Jae Lee. I loved Jim Lee's se-metrical style, and Sam's sketchy, sharp edges. I slowly began forming my own style from this inspiration. I can never decide how I want to draw my characters so it all depends on the day or mood I'm in.
I started reading some of these comics I bought, trying to learn how to connect pictures with the story lines. I found myself enjoying the reading experience quite well. So it was that I became a full fledged comic collector. About 600 comics later I'm still enjoying this pass time of reading and collecting comic books.
My goal is to start writing up a story line and create some unique characters to make my own comic book.
I've worked on a project for an online role-playing game with one of my old mudd gaming friends. It involved creating splash screens for the game, which consisted of dwarves, elves, and other D&D style characters as well as their weapons and accessories. I did a little bit of the menu decortations as well. The project never came to final stages because as with many things creative, something similar came out that stole the light, it was called World of Warcraft. :)
I have been discussing a musically-based comic with a good friend of mine, Brian Moss, who has given me the underlining story ideas dealing with a sentient guitar. I think it will end up being a great comic.
Most of my doodling is me searching for truly original looking characters that I could use in a comic strip. I've always wanted to create my own comic strip and send it off to King's Syndicate and any paper I can get it in. I feel like I have plenty of sketches of characters to pick from, just having a bit of trouble finding an underlining idea for the stories. Guess I'm afraid my sense of humor will be too different and no one will find it funny. So I guess that's where you guys come in. I thought I'd put some comic strips up on the site and see how they go over with everyone. So please feed my starving confidence. :)