Morning Warmup: Crusader

Here's today's morning warmup sketch of a Crusader from the ol' Moleskine in all its sketchy, unedited glory! (Well, I did adjust the levels a bit. But that's only for the scan, mind you!). Sketching has really been good for me lately. It's just like exercise - when you do it every day, it strengthens your skills, and makes you feel invigorated and ready to tackle the day.

Also, I should note that the recent warmup sketches I've been doing are from photo reference. Just didn't want you to get the idea I'm coming up with this stuff out of my head!

A bit of other news: I'm still trying to finish up my Winter Dragon piece, and it's going good, but still needs a lot of work to pull it to the finish line. Also, today I am doing rough sketches on my Lamp Post Guild piece. I'm doing a scene from Narnia! Looking forward to sharing some preliminaries from that here soon.

And for future reference, I'm going to be shooting for a Mon/Wed/Fri blog post schedule. Not saying I won't miss a post, but that's just to keep me on track!

More art soon!
-Will

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.

Morning Warmup

A little warmup sketch I did this morning to start the day. I did it from a reference photo I had in my files. It's great for me to do these to get the creative juices flowing before I dive into my bigger projects. I may try to post more of these as I do them in the future.
Also, I'm in the thick of the watercolor process for my Winter Dragon piece, so expect another progress update tomorrow!