So here is a look into my (digital) sketchbook.  I had fun doing this baby hippo painting in the ArtRage program.  I love ArtRage for quick sketches. It's easy to flesh out different styles.

This is a spaceship taking off.  That's about it.

This actually started as a landscape photograph I snapped. I painted over it in ArtRage, changing it to a more other-worldly setting, but still relatable to what we as humans know. The train is "Mars Express" and maybe in a hundred years or so... lol, Mars will be a habitable place like this!

With all the gun violence in America I wanted to make something quick that didn't take a side. I took about 30 photos of the inside of my pocket with my cell phone. How could I possibly let those beauts go to waste? So I used one of those photos as the background of this sketch. (The pants were not purple, by the way, all though I do own purple pants.)

I wanted to do something to show my support for the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. I'm glad to see equal rights for all! If you've ever printed out a test/calibration/alignment sheet on your printer, you may recognize the pattern/colors here. I drew the people in ink on the paper then scanned it into the printer and fixed it up in Photoshop.

On a side note, I have been working on editing a timelapse video of a recent commission. I have no idea what I'm doing. Look for that in the next week or two.

For my latest commission I decided to get a little fancy. I got inspired by a filmmaker named Casey Neistat (he actually went to the same high school as me). Check out his YouTube channel here.  Here are two videos that you definitely should check out, Make It Count and Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat.  He has a lot of gratuitous time-lapses of NYC that are addicting to watch. (I say gratuitous because they are almost cliched at this point... how many times can you see the Empire State and Chrysler buildings at sunset, etc., etc.) Yet I can't look away! MUST SEE PRETTY COLORS AND TALL BUILDINGS NOW... 

I wanted to make a time-lapse with the equipment I had already and record me drawing this commission from start to finish. My materials: a Nikon D3100 DSLR camera, a couple of work lights, a package of wooden shims and 4 clamps.  (All of them became apart of the project at different times, I certainly didn't look at them all and I say "Hmmm. I can make an overhead rig out of this")

Here is how it started, the camera is hanging perilously above the desk from a tripod on the right and a work light on the left. I bought a small grippy tripod (advertised for trees and such) from Staples and that is how it is attached to the light.  I quickly realized that unless I wanted a broken camera I needed to fix this setup.

I organized a lot tools and studio supplies after watching a video about Casey's studio, but couldn't find a place for my tapes (Black Duct, Blue Painter's, White Artist's) so I use them as a pen holder on my desk!  (Work's fine until I need the bottom tape)

ALRIGHT!!!! NOW WE'RE TALKING!!  I have some scrap illustration board propping up the front of the camera, a shim holding up the right of it, and four clamps holding it all in place. Also, notice the tracing paper taped on the two lights to diffuse them and the sheets of foam core to the left and rear that help bounce the light (relatively) evenly across the drawing. Not the prettiest looking but it worked more or less!

Next time I hope to have figured out how to use the movie editing software on my computer and see if all the gigabytes of video I have will actually make a movie to show you... fingers-crossed.