The Experts #3 and a few commissioned pieces

There's this wacky French guy who keeps coming here and telling me all sorts of crazy stuff, like how terrible of an artist I am and how I could be less of a terrible artist, so I warned him that he would be up for portrayal as one of "The Experts," and he dared me, so I did it. This is Dad  and he always has something to say about something, and yes, he packs a luger.

Dad is a very good artist when he is not "experting," and has a great sense of humor, so I would recommend visiting his blog when you get the chance. Just tell him "that Yankee" sent you.

And here are a few sketch cards that I did for a collector (and he said to say that he was very happy with them) in Wisconsin after he saw some of what I did for the Topps Lord Of The Rings set. They each measure 2.5x3.5 with the top two done in pencil and the bottom one in ink.

Yes, Even More Sketch Cards!

As I'm working on the logo design that I mentioned earlier and doing some commissions and don't have anything new to show, I will share even more of Lord Of The Rings goodness with you. I finally got approval to show the last 100 cards that I did and these are some of those. I was very happy with my inkwork on some of these last ones. I hope that it shows.

Also, I began a figure drawing course last week with my friend Matt Busch  as the instructor, so I hope to post some of my progress from that. 

More Lord Of The Rings and The Dirty Show

Bad news first, I guess. My inclusions into this year's Dirty Show held in Detroit apparently weren't dirty enough as I didn't get a single piece into the show. I liked the piece shown above, so I included it in this post. It was done in colored pencil on paper and was done with the same kind of intention as "the experts," so I guess that makes this a "sexpert."  *sigh* Time to move on...

Here's some more of the LOTR sketch cards done for Topps. More goodies soon.

Lord Of The Rings Sketchcards, Part Four

So far I've just been picking through my favorites of the 550 cards that have been approved to show, but I may just show them in the blocks that I originally scanned them. We'll see. 

And some good news to report. From this set I've been commissioned to do two cards for a collector and I have also been working on a logo for a local company. I'll show more if and when I can.

Lord Of The Rings Sketchcards, Part Three

Here are some more of the Lord Of The Rings gang. 

Lord Of The Rings Sketchcards, Part Two

Here are some more of the Lord Of The Rings sketch cards. I found that as I went along and I became more confident with my line work that I enjoyed doing them in ink. Of course, this makes perfect sense since I prefer to sketch in ink anyways. Some of the later cards that I did, and even the last few that I'm working on now are all done in ink. And I'm very happy with how some of these later ones turned out as you will see soon. Out of all the characters, I think that I enjoyed drawing Gandalf the most, so there are quite a few of the old geezer in this series.

Lord Of The Rings Sketchcards

Today, I received approval to show some of the sketch cards that I've been doing for Topps, so I will be posting my favorites of the first batch over the next week or so. I recently sent back 550 cards and I am doing another 100 that will be due next week. The cards measure 2.5 x 3.5 and will be randomly inserted into the movie card packs, so you get a chance to own an original piece of art. I believe that there are about 100 artists working on this series and I do know that some of them are damn fine.