I don’t mind being the guy grabbing the low hanging fruit on this topic. Sure, it’s cheating a bit to use the American remake of The Ring but, like most millennials, it was my introduction to Japanese Horror.

I saw The Ring when I was twelve and I had absolutely never experienced that level of visceral terror from a movie before. I was incapable of sitting on the couch with the cute girl who’d invited me over. Instead I was perched on a wicker chair in the corner, knees to my chest, watching through my hands. That first viewing of The Ring has never (and likely will never) be matched.

And I don’t mean to paint the experience in a positive light. For years afterward I avoided all the J-horror remakes that were fashionable at the time (much less the source materials). But at some point in my later teens I didn’t like that the idea of these films had a power over me. So I put on my self-therapy hat and proceeded to aquire and watch through more J-horror films than I can remember. In the course of watching and rewatching these movies, that unease wore away to a genuine fondness for them (the Ju-on films in particular became a comfort watch).

It wasn’t until I was nearing 30 that my wife pointed out that my favorite film genre is obviously horror. That didn’t seem right to me. She noted that every time we pull up a streaming service that’s the first genre I browse through without fail. And if it’s my turn to pick a movie, it’s usually something in the horror mold. All my favorite movies? Horror. I had never really self-identified as a horror person. I guess she was right.

So thanks to The Ring for setting the stage.

This month has been very busy, so I just go this in under the radar.

Stay on the lookout for some covers coming out in May and June, and I’m the interior artist on an upcoming series I can’t mention yet. ;)

I was so close! I was even thumbnailing before my attempt, trying to lock down the silhouette and I questioned whether there was a horn! Didn’t see there only being one toe.

But really I wanted to draw Wartortle, he my boy.

So I started thumbnailing, but I was having trouble finding a pose that I loved just by himself. Then I was tooling through old sketchbooks and stumbled across this gem of a Pokémon trainer version of Monster Hunter that I did.

This inspired me to include myself as a trainer in my drawing.

I’ve been wanting to practice more on my iPad because I’m still not super comfortable. So I decided to color it in Procreate.

I think the colors are still a little muddy, but on the whole I like it.

This last weekend, I was at a show in Dublin, GA, and I met fellow SCAD grad, Katie, and we traded Pokémon sketches. Her favorite pocket monster is vulpix and I really liked how she rendered out this Seadra. Good trade. Makes me want to start a sketchbook for friends in which I collect the original 152 drawn by my friends and people I meet…

Cheers,

&erson

Forgot to mention it had arms, so I added those.

And then I did a little more.

For reference, this is what Grimer actually looks like. Just saw this today.

How did I do, boys?

Anderson? Where you at?

I got into the zone and forgot to take process pics. Sorry, boys.

For Pokémon month I went with Rapidash. It’s not my favorite or anything. I guess I just wanted to draw a horse on fire. 🤷🏻‍♂️ It was a good time, no regrets.

I was super excited to illustrate this. Then, time got away from me.

I wanted to practice in procreate. This is as far as I got. I wish I had budgeted more time for this one.

I really like the missing edge on his right knee. But I was getting frustrated while drawing in procreate because I dont have a clear workflow yet. It was a nice experiment in lgiht and shadow.

I was feeling very morose over how this wasnt working and decided to have some fun in my sketchbook on the 28th and sketched this juiced dude. Here i decided to play with every illustrators worst nightmare, stippling.

This was fun, but a wee bit rushed.

But I was talking to the guys about this mountaintop thing. This is for fun, I won’t let this become a chore, but drawing this orange dude was encouraging at the end of the day, it was fun, and I look forward to this next month.

Cheers,

&erson

Juice! My personal challenge for the month was to try coloring a nice harmonious thing in watercolor. It’s not my usual medium and I usually end up having to airbrush at the end to help bring the colors together. No airbrush this time. Worked out pretty all right.🙂👍

PROCESS

-Stretch paper-

-Prep workspace-

-Transfer-

-Paint!-

-Take a nice picture of the thing-

CATCH you next month, jerks.

FOR THEM! I’m getting to the top of this Dang Mountain, and I’m gonna do it first!

I struggled with the Feb theme, “juice”.

Drew a dumb little sketch with juice having some double meaning.

Messing with it more.

Add some white gel pen.

Still wasn’t working.

So I changed tactic. I quit drawing for the day.

And the next day I came back and drew this.

Refine, Refine, Refine.

Ink it up.

“Go Juice” kept sticking in my head. I had heard it somewhere before, (remembered later it was from Smokey and the Bandit) and so I drew a kid stopping in the middle of nowhere to get some gas.

All that was left was to scan it in and clean it up.

And that’s how I started my trek to the mountaintop. Keith, Anderson, what’chya got?

.

.

.

.

.

Also here’s a bike.

You’ve got the tasty colors and those reflections are gelling. BUT there’s a single line missing from your piece. Don’t know HOW you missed it. You know the one.

You know. 😏

As for my January piece…

Look here! My first effort in sincerely taking up the challenge to use this dumb mountain as a space for improving and nudging on skills. For this one I wanted to tackle a ramshackle city. I played pretty fast and loose with perspective, just having fun with the shapes and textures. I put it on a watercolor board with the intention of adding ink-wash buuuuuut…

Tools ‘n’ stuff

Then I started tooling around with this pose. I finally knew I had something. I want to push the storytelling in the future, but for now, I liked this and decided to keep it simple. I wanted to make a futuristic poster for a new, cool bike.

I started designing the book and remembered that I actually don’t enjoy drawing techno stuff that much (laughs at the fact that I make a cyborg baseball comic) Anyways, that’s when it hit me.

And so the Invisible bike was born, or 不可視の自転車 in Kanji.

From there, it was a matter of keeping it clean and letting the colors do the heavy lifting.

There you have it. What you got, Keith?

Anderson here, just introducing the idea of this publication. My buddy Keith and I love drawing things and want to push each other to become even better artists, to reach the dang mountain top! Therefore, we are making this shared blog where we will pick a monthly prompt, and each try to make the best illustration possible.

We will each publish our illustration when it is done, and maybe some process stuff.

This project is inspired by some artists we love, James Harren and Ryan Ottley who did a similar blog back in the day called THE BOG. Check it out, it’s really inspiring.

January’s Theme: BICYCLE

We would love to hear some theme ideas from y’all in the comments.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now