Painting From the Masters - Mignola's Hellboy

 Just kind of playing around here - trying out a number of different things….

I LOOOOOOOOOOVE Mike Mignola’s art. Occasionally I do like “painting from the masters”… and I have this gouache set I picked up ages ago and have been wanting to try out (because I also LOVE Elaine Will’s gouache paintings!) … AND I always wondered what inking someone else’s pencils would be like… AND I’ve been wondering if pre-cut 8x10 Strathmore 500 series watercolour paper would go through our laser printer…. Sooooooo…. 

Mignola posts LOADS of pencil sketches on Instagram, so I screen shotted a few and tried printing them out on pre-cut Stratmore 500 Series 8x10 sheets (which worked… but I probably should have edited them first cranking the contrast and black point so there was no grey in the background…) and then I tried painting it with the gouache paints… So it was kind of a paint-by-numbers from the masters, in a sense… tracing, yes, in the same sense that all inkers are “tracers”… (Ha-ha! My favourite bit of Chasing Amy - which is 25 years old this year!?  WTF!?)

I kind of like how it turned out. I mean, how could it not, tho. I’m tracing Mike Mignola’s art!? 

No, it is not for sale. 

No, I do not do commissions based on other people's IP. 

Sketching After Scarry

 I kind of gave up on Kaijune after the GIGAGOOSE... but once I let that go, I did start doing some more drawings/paintings of Critters on Bikes - mostly inspired by the works of Richard Scarry. 

I've been trying out some different paper and sketchbooks and experimenting more with Holbien Acrylic Inks. I'm not sure if I should call these drawings or paintings... I mean, I draw with a pen, but then colour with a brush (like painting) and then touch-up the outlines with a pen again... I don't know. "Illustrating", I guess. 

One of the things I LOVED about Richard Scarry's books as a kid was the fact that there WERE bicycles in the books and so I've been seeking out those pictures the last week or so and copying them into my sketchbooks for practice and inspiration. 

Huck and Lowly worm - copied from Richard Scarry. 

Huck and Lowly again - and a police officer that commandeered their tricycle after a criminal made off with his own bike - also copied from Richard Scarry. 

French Police Fox from Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy World. 

Delivery Cat - also copied from Richard Scarry.

Dutch repairpig from Busy, Busy World that stuffed a tourist into a dike to (temporarily) plug a leak! Copied from Richard Scarry.

This one is based on an illustration from Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy World, in Rome where a runaway car bashes into this poor fox's gelati bicycle cart and motor tomato cart (and others) - there are cones and spaghetti and tomatoes and balloons and bicycles all thrown up into the air! 

Lowly Worm and his friend Goldbug on a bicycle. I found this image on the internet as part of a pdf activity book made by Richard Scarry Books. I found it interesting as it has details that Scarry often left out in drawings of bicycles in books I've been looking at lately.

Not copied from Scarry - this one's all me - Cheetah on a Road Bike. 

Another doodle I did in my sketchbook while waiting for Keira at her music lesson - Piggies in a Cargo Bike! 

September Drawing-From-The-Masters Challenge

 Though the month of September I challenged myself to draw/paint a picture ever day. I decided to try "painting from the masters" - copying the work of another artist. In this case I ended up copying the works of John Blanche. This is more thoroughly covered on one of my Other Blogs. 

All of the pieces below are copied from John Blanche illustrations copied from The Emperor's Will - Agents of the Imperium (pictured above).  I really LOVE his style - there's kind of a frantic rawness and intensity to these illustrations that, for me, masterfully conveys the grim-dark reality of the life in the 41st millennium. I should say, just to be 100% clear here (because, as an artist, intellectual property rights of of great importance to me), the original illustrations are © John Blanch and/or Games Workshop and my studies  were done purely for my own private entertainment and education purposes and are presented here simply to share with the community a creative thing that I did. They are not now, nor ever will be, for sale. I do not take commissions of any kind. 

Well, that's it. It was a fun project. The plan WAS to continue on with daily drawings through October... but... that plan is currently in flux... for... reasons... I'll try to post what I'm working on, periodically, throughout the month. 

As I said, these were originally posted on my Gaming Blog through the month and there are a lot more process pictures and chatter about what I was tryign to do. If you're intersted in seeing/reading more about what I was doing, check those out:

September Challenge - Part One

September Challenge - Part Two

September Challenge - Part Three

September Challenge - Part The Last

Anyway, if you found your way here and read all of this, why not drop me a line in the comments below, so I know I'm not totally wasting my time posting all this crap for NO ONE?!

Thanks!