Holiday Portraits

Here are two portraits I was working on in a last minute Christmas rush. The first one is of my 3 year old nephew Owen. He loves my "Robot and Bird" image and is big into Thomas the Tank Engine. I decided to put him in a fantasy world where the robots make the trains and play by his side. Owen's reaction to the portrait was the best. He was so confused. He would stare at it, then walk away, then walk back to stare some more. Too much to take in at once I guess. Then he pointed out that Toby (boxcar in the middle) isn't real because I forgot to paint the number 7 on his side. Oops! Guess when playing with trains is your entire life these little details matter. I promised to bring my paints along the next time I visit and fix it for him.

The other portrait is of Rosie, my brother's girlfriend's dog. She commissioned me to paint it as a gift for my brother since he's totally in love with the friendly lab mix. I tried to amp up the colour in the piece to make it more interesting and allude to her lively, happy personality.

Part of an anthology...

I'm doing some pro bono work for a comic anthology by The Max and Beatrice Wolfe Centre for Children’s Grief and Palliative Care.

Winged cat

This is the image I painted for the giveaway on my facebook group. It's a 6 x 6 " acrylic on canvas with 1.5" stretchers.

I was struggling over what to paint. I wanted it to be something that would appeal to everyone, since I had no idea who would win. Then after getting frustrated, I thought: "Hey, they're getting a free painting.. they should be grateful no matter what the image."
.. and then I painted a cat with wings.

Kid's party gone wrong

This is a new image I cooked up for a calendar promotion that my rep, Three In a Box will be releasing in the new year.

Life Drawing - Dec 06/07

Ten minutes...




15 minutes...

AWOL'd REDRAWN!

A month ago, I finished inking issue 2 of the AWOL'd series. The day after, I had a Skype chat with comic icon Larry Hama about my work on issue 1. To sum things up, he listed all the faults in my technique in storytelling and art and left me devastated. Then I looked at the freshly-inked work from the day before and I felt sick of it. Hama was right. So the next day after our chat, I took all of his advice and applied it while redrawing issue 2.
Now that I've finished redrawing issue 2, I'm going back to redrawing issue 1, and by then ... the third chapter should kick ass.

The majority of chapter 2 takes place in a train station where Karli, Norton, and Leeves talk about their game plan after escaping their covert-ops unit. Lots of talking for 15+ pages, and I had a habit of drawing too many close-up shots and less shots of the characters 'acting'. The second draft fixes that.

Here are sample pages displaying the before(left) and after(right).

page 5


page 14 - Notice the first two panels in the first draft of page 14 is similar to the last panel in page 5 (first draft). Some pazazz is added to the second draft.


page 15 - When I add the ziptone, it'll help show Karli, Norton, and Leeves being followed by an agent then split up.


Bye!

-J

Life Drawing - Nov 15 + Nov 29 edition

I've taken some of my friends suggestions about relying less on the graytone markers and using more ink in the dark areas. It took tons of unwatchable experimental drawings until I found my niche.
10 minutes...


10 minutes...since the previous session, I decided to toss out the pencils and draw directly in ink. But I cheated a little on this one by using a dying brush marker to roughly sketch out the dude...guess I lost my confidence.


10 minutes...I thought the left lower leg was a tad long. But no graytone markers were harmed in this one.


10 minutes...Uh-oh! I brought out the graytone markers...but at least I applied some core shadows.

15 minutes...a bit too sketchy for the time I was given. Especially on that left arm.
Bye!

Stripmall for me, baby

More pages from Jon Paul Fiorentino's forthcoming epic novel, Stripmalling. This series of pages has fewer beatings and more capitalist critique. Enjoy!

Bollywood caricatures...

Here's some caricatures of Bollywood celebs Hrithik Roshan and Shilpa Shetty I've done freehanded on Adobe Illustrator. It's part of an upcoming web project.
Enjoy!

Harry Potter and the environmental crisis

This is a quick illustration I did for the environmental magazine, Alternatives Journal. The article is an environmental reading of the Harry Potter books, but for the illustration, they just wanted a depction of a scene in the final book, Harry Potter walking through the Forbidden Forest with the spirits of his fallen loved ones by his side.

Not a Fan

Hey! I just wanted to post this latest illustration I did. I'm not really too keen on it but it's what the art director wanted. The article is about an owner nicknaming a skinny mare and its small foal Olive Oyl & Sweet Pea. So the best solution I was told to do was to have the horses resemble the faces of the two Popeye characters. So here ya go ... enjoy. Alana can't even look at this ... she says it creeps her out.

-Ty

Stripmalling finals

Long time, no blog. Here are the first half of the pages I've done for Jon Paul Fiorentino's upcoming novel, Stripmalling. I'll post the others soon. Some solid beatings and face-sewing in this set.

Return of Drawing from Life

After a long unexplainable break from life drawing, I'm back at it. I find it's a good way to rid of my dying brush markers in the best possible way.
Compared to my past sessions, I've now gotten avoided the pencilling stage for each drawing and just gone straight to inking on a blank page. That's guts and balls, I say!

10 minutes...I was really experimenting with this one. I wanted to see if I can shade this drawing without graytone markers. I ended up using the markers half-way through.


10 minutes...Just finding the contours. Never mind the hiccups around the arms. Yikes!


10 minutes


15 minutes...

Portraits

Hey check it out! I just finished up this illustration and wanted to share it with everyone. The illo was for an article in The Canadian Sportsman. It was about different writers experiences with horse racing. So for each story I had to draw a portrait of each writer. It was fun to do. Enjoy.

-Ty

Its been a bit. I am working on several new surreal works as well as the new ASS#3 which will be previewed very soon. Until then check this out.

Zen's Con Sketches

Here's Zen's con sketch of Blanka at the FanExpo (Aug. 24-26 2007). Zen wanted me to take a pic of it so he can remember it. So here ya go Zen.

And here's another ...

-Ty

The Boy and The Crow - Ty's Version

Hey! This is my version, or should I say versions of The Boy and The Crow!

I did this one first. I wanted to do a dark sort of piece. Once I was finished, I felt like doing another one.

This time I wanted to do something completely opposite of the other one, something fun. So I came up with this.
At Willow and Ray's reception I had people complimenting on the second piece more so than the first. What do you think?

-Ty

The Boy and the Crow

This painting was a gift for the wedding of two wonderful people Willow Dawson and Ray Cammaert. The theme for their celebration was "The Boy and The Crow." Which I later found out worked off Willow's last name - Dawson meaning son of daw (Jackdaw) Ray being the boy.

I stuck with a two tone palette of burnt sienna, ultramarine and white. I laid down a neutral grey tone in the background and then worked the highlights and shadows up from there.

Cat Lady - B&W

I'm in the midst of coloring her, but here's an inked cat lady. After all the comic conventions I've been attending lately I thought I would try my hand at some traditional ink drawing. As for the subject matter - with a new kitten running around here (bringing our cat total up to three) I sometimes feel like a cat lady.

Fan Expo weekend

It's Fan Expo weekend and Sketchkrieg! will strike again!
I'll be bringing copies of my new comic series AWOL'd, plus copies of my sketchbook filled with concept sketches, comics, life drawings, and randoms.
The cover of my sketchbook is shown above.

TCAF this weekend!

This weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I'm so excited to be in it again, along side my partner in crime, Tyrone McCarthy and the members of SketchKRIEG! Best of all it's FREE ADMISSION! Put on by The Beguiling it features a not to be missed lineup of some crazy huge names in comic arts. It's being held on Saturday and Sunday Aug 18 & 19 in the Old Victoria Building, U of T (Northeast corner of Queen's Park.)

I'm working away on having some mini original paintings to sell like the little 4x4" guy up there. One thing I learned from the Fruitopia job is that I can get a lot of painting done in a day if I just focus.

Drop by and visit. All the info is on the link above. It truly is an amazing festival with a little bit of something for everyone.

See you there!

Mobile Art

Crime & Punishment

Fairy Tale Romance

Hey dudes ...
Just wanted to post some illustration work that I've done lately ...
I did these illustrations for a mobile phone company ...
They're "digital stickers" which you would place over a pic that was captured off your mobile phone ...
I had some fun working on the Crime and Punishment piece ...
Fairy Tale Romance was all right ...
Enjoy ...

-Ty