Marie Criddle - Movember

Late, but not forgotten!

Charles Eubanks - Movember

I was trying to draw some dudes with 'staches, when my cat hopped up on my lap...

Peter Hong - Movember

 I haven't drawn a girl in a while, so I thought I'd give it a try while it's still Movember in the States. I like it a lot better sans mustache, though. So...Anyone else gonna take a crack at Movember? ;{>

Peter Hong - Movember

Okay, I got paid to do this promotion for a company that makes nose hair trimmers. They said to make him look like Arnold, so they don't have to pay him. HAHAHA!

Kirstin Heine - Star Wars Extravaganza

Sorry I've been out of it.... was a bit distracted by getting married. This is just a mixed-media version of the sketch I posted previously. Adam told me I had to post it up here, though. =)

Topic for 11/13 to 11/30

Great Star Wars drawings! It was a month of the Force being with us! The monthly theme also brought the next topic to mind.

Ok, here we go! And here's something I found on the internet to make the transition smoother:

MOVEMBER!

Also known as Mustache November... Or Mustache 101, or even Drawing 101 (Anthdrawlogy 101?), since it's our 101st topic!

Peter Hong - Star Wars Extravaganza

I had a lot of reference for this, but I changed it up a little bit. I did one with a stolen background, but the angle wasn't right, the color of Hobbes blended in with the background, and the speeder color lost some of the detail. Man! All that extra work for nuthin'...

Adam Heine - Star Wars Extravaganza

Trying stuff. Learning things about light. Also learning that we have no good sharpies in the house.

Marie Criddle - Star Wars Extravaganza

Meanwhile, in the mansions across the Dune Sea...

Peter Hong - Star Wars Extravaganza

Here's an old sketch of Darth Maul I did. I found it among some scans from my old sketchbook.

A new one with a new Jedi surrounded by spiritual guides/instructors. He looks similar to the last Jedi I posted. I thought the shadows might work if there was a small round light on top, but maybe not.

Marie Criddle - Star Wars Extravaganza

The colors got a little funky when animating this, but I think I like it better. It's like a sorority girl/cheerleader turned Jedi who tries really hard to take her training seriously but really just misses baton twirling.

Kirstin - Star Wars Extravaganza

Topic for 10/12 to 11/12 and beyond!

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in posting. Lo, that is how we roll lately! Do you all realize how amazingly cool it is that we've hit ONE HUNDRED TOPICS so far?!? And our hundredth topic is one of the most loved of all! Let it be a:

STAR WARS EXTRAVAGANZA!

Anything you want in this huge and varied canonical and non-canonical universe is game. Good luck, take your time and post as many as you want. HAPPY 100 TOPICS, GUYS!! Sketches and cupcakes and bantha poodoo for all!

Charles Eubanks - Five Minute Drawings

About 25 minutes of doodling, so like 5 minutes each.  Yay, I finally posted something again!

Nathan Heine - Five Minute Drawings

Nathan wanted to do the challenge with me. He called me out for not stopping on the first one until I told him that Peter and Marie went over, too. Then he said, "Oh! Well, I'm going cheat too!"

All he added was the water and his name, though. He finished his snowman well ahead of mine and added the girl for some reason.

I notice now that he did not spend three and half minutes on Elsa's braid. He did, however, spend significantly more time on sequins.

 

Adam Heine - Five Minute Drawings

I did two of them. I cheated a little on the first one, but not much -- just some darkening and the lettering.

Okay, fine, I added Elsa's hairpin after five minutes too. But come on! The braid alone took like three and a half!

Savin Criddle - Five Minute Drawing

`

My daughter wanted to join in on the fun! She says:

"This is Sailor Moon. She has friends who are different colors, but no one can be just like Sailor Moon. Everyone likes Sailor Moon! That's it."

Marie Criddle - Five Minute Drawings

Kids were distracted with Hercules for a few minutes, I sketched as fast as I could. Might have gone over a little bit...

Five Minute Drawings

The shapes took longer than five minutes, and then I darkened everything and added some shading. I'm normally not good at drawing fast, and I also got injured recently, so I had this idea and it took me a while to concentrate and practice drawing. Sorry, I cheated a bit. But it was fun! :)

Topic for 9/17 to 9/30ish

Hey guys! So I know things are getting/have been busy for a lot of us, so I was thinking of doing a challenge rather than a theme this time around...better or worse, who knows. Ready?

FIVE MINUTE DRAWINGS!

So however long you have to draw, give yourself five minutes for one subject; if you have fifteen minutes, post three drawings. Five minutes, post one! Twenty three and a half...okay, you get it. Hopefully we can all grab a little bit of time, but if not, no worries! We'll see you on the next topic! (Who's ready for another Star Wars month, anyone?)

New topic?

Is it my turn? :D

Marie Criddle - Imagination

I was hoping to have more together by now to post, but this is what's currently monopolizing my imagination at the moment: the beginnings of a graphic novel! I've been toying with these characters for a long time and finally, the story is coming together. It might take me a million years to finish, but at least it's started. :D

New challenge!

Marie, Adam, and Peter...  YOU HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED.

(Sorry I've been so absent lately!  I promise I will get back to drawing again!)

Peter Hong - Imagination

The colors are a lot less subtle than I envisioned (I wanted a blurrier, more realistic rainbow), but hopefully you get the idea.

Topic for 8/1 to 8/14

The imagination is amazing! Just look at all the architecture that characterizes our cities. I'm originally from the Chicagoland area, which is pretty impressive for a place that was named (by Native Americans) after stinky onions.  What about all the great books we read?  The classics, the bestselling novels, the philosophical, fantastic, romantic, scientifically fabricated (sorry, couldn’t think of an adjective for sci fi).  Endless galleries of artwork in endless mediums:  pencil, ink, paint and brush, clay, glass, plastic, wood, and metal, just to name a few.  How about movies?  You name it…action, drama, comedy.  How many mindblowing stunts or effects have we seen in the last decade alone?  Even the invention of movie-making itself was the fruit of someone’s imagination. Let’s not forget animation, where the limits and boundaries of live action can be broken.  The imagination can really let loose
here.  The only limit here is that someone must be able to draw it.

Which brings us to the next topic:

IMAGINATION!

The imagination is limitless, and, if we allow it, can even transcend space, time, and all that we know! The object is to draw something that stretches the imagination, whatever your interpretation of that may be. Hopefully, this won't be a stressful topic, but we'll have lots of fun! 

Topic

That topic brought back all sorts of memories, digital and otherwise! And it's great to have you back, Marie! So, shall we...

?

Adam, did you want to take the helm? If not, I can post.

Marie Criddle - Nintendo

Hi hi hi all! After what seems like MONTHS of packing and moving and hotels, we are finally settled in a real house in Maryland...with internet. Woo! Although we still don't have our stuff from Japan (it took the slow boat, we took the slightly less slow one) I have rummaged up some watercolor pens and paper to pay homage to my favorite video game and--by extension--my favorite video game based 80s cartoon. Well excuuuuuuuse me, princess.

P.S. I'm back for good now, I swear!! I missed you guys!

Peter Hong - Nintendo

Street Fighter II didn't come out until Super Nintendo (hope that still counts), but my brother and I spent hours upon hours (and tons of quarters at the arcade before that) playing the game. One thing I missed about playing at the arcade/store was the diversity of competition. There's nothing like infuriating or getting infuriated at complete strangers with varying skill levels. Sometimes with the home gaming systems, my brother and I only had each other to channel our aggressions onto.

Then they invented the internet...

Nathan and Sam Heine - Nintendo

I'm pretty sure my boys have never actually played Nintendo, but they've played enough internet games to get the idea. (And for Sam, this isn't his first attempt at game design).

Adam Heine - Nintendo

This was such a big topic for me. I kinda wanna split it into subtopics like we did for Star Wars, but I don't know if that would be inflicting my childhood on you all :-)

Topic for 7/11 to 7/25

I think it's time to call it, and I know it's my turn for a topic. To that end, I choose...

NINTENDO

Mario, Link, Mega Man, Pikachu, Samus Aran, Starfox, Donkey Kong... I couldn't tell you how many hours I've spent with these iconic characters (I really don't think I want to tell you).

Even if you didn't spend your entire childhood educated with an NES controller in your hand, I'm sure you recognize at least one of these guys, right?

Right?

Jaqai Mickelsen - igloos

Yeah. Ironically didn't have any good ideas for my OWN flippin' suggestion. So then this happened.

Adam Heine - Igloos

I don't know how he got in there either.

Peter Hong - Igloos

I had to go dark so the pencil would show up. But now you can see all the specks on the paper. Let's just pretend it's snow...

Topic for 6/25 - 7/5ish?

Alrighty. So here goes. My first ever topic offering.

 IGLOOS.

That's right. Igloos. Why igloos? That's the wrong question. The real question is why NOT igloos?

*wheeeee!*

Topic

Is it that time again?

Jaqai Mickelsen - Sidekicks

So, mine's a bit of a cheat given that these guys are my own characters, but I recently went to a Comic Con with a friend of mine here in Atlanta, and the experience got me thinking about bringing them back.

This is a new drawing of them (a pencil sketch colored up in photoshop), and, I feel like, hey they're effectively sidekicks. So, boom! It all comes together.

Also, a dog hair snuck into the scan. This seemed highly appropriate given the topic, so I made no attempt to hide it.

Peter Hong - Sidekicks

I really miss this comic strip.

Adam Heine - Sidekicks

One of my favorite sidekicks from one of my favorite shows, along with his personal battle cry. Clap your hands if you know him.

Topic for 5/30 - 6/14ish?

Oh gosh, sorry about the delay, guys! I'm in a hotel for the next few days as we move outta Japan and my brain's all sorts of mushy. But! I just watched "Sky High" for the first time (delightful...thank you hotel room Disney channel) and I got to thinking how fun it would be to do...

SIDEKICKS!

Yes, I know a most of my topics are inspired by what I've been watching lately, but I just like mixing my mediums, yo.

Who's next on topic? Jaqai or Peter?

New Topic?

It's been a while, guys. Whose turn is it anyway? ;)

Marie Criddle - Opposite Hand

I'm bummed I missed out on the Team Drawing challenge (moving is craaaazy) but if it counts, I did have my daughter's sketchbook, markers and input on this drawing.

Jaqai Mickelsen - Opposite Hand

Yeah. Ok. So this was a fascinating assignment. Interestingly, I appreciated how intentional I had to be with each stroke...and I don't know about the rest of you, but I found coloring REALLY difficult. That dog nose must have taken me five minutes...I just wanted solid black with a highlight!

I was laughing out loud about how far away I was from nailing my "signature" with my left hand.

Peter Hong - Opposite Hand

Drawing lefty is hard! I thought I'd try drawing the And1 guy. Here's a quick sketch of him (which actually took a lot longer than anticipated). Apologies for the lateness. I was in Brazil for a week for my brother's wedding. Afterwards, we stayed at his in-laws' place, which didn't have WiFi. While it was kind of nice to be disconnected, it also turned out to be a bit inconvenient, too.

Charles Eubanks - Opposite Hand

Jeez, drawing lefty is HARD.  Well, the good news is, my right arm doesn't feel like a limp noodle anymore!

Adam Heine - Opposite Hand

This was fascinating. It was interesting to see how much of my drawing skills come from my brain and how much from my body.

I copied a reference to make it easy on myself. I made myself erase with my left hand too (which made me somewhat reluctant to erase, it turns out). My left hand had no idea how to draw a straight line or even shade the simplest thing. I felt like a 3-year-old, but it was fun.

Topic for 4/17 - 5/1

Great team drawing, everyone!  Isn't it wonderful to share your artistic process with someone else?  I sure had a blast.  Thanks for the awesome topic, Peter!

My right shoulder has been a bit sore lately, which gave me the idea for our next topic:

OPPOSITE HAND!!!

If you're a lefty, draw with your right, and vice-versa.  If you're ambidextrous... I dunno, draw with your feet?  Or just improvise!

For this topic, I was inspired by Lois van Baarle, one of my favorite artists.  She has been struggling with tennis elbow, and decided to try drawing left handed.  After really setting her mind to it for a while, she's achieved some very impressive results.  So give it a try!  You might just surprise yourself!

Emily, Andy, and Charles Eubanks - Team Drawing

This one says Andy at the top, but don't be fooled, yo!  It's actually a portrait of Andy, draw by his sister Emily!  (Can you spot her autograph?)

And no, this is NOT a portrait of Emily.  It's just a pitiful little zombie, one of Andy's favorite subjects.

Peter & Lance Hong - Team Drawing

I was intrigued to find a cartoon animal, iron man, and some sort of sleek futuristic vehicle in Lance's artwork. All this at only 2 years old!

Adam, Joel, and Nathan Heine - Team Drawing

I had to do two because the boys are incapable of allowing one person to do something that they themselves don't do (honestly, I was lucky to get away with less than five).

This topic was much harder than I thought it would be. I think, perhaps, because coloring and shading are not my strengths (in as much as I have "strengths"). Most of the time, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean more so than normal.

So this first one was drawn by Joel. Unfortunately he gave me a whole page and I got tired of coloring before I got to the pirates or the sky.

This one was drawn by Nathan (who has posted here before). Halfway through coloring it, he told me it was a vampire [something] that was making the "bone guys," so I added an appropriate scene.

Now, of course, the boys are all drawing skeletons and tombstones. Ah, well.