I did some illustrations this year! Here is a collection of those that I did this year.
Amethyst Princess of Gemworld. I grew up reading this amazing series drawn by Ernie Colon back in 1983. Although it’s been revived a few times nothing can capture the original magic of the Maxi-Series. It’s rare that I do fan art but I always wanted to draw this character.
Depressed Character from depression comix. I love drawing the patterns on this character’s skin and I knew I wanted to do it in colour so here it is.
Yuko Ishida – This is a book cover I did for a collection in progress. It was fun to revisit a character this way and a strip that I still get a lot of traffic because of.
Daffodil (Sunflower and the Dead Sisters) – When I was going to introduce the next Dead Sister it seemed like a good idea to draw an illo first to add interest. She has buttons for eyes and she is extremely direct and graphic, making her a welcome addition to the comic.
Hattie #1 (The Haunted Me) – The Haunted Me still hasn’t introduced this character yet but I can’t help but want to draw her anyways. This is a series of illos where I was trying to get the feel for her before she actually makes her debut.
Hattie #2 – At this point I thought about simplifying her to an outline with adding colour for only the eyes and the lips.
Hattie #3– Same as #2 but I wanted to play with the transparency of the dress. I wanted to give her the feeling of being an attractive, yet dangerous character.
Hattie #4 – I wanted to draw her in 20s clothing, from the decade she died in.
Marigold (Sunflower and the Dead Sisters) – I was thinking of an idea for a Marigold illustration and I sketched this out. I ended up thinking it would make a better a cover for Sunflower and The Dead SIsters collection #2.
Secret (Agent) Santa – My main job is a teacher, and for Christmas we do a Secret Santa. So, this year I draw posters to try to drum up interest. I really like how Santa came out in this one. It’s rare that I do an action pose this good.
Shinagawa Shunju (Natsume Arata no Kekkon) – There’s a better illustration here if I spent more time drawing this out instead of trying to rush this. This looks more like my anime-inspired work from the 90s coloured with a mouse in GIMP rather than what I do now and I regret it. I haven’t drawn anime style in a long time, and well, it doesn’t work for me well anymore. However, I highly recommend this comic. The woman pictured here is Shunju, who is being convicted of being the Shinagawa Clown, a serial killer.
Sunflower (Sunflower and the Dead Sisters #1) – this is the cover to the first collection of strips. Drawing covers to books always scared the crap out of me, so I went for full super-hero style on this. I’m not sure it jives to style of the book, but as for being the cover for my very first book I’m very happy with it.
Witchy – I wanted to do a Halloween inspired piece with an original character. This took a lot of time because I was really trying to play with the lighting to make it a little more interesting than say, the Shunju pic above. Instead of traditionally witch clothing I opted for her to wear more casual clothing — like what would a teenage witch wear?
Summary
There is no way I’ll ever be a great illustrator but I do enjoy the process. The key to getting known is to draw popular fan art, sometimes sexy pictures of famous characters and such, but I’ve always been afraid of doing things aimed toward being popular will put me in a position of being compared to others, a situation I hate. However, I think there is improvement in there and I hope I will continue to grow in 2021.
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