Starting off a new sketchbook

I've filled my old sketchbook completely now, so I bought a new one and filled up the first page nicely.  I had a lot of fun doing it and I think I'm actually improving.  It's really nice to feel encouraged when I've worked on this for so long.  When I started drawing again back in 2007 it was something I did only because it's fun for me to create.  I just wanted that feeling of putting a pencil to a page and having the freedom to make any kinds of shapes.

I think back on grade school now and I can recall that I used to draw all over my class notes.  It wasn't anything good; I would just make whatever things I could dream up, and it never seemed to me that there was anything remarkable about drawing being so fun.  I thought it was the same for everyone, but I'm not so sure now.  I can remember that I used to feel guilty about drawing and a little embarrassed because I was never very talented at it.  I could draw for hours and never produce anything that would impress anyone except myself.  I think I had the impression that if I wasn't good at something it wasn't worth doing.  I suppose that's a fairly normal thing for a kid to think, but it ended up turning me off drawing for many years.  It didn't help that the art teachers I had were often less than encouraging.  I suppose that's understandable too though, my work was always a little light on the "fidelity" (to say the least).  Teachers need something to guide their work too, so they tend to concentrate on the students who can look at a photograph and reproduce it exactly in pencil and paint.  That kind of thing was never my strength and it still isn't.

This isn't to say that I think I'm any good at drawing now, I just have a good feeling about where I'm at right now.  I'm still full of weaknesses and have a long road ahead, but fortunately it's been a very fun trip so far and I look forward to creating many more pages.  So...how about some uplifting jazz fusion to go with my post today?  It is VERY lame.  You have been warned.  Yes?  Okay!

Sketches from June and July

Here are some newer sketches.  I also bought some markers and tried colouring some of my sketches.  I think it looks pretty good.

Here's some Brusque Twins to go with it

I like the way some of these turned out.

The stances and body shapes here are kind of nice.

The only thing I like here is that mouse guy near the bottom.

I like some of the body shapes here.  They may not be even close to accurate, but they still look pleasant in my opinion.

Tried some inking here.  I like some of the stuff on this page.

I was told to draw an HD biker, so I did.

Testing out some new shapes in this one.  Also tried some perspective by drawing my bike.

This one bothers me a little bit because the guy on the top left looks like he has a line mouth below his moustache.  That was supposed to be the shadow from his lip and I'm not sure I communicated that well enough.

Everybody seems to like the vampire except me.  Hm.  I also inked a cute cartoony kid because I liked the way it turned out.

I tried out my new markers on this spaceman.  There is some other amusing stuff on here as well.

The fat guy with the dog is messed up below the waist and it bothers me every time I see it.  I tried out my markers again with the girl at the bottom right.

I like the way the shading turned out with some of these.  I also tried out a different marker for inking on the ones on the bottom left and it didn't turn out so well.

It's masked wrestlers!  A big one and a little one.  I tried to make the big one look like a toy, but his lower half is just totally wrong with the top half of his body, and the details are really "blah".

This one looks good at a glance, but I think the shoulders and head are a little messed up.  Not bad though, compared to the rest of the stuff I draw.  I might add more to this page later.

Lots of old sketches

The past year has been really bad.  I've been working a lot and all that work has taken its toll on pretty much *everything*.  My sketchbook doesn't have a lot of pages filled from last November up until June.  Most of the drawing I did during that time was done on yellow notepads during meetings or stray napkins, as a result of that I don't have any of those sketches to upload. *sadface*

I've posted what little I do have below.  You can have a look, but it's not really my best work.  I'm putting it up mostly to track my progression so I can go back to this sometime in the future and look at how my drawing has developed.

Here's some old music to go with my old sketches:

Lord Vader loves his soy milk.  Don't disturb him.

This just looks really bad.

I kind of like the faces on this one.

I like how whimsical this one is.

I did all three of these ones during a drink and draw night.  The topic was "Robots", so that's what I did.

I like some of the stuff on here, the clowny suspenders guy and some of the faces near the top.

This page just sucks.

The elephant and the dinosaur are kind of fun.

Another bad one.

The two at the bottom make me laugh.

I like the body shape on the guy on the left, still not great though.

Mosaic Vegan Chocolate Cake with Ganache

Preserved for posterity with pictures to follow, the Mosaic Vegan Chocolate Cake:

Mosaic Vegan Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 cup oil (canola or vegetable)
2/3 cup cocoa
2 cups water
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 cups sugar
Directons
1) Prepare bundt pan with a small amount of flour and margarine so the cake won't stick
2) Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt & sugar into dry mixing bowl
3) Separately mix oil, water and vanilla in wet mixing bowl
4) Mix wet into dry with a mixer
5) When the batter is smooth add the vinegar
6) Pour into a bundt pan and bake for 30 minutes at 375 fahrenheit.  If you have a thicker pan it might take a bit longer.  Keep checking with a toothpick until it can come out clean.

Chocolate Ganache (makes 4 cups)
Ingredients
1 pound non-dairy dark chocolate (approximately 2 & 1/2 cups)
2 cups soy milk
Directions
1) Melt chocolate in double boiler over barely simmering water
2) Pour soy milk into blender, then pour in chocolate and puree until smooth
Ganache stays good for 1 week.

Don't forget to chill the ganache so it isn't quite so runny.  The pictures below use hot ganache (because I didn't care to wait).  If you don't want to have ganache as runny you could use less soy milk.  Also, I used vanilla soy milk in mine, but choose what you like.

Just out of the oven

Right-side up now

Melting the chocolate

Pouring some ganache over the cake

The finished product.  Extra ganache on each slice is best.

Sketch dump #???

I've lost track already.

Anyway, it's great to have some stuff to post again!  I've been busy with work for the past few months and it's been really hard to get around to this.  There's going to be a lot of pictures, so I'll give you something to listen to to start off.  Montreal's Le Matos!  I like these guys, an interesting take on retro that blends old movies with some modern Justice-esque kind of stuff.  You might want to start it right away, this might take awhile.

I won't waste your time with extra words, so here are some pictures:

I drew this one for a friend who likes D&D and stuff like that, so he's a necromancer guy or something with a pet rat, a zombie and a creepy butler.  I liked it.

This is another one I did of (supposedly) Hanuman and Ravana, with Hanuman's tail on fire from when he went to rescue Sita and all that stuff.  I was told it looks like a Chimchar.

Some characters from my comic, including Decker and Jang and Nora and Jean-Luc and Eva.  I'm hoping to have the first strip up here this week.  Let's see if that actually happens.

Here's a bunch of cartoon animals.  I like the dog at the top left and the mouse the most.

Here's a bunch of nonsense scribbles.  I like Godzilla the most.

This depicts an undersea "awkward situation".

My friend let me use his brush pen so I drew a bunch of stuff with it.  I was all like: "Oh!  A PEN!"...it was all very exciting, since I usually only use pencil crayons.

Not so fond of this page, but I thought the hippie was kind of fun.  At this blog I give you the good and the bad...or at least just subject you to the bad, anyway.

I saw the new Batman movie, so I thought I should do some super heroes.  I don't really know what they look like very well.  At the bottom I drew a guy who was very mad at a photocopier.

This is an adult and a kid with various devices for heads.  It kind of reminds me of an old MTV ad or something.

I like the snail in this one.  The fat guy with goggles also looks kinda neat.

Here's a fish and an alien and an old guy and some junk.

I really liked this duck.  Not too shabby.

Some more random junk.  I found some other colours of pencil crayons and coloured this pigeon.  I'm not sure why its beak is curved like a parrot, but whatever.

Another odd page, but I liked the cat with goggles at the top.

Here's a comic.  It doesn't make much sense but it made me laugh.

One more comic.  This makes less sense, but I think the last panel is golden.

Well, that's it for now.  I'm hoping to have a comic up by the end of the week, but we'll see.  It's nice to be drawing again though!