| Cute + Pink Batman |
[Oct. 24th, 2009|08:59 pm] |
Sometimes you just want to draw Batman.
I really liked these colors by Dylan McCrae, so I stole them from his site. |
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| 2nd Vulcan Sketch + Detail |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|06:41 pm] |
I've been thinking about Vulcans because I'm dressing as Spock for Halloween. This is a painting with a "Rake" brush I found online. It's very similar to a brush in Corel Painter. |
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| Spanish Dude Sketch |
[Oct. 21st, 2009|03:05 pm] |
I'm having fun doing these sketches and digitally painting them. Maybe I should see how I can match this to my usual style. |
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| Ninja Elf Sketch |
[Oct. 19th, 2009|05:10 pm] |
Drew a Ninja Elf today. Is the color stuff with the lines too much? |
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| Vulcan Paint |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|04:55 pm] |
I decided to try painting a sketch I drew today. In some ways I love how it turned out, and in other ways I think it's just weird.
And thanks to Melanie Matthews for sending me some brushes to try out and suggesting one of the photoshop default ones. |
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| Vulcans on the brain |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|11:02 am] |
I plan on dressing up as Spock for Halloween so I've been thinking a little about Vulcans. I usually draw with a lead holder using non-photo blue "lead". I do this because I draw really hard and so I can ink or pencil over it and remove the blue in photoshop. Today I decided to use a darker blue pencil I have sitting around. I kind of liked it. Also, this guy might be related to Mic Jagger. |
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| Madman Atomic Comics #17 Pinup, Twitter & Some Stuff |
[Oct. 10th, 2009|03:23 pm] |
So this might be a little long and random. In September, Madman Atomic Comics #17 was released. Click the image to buy it.
Well a while back I did a Madman Commission for Simon Miller. (Click his name for his Original Comic Art Shop website). He is connected with everyone involved in creating Madman and offered to send them a copy of the commission I did. I thought that was cool but forgot about it. It turns out that my commission is one of the pin-ups printed in the back of issue #17!
(I look scuzzy in the pic because I need a shave and a haircut, but I'm happy)!
Looking at my artwork printed next to some amazing artists, not to mention Mike Allred, has shown me how I can improve on my inking and details. I'm especially into the pin-ups by Rafael Grampá and Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.
In other Mike Laughead news. I have a Twitter account now. You can follow me under the username mikelaughead. Very original!
I recently visited Iowa for a friend's baptism. While there I got to meet Phil Hester who is an awesome guy. If you ever see him at a convention, say hi and talk to him about being from the midwest.
While I was in Iowa, my nephew Bob showed me this abstract art pen drawing he did. Bob just started middle school and is on his way to becoming a great artist.
I haven't been doing much artwork that I can post on my blog recently, but I'm posting a sneak peek of my current big project. It's a children's book about a little hippo girl that goes with her mom to buy her first pair of shoes. I'll post more when it's further along.
Finally, here is a poster I just finished yesterday. This is the art minus the type that will be used to promote GamingForCause.com. I was so happy to just mess around on this as a break from working on kid's books. The colors seem to have the "growth" feel that I was going for.
Thanks for reading, or just looking at the images like I sometimes do. |
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| 3 Hands? |
[Sep. 11th, 2009|12:53 pm] |
I'm now working on the 8th and final Robot & Rico book. I just started coloring this page and I realized that I gave Robot 3 hands without really noticing it. Have any of you reading this done something similar in a drawing? I thought it was kind of funny. I'm going to end up taking out the left hand holding the paper.
My mom and little sister are coming to visit today with my little sister's 3 boys. I'm really pumped. I hope her oldest is impressed by my artwork.
Have a good weekend everyone. |
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| Robot & Rico Books 1-4 |
[Aug. 17th, 2009|09:12 am] |
In my last entry I posted the covers to some easy reader books I did earlier this year. I realized that unlike before, I haven't posted much of the work I've done this year because I've had bigger/longer assignments. This is the first of a few that I'll be able to post. The following is an image of 4 pages, each from one of the first 4 Robot & Rico books.
I thought I would post the small PDFs of the books so you guys could all see them and hopefully I could get some advice on which spreads/pages are the best for my portfolio. I've asked some of you before, but I'm still considering.
Book 1 PDF | Book 2 PDF | Book 3 PDF | Book 4 PDF
You can buy the books here:
Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4. Or you can check on Amazon.
I'm working on the next 4 books right now. I'm especially proud of how the sledding one turned out. I can't wait to show you guys! |
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| Robot & Rico Covers 1-4 |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|05:02 pm] |
I've been busy on a few projects recently. The biggest one being the Robot & Rico picture books.
These are the covers to the first 4 books, I'm currently working on the next 4 of them. These are beginning reader books geared towards boys. Robot & Rico are friends that do fun stuff together and run into a few problems along the way.
Hopefully I'll be able to post some spreads from these books soon. |
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| Family Portrait + 2 Shirts for Voting |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|10:03 am] |
I do a themed family portrait for my wife every Valentine's Day. Well, I was crazy busy with work and... I dunno. So I just finished it. My 2 year old, Penelope, looks and talks just like an Ewok, so that's why I went with the Return of the Jedi idea. And as for why I made my wife and I brother and sister, well, I wanted a lightsaber. When I saw this as a kid I sure wasn't wishing I could be Han Solo.
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I also have 2 shirts up for voting.
The first is at Threadless.
The second is one LaFraise.
Please check out the shirts and comment on them. I appreciate constructive criticism so please tell me how you feel. |
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| Record Shop, a Logo, Sketchiness and My Favorite Disney Princess |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|08:42 am] |
This is an illustration for the Night & Day section in The Pitch. The section has a blurb about Record Shop Day or something. I had fun doing the album covers, please add comments for your guesses if you are inclined.
This Winter semester I have been teaching a Digital Painting class at KVCC here in Kalamazoo. I have the class upload their work to a blog for viewing and critiquing. Halfway during the class I made this logo for the class blog. I like how it turned out so I figured I would show it here. If you want to check out the class blog, here is the address:
KVCCDigitalPainting.BlogSpot.com
Much of the work uploaded is in progress, but there's some really great work on there.
Just a little sketch I did during a church meeting recently. I think this came as a result of reading Pride and Prejudice recently. The book is seriously awesome. I'm amazed that Jane Austen could write so well and so finished without an editor to help cut and change what doesn't work. The biggest problem I have with it is she sometimes doesn't say who is speaking in a conversation. That is frustrating!
Because Disney distributes the Studio Ghibli films in the US, I thought this little thing was funny. I guess I could have included Nausicaa in there as well, but that might not have worked as well. Just as a clarification, I did not draw this, I just photoshopped it together one day. I figured it should be available to everyone who wants it. |
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| Skeleton Kat, Squid Head, Buildings, Butterflies and Reptiles |
[Feb. 18th, 2009|09:38 pm] |
I was asked to do a sample for a children's book. The basic premise is a skeleton cat that likes to play the drums. Well, I went a little overboard with it. But the back and forth with the editors and art directors was really great. They had some great insights and advice. This is a progression of the ideas from first to last. There are things I like about all of them. I'm not sure if I like the 3rd or the last one best. But there are some great things going on in the first one as well.
I did this a while back as a t-shirt design. I really like inking with a brush, but my illustration style has veered away from it. This was an experiment.
This is from an old job. I had to do some building "caricatures". I'm posting a couple of my favorites.
My wife requested that I design a wallet she would actually like to own. This is the result. I think the tinymeat folks are pretty busy with their new store so I haven't heard back from them about it.
I did some spots recently and these were my favorite ones. |
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| Nighttime 3, a Praying Gorilla & Madman! |
[Oct. 16th, 2008|01:30 pm] |
I just wanted to drop a quick update of some new work.
3rd Nighttime cover. This is as far as the series is going for now. I can't wait to see these in the bookstore. This is my favorite of the 3. Anyone think one of the others is better?
This is a spread for Insight Magazine. I don't get to read the articles so I'm not 100% sure what this one is about. But I do know that the gorilla is very pious.
I was recently asked to do a Madman commission. (If you are interested in a commission, I charge $50 for an original ink drawing.) I also colored this one for fun. |
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| I'm on Jeff Smith's Blog! |
[Oct. 14th, 2008|09:32 am] |
Due to my recent interview linking to Jeff Smith's website, Jeff Smith himself took a notice of my artwork and the few comics I've done. As if that weren't awesome enough, he then decided to write a little blog entry about me!
Now, as I said in my interview, Jeff Smith is one of my favorite comic book creators and frankly one of my favorite artists as well. I first discovered Jeff's amazing comic 'Bone', when I bought issue #13 at the comic shop when I was in high school. It immediately was appealing in every way. The story was fun, intriguing and well told. The black and white art was full of life with tons of amazing brushstrokes. I went on to buy many other issues and eventually all of the graphic novel collections. Later on, in order to improve my inking skills, I copied a panel from the comic. Please, please, please check out Bone and give it a read. Here are some ways to buy it:
1. Directly from Jeff Smith. The one volume addition is the best money you will spend this year.
2. You can also buy from Amazon.com
It also might be at your local library. Either in the black and white version or the new color versions printed by Scholastic. Start with the collection "Out From Boneville".
I need to check out Jeff's other comic stuff, Shazam! and RASL. Both look awesome and the storylines sound great.
Jeff, thanks for checking out my artwork. You are really one of the best. |
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mikelaughead's journal
