Zub Tales

The response from people about the Zim fan art I’ve been posting has been very, very cool. I figured I’d make it a trio of Zim-based artwork and then move on to other subjects. Anyways, here we go… I hope you all like it:

The line art was done in pencil. Colors this time out were all done in Photoshop.

Yes, he’s drinking something called “Doom”. It seemed appropriate. 🙂

Last night’s life drawing session was short. I only stayed for the first hour out of three. I slept like crap on Monday night and zombied my way through Tuesday, so by the time the session started at 6pm I was already beat.

Weirdly enough, the best piece of the night wasn’t even from the model. Using one of the whispy 30 second gestures I did at the start of the session to warm up I added all the details and shadows while the model was on break. I’m not sure if it was just good visualization or what but it looked better than the poses where I was trying to analyze the model right in front of me. Weird, but cool. I think the figure drawing practice is paying off.

Anyways, here’s the pics:
Click here to see my best drawings of the evening.

Organizing assignments I’m going to be handing back to the students this morning, I came across one of the example sketches I did up last week to help drive home good line clean-up habits:

For the above example I used one of the student character designs, drawing over top on a clean sheet and then scrawling notes around it to remind them about certain key points. I’ve replaced my crappy printing with an actual text font so you guys and gals can properly read the notes here.

Obviously without the actual lecture to go along with it, the handout may not mean much. Each of the points on that page were accompanied by my blathering explanation while I drew and a bunch of other little things that didn’t make it onto the sheet. Still, there it is anyways – a little peek into my current Character Design class at Seneca.

Had to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night to wake up non-groggily to teach class today. It sort of worked.

Looks like the Toronto comic crew that went to New York ate a pile and had fun. I admit that I’m jealous of their trip-itude and probably should’ve gone with them to the Mocca comic festival even if I didn’t have anything to present. Next year.

The 12th One Step comic art portfolio article is up at Newsarama. You can read it right here.

All the nice feedback I received about yesterday’s Zim picture spurred on another Zim-itude:

I think the other pic has a softer and more painterly feel, but this one brings across a neat feeling of speed.

Both pics have the actual Irken alien writing from the show on them. Yesterday’s said “Zim Ride”, today’s is “Zim Zoom”.

I watched a pile of Invader Zim this evening. I’d forgotten how great that show was. I remember first seeing the episodes while I was working at the animation studio in Halifax and being blown away by how crazy and amusing it was. Fantastically funny stuff. If you haven’t seen the show, check it out on DVD.

Anyways, feeling inspired by the Zim-age, I thought I’d do up some fan art for Zim as my digital piece for today. I’m really happy with how it turned out:

I decided to go for something more painterly than the standard Zim show look. Here’s a more detailed look at Zim and Gir up top:

Zim line art and wallpaper image if you click here.

Last night was amusing.

My friend Chris’ boss Jean-Pierre was in town and he invited us down to his room at the Renaissance Hotel (which is connected to the Sky Dome) to watch the Jays play the Tigers. I’m not normally a sports fan in any way, but it actually turned out quite cool.

Jean’s room was facing inwards towards the ball diamond with a giant bay window we could open up to hear the game and the crowd. From a perfect 2nd deck view out in left field we watched the game while sitting on comfy chairs with tons of space, making it better than even a private box seat. We turned on the room TV to the same game so we could hear the stats and play-by-play as we watched. Every time a strong play happened there was an awesome roar of the crowd that echoed into the hotel room.

Although the Jays were losing 5-2 for most of the game, they kicked ass in the eighth inning bringing in 8 runs and winning it 10-5. It was awesome eating pizza and drinking in comfort while we watched them bring in run after run right before our eyes. Very nifty.

Afterwards we met up with my friend Sarah for her birthday celebration. Althought we relaxed at Jeremiah Bullfrog’s for a while, we eventually ended up at a lounge I’d never heard of before called Laide. Inside was a classy bar layout with a giant screen off to one side showing turn of the century porno. Needless to say, our great-grandparents were just as sex crazed, dirty and depraved as we are in the 21st century – they just hid it a bit better.

We drank some martinis, hung out and eventually called it a night around 3am.

Today’s mini-painting is all done. I really attacked this one with gusto, sketching fast and picking colors almost at random until I felt I had something working and fun. In the end it turned out as a freckley goblin kid, heh.

The whole piece took about 45-50 minutes from initial drawing to posting here. I like his eyes and sheepish grin.

– The under sketch where I figured out proportion and stuff was done lightly with non-photo blue Col-Erase. You can actually still see it in the scan. Sometimes I’ll erase it, but this time I left it in for the heck of it.
– The sketch line art was then done over top with a red Col-Erase.
– Scanned in at 300 dpi.
– Base tones and colors slammed down in Painter 6.1 with the Simple Watercolor brush.
– Highlights and fine blending done on a layer above the base tones with the Smeary Round brush.
– Color correction and sig added in Photoshop.

Long day at the school, but a good one. I did a bunch of drawing examples for Character Design and Layout class and then went to the weekly Life Drawing session this evening. Now I’m home and tired, but pleased with amount of drawing stuff I did.

Okay, less talk and more drawings. Here goes:

Click here to see my best drawings of the evening.