In honor of Michael Jackson’s funeral this week, I thought I’d post some sketches done by yours truly. The first is vintage 1983 done in #2 pencil on notebook paper:
The second sketch was done earlier this year as a potential gag for an upcoming Meno book. We’ll see if it makes it…
Rest in peace King of Pop. May you walk the moon forever more.
Here’s a real treat from our friend Noah. He’s shared all three different stages of his drawing of Jared, Simon and Mallory Grace (from BtSC) with us, showing the sketch, ink and color stages
Nice work Noah, keep on drawin!
Here’s a newly discovered creature recorded from Tess, it’s called a “Sea Slither”. Nice design Tess, I especially admire details like the floating eggs!
Our talented friends Sascha and Mina sent some wonderful sprite and faerie drawings to share from Holland…nice work!
Here are two nice Kenny Rabbit drawings from Issac and Gracie, whom you may remember from the “Design Your Dragon” contest. Its great to see some more Kenny art, he can be a tricky one to draw…but these two both did a great job!
Nicolas has given us a wonderful glimpse into his own Arthur Spiderwick-inspired field guide to the faerie world. Its awesome for me to see fans collecting data on the elusive invisible world. I especially love the page on goblins where he’s included real goblin tooth items, including rose thorns! I wish I had thought of that, it makes perfect sense! Keep on drawing Nicolas!
We got a great pile of Friday Fan Art just waiting to be uploaded over the next few weeks, starting with these character images from The Spider and The Fly from Jessica.
She is in the eight grade and is already taking existing subject matter a juxtaposing it in a different art style – in this case manga/anime. That’s my kind of thinking Jessica!
Keep drawing everyone, and be sure to check out some of the cool pieces coming up in the coming weeks!
TGIF! What a week in DiTerlizziland! I have been up to my eyeballs in creating the artwork for the Spiderwick finale, The Wyrm King. As I continue my drawing/inking warm-ups for each day’s session, I have been rendering some fun stuff that is looong overdue to some of my friends – including this pen & ink art trade with Dinotopia demigod, James Gurney.
Jim rendered a super-cool piece for the upcoming Spiderwick Chronicles Completely Fantastical Edition – which (as I’ve mentioned before) contains the first five books, lost chapters from Holly, a sketchbook from yours truly, and a SICK art gallery by some of my drawin’ pals. Jim said I could have his submission for a trade, and (of course) I jumped at the opportunity.
I went back to the original Dinotopia and found a nice vignette of the hero, Will, meeting Bix, the benevolent protoceratops. I wanted to do my take on this scene, mainly because I would LOVE to be in Will’s shoes. (And, also, because the idea of becoming friends with a dinosaur is not too far removed from becoming friends with a creature of the faerie realm).
What got me juiced was re-interpreting the dinosaur and incorporating some of the current theories linking dinos to birds. So that is the place that I went to for my reference. I cracked open Dr. David Norman’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, which had reconstructions of the protoceratops, but (more importantly) had a very detailed line-drawing of the skeleton – a structure to build upon.
Immediately, I thought exotic parrots in the rainforest…or even prairie chickens found in the western U.S.. Right away, I knew Bix was going to be feathered.
I sketched Will up on a second sheet of paper and composited the two sketches in Photoshop. This is great for sizing and moving around the figures. I even adjusted the balance of Bix by straightening his left leg to hold his weight.
I transferred the 11×14″ sketch onto Strathmore plate 2-ply bristol using my light table, refined the pencil lines, and inked it up using FW inks and a Hunts 102 nib. I even gave it the trademark Spiderwick dual-border (which I outline with a ruler and pencil, then ink freehand.)
I hope you like it Jim, I’ll have to blop some watercolor on a print out at some point…unless someone out there is really good at digital coloring…
PS – Update! Jim posted his image (of Hogsqueal riding on Bix) on his site. He even included a little video of himself inking the piece…check it out!
