Stick Figure Sketchblog & Webcomic Creator @ Stewped.com

Let me first say that this is a new experience for me. This is the absolute first time that I’ve ever filled a sketchbook up on purpose.

I’ve been doodling in this sketchbook since 2010. Some people fill up a sketchbook a month and I find that super impressive. I’ve been terrible with my drawing habit, but finishing this one Moleskine was oddly easy. Doodles. Driving directions. Convention & inventory notes. All kinds of random sketches and notes. Anything and everything went into filling up Mitch’s Sushi and I will feel awkward not carrying it around with me. Perhaps that is only because Mitch’s successor has yet to be named.

It took over 3 years, but I’m pleased with the results. There are comic notes in there and a bunch of ridiculous stick figure comics that people(and I) have enjoyed. Following this is a brief gallery of some of my favorite pages. There’s sketches of Doctor Who, Misfits, random  garbage and many, many stick figures. I really like that skull-faced lady with the grocery bags, too. Not sure what to do with her yet, but she’s interesting to draw.

Rather than print my banner out, I am going to paint it on canvas. There’s the setup at right: canvas and PVC pipe. It will be a bit taller than that in the end. Right now, it’s about 6 feet.

So on to the ideas. I want some stick figures to feel larger than life! Plus, very strong lines of action are required. That’s what I enjoy and I want that to show through.

Looking at the pirate one now, it could be a lot stronger.

Which ones are your favorites? Pick 2!

Here’s the other two images that I’ve fixed up. I think they work a lot better on this grey rather than the black I was messing with previously.
This kind of falls under the heading of preparing for Denver Comic Con. In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, I have a table there this year! Not sure where, yet. They haven’t notified anyone of table assignments so far.

I have more con prep stuff to share and I’ll be sure to update here with more con news.

Two new life is pain designs have finally been completed! I’ve been working super hard as I’d like to Kickstart these, plus some spruced up versions of the previous designs.

Also are the sketches I made the vectors out of.

Recently I discovered an approximation of an online figure drawing class. This Figure Drawing Training tool(NSFW if you choose the nude option) has an amazing option where it starts out showing you images of nude and/or clothed humans for 30 seconds, then ramps it up depending on how long you want to take the “class.” I started out with the 30-minute “trainer” class because I gotta get to work on some comics. I think that’s a pretty good time to start out. There were 30-second, one-minute, five-minute, and 11-minute images to draw from.

To let you guys know that I’m working hard at learnin’ stuff, here’s the images from tonight’s session. One thing is for sure: I am crazy out of practice.

This is what my stack of drawing paper looks like. Classy, right?

I’ve been listening to all the episodes of Comics are Great and on this episode Jerzy talked to one of the authors of Drawing Words and Writing Pictures. I was lucky enough to find it at the local library here and started going through it. This is exactly the book I never knew I wanted. Being out of practice for so long, I’ve really gotten  down on myself and completely forgot how to doodle and just screw around in my sketchbook. The first chapter has these cool exercises that basically lead you by the hand into having fun and trying things knew. It’s perfect for when you don’t have any ideas and the blank page is sitting there taunting you.

Here are my attempts at the first part of the chapter 1 exercises. You can compare them to critiqued examples on the DW&WP site if you wish. The staggering guy was the one I had trouble with, but as you can see, I did fill a whole page trying to work it out. And I had a good time attempting it. The tasks were to create:

• A Person Running
• A Car Speeding
• A Ball Falling
• A Person Staggering
• A Newspaper page blowing in the wind

Go ahead and critique these if you wish.

If you’re an artist you know how great it feels to have your art on a nice thick piece of paper strewn about the floor of your artin’ room.

I started out drawing these poorly in a sketchbook. Eventually I moved to some series 300 Strathmore vellum bristol. In terms of a boring, white sheet of paper it is pretty great. I have a pad of plate bristol in another brand(borden & riley) and it’s awful. The ink spreads out and bleeds so that the artwork looks all fuzzy. Eww. However, the vellum of the borden & riley stuff is great and doesn’t bleed. I am almost out of the 9×12 pages that I use for the thesaurus entries, too *sad face.* If you want to be super nice and donate something so I can buy some more pads of this awesome paper, that would be great. If there’s any wallpapers or ATCs I can make as thanks, be sure to let me know in the comments or at aj dot stewped at gmail dot com.

I really want to make 2012 worthwhile for you visitors to any of my comics sites. I know that I’ve been a bit of a sappy screw-around the past 5, 6, 7 years? I think I started in 2003, posting stuff here and there. Then, due to some baloney or other I’d pitch a fit and give up for a month. Two months. 6 months. A year. Ugh. How embarrassing. Thanks, chrome, for telling me that there are two ‘R’s in embarrassing. However, this year is going to be different and awesome.
(more…)

I finished this the other night. I might be learning a thing or two about color.

Slowly.

We bought some cookies today–because it’s cheat day!–and the sticker on the box was a giant BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!! sticker. Then, once we arrived home, inspiration struck.

Above,  I present to you the “original” sketch followed by the intermediary step before the inky final step. I say “original” like that because, sadly, there is no actual original.  I did all of this in Manga Studio, my favorite program for drawing comics. I wish they would pay me to advertise for them because it’s that good. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: go try out the demo! The trial is only for the Debut version, but every few months it seems you can find EX 4 on sale for around $200 or less. It is WORTH IT.

And by hell, I mean the bathroom.

Let’s get personal, kids.
I spend a lot of time in the bathroom.
A wasteful amount of time.
Not having fun, either.
Digestive issues.
Buuuggghh.

Then, a good friend gave me some tablet-PCs that his company was just going to throw away. They even have Sketchbook pro on ’em and come complete with a Wacom-type stylus that is pressure sensitive. Wacom may have contributed to the making of them, I don’t know. I do know, however, that it is immense fun to draw on the thing. Absolutely no keyboard though, so it’s not ideal for typing. I don’t have that kind of time in there.

That’s when the magic started happening. I’ve been drawing on this tablet thing for almost 2 weeks and making some fun drawings. Even started some goofy comic strips that I can’t wait to finish by beaming them to the real computer so I can finish them on the Cintiq. It’s a lot easier to finish something on the big screen and with a keyboard for shortcuts.

Enjoy these drawings knowing they caused me horrible, horrible stomach pain!