Ice Druid Character

For Conceptart.org's Character of the Week #77. Character Idea "Ice Druid". Another thing I did because I was unoccupied at work. I actually sketched this out digitally first, printed it out, traced that, etc.

Another Skull drawing (sigh)

Just messing around. I could see it being a band shirt even though it's uninventive.

Mummy

I have a new job, and when I'm not doing anything I'm allowed to work on illustrations or play video games or whatever, so I made this one yesterday. I don't have a scanner here so I just found a picture of a mummy and basically traced it in photoshop. I brought my Wacom tablet in from home. It was a little frustrating for me. I don't like drawing on the computer. I want to do something less referenced and see how that works out.

Blues CD - "Snakepit"

For this projected I opted to do some art, but not the whole layout. It ended up being a good decision. All these CD covers ended up being due at the same time, and things have been very hectic for me. I don't know how the final layout will look, but they seem capable of handling it. This was one of those projects that makes you question your artistic capability. They just wanted me to do whatever, and they told me the name of the album was snakepit. You can see from the sketches that I went straight for snakes, the literal interpretation. I did the sketch of the guy with no face, and belly snakes first. I kept the no-face thing the whole way through, I do that a lot. Someone said I do that because I have identity issues. I liked it and sent it to them. They seemed to like it and a made a very complete painting of it in my sketchbook that would have been the cover, except that it wasn't working. So I went on to another idea of a snake coiled up in a woman's stomach as if it was her intestines, swallowing her heart. This idea was not very good, and I just couldn't make it work, so on I went. This is when things started getting REALLY bad. I started doing giant fantasy snakes and heart shaped balloons. I even sent them a sketch and they said they didn't think it was right for them. I think that's a vast understatement, but I'm glad they said it in a nice way. This band is fucking hardcore metal, that image doesn't suite them at all. Now that I'm looking at those again, I'm actually embarrassed of showing them. Them there's a stupid drawing of a little girl, sigh..... Also some fossils, I had some weird idea on a plane, don't ask. Playing with some new sharpies there.

After doing the heart drawings I was thing hard about my future as a creative being, and how it may not exist. Jeremy from Blues said something about how it didn't have to be so literal, and I was like, that's good, 'cause I can't make it work and all this shit sucks. After just being frustrated with my successive failures, I just said "You know what, I'm just going to do some creepy paintings and send them to you." They needed the art really soon because I had taken too long trying to make something awesome for them. I didn't do sketches, I just found some pictures of faith healers and made them into these paintings. It seems like Jeremy was really happy with these, it was exactly what he wanted to see from me. I liked the boards so much that I used them in my web-page design. You might be able to tell from the forth panel that I had run out of time, and I couldn't do another painting, so I did that drawing and added some photoshop stuff. I also had a problem getting this one done last week because I just started a new full-time job, and I was too tired when I got home to draw. I'm ok now though, I had to get used to the new schedule.

Tristan Tzara 7"

I'm supposed to do a 7" cover for a band from Germany called Tristan Tzara, I think they're a good band, but there's some strange things about it. They broke up in 2002, and this is a repress of their 7". It will be pressed by a DIY label in Mexico. What really bothers me about it is the art they already had is really cool, and suiting for their dada theme. How am I supposed to top that??? I am excited about this project, though, because I like the dada aesthetic and it will be a fun and challenging project for me to try to make something in that style, while still making it my own. The bright side of this is that since they've been broken up for a while, they aren't exactly going to need the art for tour or something, so I don't feel rushed. I decided to do it for free, it's a small label, and I figure that with the exchange rate even a small amount would seem steep. It would have been bad when I was trying to make a living solely on Illustration, but I started picking up web design contracts, so I don't have an immediate need for money or anything. It's better this way too, because they can spend more money on making a better release.

Ed Gein LP

This album will hopefully look something like this. It's a gatefold 12". I haven't gotten feedback from them yet, so this may change. I didn't do a lot of the conceptual work for this one, it's a, LP version of a CD, so they wanted the art to relate. I feel like I did a pretty good job with it.

sigh....

I used to be able to draw, what the fuck happened?????