Midget Drawing Final

If you didn't know already, in this case a midget isn't a small person.  It's actually in fact one of the coolest race cars in the history of all racing.  In fact, it's one of the first.  This particular midget races in the Rocky Mountain Midget Association.  The most common seen on TV is the USAC Midgets.  This is the same thing, but simply a different chapter of the sport.

In any case, this is my final drawing project for a class of mine this Spring Semester at AAU.  I'm quite pleased with myself with this simple charcoal pencil drawing on newsprint.  This was direct drawn, which is quite hard - especially for myself.  I only made a couple mistakes and had to use an erasure just a couple times, but no under drawing period.  Except for some those couple places around the fingers every stroke is the final image you see here.  No build up, just the final piece.  I think this only took me an hour and some minutes to finish this.  I'm very satisfied with this drawing ^_^

Sketch Book 16: At the Races

A night at the races!  So much fun, especially with a pit pass, where you get to see all the action that goes on before and after a race the typical fan never sees.  I used to race karts when I was in middle school and high school for about 5 years or so.  There's a lot of intensity that goes on getting the car ready for a race, crashes, and some times more than words get exchanged.  It's quite a fun sport, and it's very common to see families involved.

These are all just sketches of some of the action in the pits.

This all took place at I-76 Speedway, a nice dirt track found near Fort Morgan in Colorado.  The cars in these drawings are the Midgets from RMMA, IMCA Modifieds, and Lighting Sprints.

Lion Skull Illustration for Zhon

I love working with ink, and I love inking skeletal drawings.  This here is a lion skull I had quite some fun inking, for Zhon.  (http://zhon.deviantart.com/) 

I haven't taken any classes on inking, so I have developed this inking technique myself.  I really would like to formally learn some inking techniques and various cross hatching techniques from a pro someday, but for the most part I think I'm doing okay.  Till then, I'll just enjoy experimenting and having fun with it.

The Downhill Derby Cover Art: Final Composition

So, just finished with the cover art for my children's book "The Downhill Derby".  It's getting a script revision, and a storyboard tweak too.  I don't imagine this will be finished any time soon as the top priority is finishing my board game.  I hope to have this finished by the time I graduate though, which will be about a year and a half more to go.  School life doesn't give much free time to personal or side projects :P  Oh well, such as life. 

This was going to be my cover art, until I was inspired today.  It was a huge hurdle to get inspired btw.  I had to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator for the first time.  I have always hated Illustrator and it's because I don't know what the heck I'm doing.  It's more geared towards the designer mind set and not the artists mind set.  Anyways, I fought through it, and figured how to at least make the title art.  After that long painful moment, I must have found some inner passion and strength and after a few hours fighting with gradients, textures, colors, and shapes I managed to improve this original idea with the one you see on top.  I thank God, and God willing this will someday be read by some little kid and make his day.