Story Warren - Guest Illustration

Hi there gang! Here's a quick blog post to tell you about a thing I did a few weeks ago - an illustration for Story Warren, a website devoted to fostering children's imagination through storytelling. You may have already seen the story that ran on June 27th, but if you'd like to check out the full post you can find it here.

It was a super fun piece to work on, and I really have to thank Zach Franzen for not only asking me to do the piece, but also providing some excellent art direction! Looking forward to possibly doing more for Story Warren in the future.

In the meantime, I have got lots of things going on, like potential new projects in the works! I'll try my best to keep you updated with new work - I know the blog has been dormant for a while. I just returned from a 10-day tour of Scotland as well, which was magnificent and life-changing! I'm hoping to post some photos from that just as soon as I can, but for now, check out this blog for a general idea of what we did: http://www.douglasbondbooks.blogspot.com/

Pecos Bill: Comic Book Cover Process

Right after Christmas I was invited to contribute a variant cover to the Pecos Bill kid's comic book series created by Brian DuPont. Brian's Pecos Bill series explores the possibility that the legendary Pecos Bill lived throughout the centuries, and still has tall-tale adventures in the modern era. Throw in a steam-powered jet-pack named Widowmaker (created by inventor Nikola Tesla), and you have a pretty exciting adventure series.

The idea really appealed to me, so I went to work on a cover for Issue #3. The style I ended up with was a lot different than the work I usually do, but I was pleased with the finished product. I painted it from start to finish entirely in Photoshop.

Here are some progress shots to give you a small taste of the way this thing was put together:

I started out with a really tiny thumbnail sketch or two, and a digital color comp (that's pretty important in any color work I do. Really serves as a guide when I go into the painting stage).

The linework, completed digitally. This was a new step for me, but digital comic art linework is actually pretty great, especially if you have a brush that has a bit of variance and texture in it to simulate a real pen. I used one from this set by Shaun Bryant: https://gumroad.com/shaunbryant 

This is a pretty big jump from the last image, but hopefully you sort of get the idea. I start out with painting large areas of flat color. Then I use those areas as selections in order to paint details, more color, and texture over the flat color. The background is made up of some gradients, spatter brushes (for stars) and hand-painted comets! (soft brush+texture brush for tail). Nothing fancy!

So there you have it! I had to complete the entire piece in about 3 weeks in order to meet the deadline, so that was a challenge. I look forward to exploring comics further in the future. 

In the meantime, consider contributing to Brian's Kickstarter campaign - you can receive a print copy of my cover if you donate a little more! Check out the campaign here: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1105876224/pecos-bill-3-how-pecos-bill-invented-smores-and-mo

And you can learn more about Brian and his comics here: 

http://www.colringbookpress.com/#!comics/cj5l

Fisherman's Song

As you may recall, last year I completed a new series of four new drawings to add to my portfolio. These were also included in the sketchbook "Drawing the Sword" which I also released last year. As part of that effort, I began coloring these pieces digitally. This was the only one I completed, but I really enjoyed the process, and I love the way the colors came out on it. I also submitted this piece, along with my Winter Dragon piece to the Spectrum Annual this year. It was my first submission to the publication.

Above is a bit of the progress that took it from basic idea to finished drawing. Unfortunately I don't have any WIP shots of the coloring process, but basically it involved large areas of flat color, then working my way up to the highlights and details with some various color adjustment layers over the finished color.

I wanted to convey sort of a carefree summer feeling with this piece. My brothers and I spent countless summer days exploring creeks and woods together when I was a kid. It's good to get out and explore your world. It makes you feel truly alive. That's what this Fisherman is up to with his turtle friend. They're just out there to enjoy the fresh air and to have a good time with each other!

Hope you like it!

-Will

Carolers Process: Finish! (And a Merry Christmas to All of You!)

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Here we are - the final! 

When we left off last post, I had just begun adding color to the painted elements that I had composed in the image. Now, many layers later, I've arrived at my finished piece. The basic process is just a lot of tweaking, color choices, adjustment layers (Overlay for the light areas) and texture brushes.

I hope it looks okay here on the web - I had some issues making sure that the color translated well to the web version (I painted it in CMYK, so I ended up exporting it as a PNG to make sure all the color information was intact.) I really enjoyed exploring this new method of working, and to be honest, I've learned a lot with this painting, and you'll be seeing much more of this process from now on!

 I'm really excited about this piece, and I look forward to exploring new territory in the New Year.

  So, I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases. I'm thankful for all of you and for this great gift of Illustration that we can share with each other!

 

PS: Today I opened my mailbox to find a lovely gift from illustrator Joe Sutphin! Inside were these beautiful signed prints and a kind note. Joe is a fantastic illustrator, and if you aren't familiar with his work, be sure and check it out here: http://joesutphin.blogspot.com/

New Directions: Part I

Here's a quick painting I did this afternoon. It took me around 2 hours. 

Lately, I've been very inspired by illustrators like Chuck Groenink, Meg Hunt, and Jon Klassen who create very texture-driven, more simplistic illustrations. This method of creating an image is really interesting to me, and I am really eager to explore the relationship between simple drawings and hand-painted textures and the final Photoshop image.

Overall, I'm pleased with the direction this image took. It's got a little more playfulness, color and texture, and that's what I'm aiming for. I think it's good to try to stretch yourself in new directions in your own work, and that's what I hope to do with the next several pieces. I hope to post more of these in the next week or so as I continue to explore new methods of working.

Photoshop Character Study: Professor

Decided to go in a bit of a different direction with this one.

Photoshop allows me to really play around with shapes - I can endlessly create shapes on separate layers, then pose and adjust them until I get a finished product I'm pleased with. 

I'm always really nervous when the topic of "style" comes up, but I really have a huge interest in doing kid's books, so this particular "style" is something I'm toying around with. I'll do a super fast sketch in my sketchbook to get the basic feel of the character, then start immediately composing on the computer. It's a fast and fun process...

Also, I'm interested in playing with color more lately, and Photoshop offers great tools for that. You may be seeing a lot more of this type of work in the future. Stay tuned!

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P. S. : ALSO! Sketchbooks have been ordered! Watch this space for more information on getting yours in the next week or so!

Buried Treasure - Illustration Process

Here's a quick piece I did. I've been really inspired lately by children's book illustrators like Jon Klassen and Isabelle Arsenault. Their work has such amazing texture and simplicity. I love it. I'd like to explore this type of work more fully.

I took a different approach. This guy was doodled in my sketchbook. I took a piece of watercolor paper, and painted all the different pieces I knew it would take to create him. Here's that page:

I then scanned all of this into Photoshop, and put every piece on its own layer. By doing this, it allowed me to maneuver all the pieces into place, re-size them and get it how I wanted it. A few color adjustment layers, and I was done! Below is a little .gif animation that shows the process:

What do you think of this style? I'm eager to explore this technique further for use in children's books, etc. Hope you like it!

Winter Dragon: Digital Finish

Winter Dragon - (watercolor & digital, 2013)

At long last, I have finished the Winter Dragon. 

What you see above is the result of close to 120 Photoshop layers, and much wrestling with color, lighting, pixels, adjustments, gremlins, and other adverse entities bent on making the life of a picture-maker total chaos.

It finally came to the point where enough was enough. There is only so much I can do to this image to make it successful. Ultimately, I felt like I was working very hard to offset the effects of a lack of planning in the early stages. This was a very uncomfortable feeling. 

Also, as layer upon layer began to accumulate in my palette, I began to ask myself: "why so many layers? Why is it taking this many layers to get this point across? Why wasn't there more color in the watercolor stage?" and on and on. A simple idea was requiring 20x the effort, layers, thought, and tweaking than it ever should have.

So to sum it up, I feel like in this painting, I won some and I lost some. In some ways it feels like it is succeeding, but in other ways it feels like it falls short of my original idea. But I'm ready to put this one behind me, and move on to bigger, better things.

Or maybe simpler things. If there's one thing this painting has taught me, it's this: Less is, more often than not, more.

Carrots!

Here's a little piece I put together over the July 4th holiday. After all the winter stuff I'd been doing, I thought something a little summery would be nice. Just pencil in the Moleskine and Photoshop. Mostly focusing on tight drawing and good color lately. Trying to expand my Children's Literature portfolio, but really I think I just drew a beardless dwarf growing carrots. I mean look at this guy's legs! Anyway, let me know what you think.

Border Patrol (or, What to Do in the Event of a Wooly Mammoth Stampede)

This morning I did a lot of warmup sketches. But suddenly I began to think of Wooly Mammoths. Yes, that's right, Mammuthus primigenius, those terrific beasts from the Ice Age. I worked on other things. I tried to shake the thought of them, but there they were, stampeding through my brain, with savage Nordic warriors riding on top of them! So it was draw or be trampled. My pencil began to fly, and a quick sketch was made (bottom). I liked it, and so did the Mammoth (who thought he looked quite handsome), so I tore out a piece of tracing paper, transferred it to the Bristol, and the finished product was born. Now these rowdy fellows are immortalized on paper, along with their wall which is, of course, modeled after Hadrian's wall which I hope to visit next Summer. Let's hope this wall is better at keeping out smilodon and herds of Megaloceros giganteus than Hadrian's was at keeping out the Celts.

Winter Explorers

Winter Explorers

pencil & digital

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that you're all finding lots of time to make some great art in 2013. I've been off to a bit of a slow start, but I'm resolved to make 2013 the most productive art year I've ever had. I finished this little painting this afternoon - it was the last drawing I did in 2012 (finished in the final thirty minutes of the year!), and the first painting of 2013. I'm really trying to find my way

in the color world. Drawing is all well and good, but I'm working towards becoming a more 

solid painter as well this year. 

Well, I hope you're all ready to grab your walking stick and head out into the Great Unknown to see what adventures and art we can find. I know I'm ready!

Onward!

P. S. Also, very briefly, I notified the winners of the Hobbit Giveaway around Christmas - Aedan Peterson won first prize - "The Forest Goblin" drawing, and @bigjohnjeep on Twitter won "Riddles in the Dark". Congratulations to the winners, and thanks everyone for entering! I'd love to do a giveaway again soon. I mailed the drawings early this week, so they should arrive soon!

-Will

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all you wonderful blog readers out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This is an illustration of a changed Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge and a grateful Tiny Tim that I did for a Christmas card this year. I was pushing it for time, and barely got it sent to the printers in time. But I managed to send several out to friends and family.

Here's a bit of the process I used to create it - I used this project as a chance to

apply what I'd learned from Cory Godbey's "Fox" demo (which I really can't recommend to you enough). I look forward to continuing to explore more digital/traditional techniques in the coming year. Here's a bit of how the project progressed:

 Final drawing, scanned, cleaned up, and levels adjusted.

 Linework adjusted to a warm color, sepia underpainting on the characters.

 Flat color added.

 Adding in some lighter colors.

 Pushing the light and dark colors.

 

Painted texture applied over the characters with a layer mask.

Texture applied over background.

Color balance layer applied over the background, with local color added to the background elements.

And Finished!

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Merry Christmas everybody! Looking forward to sharing some new projects 

with you in the coming year!

Hobbit Giveaway!

Announcing: The one and only Hobbit Giveaway!

 I am giving away two, (yes two!) brand new Hobbit drawings.

How can you win them you say? Well, all you have to do is enter my drawing! Here are the prizes:

Prize number one:

1 (one) "Riddles in the Dark" original drawing - pencil on bristol

8.5x11"

 

 

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Prize number two:

1 (one) "Forest Goblin" original drawing - pencil on bristol

8x10"

 

 

How to Enter:

 

There are 2 ways to enter. Here they are:

 

1. Leave a comment on this post saying something like "I have got to have one of these drawings" or "I hate these drawings but I just like to win stuff - count me in".

Or to make it easy, you could just tell me your favorite character from The Hobbit.

Make sure your comment profile has an email address, so I can contact you!

 

2. Send me an @mention on Twitter using the hashtag #hobbitgiveaway This way I can see that you want to win something, and all your Twitter friends will know that you are an official member of the Drawing the Sword Fan Club.

 

The drawing will end on Friday, December 21st 2012 at 11:59PM!

 

When I finally drag myself out of bed on Saturday, I'll select 2 winners. The first winner will be contacted via email, and they will get to choose their drawing. Then I'll contact the next winner, and they will get the last one. If the first winner does not respond within 12 hours, I'll move on to the next winner.

 

Good luck! And I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Riddles in the Dark

 

Riddles in the Dark

pencil on bristol 8.5 x 11"

"Now he drew it out. It shone pale and dim before his eyes.

'So it is an elvish blade too,' he thought; 'and goblins are not very near,

and yet not far enough.' ...

 Now Bilbo was in what is called a tight place." 

Drawing number two in my Hobbit series. Hope you like it. I think I'm getting a little better at this drawing business. I still think I fuss over a great deal too many things that don't need to be fussed over, and ignore quite a few things that need desperate attention. Ah, well. I shall keep pressing on. Until next time, here is an excellent video of J.R.R. Tolkien himself, talking about his Lord of the Rings trilogy (and Hobbits too if I remember correctly. Watch for the 1960's college kids talking about what a Hobbit is, and the red-headed girl who rambles on about the story. You'll know what I mean, you can't miss it. Enjoy! And stay tuned - next week, I'll announce the BIG GIVEAWAY. Don't miss it!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Hobbit Month!

"Forest Goblin"

8.5 x 11" pencil on bristol. 2012

In approximately 26 days, Peter Jackson will release to the world his vision of Tolkien's first tale, The Hobbit. I am very excited to see this interpretation (as well as its two proposed sequels), but like many other artists, I have found myself wanting to get down on paper my own unique perspective on the story. For me, the book has a fairy-tale quality that is not seen in the Rings trilogy, and somewhat unfortunately, a quality that I fear will be missing from the film. It is a bit more rosy, full of rich imagery of smoke, firelight, laughter, hearty meals, wine, ale, coffee, seed cakes, maps, keys, gold, dragons, treasure, caves, secrets, and mountains. When I read "the pines were roaring on the heights" in Thorin's song in the opening of the book, I can directly relate that to my own experience with pines in a fierce wind, and it gives me chills. Tolkien & I have experienced the same thing, only in different places and times. So his tale instantly makes an impression on me.

Well, enough of me talking in intellectual circles. I hereby declare the next 26 days to be Hobbit Month here on Drawing the Sword. I'll be posting as many Hobbity sketches and drawings as I can in the next several weeks in anticipation of the film, and in celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien's wonderful little tale.

And as an added bonus, toward the end of this 26-ish days, I'll be hosting a Hobbit Giveaway. I'll be giving away one (or maybe more) original sketches to a random winner. More details on that later! Also, if you'd like to join me in doing your own Hobbit-related drawings or artworks, let me know because I'd love to see what you're up to. And if you wouldn't mind sending me a link, I'll feature you here on the blog in a post!

That's all for now! Happy drawing and check back soon for more!

-Will   

Stormcrow - The Wanderer

Stormcrow (The Wanderer)

Pencil on bristol 8.5 x 11"

  

Gandalf has always been a fascinating character in Tolkien's work. At one point in the Rings trilogy (I believe it's The Two Towers) he is referred to as "Gandalf Stormcrow". It's meant as a derogatory term, suggesting that ill winds and bad tidings blow him to Rohan like a crow, croaking out warnings that Mordor is on the move. In Silmarillion we learn that Gandalf is an angelic being who has taken on the form of a man to help to fight for good in Middle Earth. While I don't always agree with Tolkien's world-view, I have found many excellent truths to surface while reading his books. In this case, my mind goes to this passage from the Holy Bible, Hebrews 13:2 -

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,

for thereby some have entertained

angels unawares."   

The ones who mocked Gandalf with this nick-name were soon shown their foolishness by the great wisdom and influence he could offer in time of trouble. The idea for this piece was to show Gandalf in his lonely wanderings, his only friends the crows who seem to mock his steps. But underneath we know that he is ready to bring help and hope to the people of Middle Earth, a true hero who will be influential in the War of the Ring.

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The original pencil drawing will be one of the first pieces to be available on my Etsy store when it launches, and I am considering making prints available as well. Stay tuned, I am aiming for a September launch of the store. At least that is the tentative goal. I'll be adding this to the gallery as well. 

-Will

Act The Miracle - Desiring God Art Contest

"Act The Miracle" 

Photoshop collage 5" x 3.5" 

About a week ago, Desiring God (the ministry of John Piper) announced a graphic design contest to find posters for an upcoming conference on the topic of Sanctification. Thankfully I heard about this just in time to participate, and over the weekend I struggled through a rough start and eventually arrived at the final. The finished image is not exactly what I had originally planned, but I think I managed to convey somewhat of a "quiet struggle" within a man who represents you & me. The best part however, is the fact that there is not a lot of "me" coming through this image. Sure, it's infused with my own design taste and sensibilities, but I get the exciting feeling that God will send a message through this poster that I'm not aware of. Sort of like I didn't put my own message in, but it will speak for itself.
I was very thrilled to have the opportunity to use my artistic abilities to glorify God - the True Creator.

Onward, for His Glory.

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 10 or so designs will be selected by the Desiring God team, and will be put up on the DG Facebook page. Voting begins Wednesday, August 15th 2012. If you're on FB, please go check out the gallery and vote (even if my design doesn't make it!). Go show these designers some love.

-Will

#163 Sermon Illustrations: Digital Speed Paintings

 

I was recently asked to contribute some digital paintings to illustrate a series of sermons for the local church I attend. The paintings were done quickly, only about an hour and a half for each. It was good practice to boost my Photoshop paintings skills which need a great deal of improvement.

#162 Illustration Friday: Suspend

Suspend

8.5 x 11" Watercolor & Digital

Being cast from his ship, the noble Nordic warrior finds himself suspended between the inky depths of death, and a terrible sea monster. He has two choices: succumb to a watery grave, or take hold of a legendary sword to slay his foe and rise again to air and life. I think he will choose the latter, don't you?

Done for Illustration Friday, a weekly artistic challenge.

#161 Lieutenant Oliver, Soldier Dog

Lieutenant Oliver

Pencil & Digital

Yesterday on Twitter & Facebook I decided upon very short notice to take drawing requests. You would choose something for me to draw, and I would draw it, then put it up on the blog with a link back to your site. So, it was pretty short notice, but I got a few responses. I had time for only one today, but I would like to do this again in the future! So stay tuned, I would love to get more people involved and we could really get some cool art done this way.

So, a little about this drawing. I can safely say, this is the best drawing I've done in a long time. I am so happy with it. This request was from my lovely aunt, J. Rachel Reed who is currently writing a book about dogs during WWII. I'll leave it at that so I won't spoil anything. Her suggestion was as follows:

"A Stylized Soldier Dog"

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen. Aunt Rachel has a very wonderful springer spaniel named Oliver who lives with her, and he and I are great pals. I like to hang out with him, especially at Thanksgiving. And I knew he had to be a lieutenant in WWII, and of course, he would have to have a kilt on! So, a little googling for reference, an hour of drawing, an hour or so of Photoshop magic, and voila! Lieutenant Oliver! I hope you like him as much as I liked drawing him.

If you'd like to learn more about my Aunt Rachel and her book project, check out her site here:

http://jrachelreed.com/