Montreal's Drink & Draw Social Club: Summer 2011

Hey all!
I've recently taken over organizing and hosting the one and only Montreal Drink and Draw Social Club. Thus far, attendance is still tricky, but we're doing this weekly so people have a lot of chances to come by. I figured I'd post some of the spoils of my sketchbook and show people all the fun that they're missing.
It's sometimes amazing how cathartic it can be to draw something really silly and cartooney once in a while. It really reminds me of what it felt like to draw as a kid, when things didn't have to make sense, they just had to look good. I feel like this could be a valuable exercise for some, especially those who've endured the rigors of art school.
This is something that I kind of miss about art school and hate about real jobs, however; the lack of free doodle time. I still try and take an hour at least of every day to create something new, not counting the time to edit and post images likes these to give myself a web presence. Back in Illustration, we always had materials on hand to doodle with, and on top of that once we hit third year we got access to the much coveted drafting tables which, in order to keep pristine, we covered with sheets of kraft paper. As an art medium, I actually find kraft paper very useful. It's lack of durability can sometimes be a point in its favor, as it forces you to move on and not get too attached to any given piece. I'd begun drawings on my desk with the intention of being large and significant pieces, only to have someone draw a dog or a cock or something on it and scrap the entire endeavor, and I didn't care because it was all in good fun.
This is really the best thing about the D&D Social Club; not everyone draws, but everyone has something to contribute. It's being in the presence of creative individuals that keeps the event going, and keeps me posting a new one every single week.
If anyone feels like joining in on the fun, we meet every Wednesday at Hurley's Irish Pub in downtown Montreal. Look for the loudest table in the place.

Victorian characters

Hey all!
A few months ago I treated myself by buying the art book for American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns. While I'm still one of those poor individuals without the means to afford one of the major gaming system, my enjoyment of the game has only been visual. I have been watching the gameplay videos and checking the reviews, and while I'm fully aware that it's a flawed game, the original was very flawed as well and I still find enjoyment in replaying it now. Except when I forget to save. But I'm getting off track... All things considered, though, there's a lot to enjoy. The book (and the fact that every time I visit my parents Sherlock Holmes is playing on satellite) put me in a distinctly Victorian mood for a while. In that spirit, here're a few random doodles of some semi-steampunk Victorian creepy people. Also, I've really begun to enjoy photoshopping my basic sketches. Enjoy!

IZM 2011: The Zombie Priest 2.0

Hey all!
I just noticed the strange number of religious pieces done this year for IZM. Oh well...
You can check out deviantart for a full description of my concept. This is to talk about my technique a little. To start with, the original image was done in HB and 2B graphite on a page taken from my sketchbook. It's a very high-tooth paper, so it suited my needs well. After I was pleased with the composition and level of detail, I ported it into photoshop to play with it a bit. I spent a long time (almost as much time as it took to do the original linework) on a transparent layer of white with the burn tool in order to give the image some shade and depth. I went very liberal; applying thin strokes of dark tone with a large brush and eventually building up more depth with progressively smaller, textured brushes. After I was happy with the level of tonal depth, I went in with the dodge tool and pulled out some highlights. I then created a soft light layer tinted to a burnt sienna color and then painted all the other colors overtop of that. I set the brush to low opacity, to keep as much of the burnt sienna undercolor as I could. Once I was happy with the color, I created a multiply layer to add in extra shadow areas and then a normal layer to add highlights. Once that was done, I flattened the whole thing and put a new layer of yellow ochre over top. I cut a big hole in the middle of the layer, gave it a really high gaussian blur, made it pretty transparent, and flattened the whole thing again. This gave the image a nice overall warmth and helped to center the figure. Finally, I out a very light canvas texture over everything, to unify any little irregularities in the burning or color process and called it a day.
This has been a good experiment. I'll need to think up a new dimension to add to this whole proceeding. More digital painting, perhaps. Or some traditional work first off. We'll see where it takes me.
More on my concept can be found here. http://tristan-despero.deviantart.com/art/The-Zombie-Priest-2-0-215681539

The Encounter! IZM 2011

Hey all!
I was thinking a lot about the source of a number of zombie plagues in movies and the like, and a large number of them seem to come from outer space. It was that idea that inspired this image or the alien outcast, infected and set adrift in the void, alone and hungry.
Graphite and a whole mess of Photoshopping. It was a fun technique to experiment with, though I don't think it will ever replace my love of traditional mediums. I began with by retouching the original graphite drawing, and then adding a multiplied white layer which I used to add more contrast with the dodge (mid tones) and burn (highlights) tools. I retouched the color of the original graphite drawing (with an Overlay layer) to a light blue-green, for atmosphere purposes.Afterwards, on a soft light layer, I added the colors. From there, on a multiply layer, I put in more shadows and dark areas. I got to a kind of experimental part of the image, when I put a layer of a dark blue-purple over the entire image, made it very transparent (about 15% opacity) and erased some highlighted areas, then hit the entire layer with Gaussian blur. Afterwards, I made normal layer to add the highlights. From there, I flattened the image, gave it a very light texture and added a little something else while I'll leave you to guess.
It was fun to play with and works well in a pinch. I'll use this again, I'm sure.
More zombie goodness to come!

The Zenbie: International Zombie Month 2011!

Hey all! Once again, International Zombie Month has crawled from the grounds and is pounding at our doorways. To honor this most undead of months, I present you with my first offering. Originally spawned from a bad set of Zen jokes at the Drink and Draw Social Club, I eventually created this image around the idea of "Zen Zombie eats his own brains."
Graphite, marker, pencil crayon and gouache on rag marker paper, with an assist from Photoshop.
For more details on International Zombie Month, please see our official facebook page, or look it up on deviantart.
More zombie goodness to come!

Hipstermancer

Hey all! I got bored in a coffee shop and this came out. Not much more to say about it, really. Though I'd love to see someone in a hoodie with this pattern. Also, I've resolved to use more photoshop in my sketches.
I got to spend the day working on sketches and stuff and it felt really good. I miss feeling like a full-time artist.
In a mostly unrelated note, I recently bought the concept art book to Alice: Madness Returns and I love it so much. It's one of the best concept art books I've seen. Seeing what they left out of the game is absolutely amazing and my roommates are scrambling to come up with a way for us to play this game when it finally comes out. The art is gorgeous and it's given me a few ideas that might get vented on here before too long. However, a new project will soon demand my attention, which I'll be addressing shortly. Stay tuned!!
All the best!

Dominance War 5

Hey all!
It's been a few since since I discovered Dominance War through one of my regular contacts on Deviantart. I found the concept terribly fascinating, but I was in school at the time and wasn't able to really do much. I would play with each year's concept on my own, just for practice, but no serious posts ever came of it. Well no more! I'm throwing my hat into the international ring. As soon as the damn game artisan's site decides to cooperate, I'll throw this on there as well.
This year's contest is to create some kind of god. My concept centered around the God of Extinction. Seemed more interesting than some cheesy old death god which has, let's face it, been done to death. I wanted this guy to be more of a "final solution" kind of deity. I played around with a few roughter ideas, but ended up settling on a more-or-less humanoid form.
My thought on the concept was focused around the idea that this god may have once had a cult devoted not to worshiping this spirit, but to banishing it from conscious thought. Knowing this god's name is a torment that will last for your entire life and overshadow your every thought and deed, leaving you with a dull shade of a life. When life graced the cosmos, this god took its first form as the doom that would overshadow all of life's natural struggle to thrive. Its cult eventually emerged, tormented by their collective nightmares of the despair that this god bestows on all life, and worked themselves to death to imprison the god within a physical form and lock it away forever, as far from life as possible in the hopes that it would be lost in its own lifelessness. However, with the Rise of the Gods came a great catastrophic upheaval in the world. Never before has this god felt such an opportunity, so it was shaken from its death torpor and coaxed back into unlife, rejuvenated with new purpose; to erase all life from the cosmos, one entity at a time. With each life it snuffs out of existence, it grows a little stronger, shedding off its dessicated former body and replacing it with a new form more befitting its purpose.
I played with a couple of ideas in terms of the form, but finally settled on something slightly humanoid, to keep the design from getting too alien. We're talking about a god to end all life here; it can't be something alien or it isn't scary. The body gets slightly more fleshy the higher it goes, though rather than turning into a ball of muscle, it becomes more of a mass of threads, like muscle tissue cut loose, or worms wriggling to free themselves of the earth. He carries around a tombstone on which he etches the name of every living thing as he extinguishes them. He also wields a giant bone candle-snuffer as a symbol of his power. There's much more on the way. I don't know if I'll get this done in time, but I don't care. It will be done.

Dark Fantasy

Hey all!
While I was going through my move, I went through a serious dark fantasy kick. I tend to find that, when I feel uninspired, I retreat to dark fantasy as a means of rejuvenation. For me, that particular image genre holds a lot of freedom. I used to just sit down and decide to draw demons and just let my horrible little imagination run free until I found something new to occupy myself with.
In that spirit, I had this idea for a dark fantasy/film noire style story taking place in a world where witches are a fairly dominant part of society which emerged towards the end of the industrial revolution in a big way. I did a lot of reading on everything noire for a while. I've always had a little bit of a fascination of the genre and what it could potentially add to other mediums. This is the closest I've come to writing in a long time. I'm still refining the main guy and his "Girl Friday" sidekick and who knows if it will ever amount to anything, but it makes for some fun thought experiments.
In that spirit of fantasy meets the cold, hard, gritty streets, I came up with a whole slew of little drawings which I will now share with you. Well, share the best ones anyhow. I hope you enjoy. More updates soon.
Also, more news to come shortly on a new project I'm embarking on. This is kinda big and I feel a little hesitant to get into details yet, but I will before too long, don't worry.

Sketchdump: The Return!

Hey all!
I'm aware that it's been over a month since my last update. Things have been kind of on the busy side lately, in the defense. I recently moved so things are still kind of in a tizzy. My new apartment is working out okay, though. I've even got a little corner for my work station and everything. Just the same, that's no excuse for letting this site go idle, and rest assured that I've got a lot of stuff worth posting on here.
I've recently felt very invigorated in the efforts to get back out there and find an arts career. The office life really isn't cutting it for me anymore and I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels. This will not do, so I will very shortly be attacking the art scene again in the same way that the Britains attacked the Romans (people who've seen Centurion will have an idea of what I'm talking about). In that spirit, here's some new stuff from my sketchbook. It's been getting harder and harder to keep to my promise of one page a day, but I'm doing my best not to deviate. I've still got so much ground to cover.
To provide some brief descriptions, the top image was a little concept I had about a creature that would fit into a horror/silliness world. It's a giant monster assembled from the combined terror and shame of a hundred thousand pairs of terror-soiled pants. Each new pair of soiled garments adds to this creatures' power. Laundry day shall be judgment day! To the right, we have an image I devised randomly one day, thinking about buildings on the backs of giant living things. In that spirit, I devised a giant tick with an entire cathedral on it's back. Props to Grant Morrison on this one, and only true Morrison fans will guess the connection there. Next, the imagine towards the bottom is just something I devised while going through some research on homonculi. I thought of the idea of using a man-made clone of yourself as a thief for further supernatural research was kind of interesting. He sort of meshed with an older idea that I've got floating around for a story about a supernatural thief that may never see the light of day, but it's nice to touch onto something close to that universe again. Finally, the image on the bottom is a survivor of sorts from a former Drink & Draw event. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste, even if it's only for giggles.
I believe it was Will Eisner who said that everyone has 3,000,000 shitty pictures in them that they need to get out of the way before they finally get a good one. Time to get some of those out of the way.
Much more on the way, I promise.

The First Two Months of Drink and Draw: Montreal

Hey all! It's been a busy 2011. I really can't believe it's already March. Sickening, isn't it? To feed that sickness, here are some of the images I'm the most proud of from the past couple Drink and Draw (official) nights. It's been a lot of fun, though the closer we get to St. Paddy's day, the harder it seems to be to find places to draw and consume alcohol.
This event's been a real boon to me recently. If there are any Montreal-based artists who wish to join, they are strongly encouraged. We gotta show up that other Montreal Drink&Draw group, as they are small, weak, and in need of crushing. But in the best way.

Shadim

Hey all!
...
An archeological dig unearths an enormous stone casket. Bound within is gigantic corpse, mummified and bound in chains. The dig site is then lost in a sandstorm that lasts for nine days.
At the same time, a small town in middle America falls victim to a sudden contagion that depopulates the town in a single day. None dare search for survivors.
Meanwhile, a serial killer, long since thought dead or captured, seems to return to the streets of a major city to ply his grisly trade. Six die in a single evening, with a blood-drenched promise of more bodies to come.
Elsewhere, a man rises from a troubling dream where his long-dead wife greets him with a leprous kiss. His sanity dwindles like leaves on a dead tree as his world closes in around him. Can he piece this madness together before it pulls him apart?
...
So, I've been in kind of a horror mood lately. I've been reading a lot about horror and I've been trying to think about what would make good horror. I think I need to do more on this. So far this idea is coming out like a screenplay, but it will likely take on another form before too long. I'm very curious about how people experience horror. I'm not sure why this idea is so fascinating to me right now, but it really is and I can't seem to get enough of it. In that spirit, here's a demon with a horse-skull for a head. I love the movie Time Bandits, and I was thinking of Evil's minions as I drew this.
Also, as a shout out to all my watches and hangers-on, suggest me a book or movie. Anything that has frightened you. I want something truly scary. I dare you to freak me out!

Think Happy Thoughts

Hey all!
I was reading up on one of my favorite blogs the other day, Script Shadow. They had a script up for a fairly standard serial killer story that caught my interest. And what was it about something so basic that drew me to it? The fact that it took the serial killer movie archetype and applied it to Peter Pan, and made Peter the villain! Genius!
Having read the basics on this script, I was inspired to do my own illustration. Now, some people might mention Brom's novel The Child Thief. Okay, I haven't read it yet. It's on my list, okay? But, having seen some of the illustrations, I saw something I wasn't exactly in favor of, and that was Peter himself. Now, some of you who know me know that I love Brom, but I'm sorry, this image of a leather-clad Peter did not sit well with me. He's meant to be a wild child. Where's he getting the tailored leather suit? Maybe the touch on that in the book and I'm just being an asshole right now, but it doesn't matter. Peter was meant to wear pieces of nature, and his clothing changed with the seasons (at least in as much as the official material covers). This is closer to how I would imagine Peter; a vicious child, for whom death means nothing. His clothing, the tattered remains of a human nightshirt, has been virtually reclaimed by nature. Peter's shadow is still somewhat independent, but is still a loyal follower of it's bloodthirsty and ruthless master. When Peter Pan crows with his Lost Boys before a battle, this Peter would make that crow a terrifying sound to experience.
I tried playing with making a digitally colored version of this. It might still happen.

Naked People

Hey all!
In place of anything creative and creepy, I've got a few imagines that I've done in the last few weeks of model nights. They've only been going on for about two weeks now, but I feel like I've made some good work in that time.
Rest assured that I've been working on my own little things for the last few weeks, but these pieces are something I'm kind of proud of as I've been using my least used and, at the risk of drawing ire, least favorite medium- pastels. To some, the very word evokes a feeling of wussiness. However, I find them to be almost nicer to work with than charcoal (which I do like) and the results are actually quite nice. I tried to get these results with colored pencils and was sorely disappointed.
I've been thinking a lot about deadlines, and how they're some of the hardest things to establish on your own. It's almost more than a matter if discipline. It's a matter of knowing what you're capable of, what the world might demand of you, and what you demand of yourself. As such, I've found them very hard to set, but they're a necessity. It's one of the few things I miss about being in a school environment. That and the sense that I'm not a total loner. But for that, however, I've still got the model nights, which are wonderful.
I'm posting all of these models because soon I won't be in possession of them for much longer. I'm volunteering them for a charity auction at the behest of a new friend, met through Montreal's own Official Drink & Draw night. These pictures will go towards benefiting the Yaldei Center, which I'm under the impression is a very worthy cause. It's been a while since I've done something charitable, so it's kinda nice I'm able to contribute this stuff.
Anyhow, there will me more stuff to come. I'm in the middle of a painting I've been trying to work on for ages, and I've started a small reference sculpture I'll try to update about. More to come soon!

Splendid Nick

Hey all! I know it's been a while since I've submitted. I've been trying to keep busy, and because my regular model nights are back up and running, I should have some tasteful nudes to show off. In truth, I did who drawings I was pretty proud of, I just need to fix them so they can be scanned. In the meantime, I felt like reworking an old monster that I really enjoyed; the Faehr Darrig (though it can seemingly be spelled a thousand different ways). This little guy is basically a malevolent trickster. I figured he looked mean-spirited enough.
I haven't been the cafe in almost a week, what with my forced time off work. I'm going to be looking into more illustration-based work shortly, but until something materialized in that realm I'll just have to be happy with my own little projects.
More to come, as always.

The Hiding Homonculus

Hey all! Continuing with my New Years post dump, here is a little something I've been toying with for some time, on-and-off for a year or so now. Basically, I had the thought of having a survival horror/rpg game take place in a cabinet of curiosities. It would have a look a little bit like a slightly more surreal Castlevania game, but most of the gameplay would be focused on stealth and evasion. In that vein, your main character is the recently disembodied soul of a scholar, relocated into the half-formed husk of a partially completed homonculus that happened to be in the cabinet. The homonculus is pretty weak. Fast and nimble, but frail, so he has to rely on hiding and setting traps to evade the various horrors that have sprung to life in the cabinet.
I've been toying with this guy for some time and he doesn't feel quite done yet. I'm still wrestling with how a survival horror concept can have a fairly cute protagonist and silly enemies like living dolls and animated taxidermied animals.
This idea has been about the only breath of fresh air in my psyche these days. So much fun.

A Fine Gentleman

Hey all! This is one of my coffee shop doodles that I had a little bit more fun with. I began drawing people who passed by, which, considering that I had about three seconds to take in their general appearance made for a very challenging session. This guy kind of sprung out of that. I've been thinking of many otherworldly type horrors lately so this seemed like a natural fit. I had this idea of a guy slowing being eaten away by some kind of Cthonic infection that turns infected tissue into horrible alien growths of oozing tentacles and rancid polyps.
I'm suddenly glad my skin was never that bad.

A New Year of Drink & Draw

Hey all! A very happy belated New Year to you all! It's been a rather busy couple of weeks, between work, apartment hunting for April and regular social obligations, but I've been doing my best to stay on top of my artwork. I figured I'd make a little post to start this year off right and show off some of the stuff that's been going on with the ongoing Montreal Drink & Draw.
I was informed a while ago that there already existed a Montreal Drink & Draw event. Naturally, this news filled me with a feeling that can only be summarized by watching the dance/fight "RUMBLE!!" scenes from West Side Story. That was until I learned that they haven't really had an event in well over a year. Guess the point is a little moot.
Anyhow, our group has been making the effort to keep this going regularly. We didn't take the holidays off or anything, though we did have one night where it took people a long time to show up. We've gone through many themes, and these are just a sample of some of the pages that I'm a little prouder of. Behold the Kitten Emperor, waging endless war against Captain From the Future!! So amazing!