Hans Twardokus / Requested Illustration

I received an very unusual letter form a man living in Germany the other day. Apparently he collects artwork from illustrators around the world and he has me on his list of artist to collect illustrations from.

He sent a prepaid envelope for me to send him my illustration.

He also sent me a few illustrations done by other very famous artists, he even has a sketch from Will Eisner (I feel pretty honored to be in the same class as the great Will Eisner)

So Hans gets an original Garrick Dean pig illustration.

Enjoy Hans!

Captain Phasma

STAR WARS IS COMING!!

Did you think I wouldn't do a Star Wars piece?

Tom Hodges line art with my colors.

Olive Tree Commission

I was commissioned to create a painting for Theory Brand Agency in Salt Lake City, Ut. Their client lives in Sonoma County, California and has a story behind how he could not get olives trees planted into his property due to size and weight.

This piece was designed to have a classic illustrative feel that you would see in vintage wine and olive oil ads. Beige and tan background give the painting a feeling of age with hints of browns at the trunk level and greens at the leaf level to imply the balance of earth and fauna.

I used willow blanches and willow leaves to stipple ink onto the surface to give a sense of light and dark patches to represent depth of field in the main body.

It was a great project to work on and I enjoyed collaborating with the owner of Theory Brand Agency, Jolene Smith. She is a creative powerhouse.

Acrylic on Masonite w/Ink 18" x 24" - Olive Tree

Dracoman

I was commissioned to help design a new character called "Dracoman"

I started with rough thumbnail sketches of the character in different poses 

Once I found a position I liked I rough out a sketch on 11" x 17" Bristol Board

The final image was inked with Micron Pens and I added the name for fun.

Ink on Bristol Board

Destiny Commission

I was commission to draw a 11" x 17" illustration for a woman that wanted to show her game avatar meeting her boyfriends avatar at the final level of the video game Destiny.

The bottom picture shows the reference materials she gave me to use and draw from. I did the piece on 11" x 17" comic book bristol board. It is graphite, ink, and Prismacolor pens.

The Last Event / Inked Pages

 I am finally done with the inking stage of The Last Event. Here are the pages for you to all look at.

BEAU First Official Comic Book

The first official comic book  came out from BEAU this week.

I am so very excited about this... This is the first comic book I ever produced and it turned out brilliantly!

I built the comic under a new title of DEAN Comics and I am Editor in chief (of course). I have never put together a comic book and was so excited to get it completed!

The art comes from the "12 x12 A Comic Book Competition" that we put on last year in coop fashion with the Salt Lake Comic Con. It has great art from the public and from the students at BEAU.

If you would like to purchase one please let me know, they are only a dollar and all proceeds go to an event to help the students.

I'm an editor!

Homework 5 Returned

Well this is it! The returned art with comments. They is a saying when you are being reviewed "it is best when they have nothing to say at all." It means you have done such a good job they find no fault.

On my last critique there wasn't much to say at all.. the pencils had a few comments, the inks only 2 and the colors had no comments at all on it (so I didn't post).

That is a great sign I did great work.

The ink drawing is below

Here are the pencils

Homework Number #5

 This assignment was the most time consuming and the most challenging... but it was the most fun and I love that I get to show you my process from beginning bluelines to full colors.

First I lay out my pages in blue line non reproducible pencil.

Then using graphite I start laying in all the details

Using Micron Pens I ink in the piece

Then into Photoshop to do the computer coloring.

Then into Illustrator to do the borders and text.

The four part process.

This assignment was fun to get into the principles of complete pages.

Thank you to The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art for the amazing education.

Excelsior!

Homework #4 Returned

Here is my homework assignments with notes form the instructor.

Joe Kubert himself used to correct my work, but since he has passed I had another instructor critique my work.

Homework Number #4

Well I have finally wrapped all my course of studies at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. I received my certificate in the mail and I'm on my way to bigger and brighter projects in the realm of comics. Here is the 2 final Homework assignments I never posted on this blog.

Homework Number 3

This assignent was about character development.

You had to create a male and female character and then illustrate the panels on the right.

I really liked doing this assignment, the last assignment was by far the most challenging, but this one let me lay out large scale characters.

Tattoo Work

If you go back about 4 posts you will see that I was commissioned to do a half sleeve tattoo. Well the images of him getting the work done have started to come in. I will post the final image when it is all inked in.

Angry Gnome Comics / The Third Act

This is my second story I have done for Angry Gnome Comics. I really enjoyed doing these pages because it had the detective noir genre. I loved playing with the deep shadows and grey tones.

Week 6

This latest study took me a bit longer than a week, but I wanted to show the process of these sketches. I first find my subject matter, I try to find subject that will challenge me. 

This subject was a gorilla. 

I start with a blue line sketch to get proportions and shape down, at this stage I can change my drawing quite a bit.

I then take my graphite pencil and go over the highest detailed parts, and shadows can be filled in with ink and do not need to be filled in with pencil.

I then copy the pencil (and the blue line does not re replicate on a regular xerox so I just have a faint pencil sketch to go over with ink. I have been using Uni-Ball pens and sharpie to see how challenging the sketch can become.

This is my finished sketch, and I have several versions I can add to a portfolio.

Art is a challenge, I love being an artist and I hope you all keep challenging yourselves as well.

Week 3

Well technically in is not the third week.. but it is my third desk drawing.
This is the Amazon Horned Toad, I loved his face and how serious he looks... the technical part of this drawing was making his skin have the semi scaly feel of a frog with using only an ink pen.
He turned out well.

Pen on Paper

Week 1

I felt that I had been losing a little bit of my focus on art with so much going on in life so I set up my desk at work to be a drafting table and told myself to try to do a drawing a week... TRY being the key word.

Here is the first weeks drawing, a Humbolt Squid, I have an obsession with drawing tentacles...they riddle my sketch books and work station.... I have no idea where the need to draw them comes from.... but they are fun.

Pen on Paper