Category: Monsters

2017 Monster Month: Day 13 – Fluffy

So, did you make a guess as to which of yesterday’s sketches would be turned into a painting today? If you guessed the little girl and the big horned beast at the top of the page, you would have been correct.

It just seemed like a fun idea to take that little girl and make the big guy her pet. Clearly, he could totally be the one to take her for a walk, but he willingly allows her to be his master.

So, a little watercolor paint and some colored pencils applied to a textured paper can turn a few rough pencil sketches into something special…

 

Who walks whom?
Categories
Art: Colored Pencil Art: Painting Art: Watercolor Character Designs Illustrations Monsters

2017 Monster Month: Day 12 – Monstrous Inspiration

Here is another full page from my sketchbook of some random drawings that have nothing to do with each other, or do they? Hmmm. They were originally drawn without any real plan, but sometimes random doodles such as these can inspire a whole other image when put together.

This is often the point of drawing in a sketchbook. It is a place to get the bad drawings out of you so the good ones can see the light of day, but it is also a place where your mind can run free and slap out innocuous little drawings that can actually inspire real creativity later on.

Which of these drawings do you think were turned into a painting? Come back tomorrow to see a watercolor creation inspired by these sketches.

 

Look, an image not cropped so you can see it really is from a sketchbook!
Categories
Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 11 – Frankentori

Okay, today’s monster has a little bit of a personal angle to it. My sister Tori married a man by the name of Frank a while back. When my family refers to them, it usually comes out as “Frank and Tori.” However, we have become so used to saying it, that it ends up sounding like one word, “Frankentori.”

If you put THAT word into the mind of a cartoonist, particularly if that cartoonist is the mischievous brother of the bride, then something like THIS two-headed monster comes from it…

 

Yes folks, this reproduced. I have three nephews from them.
Categories
Art: Drawings Art: Inking Caricature Character Designs Frankenstein Monsters

2017 Monster Month: Day 10 – The Bird Lady

Okay, I realize that TECHNICALLY, this lady does not look like a monster. However, the whole scene gives me a bit of the creeps, so it is being included in this creepfest I call Monster Month.

This started as a sketch of a gnarled old tree in my sketchbook drawn lightly with a blue pencil. As it started to take shape, the birds seemed like a natural addition. Then, of course, an old woman needed to be added, who is likely the birds’ mistress, or perhaps she is not. That is the beauty and mystery that a single drawing can do to the viewer. It makes one ask questions. Who is this woman? Why are those birds there? What do the birds and the woman have to do with each other? Why doesn’t this artist seem to know the answers to these questions?

Well, maybe I do have these answers, or maybe I don’t. That is the beauty and the mystery that an artist can wield with his ink brush pen…

 

Tuppence a bag?
Categories
Animals Art: Drawings Art: Inking Character Designs Illustrations Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 9 – Trolls

Here is another page from my sketchbook that began with the short knight (where was he two days ago when we had all those dragons?!), and the rest of the page filled in with other short creatures that might be more comfortable in a J.R.R. Tolkien tale than in the cold winter of Russia where they were sketched in ink.

 

Not quite seven dwarves, unless you count the baby dragon.
Categories
Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 8 – Hay Fever

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if The Blob had to sneeze?

Here’s the answer accomplished in gouache on black paper…

 

I wonder if he covered his mouth?
Categories
Art: Painting Cartoons Character Designs Illustrations Monsters

2017 Monster Month: Day 7 – Thar Be Dragons

Here is a page from my sketchbook with a massive infestation of dragons. They came out of my pencil in all shapes and sizes, and with varying degrees of dangerosity. (That’s a real word – at least today it is.) You never can find a brave knight when you need one. Although in this case, the knight would really only need an eraser to defeat the dragons.

 

They’d better not breathe any fire, or the whole page will go up in smoke!

 

Incidentally, much like some sketches I showed you last week, these creatures came forth while traveling in Russia earlier this year.

Categories
Art: Drawings Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 6 – Humidity

What is that they say? “It’s not the heat, but the humidity.”

Just imagine you are standing there talking with a friend and all of a sudden it just gets REALLY humid out. Then imagine that the humidity isn’t caused by the weather. Yowza!

Today’s monsters are brought to you by watercolors and colored pencils.

 

I’d also wager that he needs a really big breath mint.
Categories
Art: Colored Pencil Art: Painting Art: Watercolor Cartoons Character Designs Illustrations Monsters