New places to follow my art:

I really don't use this blog for posting artwork anymore, and at this point consider it dead now that I'm posting artwork regularly in other places. If you're looking for my newest artwork, please check the following sites:

My Personal Website
My Library Comic Strip
My Page on Facebook

Thanks!

 - Eli

Cicada t-shirts...

Well, hopefully it isn't too late, but I've finally worked out details for making a shirt out of this cute cicada, so if you want one, let me know! I think that even though the swarm has died out, the shirt will still be pretty funny, or may even work better now that they are gone.

The color of this shirt is Ice Gray, because I need a pretty light color for the cicada wings to look right, and I didn't want just a white shirt. It's a nice 100% cotton shirt that is preshrunk and isn't too thick (I don't really like thick tee shirts).

I'm going to sell them for $12 apiece. You can send me a message on Facebook here. Thanks!

My Brother...

Wow...it's been a long time since I added anything here. Sorry to anyone who has been waiting upon me to add stuff. I've been doing a LOT of art recently, I've just not been posting it online like I should. Well, I'm remedying that today. This is a portriat of my brother Jonathan. He is my youngest brother and is graduating from high school today. Like all of us Moody boys, he did not buy graduation invitations but elected to print his own. He had me draw this likeness to include in that invitation.

I am extremely proud of this likeness, and even more proud of my brother. Way to go Jonathan!!

Gorilla

I did this gorilla while scanning some stuff in today. I used a blue Pilot G-2 07 pen that I'd found in the library a while back. I liked how it came out, so he's now my new profile image! You can view him at a larger size by clicking the image. Enjoy!

More washes...

Here are two more that I've done. Again, the lines are india ink applied with a brush, and then the grey tones are watered down india ink. These are a blast to do, and the effect can be really cool. I wish now that I had used a dark tone on Bill's midsection in the second image instead of making it solid black. Well, enjoy. You can click on the pictures to view them at a larger size.

Ink Washes...

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while, because I've been pretty busy drawing a comic strip, Search and Research. However, as I have time to draw non-strip related art, I try to expand my horizons. Recently, I've been experimenting with india ink. I've been inking art with the ink and a brush, as opposed to pens. I've also started experimenting with ink washes where you water down the ink and treat it like a watercolor paint or something. My favorite subject for these is my Buffalo man, who my friend Jason and I decided to call Bill. So, enjoy my experiments. I'll post up some more that I did in the next couple of days. As always, you can click on it to view it at a larger size.

eli

While I was waiting...

The past few weeks have been pretty busy for me because I was in a play. I had a good time, but it was stressful. One of the ways that I kept the stress down while preparing to go onstage was to draw. This was one of the girls in the play, about 8 or 9 years old. I did this with a ball point pen, in about 9-10 minutes. This is one of the finer portraits I've ever done. You can click the image to view it larger.

WELCOME!!!

Hey, welcome to my new, personal art blog! Yes, I have forsaken the old Peabody Postings blog that I had hijacked in favor of this new blog that I will own and operate. I have moved all of my posts from that blog over to this one for completeness' sake and will be posting all of my new art here. So, tell your friends and family! And check out my website too!

eli

Getting better...

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm sort of frustrated that when I ink over my pencils, for woman particularly, the images just don't look as good. So, I've stopped trying to ink my images for the moment, and thought I'd show the newest ones I've done in pencil form. You can click on the images to view them at a larger size. You are also welcome to check out my website.

Some attempts...

So, as I said last time, I've been working on drawing the female figure. These are a few early attempts. There is not much that I can say about them except that while my pencils for these pieces look pretty good, I always seem to mess up somehow while inking them. As usual you can click on the images to view them at a larger size, and feel free to check out my website for other images I've done.

You have to practice!!!

In terms of drawing people, I primarily learned from copying images out of comic books. Not comic strips, like Dagwood or Beetle Bailey, but comic books like Spiderman and Superman. The figures in comic books are, for all practical purposes, nude figures that have lines drawn in to make it appear that they are wearing impossibly skin tight uniforms. Not only are these figures basically nude, they are usually the ultimate example, the highest pinnacle of human anatomical specimens. Every muscle and every curve is on display.

For a budding artist, the easiest thing to draw was the male figures. The angular muscles and the lack of curves made learning the figure easier, so that's what I've been focusing on for most of my drawing life. Women are more subtle and you have to get their curves placed accuratly or their figures are noticably distorted.

I have started a new project however, which features a college age girl in it, and so I must overcome my hesitations in dealing with the female figure and learn to draw it properly. For the last month and a half I've been working almost exclusively toward this end and have now done several figures that I'm not completely ashamed to show the world. There is not really anything important or super interesting about these two figures except that I should point out that I have no idea why the second one is holding a purse...she needed to be holding something and I thought 'You never see superheroines holding their purses!'. Now we know why...

Animals

"Hey Eli, you've been posting more art lately!"
"Yes, you are correct, and here is more! This is for a girl that I used to teach in Sunday School who is moving to Colorado. She asked me to paint her some animals, so here's what I did. Watercolors made this page wrinkle up a little bit."
"If I click on this image, will it get larger?"
"Yes it will. Enjoy!"

Frog Creature from Beyond!!!

Hello all, here's a little doodle that I did during a meeting. It was done with a little black pen I had found earlier that day, and I started with the tail and just drew this whole thing from scratch. Hope it brightens up your weekend! Click on the image to view it at a larger size.

Brushing up...

Recently, I found a cool brush-tipped pen that I bought when I was in highschool. I didn't use it very much then, but I've been experimenting with it and thought I would show off a couple of examples of what I've been able to do with it. I really like the hair on both of these characters, and the way the ink lines look overall. You can enjoy them at a larger size by clicking on them.

Tarzan

This second sketch is Tarzan. I'd just finished reading a tarzan novel, and starting drawing a guy, and decided to turn it into tarzan. What a chin huh? I really like the way his hair turned out. Drawing hair has always been pretty hard for me, but this turned out pretty good I think. Well, enjoy.

For a fan...

I know, I know, if I'm going to have a blog and cultivate a loyal fan base, I've got to post more often. Well, to make it up to all you loyal viewers, I'm posting two little things today. The first is a sketch I did for the son of one of our student workers. It was his first time in the library and he liked my buffalo guy (I had some sketches out at the desk) so I thought I'd make the visit a little more memorable (hopefully!?). As usual, you can click on the image to view it at a larger size.

Buffalo Noir

Well, I'm back with more Buffalo Man. This is something that I did as an experiment in using heavy shadows and dramatic lighting. Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes), in his Tracer Bullet persona, really inspired me in this regard. Click on the image for a higher resolution image.

The Professor

Well, I'm still on this western kick, so here's a picture of a character I've drawn for a long time called "The Professor". I mentioned him in one of my previous posts. Here I've outfitted him in western garb. His shirt is always half untucked, no real reason except it makes him eccentric. He always has a crustacean fork in his pocket...again, I'm not really sure why. I guess in case he gets invited to a lobster dinner unexpectedly or something. He likes to be prepared! Click on the picture to view it at a larger size.

Side View

I was kind of enjoying this indian guy when I drew him so I also drew him from the side. Enjoy!

As usual, you can click on the image to view it at a larger size.

Medicine Man

I drew this old American Indian guy recently. There's not really a lot I can say about him except that he's obviously in pretty good shape for his age. Looking at this picture just now I notice that I've once again messed up on his abs, they look...off somehow. As usual you can click on the picture to view it at a larger size.

Student Workers

This one was done for Student Worker Appreciation Week, to go on the front of a card. I spent much more time on this than any of the other sketches I've posted, because of what it is. You can click on the image to view it at a larger size. Enjoy!

Orchid

I did this orchid while trying to come up with a cover image for a card for a co-worker. This was done pretty quickly and colored with markers that I have at my desk. Enjoy!

Seeing Red

Here we have a simple head shot of a guy...a tough looking guy that I drew with a red Pilot pen while I was waiting on something to happen (I can't remember what). Sometimes you see ink sketches that have been altered in Photoshop or something to change the color of the ink, but in this case, this is exactly how the original looks. Enjoy!

...with colors

Remember a while ago when I put up a picture of an elfin princess leaving via snail-pulled chariot? I said I was going to watercolor that picture, and indeed I did...enjoy.

Buffalo Man: Finale

Well, I've put up a lot of Buffalo Man stuff in the past month and I'm ready to post other things, thus 3 posts in one day. I'll leave the Buffalo Man for now as a bouncer at a party/Gala event. In this picture I've decided his size in relation to normal people, and have been able to incorporate a lot of the developmental stuff I've done. I've tried to create a scene/situation for the character and capture one moment of that situation. I'm no good at drawing backgrounds at the moment, so the background is pretty bare-bones. I just couldn't picture the setting in my mind at all. Enjoy!

Buffalo Man: Exploration - Part 2

Once the character is set visually, you can give it a backstory, figure out why it is, where it came from, what it does, stuff like that. In the case of my Buffalo Man, I've not really nailed a lot of this stuff down, so I've been experimenting. At one point I thought it'd be fun if he was a detective, so I drew him holding an oversized Desert Eagle (a normal one would not fit his hands). I'm still not sure if he'd have a weapon or not...but I do like to draw people with guns!

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 6

"What!?? Another development sketch! I thought we were done with that part!"

Well, yes, but I came up with a picture of my Buffalo Man smiling and thought I'd add it to contrast the angry/yelling/roaring shot from Part 5. I think of the Buffalo Men as pretty private, so he has a shy smile...he'd never show his teeth in a smile. Enjoy.

As a side note, I do all these drawing on scrap paper, thus sometimes you can see faint impressions of text from the other side of the page, as with this one.

Buffalo Man: Exploration - Part 1

I realize that the development part of character creation is pretty tedious sometimes, but the payoff is tremendous. Because I took the time to create facial expressions, to imagine the character from different angles, figure out how the hands look, ect. I can now have fun with this character. In this picture, the Buffalo Man has just ripped the head off of an evil FrankensteinRobot. This was fun to draw. As you can see, I've used a 3/4 turn angle, I have him shouting...stuff I did in development. Enjoy it at a larger size by clicking the image.

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 5

The final bit of development that I have to do is the development of expressions. These Buffalo Men seem to be of a pretty grumpy disposition in all of these sketches, but, if I were going to put them into a story, I'd need to give them some other expressions, or they would be pretty boring. I wanted to draw a really, really angry, yelling/roaring Buffalo Man and here's what I came up with. I don't have a lot of good expressions that I've worked out for him yet, he's still in development in that area. Smiling for instance...I haven't worked out a smile that I like. It's a bit hard with this particular set of facial features.


I go through the process that I've outlined in these last few posts for every character that I create. Not many doodles of mine get turned into characters, but, for the ones that do, I really try to develop so that I'm ready to draw them if/when the time comes. I had a character for a long time called "the Professor", and after drawing him doing different things for about 4 years, I was able to include him as the narrator of a book I'm working on with a friend.

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 4

Now that I'm pretty comfortable with how my Buffalo Man looks from the front, the next logical step is to draw him from the side. This will give me pretty much all the reference I'll need to draw this guy in any pose I want. This particular drawing was going to include a person who the Buffalo Man is interrogating, but wasn't sure how large he was compared to normal people and didn't want to decide at the point I did this sketch, so he's just hunched over ape-like. But, I like the pose, the body language, the expression...it's really what I was trying to capture.

As usual, you can click the image to enlarge it.

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 3

Now that I've made myself visualize my Buffalo Man from different angles, I decided to draw a portrait shot of him. This is a close shot of his head, and drawn more realistically than cartoony. I enjoyed this because I was able to give him a bit more expression, a bit more detail, use some shading, etc.

Now, let's be honest here, at this point I'm not totally comfortable about a few details, which is to be expected. I drew him with little indentations in his pectoral muscles, because the muscle group is made up of several that attach up and down the sternum, really strong guys will have the indentions. But, in this drawing they look a little weird. I wasn't entirely sure what his expression should be and the way I left it isn't quite what I was going for, but it will do. Also, his abdominal muscles don't look right to me, they are slanted wrong or something. By critically evaluating this piece, I will know what to look out for the next time I draw him.

As always, you can click on the image to enlarge it.

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 2

Now that I've worked out some of the details about my Buffalo Man, I can try to draw him at different angles. I started by drawing him at what is called a 3/4 (three quarter) turn or angle. It's not from the front, but not quite the side, it's inbetween...so 3/4.



It takes a bit of imagination to do this because I have to visualize what the muscles and the face would look like from this angle, how much of the face and arms and chest I would see, things like that. Here's the oposite side:


By forcing myself to visualize this character from these angles I've made certain decisions about how I will draw him in the future and these decisions will help me to draw him from any angle I wish. This will be important to do before drawing a character in a situation or anything like that.

Buffalo Man: Development - Part 1

I now have a single image of a character that really appeals to me. From that single image it is time to develop this character. In my original drawing his hands are balled up in fists, because that was the easiest thing to do at the time. I wasn't sure what his hands should look like, so I didn't explore that in the creation process. That is something that I now tackle in development:


I've decided to give him really thick, black finger nails, and only three fingers and a thumb. I was thinking about buffalo hooves when I was doing this, so that is why the nails are so big and thick.

I also decided to try to draw his head from the side, because his neck is so huge and weird that I need to establish this before trying to draw anything else.

Buffalo Man: Creation - Part 2

Every character is inspired by something. You do a doodle that seems inconsequential, and there's something in it that you like, a small part of it that resonates in your imagination, sparks another idea, another possibility. I'm not particularly fond of the little guy I drew in the first post, but there are things about him that stayed with me for a couple of months. During the middle of January, when scanning was really heavy, I came back to that face. The down-curving horns, the thick eyebrows, the square buffalo-ish nose, the scowl. Then I started re-imagining the body. The neck became this huge pyrimid, the upper body more defined, and much larger, the legs and lower body smaller. This was definately much more interesting to me, this was sort of like the superheros that I had always wanted to draw but couldn't get quite right. Here was a very muscular character, but did not have to conform exactly to the rigid human musculature. He's a cartoon, he's not trying to copy real life, and thus my mistakes would not be as evident. With this drawing, this character became interesting and worthwhile to me, and I began the process of developing him further.

I don't have a name for this race/species/people group yet, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments section. As usual, you can click the picture to enlarge the image.

Buffalo Man: Creation - Part 1

Toward the end of the heavy period of E-Reserves and during my slow times on the desk, I started creating a character that is superhero-ish, cartoon-ish, and highly fun for me to draw. I've got many images of him now, but I'm going to take the best ones and sort of talk about how I came up with him in a series I'm going to call "Buffalo Man." I'll post every couple of days until I'm out of pictures.

This first image was done at a PST meeting in late November, '05. It won't look much like the other images I've done, but it's a starting point, all the important features are here to build on. The thick eyebrows, eyes half hidden, buffalo-ish nose, down-curving horns, large neck and upper body, smaller lower body, pants, belt, boots. These are the features I took and ran with as you will see in my next post.

Fairy

I've started getting into an early 1900's illustrator named Arthur Rackham, mainly his fairy tale art, and I was inspired to do something a little more delicate than I usually am prone to do. I was out on the desk while there wasn't really anything going on and came up with this. I'm going to watercolor this and post it in color when I'm finished. As usual, you can click on the image to view it larger.

That is a really quick snail by the way! I know you were wondering...

Weird Guy

This is a weird little guy I drew. He's got a buffalo-ish nose and, like, donkey ears, or something. Just letting my mind run wild here...

Fisherman

This is another experiment with the markers that I got for christmas. This could be my dad in 30 years, assuming that he got tired of shaving and retired to a lake somwhere that was stocked with largemouth bass. Click the image to view it at a larger size.

Old Guy

This is an old guy I drew while in a staff meeting. (I was listening during the meeting Sharon!) As usual, you can click the picture to view it larger.

Expressions

I've been drawing on these guys off and on this past week. I don't know what to call them.

I haven't mentioned this before, but you can click on any of these pictures to view them at a larger resolution. Enjoy.

More of a doodle than a sketch

More of a doodle than a sketch


This is a funny little guy in a hat that I drew today while scanning e-reserves. He looks a little bit like he's wearing a Paddington costume I guess...

Militant Squirrel

I started working on this while I was looking out my window at all the squirrels, and I drew this really militant looking one. I thought about having him holding a machine gun, but decided on an acorn launcher. Sometimes I'll be walking along and a squirrel will throw an acorn at me, and I'll bet that it wishes it had an acorn launcher.

More of a sketch than a doodle...

This sketch is one that started one night when I had to work late at the desk. I continued to work on it as I scanned e-reserves, and then took it home and finished it last night. Enjoy.