Sarah's Sketches

So... an update. About a month ago I waved the white flag on my graphic novel. Being a full-time mom doesn't leave much time for drawing and anyone who's ever worked on a comic knows that creating a comic is very time intensive. Despite working on the book whenever I had a spare moment, I was just getting further and further behind schedule and more and more frustrated. When I realized it was going to take me over a DECADE to finish at the slow pace I'd gotten to, I knew it was time to give up. I will of course continue to post new art here on the blog, hopefully a little more frequently. This painting is of my newest little nephew (yay!). I also apologize for my over full e-mail inbox that has been rejecting mail this past month. I'll be posting a new artist address as soon as I get it set up.

That lucky little baby has a lot of presents.

Here are a couple (non sequential) pages from my graphic novel. I left out the dialogue because... well... I'm not about to spoil the story, but I left the bubbles in because they are an important part of the composition. Happy Friday.

This is for the Drawergeeks topic, Goths. It needs some polish it probably won't get, but I was happy that it only took me about an hour to do. I'm even happier that I have something to contribute to Drawergeeks this time round. I've missed some great topics. Taking care of my daughter eats up a lot of drawing time and pretty much obliterates blogging and e-mail time (although I can't think of a more delightful distraction.) However, I am still working on my graphic novel and although slow going, progress is happening. Next up, blogwise, is new graphic novel art, so stay tuned.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years. Two of my cousins also had babies in 2008, this sketch of our little ones was a Christmas present for them.

I don't usually take on much commission work these days, but I made an exception for Travis Chasez , who wanted to create a tattoo for his wife based somewhat on this old post. Hope everyone had a turkeylicious Thanksgiving!

When I told Stephen about the current drawergeeks topic, witch, he started thinking about other genres of witches. As in "what would a modern day storybook witch look like?" This train of thought made me think about how we live in Texas... so here's a western witch. I imagine she has vicious flying farm animals as minions.

A big thank you to those of you still checking the blog. I'm working on that mom/artist balance. We've been watching The Tudors and it inspired me to paint the unfortunate Anne.

Yay! Getting a post up! The top sketch reminded me of Miss Havisham, so I added the veil. I'm not a huge Dickens fan, but I am a huge Miss Havisham fan. She's crazy in all the best ways. As for my graphic novel, below are colors from one of the opening sequences. I'll be posting more character designs soon. I'm currently working on a font for the book. Anyone out there ever successfully create a font for comic purposes? Any tips? I found this interesting tutorial here.

My Grandma.

So with a teeny baby you can't exactly go dancing or to concerts or to movies, so Stephen and I have instead been running around the magical land of Warcraft. Whoo! So if you ever see a little gnome mage and human rogue kicking some bad guy butt, buff us! And hey, check out my buddy Eric Henze's blog. He worked on WOW. Also, check out Michelle Gorski's blog, who inspired me to do this post, with her post . Aaaand, Flight 5 is out! YEAH! Hope you enjoy my story "The Changeling" and also all the other super fun stories in it. Be sure to take a peek at the preview . And lastly, here's a quick sketch of Hellboy for drawergeeks . Go surliness!

Another quickie for a drawergeeks. Never was much of a Strawberry Shortcake fan when I was little, but she makes for a fun topic.

So most of my daughter's naptimes have been devoted to working on my comic, but that leaves the blog abandoned. So today, here is a quick take on the joker... which also happens to be the drawergeeks topic right now.

So... I may not be posting for a while. But I can't think of a better distraction than a brand new little daughter. I'll be back though!

Here is a sketch I did yesterday. The colors make me think of a 70's rock poster. I have noticed lately that when I don't color things several of the comments tend to be "but what about the color?" Initially I found it odd (why does everything need color to be considered finished?), but then I realized I've made similar comments on other people's blogs. I'm guilty of really loving color too, and quite honestly, if I had the time, I'd love to fully paint and render everything I draw. I wonder what the universal appeal of a fully fleshed out painting is compared to a simple line drawing? Here also is a recent design I've done for the graphic novel. I'll post more novel stuff in the coming months as I complete the final art for the opening sequences. For this street scape, I wanted to develop a "language" of repeating shapes and architectural details that would help identify the city every time the story brings us here. I want all my maj...

The new Drawergeeks topic is triplets. At first I wasn't all that inspired, but I then I realized this morning that these monster-slaying-Townsville-saving ladies are triplets.

Someday I would like to do a fancier painting of Stephen. I did another initially that was more painterly/detailed, but somewhere along the way it lost it's Stephen-ness. Also, if you are interested in reading Fablewood , the latest anthology I've been published in, it is now available online! Check it out at Ape and Amazon . I'm told it's best to order from the Ape Entertainment store, as they currently have it in stock.

I'm procrastinating. Really I should be finishing up some comic design stuff, but instead I ended up drawing something for the next drawergeeks topic, samurai. I'm tempted to keep tweaking this, but I should probably get some other work done. Click for a bigger version.

When I start sketching for fun lately, mermaids tend to appear. Also, check out this cool tattoo Jenn Wallin got of one of my sketches , done by the talented Danielle Distefano at 13 Roses Tattoo Parlor in Atlanta! Thanks Jenn for letting me post it. :)

To be honest, I find model sheets kind of boring to do, but I'm also the first person to argue when working in a studio that they are absolutely necessary. So although I've been dragging my heels regarding my graphic novel characters, sets and props, I decided this week it was time to bite the bullet and get going. To keep myself from being overwhelmed (there is a lot to design), I've decided to focus on the first three sequences. This character is in all three sequences and requires a different costume for each. Lucky for me, these three outfits show up frequently in the book (particularly the central robes as they are worn by various characters), so it's a great jumping off point. I also thought I'd include a few thoughts/notes on how I approach character model sheets. -I use animation paper for rotations, drawing each angle in the center of the page. That way I can flip the images and ensure that proportions are accurate. Good animation paper is also a bit trans...