Thursday, March 31, 2011


Uploading a doodle every day this week means uploading a few old ones that I didn't feel were up to snuff before. This picture of Clione was one of my earliest when I first got Brushes for the iPad. As such, the linework isn't as nice as my more recent offerings. There's also one glaringly huge mistake that bugs the crap out of me. You may notice that one hand is significantly smaller than the other. Ugh.

Tomorrow will be a new entry into the folklore section and on Saturday I have another old doodle. After that I'm going to take a break to work on some more drawings, my paying art gig (more info soon) and my art charity event (more info even sooner).

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Rich Mr. Pelican


Sorry about yesterday. The internet at my apartment sucks right now and it took forever to get anything uploaded.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Captain Kit and the Singing Sword


Ugh, I am so LAZY. I've had this and several other drawings finished on my hard drive for over a week now and just haven't uploaded them. Well that's going to change. Enjoy a few daily updates this week.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Nue take Two


See? I told you I could do a better one. The nue is a fearsome monster from Japan, often compared with the Greek chimera for the way it combines attributes of three different creatures. It has the head and cruelty of a monkey, the body and strength of a tiger, and the tail and toxins of a serpent. Traditionally they are thought to bring misfortune and illness. The most famous account of a nue takes place in the Japanese epic The Tale of the Heike, where Emperor Konoe falls ill and suffers terrible nightmares after a dark cloud covers his palace. The legendary hero, Minamoto no Yorimasa staked out the roof and shot an arrow into the mass of darkness. Despite the darkness, the arrow found its mark and the corpse of the nue fell out of the cloud. The body was dumped into the sea, where it washed up on the shore of a small fishing village. Naturally, the villagers were shocked and buried the creature. Supposedly, you can still see the burial mound to this beast today.

As you may have noticed, I'm quite fond of Japanese monsters. I studied Japanese art and folklore at university and spent all together about a year and a half living in Japan. Japan is an important part of my own history, and Tokyo in particular is one of my favorite cities in the world. So as you can guess, I've been paying close attention to the news from there right now. Thankfully, all my friends in Japan have been safe so far, but a still I wouldn't feel right if I didn't remind everyone who stumbles upon this post that a lot of people there could use help. If you're not sure who to donate to, the Red Cross is always a good one. Doctors Without Borders is also a good choice. You can't donate to them specifically for Japan, but one of the reasons they've been so quick in response to disasters like in Japan and Haiti is because of long term funding and preparing.

I have lots of drawings this week, stay tuned.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

In Progress: Nue


It's been awhile, but I haven't been resting on my laurels. Well, not the entire time at least. I'm working on a comic, which obviously takes a lot longer to do than these doodles I normally do (especially since I'm trying out a lot of new digital techniques I've never tried before). I'm also working on a charity project that I'll go into in more detail as I get closer to it. It'll be exciting stuff coming up, but not for a little while, so the update schedule is out the window. But I'm really proud of the work I've done here so far, so I'm not planning on ending it any time soon.

This sketch is one I was working on last week but didn't end up too happy with. It just doesn't fit together. I also think it looks too much like the manticore I did earlier (which isn't too odd since the nue is often compared to the manticore or chimera). I want the monsters I draw here to be interesting looking and not start falling back on the same designs I've done before. So I'm going to work on a different one and you'll get it online next week.