Mochica-inspired Drawings in Biennial 2010 Show

These two ink drawings inspired by Mochica mythology are currently on display in The von Liebig Art Center Faculty Biennial 2010 show until August 28th.

Lesson 5 of Manga Cartooning Workshop Photo Journal

A few illustrations of cartoon versions of some students were used to demonstrate the effects of the different drawing pens from the classroom sketching kits.
The first illustration was drawn using a single 0.4 mm pigment pen with no line variation. Thus in order to convey different textures, a fish-net pattern was used to darken some parts of the character's costume.
This second drawing was made with a selection of pigment pens of different line widths plus a warm and cool gray brush pens to give a stronger sense of volume to this energetic character type.
Another drawing made with the same larger selection of sketching pens.

Quick pen drawing of age-progressed Naruto's Team 7 characters used to illustrate the concept of Dōjinshi.
New student's baseline drawings.

Some student drawings that used previous class reference material for inspiration.
Working on the projection board right next to the reference image.
Student's skillful Manga interpretation of the Mochica Crab Centipede monster concept.
The student here first drew a set of Manga eyes, and then drew this character around them.
Drawing a Manga character based on a photo reference of fellow student projected on the classroom board.
Work in progress showing a fellow student as a fairy type character.
Drawing a Manga heroine type.
Student using some reference material to draw his very own Kaiju (Japanese Giant Monster).

Random sketching during a 2 hours flight

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your drawing skills by always having a portable sketching kit and adequate supply of paper when you travel. These are some of the doodles I managed to crank out during the 2-hour flight between Raleigh and Miami.
Struggling a tad finding the right angle to sketch within the tight confines of the airplane cabin. A letter size clipboard is quite useful for holding the 8.5"X11" card stock sheets, providing adequate support, and helping to find the optimal drawing position when use of the stowaway tables is not practical or allowed.
Sketching tools have to be carefully chosen for a mess-free successful productive session when traveling by air: most gel pens and some felt-tip pigmented pens work well within the pressurized cabin environment, but some liquid ink pens like the Koh-I-Noor Nexus pens tend to leak when the cabin pressure changes. For practical reasons, I tend to go with mechanical pencils or 2 mm leadholders for my graphite sketching tools. Sharpening traditional wooden pencils in tight spaces without a convenient waste basket is too much of a hassle.


Few random fantasy characters drawn with a mechanical pencil.
A couple of monster designs inspired by the Meifumado demons from the seinen manga "Lone Wolf & Cub" (Samurai-style Manga made for adult male readers).
Pen sketch loosely inspired by Greek myths. Always seem to drift towards Ray Harryhausen's visual effects style in "Clash o the Titans" when tackling this type of subjects.
Egyptian designs are quite popular sources of inspiration for fantasy sketches.
Mochica inspired scene sketched with a gel pen.
This dragon sketch was drawn last as the plane approached the Miami airport.

Further sample sketch pages

Filling pages with random faces is one of my favorite drawing warm up exercises. By constantly generating Manga face doodles, you can increase your personal source file of potential character faces to use in future projects, refine them, and increase the speed with which you can draw your face symbols during crunch times.
Another example of Mecha Design inspired by Pre-Columbian iconography and testing the Staedtler Mars Techincal Drawing 0.7 mm pen for freehand drawing applications.