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Cold War PUNKS: Illustrated Story

VIDEO: Drawing & painting a classic 80s punker, reading from my 1999 sketchbook journal about the time I GOT ON STAGE at a TSOL show… Plus, seeing Black Sabbath play the night before and even more music related hogwash from the good old days.

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Video: BLACK SABBATH BAPTISM: The Riddle of Steel

VIDEO: *Best experienced with headphones*

Welcome back to Sketchbook Time Machine. Today I’m drawing the illustrated story for a sketchbook journal entry from June, 2017 called The Riddle of Steel. It’s the story of Kurt, a true bad ass and a good friend of mine in junior high, who introduced me to Black Sabbath. It was one of those brief but pivotal eras of youth that stay with you for the rest of your life.

(VIDEO) Deadly Class : Drawing Favorite Characters

VIDEO: Today I’m drawing my favorite character from the comic and now TV show, Deadly Class. And it’s probably not who you think it is. I know everyone loves the leading ladies– Saya is mysterious and lethal, Maria is dangerous and loyal – but the one I’m always rooting for is Billy. I just like that kid.

So for today’s sketchbook journal entry, let’s head way back to 1996. Just like in issue 9 of the comic when Saya and Marcus go to see The Adolescents at The Fillmore, this is the story of my first punk show.

VIDEO: Unpucker Your Uptight Art Butt

VIDEO: Today I’m a little burnt out from too much computing. I’ve been working in Photoshop and Illustrator all week doing super slick digital stuff for a graphic design client and I’m pretty over it. So since I haven’t drawn anything in awhile, what I really want to do is break out the analog tools and make a mess… You know, just loosen up and go to town with some down and dirty stuff I don’t have to care about.

You know how most of the time when you’re working on a project you want to be doing something else? If you’re designing the branding for a wine bottle you’d rather be painting. If you’re making comics, you’d rather be drawing in your sketchbook. If you’re doing some pen and ink stuff you’d rather be on the computer… seems like the grass is always greener when you’re looking over the art fence.

Well yesterday I was pretending to listen to a conference call about designing a sales brochure for lamps and furniture. Even though I do like and care about designing sales collateral, I found myself reaching for the nearest pen and paper and started sketching Eddie from Iron Maiden riding a unicorn.

Happens every time. Well, not Eddie on a unicorn but you know, I just start mindlessly doodling.

Anyway, the closest thing I could find to draw on was a magazine. I drew a couple cartoon heads and half of that Maidencorn and thought, “Hey, this glossy surface makes some cool effects and I kinda like the lines of text in the background. Plus, I don’t have to be careful or worry about screwing anything up cause the paper is cheap as hell so I can just go nuts and who cares?”

Drawing and painting in a magazine would be perfect for loosening after being on the computer for a week and a half.

This painting was done in acrylic with a black Prismacolor pencil on top for the line work. I was gonna use ink but I didn’t want to make a big production out of it and the pencil was easy, just grab it and go.

I started by blocking in the main shapes with Sap Green for a base to work from. This step takes the place of a pencil drawing, you can just roughly sketch in the basic image. It’s a good way to keep you from getting too detailed too soon.

Whenever I sketch on the phone or secretly in a work meeting, I usually just draw my greatest hits– leather jacket punks, skulls, motorcycles, cars… Everybody has at least half a dozen easy, favorite things to draw that they automatically go to for comfort. You know the ones, they don’t take much thinking– you can just zone out and doodle. Today’s image happens to be some good old rock n roll jams, one of my other favorite hits.

Next, I roughed in the lighter color layers on top of the base shapes to start defining the image a little more.

I knew there would be a big word balloon on the top of the right side, but the KRANG and YEAH YEAH YEAHs I just made up as I went along– and it looks like it. But again, this is just a fun warm up so who cares?

Then I laid in the black pencil line work to pull the shapes and brush strokes together. This image was different than my usual way of working. Normally I draw it in pencil, ink it and then color it. So starting with the color on this one was backward for me which was kinda weird but pretty cool.

I did get a little carried away and it got overworked and the effort started to show about half way through. I wanted to keep it loose and rough but it got too noodly and locked down by the end. So I guess you could say my art butt was 50% unpuckered on this one. Actually, don’t say that… especially not out loud in a grocery store.

Next I put in some highlights and added some fancy pants details here and there

And lastly, I added the lettering for the big word balloon. If you check out my sketchbook tour videos, you can see that I put tons of word balloons and sound effects in my sketches– just gives ‘em life and makes it more fun.

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m probably one of the greatest songwriters of all time. These two mind blowing verses took me at least 3 minutes to come up with. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon and Neil Young.

My playlist for working on this image included: Megadeth/ Rust in Peace, The Haunted/ Haunted Made Me Do It, Prong/Cleansing, and Pentagram/First Daze Here

Blessing Pink Rabbits with Bob Seger

4-5-18 Finally drawing panels again– just finished pencils for page twenty-two. It wasn’t until the third day back that I was feeling good and having fun with it. My drawing power still isn’t back to the level it was a few months ago, but that’s the price for getting sidetracked.

4-6-18 Night Moves by Bob Seger came on the overhead system while having a burrito at JJ’s Deli. Listened to the whole record when we got home– still awesome.

I was a little too tall
Could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly renowned
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high
-Bob Seger