Christmas Ale

Mmmm....happy holidays. I know it's a bit early, but it's so delicious that I decided to do a quick sketch of a magical glass of Great Lakes Christmas Ale.

Lil' Pumpkin

Cafe sketch of a little pumpkin on my table.

Kimbra

Can't stop listening to this girl lately. I'd highly recommend you check her out; super classy and jazzy, but quite poppy.

Quick sketch, used a reference but no tracing involved.

Girl in Grass

Had some time on the flight over to see my brother, decided to pull this one out and color it.

Ginger in a Cafe

Coffee makes me want to try new things. Like drawing gingers.

Underwater Woofers

Not quite happy with this one, but I'm still messing with it.

This is what I think of when I hear soft dubstep.

Tri-Lit

Something I've been working on lately.

I'm really not happy with the dark one at all. My proportions are all off (nose too small, face is too thin in places) and it should be smaller and very slightly more bottom oriented so it offsets the looking up one; I believe I'll have to redo it because it's dang near impossible to erase that white pencil... I'm so used to being able to marquee and move things in Photoshop that I forget to give much thought over placement when doing traditional.

The other ones need some final rendering too, but I'm happier with those.
Used reference photos taken in the different lightings.

Ms. Leslie

This doesn't do my lovely girlfriend justice, but I'm still getting used to colored pencils...

Me Gusta

He's lovin it.

Oh Mushroom Mushroom (no snake)

Tried some straight up painting with the CS5 brushes, I'm getting there. No reference other than a quick look through google images so I could remember what a mushroom looked like exactly.

I also found a nice tip online: once you have the painting more or less how you want it, duplicate it, emboss the new layer one pixel high with maximum amount, desaturate, set to overlay. Makes the strokes look much more realistic.

Freerunner

Something I've been working on as of late.
I've been working with the new brushes in CS5, starting to get the hang of them a little more.
The secret lies in the mixer brush tool; laying down colors with the new brushes feels okay as far as how real it feels, but blending them together with the mixer brush...you can almost smell the oil.
As you can see I'm painting under linework, but once I get a little more comfortable with the brushes hopefully I'll do some stuff with brushes alone.

Cafe Sketches 5/5/11

It's fun packing sketches close together and then connecting them somehow.

Cloth Practice

Couple cafe doodles, shoe, pants, attempt at generating cloth.

Fabric

Fabric practice...IN PEN, LIKE A BOSS.

Don't mind the non-fabric drawings down there.

Cardinal Comes to Visit

Here's the story; me and my roommates were taking some band photos down by the reservoir and had headed back to the van. We had left the sliding door and passenger door open out of sheer laziness and weren't walking far enough to worry about someone stealing it. I was the first to get in the passenger side door, and immediately after sitting down, something red came flying up from the floor onto my side of the car. I'm not sure what I said, but it was something akin to "Freaking holy cardinal" because he scared the daylights out of me being all red and flappy. I sat stunned for several moments before Lee said, "Orie....you're holding a camera", at which point I started snapping. He was a bit confused at first and kept pecking at the glass, I didn't really think about him pecking me, just that I felt like I should try and help him off the window and so I gently tried to ease him off the window. He just climbed on my hand and sat for a bit, which was even more incredible, so Lee took the camera and snapped off a couple. Eventually he figured out the whole impenetrable glass thing, and he flew off into a nearby bush, chirped a couple times and flew off.

All in all, an incredible experience to say the least. I've always loved watching cardinals, but seeing one so close and having him rest on my hand was very near spiritual.

Thank you cardinal, thank you nature, thank you Father.

Leslie Inspired Texture

Leslie did a fun texture type design on my skateboard, so I gave it a go.

Leefus McInsex

My dear friend Lee, sketching away at Mcdonalds.

I Hate My Voice

Another super quick, non-planned, sketch. This may be one of my favorites.
Quick color for kicks.

Also, do you think he should be sitting or dancing? I drew it as sitting but I kind of like the dance in a way.

Cafe Sketches

I enjoy drawing over a nice cup of espresso.

This an attempted return to that sketching style of no-planning and lines that go down exactly one second before I think them through.

Drawing #1: You know you want to wear that
#2: Whatever happened to catch my eye out the window of the cafe (except for my hand of course)
#3: My view from the cafe window
#4: My cup of inspiration. First purely colored pencil drawing ever.

All coloring courtesy of the lovely Leslie Malkemus and her gift of colored pencils.