The Goon

Within the past two months I've become extremely infatuated (or obsessed) with The Goon by Eric Powell. It's an amazing Dark Horse comic series and I've been getting my hands on every volume I can possibly find. So, naturally, while without a computer, I did a few Goon studies and this is my final result of the character drawn from my head. It still has some of my own twists as you can see, but I really studied how Powell mapped out Goon's face, which is distinctly the most important part of the character, next to his stature which I exaggerated in classic Dieter fashion.

Enjoy!

Flaaapjaaaack!

No, I didn't die, but I have been computer-less for quite some time. I'm still awaiting my new one from a white shirt-black tie wearing squad of geeks who will remain unnamed. But don't worry! I continue to draw everyday, and whilst I was without Photoshop, I went back to practicing graphite. This is one of the drawings I did recently - my own interpretation of the lovable Flapjack. Here's what he normally looks like if you aren't familiar:



Flapjack is my favorite cartoon, it's hilarious and the art direction is fantastic. Don't worry, I'll have plenty more uploads when I actually have a computer to use at my disposal. In the meantime, you better be drawing everyday you fellow artists, you.

Take care,
Dieter

Demon Troll Witch Doctor?!

Did this quick demon troll witch doctor (they are real now) just for some lighting practice and what not. Pretty fun. I love digital painting!

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, check out the new trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark". He's such an inspiration to me, as well as many many other people, I really wish to be able to work with him someday.

I'd like to be able to develop this troll a lot further than what you see here. Hopefully a full body rendering will be in the near future :).

Another day another study...

Quick one hour study of my buddy Xavier. The photo was already in black and white and I thought that'd be a good chance to jump on a quick grayscale portrait study. I definitely need to practice eyes and mouths...

Portrait study!

Here's a digital painting study I did! It was a lot of fun to do, the colors were very interesting to work with, and it really didn't take too long to do. I should really start doing more portrait studies.

I posted the process work first to give you an idea of how I worked. This was a technique I learned in Figure Illustration 2 class this past semester, of blacking out your figure then building up values or colors from that. I like working this way it's very fast, but I still like playing around with techniques! Hope you like it.

Hellboy Update

I've been picking away at the Hellboy comic cover, here's a small shot of what it looks like so far. Even these demons aren't done yet, but you can see my process with them from the top one to the bottom one.

I've been drawing everyday so far this summer, at least one sketch a day. As of today, I'll be doing more perspective exercises and I really need to do some hand and face studies!

It's been so hot...

Just to show you guys I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs, here's what I started today. I'm redoing a Hellboy comic cover in my own style (inspired by an assignment from school). This is obviously a very small excerpt from the cover, I just wanted to show something since I haven't posted in a while.

Just drawing these 2 (out of 5) demons has been so much fun already. The original Hellboy work is obviously by the creator and illustrator Mike Mignola - a great artist. Our styles are extremely different, and this is what's making it so fun. I'll probly save the Hellboy drawing for last, slap all the tissues together in Photoshop then start painting away!

And for all of you who are in or around the Detroit area, I hope you are staying away from the heat. Those of you who don't know, we've been suffering from a MASSIVE HEAT WAVE!!!

Stay cool everybody. Literally and figuratively.

"Trojan" Concepts

Here's some of my "Trojan" concepts for my current video game project. I wanted them to share common traits with my "Spartan" soldiers, such as respirator masks and elaborate helmets. I had a lot of fun designing these. Comments always welcome!

"Spartan" Values

I'm still working with my process as far as concepts go, and I know for my next character it'll be more straight forward. I worked a little backwards this time for the last few steps. I drew a tight pencil then turned that into a silhouette THEN put values over that, with a different variant.

I really like how this one turned out though, comments are definitely welcome, lemme know what you think!

"Spartan" Concept

Here's some process work of my "Spartan" soldier concept for the video game project I'm working on right now. Me and a few others are taking inspiration from The Skillful Huntsman book and decided to do some process work of our own to get a better understanding on how we'd like to work as individuals. We are essentially using the story line from The Odyssey, hence the Spartan name. I'm currently working on the "Trojan" soldiers now, just need a few more views :). I hope you enjoy these and comments would be very appreciated! Any feedback would be great.

I'm obviously still dabbling with how I'd like to work, I'm still finding traditional is the most comfortable for me as far as sketching goes.