Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 12 (again with more fan art!)

This week, in his quest for food, Scout employs his Olympic diving skills. See how things shake out at Untold Tales of Bigfoot. 

And, to celebrate Halloween, I have a giant sack of fan art for you to see. 

First, I had fun doing a Bigfoot/Checkered Man mash-up for Denver Brubaker's Trick-or-Treat Fan-Art series over at The Checkered Man webcomic. Denver had a bunch of webcomic artists dress their characters up as his Checkered Man character.

Then, I exchanged fan-art with Jeff Crowther, creator of Yeti 4 Hire. My Yeti fan-art is displayed proudly over at his site. While his amazing Bigfoot fan-art is just a short scroll down below the latest page at Untold Tales of Bigfoot.

Quick! Go look at all of that then come back and tell me how cool it is. -v

Here's my Bigfoot/Checkered Man mash-up at this link.

And you can see my Yeti 4 Hire fan art at this link. 

My Fan Art for Tom Dell'Aringa's Marooned

This is some fan art I did for fellow webcomic writer/illustrator, Tom Dell'Aringa. Tom's got a long-running webcomic called Marooned about a space captain and his robot co-pilot stranded on Mars. You should check it out. Maybe you've seen the Untold Tales of Bigfoot fan art Tom sent me. This was my response and it was a blast to do. Here's a quick process breakdown. 

This is the original pencil sketch and the basic inks. The inks were done in Photoshop. The lettering in Illustrator. 

Here are the inks with the starry sky, then the flat colors done in Photoshop. After the flats were in, I painted in simple highlights and shadows, then aged the piece with some yellow to give it a classic, sci-fi feel (image up top).-v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 11 is up!

This week on Untold Tales of Bigfoot, Scout's got something to say. If I'd been abandoned in the woods overnight, I'd have a few things to get off my chest too. If you want to know what's on Scout's mind, head over to my webcomic, Untold Tales of Bigfoot. 

And this week, Twitter users get a chance to enter a drawing for the hand-drawn, Halloween Bigfoot sketch card. -v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot Halloween Sketch Card

Couldn't make it all the way through October without doodling a Halloween-themed Bigfoot image. This one's done on a 2.5" x 3.5 " sheet of Bristol, inked with lightfast pens and colored with Prismacolor markers. The process steps are below, starting with my initial, rough napkin doodle.

Like my last few sketch cards, I'll be running a giveaway so some lucky duck can win this card for free. All the details will be at the Untold Tales of Bigfoot webcomic, which updates every Wednesday. -v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 10

This week on Untold Tales of Bigfoot…a log! That's right. A hollow log. That's the draw. If you wanna see what's so important about an old, hollow log, head on over to my webcomic, Untold Tales of Bigfoot. 

And remember, if you sign up as a follower of the webcomic, you're instantly entered into the drawing for the hand-drawn Scout sketch card. -v

Kolchak:The Night Stalker / Kermit the Frog / Muppet News Flash Mash-Up

If you've never seen the '70s supernatural/sci-fi series Kolchak:The Night Stalker (and you only know Darren McGavin as "the old man" in A Christmas Story) you're missing out on some classic stuff. In Kolchak, McGavin stars as an intrepid reporter who investigates so many strange cases of the paranormal that you'd have to assume he lives in a city full of monsters.

You know what other intrepid reporter lives in a city full of monsters? That's right. Muppet News Flash's own Kermit The Frog. Kolchak and Kermit have been linked in my head for a while, so I thought I'd sketch up the concept for fun.

Here's the rough I sketched out in pencil (with some quick, Photoshop lettering) and then the finished pencils.

 This is the piece after I inked Kermit over my pencils, then the finished inks.

Here are the flat colors done in Photoshop, then some modeling with shadows and highlights. At this point the illustration is done, but I decided to go with the text after all, mimicking the typeface from some old Kolchak images. I also aged the piece a bit with yellow overlays to give it that "been around since the '70s" look (image at top of post).

And if this got any of you interested in Kolchak, good. Halloween's around the corner and there's nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned scare. Here are some links you might find useful -v

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Wikipedia page

Kolchak: The Night Stalker IMDb page

Kolchak: The Night Stalker opening intro (YouTube)

Kolchak: The Night Stalker box set at Amazon

Darren McGavin IMDb page

Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 9 (again with the fan art!)

This week, Bigfoot stumbles upon some young sweethearts pitching woo by the light of the silvery moon. How nice for everyone involved. See how it turns out at Untold Tales of Bigfoot.

And while you're there, check out the wonderful Bigfoot fan art the Marooned creator, Tom Dell'Aringa sent me, free for nuthin'! Tom has a long-running space comedy/adventure webcomic you should check out. It's all-ages, packed with robots and aliens, and lots of fun.-v 

Find Tom Dell'Aringa's Untold Tales of Bigfoot fan art at this link.

And see my version of Captain John and Asimov at this link.

Scout Sketch Card - Another Rare, Hand-Done Doodle

More experimentation with some sketch card artwork for my webcomic site, Untold Tales of Bigfoot. This time it's the co-star of the series, Scout, the lost puppy. This wistful hound was drawn on a tiny, 2.5" x3.5" piece of Bristol with ink pens and Prismacolor colored pencils. I've posted my process steps below. Very simple -- pencil sketch, inks with art pens, then colored pencils. 

As with the last sketch card, I'll be running a giveaway that starts in a few days! All you have to do is follow the Untold Tales of Bigfoot webcomic blog (either through email updates or Wordpress) and you'll be entered to win this signed, hand-crafted illustration of my Scout character. Just head on over to Untold Tales of Bigfoot for all the details. And even if you don't want the sketch card, why not follow the webcomic…it's harmless fun! -v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 8 (plus fan art!)

Bigfoot grabs a snack this week. See how that thrilling tale unfolds over at Untold Tales of Bigfoot, my all-ages webcomic.

And while you're there, check out the amazing Bigfoot and Scout fan art that Pittsburgh Illustrator Pat Lewis drew for me. It's awesome! Pat is the author/illustrator of a number of comics for print and the web, and you can read his current project from the beginning at Muscles Diablo in: Where Terror Lurks! 

But, you know...maybe you should check out this week's Bigfoot before you go do that. Heh heh. -v

Find Pat Lewis' Untold Tales of Bigfoot fan art at this link.

And see my version of Muscles Diablo at this link.

Night of the Little Dead - Halloween illustration and process

Every year, when October rolls around, I get the opportunity to do a few Halloween illustrations. This one, Night of the Little Dead is for a project I'm currently working on and it was a lot of fun. Below are some of the process steps, and if you'd like to view the piece just a teeny bit larger, I have it posted on my children's art site, vincedorse.com. 

This was the rough sketch. Some of it was done pencil-on-paper, and some of it was roughed in digitally. It didn't have to be too precise, I was just placing objects to see where they'd fit best in the composition. The cat, for instance, used to be where the zombie is, and the zombie was, apparently, trick-or-treating on another block.

These are the final pencils. I'm always experimenting with the way I put images together, and I thought this time I'd bring the pencils almost to completion before scanning them for color. It's a good way for me to work out values and contrast and it gives me a much tighter map for my colors.

After the pencils are scanned in, it's just a matter of laying down color digitally. I cranked down the intensity of the pencils a lot because I knew I'd be doubling up on the lines with my brushstrokes. Then I just went in with loose, layered strokes of color until it was finished.