Rare, hand-drawn Bigfoot and Scout (process)

I work dawn to dusk every day cranking out Untold Tales of Bigfoot pages so I can meet my weekly deadline. But it's all done on the computer, mostly in Photoshop. But I recently finished a commission for an image of Bigfoot and Scout done in brush pens and marker. I don't often draw these guys the old-fashioned way, and it was both fun and frustrating (no "undo"). Here's a quick rundown of the process.

I always start my Bigfoot comic pages with pencil. So that's nothing new. But the inks? Normally I do them on my Wacom Tablet in Photoshop. Easy to fix a bad line, no mess, just the way I like it. But this inking was done with pens, a brush pen for the thicker outlines and various fine point pens for the smaller details.

In the color stage, instead of dropping in fills on a different layer with the paintbucket tool, I had to bust out the Prismacolor markers. I was pretty careful, but I still got a little smear from the ink once in a while when the wet marker hit it (precisely the reason I left the fine fur detail for after the colors). I wanted the sky to be a bit more subtle than a big block of blue, so I Van Gogh'd that sucker. Or Seurat'd it. Whatever. Anyway, I was pretty happy with the outcome but even happier with getting back to the natural media process. So I'll be doing more of these for sure.-v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Page 15 and a New Sketch Card Giveaway!

Things come to a head in this week's Untold Tales of Bigfoot. Plus, I'm running another Sketch Card Giveaway. This time it's a holiday-themed Bigfoot and Scout card. The process steps are posted below. If you wanna win it, just head on over to the giveaway page to see the rules. To everyone in the states, have a great Thanksgiving this week. For everyone else, Happy Thursday! -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

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

Bigfoot Sketch Card - The Rare, Hand-Done Doodle

[Note: I say "hand-done" as if I don't use my hands when I work digitally. Such is the ridiculousness of convention.]

This is my Bigfoot character. Looks like he's posing for his High School Yearbook, no? I've been experimenting with some sketch card artwork over at my webcomic site, Untold Tales of Bigfoot. Most of my illustrations start with pencil on paper, and sometimes I take it pretty far into a tonal drawing before scanning it. But working on a tiny, 2.5" x3.5" piece of Bristol forced me to dig out the ol' ink pens and markers to bring this cartoony Bigfoot drawing to the color stage. It's fun to mess around with the old art class tools. Since this is a process blog, I've posted my steps below. Very simple -- pencil sketch, inks with art pens, then colors with Prismacolor Markers. 

Now, if you'd like the chance to own this cute little sketch card, you're in luck because I'm running a giveaway! 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 Bigfoot character. Just head on over to Untold Tales of Bigfoot for all the details. And even if you don't want the sketch card, you should follow the comic anyway…it's fun! -v

This little piggy is headed to Germany

Got a mysterious envelope from Germany in the mail the other day. For a brief moment, I thought I might be an international spy suffering from amnesia. The letter inside was roughly translated and read, in part:

Dear Mister Dorse, 

I am 59 years old, work as cook and I am fascinated and interested in comics, cartoons and illustrations for children and adults since many years. Every good artist and also every country has an own unique style and I do love a lot. So whenever it is possible I do visit some comic conventions and book cons in Europe, but I am little bit sad that I have never been in the USA.

I know and love your many sided portfolio and work for a while and I am very impressed. That is the reason to tell you my honour and respect of your fantastic work and person and I need to tell you a mad and little bit impertinent request in hope of an answer, but without any expectations.

My wife is a fan and collector of "pigs" and I do collect the autographs from the best and most famous illustrators in the world. You would make us really very proud and happy if you are so kind to dedicate us your autograph, too and may be there is little time to let us know how your illustration would look like on the letter-card we included???

Anyway, you get the picture. A nice couple from Germany sent a blank notecard and a S.A.S.E. with a nice request for a pig illustration if I could make the time. Here's why I decided to do a quick sketch for them:

1) They called me Mister Dorse. I never get that here in the States. It's always, "hey idiot!"

2) They lump me in with "the best and most famous illustrators in the world." So that's two they got right.

3) On the off chance that I am some kind of sleeper agent, I'm not going to risk an international incident and not respond.

Here's the quick doodle 'n sketch process I went through to come up with the image. I didn't have a ton of time (other deadlines right now), but these people seem very nice and I wanted to send them something.

The coloring process. Couldn't do it digitally as it had to go on their enclosed notepaper. So I busted out the colored pencils and got to work. I put the image in the post today so soon some very polite people in Germany will have an ultra-rare, hand-drawn, signed, colored pencil rendering of a cute little pig done by me, one of "the best and most famous illustrators in the world." Jealous? -v

Edgar Allan Poe as a fuzzy, needle-felted cuddlebunny

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Designing these little characters for runredrun to turn into fuzzy little felts is the easy part of the equation. It takes just a few minutes to sketch out something that looks half-decent, but a week or more to turn all that raw wool into something cute. And I think this little Poe feltie is pretty cute. Runredrun actually made him look even more distraught and forlorn. A perfect state for Poe. Ok, let's cover all the bases now:

In case you don't know who Poe is, here's Wikipedia to the rescue. 

In case you haven't read much Poe, here's a smattering of his work.

In case you didn't see John Cusack playing Poe with a Van Dyke this spring, here's the IMDB page for The Raven. I saw it opening weekend and, frankly, it was entertaining enough that I didn't complain the whole way home. Maybe I'm easy to please.

Finally, here's James Mason narrating this very creepy animated version of The Tell-Tale Heart from 1953. Watch it with the lights out!

But if you already know about all that stuff and you just want to see 4 or 5 more photos of this needle-felted Poe, check out runredrun's gallery. -v

Max's Rocket Ship, Re-interpreted

Got a nice treat in my email the other day: an illustration of a rocket ship done by my good friend, Max. Glad to see three-year-olds are still interested in rocketing through outer space (and drawing pictures). Max's illustration inspired me to have fun with a little re-interpretation. I think Max is telling an epic story with this rocket image and it really makes me wonder what's going to happen when our astronaut friend lands on that mysterious, purple planet.    Although, Max's subsequent illustration of a hideous monster probably answers my question. -v

Happy Mother's Day (a few days early)

So, Mother's Day has rolled around once again. That's my cue to buckle down and draw something cute for my mom. This year she gets this cherubic kitten handing his mom some irises and daisies. When you don't know what to say, say it with flowers. And when you're too cheap to say it with flowers, say it with a drawing of someone saying it with flowers.

About the drawing: It's cute, but this is the kind of illustration that art directors look at and think, "meh." Trust me on this. However, it's also the kind of drawing that my mom cherishes and keeps in her purse for a week so she can casually show everyone she meets in the course of her day. 

"So...did you see this beautiful card my son drew for me?"

"Lady, just drop the fare in the box and siddown...I got other stops to make."

Anyway, that's the important thing...that my mom likes the card. Especially since, as coincidence would have it, my birthday follows sometime shortly after Mother's Day every year. And you should never underestimate the augmentative effect a sweet, handmade Mother's Day card can have on a subsequent birthday gift. 

Here's the original sketch I did when I came up with the idea. The cats at the far left are a little rough but I was just trying to get the general idea down on paper. And you can see the original kitten had his hand behind his back, but it looked confusing so I changed it. Then I refined the sketch with a polished drawing, scanned it into Photoshop and started laying down color.

These final steps are pretty basic. Just slopping down color until I get it looking the way I want it. I toyed with the idea of having some text at the top of the image but in the end I decided the plain image said it best. And if you forgot to buy a card for Mother's Day, feel free to stop back here Sunday with your mom, show her this post and say, "he drew what was in my heart, ma!" She'll be truly touched. Although, I cannot promise you that'll earn you an awesome birthday present in return. -v

Avengers, Assemble! Hulk...Smoosh?

In anticipation of the release of the Avengers movie this weekend, RunRedRun has taken my cartoony Hulk designs and turned them into a very angry, very fuzzy Incredible Hulk fiber art doll. He's big, too. Probably the largest felted wool doll RunRedRun has put together. He stands 11 inches tall but -- get this -- his arms move! In an arcing, "Hulk Smash" sort of way, his arms are hinged so he can properly show his rage. And with his arms raised above his head he's about 14 inches tall.

Below you can see some very rough design sketches and a collection of potential faces to choose from. My friend at RunRedRun chose the classic Hulk grimace and turned those rough sketches into the fuzzy behemoth you see in these early photos.

To ramp up for the Avengers movie, check out RunRedRun for more photos. And until the movie comes out, you can amuse yourself with my uber-geeky, goofball, action figure recreation below. -v 

The details surrounding the death were fuzzy.

Hey, my cute little Grim Reaper design is now a cute little Grim Reaper felted-wool fiber sculpture courtesy of runredrun. This woolen angel of death has a removable scythe that you can stalk your friends with (crafted by me out of paper, sticks and unchecked nihilism) and it goes up for sale this month at Spookytime Jingles. It's a great gift for anyone who'd love a little reminder of their mortality sitting on their desk every day. -v

Paypal Doesn't Care About Poor People

...but their P.R. department must, because they've recently relented on one of the worst decisions they've made to date: blocking families in need from getting donated gifts.

Basically, Regretsy, a site dedicated to the promotion of disastrous do-it-yourself crafts, decided to take donations for Christmas presents for children who might otherwise have missed out. And the promotion worked like a charm. Regretsy raised so much money that they were in a position of not just being able to send toys out to needy kids, but a small, monetary gift to those families as well. Heartwarming, right?

Paypal shut them down.

I'll say that again in case you missed it: Paypal shut down the charity donation site intended to help give poor people a better Christmas. Because of (what turned out to be) a bunch of of trumped up, fictional red tape and rules, Paypal froze the account and basically tried to shut down the entire promotion. According to a post on the Regretsy blog, much of the initial resistance by Paypal was their own misunderstanding of what the Paypal "Donate" button could, and couldn't, be used for. As an uptight, Scrooge-like Paypal executive explained:

PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button.
REGRETSY: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.”
PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity.
REGRETSY: What’s the difference?
PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.

Well. At least the cats have a shot at a decent Christmas. If you're an adult and you can bear some salty language now and again, you can read all about it in hilarious, frustrating detail on the Regretsy blog. I particularly loved the part where Paypal demanded Regretsy return all the donations, but Paypal kept their fees anyway! By the way, if you're a kid, stay away from that Regretsy post. Santa wouldn't like it if you went there.

But Jacob Marley must have visited Paypal in the dead of night and convinced them they were being jerks, because they company eventually reversed its decision and decided to unfreeze the account and allow the charity to complete its mission. Paypal even donated a little themselves. I can envision the pale, ghostly face of their public relations manager wailing out a desperate warning to the Paypal execs, "Repent! Repent!" Scrooge was saved, but the jury's still out on Paypal. -v

How's About A Fuzzy Zombie?

A fuzzy zombie is not a new mixed drink. It's another felted art doll design I did for runredrun. Just a little zombie out for a stroll. The woolen version of this little guy is on sale right now at SpookyTime Jingles. The perfect gift to come shambling out of a stocking, hungry for brains, this Christmas morning. -v

Happy Hallowe'en!

From the entire staff here at Vince Dorse Studios, from the custodial staff to the accountants, from the concept department on up to the illustration bigwigs, we want to wish our thousands of loyal blog followers a very spooky Hallowe'en.

That means Happy Halloween to all six of you from me and the cat.

Since this is the big Halloween weekend and most people are already squeezing into their sexy zombie costumes, or sexy firefighter costumes, or sexy spongebob costumes, this post probably won't get a lot of play until Monday morning. But I'll break down this scarecrow illustration anyway because my Saturday nights are an abyss of loneliness and boredom. Thanks for the invitation to the costume party, everybody I know! And I was even going to wear my sexy illustrator costume.

You may notice the illustration on the left here is roughed up to look vintage, but I didn't really break that down in the work-in-progress images. In case you're interested, it's basically just a lot of painting in wrinkles. Seriously. Not much to it. For all the steps leading up to that, you can follow along with the images below.

The whole concept of the Pumpkinhead Scarecrow was created as a doll design for runredrun. Under my work-in-progress steps you'll find images of my original design as well as a photo of the finished, wool art doll. He's sweet and he's spooky. And if you want to see more of his ilk, you can head over to runredrun.com and check out all the other little monsters.

More Monsters Find Loving, Haunted Homes

The best part about designing these felted art dolls for runredrun.com is that I don't have to do any of the heavy lifting. I come up with a concept, I draw a sketch, I email it to my friend and ba-boom! it gets turned into a cute, creepy little wool sculpture you can set on your desk, bookshelf or mantle. Yeah, mantle. They're that classy.

My mummy design was turned into a felted art doll last month at runredrun.com as well as the little vampire you may remember from my previous post. Just this past week, both the mummy and vampire ended up being adopted into a loving home of monster fans. If you enjoy these little guys as much as I do, you should follow the runredrun blog to see all the new monsters as they're created, some work-in-progress images, a gallery full of cute, creepy creatures and info on which ones are for sale. Happy Halloween. -v

Vun! Vun Vool Vampire! Ah ah ah...

I was out buying art supplies and stumbled upon a tiny, wooden coffin. I knew if I designed a tiny, little vampire to stuff into it I could convince my friend at runredrun.com to sculpt it. So I bought the coffin, sketched out the very simple design you see here and gave them to my friend.

She accepted the challenge and -- though the spats and collar were wisely dumped for a number of reasons -- she recreated my design in felted wool and he's even cuter than my original sketch. You can see a few more of my friends Halloween-themed creations and runredrun.com as well as details on where to buy these little cuties.

Inside info: If the suspense was killing you and you want to know the truth, the spats looked like sweatsocks so that design element was dumped right away. As for the collar, the vampire's head was so enormous it completely obscured the collar. And now you know the rest of the story. -v

The Adventures of Super Pup In 3-D!

I completely forgot to post this. The third little Halloween critter from my promotional illustration was sculpted into a cute little fiber doll by my friend at runredrun. If you feel like taking a look, there are a few more photos of this little guy in the runredrun gallery.

I'm actually working on some new Halloween designs for her to turn into fiber sculptures and they'll be up on that site (and this one) soon. Only 91 days 'til Halloween! -v

My Halloween Kitty Is Up For Sale

Technically, the needle-felted art-doll version of my Halloween Kitty is up for sale. As you know, every once in a while I do designs for my friend at runredrun which she then turns into adorable felted art dolls.

Well, runredrun was recently invited to be part of an artisan collective online where she's selling her creations. Visit SpookyTime Jingles and click on the runredrun avatar to see how she turned this Halloween Kitty into a very cute, very fuzzy, three-dimensional figure. And If you have the dough, go ahead and purchase it. I've seen it in person and the photos don't do it justice. Also, I can guarantee I'll be doing a few more designs for her that will end up on Spookytime Jingles, so if you're as big a fan of Halloween, hand-made goods and cute little critters as I am, check back there every month. -v

Meow Meow Meow Means I Love You

Yes, I drew another cat. So sue me. It was for a Valentine's Day card, time was running short and the monkey just wasn't turning out cute enough. None of my gags were working either. So I went with this retro, Dick-and-Jane kind of thing. Eh. If nothing else it'll teach me to start drawing earlier than the night before the card goes out. Work-in-progress steps below -- sketched in pencil, colored in Photoshop. This one goes out to all you crazy lovers out there. Happy Valentine's Day. -v.

Let It Snow, Already!

The weather lady keeps warning us we'll be snowed in during a vicious winter storm -- but I've been waiting a few weeks now and zilch! Stop panicking the locals, lady! The grocery store's dangerously low on milk, bread and bathroom tissue. While we wait for the looming storm, I thought I'd post this wintry illustration and some work-in-progress steps.

1) As usual, I start with a pencil sketch. I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach this piece, so I ended up sketching in way too much detail on the snowflakes. Did I waste a bunch of time? Maybe. But better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

2) In a shocking move, I then abandon all that laborious detail work and trace the pencil-line with color in Photoshop. Mostly blue, to convey the feeling of cold, with some warmer spots around that little meatball kid. Underneath all that I threw in a gradient and then roughed it up a little with some blending and brush strokes.

3) Then, as it turns out, I do need all that pencil detail in the snowflakes after all. Brilliant! So I flipped the pencil layer back on and painted around my sketch to add some dimension to the snowflakes. There's probably an easier way of doing all this, but time's on my side. I also painted in the kid.

4) Finally, I smudge in a shadow underneath our little friend to ground him. And, speaking of ground, I also threw in a crispy-crunchy snow texture over the background to push that icy-cold feeling. And as I look out my back door, I see that most of the crispy-crunchy snow in the yard has melted. Step it up, weather lady. -v