Tess and a Mage

Yet another colored pencil drawing of Crybringer's infamous Demon Mage, Tess!

Also one of my own OCs, a fire mage. Hopefully also soon to be colored.

Some more finished drawings

Did a little shading work from my earlier card of Yoko (FYI, markers only work well on card stock if you don't want them to turn all curly-queue!).

Also a little perspective practice because I stink at that kind of thing.

More links

I follow multiple artist blogs, many of which are veterans in their respective industries. While reading alone will by no stretch make you a better artist, there are always tips that an be picked up from literally anywhere. Art is one of the few professions in which all of the information that you REALLY NEED in order to be successful can be placed out in the open without restriction.

There are far too many good articles out there to list in one place, and if I tried to link everything I came across that looked useful this blog would become very watered down with other peoples' opinions indeed. That said, I have found a few good links worth your attention. I'll try to do a few more of these whenever I collect a good batch of links.

John Schindehette - Artist as Brand, Part 1: John Schindehette works as Art Director for Wizards of the Coast, but he is a genius when it comes to the business of art. Highly recommend browsing his entire blog archive, not just this entry.

James Gurney - Line Direction: Short, direct, but highly informational.

Mark Kenndy - The Environment Should Also be a Character: More validation for why one needs to know about drawing EVERYTHING, not just cute characters.

More fellow minions

After seeing the sketch of one of my coworkers with a ZZ Top beard, another coworker asked me to do a drawing of her. So, naturally, I obliged.

And another index card that I doodled up, adding in a little marker shading.More

Borderlands 2 Index Card

Day job has officially been keeping me too busy to draw, but here's something from the previous week!

Been getting a kick out of Borderlands 2 recently, so I drew a buddies' Siren. Still looking for time to color this one.

You're generic post-apocalyptic 'Can't we all just get along?' drawing.

Cowboy ZZ

A buddy of mine at work requested I draw him with a ZZ Top style beard. Sounded like an interesting opportunity to practice, so here you go, for your viewing pleasure:

For the record, yes, he is a Cowboys' fan, and yes, he was weeping after the game today.

The Art Center - Wouter Tulp: Thoughts on Character Design

I attend to far too many blogs with excellent recommendations on how to study and think to improve one's art. If I reblogged every single worthwhile post I found, this page would quickly become flooded and become nothing more than an echo of other people's sites.

However, this is definitely one worth reading. It is concise but still contains a wealth of information: http://theartcenter.blogspot.com/2012/10/wouter-tulp-thoughts-on-character-design.html

Gurann Lagann and other sketches

Continuing my recent spate of index card art, have some lineart of one of my recent favorite animes.

And the other things I dream up when my day job gives me a little free time.

Some food for thought...

A good critical thinking blog post from one of my favorite sites, The Art of Non-Conformity, on what it means when you actually start to gain some traction on your business (whether art related or otherwise), and what it means to hustle:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/around-here/

More sketches during downtime...

Gotta take advantage of what little time you get!

The Demon Mages!

More index card art, and for once I kind of like how the lineart turned out. Anyway.

Behold The Demon Mages by the epic Crybringer!

Ari!

Tess!

Tara!

Ziggy!

Like everything else I've been doing lately, ballpoint pen on the back of index cards.

I almost don't want to screw these up by trying to color them....